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31 January 2019
Note to the Media: Getting Science/Weather Stories Right Matters Just As Much As Any Other
The cold hard scientific truth is that the polar vortex is 6 (plus) kilometers high and located south of Hudson Bay tonight. It never reached the American Midwest, and every story you’ve seen or read about it (except perhaps one or two notable exceptions) have been wrong. Indeed, the Washington Post is not the only one to post “polar vortex” headlines that were dead wrong this week. It’s turned into an …
12 December 2018
NOAA’s Says The Polar Freezer is In Defrost Mode
NOAA’s Arctic Report Card came out today but with all the news (that’s barely fit to print) these days, it was easy to miss. Here’s a summary of the major points and an excellent video from NOAA that summarises it. Too bad I’ve not seen it linked on any major news sites. You can read the whole report here. Report Card Highlights from NOAA Surface air temperatures in the Arctic continued to …
2 April 2018
Gavin Schmidt and Richard Alley’s Talk to a Full House at the Smithsonian
Anyone doing a presentation about Earth’s past climate has heard the same question. It goes something along the lines of: “How can you know what the weather was like ten thousand years ago? You weren’t there and neither was anyone else alive!” Here’s the thing though: How we know is really fascinating, and not knowing, doesn’t make it any less certain or true. Paleoclimate is my favorite subject of the many …
1 January 2018
Stopping by The Woods on A Snowy Morning.
Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some …
12 February 2017
Astonishing February Heat From Colorado to Oklahoma, and Into The High Arctic
Denver reached 80 degrees Friday, smashing their record high for the 10th of February by 9 degrees, but wait, there’s more. They also saw their hottest February temperature on record, and records there go back to 1872! Grant was President of the U.S. when temperature records began in Denver. Colorado Springs, and Pueblo, also saw their hottest February day on record. The heat shifted south into Oklahoma today and Oklahoma City smashed their …
27 December 2016
The Dogs of Winter May Start Howling Again Soon.
There are growing signs that Arctic air may return to the U.S. by late next week as the mild weather pattern of the last ten days begins to fall apart. There is still a lot of uncertainty about whether or not this pattern will lock in or if this will be just a temporary blast of cold before milder Pacific air takes back over. The big clue to these changes is …
12 December 2016
Cold Blast Coming, but Milder Air for Late December
There is little doubt now that the coldest air of the season so far will reach the Great Lakes and Northeast U.S. by Thursday, and highs Thursday and Friday will not likely reach freezing as far south as Kentucky and Virginia! There will be some more lake effect snow as well as this dry,frigid air crosses the relatively warm waters of the Great Lakes. Just to be clear, the polar …
6 April 2016
An Ocean Mystery
A little science mystery for you. Look at this image above (Courtesy Climate Central in Princeton). Why is the water south of Greenland getting colder/not warming, while its warmed dramatically elsewhere?? Current hypothesis is melting ice in Greenland is chilling the water, or a slow down in the thermohaline circulation. May be both? Last I heard the climate models were not reproducing it well, but if it is melting ice, …
12 July 2015
Coastal Oceanography off North-East Greenland
THIS IS A GUEST POST BY OCEANOGRAPHER ANDREAS MUENCHOW AT THE UNIV. OF DELAWARE Greenland is melting, but it is not entirely clear why. Yes, air temperatures continue to increase, but what does it matter, if those temperatures are below freezing most of the time. What if the ocean does most of the melting a few 100 m below the surface rather than the air above? It means that gut feeling …
6 June 2015
Amazing Greenland
I’ve been lucky enough to visit Greenland twice, and it is truly a place of amazing beauty. A friend who lives just a couple of blocks away from me here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland just got back from the 2015 operation Ice Bridge mission where the video below is from. Ice Bridge is filling in data on the changes in the ice sheets to cover the loss of …
Dan Satterfield has worked as an on air meteorologist for 32 years in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama. Forecasting weather is Dan's job, but all of Earth Science is his passion. This journal is where Dan writes about things he has too little time for on air. Dan blogs about peer-reviewed Earth science for Junior High level audiences and up.