Tag Archives: Climate and weather

Impacts of anthropogenic climate change many, varied

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Impacts from warming are evident in satellite images showing that lakes in Siberia disappearing as the permafrost thaws and lake water drains deeper into the ground. Credit: NASA Earth Observatory
A new study led by NASA links anthropogenic climate change to a wide range of effects. The study involved scientists from about a dozen institutions and agencies, and looked at biological impacts arising from global temperature increase since the 1970s. The article is published in Nature. According to lead author Cynthia Rosenweig, “This is the first study to link global temperature data sets, climate model results, and observed changes in a broad range of physical and biological systems to show the link between humans, climate, and impact … Humans are influencing climate through increasing greenhouse gas emissions and the warming is causing impacts on physical and biological systems that are now attributable at the global scale and in North America, Europe, and Asia.From the abstract of the paper: Continue reading Impacts of anthropogenic climate change many, varied →

How Society Will Accept Rational Science: The Best Way to Frame Global Warming and Evolution

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There is a point that I’ve been trying to make for the last few weeks now, off and on, and it is not working. So I’m going to try something new. Please bear with me, and consider the following three scenarios regarding the idea that the Earth is Round (or, possibly, flat): Continue reading How Society Will Accept Rational Science: The Best Way to Frame Global Warming and Evolution →

Tornadoes in perspective

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With all the interest in tornadoes, I thought it would be helpful to provide some contextual data (focusing on US tornadoes).i-05587e07f839227cdc360210493e0812-st_peter_tornado.jpg

Damaged houses along Grace St. in St. Peter. (Photo courtesy of St. Peter Kiwanis)
One thing that has to be said is that tornadoes are very powerful, but very small and short lived meteorological phenomena. They are like bullets being fired from cheap handguns by incompetent shooters. There are many stories of two gang bangers aiming their rods at each other at short distance, emptying them out, and failing to harm each other. In the mean time, a stray bullet from a drive by shooting can enter a home and kill an innocent young girl sitting at the table doing her homework. Continue reading Tornadoes in perspective →

Too Many Tornadoes

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Marilee Thomas of Beaver City, Nebraska. And a tornado. [source]
Mid-Americans … Minnesotans, Texans, Nebraskans and denizens of Arkansas, and everyone in between, understand tornadoes, but to varying degrees. There are differences by region in how we deal with them. In Arkansas, I’ve seen foolish bravado. The tornado shelter there is known as the “fraidy hole” and having one or not in your back yard may be linked to one’s sense of machismo. People from Missouri that I have known have a deep respect for tornadoes. An example: A few years back there was a talk being given at The U when the tornado sirens went off. Looking out the windows all we could see was black punctuated by white dots (the hail hitting the window). That was not good at 3:00 in the afternoon. As the group sat there wondering what to do, my student, Lynne, stood up and said “I’m from Missouri. I’m going to the basement. You’all can stay here if you like.” Continue reading Too Many Tornadoes →

No More UN Aid to Burma

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The first deliver of aid from the UN World Food Programme was stolen by officials from the Burma military Junta. As a result, the shipment of aid into the country by the UN has stopped.This is as earlier reports indicating that the death toll would surpass 100,000 are starting to look realistic, if not optimistic. Yesterday, a BBC reporter, under cover, was taken on a tour of the peninsula, where he and his crew filmed rice fields with a thin scatter of corpses. Tradition in this region dictates that the dead are cremated, but local monks claim that there is not enough firewood to cremate even a small percentage of the dead. Continue reading No More UN Aid to Burma →

Cyclone Nargis Death Toll Rises

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The Myanmar/Burma death toll is now experiencing the usual effects of poor information, limited reporting, and the outcome of being stuck between sensationalism and horror.Most agencies are reporting 22,000 dead with twice that missing. I do think that these numbers are meaningless at this point, as the Junta government can’t be trusted to be able to deliver this sort of information, and aid agencies are only now arriving on the scene. Continue reading Cyclone Nargis Death Toll Rises →

What’s in the air?

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i-fc0baa42c324cefa8495fdb0044234b2-dice.jpgGood question … what IS in the air?The simple answer is that the air … the Earth’s atmosphere … is about 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, with a tiny amount of some other gases including water vapor. Then, there’s dirt. I want to talk a little about the oxygen, one of the other gases (carbon dioxide to be exact), the water vapor, and the dirt. Continue reading What’s in the air? →

Climatology of Global Ocean Winds Atlas

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Check out the new Climatology of Global Ocean Winds Atlas:i-cec8727d45c3ea233ad5331706ac8e89-cogow.jpgYou can drill down to various segments of the planet (well, the oceans) and loot at wind patterns in great detail, with nice rose plots and everything. (Click on the picture to go to the site.)

Winds are the largest source of momentum for the upper ocean, affecting the full range of ocean movement, from individual surface gravity waves to complete current systems. Ocean winds modulate air-sea exchanges of heat, moisture, gases, and particulates. This modulation regulates the interaction between the atmosphere and the ocean, which establishes and maintains both regional and global climates.

(From the users manual)So this is important stuff. And fun. Enjoy.

Above-Average Hurricane Season Predicted

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A noted hurricane researcher predicted Wednesday that rising water temperatures in the Atlantic will bring a “well above average” storm season this year, including four major storms.The updated forecast by William Gray’s team at Colorado State University calls for 15 named storms in the Atlantic in 2008 and says there’s a better than average chance that at least one major hurricane will hit the United States.An average of 5.9 hurricanes form in the Atlantic each year.”The Atlantic is a bit warmer than in the past couple of years,” said Phil Klotzbach, a member of the forecast team. “That is something we would like to keep an eye on.”[source]