Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal

I have a screencast update on Hurricane Gustav. It was recorded at 12:30 am (0530Z). I’m still getting used to this software, and it will get better.

This is a chance for you to get an in depth look at what I am seeing in the maps as I go through the forecast process.

Video is here: GUSTAV UPDATE

On the brighter side of things. Meteorological Summer ended at midnight!!

Dan

ps: You will need the Quicktime movie player to view it. It will play much fast if you are on a mac. I recorded it on my Imac at home. If you are on Windows PC, download the file to your desktop before playing. File is 23 megbytes, so broadband is needed.

It seems tonight that the numerical weather prediction (NWP) guidance is starting to come together on Gustav. Up through this morning, there was still a lot of spread among the different models. This tells a forecaster that any one solution is not likely to be correct, and that leads to a low confidence forecast.

Sometimes you will see a few outliers and know that you can ignore them due to bad initiliazation or a poor track record with tropical systems in general. Other times it is much more difficult. The NHC usually give a great deal of credence to a model called the GFDL. This model is designed specifically for tropical cylones, and the Physics in the model is tuned to best predict track and intensity.

I usually give a great deal of credence to the forecast track from the National Hurricane Center.

Why?

I deal with a couple of hurricanes a year along with the rest of the weather here in the Valley. The folks at the NHC do nothing but forecast tropical cyclones. The local NWS offices also base their local forecasts heavily on the track guidance.

I will sometimes disagree, and it is my decision on what to put on air. When this happens I will put both forecasts on to let viewers know that there is uncertainty. When it comes to hurricane forecasting, uncertainty is almost always large.

Forecasting the location is actually easier than forecasting intensity. We still have a long way to go there! Dr. Kerry Emanuel of MIT has done some ground breaking research on this. He has developed equations that can tell us how strong a hurricane the ocean water can make.

It all depends on the heat content of the water.

That may sound like an easy thing to measure, but it isn’t. See, it does not matter just how warm the water is, but how thick the layer of warm water is! A shallow layer of warm water is not nearly as important as a thick layer of warm water at the surface. We call this Tropical Cyclone Heat Potential. It is also referred to as Upper Ocean Heat Content.

Gustav will pass over an area of high TCHP in the next two days and that heat will probably turn Gustav into a dangerous hurricane.

After Gustav comes Hannah.  This one may be headed toward Florida, and even perhaps in our direction. My sleep deficit will likely increase in direct proportion to the intensity of Hannah!

Later,
Dan

When James-Paul Dice left for Birmingham, (Don’t get me crying again) he left a vacancy in a class he had been teaching at Calhourn Community College, here in Huntsville. JP talked me into taking it over for him, and I will start teaching Environmental Science on Monday.

JP swears I will love it, and since I do love everything to do with Earth Science, he may very well be right.

For those of you wondering how JP is doing, the answer is GREAT. We both still work for the same company, he is now the Chief Meteorologist at WBRC in Birmingham. A WAY overdue promotion for him. In case you could not tell, JP and I are not just co workers, but good friends. We LOVED working together during severe storms. We could read each others thoughts!

Back to teaching for a second.

I’ve taught some off, and on but never a class for a whole semester. What kind of teacher will I be?

Hopefully a good one!

I suffer fools poorly. Very poorly in fact, so students who did not find the time to read the assigned pages will find little sympathy from me. Where they will find sympathy is in not understanding something. I have always been thick with new concepts and I will do ANYTHING to make sure they understand it.

The average person really does not grasp how much an impact humans are having on our planet. My research for this class has been a real eye opener. We face some real challenges as global citizens in the very near future. The image below is from SCIENCE in July 2007. It shows the human impact on the Earth’s surface.

Science 29 June 2007:
Vol. 316. no. 5833, pp. 1866 – 1869
DOI: 10.1126/science.1140170
Domesticated Nature: Shaping Landscapes and Ecosystems for Human Welfare
Peter Kareiva,1,2* Sean Watts,2 Robert McDonald,3 Tim Boucher1

There are some fabulous instructors out there, and one internationally renowned biologist is just down the block. I count him as a friend and have listened carefully to his advice on how to pass on my love of science to my students.

There is talk of a war on science in this country. It does indeed seem like it, with teachers still having to be careful about teaching evolution in some cities. Trust me when I tell you that this is looked upon with utter amazement, and disbelief in most countries in Europe.

Then there are the ridiculous attacks on Climate Change Science. Most of these by web sites that are mainly politics in a thin disguise of high school physics. Some of those who do weather around the country, and have an AMS seal are guilty of passing on this kind of junk science.

You would think that sometime during their education, they were taught what Peer Review is.

I know one goup of students who are about to get a very indepth lecture on it!

Back in the late 1990’s i put together a web site on weather for kids. It is currently under a redevelopment, but I have put together a new web site on climate. This site is aimed at an older audience. Generally from High School on up.

The reason for this site is my concern that the public still has a limited understanding on the Science of Climate Change and most importantly, many still believe that the Science community is divided on the issue. THEY ARE NOT. Only a small handful of those working in the field disagree with the basic theory. This is out of thousands. Don’t believe me – watch this.

The web is full of ridiculous claims about climate change. Most on political commentary sites. Many of these political opinions are disguised as basic High School Physics.

Meteorology is a broad field, and I am a Synoptic Forecaster, not a Climate Scientist. Like most Meteorologists (make that all!), I frequently get questions about climate change. In the past, I avoided saying anything definitive for 3 reasons.

1. I was not familiar enough with the science.

2. Very political – why tick off viewers.

3. Too busy with other projects to spend the time needed to bring myself up to speed.

In 2005, I changed my mind.

One set of graphics did that overnight.

After that, I spent hours a week reading everything I could get my hands on. I had to brush back up on my Calculus, and then learn some grad level statistics that almost fried my brain. (I will never be a climate scientist- I shall be happy with my Masters in Earth Science!) I thought I had cracked a book written by Holton for the last time, but I was wrong! (A joke for my fellow Meteorology weasels out there).

What I learned was incredibly fascinating, and very concerning.

Mankind is carrying out the greatest experiment in history on our climate. The research in the last decade has confirmed that our climate does NOT react like the dimmer switch over your dining room table. It more closely resembles the behaviour of the street light in front of your house…. and the sun is setting.

The site includes a power point audio visual presentation for teachers to show to classes. It is based completely on PEER REVIEWED science and the result of 150 hours of work. I hope it will be used widely by teachers looking for some reliable information on Climate Change.

It does NOT cover what we do about climate change. That is for all of us living on the blue, and green Earth to figure out.

http://wildwildclimate.com or click image.

Occasionally a paper is published by a renowned expert or a group of experts in a field that summarizes what we know about a particular topic. These papers are usually destined to be referred to many times and cited by other papers for years to come. Dr. Micheal Mann and Dr. Phil Jones wrote one in 2004 that you should read.

While I realize most readers of this journal may not read papers in the Science journals often, I think this one should be an exception. This is a high tech town, and there are a ton of folks here that DO read things like this. Many others  write papers that are an order of magnitude more complex. Teachers as well around the world should add this to their reading list.

Even if you are not included in the above, this is a great paper to read. Nothing would make me happier than to hear from a young student that read this entire paper.

Michael Mann is one of this country’s top climate scientists, and Phil Jones is head of the famous Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the UK (Hadley Center).

This paper summarizes what we know about the Earth’s climate over the past 1000 years. It also shows how ridiculous some of the claims in online junk science sites really are. You can read more about climate on my new Wild Wild Climate Page.

The paper can be accessed by clicking on the image below.