Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal

There are some fabulously well written blogs and excellent science sites online. I have never done a post of the best that I have come across before, until now!

So below is a sampling of sound science writing that got my attention this week.

Jim Robbins at Yale Environment 360 has an in depth piece on the great die off out west. Perhaps enough evidence to indict climate change for causing it, but not enough for a conviction as of yet.

I love astronomical time lapses and Amanda Bauer in the UK has a great one.

Astropixie has a beautiful time lapse from Mauna Kea. Great blog!

Tavie Greiner and Rob Keown have a post on International Sidewalk Astronomy Night.

March 20th is the equinox (No, eggs will not stand up any better than any other day) and it's also ISAN. Oh, and guess what it's free!

Nasa’s Earth Observatory site always has something I like and the rapid urbanization of Dubai is vividly shown by NASA’s Terra satellite.

All that oil makes them a lot of money doesn't it...

Dr. Erik Klemetti has a great profile of the active volcano Erta Ale on his blog ERUPTIONS

Got Magma???

Last but not least is Peter Sinclair’s Climate Denial Crock of the Week. Peter is superbly good at taking the spin out of inaccurate science reporting. This week he talks about where to get your science from, and where NOT to get it. Peter is the secret hero of a lot of scientists I think.

A lot of people who do TV weather and a lot of climate researchers have been inundated with questions along the line of “So what do you think of global warming now” after the February Blizzards in the Northeast. Recent polls even show that people are more skeptical of climate change.

Scientific theories do not rest on public opinion of course.

So what was the scientific truth of February’s weather??

Take a look at the image below from NOAA. NASA and the Univ. of East Anglia will have very similar data, although they do their calculations a little differently. The  bigger the red dot, the more above normal the month was.

Yes, it was cold in the Northeast USA and in Western Europe in February. The rest of the planet was incredibly warm. Data from NOAA/NCDC.

Canada had the warmest winter (Dec.-Feb.) ever recorded. They blew away their old record completely.

Update: NOAA has released new satellite data and both January and February were the second warmest months on record using the two independently derived global temperatures from satellite data.

December -February 5th warmest on record- from NOAA

The UAH and RSS data from satellites is even warmer:

The two independent lower troposphere temps. for this past winter. Courtesy NOAA/NCDC/ RSS/UAH

I’ve seen quite a few Raob launches over the years. RAOB stands for Rawinsonde Observation. You can think of them as weather balloons. They are vital for making forecasts. We live in an atmosphere over 100 km thick, but most weather happens in the troposphere, the bottom 15 km or so.

To forecast weather knowing only what is happening at the ground would be like guessing the outcome of a suspense novel after reading one chapter. OK, well my wife would get it, but the rest of us probably not. These atmospheric “soundings” are not cheap, but twice a day, every day of the year, they are sent up.

They rise from a hundred different countries and the data is shared among all. Politics aside.

So here is the launch of the RAOB at station 89007. A station that is among the most expensive to maintain.

Note from Dan: The linked HD video was crashing too many browsers, so above is the You Tube version. You can right click on the video and watch it in 720P on YouTube!

Two very notable publications in the clmate science world as we head into the first weekend of meteorological spring here in the Northern Hemisphere. One is a surprise to just about every climate researcher and not in a good way. The other may surprise some in the public but is not at all surprising to those who follow the real science closely.

The big surprise first.

Methane is being released in huge quantities from the rapidly warming Arctic Ocean off of Siberia. Click image to read the NSF press release.

A major finding is being announced in Science regarding methane and permafrost. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that has more than doubled since pre-industrial times. It is approximately 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

Researchers have long worried that as the Earth heats up, permafrost holding methane will melt and methane will be released in great quantities. Until now, the main source of worry was wetlands in the High Arctic. Some recent research has even indicated that the possibilities of deep ocean “methane hydrates” becoming a major source of sudden methane were not that likely.

Unfortunately the real world has a different surprise. A University of Alaska research team has found that the methane beneath the East Siberian Arctic Shelf is being released in huge quantities. Indications are that the amount of methane being released is comparable to what is being released over the entire rest of the World’s oceans.

The second publication confirms something that I have mentioned several times over the past year or so here. Which is simply this: The real science published in peer reviewed journals continues to indicate that the change in Earth’s climate system is worse than the IPCC report of 2007.

In almost every area, the changes are happening faster than predicted. From sea level rise to greenhouse gas levels to the melting of arctic sea ice. A few years ago there was still questions about how Antarctica was reacting compared to the rest of the planet.

No more. The melt is on.

Dr. Peter Stott and colleagues at the UK Met. office have published a review of 110 papers in research journals published since the last IPCC report.

The evidence that humans are affecting earth’s climate is no longer unequivocal. It is OVERWHELMING.

The BBC has a good summary with more info. Click the image to read it.

Some real science from the National Academies. Click to read it. It is a very good summary of what is currently known about climate change.

Compare this with the ridiculous claims of fraud by extremist political blogs. The main claim being over a mistake in the non peer reviewed part of the IPCC report that anyone who knew much about climate science thought was a typo! I can’t write a blog post here without typos let alone 3,000 pages.

It is very telling that the two blogs feeding most of the skeptics are written by people who have NO background in science. One is a political spinner for Senator Laughing Stock (who wants to arrest Dr. Michael Mann). The other is TV weatherman who never bothered to study atmospheric physics.

As the title of this post says: Scientific facts live independent of public opinion. I’m a firm believer that the truth wins out in the end.

It always has.

The mean sea level pressure and precipitation forecast from the NOAA Global Forecast System model. (GFS). The forecast is valid at Noon Central USA time on 3 March.

The long range weather models have been indicating that a major blizzard will develop in about 8 days and hot the East Coast of America.

First of all, you should know that numerical weather models are NOT reliable this far into the future. Things can, and will be, different than what the image above shows. That said ,the guidance is a lot better than it was 10 years ago. It’s much better than it was in 1993, when the super storm of March 1993 brought all time record snowfalls to Alabama and Georgia. I measured 17 inches in my backyard with that storm in Birmingham Alabama.

The early indications are showing some real similarities to that storm. It develops in the Gulf of Mexico and deepens into an intense storm as it moves into the Appalachians. The 93 storm was in mid March. This one, if it develops, will be very early in March.

The big question is will the southern jet which has been strong all winter, due to El Nino, will phase with the polar jet. The polar jet has been much further south this year than what we would expect to see. Especially in a winter with a moderately strong El Nino like this one.

I still remember looking at the weather charts the week before the 1993 blizzard. The long range models were surprisingly consistent with that storm. Similar to this one- so far.

200 millibar forecast for March 3. This pressure level is around 9 km above the ground at jet stream level.

The image on the left is the 200 millibar chart for early next week. This is a chart showing the winds and storm track at around 9,000 meters high in the atmosphere. This is the jet stream level and it’s a good chart to look at to see if the jet streams are likely to phase.

This model run is showing that there IS phasing between the southern and northern branch of the jet streams. This would produce a much stronger storm.

The fact that the oceans are unusually warm globally will be another factor. January saw the second warmest oceans on the instrumental record. This is very likely due to the El Nino and the increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The significance of a phased jet stream is this. It allows the storm to develop in an area with very cold and very warm air surrounding it. Warm moist air is to a storm as gasoline is to a fire. It can turn a small one into a big one very quickly.

We forecasters will be looking at the daily model runs this week. We will compare the newest model runs from the USA with those from Environment Canada and the European Centre for Medium Range Forecasting (ECMWF). If I see all three of those models still showing a big blizzard by Wednesday of this week, then I’ll have much higher confidence that it will happen.

It’s just not possible to say anything more at this long range than it might happen. Oh, and if your local meteorologist looks a little harried on TV this week, now you know why!

Later,
Dan