Dan’s Wild Wild Weather Journal

Andy Revkin the science writer at the New York Times has an interesting article on Arctic sea ice today. The ice reached a new record low last September and is approaching the same level again this year.

You should realize that the ice cover is disappearing at a much faster rate than the IPCC models have been forecasting.  Now, a majority of scientists who study the ice, feel that we are at, or very near a tipping point. Beyond the tipping point, the Summer ice will disappear very rapidly. Perhaps in a decade or two.

To understand why this is so, read up on the following: Ice Albedo Feedback.

The other article is about Dr. Jeremy Jackson the noted Ocean Scientist. His web site shiftingbaselines.org is getting  a lot of attention. It is amazing to him (and many others, including me) that the story of collapsing fish stocks in the oceans, is getting so little attention.

It may be because people cannot fathom (pun intended) how it is possible to deplete such a huge resource.

Keep in mind that most of the tropical oceans are biological deserts. The life zone in the oceans is very thin. Only the top 300 meters get any real sunlight. The rest of the oceans are dark, and frigidly cold places with comparatively little life. The ocean temperatures in the deep are just above 0C.

Back to the sea ice one more time.  The La- Nina last Winter, acted to cool the planet slightly, from the year before. So many scientists expected the ice would not melt as fast in the Arctic this year, and another new record would not be likely.

The fact that the record is again in jeopardy, is nothing less than stunning.

Later,

Dan

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.

Admit it.

Sometime in the past you have complained that it always seems to rain on the weekend. In the back of your mind though, you told yourself that it really doesn’t rain more on any one day of the week.

Right???

WRONG! (If your in the Southeast U.S. anyway.)

Seems that a group of scientists decided to test a theory that it should rain more during the latter half of the work week than on the weekend. This makes sense because rain drops form on aerosols. (Aerosols include dust, sea salt, and soot etc. from air pollution.) More air pollution-more rain.

There was a famous paper (well in the geeky science world that I live in) about this affect about 30 years ago. The paper looked at rainfall downwind from St. Louis, and found that rain amounts were noticeably higher in Illinois to the East. Something the farmers there have for some reason decided not to complain too much about!

Along comes the TRMM satellite. The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite was the first time we put a good old fashioned weather radar on a rocket and blasted it into low Earth orbit. There has been a ton of science coming out of this radar. Including a study by NASA using our ARMOR Dual Polarimetric Radar.

Thomas Bell of Nasa Goddard, and several other scientists have written a paper about using the TRMM satellite to track rainfall variations by day of the week. They found that indeed there is a signal. Wednesday and Thursday are wetter than Saturday and Sunday over the Southeast. Not only that. The opposite is true in the Atlantic Ocean, to the east of the S.E. USA.

This makes sense for two reasons. First, the air pollution will get pushed eastward by the prevailing westerlies. So the weekend will have more aerosols in the air over the Atlantic.More aerosols-more weekend rainfall.

Secondly, (A bit more complex) is the atmosphere must maintain hydrostatic balance. In other words if air rises up into thunderstorms over the southeast, it has to sink back down somewhere else to compensate. Therefore, the Western Atlantic should be drier if we are wetter. This phenomenon is very noticeable around hurricanes. You usually see very litte airmass thunderstorm activity outside the circulation of a tropical storm.

So yes, all that junk we spew into the atmosphere not only reduces the visibility, it makes it rain more. (Visibilities in the Great Smokey’s are less than half what they were 50 years ago!) Look on the bright side. The weekend is ever so slightly drier and sunnier!

I found the paper in pdf form on Doctor Bell’s website:

http://climate.gsfc.nasa.gov/publications/fulltext/Bell-etal_JGR_2008.pdf

NASA has a summary here: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2008/midweek_rainfall.html

If Math scares you, use the second link.

Later,

Dan

The Ozone levels soared Friday. We hit 127 on the air quality index in Huntsville. We always get calls and emails from people on days like this who are confused. Didn’t they hear that the ozone was disappearing? Wasn’t that a bad thing? Now we are saying there is too much of it! What gives??

Actually they are right, ozone is a good thing. It is also a bad thing. Here is the scoop!

Ozone is Ozone, but we have two areas of Ozone on Earth. Tropospheric Ozone and Stratospheric Ozone.

Ozone is oxygen by the way. The oxygen we breathe is two oxygen atoms bonded together. Ozone is formed when three atoms of oxygen bond.

The stratospheric ozone is good. It blocks harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun from making it to the surface. Tropospheric Ozone is bad. It causes allergy like symptoms and is bad for your health.

The bad ozone (near the ground) is formed from exhaust gases from burning coal and oil. sunlight interacts with these pollutants and through a photochemical reaction, Ozone is produced. Some of this ozone will make it to the stratosphere eventually, and become good Ozone.

One of the greatest success stories of international cooperation is the Montreal Protocol.  Scientists discovered in the 1970’s that chemicals used in air conditioners, and in aerosol cans were reaching the stratosphere and reacting chemically with the Ozone to destroy it. These CFC’s (Chlorofluorocarbons) were essentially phased out and replaced with more safe alternatives. This agreement is why you will have a tough time buying Freon these days! The Montreal Protocol has been amended a few times since 1985 to phase out other Ozone destroying chemicals as well.

Now the famous Ozone hole that develops in the Austral Spring each year over Antarctica is still there and bigger than ever, but atmospheric models now show that the Ozone hole will be mostly gone by 2065.

This is a good thing, in more ways than one! We did not appreciate it at the time, but it turns out that Ozone is a potent Greenhouse gas!

There is some significant new research coming out in August from NASA Scientist James Hansen. He apparently has evidence that Ozone, and some other pollutants have been responsible for more of the planet’s warming in the past few decades than thought.

Tropospheric Ozone is the reason we have an Air Quality Alert this weekend (July 2008) here in Huntsville.

The clean air act specifies that cities should try to keep Ozone levels below a certain standard. The current standard is 76 ppb (Parts per billion). It was just lowered from 80 ppb this year. When the air quality index is at 100, that indicates that the 8 hour average of Ozone was at 76 ppb. Friday’s number was 127, so we were well above the standard.

One last thing and perhaps most important. Politics is involved in this standard. The EPA has a Science Advisory Committee that advises the EPA on what level of Ozone is dangerous to health. The panel last year Unanimously recommended that the standard be lowered to somewhere between 60-70 ppb. The EPA lowered it 4 ppb from 80 to 76.

The EPA says an AQI number of 90 is moderate air quality. The top scientific experts say it is unhealthful. So what do I tell my viewers?? I am doing both.

The EPA is now proposing doing away with this science advisory committee. This proposal has met with some fierce criticism from the scientific community.