Dan’s Wild Wild Weather Journal

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!

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

There is a lot of talk about these products that claim to extend your gas mileage by using electricity to separate the water in a tank in the trunk into Hydrogen and Oxygen. The ads are all over the net.

If you are considering spending money to hear about it or to buy the equipment, you might want to read the rest of this blog entry first.

First the good news.

A car will run on hydrogen gas (with modifications). You can also get hydrogen from water by running a current through it. It is called electrolysis. Some more facts.

Hydrogen burns very cleanly, with the by product mainly being water.

Now, the bad news.

There are no wells of Hydrogen. You have to make it, and making it requires electricity. Guess where that electricity comes from. Coal fired power plants in most cases. So until we can make a lot of hydrogen with nuclear, wind, and or solar power, it is not the answer to pollution, and climate change problems. I am amazed at how many politicians in both parties cannot seem to get their heads around this simple fact!

The news gets worse. Using electricity to get hydrogen from a tank of water in your car is not practical. Why? Because it takes a whole lot of electricity to separate water into Hydrogen and oxygen. Where is that electricity going to come from? Your battery, and generator. Where is your battery going to get the power from? Your gas tank!

There are two laws of Physics called the first, and second laws of Thermodynamics. Every science student learns them in their first year of college. In layman’s terms the first law says “You cannot get something from nothing”, and the second law says. You cannot win, you cannot even break even. You will always LOSE!

How this applies to these hydrogen gas mileage extenders is this.

It takes more energy to break apart the water to make hydrogen than you will get by using the hydrogen to extend your gas mileage. A low voltage current cannot produce enough hydrogen to make any difference so you will likely not see a measurable DROP in gas mileage. If you could produce enough hydrogen to help your car along. You would see a big INCREASE in the amount of fuel you use!

Let me put it this way, it takes 8 miles worth of gas to make 5 miles worth of hydrogen!

I wrote to Dr. Rob Park a Physicist who formerly headed the Department of Physics at the University of Maryland. I asked him to help me convince people that these hydrogen from water deals are just scams.

Doctor Park is an associate of the late Dr. Willie Fowler. Willie Fowler had a little statue on his mantle that had the words NOBEL PRIZE: PHYSICS on it. Trust me when I say that Dr. Park is an expert.

Here is what he wrote back:

*********************************************************************************

Dan:
The scam is nothing new. In the 1970s an inventor named Sam Leach claimed to have developed a car that ran on water, and demonstrated it by driving it across the country, filling the tank with water each morning. He explained that he was using electrolysis to break the water into hydrogen and oxygen and using the hydrogen as fuel. When it was pointed out that it takes more energy to separate the oxygen and hydrogen than you get back by burning the hydrogen, he claimed to have a secret catalyst to break down the water. Since the combustion product is water, that would violate the Conservation of Energy.

Investors who were unfamiliar with the Conservation of Energy, including the president of Budget Rent-a-car, invested millions. Leach simply retired with the money. I assume he had a false tank for the water. He spent his remaining years being driven in Rolls-Royce that used gasoline.

Those who have fallen for the scam included President George W. Bush who promised in his 2003 State-of-the-Union Address to free America from reliance on middle-Eastern oil with the hydrogen car. It’s easy to make a car that runs on hydrogen, but it will save no energy.

The only way to stop the scam is with better science education.

Regards,

Bob
Robert L. Park
Professor of Physics
University of Maryland
College Park Maryland 20742
****************************************************************************

So there you have it. These things are a scam. They will not work. There is a great episode of Myth Busters that busts this myth. It is episode 53 by the way. I got a kick out of watching it. The two MIT graduates who do car talk on Public Radio have also busted this scam. It is interesting to me just how much people want to believe in this. Perhaps it would make a great thesis for some graduate school Psychology PhD candidate!

Doctor Park may have a very good point. Our Science education is in sore need of improvement. If I have saved one person from spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on one of these scams, then the hour it took me to write this was well worth it!

Just to be clear- It will not work.

No how.

No Way.

Period.

As the commercial for the bank says on TV. SAVE YOUR MONEY!

I first met Gary Shore in the Summer of 1979. I had written him a letter asking if by chance he needed a weather intern. I was a second year college student majoring in Meteorology at the University of Oklahoma.

Gary was the Chief Meteorologist at the NBC affilliate (KJRH-TV) in Tulsa. He had taken the town by storm. He had a Masters degree in Meteorology, and had already nailed some incredible forecasts. One in particular, I remember, is his forecast of three inches of snow. The local NWS office was forecasting flurries and so was every other TV guy in town. Not Gary, he was insistent that we were in for a significant snow fall.

Tulsa had 3 inches and Gary was the talk of the town.

This guy was not just another TV pretty face, he was real Meteorologist who understood science.

And, I wanted to work as his intern.

I expected no reply, or perhaps a form letter. I was wrong. A few weeks later I sat watching his weather cast at 10 PM. Shortly afterwards the phone rang and it was Gary Shore. He asked if I would like to come down the following night.

I will not go into details here because it is simpler to just say that I owe my career to him.

I was a nerd in High School and finding another human being that was as nuts about weather and science as I was changed my life. Gary and I ended up working together in Tulsa and then as competitors for a short period right here in Huntsville.

The last 7 years he has been at KCAU-TV in Sioux City, Iowa. Gary and I were kindred spirits… while other TV people look to go to big markets to make the bug bucks.. Gary and I had one single love… Forecasting. San Diego may pay well but we would have both gone mad there.

I stood up at his wedding and he was best man at mine. We kept in touch and if I ever had a really tough snow forecast, I always gave him a call. Most of the time I had it right - because I learned from the best.

I do mean the best. I know of no one who was a better forecaster. Many people in Mannford, Oklahoma owe thier lives to his Tornado warning and there are many other towns where people can say the same. There are a several people who are now working in cities big and small as forecasters both on air and off who owe Gary a debt of gratitude.

Gary died Monday morning of a sudden heart attack. he was 55 years old. He leaves his wife Ellen and two fabulous sons (Mike and David) who had an incredible Father.

Note to God: I suspect you already know the weather in heaven each day, but if Gary Shore says your forecast is wrong….Trust me on this- Go with Gary’s.

On my Quick Science report the weekend of January 5th I talked about the meaning of one Billion.

Science has in the past used a different definition than the rest of the U.S.

In Europe and much of the rest of the world, the definition varies between countries.

In science, it is very important that mathematical terms have the same definition for all scientist and there the definition used in science journals used to be as follows:

1 Billion= one million millions.

Your Congressman uses a different definition when spending your money… he uses:

1 Billion= 1,000 millions.

You can read more about it here:

http://mathforum.org/~sanders/geometry/GP10BillionEtc.html

So which is right? It depends. If you’re a Congressman, then the usual U.S. definition is right.

If you’re a scientist, then itis important that fellow scientists understand what you mean so many times what we call 4.5 Billion is written as 4,500 million. That way no one gets confused. Science in general is rapidly adopting the new version however and eventually the original definition will be a quirk of history!

I think the original definition is better at stating the value of the number. So the Earth is 4,500 million years old.

Think of it this way, the Earth has celebrated its millionth birthday, 4,500 times. (and as usual I didn’t get invited to the party!)

So keep in mind that if you ask someone in Latin America to write our 1 Billion numerically they may write:

1,000,000,000,000. (We call this a trillion!)
Whereas a high school student here in the States would write:
1,000,000,000 (We call this a billion, but other places call it one thousand million!)

Now, if I were a student and knew this, I could play some nice head games with my science teacher!

HINT- HINT!
Later,

Dan