Dan's Wild Wild Science Journal

Found this online today and it’s a must for Earth Science teachers everywhere. This is definitely my longest post ever!

Okay so click on it and download the full size image and then get a poster made!

kudos to Karl Tate at OurAmazingPlanet.com

A million words have been written about the iPad. I have had one almost since day one and it’s much better than I even expected it to be. Truly, it’s revolutionary. (Full disclosure: A family member works for Apple, but I have long had an irresistible urge to buy anything Steve Jobs makes.)

So what weather and science apps do I have on my iPad?
Here are my faves and most are very inexpensive or free:

RADAR SCOPE:

Real time radar from the NOAA network of doppler radars nationwide. Radar Scope also lets me see the velocity data and even storm relative velocity. Granted, these extra products are not for the average person but if you want to know more about how bad an approaching storm is, this app is for you.

Star Walk screen. This app is great for iPhone and there is a separate version for iPad that's even better.

STAR WALK

Even of you are not that “IN” to the stars, this app comes in handy. It’s a planetarium on your iPad. What’s that bright star next to the full moon? Star Walk will tell you.

You can even set it forward or backward in time. What did the sky look like to the survivors of the Titanic in April 1912? Star Walk will show you. This app is a must! Hands down my favourite app other than the last one I will mention.

John Cook’s SKEPTICAL SCIENCE

So,  you’re at a party and someone starts going into the latest myth about why climate change is not true. You can do two things.

First, you can safely assume that the person has never studied anything about atmospheric physics. Second you can open Skeptical Science and read a summary based on peer reviewed science of whatever myth they happen to be harping on. Don’t do this to change their mind, you won’t. Do it to keep the people around you (who still have critical thinking skills) from believing the politics dressed up as science.

Skeptical Science the app is based on the very popular blog by John Cook. You may see my name on a couple of the myth buster articles. The app is totally free and if you are confused about climate change, this app will be a quick and entertaining education.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAPS

A common european joke goes something along the lines of “War is how Americans learn geography”. Unfortunately it’s not far from the truth in my experience. I regularly get emails asking me to put the names of the states on the weather maps I show during the weathercast!

There is nothing fancy about this app from National Geographic. It’s basically just a map of the world on your iPad. I look at it daily to increase my knowledge of world geography.

WUNDER MAP

Weather Underground is one of the best weather sites and they have a fabulous app. The maps are google earth like and you can zoom all the way down to street level in many places around the world. The current radar and satellite is added along with live weather conditions from thousands of backyard and government weather stations. It’s IMHO one of the best free weather apps available.

3d SUN

3d Sun by NASA has some amazing images and movies of the Sun.

NASA has a really neat app that is all about the Sun. Two satellites monitoring the sun send back some incredible images of the sun. One satellite is ahead of the Earth’s orbit and the other is behind the Earth’s orbit. The 3d Sun app alerts you to solar flares and coronal mass ejections. You will see the star that gives our planet life like never before. You will also learn a little solar physics as well!

The most important app for science on the iPad is the winner hands down. Actually it’s the most important app period.

Amazon’s Kindle APP

I still cannot believe that new books are coming out that are not available on kindle. Without doubt the publishing industry is joining newspapers TV and many other industries in being way too slow to adapt to the new world.

Publishing companies and authors listen up! I have passed on MANY books recently because they were not available to read on my iPad. I can carry a dozen books with me wherever I go and open up any of them where I left off in a second. I can buy a new one and it’s on my ipad in a matter of seconds.

I know there are a few readers who are saying, “I just like the feel of a book in my hand”. Get over it. Once you have read two or three books on the iPad, you will not go back. I read the entire Lord of The Rings Trilogy on a Mind Spring in 1999.

Maybe that is what pushed me over the edge.

Chris Mooney and Michael Specter along with others did a lecture at MIT last April. MIT has put the video up online and it is well worth a view.

The topic was denialism and disinformation. How can so many people believe things that someone tells them with no critical thinking. (My post on Authoritarians goes along with this quite well I suspect)

I regularly get asked if the world is going to end in 2012, and amazingly I am still getting comments from buyers defending their purchase of the iRenew and Q-Ray bracelets!

You can file a complaint with the FTC over these scams. Click the image above to go to the FTC web page.

In the two months since I wrote the post about what a scam the iRenew bracelet was, I have had more comments than any other post I have ever written. Mostly from people who like me are amazed that people will fall for it. Many other comments explain very well why these scammers will make millions of dollars. The adverts are now all over Fox news and other outlets on late night cable TV.

Q-Ray Is A Scam Too

Do not think I’m exaggerating either. A similar piece of junk, the Q-Ray bracelet has already gotten into trouble with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and were ordered to provide 64 million dollars in refunds. I bet that is a drop in the bucket compared to how much they got away with. You can find out more about the Q-Ray scam and the lawsuits against them on Quackwatch.

While I’m On The Subject Of Scams…

A new scam for those that slept though junior high science Class. Can you say horse hockey? I knew you could...

I saw a new one being touted on twitter the other day. The Zero Point Magnetic Generator. It usually the revolutionary idea of perpetual motion to make free power for your home. Perpetual motion scams have been around for many decades and they have taken millions from the scientifically illiterate.

Just to be clear here- Perpetual motion violates the second law of thermodynamics. That means it will not, cannot, and NEVER will work. Period. A similar scam using a tank of water in your car boot to make hydrogen runs along similar lines.  It’s just as much a scam as the rest.

I mentioned some of those comments I have received on the first post. Many more were political in nature and off topic so they did not get approved. I tried to be more generous than usual in my editing, and here are my fave’s below (with the replies I have held off making).

Comments:

1.after wearing bracelet for 1 week i gained incredible strength, lost 50 lbs, attracted women by the dozen andit cured my cancer. lol people are so &^%ing stupid. I can imagine all the idiots running to their mailboxes in anticipation of their miracle cure. Thanks for putting at least 1 honest review of this scam.

Dan: Your Welcome!

2.Jack Rand

Actually I do have an iRenew bracelet, and it has worked for me! I really don’t care why it works, I only care that it makes me feel better. After I bought the bracelets online I got some pdfs from irenew. After reading a little bit about the theory behind this technology, I did a bit more digging and found this video from the same authors. The video called “The Living Matrix” is really amazing. It really breaks down a handful of technologies being used to help restore or heal a person’s body field.

Dan: Jack you missed the point! There is no such thing as a “body field”. See Barnum P.T. and Gary Stephens reply below.

3. You know – I have to add one thing – If you buy one of these, you should need to pass a test before you are allowed to vote. It is certainly one thing to screw yourself but when you vote, now you are passing on your stupidity to the lives of others. So: I-Renew = I shouldn’t vote

and my favourites:

4.what i find amazing is that there is no negative feedback on this product anywhere,(except here)yet,everyone here with negative feed has (never tried) the product. im reminded of a time when the world was once thought to be flat.with that said, if your going to lead the movement,on this so called fake irenew bracelet,at least try the damn thing first!

and gary stephens Reply:
August 14th, 2010 at 10:18 am

you don’t have to stick your head up a chickens ass to know where an egg comes from.

So in closing, while I do not mean to be harsh, if you bought one of these things, or your plans to build a zero point magnetic generator are in the mail, do yourself a favour. Turn off the TV and visit your local library. Might I suggest Tuning into Science Friday on NPR?  Oh, and quit reading the horoscope in your local paper.

That’s a SCAM too!

Your's truly looking at the ice core from 2,500 meters beneath the Greenland Ice Cap. The science trench where the drill is located is -20C and is about 10 meters below the surface. Dan's pic.

I’ve just returned today from Greenland and am looking forward to seeing my first “night” in 10 days!

The 14 countries that have supported the NEEM ice core project got their money’s worth this week. The two year project to drill an ice core through 2,500 meters of ice finally reached Greenland rock.

Where Is It

NEEM at Midnight- Dan's Pic.

The NEEM site is at 8,300 feet on top of the ice sheet. I arrived there a week ago Tuesday and was a guest for 8 nights. There were 38 of us in a small camp in the middle of a magnificent desolation of white.

The population of this tiny outpost is an international mix of young and older scientists, researchers and ice core drilling experts. Many like Jim White, the Director of the Stable Isotope Lab at INSTAAR are renowned experts in their fields.

It was a fun and fascinating 9 days with top ice scientists from Denmark, France, USA,Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand.

There was a riot of different accents but everyone had one thing in common.

Scientific curiosity.

Among those in science, that always transcends national borders, languages and cultures.

About NEEM

James White of the University of Colorado and director of INSTAAR.

I was a guest of Paleoclimate expert  Jim White the director of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) at the Uni. of Colorado. Dr. White arranged the support of the National Science Foundation. After Denmark, the NSF was the second biggest funder of NEEM.

So what did the folks at NEEM do in plain language?

They pulled up ice that was once falling as snow in Greenland around 150,000 years ago! Then they analysed and read it like a climate history book. This was the first time that a boat load of science was done on an ice core as it was being obtained.

This was during the ice age that preceded the Eemian. The Eemian is the warm period before our last ice age. This means we now have an ice core that goes all the way back through the Holocene (The warm period after the last ice age in which we now live), the ice age before the Holocene, and then the warm period before the last ice age (The Eemian) and finally into the penultimate ice age before the Eemian!

This is from the Antarctic VOSTOK ice core. Notice how stable the climate has been during the short blip of time called the Holocene. Virtually all of civilisation developed in the Holocene. Notice how unstable the climate was before! NEEM has now obtained a core from Greenland that goes back a similar period to that shown here. (NOAA)

Knowing what the climate of Earth was like in the Eemian is vitally important. The main reason is because there is overwhelming evidence the Earth will be as warm as the Eemian by the end of this century.

It should not be. The best evidence we have is that the Earth should be cooling slightly. It is actually doing just the opposite because of rapidly rising greenhouse gases.

There is no doubt among the scientists that we will continue to warm. Even if we quit burning fossil fuels tonight, the planet will continue to warm at least another degree. That’s because a lot of the warming has been stored in the oceans. If we keep burning coal and oil, the warming will be much more severe.

There is little debate about that in the science community. Almost none actually.

NEEM Camp- Dan's pic (click to make real big)

The Scary Bit Is What Is Not Known.

Could there be a rapid warming?

A significant jump in temperature that happens in a decade?

Sound crazy?

Think again., The ice core at NEEM and the other Greenland cores all show that this has happened many times in the past. Very abrupt warmings are part of our climate. The question is what are the tipping points that cause these. The bigger question is are we about to reach one.

This ice core at NEEM may hold very important clues.

Pictures and Video

I took thousands of pics and made 5 hours of video at NEEM. We will air reports on WHNT for those in North Alabama and there will be an in-depth documentary about NEEM coming as well from Dave Jones at Storm Center Communications. I was part of the three man team that Dave sent.

My colleagues, David Stroud and Robert Freeland, and I had an incredible adventure. I learned more of the latest climate science in 8 days than I could have in a year at home. (I had captive climate experts to ask questions of and I took advantage.)

We were there when NEEM reached bedrock.

Stay tuned here for the pictures and the story. I think you will find it fascinating.

One thing for sure, the phrase “snow on the toilet paper” will have a significant meaning to me for the rest of my life!

More soon after I sleep for awhile!

Dan