Pop or Soda and The Great Melt Down...

Before I get into the meat of tonight's blog. Check this link out:
http://www.popvssoda.com/countystats/total-county.html
I always said soda ...

I get about 3 minutes a night to do the forecast. Actually that is about right. (Don't ever tell a producer I said that) Any longer and it would put people to sleep.

We all lead busy lives and you do not watch the news because you have nothing else to do...
(well most of us)
You want to be informed and you don't have all day. Believe me I realize that. That is why I focus on the weather here in the Valley. If I talk about somewhere else, it is usually because that system will be affecting us shortly.

Time is why I rarely mention climate change. That does not mean it is not an important topic.
It is.
It's also one that doesn't lend itself well to being covered in a 30 minute newscast. Yes it is controversial and has become overly politicized. Perhaps that is why it is not given more coverage here in the States.

But it is a perfect topic for this BLOG
(Here is where you should feel sorry for our web master, who I suspect would like me to keep these things light and short!)

I am going to post some info over the next few blogs on global warming. Hopefully it will be interesting and I'll sort through all the hype and give you some good web links for more info.
If you have already made up your mind on global warming based on political beliefs or an expert on atmospheric physics who is filling in on talk radio, then read no further.

If, however, you would like to know the consensus and thought of the best and the brightest scientist on the planet...stay tuned.

To start, some definitions. If you are going to read anything on global warming other than a news story, you will need to understand some basic terminology. I will add these in as they come up.
ANTHROPOGENIC- man made or man induced

So if someone is talking about anthropogenic warming, they are talking about warming of the earth due to mans influences on the planet.

Next: IPCC
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
(Just knowing the above defintions should be enough to quiet any "know it all" at any party your at who professes to know the truth on global warming)

The IPCC is made up of the best and the brightest of the worlds earth scientists. The IPCC was established in 1988 by the World Meteorological organization and the United Nations Environment Programme. (yes the spelling is correct)

They have issued several reports, the latest being the 3rd assessment in 2001.
The reports are long and complicated but there is an excellent summary for policy makers.
(I wonder how many of them really read it)

Here is a link to it. It's a pdf file.
IPCC SFP

Read it! More soon!

Later,
Dan

Martian Dust Devils and Capt. Cooke's Turtle

The pressure at the bottom of our atmosphere is about 1000 millibars. On Mars the pressure at the surface is about 10 millibars. Almost a vacuum to us..but enough to support wind and even some clouds on the red planet.

The sandy soil and the very strong temp. gradient makes Mars a perfect place for dust devils. Scientists have been hoping to catch some. Not really an easy task though if you think about it. Even if the camera takes 250 pictures a day..The odds of capturing a dust devil within range of the camera is low. They do not last long.

Well here they are! Thanks to the Mars Rover. Pretty neat eh???

Now to some history...Turtles..giant turtles, they live a long time. Too bad they cannot talk or write. If they could, we would have some still living witnesses to some long lost history.

Case in point. On October 21st 1773 the famous British explorer Captain James Cook had dinner with the King of the Tongans. He presented the King with a giant tortoise hauled on board his ship in the vast south sea. The King was much impressed with his gift and when the King died it was passed on to his son, the new King.

This tradition continued with the turtle out living many a ruler. Eventually the 20th century came and the world of the 1770's was but a historical memory pressed between the pages of dry history books.

Cooke's turtle however, was still plodding the grounds of the now fenced in palace of the King of Tonga. Giving rides to visiting school children according to one book I read.
The turtle finally passed away in London in 1966!

Ok so what does this have to with weather.
Nothing, but history is anything but dry.

Later,
Dan

Bet ya didn't know...

You know what the number one weather killer is in this country??
Nope not tornadoes, and if you said flash floods or Lightning you get a C-. They are number two and three.

It's heat waves.

Interesting thing about heat waves, sometimes it is hard to know if a fatality is a direct result of the heat or a contributing factor. That issue came up during the heat wave in Chicago a few years back. I went through the worst heat wave on record in the plains back in 1980. Somewhere is a tape of me doing the weather outside and it is 113 degrees F.

How bad was it??

One afternoon, we saw a cloud in the sky and everyone ran outside the station to look at it. It was the first cloud we had seen in the sky in weeks.

I had no AC in my car that summer. So when the temp. dropped below 100 degrees, (usually around 10 pm) I would soak a large towel in cold water. Drape it over my head and go to the car. By the time I drove the 35 miles from NW Oklahoma City South to Norman, the towel was completely dry.

Studies have shown that it is not the daytime heat that is the problem.
It's the night time lows.

When the lows at night stay above 80 degrees, the heat related ER admissions sky rocket. If the dew point is high the moisture reradiates the heat back down to the ground and temps. cool only slightly at night. So moisture in the air makes the heat more uncomfortable in the daytime and more deadly at night. Big cities make the heat worse as well because of the heat island effect.

The heat that summer made a lot of people sick. Including me. I make no secret on air of the fact that I hate the heat...now you know why!

I am sooner born and sooner bred, and when I die, I'll be sooner dead..
but I will never spend another Summer in Oklahoma in heat like that!

Later,
Dan

Images and Calculus Books

The math teacher who wrote the Calculus book that almost every engineer and science major used in college over the past 25 -30 years has died. Louis Leithold was 80 and apparently a much beloved instructor.
I can guarantee you his book is still on the shelf of thousands of scientist and engineers around the world! Supposedly he came up with a way to make it much easier to understand
(If his was the easy version..I would have hated to see the hard one!)
Here is to all you teachers out there who make such a difference!!

Drought in Australia...Bad one too. This usually happens in El Nino years and we are supposedly going out of a weak El Nino right now. Might be in for a surprise perhaps?? Not exactly wet around here. We have had only 70% of our normal rainfall from Jan 1st through May 9th.

The unusually cool April is definitely a thing of the past as well with temps. this week likely to average 5-10 degrees ABOVE normal.

For those of you who send in weather pictures..some helpful hints:
1. Send a jpeg image and make it at least 800x600. I cannot use smaller images on air.
2.A great program for resizing and viewing images is called irfanview and it is absolutely free.
3. Please do not send a huge file of over 2 megs. I can resize a large pic of say 3072x2100 down..just no bigger please.
4. Dont compress it much...you will get artifacts and turn a great pic into a lousy one.
5. the worlds best program for working with images is Photoshop. It is definitely NOT free but if photography is your hobby, you will end up buying it sooner or later !!

Later!
Dan