Making case for climate as driver of migration

By TOM ZELLER Jr.

Published: June 14, 2009

NEW YORK — A new report on human migration and climate change, released as delegates from 182 countries gathered in Bonn over the past two weeks to continue hammering out some preliminary language for a new global climate treaty, made its case plainly:

“The impacts of climate change are already causing migration and displacement,” the document began, adding that by midcentury, “the prospects for the scope and scale could vastly exceed anything that has occurred before.”

The study, titled “In Search of Shelter” and written by a large cast from several nongovernmental organizations, including the United Nations, CARE International and Columbia University, combined climatological and demographic data with field interviews of migrants already on the move. The aim was to provide an overview, with rich maps and an oft-lacking dose of empiricism, of where the changing environment is driving decision-making on the ground and which areas are likely to be hit hardest if things get worse.

The New York Times article is here.

Don't try this at home: driving INTO a tornado

I've seen people do some pretty dumb things, and then post them to YouTube. But nothing prepared me for this video clip. These guys have reinforced and fortified a vehicle with armor, with the goal of driving INTO a tornado. I know, sounds very Darwinian, doesn't it? Talk about thinning the herd. Do not do this in a Chevy Lumina or gently-used minivan. These guys were lucky they didn't become a big hunk of airborne debris traveling at 200 mph. To see the wild video for yourself, from the recent Goshen county, Wyoming tornado, click here.

14 year old German boy survives meteorite strike

So you think you had a tough day? Check out this 14 year old, who was hit by a meteorite traveling at 30,000 and lived to tell about it. This happened in Germany, and suddenly the kid is a Super Hero in the local media! It's quite an amazing story. For the complete (eye-opening) story in Gizmodo click here.

Fickle breezes: study says climate change means lower wind speeds

By Keith Johnson

Chalk up another casualty of climate change: Wind speeds in many parts of the U.S. seem to be decreasing, which could make life tougher for the wind industry.

A study to be published later this summer says that climate change has led to lower average wind speeds in the Midwest and eastern part of the U.S., AP reports.

If true—and the study goes against what most computer models predict will happen—it seems to be because rising temperatures at the poles change pressure patterns around the globe, which leads to less wind. From AP’s story:

“It’s a very large effect,” said study co-author Eugene Takle, a professor of atmospheric science at Iowa State University. In some places in the Midwest, the trend shows a 10 percent drop or more over a decade. That adds up when the average wind speed in the region is about 10 to 12 miles per hour. There’s been a jump in the number of low or no wind days in the Midwest, said the study’s lead author, Sara Pryor, an atmospheric scientist at Indiana University. Wind measurements plotted out on U.S. maps by Pryor show wind speeds falling mostly along and east of the Mississippi River. Some areas that are banking on wind power, such as west Texas and parts of the Northern Plains, do not show winds slowing nearly as much. Yet, states such as Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Kansas, Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, northern Maine and western Montana show some of the biggest drop in wind speeds."

(If true this would have profound impacts, including a drastic implication on turbines as a source of alternative energy. For the AP article and a thoughtful blog in the Wall Street Journal click here).

Storm Chasers from Australia make a trip to the U.S.

Storm Chasers from Australia make a trip to the U.S.

Thanks to Rich Koivisto, a good friend of mine from Duluth, for this next story. Friends of his from Australia recently made a trip to the United States to catch some wild weather, see the Great Lakes and take lots of pictures! Read about their journey, which took them from just north of Mexico to Lake Superior. The 26 day road trip can be seen here


Check out day 18 when Clyve and Jane (from Down Under) see Lake Superior for the first time - a dream come true!

Want more Australian weather? Check here

As for my friend, Rich Koivisto, his pictures are featured in the Australian Storm Chasing web site here and here and here - here's one of them

Staring up into the "eye" of a tornado

(The Weather Channel caught some amazing video of a tornado in Wyoming over the weekend. They were tagging along with the Vortex2 storm chasers, a huge team of scientists trying to intercept - and study developing tornadoes, using DOW, Doppler on wheels, weather balloons, and a small army of volunteers surrounding tornadic storms with weather instruments. The goal: shed light on how tornadoes form, why some go on to intensify while others weaken rapidly. Word to the wise: don't try this at home!)

To see an amazing tornado clip on MSN.com click here.

What really happened on Air France Flight 447?

The Air France 447 mystery may never be solved beyond a shadow of doubt, but there are some telling, tragic clues to consider based on what we know about the airplane systems and the extreme weather and aerodynamic conditions it encountered before it went down a week ago.

First, a bit of aerodynamics: The doomed Airbus A-330-200 was flying ever so close to its maximum altitude – in a zone pilots call the “Coffin Corner”. It refers to the edge of so-called “flight envelope” of an aircraft. At this altitude, the air is much thinner and that significantly narrows the swath of speed at which the airplane can safely operate.

Check out the complete post at trueslant.com.

(I was always a big fan of Miles O'Brien at CNN, who did a masterful job with science and space-related stories. I was shocked when they let him go last year - to save money, I guess, but what a loss. He is starting his own blog site where you can hear he take on science, astronomy, and aviation-related stories. Here is a thoughtful post on what may have really happened during Air France #447's doomed flight from Brazil to Paris. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is a very believable scenario, based on what little we know from the transcript of the last moments).

Click here to read the rest of Miles' post, including a detailed meteorological explanation of a MCS, a Mesoscale Convective System - a broad swarm of severe thunderstorms that tends to form at night. Tim Vasquez has posted comprehensive information on weather conditions encountered by the Air France flight the night of the apparent crash, another very good read.

New type of cloud discovered?

An "asperatus" cloud rolls over New Zealand's South Island in an undated picture.

This apparently new class of clouds is still a mystery. But experts suspect asperatus clouds' choppy undersides may be due to strong winds disturbing previously stable layers of warm and cold air.

Asperatus clouds may spur the first new classification in the World Meteorological Organization's International Cloud Atlas since the 1950s, Gavin Pretor-Pinney said.

The NationalGeographic.com article is here.

Air France crash may show pilots can be overwhelmed by weather

By John Hughes

June 4 (Bloomberg) -- The crash of an Air France jet this week over a remote stretch of the Atlantic Ocean may show the limits of pilots’ ability to cope with severe weather even after decades of advances in technology, analysts said.

The plane was traveling in an area that lacked coverage from ground-based radar, which controllers otherwise can use to help spot storms, said William Voss, head of the Flight Safety Foundation. With less than one flight an hour in the region, there also would have been few advance reports on conditions from other pilots, he said.

The possibility that storms may have contributed to the crash is an early focus of inquiry as authorities search for the “black box” voice and data recorders that would provide more detailed information of what happened on board. While weather causes fewer crashes than in the past because of advances in radar, pilots still depend on outside guidance to steer clear of dangerous squalls.

“No captain in his right mind would drill a modern airliner through a thunderstorm,” said Jack Casey, a former airline pilot and consultant at Safety Operating Systems LLC in Washington. “It’s just not done.”

The entire Bloomberg article is here.

Russian climatologist blames global warming for Air France crash

Once again, a widely publicized tragedy is being blamed on man-caused global warming.

Warming alarmists have often bemoaned air travel saying it increases the threat of global warming, but this time they’re blaming the phenomenon for the tragedy surrounding Air France Flight 447. That flight is believed to have crashed in the Atlantic Ocean and have claimed up to 228 lives.

Alexei Kokorin, a climatologist for the left-wing World Wildlife Fund’s Russia Climate Program, blamed global warming for the crash. He told Russia Today (RT) on June 4 global warming is to blame for making the weather conditions some think is to blame for the crash more severe.

“A consequence of global warming is that the frequency and severity of such events (severe weather conditions) is higher,” Kokorin said. “Unfortunately, the risk for airplanes, especially in tropical areas above water, will be higher. This could be difficult for pilots to understand.

(Not sure I'm buying this theory, but under the heading of "don't rule anything out" I thought I'd pass this along. I fear we may never know what brought that plane down. The bottom of the Atlantic is nearly 5 miles below the surface; the black box will probably never be recovered). For the complete article click here.

Upper Midwest Storm Chaser Community - www.f5chaser.com

Upper Midwest Storm Chaser Community - www.f5chaser.com

Do you have an interest in storms/weather? Here's your chance to get to know a few of the local (Upper Midwest) storm chaser that live and breathe weather. Some are meteorologist, some are not, but it doesn't matter... if you have an interest or want to know more check it out. Current members have a deep desire to share, teach and discuss all weather related and sometimes non-weather (scientific) goings on.

Check it out, you won't be disappointed... there's a lot of good information/help there!

www.f5chaser.com

Air France 447, a detailed meteorological analysis

Air France flight 447 (AF447), an Airbus A330 widebody jet, was reported missing in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean in the early morning hours of June 1, 2009. The plane was enroute from Rio de Janeiro (SBGL) to Paris (LFPG). Speculation suggested that the plane may have flown into a thunderstorm. The objective of this study was to isolate the aircraft's location against high-resolution satellite images from GOES-10 to identify any association with thunderstorm activity. Breakup of a plane at higher altitudes in a thunderstorm is not unprecedented; Northwest Flight 705 in 1963 and more recently Pulkovo Aviation Flight 612 in 2006 are clear examples.

Back in the 1990s I did flight route forecasting for the Air Force. One of my assignments in summer 1994 was forecasting was the sector between Mombasa, Kenya and Cairo, Egypt for C-5 and C-141 aircraft. The Sudan region had tropical MCS activity similar to this with little in the way of sensor data, so this incident holds some special interest for me as one of our C-5s could easily have followed a very similar fate. Using what's available to me I decided to do a little analysis and see if I could determine anything about the fate of AF447 and maybe through some circuitous, indirect means help give authorities some clues on where to look.

(There's a lot of erroneous information floating around out there; we're still dealing with shear speculation, but this is the best meteorological analysis I've seen yet about what MIGHT have happened on the trans-Atlantic flight and the weather conditions involved). Click here for all the details.

How I captured the perfect storm

A Jack Russell puppy was the first to sense the danger. With ears pinned back, it cowered in the corner, whimpering, trembling. Hail the size of golf balls started smashing against the windows, and then came rain, torrential, relentless, deafening. Women and children were crying and men with tattoos on their tree-trunk biceps looked anxiously about them. Thunder shook the building and rattled our souls. A lightening strike momentarily turned everything a shocking blue before plunging us into darkness.

Suddenly, a siren sounded outside. "Tornado warning!" shrieked a voice from the darkness. "OK, people, listen up!" shouted another voice behind a flickering torch beam. "Everybody, into the walk-in refrigerator. Now!"

It was May, 2008 and I was in a petrol station in Nebraska after seven weeks travelling the American Midwest pursuing tornadoes during the most active tornado season for 50 years. Already 90 people had died, but the season was far from over. As an anthropologist and geographer, I am fascinated by the complex relationship between man and nature, and wanted to get up close and personal with a twister.

Why, I wanted to know, do people insist on living in climatic danger zones? Why do they choose to coexist with natural hazards that could kill or injure them on a seasonal basis? And, as a filmmaker and adventurer, I also wanted the adrenalin buzz of rubbing shoulders with this ferocity – and capturing it on film.

(This is a terrific article, with video highlights. Click here to read the entire post).

Fewest sunspots since 1928

ABOVE: A solar flare observed in Dec. 2006 by NOAA's GOES-13 satellite.

May 29, 2009: An international panel of experts led by NOAA and sponsored by NASA has released a new prediction for the next solar cycle. Solar Cycle 24 will peak, they say, in May 2013 with a below-average number of sunspots.

"If our prediction is correct, Solar Cycle 24 will have a peak sunspot number of 90, the lowest of any cycle since 1928 when Solar Cycle 16 peaked at 78," says panel chairman Doug Biesecker of the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center.

It is tempting to describe such a cycle as "weak" or "mild," but that could give the wrong impression.

"Even a below-average cycle is capable of producing severe space weather," points out Biesecker. "The great geomagnetic storm of 1859, for instance, occurred during a solar cycle of about the same size we’re predicting for 2013."

The complete NASA press release is here. And yes, there is a distinct possibility that the lack of sunspots may be having some impact on recent cooling trends over the arctic and much of North America. The link has not been proven, but researchers are studying a potential correlation between a dearth of sunspot activity and observed temperatures here on Earth.

Risks in rain & shine

Golf is good for your health — for the exercise, the fresh air and the socialization benefits. Heck, doing the math as you try to keep track of all the side bets is good stimulus for the brain.

But we can get too much of a good thing, and I’m not talking about hand calluses or back spasms. Dangerous extremes lurk on the golf course. Two golf hazards not discussed nearly enough are the risk of skin cancer from sun exposure and the peril of lightning.

If you play enough golf, you are regularly exposed to both.

Dermatologists say golfers are notoriously poor at protecting themselves from sun damage and frequently need treatment for harmful lesions on ears, hands and noses. And in a typical year, lightning kills more people than tornadoes or hurricanes. A golf course is an especially dangerous place during a thunderstorm because it has isolated, tall trees and wide-open spaces where golfers can be the tallest target.

Read the complete (and excellent) article from the New York Times here.

Permafrost meltdown may bog down global warming, for awhile

When permafrost thaws, microbes convert ancient organic matter in the frozen soil into climate-warming gases, like carbon dioxide and methane, potentially triggering a positive feedback loop that further melts the Arctic.

But the once-barren soil also spouts new—and larger—shrubs that can act as a carbon sink, and scientists have wondered what the net effect of permafrost thawing would be on atmospheric carbon balance. A new study published this week in Nature suggests that changing landscape can counterbalance the release of permafrost carbon—but only for a little while.

"The greening of the Arctic will not compensate for the huge amount of permafrost carbon that will be released," says lead author Ted Schuur, an ecosystem ecologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville.

Click here for the article in the latest edition of Scientific American.

Paint the world white to fight global warming

(stock photo of Palm Springs, California, where many rooftops are painted white to reflect more of the sun's radiant energy, keeping homes cooler, reducing the need for air conditioning).

As a weapon against global warming, it sounds so simple and low-tech that it could not possibly work. But the idea of using millions of buckets of whitewash to avert climate catastrophe has won the backing of one of the world’s most influential scientists.

Steven Chu, the Nobel prize-winning physicist appointed by President Obama as Energy Secretary, wants to paint the world white. A global initiative to change the colour of roofs, roads and pavements so that they reflect more sunlight and heat could play a big part in containing global warming, he said yesterday.

Speaking at the opening of the St James’s Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium, for which The Times is media partner, Professor Chu said that this approach could have a vast impact. By lightening paved surfaces and roofs to the colour of cement, it would be possible to cut carbon emissions by as much as taking all the world’s cars off the roads for 11 years, he said.

(I laughed when I first read this headline, but the more I looked into it the more sense it made. At the very least you'll cut down on your summer air conditioning bills and save some cash! To read the article in the UK's Times Online click here).

Sea's rise may prove greater in the northeast

In the debate over global warming, one thing is clear: as the planet gets warmer, sea levels will rise. But how much, where and how soon? Those questions are notoriously hard to answer.

Scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, in Boulder, Colo., are now adding to the complexity with a new prediction. If the melting of Greenland’s ice sheets continues to accelerate, they say, sea levels will rise even more in the northeastern United States and Maritime Canada than in other areas around the world.

The researchers, Aixue Hu and Gerald A. Meehl, based their predictions on runoff data from Greenland and an analysis of ocean circulation patterns.

The complete New York Times article is here.

MIT model predicts accelerating warming trends

Hotter and Hotter

If an unusually detailed computer simulation at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has it right, global warming in this century is on track to be about twice as bad as predicted six years ago.

The MIT model is said to be the only one that incorporates among its variables possible changes in economic growth and other human activities and draws on peer-reviewed science on the climatic effects of atmospheric, oceanic and biological systems.

After running the model 400 times with slight variations in the inputs, the new predictions are for surface temperatures to warm by 6.3 to 13.3 degrees Fahrenheit. The prediction is for a 9.4-degree increase in the median temperature, more than double the 4.3 degrees predicted in a 2003 simulation.

Ronald Prinn, co-author of a paper in the Journal of Climate describing the results, said the higher numbers are due to several factors, including better economic modeling, new data showing a lower probability of low-emission scenarios in the future, and better accounting for the effects of past volcanoes and soot emissions.

The simulations also examined what is likely to happen under various policy scenarios. Without strong policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions, the changes in the computer model "stacked up so they caused more projected global warming," Prinn said in a statement. With drastic steps to curb emissions buildup, however, there was less change from the earlier projections.

-- Nils J. Bruzelius

Climate change confusion

A recent survey found that Americans lack consensus on global warming. Americans fall into six distinct groups regarding their climate change beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, according to a new report, Global Warming’s Six Americas, by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities.

The researchers, who surveyed 2,129 American adults, found that 18% of Americans are ‘Alarmed’ about climate change and believe it is happening, 33% are ‘Concerned’ and believe global warming is a serious problem but find it less important and urgent than the ‘Alarmed’ category. Another 19% of the people surveyed are ‘Cautious’ and somewhat convinced that global warming is happening but say they could change their minds.

That’s the good news.

The article in www.greenmuze.com and a link to the complete 140 page pdf document is here.