GR8TFULL
Driving back from a speech to farmers in Lake
Crystal last week I saw a license plate that made me think. GR8TFULL.
Most of us are so preoccupied with everything that's wrong with our
lives; it's helpful to remember what's going right.
Yes, our delayed spring is annoying, but
persistent chill has slowed snow melt & delayed severe storm season.
2012's jaw-dropping warmth was accompanied by a severe drought. The
current pattern is a radical departure from last year's dry, Pacific
wind. There's growing evidence of a sustained flow from the Gulf of
Mexico, pulling enough moisture north to gradually ease our drought by
late spring.
That's the hope & expectation.
Wind chill in early April is a major annoyance,
but it may bode well for a year of more normal temperatures and rainfall
patterns across the Upper Midwest.
Winds ease today; 50F will feel great tomorrow.
Try to ignore snowy rumors for late week. The European (ECMWF) model
hints at 40s to near 50F Saturday with a few showers. Steadier, heavier
rain arrives late Sunday into Monday. How this rain impacts area rivers
is still unclear, but it pays to be perpetually paranoid.
Live near a stream or river? Stay alert.
Warming Trend. ECMWF data suggests 50 by Wednesday
and Thursday, even a slight shot at 60F Saturday before a round of
showers and T-showers move through. Heavier, steadier rain is possible
late Sunday into Monday, the wettest day in sight.
Sliding Into A Wet Pattern. I see three rain events
over the next week: showers and possible thunder Saturday, much heavier
rain late Sunday into midday Monday (potentially mixed with wet snow
over central Minnesota), then another chance of steady/heavy rain a week
from Thursday.
Storm Machine. By Monday upper level winds (500mb
winds at 18,000 feet) will be blowing from the southwest, pulling Gulf
moisture northward. As long as a storm in the upper atmosphere is stuck
over the southwestern USA the potential for significant rain events over
the Plains and Upper Midwest will be high. My concern: enough rain to
(rapidly) melt snow up north, which would accelerate snow melt and
heighten the risk of river flooding, especially Red River Valley. It's
too early to say, but I could definitely envision a rapidly escalating
river flood risk up north by mid and late April, just looking at how the
pattern is setting up.
Idaho Duststorm Speeds Up Snowmelt: "Nobody On Our Staff Has Ever Witnessed Anything Similar". Here's an excerpt of a bizarre story courtesy of
Think Progress: "...
Another day, another amplifying feedback of Dust-Bowlification. The Idaho Statesman reports:
A dust storm that covered the mountains accelerated runoff at the end
of winter, exposing scientists to a strange event. Scientists say the
storm on March 6 caused unprecedented melting. The dust-on-snow show
came during five hours of wind that averaged 34 miles per hour and
gusted up to 57 mph on ridgelines at the Reynolds Creek Experimental
Watershed in the northern Owyhee Mountains. Hydrologists at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture research area then observed accelerated
melting from March 10 to March 16, when a new dusting of snow covered
the layer of dirty snow. “Nobody on our staff has ever witnessed
anything similar,” said research hydrologist Adam Winstral..."
Photo credit above: "
Considerable snow had already melted by March 11 at the same spot in Owyhee Mountains. Credit: USDA."
Fire Weather. Mace and Kim Michaels sent in these
photos of smoke plumes from massive wildfires in southern Florida that
have scorched an estimated 16,000 acres of land in Alligator Alley.
Amazing Aurora. Details via AuroraMAX: "
AURORAMAX GALLERY • Latest of borealis above Yellowknife, NWT taken at 01:38 MDT on April 1, 2013. "
No April Fool's Day Joke. The National Weather
Service in Marquette, Michigan released this photo Monday, showing their
weather instruments buried in 3-5 foot snow drifts. No, spring is
nowhere in sight over the U.P. of Michigan.
World's Top Supercomputer From '09 Is Obsolete, Will Be Dismantled. Here's an excerpt of a fascinating, if a bit unsettling, article from
Ars Technica: "
Five
years ago, an IBM-built supercomputer designed to model the decay of
the US nuclear weapons arsenal was clocked at speeds no computer in the
history of Earth had ever reached. At more than one quadrillion
floating point operations per second (that's a million billion, or a
"petaflop"), the aptly named Roadrunner was so far ahead of the
competition that it earned the #1 slot
on the Top 500 supercomputer list in June 2008, November 2008, and one
last time in June 2009. Today, that computer has been declared obsolete
and it's being taken offline. Based at the US Department of Energy's
Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, Roadrunner will be
studied for a while and then ultimately dismantled. While the computer
is still one of the 22 fastest in the world, it isn't energy-efficient
enough to make the power bill worth it..."
Photo credit above: "
Roadrunner, formerly the world's fastest supercomputer, is being decommissioned today." Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Best April Fool's Pranks. There are some good ones
in here, including "Google Nose", and a new mouthwash I just can't get
enough of. Check out the details and videos at
Huffington Post.
* Buzzfeed has more funny April Fool's Day spoofs
here.
* photo above courtesy of Tim Butz.
Climate Stories....
Recent Warming Is Still Unprecedented In Speed, Scale and Cause. Here's an excerpt from
Think Progress: "
Earlier this month, we reported on a new study by Marcott et al. in Science: Recent Warming Is ‘Amazing And Atypical’ And Poised To Destroy Stable Climate That Enabled Civilization. It was the source of most of the data in this popular, jaw-dropping graph.
Now Real Climate has posted a summary and FAQ by Shaun Marcott and colleagues, which I’ll excerpt below. As the real climate scientists at RC note:
Our view is that the results of the paper will stand the test of
time, particularly regarding the small global temperature variations
in the Holocene. If anything, early Holocene warmth might be
overestimated in this study.
The main, stunning conclusion we can draw from the paper is that the rate of warming since 1900 is 50 times greater than the rate of cooling in the previous 5000 years, which undermines the whole notion of adaptation..."
Graphic credit above: "
Temperature change over past 11,300 years (in blue, via Science, 2013) plus projected warming this century on humanity’s current emissions path (in red, via recent literature)."
Changing Seasons. Here's an excerpt of a story from physicist Mark Boslough at
Huffington Post: "...
Scientists
and meteorologists have voiced growing concerns that the winter season
is disappearing across much of the northern hemisphere. Dr. Jeff Masters
put it bluntly, "Mother Nature has fast-forwarded past spring and gone
straight to summer over the Midwest." Now a group of scientists who see
this trend as unstoppable have proposed changing the way we define
seasons. Mark Boslough, a New Mexico physicist, explained, "We have
chosen to define seasons in a very arbitrary way. Seasons are an
artifact of human creation and it's time for an update." Boslough
pointed out that astronomy went through a similar controversial
redefinition in 2006, when the International Astronomical Union
redefined the meaning of the word "planet" and removed Pluto from the
list..."
Photo caption above: "
Earliest closing day yet ."
Global Warming Expands Antarctic Sea Ice. It's counterintuitive, yes, but warming around Antarctic is actually increasing the amount of sea ice, as reported by
Nature; here's an excerpt: "...“
The
paradox is that global warming leads to more cooling and more sea ice
around Antarctica,” says Richard Bintanja, a climate researcher at the
Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute in Utrecht. Bintanja and his
colleagues show that enhanced melting of the Antarctic ice sheet —
which is losing mass at a rate of 250 gigatonnes yearly — has probably
been the main factor behind the small but statistically significant
sea-ice expansion in the region..."
Photo credit above: "
Cool meltwater from the Antarctic ice sheet insulates sea ice from warm ocean currents." Robyn Waserman, National Science Foundation
Americans Want Climate Change Preparation, Don't Want To Pay For It. Environmental Leader has the story - here's a snippet: "
An
overwhelming majority of Americans want to prepare to minimize likely
damage caused by global warming-induced sea-level rise and storms, but
most citizens want people whose properties and businesses are located
in hazard areas – not the government – to foot the bill for such
measures, according to a survey conducted by the Stanford Woods
Institute for the Environment and the Center for Ocean Solutions. Some
82 percent of those surveyed said that people and organizations should
prepare for climate change in advance, rather than simply deal with the
damage after it happens. Among the most popular policy solutions
identified: strengthening building codes for how to build new
structures along the coast to minimize damage, favored by 62 percent of
respondents, and preventing new buildings from being built near the
coast, which was supported by 51 percent...."
What Deniers Of Climate Change Must Deny. Here's an excerpt of a Doug Craig post at
Redding.com: "...
There
are numerous facts, truths and realities climate change deniers must
deny in order to cling to their delusions and remain active members in
the science denial club. Here is another one.
2) The history of climate science. We have nearly 200 years of climate science starting with Joseph Fourier who first considered "the possibility that the Earth's atmosphere might act as an insulator of some kind" and first proposed what is now known as the greenhouse effect.
Over the years we have had Tyndall, Arrhenius, Callendar, Plass, Suess, Revelle, Keeling, Charney, Lovelock, Hansen, Broecker, Oreskes and Schneider,
to name but a tiny few of the important figures who have made
significant contributions to climate science. Most of us will leave
little record of lasting import that we were here or did anything of
significance for humanity. Unlike these giants of science. Climate
change deniers must deny the very history of the science that has
brought us to this moment. In fact, the less they know, the better.
If they actually studied and understood climate science, they would not
be deniers..."
Global Warming: The Earth is Hurting. Here's the intro to an Op-Ed at Pakistan's
Express Herald: "
We
have an amazing planet, the only one in the universe with a perfect
ecosystem. It has enough food and water, amazing species and a nature
which has created the perfect balance for long-term sustenance. Human
intervention and abuse is unfortunately destroying this fine balance
and if we do not take corrective action soon, we may not leave an
inhabitable planet for future generations. Why is Earth hurting? The
reason has nothing to do with the fact that humans have passed the 7
billion mark and another 2 billion will be added by 2050; God’s grand
design can sustain human population far beyond this number. The reason
has more to do with how we treat Earth, how callous we are when it
comes to controlling pollution, deforestation and ozone depletion..." (photo above: Reuters).
