37 F. high in the Twin Cities Monday.
24 F. average high on January 19.
39 F. high on January 19, 2014.
2" snow on the ground at MSP International Airport.
January 19, 1982: Just over 17 inches of snow fell in the Twin Cities. Amazingly, it was to be outdone two days later.
January 19, 1917: 16 inches of snow falls in the Twin Cities.
"...
But
the fact is that all 15 years since the year 2000 have been among the
top 20 warmest years ever recorded. The odds of this happening randomly,
or as a part of natural variability? About 1.5 quadrillion to one..." - from a story at Forbes, details below.
Atmospheric Speed Bump
After
a freak case of severe clear air turbulence over the Pacific 20 years
ago my wife developed a formidable fear of flying. She'd grip the arm
rest, close her eyes and grit her teeth. "Think of this as potholes in
the sky" I whispered, trying to be helpful. I know, what a dork. "You
don't scream when you hit a pothole do you?"
Pilots are smart
enough to detour around thunderstorms and avoid icing when possible.
Want to live a long life? Don't push the weather.
Variations in
jet stream winds can create pockets of extreme turbulence, capable of
severe injuries for people unlucky enough to be out of their seats or
unbuckled. Airlines and universities are teaming up on promising
technologies to pinpoint areas where conditions are most ripe for
turbulence.
A scrawny Alberta Clipper may paint a few driveways
white today and tonight; the pattern still not ripe for significant
snow. If you're keeping score MSP is running a 10-inch snowfall deficit,
to date.
The Great Lakes and New England bear the brunt of arctic
air the next 2 weeks. Mild Pacific air penetrates inland, keeping our
temperatures from falling off a cliff.
Old Man Winter pulling his punch? No, this won't be a rerun of 2014.
Nagging Snow Drought Central Minnesota.
Latest data from NOAA NOHRSC shows an inch or so of snow on the ground
from the far northern suburbs to St. Cloud, Brainerd, Wadena, Alexandria
and Morris; virtually no snow on the ground near Marshall and Canby.
Yes, this is a bit unusual for late January.
Nervous Farmers.
I don't blame them, with some of the wild swings in moisture and
temperature we've seen in recent years. Weather has always been
volatile, but the frequency and intensity of some of these extremes
appear to be on the increase. Here's an excerpt of an e-mail that came
in yesterday from Greg Larson in Excelsior: "
A couple of photos
taken Sunday out in Meeker County where the snow cover has melted
exposing the barren fields to severe wind erosion. The first picture is a
drainage ditch running into the South Fork of the Crow River. All that
black stuff (topsoil) will be washing downstream come spring melt into
our lakes and rivers. The second photo shows the amount of soil blown
off a neighbors field from the storm early this month. Usually the
severest erosion happens in early spring. If there’s a drought in the
near future and unless farmers start practicing soil stewardship we
might be in for another dustbowl. These photos could have been taken
anywhere in the plains states. Thought you’d be interested in seeing
what’s happening in farm country and the impact of open fields, no snow
and high winds."
Regards,
Greg Larson, Excelsior
Where's The Snow?
The national snowcover map is a bit of a disconnect. On December 19,
2014 snow was covering 41.7% of the lower 48 states. As of yesterday,
just one month later, that was down to 27% Map and data courtesy of
NOAA.
Minor Clipping.
The next swirl of low pressure racing southeast pushes a couple inches
of snow across the Dakotas into central and southern Minnesota, brushing
MSP with a coating to as much as an inch of slushy accumulation. With
temperatures close to freezing many roads and freeways will be wet.
60-hour accumulated snowfall: NOAA NAM and Aeris Weather.
Snowfall Potential.
A few towns near the Minnesota River may wind up with an inch or two of
snow over the next 18 hours; closer to a coating to half an inch for
the Twin Cities. Dribs and drabs. Remember when it really snowed?
Source: Twin Cities National Weather Service.
Above Average.
European guidance shows temperatures averaging about 10F warmer than
normal into the first half of next week; readings topping freezing the
rule, rather than the exception. A coating to 1/2" of snow may fall
today (a little more south/west of the Twin Cities) with another chance
of a nuisance snow Saturday night into Sunday. The outlook for the next
1-2 weeks shows a parade of clippers, but no major snowfalls. Source:
Weatherspark.
More Zonal Than Polar.
Here is the GFS forecast of 500 mb winds (about 18,000 feet) for the
evening of February 1, 2015. Prevailing winds aloft are howling from the
west, implying moderate to mild temperatures across much of the USA and
southern Canada. Map credit: GrADS:COLA/IGES.
Not Exactly Polar.
Minnesota will be grazed by puffs of arctic air, but the thrust of any
cold waves will be aimed at the Great Lakes and New England - just a
glancing blow of numb close to home. GFS extended data shows a brief
hiccup of chilly weather for Groundhog Day on February 2, otherwise
temperatures at or above average.
2014: Earth's Warmest Year On Record. Here's an excerpt of a long post at
NOAA providing more detail on last week's news:
- During 2014, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.24°F (0.69°C) above the 20th century average.
This was the highest among all 135 years in the 1880–2014 record,
surpassing the previous records of 2005 and 2010 by 0.07°F (0.04°C).
- Record warmth was spread around the world,
including Far East Russia into western Alaska, the western United
States, parts of interior South America, most of Europe stretching into
northern Africa, parts of eastern and western coastal Australia, much of
the northeastern Pacific around the Gulf of Alaska, the central to
western equatorial Pacific, large swaths of northwestern and
southeastern Atlantic, most of the Norwegian Sea, and parts of the
central to southern Indian Ocean.
Explainer: How Do Scientists Measure Global Temperature? Carbon Brief
has a good explanation of how NOAA, NASA and JMA (Japan Meteorological
Agency) all came to the conclusion that 2014 was the warmest year,
globally, on record: "...
To get a complete picture of Earth's
temperature, scientists combine measurements from the air above land and
the ocean surface collected by ships, buoys and sometimes satellites,
too. The temperature at each land and ocean station is
compared daily to what is 'normal' for that location and time, typically
the long-term average over a 30-year period. The differences are called
an 'anomalies' and they help scientists evaluate how temperature is
changing over time. A 'positive' anomaly means the temperature is warmer than the long-term average, a 'negative' anomaly means it's cooler..."
Ocean Life Faces Mass Extinction, Broad Study Says.
O.K. Almost interesting, but please pass the sports section and hand me
the remote control to change the channel. Alarmist? I hope so. Here's
the intro to a story at
The New York Times: "
A
team of scientists, in a groundbreaking analysis of data from hundreds
of sources, has concluded that humans are on the verge of causing
unprecedented damage to the oceans and the animals living in them. “We
may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,” said Douglas
J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa
Barbara, and an author of the new research, which was published on Thursday in the journal Science. But there is still time to avert catastrophe, Dr. McCauley and his colleagues also found..." (File photo: NOAA).
AI Has Arrived, And That Really Worries The World's Leading Minds. Beware smart robots, especially those that don't have the latest ethics-chip upgrade. Here's an excerpt from
WIRED: "...
Pledging
not to build the Terminator is but one step. AI companies such as
Google must think about the safety and legal liability of their
self-driving cars, whether robots will put humans out of a job, and the
unintended consequences of algorithms that would seem unfair to humans.
Is it, for example, ethical for Amazon to sell products at one price to
one community, while charging a different price to a second community?
What safeguards are in place to prevent a trading algorithm from crashing the commodities markets? What will happen to the people who work as bus drivers in the age of self-driving vehicles?..."
Humanity Keeps Discovering Brilliant New Ways To Destroy Itself. Here's an excerpt from a sobering story at
Quartz: "
It
is not just nuclear weapons that threaten humanity. The Bulletin has in
the past decade formally expanded its remit to include new threats to
civilization, namely climate change and biological warfare. The magazine
also informally looks at other threats, such as cyberwar that could
spark real world confrontation; synthetic biology that could create new
pandemics; and lethal autonomous weapons (or “killer robots”) that can
target and fire without human intervention. The Bulletin also is
beginning to look at artificial intelligence..."
Forget Myers-Briggs: To Build A Great Team Focus on "Factor C". Here's a clip from an interesting post at
LinkedIn: "...
Good
players mesh. This observation may be a cliché, but it’s nevertheless
important to keep in mind: personalities—not merely abilities—matter. In
this regard, most people’s intuition, at least in Western cultures,
would lead us to two conclusions. First, some personality types are far
better than others (Bill Russell and Magic Johnson, as opposed to the
early Michael Jordan). Second, successful groups have a good mixture of
personality types..."
Cities On Earth Evolve In The Same Way As Galaxies In Space.
Quartz has another fascinating article; here's an excerpt: "...
Scientists
now think they have found the source for these scaling laws out in
space. Henry Lin and Abraham Loeb at the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for
Astrophysics have used models for showing how galaxies evolve based on
matter density to propose a unifying theory for scaling laws of human populations..." (Image: NASA, Flickr).
TODAY: Coating of light snow and flurries. Winds: NE 8+ High: 33
TUESDAY NIGHT: Flurries (heavier snow south/west of MSP). Low: 23
WEDNESDAY: Flurries taper, above average temps. High: 31
THURSDAY: Mostly cloudy and quiet. Cooler. Wake-up: 19. High: 27
FRIDAY: Another sloppy thaw. Mild breeze. Wake-up: 21. High: 37
SATURDAY: Leftover clouds, relatively mild. Wake-up: 28. High: 34
SUNDAY: Early coating, then colder. Wake-up: 25. High: 27
MONDAY: Clouds increase, few flurries. Wake-up: 14. High: 28
Climate Stories...
2014 Breaks Heat Record, Challenging Global Warming Skeptics. In case you missed the formal announcement late last week here's an excerpt of a Justin Gillis article at
The New York Times: "...
Extreme
heat blanketed Alaska and much of the western United States last year.
Records were set across large areas of every inhabited continent. And
the ocean surface was unusually warm virtually everywhere except near
Antarctica, the scientists said, providing the energy that fueled
damaging Pacific storms. In the annals of climatology, 2014 surpassed
2010 as the warmest year. The 10 warmest years have all occurred since
1997, a reflection of the relentless planetary warming that scientists
say is a consequence of human activity and poses profound long-term
risks to civilization and nature..."
Map credit: NOAA, NASA, New York Times.
Global Warming Made 2014 A Record Hot Year.
Here's more perspective on last year's warmth, which is significant in
light of the absence of a significant El Nino. An excerpt courtesy of
The Guardian: "...
But what’s really remarkable is that 2014 set this record without the aid of an El Niño event. El Niño events
create conditions in which sea surface and hence global surface
temperatures are anomalously hot. We call this part of the Earth’s
“internal variability” because these events just temporarily shift heat
around between the ocean surface and its depths. As this graphic shows (click here for an animated version), the last five record hot years of 2010, 2005, 1998, 1997, and 1995 were all assisted by El Niño events..."
Animation credit:
Skeptical Science.
It's Official: 2014 Was The Hottest Year On Record.
Bloomberg has a remarkable animation that puts the recent warming into stark perspective: "
Deny this. The animation below
shows the Earth’s warming climate, recorded in monthly measurements
from land and sea over 135 years. Temperatures are displayed in degrees
above or below the 20th-century average. Thirteen of the 14 hottest
years are in the 21st century."
Scientists: Human Activity Has Pushed Earth Beyond Four of Nine "Planetary Boundaries".
The Washington Post has the grim details; here's a clip: "
At
the rate things are going, the Earth in the coming decades could cease
to be a “safe operating space” for human beings. That is the conclusion
of a new paper published Thursday in the journal Science
by 18 researchers trying to gauge the breaking points in the natural
world. The paper contends that we have already crossed four “planetary
boundaries.” They are the extinction rate; deforestation; the level of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; and the flow of nitrogen and
phosphorous (used on land as fertilizer) into the ocean..."
Scientists Drill Through 2,400 Feet Of Antarctic Ice For Climate Clues.
How quickly will glaciers continue to melt, in light of rising air and
sea temperatures? Here's an excerpt of an interesting article at
Scientific American: "
Scientists
have drilled into one of the most isolated depths in all of the world’s
oceans: a hidden shore of Antarctica that sits under 740 meters of ice,
hundreds of kilometers in from the sea edge of a major Antarctic ice
shelf. Humans have never glimpsed this place; reaching it required seven
years of planning and 450 tonnes of fuel and gear. But understanding
what is happening down there, so far from human view, will be crucial
for predicting the future fate of Antarctica’s ice sheets amid rising temperatures..."
Image credit above: "
Pebbles
just discovered under 730 meters of ice in Antarctica, where the
bottoms of glaciers first touch the sea, could reveal clues as to how
fast those glaciers could slide into the ocean, raising sea level." Credit: Whillans Ice Stream Subglacial Access Research Drilling Project.
The Majority of Republicans Believe In Regulating Carbon Emissions.
Set a price on excessive carbon pollution, as you would for any other
pollutant, and let the markets come up with cost-effective solutions.
Here's a clip from
Pacific Standard: "...
By
polling a wide range of Republicans—liberal leaning, moderate,
conservative, and Tea Party members—researchers have shown that,
overall, 56 percent of Republicans support regulating carbon dioxide as a
pollutant. Predictably, the subdivided percentages reflect how far
right each group leans: 71 percent of liberal Republicans and 74 percent
of moderate Republicans believe carbon dioxide should be regulated,
while only 54 percent of conservatives and 36 percent of Tea Party
Republicans do..."
The End Of The Partisan Divide Over Climate Change.
I want to be optimistic, but with the amount of money in play, the
valuable carbon reserves still in the ground, I'm expecting more
confusion, denial and rationalization for a fossil-fuels-as-usual
economy. Here's a clip from a story at
Forbes: "...
That’s precisely what the American Petroleum Institute did when it released its annual State of American Energy Report
two weeks ago. Amid its bullish assessment of the nation’s ongoing boom
in shale oil and gas, the leading fossil fuel trade group clearly and
unequivocally acknowledged the threat of global warming, and highlighted
— at some length — the steady rise of solar power as an encouraging
sign..."
U.F. Professor Ties Global Warming to Wheat Decline.
The Orlando Sentinel has the story - here's the introduction: "
Wheat
crops could suffer badly as global temperature rise this century,
according a new study led by a University of Florida scientist. Steering
an international team of 50 scientists, UF professor Senthold Asseng
determined that a global temperature rise of nearly 2 degrees will cause
a 6 percent failure in world wheat production, according to a
university announcement of the study Wednesday..."
Pope on Climate Change: Man Has "Slapped Nature In The Face". Here's a clip from a story at AP and
ABC News: "...
I
don't know if it (human activity) is the only cause, but mostly, in
great part, it is man who has slapped nature in the face," he said. "We
have in a sense taken over nature." "I think we have exploited nature
too much," Francis said, citing deforestation and monoculture. "Thanks
be to God that today there are voices, so many people who are speaking
out about it." Francis, who pledged on the day of his installation as
pope to make the environment a priority, said he expected his encyclical
on ecology to be released by June or July. He said he wanted it out in
plenty of time to be read and absorbed before the next round of climate
change negotiations opens in Paris in November after the last round in
Lima, Peru, failed to reach an agreement..."
The Logic of Divestment: Why We Have To Kiss Off Big Carbon Now. Here's a clip from
RollingStone that got my attention: "...
A
2013 study by the bank HSBC warned that between 40 and 60 percent of
the market value of European fossil-fuel companies, like BP and Royal
Dutch Shell, could be wiped out in a carbon-constrained world. This past
October, the head of England's central bank, Mark Carney, declared that
"the vast majority of reserves are unburnable." Carney warned that
fossil-fuel investors, focused on short-term profits, were not pricing
in this reality – a phenomenon he called a "tragedy of horizons..."
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