First a little update on all the great electric vehicle (EV) news I reported on yesterday. Besides developing the Volt, GM is also working with utility companies to make sure people will be able to charge their hybrids on the grid. The Wired blog states (as I suggested yesterday) that GM has bet its future on the Volt. Even though it seems they are working feverishly on the Volt, it is still not projected to be on showroom floors until late 2010. That is a long time – they might be too late to be a dominant player in this developing market. All the buzz about EVs is bubbling over at plug-in 2008, a conference in San Jose occurring right now. Here is some more coverage of the conference. Some people are skeptical about GM’s efforts with hybrid vehicles because of the EV1 – a failed effort by GM from a few years back. I am not skeptical. The EV1 was ahead of its time. The battery technology was not good enough. Right now GM is in a life and death struggle for survival and if they don’t start producing more fuel efficient vehicles (up to the 100mpg that is possible with plug-ins) they will get crushed by the competition.

Something else I need to update you on is organic light emitting diodes (OLED – a potential successor to compact fluorescent lighting). A few days ago I linked to a story about Purdue University building cheaper OLEDs by using silicon instead of sapphire (see here). Now the University of Michigan and Princeton have developed a way to make OLEDs more efficient – producing up to 70 lumens per watt. Compact fluorescent lighting typically produces 90 lumens per watt but contains toxic chemicals and don’t last as long.

A lot of the discussion involving these new technologies and alternative energy revolve around global warming. Last week Al Gore stated the very future of humanity is in peril because of AGW. Despite all the predictions of nearly unavoidable environmental Armageddon, there has been some dissent and it seems to be growing a bit. Here is an opinion article that does a good job summarizing the basic criticisms – including that climate models have large errors and the temperature of the earth has not warmed since 1998. Something that was not mentioned is that the fossil fuel scenarios that are used in the models are mostly unrealistic. The amount of fossil fuel usage projected by the IPCC is overestimated. I could see this blow-back coming just based on the strident positions of AGW proponents over the last few years. They have been quite adamant that variations in the sun’s energy output has had absolutely no effect on the climate in the last century – which is ridiculous – as it is basic common sense – which is why we have now seen at least one group of researchers inject some sanity back into the discussion by claiming – yes – the sun does affect the earth’s climate, at least to some degree. Also, natural climate variability seems to be a lot larger than previously thought considering the discovery of ostracod fossils in Antarctica dating back only 14 million years. In order for these crustaceans to survive, the temperature in Antarctica would have had to be 30 degrees warmer than they are today.

If we are lucky and the temperature of the earth does not change all that much over the next couple decades, then maybe conservationists will start canceling their plans to move species to different parts of the world in order to protect them from AGW. Moving species to places where they are not adapted or evolved to fit in could be disastrous. The very slow pace of climate change – whether it gets warmer or colder – allows animals to adapt. Humans moving them from here to there to everywhere would be very risky and could create more problems than it solves.

Ok, enough about the far term, how about a little shorter term forecast? The CPC monthly outlooks (found here) indicate a chance of cooler than normal weather across the Ohio Valley region of the U.S. during the month of August. This chance includes far southern Wisconsin and is close enough to our area to at least consider that our cooler than normal trend will continue. We have not yet hit 90 officially in Wausau this year and the odds are going up that we might go without hitting 90 for the entire year. What about after August? If you click through the next several months on the CPC page you will see a high chance of warmer than normal weather for the Fall and Winter here in Northcentral Wisconsin. Since there is no El Nino right now in the Pacific, I am a bit skeptical of this forecast. Also, the 2, 3, 4 month outlooks from earlier this year were also showing warmer than normal temps and they did not materialize.

How about the even shorter term? Today is sunsational and temps will be in the upper 70s to low 80s. This temperature range will persist for the rest of this week into early next week making for a very comfortable stretch weather. The next chance of a hotter weather will be the mid to latter part of next week. It will be a bit humid on Friday with a chance of thunderstorms, then the humidity should go down again for the weekend.

To wrap up today’s blog, how about this unique photograph of colorful birds all sitting on the bird feeder. What you see are a gold finch, a purple finch, a rose-breasted grossbeak, and an indigo bunting. The picture was taken by Jeff Koch from the UP of Michigan.

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Tropical Storm Dolly has now been upgraded to Hurricane Dolly.  Dolly is currently a minimal hurricane with sustained winds up to 75 miles per hour.  Dolly is gradually strengthening and continues its northwesterly track towards the far southern tip of Texas.  Dolly’s landfall is pretty definite, but there still some uncertainty as to where exactly the core of the hurricane will make landfall.  Right now the Texas/Mexico border looks to be the bullseye, putting the popular spring break destination of South Padre Island in the thick of things.  Here is the latest coordinates, stats, and forecasted track of Dolly as of 7:00 p.m. CDT Tuesday.

Dolly will continue to track over warmer waters and is expected to strengthen before landfall…a category 2 hurricane is not out of question.

Here is the link to more Dolly Discussion!!!

I always get a kick out of Meteorologists reporting out in a hurricane.  I think it would be awesome, but I’m sure I would just look as silly as these guys.  Here are a few of my favorite clips.

Click the links and enjoy!!

Hang on Roker..

Slippin and a Slidin

Watch Out!

Meteorologist Brian Niznansky

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If you like tracking hurricanes then you should be happy with the new National Hurricane Center website. Check it out and you will see an interactive map on the front page that shows current storms and potential storms. Today you will see Dolly and Christobal on the map. Dolly is the storm that could pose a threat to the U.S. mainland but only along the far south Texas coast. It might become a category 1 hurricane before making landfall. Flooding along the Rio Grande Valley after the storm makes landfall could be the biggest threat.

No threat of flooding here in Northcentral Wisconsin, although the rain did get a little heavier than expected yesterday in a couple areas. Here in Wausau the official total at the airport was only 0.06". In Whiting our weather watcher reported 0.32". In Necedah and Arkdale 0.75 inches was reported. Merritt in Gresham checked in with 1.00". Before moving on to the forecast for the rest of the week I want to correct an error from yesterday. I reported that the total rainfall for the year here in Wausau was up to 17.11 inches. That is an error. The actual total is 18.50 inches (even better!). Also, how about a nice picture of the thunderstorms moving off to the east yesterday afternoon. Melissa Filtz of Galloway snapped this one:

Once again we will be dealing with some widely scattered showers and thunderstorms this afternoon although I don’t think the rainfall amounts will be as heavy as yesterday. High pressure moving in tonight will clear the skies out and keep the weather very nice all the way through late Thursday afternoon. A storm system moving through the area Thursday evening and Friday will bring a chance of thunderstorms and then it looks like the weather will clear up again for the weekend. Friday will be the warmest day (low to mid 80s) with the highest humidity, then it should be comfortable again on Saturday and Sunday.

Energy News:

It is good to see the presidential Candidates keeping their energy plans wide in scope and including electric vehicles in the mix. John McCain recently visited the GM Volt development facility. If GM really want to take a gamble on the future, they should pour a lot more resources into the Volt and other models like it – work overtime – 24 hours a day – and get them out before 2010. The only way they will remain a relevant car company is if they for once beat international car-makers to a new technology. Former Presidential candidate Al Gore and Barack Obama are on the same page when it comes to moving onto electric power – as long as it is not being produced with fossil fuels. Gore even went as far to say that the "survival of the U.S. as we know it, is at risk" and "the future of human civilization is at stake". I know he has issued dire warnings before, but I don’t know if he claimed the entire  human civilization was going down the tubes. I am not sure if I can add this statement to the big list of bad things that will be caused by AGW because it is not an official "study". I’ll think on it.

Another nugget of good news is that more people are becoming a little more skeptical of the "hydrogen economy". The article projects that the price of a hydrogen fuel cell vehicle could come down enough to be competitive with conventional vehicles…..by 2023! Yikes. First of all, trying to predict what is going to happen over the course of the next 15 years is a fool’s errand. I suppose someone has to do it, but technology changes so fast nowadays that fuel cells might not even be in the lexicon by 2023. Secondly there is the infrastructure problem. The U.S. could nearly go bankrupt trying to install a hydrogen production and distribution network across the U.S. Thirdly, hybrids and electric cars are going to take over the roadways in the next 2 to 3 years and will have huge advantages (economies of scale) over fuel cell vehicles way before hydrogen becomes a glint in the the consumer’s eye. The best part about the electric and hybrid vehicle development is that it is almost all happening within private industry. Car companies are making these vehicles because consumers want them and they make economic sense. In contrast, government sponsored energy alternatives like ethanol and hydrogen have turned out to be big budget expenses with no much of a future.

While we are on the subject of electric vehicles how about a look at another electric sports car that most of us will not be able to afford.

Details are scarce, but SSC says an Ultimate Aero EV prototype will be ready by February and it plans to roll out four production models by December. The company describes the Tesla destroyer as a "pollution-free, engineering marvel with an exotic supercar exterior."

More super news here: The state of Texas recently approved a 4.93 billion wind infrastructure plan. Maybe you have heard of Boone Pickens’ energy plan. He wants the U.S. to move toward more wind power and natural gas. Texas has responded by passing this plan. The wind farms in remote areas (like the one Pickens is building) would be worthless unless they can connect to the grid. Texas will spend the money to build the electric grid out to the more remote areas.

Space News:

Lastly, since we don’t yet have any scientific results from Phoenix, how about a picture clearly showing areas on the Martian surface where water used to flow. It is amazing how much it looks like a river delta here on the planet earth.

Meteorologist Justin Loew

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As the waters in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic heat up…so is the tropical activity threatening coastal communities.  First there is Tropical Storm Cristobal hugging the mid-Atlantic Coast.  Cristobal currently has 65 mile per hour sustained winds making it a strong tropical storm.  Given the storms forecasted track over the next couple of will start to work farther and farther from the coast, posing very little threat to landfall.  This is not the case with Tropical Storm Dolly churning in the southern Gulf of Mexico.  Dolly’s strength has been holding steady, but is expected to strengthen before possibly making landfall in Southern Texas.  If the forecasted track holds…Dolly could make landfall as a hurricane somewhere in between Brownsville and Corpus Cristi. 

  Dolly will continue to track through warm waters, and with favorable upper level conditions, she will likely strengthen.  For an active blog on Dolly check out this link.

Meteorologist Brian Niznansky

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It rained over the weekend but most of it occurred Saturday evening and thus hopefully did not upset too many weekend plans. I did hear word that Rockfest concerts on Saturday night were postponed or delayed because of the severe weather (can’t confirm it though). I happened to get caught in the rain with my church clothes on. I traveled to Stevens Point for a wedding. The tire on my car went flat on the way there and eventually I had to replace the tire with the small doughnut spare. On the way back to Wausau, the spare went flat. So I had to walk through the rain to the nearest home and make a call for a wrecker service. It was a bummer. One of the interesting things was even though I was wet, the weather was warm enough that it did not bother me too much. A sign of summer and the "tropical" humidity levels for sure. Most times of year the rain and the air is much cooler and would make most people shiver including myself. One good thing about the recent rain (of course there are lots of good things about rain) is that it brought our yearly total back above normal. The total in Wausau for July is now up to 3.25 inches. For the year the total is 17.11 inches. You can check all the latest temperature, wind, and rainfall data for many cities in Wisconsin at the NWS Green Bay website.

You might get caught in an isolated shower or thunderstorm this afternoon or again tomorrow afternoon but most of the area should remain dry. A higher chance of thunderstorms and heavier rainfall will be Thursday night through Friday as another cold front moves through Wisconsin. For the upcoming weekend, right now, it looks like very pleasant conditions with lower humidity and high temps in the upper 70s.

LED Update

Nope, no new news on the Polybrite Bulbs. The last I saw, they are still selling for $50 on the Internet – a price that makes it more novelty than commodity. I am sure Polybrite is still trying to find ways to bring the price down but who knows when we will see it. So we turn elsewhere. Hope for more efficient and cheaper LED lighting today comes from Purdue University. They have experimented with using silicon in the lighting element rather than sapphire. Go Biolermakers!

How about a viewer photograph to round out the blog post for today. This one taken by Mary Romportl. She caught this bird feeder thief red-handed.

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Wow, it has been a crazy weather week across the Badger State!!!  There has been severe weather somewhere across the state since Wednesday and the only day where there wasn’t a warning in our viewing area was Friday.  Let’s do a quick recap:

Wednesday, July 16 – Severe storms rolled through the area around lunchtime producing damaging winds and large hail

Thursday, July 17 – There was a Severe Thunderstorm Watch with a few isolated warnings in the Northwoods  but most of the area received just some heavy rainfall that produced flash flooding south

Friday, July 18 – No severe weather in the viewing area

Saturday, July 19 – Tornado Watch issued in the later afternoon hours, one severe thunderstorm warning in Portage county and an EF1 tornado in Menasha, WI (near Appleton) – more on that to come

Sunday, July 20 – Isolated strong to severe storms formed in the evening with hail up to 1" in diameter, activity stayed pretty scattered

Will the active pattern come to an end?  I think so at least temporarily.  A cold front will push through Monday with just an isolated shower or storm expected.  Dew points will fall into the 50s so it will feel a lot more comfortable outside.  So what is the reason for all this active weather?  Well it had to do with a stationary front that bounced across the Badger State Wednesday-Sunday.  Along that stationary front, little waves of energy formed and rode along it with enough moisture and instability to support thunderstorm growth.  If I recall a similar event happened in 2005 but it was much more substantial with several tornadoes touching down over parts of the state.  We were in a position where most of the waves of energy were weak and there wasn’t a huge clash of air masses which also helped.  Nevertheless, this has been a complicated event with so many little meteorological things going on but I have learned a lot as a forecaster!!!  Below are a panel of radar reflectivity images for Wednesday-Sunday:

Image 1:  July 16 at 1 pm

Image 2:  July 17 at 3 pm

Image 3:  July 19 at 9 pm  

Image 4:  July 20 at 9 pm

The event that intrigued me the most was Saturday’s because that is when SPC issued a Tornado Watch for the area – to refresh your memory of where the watch was located click on this link!  Now the thunderstorms back in MN did produce a few tornadoes but the environment that they were moving into was not quite conducive for that type of development.  Which reminds me, I would like to ask you all how we can better convey severe weather to you as viewers?  Is there something that we should add to help you better understand the situation, change our wording, presentation, anything?  We give you lots of information during a severe weather event to keep you aware so that you can protect yourself before the storm hits and we get the information out to you in the instant that we get it ourselves!!!   However, knowing what you want or would like more of helps us tremendously so e-mail me at msyner@waow.com with any ideas – maybe its distinguishing warnings from watches, etc.  Thank you!

There was one other really interesting thing about Saturday – there was a tornado, an EF1 to be exact outside the viewing area and it touched down at 10:45 pm in Menasha which is a few miles north of Neenah and south of Appleton.  The tornado was on the ground for a very short time but it was enough to do some damage to a few buildings.  Now, after viewing the reflectivity images I would not have expected the tornado to be in that location.  When you are talking about a bow echo, the most likely location of a tornado is at the leading edge of the bow where there is typically the highest wind threat but as I learned this is not always the case.  Very few severe weather reports came in that night and it just makes us aware of how important storm reports are which is why I tend to encourage you as viewers to report any severe weather that you see!  Luckily, no one was hurt but to read more on this event and to see some really cool radar images, go to this link that the NWS Green Bay put together!

I think that is enough for tonight!  It has been awhile since I’ve posted so hopefully you enjoy!  Have a great night!

Meteorologist Megan Syner

Posted under Science

Sorry, once again I was unable to get some good photos of the garden and lemon tree. There wasn’t any severe weather, but it rained most of the afternoon yesterday. I figured any pics of vegetation would look much better on a sunny day. In that case, this afternoon might fit the bill. Skies should turn partly sunny first in the northwoods and then later in the southern half of the area. The dry weather should last through tonight and through much of Saturday. By late afternoon Saturday and into the night the chance of thunderstorms will increase once again. Sunday should be very similar with dry weather through most of the day and then a chance of thunderstorms in the evening and overnight. High pressure should take over the situation on Monday afternoon and keep the weather dry and comfortable through Wednesday afternoon. Late next week things could heat up again with another chance of rain.

Since I don’t have pictures of my own, how about a few viewer photographs. Sorry about the poor picture formatting of our blogging software. I’ll list the names of the people first and then show their photographs in order. The first pic is very interesting, something I have not seen before. Bev Thompson shot the photo near Gilman of what appears to be a round bale of hay struck by lightning and subsequently burning. The second picture is a beautiful sunset from Teal Lake in northern Wisconsin taken by Bob Freeman. The third photo is a sunset over a lake near Crandon taken by Tammie Szymanski. Lastly are some unique colorful cirrus clouds over lake Michigan – picture taken by Harry & Diane Weber. I have got a lot of AGW and energy news as well as space and tech news but that will have to wait until Monday. I will leave you with a picture gallery of the future – images and information from the Intersolar Conference going on in California right now. Take a look here to see how industry is getting behind the solar revolution.

Meteorologist Justin Loew

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Because of the severe weather yesterday I was unable to get an updated picture of the garden and lemon tree. Stayed tuned, hopefully tomorrow.

The thunderstorms that formed yesterday ended up producing isolated large hail, high wind, and torrential downpours. Our weather watchers and viewers in the southern part of the area reported 1 to 2 inches of rain. Here are some of the amounts:

1. Bevent: 2.05"
2. Almond: 2.00"
3. Plainfield: 1.95"
4. Stevens Point 0.97"
5. Whiting: 1.50"
6. Wisconsin Rapids: 1.00"

The winds were clocked at over 50 mph in some of the stronger storms:

1. Clintonville: 64 mph
2. Kronenwetter: 64mph
3. Marathon City: 53mph
4. Stevens Point: 50mph

The wind was strong enough to topple trees and knock out power for a few locations including parts of Spencer, Colby, Clintonville, Kronenwetter, and Tigerton. The largest hail reports were 2 inches in diameter, observed near Plover and near Bancroft. There was a funnel cloud spotted in southern Wood county but it never touched down. The only confirmed tornado report in the state yesterday was in Sheboygan. For a complete list of all the severe weather reports from around the state, check out this SPC page. (this link will only be useful for today July 17th).

Here is a picture of some of the hail in Stevens Point, taken by our weather watchers Paul and Charlene:

More thunderstorm activity is likely this afternoon, tonight, and Friday morning before we get a break in the action from Friday afternoon through most of Saturday afternoon. Another storm system will move into the area toward evening on Saturday and remain on Sunday so once again we will have a chance of thunderstorms. There is a slight risk of severe weather later today. Late Saturday into Sunday is more questionable for severe weather as temps and the humidity will be a little lower.

Energy Technology:

Sometimes energy saving comes from places you don’t expect. How about this new material that could cut your microwave energy use in half. The material/container heats up while you heat your food and thus the whole cooking process takes less time and less energy. I can only see one problem with this. In the article, it says the dish material heats up to 200 degrees. I would be worried about burning my fingers because I normally do not use oven mitts to handle things coming out of the microwave. The inventors must have thought of this problem and devised a solution because the stuff is apparently already being sold in Japan.

What about lighting. You know that I am a big fan of LED lighting because it is the most efficient lighting available. The problem is that it is way too expensive for household application as of yet. The Polybrite bulb I profiled earlier this year did not make it into mass distribution and thus did not benefit from economies of scale and costs $50 for one bulb. Another promising avenue of research is organic LED or OLED lighting. This article describes some recent progress in making OLEDs brighter. OLEDs are made out of polymers, instead of silicon, therefore they are flexible and can be made with roll-to-roll manufacturing techniques – which are very economical. The OLEDs will come as flat plastic panels – not bulbs. Imagine one of the ceiling tiles in your office being an OLED. When it is off, it will look like a ceiling tile, when it is on it will glow with white light – no bulb necessary. Here is an section on "How Stuff Works" about OLED technology. Samsung is already producing very expensive 40 inch OLED TVs:

The lighting products should end up being much cheaper.

Because of the high price of energy and fossil fuels in particular, more people are getting interested in hybrid vehicles. A recent survey indicates that there could be as many as 89 different hybrid models for sale by the year 2013. The only reason I could see that number being lower is if better battery technology makes electric cars a superior option before that time. The Chevy Volt could be a game changer if GM gets its butt in gear.

For those people supporting the "Drill Here, Drill Now" initiative, here is some good news: A new tiny portion of the north slope in Alaska has been cleared for exploration and drilling. Maybe this will keep the price of a barrel of oil from soaring up to $200.

Meteorologist Justin Loew

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Because I grow vegetables, flowers, and a lemon tree, I often get questions about my gardening activities and about how things are going this year. Let me report that most things are growing just fine. I have only had to water my garden twice. This is great as compared to the last few years when I had to water almost twice a week, most weeks of the summer. The plants started out slow because of the cooler than normal weather, but now I am eating kohlrabi, spinach, collard greens, broccoli, and peas. The lemon tree was late getting outside this year because of the late frost and it has outgrown its pot so for a while it looked rather sickly and did not develop many blossoms. Now that it has been outside for over a month it has rebounded well and develop a lot of new growth. I’ll try to get some pictures of the garden and the lemon tree to share for tomorrow.

I shouldn’t have to water the flowers or the garden for the rest of this week because the chance of thunderstorms is increasing. We will have scattered thunderstorms this afternoon and tonight – some of which could produce heavy rain of an inch or two. The stalled out front responsible for the thunderstorms will stick around through Thursday before moving into southern Wisconsin on Friday afternoon. It looks like the driest period of weather will be Friday afternoon through Saturday morning. By Saturday afternoon a weak low pressure system will approach the area and bring a chance of thunderstorms once again. This is the one change in the forecast that was not present yesterday – a chance of thunderstorms late Saturday. That chance will likely continue into Sunday as well – so adjust your weekend outdoor plans accordingly.

Energy News:

I report about alternative energy news in the blog quite often and there are many different options heading into the future. Some people are big on biofuels, and there are some bio-fuel options that are attractive but in the full spectrum of alternative energy it is probably the least desirable. Wind energy has a large cadre of fans as well – including legendary oilman Boone Pickens. It is cheap and easy to install. The two main problems with wind is storing the energy created by the wind turbines for use when the wind is not blowing and connecting large wind farms to the utility grid. Wind farms are usually found in remote areas where there is not a lot of utility infrastructure. On the solar front there are diverse options with the cost being the main hurdle. Here is a recent article espousing the benefits of thermal solar for near-term implementation. According to experts this is the cheapest form of solar and allows energy to be stored for later use.

This Day in History:

Have you ever wanted to be present on a momentous occasion in human history? On this date in 1945 some people were and were filled with a sense of awe but also dread. This is the day the first atomic bomb was exploded at Alamogordo New Mexico – the Trinity Test Site. It is something that has always interested me, perhaps because I am a scientist, but perhaps because it was such an amazing display as reported by the people involved. Some of the quotes from the explosion are the most famous in all of history and can be found here. The memorandum prepared by General Leslie Groves is also a very interesting read. Much more information, including movies of the explosion can be found at the Trinity Website. Wired has also commemorated the anniversary with an article today.

Meteorologist Justin Loew

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First of all, sorry about the bad formatting of yesterday’s post. I am not sure why the text ended up changing sizes or why some of the paragraphs were out of place. It has something to do with the blogging software that we use. It is also bad at formatting pictures, so it is a pain in the rear to put more than a couple pictures in the posts. I’ll give it a try today. Here is a picture of a beautiful sunset taken over Lake Du Bay by Nancy Leher. No doubt some folks saw a nice sunrise this morning because we did have a few clouds in the sky. We had clouds in Wausau but no rain. As expected thunderstorms moved into the northwoods late last night and they made it as far south as north Lincoln and Langlade counties. This activity diminished and now we will wait for more thunderstorms activity to develop this afternoon in more of the area. The stalled out front bringing the chance of thunderstorms will remain in the area tomorrow and Thursday and continue to produce rounds of thunderstorms. On Friday the front will likely move far enough south so that the northwoods stays dry while the southern half of the area has another chance of thunderstorms. Luckily, the forecast still looks dry and comfortable for the weekend. What about the chance of severe weather? There will be some severe storms later today, Wednesday, and Thursday with high winds and hail being the primary threats, but I don’t think it will be widespread across the entire area.

Space News:

NASA has finally released a schedule of the final space shuttle flights before it is retired. There will be eight flights and then…that’s it. Future flights will be accomplished with the Orion Crew Vehicle that will resemble the spacecraft of old. It will sit on top of a rocket. The Space Shuttle was an interesting design for it’s time but was never meant to get us anywhere outside of earth’s orbit, which could be seen as a step back from the Apollo missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Back then we were hitting golf balls on the moon. If the Space Shuttle had been used aggressively to build a space station or some other type of orbital platform back in the 1980s then it would have paid much higher dividends. Instead it may have ended up delaying human space exploration. Robotic exploration has been much more successful and prolific.

Which reminds me, the Phoenix lander is still processing data on Mars. Mission scientists have data from the first couple of experiments on Martian soil but are holding back on the release of the results until they are absolutely sure they have analyzed everything correctly.

There was a meeting recently regarding the future of the ISS, to ensure that the primary countries involved in the project would continue to support it through 2020. There is some concern about support for the ISS out to that date because NASA will stop shuttle launches in 2010 and the first module of the space station was designed to last 15 years and it was first launched in 1998. That means the first module would be living past its designed lifespan after 2013. One reason I am hoping that the ISS sticks around is that it could become a more popular private space tourism destination. Bigelow is developing an inflatable space hotel but if that does not work out, then the ISS could be a secondary stop. I can’t imagine the ISS operators would turn down big money from rich tourists.

Lastly, I hate to bring out the AGW list 2 days in a row, but this one was too good to pass up. AGW will cause more kidney stones to develop. Kidney stones are linked to lack of proper hydration and warmer temps will lead to more people getting less than optimal water intake. So more kidney stones adds to the other medical items on the list of bad things that will happen because of AGW ranging from more mental illness, to more asthma, to more obesity. Here is the updated list:

(More bee colony collapse disorder and other multiple infectious disease outbreaks, Caribou populations will decline, 1 in 8 bird species could go extinct – including long distance migratory song birds, eucalyptus leaves will become less nutritious and Koala bears will die, the 2008 tropical storm disaster in Myanmar, Tropical bugs will not reproduce, toxic chemicals will pour out of glaciers, Narwhals will go extinct, more deadly algae blooms, more poverty, a massive increase in volcanic activity, new disease outbreaks from previously frozen corpses, irreversible water circulation alteration in Lake Tahoe, dramatically decreased rice production, fewer flowers in the Rocky Mountains, the Butterfly fish will starve, transportation system will be ruined, air pollution related deaths will increase, tropical fish could go deaf, more “ocean deserts”, more tundra wildfires, collapsing oceanic food webs, sharks devastating Antarctic sea life, the drying up of Lake Mead by 2021, plant-devouring insect invasions, poor food quality, increased human mortality, more solastalgia/mental illness, more wars, the past 1993 conflict in Somalia, more intense heat waves, more heat deaths, polar bears starving, Isle Royale Moose dying, Walruses dying, Penguins starving (including King penguins), Australian bats dying, more hurricanes, less hurricanes, more intense and bigger hurricanes, a longer hurricane season, more stormy weather, rising oceans, more acidic oceans, California wildfires, more droughts, more floods, future disastrous declines in food production, coral reefs (hard and soft) dying, enormous extinctions of plant and animal species, massive loss of fish in the Bering Sea, the earth literally being torn apart, Amazon deforestation, a bigger ozone hole, a smaller ozone hole, less fresh water, more obesity, more hunger, more asthma, more allergies, more infectious disease, more kidney stones…more to come)

Meteorologist Justin Loew

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