I wanted to direct you all to a great website that displays a county by county updated report on fall colors across the state.  Check it Out!!!  This site is updated almost daily, so it should suit as a great guide when planning a nice drive.  You can see many counties are approaching or are already at 50%.  Most of the area should peak in about 3 weeks, with a few northern spots peaking in the one to two week range. 

This year, the later part of the summer has been extremely dry.  This will likely accelerate the leaf changing process.  You will hear plenty of explanations on how our weather will affect the fall colors, but the most reliable remedy for beautiful colors are warm and sunny days, followed by crisp/cool nights.  Cool and wet days will allow more time for leaves to change before falling, but it will also cause more a lot more dull and brownish colors.  The forecast calls for things to remain fairly dry and warm through this week, and becoming cooler and wetter into next week.  So this weekend, even though we are still before peak, this may be the best time to see the brightest colors!!!

Meteorologist

Brian Niznansky

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I have to go to a school this morning for a special reading event so I don’t have a lot of time for a detailed blog post and that means I need to start out with a tribute to Megan Syner. She had her final broadcast at channel 9 last night. She is going to work for the National Weather Service in Great Falls Montana, where I am sure she will be much appreciated as she was here. Why? Because Megan loves weather forecasting and is passionate about weather safety. She also enjoys teaching people about the weather. Over and above all of that, she possesses some qualities that seem rare among young professionals nowadays. She works hard and cares about her job. I probably sound like an old fuddy-duddy, complaining about the work ethic of younger folks nowadays – and I know every generation says "kids nowadays don’t know what it means to work", well – it is still true today, except for Ms. Syner. She was always willing to go the extra mile for the weather department and for people in Northcentral Wisconsin. I hope all the viewers and readers of this blog also appreciate all the severe weather Megan helped us through and all the educational activities she conducted (for students and adults). She will be missed, but hey, you never know, if we are lucky she might be back in the Midwest again some day.

Looking to the future, the new meteorologist coming on to the team is Kristen Connolly. She is arriving this week and you might see her on TV as early as this weekend – perhaps on Sunday. She is similarly enthusiastic about the weather. She is originally from the UP of Michigan, but has more recently lived and forecast in North Carolina.

Kristen will be arriving to some very nice weather for this time of year. High temps should be in the 70s all week long with the warmest day being Friday, when some areas could hit 80. When will it cooldown? There is a possibility of a few days in the 50s and 60s next week, but it is a little too early to say anything definitive. What about rain? We do have a couple of chances this week but it doesn’t look like it will add up to very much so our moderate drought will continue. There is a 40% chance of showers Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, a slight chance of showers on Thursday, and about a 30% chance of rain on Saturday.

Have a super Monday! Meteorologist Justin loew.

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The time that I have spent in central Wisconsin has been my most memorable by far!  I have to admit that I love the area, I love the people and I love the weather.  As you have already heard, I accepted a job with the National Weather Service in Great Falls, MT as a Forecaster which is a very unique opportunity that I could not pass up.  My one goal is to learn more about and continue teaching people about meteorology as well as how to stay safe when severe weather strikes.  Since I will still be attending UWSP and finishing my Masters degree online while in Montana, I will continue to have ties to central Wisconsin and will likely visit now and then.    I have truly enjoyed working at Newsline 9 – it has been a blast and I learned more than I ever thought possible but I will miss all the viewers, weather watchers and my colleagues.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for making this part of my journey an amazing, unique and memorable experience and I wish you all the very best!  Stay safe and healthy!  And remember if you ever approach a water-covered roadway – TURN AROUND, DON’T DROWN!

Have a fantastic week and I will miss you!

Meteorologist Megan Syner

Posted under Science

As I discussed yesterday, today will be very summer-like, but not Indian Summer. At one point I was unsure whether we would hit 80 degrees anymore this year, but today will be close. We might also be able to squeeze out an 80 degree day during the last couple days of September or early October because it looks like – in general – the warmer than normal trend will continue. Most of this year has been well below normal and now it looks like our first significant period of warm weather is upon us. Will it continue into late Fall and early winter? Hard to say. The CPC long range computer models are forecasting a significant chance of warmer weather for the next 6 to 8 months. I take the long range models with a grain of salt. If La Nina develops again, then it could be below normal.

After today, the temps will fall a bit but it will still be above normal until late next week. High temps should be in the low 70s tomorrow and in the upper 60s to around 70 on Sunday. There is still a slight chance of showers tonight and tomorrow but most of the area will stay dry. If you are hoping for some heavier rain to settle the dust or reduce the fire danger it looks like the next chance will be Wednesday of next week.

What about the Packer forecast? It will be great football weather. Temps should be in the 60s for pre-game tailgating and then drop into the 50s during the game, maybe even hitting the upper 40s by late in the 4th quarter. Will the Packers win? Officially I am forecasting a 31-28 victory over the Cowboys. Things that help the Packers is that the Cowboys are working on a short week after an intense close game last Monday. Injuries are not too significant on either side. Both the Packers and Cowboys might be missing their hard hitting safeties. So with the home crowd in high gear I think the Pack can pull it out.

Energy News:

The world’s first clean-coal zero carbon emission power plant is going into operation in Germany. Many people have been talking about clean coal for a few years but it has never made it out of the lab. This will be the first full scale operation. The plan is to liquefy the carbon dioxide that comes out of the plant and then inject it deep underground into depleted natural gas or oil fields. No one doubts that it can be done. The main question is how much it will cost. If the technology is extremely expensive then it will be very slowly adopted, if at all.

Here is some very good automotive news: Tesla is going ahead with their plans to build a new manufacturing plant in San Jose. This is huge news. They are planning on building their all-electric sports sedan at the new plant. The projected price tag of the car is $60,000 so most likely out of reach of most of us. However, this is a good sign that Tesla and many investors in electric cars (and everything that goes along with them – such as batteries), are confident that the market will expand. Tesla expects the first sedans will roll off the San Jose assembly line in late 2010, about the same time GM expects to be selling the Volt (interestingly, at a price not that much lower than Tesla). The key to the success of expansion of electric vehicles is the price of oil. Peak oil theorists expect oil will disappear any day now (literally – in some cases). That is not going to happen. If the price of oil remains above $100 now and increases by 2010 then I think we will see a rapid adoption of electric vehicles. If the price stays around $100 a barrel or goes down (because of more supply or world-wide economic slow-down) then it will make it tough for electric vehicles to compete with fossil fuel vehicles. I think the price will go up and I am planning to purchase an electric for my next car purchase. I would like to buy a Tesla, but it is too much for my pocketbook. I will probably have to buy an NEV or do an electric conversion.

Lastly today, how about some real cool pictures from Mars. These are from the HiRise instrument on board the MRO. It is too bad that the rovers and the Phoenix lander are not in some of these more interesting areas.

Go Packers. Have a great weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

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It is that time of year to talk a little bit about Indian Summer. A lot of people use the term but the definition is rather nebulous. If you look around the net, you will find several different explanations as to the origins of the term, but what really matters is what it means here in Northcentral Wisconsin. When I first started forecasting I used the term rather loosely until someone asked for an exact definition. Eventually, myself and a consortium of central Wisconsin radio DJs settled on a definition. The first and most important definition is that Indian Summer cannot occur until after the first widespread killing frost. So far we have experienced some patchy frost but not enough to meet the definition.  For our purposes, a widespread killing frost is a frost that is officially recorded at over 50% of all the weather observing stations in Northcentral Wisconsin. So far the only official frost (32 degrees) that has been recorded happened at Merrill and Land O Lakes.

The second part of the Indian Summer definition is how warm it has to get after the first frost before we can call any particular day "Indian Summer". When people think of an Indian Summer day, they think of a nice warm day in Fall with sunny skies. So we rule out any days that are too windy, cloudy, or rainy. The sky condition has to be partly or mostly sunny. The temperature is the key. The Indian Summer consortium decreed the temperature had to be 10 degrees above normal before any particular day could be officially called "Indian Summer". Technically this means that we could have several Indian Summer days during the Fall. If we don’t have any days that are at least 10 degrees above normal then we can go the entire season without and official Indian Summer day. This might raise another question in some people’s minds: When is the end of the Indian Summer period? It begins after the first frost and it ends on the first day of climatological winter (December 1st) or the first measurable snowfall, whichever comes first.

Now you know what days you can call Indian Summer and what days you can’t…glad we cleared that up.

Temps will be warm over the next couple of days, but it will not be Indian Summer. In fact it might be a couple of weeks before any threat of a killing frost. High temps will be in the low 70s today and then rise into the upper 70s tomorrow. Over the weekend a weak cold front moving in from Canada will stall over Wisconsin and that means at least a slight chance of showers on Saturday and Sunday, but most of the area will remain dry. With a few more clouds, temps will only reach the mid 70s on Saturday and the upper 60s to low 70s on Sunday. Next week the temps will rise once again into the middle and upper 70s on Tuesday and Wednesday. The next slight chance of showers or thunderstorms will arrive on Wednesday and continue on Thursday as another weak cold front moves in from the west.

The lack of rain has led to the development of moderate drought in the northern half of the state. Check the newest US Drought Monitor here. This is the 6th year in a row when a drought has developed during some part of the growing season. At least this year it developed toward the end of the growing season (better than during the beginning or middle).

Technology News:

A little update on the Chevy Volt. I have been questioning why the Volt is still at least 2 years away from making it into showrooms. Here is an article describing some of the challenges that remain. Basically it all has to to with the battery. Basically, if a (relatively) cheap, high capacity, well-tested, rugged battery was available today, the Volt would be for sale today. GM is having to do most of the testing and development on their own. Unfortunately, the batteries might make the car rather expensive, out of reach of most middle class people. So if you are hoping to by a Volt,  keep your fingers crossed for better battery technology in the next two years.

Another technology that could help electric vehicles of the future, and something I cover often in the blog,  is ultracapacitors. Here is an article about using graphene to improve ultracapacitors. It could double the electrical carrying capacity of ultracapacitors. This would not bring the electrical capacity up to that of batteries, but bring it much closer, and expand the possible uses, perhaps into the automotive sector.

Staying on the topic of alternative energy, Google and GE have announced a green tech initiative, but were scant on details. One thing they did mention is that we will need better interstate  transmission capacity before alternatives like wind and solar can be used effectively. This is one area where governments get in the way once again. Energy and transmission line regulation is a tangled bureaucratic mess with many overlapping state and federal laws. As far as Google goes, it has been investing in many different types of alternative energy, including solar, infrastructure, wind, and even high altitude wind (kites). Not only Google, but all of Silicon Valley is experiencing a alternative energy boom.

As far as combating AGW (anthropogenic global warming), I found one of my ideas cropped up in the popular media. A while ago I mentioned that if any inventors out there wanted to make boatloads of money, they should invent a material that changes (or could be changed manually) from white to black depending on the season. This would be an effort to save on energy costs. In the summer, the material – if used on the roof of your house – could be white and reflect away sunlight, thus lowering your AC cost. During the winter the material would be changed to black (or any very dark color), thus absorbing heat from the sun and lowering your heating costs. Low and behold, here is an article promoting the idea of making all roofs white in order to combat AGW. The only slight drawback to this would be in northern climates where people need to heat their houses during the winter. A white roof would mean each house would use more heat/energy, thus offsetting a bit of the AGW combating effect.

Have a great Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

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Since the Chevy Volt production model was just being rolled out around this time yesterday there were not many pictures available to share. Today wired.com has a nice spread and the car looks nice. The all electric Volt is projected to hit showrooms in late 2010 and cost about $40,000. The price is a little steep for me but there is always hope that battery costs will come down by then. Apparently, according to insiders, GM is banking its entire future on this car. If the Volt fails, then GM might go bankrupt. One thing that would help their cause is if they can get the car into showrooms well ahead of schedule. I am not sure why it will take 2 more years of development. Two years is an eternity in today’s world. Some other technology might pop up in the meantime and make the Volt less desirable.

Since we are in the picture sharing mood, how about some recent scenes from "out of this world". The Phoenix Mars Lander is still having trouble digging up soil and dumping it into the instrument chambers, but did have some recent success. It seems Phoenix has had much better luck capturing photographs of weather happenings on the surface of Mars. Here is a picture of some frost that formed on the landers legs: Read more about it here. Phoenix has also captured pictures of dust devils (whirlwinds) moving across the polar plains.

Staying on the space theme, if you read the blog often you know I am excited for a potential future robotic mission to Jupiter’s moon Europa. The idea is that there could be some sort of microbial life underneath the frozen surface. Many astrobiologists think there is a large liquid water ocean under Europa’s icy crust. In order to get a probe through the ice, a robot will need to melt or drill it’s way through. I had always though melting was the only route, however, this article mentioned a potential pitfall with the melting concept. What happens if there is something other than ice along the path down into the ocean. There might be some dirt, a rock , or organic matter. Once a melting probe hits the dirt/sand it would be stuck. So the best of both worlds would be a probe that could melt AND drill its way into an alien ocean. Here is another article about mini-submersible robotic subs that might someday be sent to Europa.

Present Weather

The weather is still very quiet, not only here in Wisconsin but across the entire nation. I was watching the national news this morning and it was interesting to see the map of airport weather delays. There were none. There was no weather anywhere in the nation that was causing airport delays. There was not much cloudcover either. Fairly cloudless weather will continue for our area for today and tomorrow. A few more clouds will come into the picture on Friday but it will still be warm with highs in the mid 70s.

The chance of rain over the the weekend has gone up slightly. Instead of being less than 20%, I am now bumping it up into the 20 to 30% range for both Saturday and Sunday. Those are still fairly low odds and if something does develop, it doesn’t look like it will be very heavy or widespread. So you should still be alright to plan outdoor activities, just be mindful that there might be a brief shower. The weather will dry up again early next week and high temps will still be in the 70s.

Have a super Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

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Last week I was talking about how technological progress tends to be more incremental nowadays but that it still adds up to big change. Keeping track of all the new inventions, alternatives, and conservation strategies from week to week, we never see any really big breakthroughs, but before you know it, a couple years down the road, you end up looking back and wondering how did we move so far away from oil as our main energy source. Here are a couple stories from today that might go unnoticed by most people but are key incremental improvements. Solar Monkey has developed a more efficient solar tracking system (aside: what a funny name for a company). Solar tracking systems are the ones where the solar panels or reflectors follow the sun across the sky and thus maximize the amount energy that can be extracted. Of course, installing the motors and structural components to move the panels is more expensive than just putting a stationary system in place so anything cheaper way of doing it would be well received. The article does not say how much lower the Solar Monkey product is, but it has won awards for its design.

One area where there is a lot of energy to be saved is in computer data centers. Big chip makers (such as Intel) and data management companies (like IBM) are focusing a lot more on creating energy efficient chips and software strategies (maybe you have seen the "green" commercials). A company called Greenbytes has developed an add on storage device uses 80% less energy than normal. In 2006, data centers used 1.5% of retail electricity in the U.S and that number has grown dramatically since so big energy savings in data centers means big savings for the entire country.

Even something as simple as cutting thinner semiconductor wafers used in solar panels can add up to big savings in the long run.

So incremental progress is being made everyday yet I still hear calls for some sort of national government-led Manhattan style or Apollo style program to develop alternative energy – such as this article. The problem with alternative energy is that it is not anywhere near analogous to the Apollo program, nor is America anything like it was back in the 1950s and 1960s. The "moon shot" was well defined. Land a person on the moon by the end of the decade – the end of the 1960s. What definition would be considered a success for alternative energy? What is the time frame? All the people who are clamoring for a massive government-led program offer no metrics for success, no time frames. My feeling is that we are well on our way to using less fossil fuel. Investment in solar and wind is increasing dramatically every year with no signs of slowing down. Having the government get involved in a major way will just take money away from the inventors, the scientists, and entrepreneurs. Some might say the inventors will still get money, just that it will come from the government. The problem is that government "money" always comes with high overhead. Washington is like a giant money eating monster. If the money has to pass through there you end up losing a significant percentage to regulation and bureaucracy.

Some other interesting news today – GM has unveiled the production version of the Volt. Now that they have the final design and a working model on the test track, you would think it would make it into showrooms pretty soon, but most people say it won’t be available until the end of 2010. That is a LONG time. Maybe they are waiting for battery prices to come down.

I often talk about alternative energy because it is intertwined with the weather through the AGW story. I wouldn’t mind moving away from fossil fuels because that would mean less pollution, other people want the same move because they think the world is going to be destroyed (literally) by carbon dioxide. One point of observation making the news in the last couple of years is the arctic sea-ice. Once again today we find a couple articles with much hysteria (article 1 and article 2) about how the ice is melting and we are close to a record. This flies in the face of satellite observations indicating 500,000 square miles more ice this year (as of September 5th) than last year. That is an area the size of Spain! Unless there was some massive unprecedented meltdown in one week, then I am unsure what the new hysteria is all about. The real question is why is there more ice this year than last year, and will this create a feedback loop in the opposite direction then everyone thinks (more ice means more sun is reflected back into space means colder temps means more ice, and so on, year after year).

By the way, did anyone watch the Discovery channel special on space solar power and transmission last Friday night? From what I have read on the Internet this week I couldn’t get any real hard data, but apparently the transmission was very tiny – a slight proof of concept  – more than anything else.

I have plenty of time to discuss topics in the wide world of science and space because our weather hear in Wisconsin is quite tranquil. At this point it doesn’t look like any significant chance of rain during the next week or two. Right now I am forecasting a slight chance of rain on Saturday, and that is it. Temps will go up and down a few degrees, but remain mainly above normal, in the 70 to 75 range. Tomorrow and Thursday will be the only days when the mercury might not hit 70 (but be very close).

Have a very good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

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First off, my heart goes out to the folks effected by the disaster known as Ike.  The images from the Texas Coastline are haunting.  I couldn’t agree more with Justin’s blog post this morning.  When will we learn our lesson?

Hurricanes have always existed, but it is the growth of our vulnerable coastlines that make these catastrophes even worse.  The same can be said with the sprawl of southern California into fire prone areas.  Now, I am not an expert as far as insurance policies and I am sure most people living in these dangerous places pay a pretty big buck to insure their property.  But when areas are declared disaster areas by the state, where to you think this federal aid comes from….you and me.  I do feel like this is our responsibility as Americans to help each other out, but you could easily prevent the majority of this destruction by building away from the coastlines.

I may be a hypocrite in a way, because there are not many things better than a beach vacation,  but where do we draw the line.  I’m not saying lets shut down all coastal communities, but it is very hard for me to understand rebuilding in some of these areas that will likely get whacked by another massive storm in the next century.  So maybe if you re-build, this time you are on your own, minus billions in aid from you and me.

Another thing I will never understand is the people who refuse to evacuate when told to do so.  Last Friday the National Weather Service issued a statement that I have never heard before…."If you stay..you face certain death".  Now this may have been over the top, but if I heard that I would be out.  Now since many people stayed they needed to be rescued…over 2000 rescued and helicopters are still searching the coast.  Where do you think the money comes from for the National Guard rescues, you and me.

I have to admit, I argue with myself a lot so here is one of my counters.  Everywhere in the country or the world faces natural disasters, including right here at home.  Whether its tornadoes, or flooding that effected the southern half of the state earlier this year, we see our share of bad weather.  And I would expect relief from the government.  But unlike the Gulf Coast, mass destruction is not inevitable where we live.  And you know something is bound to happen when the homes on the coast have to be built on STILTS!!

Maybe I’ll just stick to forecasting the weather, but I couldn’t have a agreed more with Justin.

Click Here for a complete survey of the land along the Texas Coastline.  Aerial imagery is provided by clicking on the small boxes.

Meteorology Brian Niznansky

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I got so busy talking about other things last week that I wasn’t able to get to the latest ENSO Discussion (El Nino/La Nina). If you read the diagnostic discussion, you will find that neutral conditions continued through August and neutral conditions are expected for the next 3 months. The computer models are mostly indicating neutral conditions as well. The one thing that makes me hunch toward La Nina conditions (what happened last winter) is that the upper ocean heat anomaly has gone negative (turning blue on the graph). If conditions do remain neutral, what does this mean for our upcoming winter? It means that the Pacific water temps will not have an affect on our winter. Other patterns of weather will dictate the amount of snow and cold. El Nino and La Nina will sit on the sidelines.

Over this past weekend Ike did not sit on the sidelines. It smashed into the Texas coast and then traveled into the Midwest and produced flooding rains as close as the southern Suburbs of Chicago and in Detroit. Most of the the damage occurred right along the coastline. A lot of vacation homes and beach houses on barrier islands were destroyed. Other structures such as inland homes and businesses were damaged but not destroyed. Trees were knocked down and power was out but most areas were able to cope. Once again, it is the structures closest to the ocean that were destroyed. If Texas is covered just like other coastal areas, then it is me and you as taxpayers that will be paying for rich people to rebuild their fancy vacation homes. This taxpayer funded insurance has raised some eyebrows recently with massive coastal damage due to hurricanes and even things as simple as beach erosion. People who don’t live on the coast are naturally asking why should we pay to have people rebuild in dangerous areas. I was happy to read this article about plans to not rebuild future broken levees in some parts of California. They have analyzed the pros and cons and found that it just doesn’t add up. It would cost more to rebuild the levees than any economic benefit that comes from them. A few people even mentioned this in the context of New Orleans (and then were crucified by the media). Just stop and think about it. Gustav almost hit New Orleans. The city was almost whacked again. Gustav wasn’t as strong as Katrina but it made a lot of people question how many times should taxpayers rebuild a city that exists primarily below sea level – by several feet – AND IT SINKS a couple inches more each year. At some point someone has to step in and say – if you want to live in New Orleans or in vulnerable coastline areas – you have to buy your own insurance. How many times do taxpayers from Wausau, Wisconsin, the Midwest, etc… have to pay to rebuild these areas before people get fed up?

The remnants of Ike just missed Wisconsin this past weekend, but we still ended up with some rain. In fact it was quite a gloomy weekend. Now it looks like things will clear up nicely for the work week. Partly to mostly sunny skies should be the rule every day from Tuesday through Saturday. Today will have a few more clouds and thus temps will be cooler than normal – in the low to mid 60s. After today there will be more sunshine leading to above normal temps. Highs should reach the upper 60s to low 70s from Tuesday through Thursday and then rise into the low to mid 70s for Friday and Saturday. The next chance of rain will come on Sunday but as of now it only looks like a slight chance.

Have a nice Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

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I was happy to see the rain come down yesterday. How about you? I find it odd that with the drier than normal weather over the last 6 years (including this year) I enjoy a rainy day. When there is a downpour, it is exciting and "new". It shouldn’t be this way. We should have a decent rainfall about once a week. There should be periods of wet weather each year when we get sick of rain. That is the normal climate in Wisconsin. Instead (over the last 6 years), I find myself hoping for a rainy day and not only because it would be nice for my garden and plants but because I long for the usual pattern of rainfall. I can’t wait for the smell of fresh rain. I can’t wait for the sound of rain on the roof and in the puddles on the street. I would rather see green grass instead of brown.

One of the oddest experiences I had with lack of rain was in California. During the year I was out there, it didn’t rain for 6 months and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky for about 5 months. It was hard to deal with coming from Wisconsin. I was used to change. When the weather didn’t change, I became slightly agitated. A lot of people think they would enjoy sunny skies for 5 months in a row, but it isn’t all that it is cracked up to be.

How much rain did we receive? In Wausau it was 0.31 inches. Not a lot, but a nice amount when there is a drought. Higher amounts seemed to fall in the northwoods. Our weather watcher Rick in Prentice had 0.75", Dick in Merrill reported 0.78", and Antigo had 0.70", Rhinelander checked in with 0.71". Mary in Almond had one of the lower amounts at 0.10". For those people who had a light amount yesterday and are hoping for more, it looks like you will get your wish tomorrow. At one point it looked like most of the rain would stay south of our area but Hurricane Ike is going to bump the Midwest storm system a little farther north and now it looks like Saturday will turn out to be a rainy day. Even if heavy rain does not develop, it will still be damp and cloudy with scattered showers. A cold front moving through on Sunday will bring another round of clouds and a few light showers. So the weekend is not shaping up to be very pleasant. It might be a good weekend for getting some housework done or cleaning up the garage. The sunshine will return next week along with some warmth. On Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday high temps should reach the low 70s.

Energy News:

Along with the subject of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) comes the possible solutions for using less fossil fuels or at least using them more efficiently with less pollution. One angle that I have been following is alternative fuel cars. As you well know, I plan to buy an electric car the next time one of my current cars breaks down beyond reasonable repair, but you can get a good increase in efficiency even without electric cars. Volkswagen is developing a car called Bluemotion that will run on diesel and get 62 mpg. Wow, that is better than any hybrid on the market right now. There will be a small sacrifice in power and acceleration but it is sure better than sacrificing your wallet on high gas prices. Hyundai is also jumping into the hybrid and electric car market. The more the merrier. Not only does competition drive down prices, more players also brings economies of scale into play.

On the electric side of things, batteries are the main hurdle yet to be conquered, but each day we are getting closer. The Tesla has a battery pack that will get you 200 miles per charge as long as you are willing to pay nearly $100,000 for a brand new Roadster. What we need are cheaper batteries with more energy density and there are plenty of people working on it. Ener1 says it will be able to reduce the price of lithium-ion batteries by 50% once it starts mass production. A123 is another battery company to keep an eye on. They are already producing rechargeable batteries for the power tool industry and might be the main provider of batteries for the Chevy Volt.

As far as generating electricity for a new electric economy, progress has been incremental but steady. Almost every day there are ideas, research, and inventions that make solar, wind, and other alternatives more attractive. These are the type of changes that might go unnoticed, then all of a sudden a few years down the road, we look around and wonder how we made such a big change from fossil fuels to alternatives. It will happen step-by-step until a critical tipping point is reached. Here are a few incremental improvements I have seen reported over the last week:

A round design for wind turbines allow electricity to be generated at lower wind speeds while producing less noise. The eggbeater-shaped turbine is more aesthetically pleasing and can be installed on a roof or pole in less than 4 hours.

Thin film solar panels integrated in roofing materials will make it easier and cheaper for people to install them on their roof. The panels can stand up to winds as high as 160 mph.

Better mirror technology with make concentrating photovoltaics cheaper and more efficient. The new mirrors could also find their way into solar concentrator and solar trough systems.

A new strain of bacteria could make cellulosic ethanol cheaper. Right now, cellulosic and grain ethanol are rather expensive too make. More breakthroughs will be needed in order to make the biofuel industry a viable alternative in the future.

The space solar topic is in the news once again today. I am still a bit skeptical because no technical details have been released. Apparently a successful test of transmitting power wirelessly recently occurred between two Hawaiian islands 148 km apart. The idea is to put solar panels in space and "beam" the power back down to earth. I can’t imagine this process it all that efficient and I doubt we will get an in depth analysis tonight when the project is profiled on the Discovery Channel. However, it would be nice if it worked. Not only could space-based solar panels beam power down to earth, they could block some of the incoming solar radiation and combat the possible yet highly theoretical temperature rises of AGW.

Another interesting note on AGW this week is about the arctic sea-ice. Many experts had predicted much less sea-ice this year because they were expecting global temperatures to increase this year. Instead, arctic sea-ice is 500,000 square miles larger than last year at this time. Read about it here. Since this is the time of year when the sea-ice reaches its minimum, it is highly unlikely that it will melt to a level less than last year.

Since we are on the subject of AGW, we might as well add another item to the big list. This is a big list of "bad things" that will happen (or have happened) because of AGW. I started the list back in November of 2007 because I couldn’t believe all of the apocalyptic news stories that were occurring on a daily basis. I thought it would be interesting to keep track of them all. The point isn’t that we should ignore warnings about the future but that it is an interesting perspective when you see them listed all in one place. The pace of updates to the list has slowed in recent months because there are so many redundant items. A lot of the "bad things" are repeated year after year and month after month. Today’s item is unique. Large animal species could go extinct (or get smaller) due to AGW. The theory is that larger animals are more adapted to a colder climate and they will not be able to handle the theoretical future heat. So here is the update big list:

(Large animal species could go extinct, more cool weather trees will die, power blackouts, more flooded subways, Mountain snowmelt will occur up to 2 months earlier, 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)

Have a wonderful weekend! Go Packers! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

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