November had some interesting  ups and downs when it came to Wisconsin weather.  As a whole however November 2011 goes in the books as a fairly warm one.  Temperatures in the Wausau area averaged about 4 degrees F above normal.  More precisely, the average high was 43.8 which is 3.7 degrees above normal.  The average low was 29.5 which is 4.6 degrees above normal.  The highest temperature for the month in Wausau was 57 degrees on the 1st while the lowest was 18 degrees on the 30th.  That is pretty unusual to have the first and last day of the month hold the extreme temperatures!

  It was also fairly dry.  We had 1.36″ of precipitation (rain and melted snow).  That is about .64″ shy of normal.  The main snow event came on November 9th when 2 to 8″ of snow was common in the TV-9 area.  There was actually a strip of 8 to 14″ around Langlade County north to Rhinelander and Crandon.  This wet heavy snow coupled with strong winds cause a lot of power outages as limbs sagged or fell onto the power lines.  The heaviest rain event was on the 26th when .42″ was recorded.

Posted under Monthly Recap

Anthony commented a couple days back about potential mediation methods to combat bad environmental effects due to climate changes and I wanted to briefly touch on that subject again.

As you know, quite the calamity has been predicted if the world would happen to warm up a couple of degrees over the next hundred years. It is theoretical and perhaps some of the predictions are “worst case scenarios”, but it is out there, and it is interesting to speculate as to how these changes could be reversed (or adapted to). I mentioned that taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere is not impossible, that plants do this on a large scale quite efficiently. Anthony suggested that bio-engineering could produce plants that grow bigger or faster and would thus sequester much more carbon dioxide. I believe a few people might already be testing this idea out and I have blogged a little about it in the past, but I can’t find the articles right now, sorry.

To get an idea of why this would work (how we could leverage plants to sequester carbon dioxide), take a look at the annual changes of carbon dioxide as measured at Manau Loa in Hawaii. The red line shows the seasonal changes each year. When plants go dormant in the winter, carbon dioxide levels typically rise a little over 2%. When the plants are active and growing during the Summer, the level drops by 2%. By planting more forests or perhaps bio-engineered plants/trees (as Anthony suggested), then the annual uptake of carbon dioxide by vegetation would increase year-over-year. What would increase this effort even more is if fast growing plants were turned to charcoal (“burned” anaerobically) and buried.

So let us say the biosphere was “going to hell in a hand basket”, as is the prediction. If our lives really depended on it, most of the human population could embark on a multi-year project to plant-burn-bury vegetation. If we suspended typical economic activity in favor of the “project” and grew our own food, a big dent could be put in the carbon dioxide level in short order. By using bio-engineering, “the project” could be amplified even more. Remember, this is just a thought experiment based on a worst case (no progress) future scenario.

Of course, I would rather continue to use (relatively) cheap fossil fuels for a couple more years to invent and develop better technological solutions. Progress is still dependent on fossil fuels. If we want to develop higher agricultural production, more efficient travel systems, better medical technology, cost-competitive alternative energy, and methods to remove carbon dioxide from the air, we can’t just give up coal, oil, and gas cold turkey.

Have a good Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change

With the colder nights settling in you have been probably seeing some ice on smaller ponds and ditches over the past week or two.  Of course this is just the beginning of the freeze over.  I’m sure to ice-fishing enthusiasts the thick ice can’t come soon enough.    With that in mind, let’s take a look at some interesting Wisconsin lake ice data gathered by the Wisconsin State Climatology Office.  Some of their information was obtained from the National Snow and Ice Data Center and quite a few researchers worked on this including John Magnuson and Dale Robertson.

What they have found is a gradual decrease in average number of days with ice cover in a season on many Wisconsin lakes from the 1800s until present.  Lakes in the Madison area have some of the most thorough records.  Check out the graph below for Lake Mendota, the largest in the Madison area.  It shows that the number of days with ice cover has diminished by about 40 during the period.  The average over the 160 year span is 105 days while the shortest ice season was that of 2001-02 with only 21 days.  The longest was 161 days established in the winter of 1880-81.  The last few years have shown a modest increase in the number of ice days compared to the late 1990s and early 200s.  That would make sense since we have had some fairly cold winters in Wisconsin since the mid 2000s.

If you would like to see the trends on other lakes in the state please visit this link.  http://www.aos.wisc.edu/~sco/lakes/WI-lake_ice-1.html  Or you can use the interactive database provided by NSIDC to look and lakes and rivers worldwide!  http://nsidc.org/data/lake_river_ice/freezethaw.html

Well, for all of you who enjoy ice fishing and ice skating I hope this is a favorable season.  It’s looking pretty good to start at least with some cold nights coming up in the next two weeks and not that much snow to cover up that ice.  Therefore it should get thick fairly fast.

Posted under Climate Change, Nature, Seasonal Items, Winter Weather

Posted under Arctic climate, Climate Change, Environment, International Weather, new media, Science, Space, World Weather

A while back when I was discussing the potential problems associated with anthropogenic global warming (AGW), I suggested that if some of the worse scenarios came to pass or became imminent, that there would be ways to combat those changes. I have often rejected the “irreversible” terminology used by many climatologists. Of course, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It would be much better to continue the development of new technology and use less fossil fuel going into the future. But….the following are speculative thoughts about future scenarios.

Besides many of the big geo-engineering ideas I have highlighted here in the blog I have also mentioned the fact that we can take carbon dioxide out of the air. We put carbon dioxide in the air, we could take it back out (if needed). Plants already do it on a large scale quite efficiently. There are no physical laws that would prevent us from doing this. Would it be difficult? Yes. Would it be expensive? Yes. Could we do it if our lives depended on it? Yes.

One other off-beat idea I mentioned was creating ice. Much has been made of the possibility that the ice caps of the earth might melt in coming decades. If this comes to pass, we could always make ice and turn the planet cooler once again. Maybe we could let loose a fleet of floating solar powered ice machines. I am not sure exactly what form such a project would take but we know how to make ice. It would be another monumentally expensive project, but could be done none-the-less. More ice, especially in arctic areas would reflect more of the sun’s energy back into space.

Ulan Battor, Mongolia

Lo-and-behold, a recent science article mentioned making ice on a small scale to cool at least one city in the world. This idea comes from Mongolia of all places. They are apparently going to create large slabs of ice this winter in order too keep the capital city (Ulan Bator) cool during the Summer next year. They are spending $700,000 on the project. The engineers in the project say it is quite simple but one problem that could crop up is pollution. The river water they are planning on using to create huge slabs of ice during the winter might have some pollution, mainly from local gold mines. This will not affect there effort to cool the city but it might prevent the melt water from being used for personal uses. It will interesting to follow up on this story in the Spring and Summer. Hopefully we can get some pictures as well.

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As far as the weather goes this weekend, watch out on the roadways Saturday night into Sunday morning when there could be an inch or two of light snow.

Have a good weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Freeze, Winter Weather

Like past years, before delving into other topics, I would like to relay the true story of Thanksgiving according to the historical records of the original pilgrims & colonists. It is a story about the triumph of freedom over communism.

On the Thanksgiving theme, how about 8 interesting turkey facts. I didn’t know that male turkeys were the only ones that “gobbled”. The female turkey only make clucking and chirp-like sounds.

Someday soon, after you eat too much for Thanksgiving Day Dinner, you might be able to more easily power up your smart phone or tablet. How is it possible to tie alternative energy to eating? Simple, implant a biofuel cell in your body. Researchers at Joseph Fourier University have developed such a cell that generates electricity using glucose and oxygen (readily available in blood).

This might seem like a radical way to generate electricity, but just think about some of the positive side effects. If the biofuel cell is removing (or burning) glucose from your blood stream, maybe you could eat a lot of sugary treats without gaining weight, as long as you were charging a bunch of devices.

If you are not up for getting implants then maybe just going for a walk would be enough to charge your favorite electronic device. Here are a couple of new developing technologies that could harvest energy just from the vibrations/movements you create doing your daily routine. Harvesting vibrations, story one, story two. Also, using microfluidics to accomplish the same thing. I guess the only problem I could foresee is that people don’t move around as much today as in the past. People won’t generate much electricity just sitting on the couch watching TV.

Have a happy Thanksgiving! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Technology

As you’ve probably heard, we are expecting unseasonably warm and nice conditions across our region this Thanksgiving.  So how unusual is that?  Well let’s compare it to the weather we’ve had on the past 10 Thanksgivings in the Wausau area.

        Year         Low / High Temp          Precipitation

• 2010               10 / 33                             Trace snow
• 2009               29 / 40                            Trace rain and snow
• 2008               27 / 36                            None
• 2007               17 / 31                             Trace snow
• 2006               28 / 55                            None
• 2005               6 / 16                               Trace snow
• 2004               15 / 32                            .40″ snow
• 2003               28 / 36                           .20″ snow
• 2002               19 / 34                            None
• 2001               29 / 50                            None

As you can see there has been a fairly large range of temperatures during the past 10 Thanksgivings in our area.  The warmest was in 2006  when we hit 55.  Second warmest was in 2001 with a respectable high of 50 degrees.  The coldest was in 2005 with a frigid high of only 16 degrees.  Interestingly we have not had a major storm hit our area over the past 10 Thanksgivings, at least not right on the day itself.  If you broaden that out to include the whole Thanksgiving weekend, there have been several significant events. 

So if we top out in the low 50s as projected on Thanksgiving 2011 it would be one of the warmest we’ve had in the past decade.  Who knows if we get sunshine all day it could even get close to the levels of 2005.  Whatever the weather, I hope you have a great and memorable day and holiday weekend!

Posted under Seasonal Items, Weather History

The climategate emails are making headlines once again. A new trove of emails (which so far seem too be authentic) have been released to the public. You can see some of the highlights here on the WUWT blog and read another opinion here at the Washington Post.

If the emails are accurate and original, they show similar patterns of behavior as the last release of emails discovered. Top climate scientists were trying to suppress alternative opinions about AGW, fighting freedom of information requests, and possibly manipulating data-sets and statistical methods to “make” the temperature trend fit to the mainstream theory of AGW. The difference with these emails is that they a bit more revealing. There is not much new to learn, just that the statements are more damning. From a brief review of the emails, I would say that it will be a little tougher for James Hanson, Michael Mann, and Phil Jones to deny that they are more than scientifically invested in AGW research. Michael Mann specifically talks about “the cause”.

Taking up the cause of saving the world, is all well and good, and scientists should not be barred from speaking out about issues or working to make the world a better place. In the case of the climategate emails, it appears some top researchers were being deceptive. It appears they were working to advance a cause (good or bad depending on your politics) without wanting anyone to know about it (because it would taint the perception of their scientific integrity). Professor Mann has been particularly secretive when it comes to his (publicly funded) research and emails.

I could go on-and-on about this but I have written in depth about it in the past and it would be easier for you to go back an check these entries out.

Openness and AGW : A discussion of how some climatologists landed in hot water and a discussion about the notion of privacy in the modern world.

Of Climate Persuasion : Details possible methods to “repair” the discussion about AGW.

Also reference My AGW Position, which hasn’t changed a lot in the last couple of years except for accepting a bit more of a role for human effects on the climate. Here in Wisconsin the weather has been warmer, on average, the last couple of decades and the evidence for a more dominant role of humans is a bit more solid than in the past, despite the seemingly nefarious actions of a few top climatologists.

Some other climate-related stories that passed through the media landscape recently:

The different apsects of climate skepticism. Who is skeptical and why.

Richard Mueller’s turn-about on AGW.

Four Himalayan Nations reach an agreement about combating potential future climate problems (noticeably absent: China, the world’s worst polluter). I am glad to see a small group of nations such as this hash out some agreements on responding to potential future threats due to the weather. I think it is much better than the one size fits all bureaucratic heavy-handed nightmares coming out of the U.N.

One Island in the Chagos Chain

Scientists (oceanographers) quibble over the rate at which the sea level is rising (even after it went down quite a bit last year). The sticking point is about money and property (like usual). Indigenous people were kicked off the Chagos Islands 40 years ago in order to make a base for the American military. They now want to return but the UK says why should it be given back if it will be under water in a few years time. If they are allowed to return, no doubt there will be talk of AGW lawsuits again.

Have a nice Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Oceans

When blogging about anthropogenic global warming (AGW), I often mention the tendency for predictions and warnings to be of the worst-case-scenario variety. This has been going on for over two decades in the case of AGW and for much longer when it comes to general environmental apocalypse scenarios. If the science justifies the warning, then I don’t think you could claim this practice is ”crying wolf”, but so may times in the past the science has been wrong, manipulated, or politically motivated. There are also cases where the theory is highly speculative, but drives headlines as if it were closer to reality.

Lest you think I exaggerate, here is a recent article about how the frozen poles of the earth will become very tropical in 300 years - in a scenario termed “hyper-warming” (one of four scenarios in a recent study). If you don’t read past the headline you will not find out that “hyper-warming” is based on the assumption that every last drop (or chunk) of fossil fuel is going to be burned by humans and that the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere will rise to 2000 ppm by 2300.

This is fine for theoretical speculation among climatologists but I would suggest not for consumption by the general public or policy-makers, because it does lead to the “crying wolf” syndrome. The chance of the hyper-warming scenario coming to pass (due to human emissions) are remote – near infitessimal.

First of all, the world already gets nearly 20% of its energy from cleaner alternative energy sources and this percentage increases every year as fossil fuels become more scarce and expensive. It is highly unlikely that humans would continue to use fossil fuels at a greater rate in the future – not when oil is about $100 per barrel. The economics don’t add up.

Secondly, technology continues to advance. Progress is not slowing down. As sure as the sun rises in the east, we will be able to develop more energy efficient modes of societal operation and better alternatives energy sources. Not only will we be able to live cleaner, if the air has too much carbon dioxide, we will likely develop technologies to take that carbon dioxide (and methane, and other “greenhouse” gasses) out of the air. Nature leads the way in this endeavor, so it is not a pipe-dream. Difficult, perhpas, but not impossible.

Thirdly, population growth has leveled off. The population of the earth is not going to rise to 25 billion any time soon, as was once forecast back in the 1970s and 1980s. Some demographers think that the population will not grow much more than 7 billion (based on current lifespan and technology). As a corrollary, if a couple of degrees warming happens, and the environment is already destroyed by 2100 (as has been forecast many times over), then there are certainly not going to be many people around to keep destroying the bio-sphere all the way through 2300.

Fourthly, even in this extremely extremely unlikely scenario, it is not unprecedented. The earth has seen “hyper-warmth” and carbon dioxide levels up around 2000 ppm in the past, and it was not the end of the world. It would be a tough world for humans to adapt to, no doubt, but life would go on.

New Apple Inc. Data Center in North Carolina

Don’t think I am just a polyanna when it comes to “new-fangled technology” either. A person can find many reasons to be optimistic every day. Take this recent article about how IBM is using a large solar installation to help power a data center in India. The solar panels only provide a small fraction of the data center’s energy needs but it is a step in the right direction and reduces pollution over time. More data centers are also setting up ways to use the waste heat that comes from the computer chips and other electronics (and it is about time). In addition, advances in chip, transistor, and server design continue to increase computing efficiency every single year. Some environmental organizations are upset about the amount of energy that data centers use, but data centers (cloud computing, mobile computing, and information technology in general) are the key to further development of cleaner greener technology for the future. Shutting down data centers would be the equivalent of sending society back to the “dark ages”.

Speaking of solar panel installations, even through the current global depression/recession more solar power comes online every year. Long Island New York just switched on one of the larger solar installations in the eastern U.S.

New Erbium-Doped Material from Arizona State Univ.

Those solar panel installation could become more efficient and cheaper in future years due to developments like this: New manufacturing technique could boost the performance of monocrystalline cells from 16-18 percent up to 22-24 percent. Nanoantennas within solar cells could likewise produce dramatic results. Even low efficiency (but cheap) dye-sensitized solar cells are showing signs of recent improvment. What about thin film solar panels? A new polymer could boost their efficiency up to a little over 6 percent. With the addition of erbium, Arizona State researchers have found many solar and lighting technologies could be improved in the near future.

And these are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to recent progress!! I could write a few more paragraphs, but there is only so much time in the day.

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Pollution, Technology

While I didn’t see many deer out in the woods Saturday, I sure was giving a show by a gang of rambunctious red squirrels.  I’ve been hunting for over 25 years and I can honestly say I’ve never seen so many red squirrels in a small area before at the same time!   There were 8 of them within 30 yards of my stand. I had no more been in my tree stand for 15 minutes when the little cute critters were scurrying around in the dry leaves, wrestling each other, racing up and down trees, and making their characteristic chatter.  This circus continued for a good two hours. 

At one point a particularly brave red squirrel climbed right up the tree I was sitting in.  It got to about 4 feet below my stand and just looked at me.  I tried to wave it away but it insisted on figuring out who I was.  Its big bushy tail danced back and forth with excitement.  That is definitely the closest a squirrel has ever come to me without being frightened apparently.  It held its position for at least a few minutes before it jumped to another tree and carried on. 

I particularly enjoyed watching when one squirrel would chase another up a big tree trunk in a corkscrew pattern.  They looked like they were being wound around a coil!  It’s amazing how nimble, quick, and coordinated they are.  It was fun watching them take breaks while nibbling on some corn cobs that they dragged in from the nearby field.  The way they sit on their back legs with back straight up is sort of humorous. 

They made so much noise it was a distraction from hearing potential “deer noises.”  Oh so it goes.  You never know what to expect in the woods do you?  While I didn’t get my deer, I did reconnect with the wonders of nature.  It was a great reminder that beyond the thoughts, business, and problems of human life there is a whole thriving other world locked in the forests and fields.  All that is truly a blessing from our good Lord.

Posted under Ecology, Fall, Nature