As you know, I have been beating the drum lately about vacuousness of the traditional metrics of economic ”growth” (ie, building more things just for the sake of “growth”, not because we need them or that they would be good for us as a whole). I am not sure if many people agree, but the other forces (besides my will) seem to be at work to create what I consider positive changes (less population growth, less urban sprawling).

The decline in real wages and poor employment market seem to be squeezing younger generations and they are not starting families nor buying many houses. These themes turned up in a recent opinion article about the non-recovery in the U.S. housing market. Good to see more people noticing the trends. I am not happy about financial trouble. I wish the economy was expanding, but at the same time I also hope that people will continue to consider focusing on health, happiness, and the future, instead of just consuming more stuff and building bigger houses. It would be better for the environment and better for people as a whole.

A transition away from old growth models would be difficult. Change is always difficult. That is one of the reasons why I write about controversial topics and new ideas in the blog – in order to help everyone adapt to the technological changes that are coming. These changes could of course be great for the environment and climate, but they will disrupt the normal flow of life to which we have been accustomed.

I mention the ways in which technology is changing things for the better quite often (even outside of the alternative energy and pollution sphere). One change that I have noticed that will shake a lot of people is the revolution (or evolution) in education. The on-going changes will make a lot of people angry no doubt, but it is undoubtedly better for the environment. It is online education.

Khan Academy

Many colleges are offering free (and some paid) courses online nowadays, including MIT and Stanford. You can get credit for the course if you watch the lectures submit work, and take test. All free (in most instances). The Kahn Academy is also free and simple to use. Kids can learn from an expanding list of short videos explaining everything from math to economics. The Kahn Academy is revolutionising education. The Internet gives us great tools for collaboration and personalized learning across continents.

Making greater use of the Internet is more environmentally friendly as well. Instead of electrifying, heating, and air conditioning hundreds of thousands of large buildings and shipping millions of kids (and teachers) off to school everyday, kids could learn at home. Teachers could tutor and guide kids over the Internet. It is going to be a big change, that I know a lot of people will not be happy with. Right now, a lot of families have both parents working. There is also the issue of socialization of children (although this does not seem to be much of a problem with home-schooled kids). But maybe these “problems” are the result of the modern economic “growth” model. In order to have a big house, three vehicles, a boat, and a vacation property, both parents have to work. If people focused more on the family and happiness, maybe they would be able to work less and help educate their kids with the help of online resources & online teachers. Environmentally friendly online learning is just getting going. How long do you think before the education system reaches a tipping point and online learning becomes the majority of traditional “education”? Do you think it is an overall good trend? Or a bad one?

Have a nice Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Education, Pollution

I’ve been noticing something lately that I seem to notice every year about late July or early August, an increase in early morning fog. It seems like day after day in late June and July we wake up to blue skies and brilliant sunshine.  It works out well for me, because I get up before 4 a.m. to cover duties for Great Lakes Weather Service.  It definitely helps keep the eyes open to see that bright light.  However over the past 10 days, we’ve had several mornings with patchy to occasional thick fog hanging over the landscape until about 7 to 8 a.m.  Being that it has been such a dry summer, I’m actually really glad to see the fog.  At least it deposits a nice layer of moisture on the plants.  I know it won’t save them, but it has to help a little bit, right?  After all there are some forests on mountains near the ocean in parts of the world that survive mostly on fog.  Of course there the fog is so persistent over weeks and months that the moisture that condenses on the needles and leaves drips down to the forest floor, acting like rain. 

In any case, it takes a little while to get used to the foggy mornings.  You have to imagine what everything might be doing on the other side of your yard that you can’t see.  It certainly puts you in the mood to crawl back into bed.  It also tends to muffle noises, and the birds don’t seem to chirp as much.  There is a very good reason that fog tends to increase in frequency as we head into early August.  The main reason is that the nights are getting longer.  We have about 1 hour and 20 minutes more night than we did at the end of June.  This allows for a few degrees of extra cooling overnight.  In addition we still usually have rather humid air in Wisconsin at this time of the year, especially if some rain fell during the previous afternoon or evening.  So the extra cooling overnight drops the temperature down to the dew point more quickly.  Often dew points are in the 60s to near 70 around early August.  The air becomes saturated and the end result is fog.   We often call this radiation fog.  This is especially true when the winds are calm.  Light winds are common around this time of the year as weather systems and fronts are typically quite weak.    River valleys and areas near lakes are more prone to fog because the warm waters infuses additional moisture into the cooler air above them.  Sometimes this takes the form of streamers of steam coming off the water.  As such it is called steam fog.

So fog will be a more frequent visitor in August, then not quite as much in September.  That’s because cold fronts get stronger in September and usher in much drier air and gustier winds to the Upper Midwest.   Well enjoy the fog that will come our way from time to time.  Just be extra cautious when you must drive through it!

Posted under Seasonal Items, Summer

One of the themes I touch upon often in the blog is the contrast between apocalyptic environmental trends/predictions and the promise of technological progress/prosperity (check out “Information as Cheap Commodity” and “The Promise and Peril” for some good past content).

As people in the manufacturing industry know all to well, automation produces a cornucopia of products we need and want, all the while requiring less labor and less energy. The “green energy sector” is also feeling the encroachment of automation. When several governments across the globe promised thousands (maybe even millions in aggregate) of new jobs through green energy investment. Spain was the first country to find out that government investment in green energy didn’t produce net jobs. The U.S. made the same promises and got about the same result (detailed in the second half of this blog post). The trend is especially acute in the solar industry. The process of making the panels is highly automated and once the panels are installed, there isn’t a whole lot of labor required to keep a large solar array running. The price of installing the panels could come down even more by eliminating more labor through the use of robots. Check out this story about a German designed robot that installs large panels. What used to take 35 people now only takes 3 with the help of the robot. Even more spectacular is that the robot can install a large field of ground-mounted solar panels in one-eighth the time. To some, this might seem like bad news, because less people will have jobs installing solar panels, but if the ultimate goal is to switch the economies of the world over to cleaner energy sources, then it should not matter. Installation is now the biggest cost associated with solar. The cheaper and more efficiently we can install more solar capacity the better.

Self-driving cars in Spain

Another automation trend I have been following lately is the self-driving car. The latest achievement was a convoy of autonomous cars rolling down a freeway in Spain. I know some people might scoff at the idea of computers driving cars, but computers already fly commercial jet airplanes and drive most of the passenger trains in the world (human “pilots” are mainly there for emergency situations). These forms of travel are extremely safe as compared to driving a car. I have no doubt computers (self-driving cars) will make our highways much less of a human slaughterhouse (35,000 to 40,000 dead per year in the U.S. alone!) in the near future. This of course means that professional drivers will probably suffer some degree of unemployment.

Another thought dawned on me the other day in regards to development of self-driving cars. It could spell the end of traditional radio. Think about it. I mainly listen to the radio in my car as do millions of other people who commute and/or get stuck in traffic on a daily basis. Most other things you could do in a car are officially illegal. So we are a captive audience. It is one of the last profitable captive audiences left for radio stations. Once we have self-driving cars, then you will be able to do pretty much whatever you want while riding around. Sure, you could just sit there and listen to the radio for entertainment, but I think most people would rather watch TV, surf the Internet, eat, play games with friends, what-not. If I had a self-driving car I would certainly take longer trips by car instead of flying. A 20 hours trip would not be so bad if you could sleep, play, and work while the car drove. It sure beats standing around in security lines at the airport, getting held-up by the TSA, and paying ever more expensive and numerous fees to get on a plane with luggage.

Have a good Friday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Technology

Another week has passed and we have another US Drought Monitor update. There has been some significant rain in some drought-stricken areas, including southern Wisconsin and southern Minnesota but it has not shown up in the Drought Monitor. This is because the tabulation of drought conditions is based upon several factors, not just what happened in the past week, but how much precipitation occurred in the past month, in the past three months, how much moisture is in the soil, water levels in streams and rivers, etc… With several rounds of rain occurring in southern Wisconsin in the past week and potentially again next week, I think we will see the extreme drought subside in southern Wisconsin. It should start to show up in next week’s report.

Of course, there has been a lot of talk about the drought’s impact on food supply and food prices especially considering some drought developing in a few other places in the world. It is at these times that I give thanks for technological progress in agriculture and free trade. Famine was much more likely in the past because people did not have as good of access to food from around the world. The yield of food per acre was also much less. That is why we will probably not see conditions as bad as the 1930s (in the U.S.) repeat themselves today. The prices for food will rise, but severe and persistent shortages (over the course of several years) will probably not occur. As an asied, I wonder if the price of corn will rise high enough for people (well, mostly politicians) to stop supporting grain ethanol production in the U.S. If people start going hungry, I’ll bet grain ethanol production will shut down pretty quick. Ethanol air pollution would disappear pretty quick as well.

Back to the drought and food prices, the trends that are not working in our favor are population growth and urban sprawl. Back in the 1930s, the population of the U.S. was between 120 and 130 million. Now the population is a bit over 300 million. For the world, the number of mouths to feed has risen from a little over 2 billion in the 1930s to about 7 billion today. Seeing this staggering increase in the population makes me even more amazed at the progress in food production that has kept up with population growth (thank you Norman Borlaug). Of course, this means we probably have little tolerance for widespread drought.

Another potential problem is that so much arable land has been taken over by urban sprawl. Total farm acres have declined significantly in the last few years. In the U.S. I am constantly appalled by all of the prime farmland that is being paved over for sub-divisions, freeways, parking lots, and box stores. At least some areas are reverting back to productive use – such as in Detroit. This discussion dovetails nicely with the blog entry from yesterday and a great comment left by Anthony. His observation of younger people in the Twin Cities is that they cannot see the reasons to live out in a far flung suburb anymore.

They (younger people) seem to be ok with mass transit as well. Which is a good thing! Cars are an expensive hassle and liability. If you live close to work you don’t need a car. Nowadays there are more ride sharing and car sharing companies springing up every day (I have profiled RelayRides and ZipCar before). Now carpooling.com is coming to the U.S.

If you don’t have a family why live in a big house in the suburbs? It is expensive and you will end up spending a significant percentage of your life paying the bank, commuting, and stuck in traffic. I think the changing attitudes of younger generations flows along with the change in economics. In the industrial age, no one wanted to live next to a power plant or manufacturing plant. People who grew up mostly on farms, but then ended up working in the city, had a desire to get back into the country (in a sense) and away from work/pollution, hence the suburban sprawl. Now that we are in the information age, it seems younger people want to be close to information. They grew up in the suburbs and exurbs but now want to be in the “action” which is more toward the urban center. What cultural trends have you noticed? Anything that points toward a more sustainable future?

Have a nice Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under Ag Weather, Drought, Pollution

Weather and rainfall is often a case of the “haves” and “have nots”.  It’s really strange that parts of southern and central Wisconsin have had less than 3.0″ of moisture for the entire growing season so far while parts of central Minnesota around Brainerd and Aitkin have had around 30.0″ for the growing season so far!  Yes that’s right… two and a half feet of rain since April just about 300 miles away from the drought zone.  I provide forecasts for some radio stations in that part of Minnesota, so it’s very interesting talking to them, and how they are hoping the rain misses them for a few days so they can enjoy more summer sunshine.  I have to definitely change mind sets when talking with clients in the drought zone versus the wet zone.  They have different things on their mind and opposite needs for sure.

Be that as it may, some substantial rainfall fell in northern Wisconsin early Wednesday.  The image below is the rainfall estimate from the Green Bay NWS Doppler Radar.  Parts of northern Price, Oneida, Vilas, Ashland, and Iron Counties had over 1.0″ of rainfall.  In fact 1.8″ fell around Winchester with 1.4″ in Park Falls.

This band of decent rainfall actually started back in northwest Minnesota Tuesday night.  Amounts of 1 to 3″ were reported in a strip from Grand Forks to Duluth.  Doesn’t that sound nice! 

Some people have been asking me how much rain would we need to climb out of the drought?  Well of course it depends on where you are and how much rain has fallen in your area this season.  However in general, according to the image below from the National Weather Service, it looks like the southern half of Wisconsin would need about 3 to 9″ to be come out of the drought status.  Ideally that would fall over a week or two, rather than in one short burst. Obviously that would cause flash flooding and most of it would run off into the rivers rather than soak into the ground.  You can find all kinds of in depth information about the drought around the country from the following link, http://www.droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

Posted under Drought, Rainfall Reports, Seasonal Items, Summer, Weather NEws

When I saw this story a little while ago “Five Years After Crisis, No Normal Recovery“, it reminded me of a blog entry I penned a while back entitled “Housing Starts Are Negative“. My main point was that there is not much reason for a lot more houses to be built in the U.S. right now. By many estimates, there are more than 10 million vacant homes in the U.S. I understand that some people want to build their own home, but with so many nearly new houses on the market, there should be plenty of options. There are whole subdivisions (in pretty much every state) which are sitting nearly empty!

So why are more people not buying the vast inventory of new homes? It is part demographics and part economics. On the latter point, the prices of houses have still not come down to the level needed to clear out the old inventory. Prices need to drop more (more sarcastic economic analysis found here). When (former) million dollar McMansions start selling for a quarter million or less, then the market will clear a bit. Even then, in a world of higher energy prices, there are less people that can afford the energy bills that come with living in 3,000, 4,000, and 5,000 square foot homes.

Which, leads into the demographics. Young people are not starting families at the same rate as in the past. The job market is bleak and real incomes are in decline which means young people are just not buying as many homes. Retiring baby boomers already own most of their homes outright, so they will not be buying either.

I don’t view these trends as completely negative. Even though I own a house, and the value has dropped by about 40%, I would rather see house prices fall a bit more if it meant less new (empty) homes being built.  From an environmental and pollution perspective, it would just be better if less houses were built. I know this goes against the traditional thought that “growth” and “building things” are signs of progress. They are not as good of metrics as in the past. We have reached the point in the world where it is getting tougher support economic “growth” and an expanding population (without more great leaps technological progress). Pollution is intimately tied to traditional metrics of economic growth. AGW theorists note carbon emissions are tied closely to economic activity.

Please don’t label me a Luddite. I would certainly love to see more progress in the future. I just don’t think building more roads, more strip malls, more sub-divisions, and more parking lots is the answer to our economic woes. All the policies currently in place to prop up the housing markets are ill-conceived and will only make the problem worse in the future. Instead of prodding people who cannot afford a house (or do not want a house) into buying a house, how about we get people thinking about a different future. Instead of buying things and building things for the sole purpose of propping up the economy, how about we strive for better health, longer lives, more comfort, higher efficiency, and more happiness.

Don’t label me a totalitarian either. Although I wouldn’t mind seeing the population come down, less new homes being built, and greater energy efficiency, I can’t imagine forcing people to adopt new ways of living. I am more in the persuasion business. In the end, if people continue building with abandon and paving over more of the planet, mother nature might end up forcing some changes.

Posted under Environment, Pollution

If you are sick of the hot temperatures and can’t wait for Fall to arrive, you might have to wait a little longer than normal this year. The CPC has released the latest long range monthly outlooks and the chances are good that above normal temps to continue each month through the end of the year. Anyway, the chance of above normal temps is greater than for below normal temps. One of the keys that might drive warmer temps later this year is El Nino out in the Pacific ocean. An El Nino has not officially formed yet, but it is getting closer. The official forecast calls for a weak El Nino to form during the Fall and early Winter. If an El Nino does form, it is almost a guarantee that we will have warmer than normal temps, on average, this Fall and early Winter. Sure, there will probably be some bouts of colder weather, but the way things are going, I doubt any cool trend would last too long. Fall is my favorite time of year so I almost always enjoy warmer than normal temps during that time of year. Most people would enjoy a mild winter as well, but it would be bad for Winter enthusiasts to have two years in a row with mild temps and little snowfall.

CPC August Temp Outlook

Overall, the CPC outlooks do not put us back into the equal chances for above or below normal temps until the May-June–July period of next year. Of course, by that time the skill of the long range computer models is much less. I would put much more stock in the forecast for next month.

Could we see 90 degrees in October? I doubt it, but given the drought this year in much of the nation, this would be the year it might happen, again. It has only happened one other year in Wausau’s history and that was 1976. If you are old enough, you probably remember a severe drought happened that year as well. It was the record lowest annual precipitation in fact, in Wausau. The high temperature on October first of 1976 was a record 91.

Drought conditions through June for the last 116 years

Whether or not we have have some 90 degree temps heading into Fall is highly dependent on the drought situation. Things have improved a bit in southern Wisconsin and southern Minnesota recently, but it is still extremely dry in much of the Midwest and Plains States. Many people have been wondering if this year is the most widespread drought or the hottest temps we have seen in much of the nation. I analyzed the situation in Wausau in this past blog post, and we are on pace to record the warmest July and warmest Summer. We might eclipse the records that were set back in 1936. For the rest of the nation, here is a neat graphic showing the extent of drought conditions during June for the past 116 years. It is natural to focus on the worst years, but I also used the graphic to see the “best” years when it comes to rainfall. It seems 1993, 1983, 1975, and 1907 were the years that had the least drought through June. One other thing I noticed is that the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic regions of the country seem to have the lowest frequency of drought overall. Keep in mind, this graphic is depicting drought conditions through June. During some of these years, the drought condition turned better or worse during the second half of the year.

Have a swell Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under CPC Outlook, Drought, ENSO Update

I ran across an ongoing project that NOAA has been involved with since 1996, picking up marine debris around the Hawaiian Islands.  I was amazed by how much they get.  The latest expedition which sent the 224 foot NOAA ship Oscar Elton Sette out on the northwest banks of the Hawaiian Islands hauled in 50 metric tons of mostly stray fishing gear.  A majority of it was runaway fishing nets.  They could have brought in much more but the ship was at maximum capacity.

Source: NOAA

The derelict marine debris is a major hazard to sea-life such as seals and turtles and generally harms the entire coral reef ecosystem that is common in the area.  Since 2002 NOAA’s efforts have cleaned out 730 metric tons of nets from the ocean.  As part of Hawaii’s Nets to Energy Program, the nets have been turned into a good amount of electricity.  In fact it’s been enough electricity to power 330 Hawaii homes for about a year!  That’s great.  They are turning something destructive to the ocean and sea life into something positive and necessary for humans.

You can read much more about this and other related marine projects from the following link.   http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2012/20120717_marinedebris_cruise.html

Posted under Alternative Energy, Ecology, Environment, Oceans

While trying to keep pace on the explosion of technological progress in the world today I come across and share many spectacular headlines. Judging by the headlines, it seems there is some sort-of magic breaking down every problem we face in the world today, but most of that magic is just marketing hype unfortunately. I always try to blunt the hype by reminding everyone that the devil is in the details and that “more efficient thingys”, “faster widgets”,  other seemingly fantastical advances are only “in the lab” and mass manufacturing is often times a long way off.

Why do we get the hyped-up headlines? Because behind the scenes there is money to be made on hype. Private start-up up companies want to catch some venture capital money so they try to spin their technology in the most positive light. Even University press releases are sprinkled with sensationalist wording at times because they want to highlight how their campus is the best for this or that field of research. This was brought home to me recently because I have a couple of aquaintances that were recently involved in Silicon Valley start-ups in the biotechnology field. One company was developing some very advanced technology and they were able to generate enough enthusiasm for their potential product to raise 30 million dollars. There was a lot of promise, but in the end, they were unable to make the technology work. The other company worked under the radar and actually did develop a novel biotechnology that worked but they were unable to generate enough hype to raise money and grow their company. Hype can make a difference.

This also occurred to me when I read this recent alternative energy article. The headline was “An Electric Car That Actually Goes Far?” This headline was repeated across many outlets. The sad news is that there is not an electric car that actually goes far. The headline should have read “Lithium Air Batteries Get Closer to Reality”. Researchers in the UK have developed a new way of building lithium air batteries that remove some of the more unstable parts. I have covered the progress of lithium air batteries in the past. As was the case in the past, progress and research continues but lithium air is not ready for prime time. Not now, not in the near future. I think you could safely bet that we won’t see the technology in widespread use for another 3 years but more likely closer to 10 years. By the way, IBM’s lithium air battery technology is not expected to arrive commercially until 2020 at the earliest.

Tesla Model S

Another related and seemingly hyped-up statement came from the CEO of Tesla motors – Elon Musk. He is betting that electric cars are going to be more than 50% of cars on the road within 12 to 15 years. Most people think the number will be closer to 1% in that time frame. Then again, most people have a hard time grasping the nature of exponential progress. It seems like things are going very slow at first and then – whoooomp – all of a sudden the technology arrives en masse. It happened with many technologies in the recent past, such as computing and the Internet. It is easy to analyze our current fossil fuel reliance, our current manufacturing processes, our current transportation network, and come to the conclusion that electric cars are a long way off as the main mode of transportation. However, what we fail to see are potential breakthroughs in technology (like batteries) and sudden shifts in societal attitudes. I suspect that is what Mr. Musk is anticipating when making his bold prediction.

Have a good Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Technology

Through the years I have spent a lot of time educating people as to how meteorologists gather weather information and create a forecast. I usually describe the myriad weather instruments that we use on a daily basis. These range from the simple thermometer all the way up to complicated “high-tech” instruments such as radars and satellites. I hope I have done a good job and that people in Northcentral Wisconsin have a good grasp on the need for weather instruments in order have accurate forecasts.

 That wasn’t the case during a U.S. congressional hearing about NASA’s budget when one representative commented – ‘why do we need to spend so much money on satellites when we have got the weather channel?’ The weather channel provides a fine service – they organize, forecast, and present a lot of useful weather information, but even they rely heavily on weather instrument networks which are largely supported by the government – including satellites.

Satellites are a key tool in our forecasting arsenal. Unfortunately, they have a limited lifespan. Most weather satellites have historically lasted 5 to 15 years in space. The dozens of satellites in service need to be replaced regularly and it is not cheap to launch them. (ESA started launching some new weather satellites recently). The average cost of launching a satellite in the recent past was around $300 or 400 million. It is expected to be around $50 million over the next decade, so that is a significant improvement, but it is still not cheap.

Because “space” is not cheap, and we have an ongoing recession in the U.S and world, NASA and NOAA’s budgets are getting cut. Many people in those organizations are worried about keeping a robust suite of high-tech weather instruments - such as satellites – operational. Maybe it is time to get the private sector more involved? I know this might sound ridiculous to those in the know, but perhaps there are cost savings to be had and more speed/efficiency to boot.

The U.S. government monopolized the “source” weather information over a hundred years ago. Constitutionally, this was justified through the military as potentially successful military operations can be severely hindered by bad weather. The early military application of the government-sponsored weather operations gradually morphed into public forecasts as well. Because it has been such a long time, it is hard to imagine private companies providing similar products. The National Weather Service is one of the most popular government agencies and they do an effective job, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t be better done in the private sector. Would you pay a couple dollars per month for weather information? Most of us already pay that much or more in taxes to support NASA and NOAA. I am unsure if there is a good business case right now for a partial or complete privatization of weather information in the U.S. Forecasts are already very good for most end-users of weather information (whether it comes from NOAA or private outlets like The Weather Channel). The forecast would have to be far superior to entice people to pay for it (considering that they already pay for weather information with taxes)

One stumbling block is that the government monopoly on sourcing weather information is so ingrained and has lasted so long that most people probably consider it a “public good” or a “public right” – something that is critical for “public safety”. Thus private industry will probably continue to provide more niche weather information and not be launching too many weather satellites anytime soon.

Have a good weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Space, Weather History, Weather NEws