When discussing technology and progress and how these might help us be a little more environmentally friendly in the future, I often bring to light developments in areas that most people are familiar with. Then there are those things that fly under the radar. One of those that could fundamentally change computing and science in general is quantum computing. There is just one company in the world selling a quantum computer and that is D-Wave (discussed previously here). They made news again by using their computer to solve a protein folding problem. It was apparently an error-prone process but they did manage to get the correct answer 13% of the time. While this is another achievement for the company, it is not yet a “killer app” for their computer. As Anthony mentioned in the comment section of the weather blog a while back, true quantum computing would be a huge breakthrough, but what matters most for D-Wave is that their computing solution is cost effective as compared to other methods.

One of the other under-the-radar technology trends I try to follow is the emerging field of cloaking. Cloaking as in Star Trek, as in Harry Potter, as is usually found in science fiction. It is rapidly becoming science fact. The latest developments are acoustical cloaking and plasmonic cloaking. The plasmonic-type cloaking developed at Stanford could eventually be turned into a method to see the outside world while not being seen (because you are inside the cloak). The acoustic cloak would block sound, which I know I could use many times in a crowded room.

Have a good Friday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under Technology

This week’s U.S. Drought Monitor Update indicates little change from last week. The High Plains and South regions saw slightly worse conditions develop. Much of the rest of the country saw slight improvement. That is the nature of the Drought Monitor. Because it is composed of several short term and long term metrics, it usually takes a long time (several weeks) to see significant changes in the official drought category for any particular region, except…

…when a tropical storm strikes. Tropical storms such a Isaac can turn-around a drought situation pretty quick because we are usually talking about several inches of rain where they strike. Many times the rain amounts with a slow moving system can be in the 10 to 20 inch range. Some of the areas hit hardest by the 2012 drought should get a few inches of rain from the remnants of Isaac. We are talking about much of Arkansas, Missouri, and Illinois. Some of the rain from Isaac could make it as far north as Rockford and Chicago, but probably no further. That means we will miss out on any tropical-type moisture and heavier rainfall. The next chance of rain for Northcentral Wisconsin will be next week as a couple of cold front move through. Late next week is also when we will have our next touch of Fall as high temps will be closer to normal, in the low to mid 70s.

________________________________

Now a little follow-up on yesterday’s topic of dramatically lower carbon emissions in the U.S. versus growing carbon emissions elsewhere in the world. China’s situation (which Anthony described in great accurate detail in the comment section) is one where they over-built – according to many analysts. Not only in expensive housing and commercial buildings but perhaps in the alternative energy sector as well. The solar tiger of China – Suntech – has fallen on tough times. For a few years now, other countries have been complaining about China’s subsidies in the solar manufacturing space – claiming that Chinese solar panels are cheaper only because the government helps defray the cost. Now that there is an over-supply of panels and prices have dropped by 50%, even the manufacturers in China are taking it on the chin.

I can’t help but think that now would be a great time to buy some solar panels. They are probably as cheap as they will get during the short-term horizon – maybe a year or two. Consolidation is happening within the industry (Q-cells was just bought out) and once there are fewer companies and the glut of supply comes down, the prices might rise once again. If the prices rise too much for your taste, then maybe you can help kickstart the campaign to build tiny personal solar panel factories.

Due to the nature of technological progress and the fact that solar panels have a lot of efficiency upside, I think that prices (the price per performance) will continue to fall in the long term. Of course much of this is contingent on a coherent society and economy persisting into the near future as well, which as history has shown us is not a guarantee. Progress still continues through societal and market upheavals, but is typically slowed down a bit.

Have a fine Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under Alternative Energy, Drought

Our local weather of course will be dominated by record heat Thursday.  We could already see that ramping up west of Wisconsin in the Northern Plains Wednesday.  There was a large area of high temperatures above 100 degrees Wednesday afternoon from southern Nebraska straight north to north central North Dakota.  In fact the number were ridiculously high in South Dakota with numerous reports up around 111 degrees F.  You just don’t see a temperature map like that very often in the Northern Plains.  It rather looks like something you would see in the Desert Southwest!   The temperature map below was from 5 p.m. Wednesday.  Thank goodness the dew points were only in the 50s so the heat index readings weren’t any higher than the actual air temperatures.

On a different note, the rain continues to pour down on the Gulf Coast States from Isaac.  Below is an image showing rainfall estimates from the National Weather Service Doppler Radar near New Orleans.  As of 5 p.m. it showed maximum amounts of 15″ in a band between New Orleans and Biloxi, MS.  We have had storm reports from southeast of New Orleans unofficially of 22″ already.  An additional widespread 6 to 12″ of rainfall is likely as the storm slowly moves northwestward into Thursday night. 

You’re probably wondering if the moisture from Isaac will make it into Wisconsin?  It is possible according to some computer models that far southern Wisconsin will get from rain from Isaac right around early Saturday.  But the steering winds aloft will probably then push the main mass of rain over into the Ohio Valley this weekend.  Check out the GFS model projection for Saturday showing substantial rainfall over 1.0″ in Illinois.

Posted under Heat, Hurricanes

As I have noted on a couple occasions in the past (Carbon emissions down, and down again), the U.S. is no longer the biggest polluting nation in the world. Almost all metrics of air, water, and soil pollution in the U.S are better than 4 or 5 decades ago. The big surprise for many of the environmental bent is that carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. have gone down. The latest report indicates that carbon emissions are the lowest they have been since 1992!! (another article on the report can be found here).

Kudos to the U.S., anyway, I am willing to say this is a good thing. Unfortunately this good news was not trumpeted very much in national media outlets (unlike the record low arctic sea-ice). I am always talking about positive reinforcement and here is a great opportunity. Environmentalists and climatologists who are concerned about AGW should be online and in media everywhere extolling the virtues of cutting emissions and telling everyone to keep up the good work. With solar panel prices so low, the government could be pushing more people to install them and further lower our emissions. Even if you are skeptical about “global warming” (AGW), using less fossil fuels and cleaner fuels is a great thing because it reduces the U.S. dependence on foreign energy and promotes cleaner air, water, and soil.

China is the world's worst polluter

The U.S. is emitting so much less carbon dioxide that it now only accounts for 16% of the world’s emissions. China has soared past the U.S. and now emits 29% of the world’s carbon dioxide. I wonder how long it will take for perceptions to re-align. For so many years now the U.S. has been endlessly derided as the world’s worst polluter. China, and even India on many metrics, are now much worse. Will environmental organizations now start protesting in China?

So what is behind the dramatic drop in U.S. emissions? It is a combination of things. Alternative energy is playing a small part. The continuing economic slump is playing a small part. The switch to natural gas has made the biggest impact – which I pointed out a few months ago. In comparison to the negative side effects of using natural gas as a transition fuel (fracking problems, potential pollution), the reduced emissions are most definitely worth it.

Some commentators are not impressed, saying that the U.S. is just exporting manufacturing to other countries and that is why our emissions are going much lower while other countries are rising. This is not really true. Yes, manufacturing jobs in the U.S. are under pressure, but the U.S. still manufactures a lot of stuff. According to the U.S. Census bureau, U.S. manufacturing output grew 11% in 2011 up to nearly $5 trillion. So how do we still manufacture so much and yet have lower emissions? Productivity and efficiency. It is happening all around us all the time. It is progress. Progress can be scary, as I have mentioned before here and here, but we must confront it. Without progress or change, I am unsure that life would be very meaningful.

Progress (greater efficiency) happens in such small increments that it can sometimes be hard to notice. No one person can keep up with all the changes, but I try to hit the highlights from time-to-time in the blog. Even though LED lights have not seen wide adoption within the home, they are increasingly used for traffic lights, street lights, parking lot lights, and many more applications. Each light that replaces an incandescent or fluorescent light is an incremental gain in energy efficiency. Automobiles continue to become more efficient every year and the number of hybrids and electrics continue to grow. Appliances get more efficient every year. And the list goes on and on.

Aerogel protects a flower

One seemingly small improvement I noticed the other day was the creation of a flexible aerogel. If you are unfamiliar with aerogel, it is sometimes referred to as solid smoke. It is the lightest solid material known, excluding a similar  nanotube based substance invented/created just a couple of weeks ago. Read about aerogel here at wikipedia. It is a strong super-insulating substance but has not found much use because it is also very brittle. Now along comes flexible aeorgel (no word on the cost yet) and all of a sudden we could have another significant increase in efficiency. Could you imagine how much better aerogel would be at insulating houses, or appliances like refrigerators and freezers? Appliances could be much lighter as well, saving on material and shipping costs.

The little developments matter. As long as the U.S. doesn’t get into another wasteful speculative boom like the housing bubble and its attendant suburban sprawl, the future should be much cleaner.

Have a good Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Technology

In the past few days, the Arctic sea ice has reached it’s lowest point in the satellite ice measuring era (30 some years).    This trend of lower summer sea ice levels is nothing new.  In fact the six lowest Arctic sea ice extents have occurred basically in the last six years (2007 through 2012).  As of mid August, an area roughly the size of South Carolina was melting each day.  The highest Arctic sea ice extent during the satellite record occurred in 1980.    What’s interesting when comparing the previous low in 2007 to the new one in 2012 is the different types of weather.  It was very warm in the arctic in the summer of 2007.  It has not been especially warm there this summer.  Apparently we have lost enough of the thick, multi-year ice such that even average summer temperature and wind conditions can cause rapid melting of the remaining ice now.

Courtesy U.S. Coast Guard. Ice floes northwest of Barrow, AK on Aug. 12, 2012 as seen from the USCGC Healy.

Sea ice extent fell to 4.10 million square kilometers (1.58 million square miles) on August 26, 2012. This was 70,000 square kilometers (27,000 square miles) below the September 18, 2007 daily extent of 4.17 million square kilometers (1.61 million square miles).

National Snow and Ice Data Center scientist Walt Meier said, “By itself it’s just a number, and occasionally records are going to get set. But in the context of what’s happened in the last several years and throughout the satellite record, it’s an indication that the Arctic sea ice cover is fundamentally changing.”

According to NSIDC Director Mark Serreze, “The previous record, set in 2007, occurred because of near perfect summer weather for melting ice. Apart from one big storm in early August, weather patterns this year were unremarkable. The ice is so thin and weak now, it doesn’t matter how the winds blow.”

“The Arctic used to be dominated by multiyear ice, or ice that stayed around for several years,” Meier said. “Now it’s becoming more of a seasonal ice cover and large areas are now prone to melting out in summer.”

With two to three weeks left in the melt season, NSIDC scientists anticipate that the minimum ice extent could fall even lower.

2007 Arctic Sea Ice extent

In 2007, Arctic sea ice extent reached an all-time low in the satellite record that began in 1979. Arctic sea ice follows an annual cycle of melting through the warm summer months and refreezing in the winter. While Arctic sea ice extent varies from year to year because of changeable weather conditions, ice extent has shown a dramatic overall decline over the past thirty years. The pronounced decline in summer Arctic sea ice over the last decade is considered a strong signal of long-term climate warming.

NSIDC will release a full analysis of the melt season in early October, once monthly data are available for September.

2012 Arctic sea ice extent

For the full announcement and to download data images and maps, see NSIDC’s Arctic Sea Ice News and Analysis page (http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews).

See NASA’s news release Arctic Sea ice Shrinks to New Low in Satellite Era.

Posted under AGW, Arctic climate, Climate Change, World Weather

Photo from University of Edinburgh Geosciences

The sad news today of the passing of Neil Armstrong is making its way through the global media outlets.  We’ve all been reminded of Armstrong’s incredible accomplishments that came along with the help of NASA’s imagination and our uniquely American can-do spirit.

Armstrong was from Ohio, the state where I grew up.  Ask any 4th grader in the Buckeye State, we know very well who Neil Armstrong is.  He is among those Ohioans who have garnered the international spotlight for their contributions to society.  (By the way, we also are very proud of some of our other notable fellow Ohioans like John Glenn, Bob Hope, Jesse Owens, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Thomas Edison, Clark Gable, Dean Martin, Paul Newmann, Halle Berry, Drew Carey, and yes even LeBron James…though I still really wish he would have stayed with the Cavs!)

Armstrong was an American.  He was as an Ohioan who was part of a generation and a profession that inspires people all over the world to look into the night sky and imagine what it would be like to look down at the Earth instead of up from it.

You’ll hear a lot about Armstrong over the next few days.  But I thought it might be interesting for you to see how his hometown newspaper in Wapakoneta will be doing so.  Follow this link to hear how his hometown in Ohio is honoring their most famous son: http://www.wapakdailynews.com/content/neil-armstrong-dies

Posted under astronomy, Weather History, Weather NEws

It seems topics come in waves. I was just mentioning the other day, how in California, if they were really committed to the environment, they would start building the new high speed rail from LA to Sacramento/San Francisco, by digging up I-5. They could lay down the tracks right behind the crews ripping up the freeway. They won’t. The high speed rail is highly unlikely to ever be completed. A lot of money will be wasted. It will be the train to nowhere.

While high speed rail is a nice form of mass transit and is definitely more environmentally friendly, it just doesn’t fit in with our vast network of roads and it is one of the most expensive forms of travel. Such huge projects require the force of government to ever be completed. Private property must be taken. Profits rarely ever materialize so tax-payers usually have to absorb the losses. If high speed rail was such a great thing, private capital would fund it and companies would be beating down the door to build and operate such trains. Europe has a nice network of trains. I rode them when I visited a few years ago. They are an asset for the continent but they are not profitable. Not according to the Germans I spoke with in Munich. The government built the trains and the government still greatly subsidizes the trains. I suppose, as long as the people know that they are being taxed to support the trains, and they are ok with it, it’s all good. The U.S. is bigger and most people who will be taxed to build the high speed rail in California will never ride it. Even if more passenger rails were developed, I doubt I would ever have the benefit of using it. A train from Wausau to Green Bay (which I would use to go see the Packers of course) would probably be the lowest priority on the list of planned trains.

Even a train that is designed to ride from LA to Las Vegas (XpressWest), through desert areas, is having trouble. If it is to move forward it looks like it will have to get a multi-billion dollar loan from the federal government. If a train between to popular and populous cities through mostly empty desert areas cannot attract private money, then there probably is no high speed rail that will ever be privately built and operated in the U.S.

I hope you don’t get the impression that I am against high speed trains. I would use trains if they reasonably priced and served my local area. I think it would be cool to ride the high speed train between LA and Las Vegas. Trains are a more sustainable mode of transportation as well. The problem is that most of these trains cannot be built without government diktats and support. The government decision of when and where to build a train is not usually supported by the desires of the local population. When a private individual or company decides to build “infrastructure”, it is because they have analyzed the situation and determined there is a profit to be made by serving the people. Developers take risks with their money. Sometimes they lose. That is ok. Taxpayers usually do not end up paying for the loss.

Unfortunately, private developers seemed to be mis-allocating resources lately as well. Remember the housing bubble? Incredibly, house building permits have apparently gone up slightly in the past month, even though by many estimates there are still well over 10 million empty houses sitting around the U.S.! And this type of activity comes back to haunt the possible future for trains. The more subdivisions, parking lots, and sprawling highways that exist to support all the empty homes, the harder it will be to put trains in anywhere.

There is hope. A private market solution is evolving that fits within the framework of America’s love affair with the automobile. It is self-driving cars. I have covered the development of these cars for sometime now (here as well). Now auto research group KPMG has released a report stating that self-driving cars will be in showrooms by 2019 or even a bit earlier. The main bottleneck holding back self-driving cars is the law, legal liability issues, and regulations. The initial test vehicles are also expensive. The technology is already here and it works well. Self-driving cars will most likely be much much safer and more efficient. They will also be essentially like miniature trains. Packs of autonomous vehicles travelling on the freeways will even look like trains. The “tracks” have already been laid. It is the best we can hope for here in the U.S.

Have a fine Friday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Environment, Technology

With Tropical Storm Isaac moving northwest possibly toward Florida in coming days and a potential Joyce behind that, I thought it would be interesting to see how hurricane forecast accuracy has improved over the years.    First of all let’s just look at the 5-year average official forecast errors from the National Hurricane Center for the Atlantic Basin for the period 2007 to 2011.

                                              Forecast hour

                                                        12        24        36        48        120

Track Error (nautical miles)              30        48        66         83         213

 Intensity Error (knots)                      7           11       13          15         18

As you probably would have guessed, there is a much large track error when looking out 5 days versus just forecasting ahead 12 hours.  The intensity error increase doesn’t seem to be as noticeably with time.          

When you compare the track error trends from 1970 to that of 2011 their has been remarkable improvement.  The 24 hour average forecast error has dropped from 150 nautical miles in the 1970 to 50 miles in 2011.  The 48 hour error has fallen from 300 n. miles to 80.  Furthermore, the 72 hour forecast error has been reduced from 450 n. miles in 1970 to 100 n. miles in 2011.  I really like those trends and should this improvement continue for another few decades, this is going to become a really precise business.               

You can learn much more about errors and trends for hurricane models as well as data for the Eastern Pacific from the following National Hurricane Center link.   http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/verification/verify4.shtml

Posted under Hurricanes

I am amazed sometimes how a confluence of events, information, and opinion can perfectly illustrate some ideas I have been promulgating for some time now. In fact, I am a bit jealous of other writers who pull these same ideas into a more concise package, but more on that later.

The initial article that brought the opposing themes of environmental sustainability and economic growth into to focus for me was this one: California is exploring the idea of taxing driving. They are studying whether or not they could use GPS units to track your movements and then tax you by the mile. If you are like me, you probably recoiled in horror at the idea, not only from a government intrusion standpoint but from a tax aversion standpoint. Is there nothing that is off limits from government taxation?

It won’t work. It sounds plausible. It sounds similar to a toll road - writ large. At least people who use the roads would be paying for them, right? If California bureaucrats are hoping to garner increasing revenue to plug holes in ailing infrastructure or in the state budget, they will be sorely disappointed.

Vast American Freeways

A tax on driving will only ensure that people will drive less. It is unlikely the tax would generate long term surpluses and the roads they would like to fix with the money will not have as many drivers. Perhaps the ultimate goal is to force people onto public transportation. Maybe they will not repair the roads and replace the mega freeways with high speed rail? I don’t think the California leaders are that smart or visionary. They just want the money. If they were really committed to other modes of transportation, they would just tear up I-5 as they built tracks for the proposed high speed rail line from LA to Sacramento and eventually to San Francisco – telling everyone to just deal with it. Just think how much quicker and cheaper the high speed rail could be built on land that has already been confiscated by the government (for the freeway, I-5)! Instead, in typical wasteful government fashion, they are going to spend billions on the high speed rail (maybe – if the state doesn’t go bankrupt first), and billions more maintaining the freeway system. Even more productive and beautiful land will succumb to expansion and “growth”.

It is similar to the situation around much of the nation, and we have a recent example right here in Northcentral Wisconsin. The highway 10 project from Marshfield to Stevens Point was completed just this week. I understand how this will make life a lot easier for people commuting between the 2 cities. I understand how it will make traffic better. I understand that many people reading this blog will love the new connection (just like when highway 29 was completed). But I don’t like it. If you disagree, that is what the comment section is for.

I used to think more along the lines of bigger is better, a new road means progress, commerce expands, but through the years I have come around to a different view.

America - Full of Empty Strip Malls

Cities used to be distinctive. Roads used to be scenic. The population was small enough to not cause problems. Now things are different. Cities have sprawled out of control. Whereas most of a city’s activity used to occur near or in the center, it is now dispersed. Parking lots, gas stations, freeways, subdivisions, strip malls, and box stores, subsume the landscape miles away from the city, where cows and deer used to roam. More roads have only brought more traffic and accelerates unsustainable sprawl (as I detailed in The Contrete Life,  ponzi infrastructure, and Road Construction Always Increases). Sprawling networks of roads and support of automobile infrastructure is also why we are turning food (corn) into fuel and burning it.

Now we have a new highway 10, but really we have 2 highway 10s. Now double the amount of productive farmland has become victim to “progress”. The new highway 10 takes up even more land than the old highway 10. The cost of maintaining the new highway 10 will be more than maintaining the old highway 10. Another road means more future orange barrel delays. It would be interesting to know if a passenger rail service could have been built to serve the two cities (Marshfield and Stevens Point) for a cost of 250 million or less (the cost of the new highway). The tracks (or at least the lines) already exist between the two cities. Could new track for faster passenger trains have been laid for the same cost? It is already to the point in this country that we cannot maintain our infrastructure. Why do we keep adding more roads?

We are wedded to the car. That is why. It is often said that Americans love their cars. I don’t. When such a large nation and economy is moving in one direction, building and designing its entire society around the automobile, it is hard to change course. Many of you reading this probably cannot “get your head around” how we could ever change things and how we could ever drop the automobile like a bad habit. Well, the good news is that younger generations and developing nations are doing it for us.

One of criticisms I have of Peak Oil and AGW predictions, is that they are quite wedded to the idea that younger generations and developing nations are going to follow the same path as past generations in the U.S. and build ugly parking lots, strip malls, and vast freeways. China and India are trying but failing. Younger generations all over the world are not wedded to the car. The Internet infrastructure is what matters more. They can connect with friends, family, and work without driving. Instead of driving to the store, they order online and take advantage of the economies of scale surrounding shipping and manufacturing. They like the city center more than past generations. They understand the financial and emotional trap that can develop around the ownership of several cars and a McMansion out in the burbs. I could go on, but I will leave you with an article that does a much better job of stitching together many of the themes I have populated these pages with piece-meal through the years. It is entitled the Demise of the Car. It is a longer read, but well worth your time.

Have a good Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Peak Oil, Pollution

In the weather blogging business, global disasters are a prime subject. It wasn’t always that way. Most weather “disasters” were local events, such as a tornado, hurricane, or flood. Disaster went big-time with the advent of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) theory. Now local weather disasters are typically heralded as a sign of a portending apocalyptic world-wide climate disaster.

Using too many fossil fuels is pegged as the core reason for the AGW disaster and thus another disaster often comes into focus on this page – Peak Oil. Energy shortages used to be local phenomena. If modes of energy became exhausted, local populations would switch to something else or find ways to make it through. Now that the economy has gone world-wide, “energy disasters” are projected to go world-wide.

Remember this popular peak oil graphic?

Peak Oil is one of those disaster theories. The premise is (or was) that the earth is running out of oil and that we will all be living like our ancestors did in the stone age, very soon. Anyway, that is the theme you would have found in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Peak Oil did not happen in the late 1990s, as it was originally forecast. Many other predictions were made year after year, and those have not come to pass either (see my interview with Dr. Hirsch). Now at least one person supportive of Peak Oil theory says ‘ when Peak Oil occurs is beside the point‘. I would say it does matter and it is a “point” to be made, because policy prescriptions would be much different if the forecasts were accurate. Almost 15 years of failed Peak Oil disaster predictions matter. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if fossil fuels were a little harder to get as it would speed the adoption of cleaner alternatives. But then again, I have enough income to pay for modern conveniences made possible by fossil fuels. Other do not, which makes life more difficult when oil prices rise.

In any case, diagnosing the flaws/changes of Peak Oil theory and foreseeing the consequences of more expensive fossil fuels is fairly easy. What about other disaster predictions? I have often mentioned that one of the reasons why some people do not put much stock in AGW theory is because they have heard so many environmental disaster predictions through the years that they become hardened to they warnings – the crying wolf effect.

Whatever happened to acid rain?

Remember the acid rain scare? The ozone hole? Neither of these ended up to be as big of a problem as was forecast by doom-and-gloomers. These problems were supposed to almost destroy the world. I don’t exaggerate, I lived through these problems and predictions. Over at Wired, Matt Ridley details how these environmental problems were overblown. It is also a great article about Peak Oil, various apocalyptic disease predictions, and AGW. All of this does not mean we should mock all talk about Armageddon. As wrong and as baseless as Paul Ehrlich’s predictions turned out to be , he still made people think more about issues such as overpopulation.

Have a fine Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Natural Disasters, Peak Oil