You’ve probably heard that upgrades to dual polarization has finished in various National Weather Service Doppler Radars in our region including La Crosse and Green Bay.  Marquette’s is currently getting worked on and Duluth’s upgrade will start next week.

The La Crosse Dual Polarization Radar already had a nice workout with some of the storms that moved through this past weekend.  The meteorologists there had a good look at a hail producing storms using their new capabilities.  It allowed them to be more certain of the location of the hail and size of it as well.  Below is an image of some of the things they were looking at with a storm that passed through northeast Iowa.  Please visit the following link from the National Weather Service for a more in depth look at how they utilized it.  http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=arx&storyid=82763&source=0

Posted under Severe Weather, Storms, Technology

After 22 months of testing, NOAA started using a sophisticated new short term weather forecast model.  The Rapid Refresh Model (RAP) for short, will improve predictions of quickly developing severe weather situations such as thunderstorms, winter storms, and aviation hazards like turbulence.  It replaces an older model called Rapid Update Cycle (RUC).

RAP was developed by NOAA’s Earth System Research Lab in Boulder, CO and the National Centers for Environmental Predicton in Camp Springs, MD.  It updates every hour producing a fresh forecasting extending 18 hours over most of North America.  The U.S. is the only country in the world to routinely update a weather forecast model every 1 hour with the latest observations from ground and satellite based sensors, along with radar, ships, and aircraft.

Forecast skill has improved using the RAP model for most variables including wind and precipitation.  For example the RAP did a better job of showing where a large area of extreme rainfall would occur last June over the middle of the country.  Aviation interests in Alaska are seeing improvement to flying safety using this model.  This is especially important to that state because there are numerous sections of Alaska only accessible by airplane.

You can learn more about the RAP model and other forecasting issues from the following link.  http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2012/20120501_rapmodel.html

Posted under forecast, Science, Severe Weather, Technology, Weather NEws

Last week I wrote one of my periodic “things-might-look-bad-but-progress-continues” blog posts about economic malaise alongside an innovation explosion in the solar industry. In it I mentioned a German company Heliatek making a new organic tinted solar panel. Now they have achieved a record efficiency for dye-sensitized solar cells at 10.7 percent. They are planning a roll-to-roll manufacturing process that will hopefully lead to economically competitive production in the near future. Way to go Heliatek!

In another very recent nugget, and new transparent graphene material dubbed “GraphExeter” (according to this article), could help improve solar panels even further by be a transparent conductor of electricity. The material could go near the top layer of solar panels, let the light through, and conduct more electricity. Could it increase solar panel efficiency by up to 30? We will wait and see.

Ford Focus Electric

If you are an early adopter and are looking for an EV to hook up to your solar panels, check out these recent reviews of the Ford Focus and the Nissan Leaf. One option for charging might be the GE Wattstation. It is certainly stylish, but I always wonder, is it cheap? I suppose, most people that can afford and electric car can also probably afford a Wattstation.

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Just a reminder that the entry period for the snowmelt contest is done. No more entries will be accepted. We are now in the stage of watching and waiting to see when the snow will melt. From what I could see from this weekend, we still have a few days to go. Six people predicted today’s date. Way to take a chance and go out on a limb, but the winning date will not be today.

Have a fine Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Technology

Over the past couple of blog entries I have once again discussed the potential of AGW to negatively affect our future on this planet. As a blog topic, it is the gift that keeps on giving because of its controversial and all-encompassing nature. One of the all-encompassing themes is that the entire biosphere will be nearly destroyed by 2100 (according to some environmental forecasters). While this sounds dramatic, it is not a threat that I rank very high on my list of “existential threats”. Long before we are significantly threatened as a species by more extreme temperature fluctuations, more extreme weather, or just plain steadily increasing temperatures, we will face much greater threats from biotechnology, artificial intelligence, and advanced weapons.

Nick Bostrom

Nick Bostrom of Oxford does a good job (very in depth as well) explaining the risks we are facing in this recent article and AGW is not high on the list. He even downplays the risk of the earth getting hit by a killer asteroid (which I have written about before). Perhaps he is right as a recent analysis indicates we would be able too deflect or destroy and asteroid with nuclear bombs.

In any case, human-originated technological threats are a reality in the short term. AGW could be a threat in the medium term. It is incumbent upon us – the current generations living on the earth –  to make sure we harness our technology for the benefit of all humans (and life in general). I routinely update you on how we are inventing a new alternative energy future and I have mentioned often how we could leverage our technology to “fix” any potential future problems caused by AGW. It has always been and is our future destiny to manipulate the weather and climate to enough a degree to sustain our life on this planet. Embrace it. Keep the future safe for all that will come after us.

Have a good weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Technology

We have already discussed the extreme March warmth quite a bit (here and here), but I just had to share one more comprehensive report (PDF) on the record-breaking month, compiled by Roy Eckberg of the National Weather Service in Green Bay. The one interesting fact that I learned from the report, that I had previously overlooked, is that here in Wausau we had our earliest ever 60 degree low temperature. It occurred on March 21st. The previous record for earliest 60 degree low temperature was April 16th.

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Since I started out with a follow-up, I might as well stick with the theme and update you on a few other trends I have been following in the weather blog. In the realm of our transportation and pollution problems many people have hopes for electric vehicles and even self-driving (or auto-pilot) cars to take over the roads. I have covered the self-driving car story for a couple of years now (“Driverless Cars in Nevada“, “Car-Take Me To Work“, “Driverless cars again”) and I am surprised by the rapid progress and the lack of mainstream culture acknowledgement at the same time. Here is an article that claims auto-pilot cars are here and ready to go (no doubt politicians and lawyers are still standing in the way). In tests, the cars have performed amazingly, even in heavy traffic. You won’t see them in showrooms anytime soon though because they are not yet economical. I was interested to learn that anyone who purchases and uses a driverless car in Nevada must post a $1 million to $3 million insurance bond. Considering that the auto-pilot cars have not yet been involved in any accidents and human drivers kill 1.2 million people every year around the world, you would think the insurance would be higher for human drivers. Once driverless cars are on the road, I am sure it will turn the other way. Insurance for a human driver will end up costing a lot more.

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Continuing with ground-breaking technology that is flying under the radar, how about quantum computing. This is a field that not many people understand and thus has the potential to be very disruptive. There is one company in the world that claims to be performing a special type of quantum computing and here is an update on their efforts.

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In what might seem like science fiction instead of science fact, progress continues in the pursuit of cloaking materials (just like what someone might find in Star Trek of Harry Potter). One of the pioneers of cloaking – Duke University – can now create holograms in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, using similar (meta)materials that are used in cloaking. Not to be outdone, researchers in France have created a method of thermal cloaking – or “hiding heat”. Even magnetic fields are being manipulated to hide objects. It is enough to make your head spin.

Have a good Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Monthly Recap, Records, Technology

I suppose it could be said of every age in human history that there was “great promise and peril” involved with all we could imagine to do and build. I wonder if today’s dichotomy is more extreme. I have often heard it said that we are currently in a Schrodinger economy that seems both alive (growing) and dead (drowning in debt) at the same times. The Lifeboat Foundation has certainly found plenty of perils to worry about in the near future. In the case of the environment, as I mentioned yesterday, we are either headed for mass starvation, death, and world-wide calamity or an abundant future with clean energy, depending on which lens you are peering through on any particular day.

I mentioned the great progress in battery and electric vehicle technology yesterday, but these will do no good unless we have a clean source of energy to “fill them up”. Wind power is an option, but it is limited, and comes with some drawbacks. Biofuels might be a good bridge fuel (to the future), but are they really that much better than natural gas (another “bridge” fuel) when everything is considered (land use, infrastructure development, etc). About the best biofuel story I have seen recently is this lab result which created liquid fuel from carbon dioxide and electricity supplied by solar panels. Who knows if this could be scaled up for industrial production, but if we could take carbon dioxide out of the air and make fuel out of it, that would be ideal from an AGW perspective – if we continue to use liquid hydrocarbons to power the economy many decades into the future.

Then there is nuclear energy, which has taken a beating since the Fukushima disaster in Japan. Japan has of course shut down nearly all of its reactors, Germany has promised to retire all of theirs, and funding is drying up for the construction of newer safer fission reactors. As far a pollution and AGW is concerned, the phasing out of nuclear power right now will probably lead to the use of more fossil fuels, not more renewable energy sources, because our Schrodinger economy is not good enough to pay for the expensive alternatives. Two new modular reactors are being considered in the U.S. but they are mired in regulatory approval and will not come online perhaps until 2020. There is still hope for nuclear fusion reactors as new computer simulations have shown some promise, but these will be quite expensive to build and are probably years away.

One of the cheaper and cleaner alternative options we have right now is solar power. The price has fallen dramatically in the last 5 years from about $4 per watt down to $1 per watt and there are many signs it will continue to get cheaper. The price drop is due in part to technological innovation but also due to an oversupply on the market. Chinese solar panel manufacturers are running full steam ahead flooding the market - with the help of government support. This has led to a burgeoning trade war between the U.S. and China and the implementation of tarrifs.

Blythe Solar Power Plant Goes Bankrupt

I know the reasoning behind tariffs, and perhaps this will help U.S. manufacturers survive, but the end result is usually bad. Tariffs (economic warfare) often lead to real physical war. They also raise the price on the taxed items. Perhaps we should just buy up all the cheap solar panels while they are on the market instead. Maybe our solar power plant projects in the U.S. would not be going bankrupt (after recieving billions in loans from the government) if we managed our purchases better. Solar would also likely benefit from a more intelligent power grid and the use of information technology to save on installation costs.

Outside of all the current technological “fixes” we could implement to the world from potential future peril (like AGW) there are also more mundane measures that would help. If it is too difficult to stop emitting carbon dioxide, maybe we could focus on methane instead, as less of the gas floating around the atmosphere would lead to a significant reduction in possible future warming of the atmosphere. Then there are more radical futuristic ideas like engineering our bodies to be less energy intensive. Although instead of re-engineering the human body, it would be much easier to stop having so many kids.

I’ll leave you with one last positive data point to consider for today: extreme poverty around the world has decreased dramatically in the last couple of decades. The percentage of people living on the equivalent of less than $1 per day has dropped from 42% in 1981 to just 14% today.  Now why would this be a positive thing for the environment? Becoming wealthier usually means increased usage of resources, doesn’t it? Typically, yes. However, wealthy people usually choose to reduce pollution as we have seen almost all metrics of pollution decline in recent decades in the developed nations of the world. When people have greater food and energy security, they do not focus as much on day-to-day living and instead on the future world where they will live. Most people choose an un-polluted future world. Also, with the price of traditional fossil fuels continuing to rise, it is likely the new prosperity will lead to the use of alternative energy sources.

Have a pleasant Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Technology

In case you were gone over the weekend, check out Tony’s recap of the month of March 2012. It was a whopping 15.8 degrees above normal and it ended up being the warmest March on record in Wausau and most Northcentral Wisconsin cities. Everyone loved the warm weather in March but it did come with some downsides. Some sensitive fruit trees and plants are blooming early and they could suffer from a hard frost. Precipitation was also below normal which is something I am perpetually concerned about. With the precipitation (rain and snow) deficit in March, we are now officially a tad below normal for the year. It is not the worst thing in the world but it would be nice if we started to see a little more rain in the weather pattern. Our best chance for the next 7 days looks to be tonight.

My comments on the numbers from March; it was quite interesting to see that the average high temperature and the average low temperature were both exactly 15.8 degrees above normal. Besides all of the record high temperatures we also had 9 records for the warmest low temperature. We probably also broke records for the most 70 degree days in March and the most above normal (+15.8 degrees) any month has been in Wausau’s record books, but I didn’t have the time to dig up all of that information to confirm.

Another thing you probably didn’t miss over the weekend is the very cool weather on Saturday. Tony provided a good explanation here. Mother nature threw us a big surprise when the clouds did not break up in the afternoon. What is most surprising to me is that we didn’t see this type of inversion (locked in the low cloudiness and fog) at any point during the month of March when we were hitting record high temps. During a typical year, when the snow melts, we tend to get a couple days like that when the fog/clouds do not dissipate. This year isn’t typical and it didn’t really happen until the last day of March, Saturday, when the high only reached 42.

The record warm March dovetails nicely with the release of the latest IPCC Climate Risk Report that Tony blogged about a few days back. The report highlights included a greater chance of more frequent record high temps and heat waves than record cold in coming years. Looking at this March would probably prompt a lot of AGW theorists to say “see, see, I told you environmental Armageddon is upon us”. Thankfully, there has not been a lot of that type of hysteria going on over the past few weeks. I wonder if the IPCC and various media outlets have taken some of my advice. I doubt they are reading our blog here, but I would be flattered if I had that much influence.

Instead of blaring out extreme headlines and statements, the IPCC’s report couches its language in the “chances” that certain climate changes will occur. March of 2012, as extreme as it was, does not mean that future heat waves and more warming are 100%, rock-solid guaranteed but it is a data point that supports the now several decade trend of a warming climate. It is more evidence that backs mainstream AGW theory.

Why it is not a 100% guarantee of future “environmental Armageddon”, I have explained many times in the blog. Not only is the climate system complex, dynamic, and non-linear, but human society is as well. Some unforeseen natural interactions within the earth’s climate could conspire to tip us into a cooler trend or even an ice age. Even harder to predict is the action of humans, therefore climate modelers generally stick with some pretty tame assumptions about future population and energy usage.

I am much more optimistic. I have dabbled in energy predictions off-and-on and I think that we will have much less fossil fuel usage a lot sooner than the IPCC expects. As potentially as gloomy a picture that could be painted by the latest IPCC Climate Risk Report (and other depression-inducing reports) and by the extremely warm March, you could paint an equally optimistic picture by just monitoring the latest tech progress.

The CTO of Tesla recently proclaimed that we are near a tipping point in the adoption of electric vehicles. Now, he might be “talking his book”, but the trend in battery technology is unmistakable. The batteries and the vehicles themselves are set to go down in price in coming years. The range an EV can travel on one charge is increasing. It already makes sense for thousands of the moderately wealthy among us to purchase EVs. It will become even more obvious to the rest once the price comes down. After all, most of us do not drive more than 40 miles during a typical day’s commute. For those who might not like the idea of plugging in their car every night, wireless chargers are coming into their own. There is even a suggestion to put magnetic/electric coils in the highways in order to charge as you drive. The latter idea is interesting and could be done - technically - but I doubt it would ever be commercial viable/economically feasible.

In the realm of battery technology, highly efficient and cheaper rechargeable batteries using sodiumn instead of lithium are under development at Argonne National Laboratories. Envia has developed a battery with twice the storage capacity as normal but it is not out of the lab yet. Researchers in Hong Kong have even claimed to have created a new flexible graphene “battery” that operates on heat energy alone!

It is not only battery technology that will help propel EVs of the future (and store copious amounts of alternative energy), it is super capacitors as well.

Flexible Paper Supercapacitors

Once again we find flexible graphene being used to create flexible supercapacitors. Who knew it would be as “easy” as using DVDs and laser writers. These flexible paper-based supercapacitors are probably a little closer to economic reality (and producing environmental “salvation”). New insights into the mechanism of charging and dis-charging supercapacitors should continue to move things forward in years to come.

Now just to be fair, battery progress and EVs face a bumpy road ahead. Fisker and A123 have found some tough-sledding in the EV market. First A123 said it expected much better demand for batteries in the coming year, then doubts and financial troubles (as I suspected and have covered in the blog) started to creep into the A123 conversation. On top of that Fisker has been forced to recall most of its A123 battery packs.

Evacuated Tube Transport

Outside of EVs (meaning cars) there is also some movement in electric scooters as Scoot tests the market for such services in San Francisco. There is even room for improvement in super-sonic air travel. A recent design indicates super-sonic jets could fly without generating a sonic boom and be much more efficient. Dreaming a couple decades into the future? Maybe vaccuum tube trains.

There is much more but there is only so much space for one blog post and only so much time in the day. You can be assured I will continue to keep you updated on where technological progress might take us.

Have a good Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Monthly Recap, Technology

On Wednesday we had another record-breaking day across northcentral Wisconsin. That makes 8 record highs in a row and 10 record highs during the last 12 days. Today will probably be the end of the record streak as more clouds and a few light showers are moving through the area. Even though the record highs are probably done, temps will remain well above normal in the 50s and 60s through the end of the month and that means we will very likely set the record for the warmest March ever (in Wausau). The old record for the warmest March occurred in 1910 when the average high temperature was 43.3. So far this year the average temperature for the month is 45.1. The way things look now, the average (mean) temperature could rise up to around 50 before the month is done, so we will likely beat the old record by a few degrees. It is interesting to note that the old record is from a time period which was more known for record lows than record highs. It goes to show that the weather can be surprising. There was a record warm March over a 100 years ago when the climate was cooler. I suppose we could see some record cold at some point in the near future, even though the climate is warmer now. Just look at what happened in central Europe this past Winter.

Back to the topic at hand, the record warm March. Some people have been wondering if the very warm March (and very mild Winter) will lead to a blisteringly hot Summer. In order to find out, I took a look back at the weather records. We have some hand written records that go back to the mid 1970s here at the weather office. They are good for seeing the general trends for different months and years, so I “eye-balled” the highs and lows for months of March for the past 40 years. Then I browsed through the May through August time periods to see if any of those months were hot during the same years as the “hot” March. There were 12 above normal months of March in our records and only two of them were followed by what I would call a “hot” Summer. In 1987, the very warm March was followed by a May, June, and July that were 5 degrees above normal. In 1995, the warm March was followed by a hot Summer. As I mentioned earlier this week, 1995 was the year when we had 9 days in a row of 90 degree weather in the middle of June and it was the last year that we officially experienced 100 degrees in Wausau. The temp rose up to 102 for one day in the middle of July.

There were 3 different warm months of March that were followed by a little above normal summertime temps. There were 4 warm months of March followed by normal or below normal Summer temps. There were three other years where a warm March was followed by at least one hot month later in the Summer, but overall temps were close to normal the rest of the time. So as a rough estimate, it would seem that there would be about a 50/50 chance of having some hot weather later in the year when we have a “hot” March.

For a more rigorous calculation I looked back at the top 20 warmest months of March we have in the record books for Wausau (can be viewed in the Wausau weather book here). I compared these to the top 20 warmest months of May, June, July, and August. It turns out that 10 of the top 20 warm months of March were followed by at least one month later in the warm season (May through August) that was also in the top 20 for warmth.

Some examples: The current record-holder for the warmest March ever is 1910. During that year we also had the 14th warmest June and the 18th warmest July. More recently in 2000 we noted the 2nd warmest March in Wausau and that same year we had the 20th warmest May and the 19th warmest August. In 1995 we had the 15th warmest March and that was followed by the 3rd warmest June and the 4th warmest August.

Using the monthly records we once again find that about 50% of the time, a very warm March is followed by some hot (above normal) weather later in the Summer. 50/50. It figures, right? Many people remark that forecasting the weather is like flipping a coin. It really isn’t but in this case the statistics just happen to fall 50/50. So what do I think? I am going to err on the warm side for the Summer forecast. I think one or two of the months during the period from May through August will find their way into the top 20. Officially, the CPC forecasts that we discussed earlier this week are not picking up any direction toward warmer or colder temps, putting us in the “equal chances” for either or. I think the odds are a little higher that we will have continued warmer than normal conditions at some point during the May through August time period because the general global trend has been warmer over the past few decades. The ocean temps are warmer. The ice in the arctic is thinner. These things matter, and I think tilt the odds toward warmer weather here in Wisconsin as well.

Another thing that will be interesting to see is if March will be warmer than some other months this year. The mean temp for April is 44 and for May it is 57. If for some reason we end up with a very cool pattern in May, it is conceivable that the mean temperature could be as low as 50 which would put it on par with March. There have been 10 different months of May in Wausau that have had a mean temp around 50 or lower.

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And now for something completely different. Have you seen the Human BirdWings video? It is stirring up a bunch of controversy. Is it an Internet fake? Has the person actually achieved flight by flapping wings? You can read about the effort a little more in depth here. Seeing is believing, except on the Internet. If I saw it in person, then I would believe it. Since I have not seen it in person, I don’t yet. A couple of interesting points about the physics of the situation: some people have calculated that it might be possible with the motors he used combined with human power AND a 10 to 15 mph head wind. The flight would be possible based on energy calculations alone. I didn’t notice a whole lot of wind in the video. Also, it would be difficult to stand still in a 10 to 15 mph wind with such large wings attached to your body. At 15 mph, you might even be knocked over. Of course, birds can fly with no wind. If he is using correct flapping motion, then there would not be as much need for a head wind.

Another aspect that hints toward fake is that the video is dis-jointed. For such a spectacular achievement, you would think they would have recorded the entire flight from different angles and posted the entire videos. You would think they would have brought more witnesses. They apparently achieved the flight in a public park in the middle of a city in Europe. How come no one else was around and is now talking about it, posting pictures on facebook and such?

In the end, I hope it is real. The set-up doesn’t look too expensive. It would be fun to try it out. What do you think?

Have a good Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Heat, Records, Technology

Well, the much talked about solar flare turned out to be a bust. We were lucky enough to have clearing skies after midnight last night but I did not see any northern lights. I even turned our skycam to the north and recorded the sky but to no avail. It there were some faint northern lights, I probably would not have been able to see them anyway because the full moon was out. I mentioned a couple of different times for people to not get their hopes up too high and I am glad I did. The space weather forecasting biz is in its infancy. The energy from a solar eruption/flare streaming toward the earth morphs and changes before it reaches us so even some of the biggest flares that seem to be pointed right at the earth end up fizzling out or only delivering a glancing blow.

Something that I would really like to see fizzle out is the clock change this weekend. Yes, you guessed it, Daylight Saving Time (DST) is this weekend, although it doesn’t “save” anything. In fact, every year, we find out more bad things about this dumb archaic practice. Check some of my past blog posts about the subject here and here. This year, research shows that heart attacks increase by 10% after the clock change and it leads to less productivity at work. So now, other than being a pain in the you-know-what, causing us to waste a lot more energy, creating more traffic accidents, and increasing depression, it ruins productivity and kills people (heart attacks). What more do we need to know before ending the madness. About the only remaining reason to move the clocks forward in the Spring is so that more people can enjoy more daylight after a typical work-day during the Summer. I get up in the morning to enjoy the outdoors in the Summer so I would rather not change the clocks. Other countries around the world are dropping DST because it is dumb. When will the U.S. drop it? I don’t know. 

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When discussing alternative energy and a more efficient energy future, most people focus on the big things like transportation and manufacturing, but where energy usage is growing the fastest is in computing. Data centers that hold all of our online information are huge energy “hogs”, and growth in the industry is likely to continue. It is good to know, then, that even in the smallest of places, energy efficiency is increasing.

The electronic chips that power our computers and gadgets are not only getting more efficient but are starting to use light instead of electrons for many of the computational and data transmission tasks. Light signals use a lot less energy and create a lot less heat. The key invention that will help continue this trend is miniature lasers. APIC corporation recently announced a germanium based laser that could fit well into the conventional silicon computer chip manufacturing process, Altera is using fiber optics instead of copper interconnects to transmit information between chips, and IBM has recently created the most efficient terabit per second optical transceiver. The computer servers sitting in huge data centers are getting smaller and more efficient as well. Just think of how much more efficient the computing centers will be once they are running on light instead of electricity.

The New Apple Data Center

Producing energy for the data centers has been a big concern but we have seen some progress in this arena as well. Many big computer and Internet companies are turning toward alternative energy and even locating their data centers near alternative sources like hydroelectric dams. In Apple’s case, they are planning to build a big solar array at their new North Carolina data center. I am not a big fan of Apple products (even though I know they are good) because I can’t tinker with them, but I will give the company kudos for planning some solar power for their data center. Now we just need to convince them to spend more than a little spec of their $100 billion cash hoard on alternative energy.

So if you hear depressing news stories about how we are wasting energy and burning fossil fuels like there is no tomorrow and that we are destroying that “tomorrow”, just remember that progress continues.

Have a pleasant weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Space, Technology

Before I delve into a few technology “follow-ups” on trends we follow in the blog, I just want to re-affirm that we seem to have turned our back on Winter. I mentioned late last week that the weekend (March 3rd and 4th) would probably be our last true Wintry weekend of the season. Winter tried to hold on yesterday with temps about 5 degrees below normal and a little dusting of snow in the late afternoon, but today Spring has sprung. Judging by the CPC 8 to 14 day outlook and my own perusal of the extended computer models, it seems we can say good-bye to (real) Winter conditions.

8 to 14 Day CPC Temp Outlook

As I mentioned a couple of times, we all know that a big snowstorm could develop later this month or even into April, after all, it is Wisconsin we are talking about, but late snow typically does not linger very long. I think most of the snow around Wausau and further south in the area will be gone by the end of this weekend and in the northwoods it will take about a week after that before most is gone.

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Now a little update on one of the revolutions occurring in energy efficiency. It is a true revolution in lighting, although it has taken a lot longer than what I expected (hard to believe that blog post was almost 5 years ago). So why has it taken so long? Cost. LED lighting, while it could be a boon for saving energy/money and lessening our impact on the planet is still quite costly. A couple of years ago, a single LED bulb that could screw into a regular socket was about $50. Today, some large retail chains are offering them in the $20 to $30 dollar range. I guess this is progress, but it is a far cry from the less-than-a-dollar incandescents we are all familiar with. I imagine it will be a couple of years yet before the price is more palatable for more of the population.

So the cost of LEDs is high but there is still progress in the field. Soraa, a company in Fremont California claims to have created a new LED that burns ten times brighter than other LEDs. They expect to begin selling the bulb commercially this Spring and they claim that the bulb will pay for itself in energy savings in just one year. The price? They won’t say.

Example of OLED tiles

Besides bulbs, there is also a lot of research going into OLED panels. These are organic LEDs that could be made into flexible tiles and used for lighting. A European consortium recently increased the efficiency and lifetime of such devices. Right now, most OLED applications are in touch-screen devices and not in lighting, but that might change in the future.

In the far reaches of LED research, scientists at MIT created an LED that emits more power in light than electrical power that goes into it. Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Sounds like a hoax, doesn’t it? It isn’t a miracle. The special LED actually takes some of the heat within it and converts it to light and that is where the extra energy comes from. This doesn’t have immediate applications because it is a tiny LED that operates on extremely low power, but interesting none-the-less.

Even before LEDs become more affordable there are other ways we might be able to save a lot of energy in lighting applications. A Berkeley start-up company is making individual bulbs with cheap microprocessor controllers and sensors within them. This way each bulb can sense motion and determine if there is a need for lighting withing a particular room. Each light could also receive instructions or be programmed to “turn out the light” when it is not needed. This would be particularly efficient for large office buildings where it is rare to need all the lights on (or off) all the time. As long as the extra electronics only cost a buck or two, then I could see this technology becoming more popular.

Another way that energy consumption for lighting and other electronic devices could be cut is to use direct current instead of alternating current. This type of set-up makes more sense in today’s world where we have a lot of gadgets running on DC power but that power first comes from the grid and has to be transformed (losing some energy in the process) from AC to DC (to run the device or charge a battery). Think about it. The main items in your house that need grid power are the big items – refrigerator, washer/dryer, maybe the stove – most other things could be run off of DC, especially all of the digital devices. Powering and controlling lighting could be done with ethernet or USB cables. This type of power set-up might never gain a big foothold in developed countries who are so used to AC power, but in developing nations without an enormous established electrical grid, it might be the perfect solution to merge with alternative energy sources such as solar panels.

As far as my experiment with LED bulbs goes, the sample bulbs I received nearly 5 years ago are still going strong. The light is the blue-ish tinted light common with non-incandescent bulbs, but it does not bother me. The more intense blue-ish light of LEDs is something that is getting better with newer products as well. And just to remind everyone why lighting is so important, 10% of our energy production goes to lighting alone here in the U.S.(as of 1002). Some estimates put worldwide energy consumption for lighting at 20%. With widespread adoption of LEDs, these numbers could be cut to 5% or less, and that means A LOT less pollution and fossil fuel consumption.

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Also, keep your eyes to the night-time sky over the next few days, a very active region of the sun is throwing off some big flares. It is expected to remain active for a few more days, thus increasing our chances of seeing the northern lights. Will mother nature cooperate? Not tonight and tomorrow night. But Thursday night and Friday night might turn out more clear. Take a look here for a cool video showing time-lapse photography of the northern lights and a good explanation of how they form as well as why the colors differ.

Speaking of geomagnetic storms, scientists calculate that there is a 1 in 8 chance between now and 2020 that a mega-solar stormcould hit the earth - one that could potentially knock out power to a good portion of the earth. In a case such as that it would be good to have an off-grid source of electric power. A mega-solar storm is something for which the U.S. is woefully unprepared.

Have a fine Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Pollution, Spring, Technology