In case you didn’t notice, last week we inched closer to the apocalypse. So proclaimed the curators of  the Doomsday Clock. The clock was set one minute closer to “Doomsday”. The clock was originally conceived as a barometer of how close the world was to nuclear war. Now that total global nuclear war is such a small threat, the Doomsday clock represent the overall threat of man-made disaster from widely varying things such as bio-terrorism and anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Personally, I am not too worried about AGW because even if it is as big a threat as some people theorize, the effect are many years away and will happen gradually. Put it this way, the world is not going to end this year because of AGW. Some gradual things that are theorized to happen during AGW are the continued break-up of the arctic ice shelf, continued pressure on animals to adapt or die, radically shifting ecosystems, and more plant and animal extinction than currently expected,

In contrast, the threat of bio-terrorism (or biotechnology in general) is much larger and could end the world as we know it this year. The chance is very low (this year), but the technology is advancing fast. Not only is biotechnology advancing fast, but other types of technology could also disrupt things in a very negative way. Some of the best thought on future threats and how to deal with them are not from the keepers of the Doomsday Clock, but from the LifeBoat Foundation. One key theme from the people who think about how to keep our species safe into the far future is to get off this planet. Not having self-sustaining space colonies means that all of our eggs are in one basket – called earth. If we screw it up here with some powerful new technology, it is all over. If people move into space, then there will be a chance that humans survive.

It is a shame then that not as many people are as thrilled about space exploration and colonization as they used to be. Public space budgets in the west have been cut. Thankfully, many of the people who are driving private space exploration are doing so – in part – with self (and human) preservation in mind. Let us hope they succeed soon. Not only could space exploration prove to be fun and thrilling, but it could also help put our minds at ease.

Have a pleasant Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Technology

Some of you weather aficionados might be armed with some of the world’s wildest weather trivia. If not, you can find a lot of cool stuff at this Wikipedia page of world weather records. One that sticks out more than most is the coldest temperature ever recorded on the surface of the planet. The temperature was -128.6 F and was recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica in July of 1983. This reading is almost 40 degrees colder than any temperature recorded on any other continent! AND, it is much colder than the temperature normally observed during the winter in Antarctica! Makes one wonder how it got that cold. Thankfully, scientists at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute (AARI) of Russia have studied the weather patterns around the time the record occurred and have come up with an explanation. It appears there was very little wind for a 10 day period when the record occurred. No warmer air from the coast made it to the central area of the continent and no wind means that there was no mixing in the atmosphere (something we discussed in yesterday’s blog entry regarding our current temps) so the cold air was allowed to “build-up” at the surface day-after-day. This is of course a time of year when there is no sunlight in most of Antarctica so this would not help the temps rise. Clouds were absent so any little bit of heat that was at the surface continued to radiate out into space. The researchers also speculated that tiny particles of ice suspended in the air assisted in the heat loss from the surface. Even more amazing is that their analysis and simulation of the weather environment around Vostok indicates that temps as cold as -148 F are possible if these conditions occurred again and lasted a couple days longer. The next time you are complaining about -20 F here in Wisconsin, just count your lucky stars you are not in Vostok.

In case you were wondering why it gets so much colder around the south pole than the north pole, it is because Antarctica is a landmass. The north pole is all water. Even though the north pole remains frozen during the winter, heat from the water still radiates through the ice and into the air. This puts a limit on how cold temps can get over the arctic ice sheet. The only way to produce colder records in the arctic would be to have thicker ice.

From the cold to the warm. A study released from the Royal Society indicated that “unstable grounding-line recession” MAY be occurring at the Pine Island Glacier in Antarctica. The release of the study prompted many mainstream science news outlets to proclaim that a major Antarctic glacier had “gone beyond” its tipping point and that a catastrophe is imminent as the glacier disintegrates and sends the oceans of the world 24 centimeters higher. No where is it mentioned what the tipping point is. What is the criteria? Is there a number that represent the amount of melting or the speed of recession? Also kind-of glossed over is the fact that the this glacier is expected to lose 50% of its mass through melting in the next 100 years. Not tomorrow. Not next year. In the next 100 years. Unfortunately this is typical of AGW reporting in many cases. Things get over-hyped. It is important information that gets filtered through a lens of hysteria.

Maybe this glacier news will force the curators of the Doomsday Clock to move it closer to midnight. The decision will happen today. Supposedly, the closer the clock is to midnight the closer human society is to a complete catastrophe. It was originally designed to let us know how close we were to nuclear annihilation. Just last year they added AGW into “calculation”. To me, the reason for this move is obvious. Nuclear annihilation is no longer much of a concern. Nuclear arms are a problem, but few people think humans are on the verge of nuclear annihilation. If world-wide nuclear warfare was the only thing considered on the clock, then it might only read 9am. I am not sure how useful the Doomsday clock is anymore. By adding AGW, I think it has become means to perpetuate a general culture of fear, not say anything scientific about the threats we face. They might as well add artificial intelligence and nanotechnolgy to the list and move the clock to a second before midnight. Get it over with already!

Have a nice Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Freeze, Records, Weather History