Just a couple of updates for today. You know I am excited for the arrival of self-driving cars. If airplanes (jet-liners) are any guide, then highways will soon be as safe as the skies when computers take over. Besides safety, there will also be major improvements in traffic flow and efficiency. It is a win-win-win in my view. Google has logged 300,000 miles with their self-driving cars and have not logged even 1 accident. They will soon have some of their employees commute to work by themselves in the self-driving cars.

So what could go wrong? A lot, actually. The cars will of course have to be tested more rigorously and there will have to be fail-safe options where the human passenger can take over driving in extreme situation. But besides that, there is also the fact that you will no longer be as in control as you once were. The computer driving the car will have more control over the speed you are going, the route you are taking, and how to react in potential accident situations. There is also the creepy aspect of “big-brother” (government) or hackers being able to take over your car and make it stop or drive you to prison or other potentially nefarious things. Also, people who enjoy driving and are good at it will of course feel a loss if they are no longer allowed to. Eric Peters goes into a long list of why he doesn’t like the thought of self-driving cars. In the end, I think the safety record of self-driving cars will win out and those who want to drive themselves will dwindle in number. Regulations (and insurance) will probably end up raising the cost of human driving so far that it becomes impractical. People in the U.S. will probably lament the most because we have such a love affair with our cars, but it won’t be that much different than getting on a train or airplane where you are not in control and computers operate them very safely.

__________________________________

In case you were wondering about the Curiosity rover – not too many pictures yet. It will have to go through about a week of tests before it really starts exploring. I just hope it moves faster than the last two rovers. Opportunity has traveled quite a bit in 9 years of operation but it moved only at a snail’s pace – usually just a few feet a day. Curiosity is powered by nuclear decay which should last a couple years at least. If there is nothing interesting to see where it landed, hopefully it can quickly move/drive to a different place. It will be interesting to see if Curiosity can outlast Opportunity. All I have heard from mission planners thus far is that the nuclear power should last “years”.

___________________________________

Noctilucent Clouds

On the subject of noctilucent clouds (see this past blog about it), scientists are converging on an answer of how they form. It seems meteor smoke might be mostly responsible. Volcanoes have created these clouds in the past but many that are being seen nowadays are probably be seeded by meteor smoke.

_______________________________

I have been harping on growth lately and how, perhaps, traditional economic growth metrics that include paving over things and building more things are probably not a good measure of the true ”health” of the economy. Here is another blogger speculating that Best Buy’s (the electronics store) woes could be due to the crash of the exurbs and suburbs. Not only have house prices declined most aggressively in the suburbs, but there is a demographic shift going on that suggests the hey-day of strip malls and big box stores might be ending.

Have a swell Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Space, Technology

I couldn’t help but comment on a story we aired on WAOW-TV yesterday about the “orange barrel season” or road construction season. Some officials in the story were quoted as saying ‘we will be better off in the end/future’ – that the construction is necessary and traffic will be better off in the future.

I am here to say that is not true.

It is certainly not true for the amount of construction that occurs every year. In some instances, new roads and new designs can help with the flow of traffic – at least temporarily – but in the end the orange barrels just multiply like rabbits. Some people might live under the illusion that road construction today means less tomorrow, but that would fly in the face of math and logic. I can tell you with much certantity that I have witnessed more road construction every year of my life. It never decreases. It ALWAYS increases.

The reasons are simple. The population grows. Cities and suburbs grow. Roads become bigger and more numerous. They all wear out at a certain rate. More roads and more traffic means more construction every year. It is fait acompli. I detailed the positive feedback loop of more roads and suburban sprawl in The Concrete Life (also part 2 and part 3). Our current society (in the U.S.) is organized around the automobile. Unless someone invents an indestructible material with which to build roads and/or we move to more mass transit and/or the population begins to decline, it will be ever increasing construction every year into the future. The most disturbing trend I have seen in recent years is that more and more remote roads in northern Wisconsin with tiny volumes of traffic are being paved over. What were once easy and cheap maintenance gravel roads are becoming huge future tax liabilities. Paved roads require more expensive maintenance – and more orange barrels.

Is there any hope for the future? Yes. We may have recently seen “Peak Car” and “Peak Travel” here in the U.S. Younger generations are not buying cars or populating suburbs to the extent of earlier generations (also detailed here). Retiring baby boomers are moving closer together and closer to the services they need in urban areas to make retirement more enjoyable. These trends point to a distant future where the curse of the orange barrels might recede.

Lastly I want to make sure that I am not necessarily faulting the “officials” for trying to comfort people during the frustrating construction season. They know people will be angry with travel delays once Summer rolls around. They have to try and put a positive spin on things. Everyone who is complaining should look in the mirror if they want someone to blame. As long as citizens – in aggregate – choose to live in far flung suburbs and exurbs, choose to commute through snarled traffic an hour a day, choose to shop at strip malls situated on formerly productive farmland, then it will be road construction for as far as the eye can see, every year, forever.

Have a fine Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Environment, Pollution

The latest US Drought Monitor has been released and there is good and bad news within. Here in Wisconsin our drought situation improved slightly from last week. The driest areas of the state are still in the northeast and in the far south. Here in central Wisconsin we have received just enough rainfall to keep us out of the abnormally dry category but we have only had 0.38 inches in the last 11 days. If we do not have much rain tomorrow (40% chance of storms) or over the weekend (slight chance of showers), then more of the state might end up in the abnormally dry category by next week. I apologize for not providing some drought pictures in the blog today, there is still some trouble with uploading pictures from our computer. Our tech department is apparently working on the problem, but no eta on a fix. You will have to probe the links provided in today’s post in order to get the proper visuals.

The bad news in the Drought Monitor is once again in the southern part of the country. The exceptional drought continues over Texas, Oklahoma, much of Louisiana, and New Mexico. Everyone in this region of the country is keeping their fingers crossed that La Nina does not develop once again this winter because that could mean an even longer drought. In contrast to most years, I suspect some folks are even hoping for some tropical storms or hurricanes to head their way. The exceptional drought in these areas have garnered a lot of attention but believe it or not there have been some U.S. droughts in the past that have been even more extreme, and I am not just talking about the dust bowl years of the 1930s. One of the longest periods of no measurable rain was almost 3 years in San Bernardino county of southern California. No measurable rain fell in the county from August 16th of 1909 until May 6th 1912 – 994 days. Another dry spell began in October of 1912 that ended up lasting alomst 800 days. Talk about a drought!

It is not that bad in the desert southwest this year, but the bad news is that the drought is increasing a little in Arizona. If there is one region of the country that lives more on edge over water resources, it is the desert southwest. Over the last few decades, the population in this region of the country has gone up by many millions. Water is becoming a valuable and scarce resource. Of particular concern is Lake Mead. If the lake gets any lower, it will not be able to produce electricity for the region. Here is a detailed article explaining the conundrum. Scroll to the bottom of the picture showing how Lake Mead has changed from the mid 80s up until now. Wow! Lake Mead seems to be going the way of the Aral Sea. The one bright spot in the situation is the fact the the main watersheds that feed Lake Mead are to the north – the Green River and the Colorado River. These rivers have plenty of water this year.

This all relates to the issues I have been covering lately – the hope for a more efficient and less polluted future – the re-definition of economic “growth” (see here and here). As long as energy was cheap  and Lake Mead stayed full (to produce electricity and water resources), then it made economic sense to build in the desert. Perhaps the expansion went too far. I have been to Phoenix on several occasions and it definitely fits the definition of urban sprawl, making the city hotter and more polluted as the years have gone by. This of course creates a positive feedback loop where hotter weather from the urban heat island effect creates the need for more air conditioning, which adds to the pollution and ambient heat. Building grand freeways, parking lots, and sub-divisions fueled the over-reliance on the automobile for the functioning of our society. In a related development, the car-economy has even produced the ridiculous situation where more of our corn crop (food) is being used produce ethanol than is going to feed cattle and chickens. (At least a few more people are starting to call for an end to the ethanol mandate).

Of course, there are some positive trends, as I highlighted yesterday. More people are moving back into the city and leaving the suburbs and exurbs. This presents some challenges to maintain more densely populated urban centers, but it also presents opportunities to live more efficiently. Here is a recent article discussing the real estate implications of the demographic trend (disclosure: I have no connection with the author or any financial/political interest in any company mentioned in the article. I just wanted to highlight the fact that people are moving back to the city and it is a bit of evidence to bolster this trend)

With all of this recent blogging seemingly “bashing” cars, you might think I am on a crusade. This is not the case. While I do bike and walk whenever I can, I do own 2 cars and I greatly appreciate this convenience. I wouldn’t want to do away with cars or freeways (unless we had some better option easily available). I use my car to go to the same places as everyone else – grocery shopping, visiting relatives, vacation, etc… The theme I am trying to highlight is that perhaps here in the U.S. we took the love of the automobile a bit too far. Maybe too much former farmland and greenland has been paved over. Sustaining the sprawl in the U.S. gets tougher and more expensive every year. Maybe it is time to dial it back a little.

Have a fine Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Drought, Nature, Pollution