I used the term “Sunsational” today for the first time this year. It is a word that I can’t say for sure that I “invented”, but that I first started using almost 15 years ago to describe a perfect day – weatherwise. There were many candidate days earlier in the year but I just couldn’t use the term because we were in the midst of a drought. I couldn’t be happy with the sunshine while knowing nothing much was growing because of the drought. Now that we have picked up some very nice rain amounts in June and the countryside is lush and green – it is time for a sunsational day – today! Tomorrow will be quite nice as well and then it will turn a bit hotter over the weekend. It still looks like the next chance of rain will come late in the day on Sunday – at which point we could receive some heavy rainfall due to some extra moisture in the air from the remnants of hurricane Alex (or at least the tropical moisture brought on land by Alex).

Today didn’t start out all that sunsational because it was quite cool around daybreak. Low temps flirted with record territory in many locations. Here in Wausau the low was 45 which was only 5 degrees above the record of 40 set back in 1943. The low in Merrill and Eagle River was 37. In Antigo the mercury dipped to 39. Tomahawk had a low of 35 and Land O’ Lakes was the coldest at a frosty 32.

AGW News:

I thought this was an interesting article about anthropogenic global warming (AGW). Arctic Climate May Be More Sensitive to Warming Than Thought, Says New Study. Researchers found that Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic was much warmer 2.6 to 5.3 million years ago than it is today, during a time when carbon dioxide levels were higher than today. The island had some trees a likely no permanent ice-cover. This is much different than today, as Ellesmere is covered by tundra and ice/snow. According to the authors of the article, this a reason for alarm because they expect that if carbon dioxide levels continue going up, the Ellesmere will become more like it was a couple million years ago. I have to wonder if there is a big case for alarm here. Whatever warm spell the planet and the arctic went through in the past, it seems life survived (and one could say even thrived). The big problem for life in the arctic was the advent of the ice ages. Another point I can’t help but belabor is a pet-peeve of mine. It is when writers and researchers use the term “irreversible” when talking about AGW. Ellesmere Island was much warmer with higher levels of carbon dioxide a couple million years ago and that situation was most certainly reversible as the island we know today is a harsh tundra environment and frozen over most of the year.

Space News:

Here is a little update on the Mars rover Opportunity. It is now close enough to its next target – the Endeavor crater – to get a higher resolution image. Check it out here. It is nothing too exciting yet but it should be interesting if Opportunity makes it all the way because clay has been detected in the new crater. Opportunity could end up performing the first up-close analysis of clay deposits (created by water) on Mars.

No word yet on whether JAXA’s Hayabusa picked up any material from the asteroid it visited, but JAXA is applying to be enteredinto the Guinness Book of World Records. They want Hayabusa to be recognized for being the first spacecraft to land on and return from a celestial body other than the moon.

Maybe they could also get an entry into the World Book of Records for the first successful deployment of a solar sail. Take a look at the shimmering solar sail craft IKAROS here. The picture was taken by a self-deployed camera. What a cool spacecraft! One thing I give JAXA credit for is that they put some thought into getting quality pictures and video from their experimental spacecraft. Remember that their lunar probe had a high definition video camera.

Have a fine Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, forecast, Records, Space

I was going to review some of the latest anthropogenic global warming (AGW) news in today’s blog post but its pretty boring because there isn’t much new. Basically: the planet, the environment, and all living things are doomed, and it is all your fault. A simplification for sure, but I am trying to add some humor.  So, do your best to save energy and promote cleaner alternatives.

Actually, one story did catch my eye – eating less meat might not have much of an effect on AGW. This appears to be one of those mistakes that have been popping up lately in some AGW reporting and calculations (like the Himalayan glaciers and the Amazon rain forest hyperbole). According to air quality expert Frank Mitloehner of the University of California Irvine, the way greenhouse gas emissions from meat and milk production was calculated by the UN was different than what was used for grain and vegetable production. The meat/milk calculation included all contributions from the life cycle of meat/milk production (such as the carbon contribution from fertilizers, transport, equipment, etc) whereas the calculation for vegetables/grains did not. Meat/milk production still produces more greenhouse gases than vegetable/grain production but the previous calculation over-estimated the contribution by nearly 1 order of magnitude.

One problem I see with relying on grains for the diet of the world’s population is that it isn’t a very nutritious diet. Grains are cheap and taste good but IMO, are a net negative for long term health. The traditional vegetables (and some fruit) are where you get the most nutrients with the least health drawbacks – but they are also more expensive and carbon intensive. Organic meat, dairy, and eggs, also contain most, if not all of the essential nutrients required by the human body. The trouble with pushing a vegan diet on the world’s poor is that they will only be able to afford the worst “vegetables” – the grains, and they will be put at risk of missing essential proteins. In more advanced countries, vegans can plan their diet very well and purchase every supplement needed to maintain health. If nutritious vegetables and fruit were less expensive, then I could see promoting more vegetarian consumption around the world.

Space News:

More interesting to me is space exploration, and the potential of human travel to Mars has captured my attention in recent years. In order to learn how to cope with such a long lonely mission through space, a mock space ship has been created in Russia and a mock 520 day mission is about to occur. Previously, a mock 105 day mission took place. 6 astronauts were locked in the “ship” for 105 days! Now 6 astronauts are going to be locked in the capsule for 520 days, although 3 lucky “astronauts” will be able to “leave” for a mock landing on the Martian surface for 30 days halfway through the mission. Does anyone think they could sit in an enclosed environment like a small spaceship for 520 without going crazy? I think I could do it, although it would be tough. Mental stimulation would be the key. If there was enough to do each day, it would be much easier. When reading the article, I had to wonder if the crew will be made up of equal numbers of men and women (or “couples”), because…well…some types of physical activity could help pass the time. Then again, I don’t know too many couples who could be together every day in a tiny space for 520 days without some friction, lol!

In other Mars exploration news, the Mars Science Laboratory – a nuclear powered robotic rover named “Curiosity” - continues to get ready for its big trip in 2011. It has been plagued with some cost overruns and now a glitch has been discovered in the nuclear power source. This shouldn’t delay the launch too much, and it seems like a good move to use a nuclear power source this time around as it will not be subject to dust storms like solar panels would be. There have been a lot of discussions about what Curiosity should or should not do. The main thing I would like to see is video from the red planet – enough with the still pictures already. It would also be nice if the rover would move a little faster than Spirit and Opportunity. Opportunity has been on Mars for 7 years and yet has only traveled 12 miles – talk about a snails pace. A nuclear powered rover should be able to cover a lot more ground and make many more discoveries.

Have a nice Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Space

First off, I was wondering if anyone looked at the image from the Opportunity Rover that I pointed out yesterday . I thought the streak of light was interesting (see here). Maybe it is not all that interesting.

On the topic of space, here is another profile of a Lunar X-prize competitor: ARCA, from Romania. There are 17 official entrants thus far an from what I have seen, this one has the most unique plan. They will attempt to reach the moon by first launching a high altitude balloon to take their rocket to a high altitude, From there, the rocket will take off into earth orbit. Another fascinating part of their effort is that they plan to build a spherical moon lander/robot. I haven’t heard how they plan for locomotion but it would be interesting if they used internal adjustable weights. Good luck to the Romanians.

Private space consortia, such as the Lunar X-Prize competitors and the budding space tourist industries face more than technical hurdles when reaching for the stars. There is an enormous and complicated bureaucracy to navigate through first. Since the space race began as a militaristic cold war competition, many laws are still geared to prevent technology from escaping national borders. One particular law that is causing trouble is ITAR(International Traffic in Arms Regulations). Listen to this: when Bigelow Aersospace needed to launch one of their test inflatable habitats from Russia, they had to hire armed guards to protect the technology during the entire time it was outside of the U.S. They even had to pay 2 armed guards to watch over a table that was used to support some of their equipment… even when the table was empty (not supporting anything)! If civilian space flight is ever going to “take-off” a lot of old regulations will need to be rewritten.

Getting to space could be a bit easier with a space elevator. This topic garnered a lot of attention a couple years ago but then faded. Just recently a new space elevator design was proposedthat is more unique. It proposes to a rotating string set-up to propel objects up and into space. So far it only exists on paper, but the mathematics seem to add up, so maybe it is not too far off in the future.

Lake Baikal, ice circle

When in space, you never know what you will see. Astronauts aboard the ISS apparently spied two large circles in lake Baikal (Siberia). It is an interesting image with circles in the ice at both ends of the lake. I wonder if these are possibly the biggest circles ever seen in ice? In any case, scientists are befuddled as to how these formed. It most likely has to do with some melting due to upwelling of warm water from below. How about a more conspiratorial explanation? Maybe the Russians are testing big space lasers to melt ice. Ha – fun to speculate.

Lastly on the space angle. A winner for the new Mars Rover naming contest has been announced. The name will be Curiosity, which was suggested by Clara Ma, a 12 year-old from Kansas.

Back here at home we had a nice drought-busting rainfall over the last couple of days. The preliminary total here in Wausau was 2.51 inches. It is the greatest amount of steady rainfall I have seen since, since, since I can’t remember when. Our weather watcher Dick from Merrill checked in with a total of 4.0 inches. Most of our weather watchers reported between 1.5 and 2.5 inches. The lateast U.S. Drought Monitordoes not reflect the recent rainfall. We should see some improvement in the report next week. Other than a slight chance of light showers Friday night through Saturday morning, it looks like the next chance of significant rain will hold off until Sunday evening. Also, with temps remaining 2 to 5 degrees below normal all the way through the middle of next week, it looks like it will be a few more days before we have a winner in the Rib Mountain snowmelt contest.

Have a fine Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Drought, Science, Space

At one point a few days ago, the rain chances for Tuesday and Wednesday looked rather iffy and I was getting depressed about the thought of constantly spending time watering my gardens and plants. The nice steady rain of yesterday and today have brought a smile to my face, as mentioned yesterday. Ray commented (see comments section, and feel free to leave your own) that rainy weather often means cool weather. It is interesting that the last 2 years have been drier than normal with more sunny days than average, and yet temps have been a bit below normal during the last two summers. Can you imagine how cool our summers would have been if we had received normal or above normal rainfall? Speaking of cool weather, it looks like temps will average a couple degrees below normal through early next week with high temps generally in the 65 to 70 range.

The rain will continue for most of the area today. Some locations in central Wisconsin could pick up an inch or so. At the time of this writing Wausau had already picked up a half inch, Wisconsin Rapids had about 0.80 inches, and Stevens Point already measured about 1.30 inches. The only locations that will miss out on the steady rain will be the far north around highway 70. Park Falls, Butternut, Springstead, and Mercer will likely only receive some drizzle or sprinkles. The rain will taper off tonight and then the next chance of significant precipitation will be Sunday evening when some thunderstorms could develop. The rain is melting some of the snow on Rib Mountain but it still looks like it will last a couple more days – so no winners yet in the snowmelt contest.

Alternative Energy News:

This has been a hot topic as of late and I am definitely getting more behind “electrification” of the economy. Even though there are a lot of reasons to support electric transportation as the heir to liquid hydrocarbons, there is a big government-industrial complex that has built up around ethanol and hydrogen. Bio-fuels do have some uses but funding is drying up and some ethanol producers are starting to go bankrupt. Hydrogen fuel cells still have some momentum but the case for using hydrogen in transportation is a tough one. First and foremost and entire new infrastructure has to be built across the entire continent. It just isn’t feasible. Most of the distribution and manufacturing capability for electric transportation is already in place. In any case, hydrogen fuel cells could still find very important use in helping to develop clean energy. Wind and solar energy is intermittent. Fuel cells could be one of the best ways to store electricity from these sources during peak times and release that energy during down times. So here are some recent developments on the hydrogen front:

An interview with energy secretary Chu where he dismisses the case for hydrogen-based transportation (and also talks about nuclear power plants)

Material with record high surface area could store a lot more hydrogen.

New metal substance could split water into oxygen and hydrogen more efficiently.

In a somewhat related story, the city of Seattle has found that plug-in hybrids are not doing as well on fuel efficiencyas originally hoped. Their fleet is averaging 51 mpg. They expected to achieve nearly 100 mpg. The unexpected low efficiency has to do with “real world” driving situations. What works in the “lab” does not always work in the street. People might not plug them in as often as they should, or they might not drive with fuel efficiency in mind.

Also, a little article on what an electric car fleet mightlook like. You have probably seen many of the pictures before in this blog.

Lastly, Tesla is more likely to survive the economic downturn after Daimler bought a 10% stake in the company.

Space News:

Is anyone else amazed at how long the Rovers have lasted on Mars? They have been going over 5 years now. Some problems related to “wear and tear” have been cropping up, but both Rovers are still functional. Spirit’s latest trouble is getting stuck in sand. Mission controllers think it might have gotten stuck deep enough to actually bottom out. The “belly” of the rover might be resting on sand, which would be a tough situation to get out of. Engineers are busy working with an analogue rover here on earth trying to simulate the conditions on Mars. They hope to devise a method for Spirit to get moving again. Opportunity is not stuck, in fact it has just passed the 10 mile mark on its odometer. Even though it is moving, it still has more than a year to go before reaching its next target crater. One thing I think the Rover designers should think about with the next robots to travel to Mars is a “fast” mode. It shouldn’t take a year to travel a couple miles, especially when the rover is traveling through a flat desert like Opportunity is.

Every once in a while I take a look at the raw images of the rovers (see here), just to see how the landscape differs as they move to new areas of the planet. Here is one picture I viewed today.

Opportunity Navigation Camera Image

 Another nice shot of the desolation in the area called Meridiani Planum where Opportunity is exploring. The interesting part of the photograph is the little white streak in the upper left hand corner. (direct link to large image here) If this was a photo on earth you would immediately think it was a jet contrail. Or if it was night-time someone might suggest it was a meteorite (falling star). I am not sure what to make of it, since it is on Mars. My best guess is that it is an artifact of the camera lens. Maybe a glint of light or a reflection. I suppose a meteorite or asteroid cannot be ruled out. Interesting none-the-less.

In another exciting development, more testing of robotic underwater probes is occurring in Antarctica. Back in 2008 a prototype was tested right here in Wisconsin at lake Mendota during the middle of winter. Thes tests are occurring in preparation for a future trip to Jupiter’s moon Europa. Under the icy crust of Europa is a potential spot for life in the solar system.

Have a nice Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Space

Uh oh! A little update on the space news from yesterday and a correction. It looks like the Opportunity rover has developed a problem with another one of it’s wheels. It had minor trouble with the front left wheel last year and now the front right wheel might be seizing up. If the wheel fails, it will take much longer to reach the endeavour crater, and it might be a sign that the harsh climate on the red planet is finally taking its toll on the rover. They are not going to last forever. One technique mission planners could use to help out the rover is to move backward. This can sometimes redistribute lubricants within the wheel. The correction: yesterday I mentioned that it would take a couple months for Opportunity to reach the rim of the crater (10 miles away). According to the article linked above, it will take at least 2 YEARS! I am willing to bet that the Rover won’t last that long, but I hope I am wrong.

Also, yesterday I linked to an article about speculation that life could exist below Olympus Mons on Mars.

possible mud volcano on Mars

 Today I have found another article about “mud volcanoes” on Mars that could be the source of methane and a place where bacterial life exists. It seem there are plenty of places where future missions to Mars could look to find life.

In other space exploration news, NASA is planning to send a fleet of spacecraft to Venus…in 15 years. Ugg, these things take so long. Venus is interesting because it is almost exactly the same size as earth. I have always thought that Venus would be a better planet to terraform (make like earth) than Mars. Mars has on third the gravity of earth and people residing there would suffer negative health effects from long term settlement.

Venera image of Venus

Venus has almost the same gravity of earth (98%). The problem is that it has a very thick atmosphere. The atmospheric pressure is 90 times what it is here on earth. If we wanted to make the martian atmosphere more like earth (make it breathable) we would have to add oxygen and nitrogen. On Venus we would have to remove most of the gases.

The most recent U.S. Drought Monitor has been released and there is not too much good news. We didn’t have any precipitation here in our area last week so our drought remains the same. There has been some slight improvement in California and the Southeast. With some heavy precipitation moving through California over the next couple of days, perhaps their water situation will show more improvement. We should all be hoping for more rain in California as this is a big food growing region of the U.S. Water restrictions in order to protect the delta smelt fish have already shut down a lot of vegetable growing in the Sacramento Delta. Here in Wisconsin we should have some improvement early next week as heavier rain is possible from Monday through Wednesday. Over a half inch of rain is possible in some areas during this time frame. It will be warm enough for a few rumbles of thunder as well on Tuesday. The only bad part about the upcoming weather pattern is that it looks like there will be a lot of cloudcover and a cooler than normal trend could develop late next week and last into early April.

Have a good weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Drought, Space

You know I have been following the Mars Rovers for years now and am amazed at their longevity.  Update: Opportunity is now close enough to its next target, Endeavour crater, to capture a photograph. It is still a few miles away from the crater so we can expect to wait at least couple months for it to reach its destination. That is the one drawback to the rovers – they move very slow. They are the best we have but move at a snail’s pace. Newer rovers will have better programming that should allow them to move on their own and not require every move planned by humans. If Opportunity makes it to the new crater, it should be a spectacular view. It will be the biggest crater investigated so far. The plan is for the rover to go down into the crater and investigate older layers of rock and help determine the geologic history of Mars.

In other Mars news, some scientists are speculating that there could be lifeunder the biggest mountain in the solar system – Olypmus Mons. The idea is that internal martian heat could maintain liquid water underneath the volcano and thermophilic bacteria could live there. Interesting speculation, but there are not many avenues for finding out if it is true. To me it seems the best bet for tracking down any potential life on the Red Planet is to find the sources of recently discovered methane. Pin point where the methane is coming from and we might be able to focus new exploratory efforts in those regions.

In other space news, a new satellite (GOCE) created and launched to measure tiny differences in gravity around the earth, might also provide some answers to sea level and ice changes around the world. Large masses of ice change the surface gravity in places like Greenland and Antarctica. if the ice mass is melting or growing, GOCE should be able to keep track.

Puddles of water in Northcentral Wisconsin had ice on them this morning because of colder air moving in from the north. The north wind even produced a quarter inch of snow in Land O’ Lakes this morning – as reported by our weather watcher Chuck. Today will be the coldest day of the week with high temps only in the 30s. Temps should start rising again tomorrow as the wind turns to the south and we should have more spring-like weather early next week. High temps will hit the mid 40s on Friday and then reach 50 on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. A higher chance of rain will arrive on Monday through Wednesday of next week. We should have a couple rounds of rain (even some rumbles of thunder) with the potential of over a half inch of rain – which we need desperately.

Have a nice Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under Space, Spring