First up for today’s blog post, the hunting weekend forecast. All week I have been warning about the potential of some rain and snow for opening day. A couple days ago we noticed a trend for that potential messy weather to hold off until later in the day on Saturday and that still looks to be the case. While, I have made a big deal about this storm system throughout the week, it is NOT a big storm by Wisconsin standards.

The weather should be fairly tranquil at sunrise on Saturday with an east wind around 5-10 mph. It will be a little more northeasterly in the northwoods and a bit more southeasterly south of Marathon county. Skies should be partly or mostly cloudy with temps in the upper 20s. The morning hours, through midday, should be mostly dry. The highest chance of rain will be around mid to late afternoon and continuing into the evening. The rain will be light. I am only expecting a tenth of and inch or two. North and west of Marathon county is where the rain will mix with sleet and snow.

Snow Potential Saturday Afternoon & Evening

The highest chance for 2 to 4 inches accumulation will be north of highway 8. Between highway 64 and highway 8, there will likely be a slushy inch or so of sleet and snow. High temps will range from the mid 30s in the far north to the mid 40s south of Point and Rapids.

The messy precipitation will end late Saturday night leaving us with a dry Sunday (except for a few lake effect snow showers in northern Vilas county Sunday morning). The wind will be a little gusty out of the northwest early Sunday but then die down for the afternoon. We will have partly or mostly sunny skies to round out the weekend but it will be colder. High temps will only reach the low 30s on Sunday.

There you have it. A detailed look at the hunting forecast. After the weekend, please comment in the blog to let me know how accurate it turned out at your hunting cabin.

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And for the best news of the day, maybe the week, or year. The US birthrate continues to decline, for the third year in a row! Many headlines are “blaming” the poor economy. I don’t think there is a need to use the negatively connoted word “blame” in this story. We should be celebrating instead. Fewer births means less future pollution. Fewer babies means less disposable diapers filling up landfills. Fewer kids would likely mean fewer families needing welfare. A lower growth rate means less future urban sprawl and traffic.

Now don’t go assuming I am a supporter of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement. I am plenty fine with having people on the earth. I am just happy with the number that we have now (around 7 billion). If the population remains stable or even goes down a little in coming decades, it wouldn’t bother me one bit. I know some people are worried about a demographic implosion in “western” countries, but the birth rate is going down in most other areas of the world as well.

The main problem with a stable population is that it does not match with our traditional metrics of economic health. Throughout the last couple of centuries, an expanding economy and general measures of societal well-being were all based on “growth”. Meaning that as long as a country was popping out more kids, building more skyscrapers, paving over more of the land, and sending cities sprawling out into the countryside, then everything was awesome. As I have mentioned before, I think we need to start using smarter metrics of what constitutes societal and individual “economic” well-being.

As for the saying “children are the future”. That is still true in the present day, but it does not mean we all need to have large families, when one will do. Also, I am a big supporter of keeping present generations around much longer through healthy life extension and rejuvenation. I reject the notion that older generations are NOT the future. I would love to keep their wisdom and experience around for years to come.

Have a good weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Environment, forecast, Pollution

Continuing on the AGW theme developed over the last few days, some media organizations have gotten an advanced draft copy of the newest IPCC climate change report. Here is an article that describes some of the main themes of the report. The main prediction is for more extreme weather. More floods, more droughts, more record-breaking heat than record-breaking cold. From what I have seen, they are doing a better job of highlighting the percentage chance that each of these will phenomena occur. The range of precipitation and temperature trends and confidence levels are very important for evaluating future policies and actions that are devised to deal with any big changes.

As you know, in the past, IPCC and other climate studies/reports have prompted many people and leaders to “cry wolf”. After crying wolf for two decades, many people have become de-sensitized to climate news and climate predictions. If this advanced draft of the IPCC report is accurate, it looks like they are going with “just the facts” with less hyperbole. This is good. My feeling is that people who help run the economies and countries of the world will have an easier time coming to some agreements if there is less cacophony.

Of course, not everyone is happy with the “stick to the science” wording of the report. Andrew Weaver from the University of Victoria says that the report is written so bland that it might not matter to world leaders (according to the article). I think this will end up being a better approach than constantly proclaiming the end of the world and an environmental Apocalypse, year after year after year after year after year….

One last note about the draft report is about terminology. Perhaps the IPCC is trying to refine or broaden definition of climate changes (and causes) we are seeing, or as some skeptics would argue – pulling a little CYA, but the title of the report looks like it will be “Man-Made Climate Change”. I still prefer anthropogenic global warming, since “global warming” was the terminology used almost exclusively up until the middle of the last decade, and the gist of future forecasts is that problems will occur because of the increasing global temperature. Other terms that have entered the lexicon in the last couple of years are “climate disruption” and the more generic “climate change”.

Dry River in Arizona

In conjunction with this latest news, a new report indicates that droughts will likely become more common in the Desert Southwest of the U.S. in coming years and this will create major water problems. I have written a few times about this in the past (Lake Mead is running out of water, and droughts are becoming more common). I have also blogged about the fact that the 20th century was one of the wettest periods for the American West in the last few hundred years. The latest report warning of more drought mentions multi-year droughts such as the 1950s, but what I am more concerned about is if the multi-decade droughts (from prior to 1900) return. It would not matter that much except for the fact that the relatively wet 20th century allowed a massive migration and population explosion to occur. The high population is the main problem for the Desert Southwest. They will have too push for much more miserly use of water and cross their fingers for more efficient desalination technology – if they want to remain basking in the sun in the desert.

Have a nice Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Drought

Here in the blog we mostly write about things that we find interesting, which is the weather, mainly local and national weather events and records. I also discuss new science developments and space exploration from time-to-time. I often try to find subjects that you will find interesting or something controversial that will generate discussion. Just yesterday I brought up my crusade against Daylight Savings Time and “changing the clocks” and was glad to see someone else commenting some support.

Tony brought up anthropogenic global warming (AGW) yesterday and that almost always generates discussion. Tony mentioned how many more people are talking about AGW nowadays. This is a good thing because it tends to marginalize extreme or illogical viewpoints. When a research study/trend is more widely discussed, the logic and reason of it is more highly scrutinized.

I was reminded of this recently by a report highlighting the fact that the solar cycle does indeed affect winter time temperatures in the northern hemisphere. Changes in the strength of the sun’s cycle would seem to be a logical contributor to changes in the weather and climate here on earth, however, for many years anyone who claimed that changes in the sun could be affecting the climate and possibly contributing to some of the recent warming was derided as a kook, idiot, flat-earther, tool of big oil, and many worse names. It is nice to see that solar cycle changes are now being considered. The further study and inclusion of solar changes should help improve weather and climate forecasts in the future.

The story is similar with cosmic rays and cloud cover. When it was first suggested that changes in cosmic ray intensity could affect cloud cover and the climate on earth, the scientists behind the theory were intellectually berated by many mainstream climatologists and the media by extension. As I have detailed here in the blog, the theory slowly gained traction through experimental verification and now climatologists are actively trying to quantify the effect. Once again, this should help improve the accuracy of future climate forecasts.

Just remember that even if solar cycle changes and cosmic ray intensity have contributed some percentage to recent warming, it does not mean that humans have no effect.

If you follow the blog, you know that one of my main (constructive) criticisms of AGW theory is the fossil fuel inputs used in the climate models. The amount of fossil fuel that is assumed to be used during the next several decades seems grossly over-estimated. Just this year the REN21 report claims that we already get 20% of our global energy from renewables. This is far, far ahead of what climate modellers expected by 2010. There is not much reason, in my opinion, to expect that renewable energy use will decline dramatically in future years, not to mention decades. There is also the issue of Peak Oil and declining population growth that do not seem to be adequately considered in model projections. The interplay between energy use, energy supply, and population growth are dynamic and self-limiting, not linear or static. James Lovelock famously claimed that the human population will be less than a billion by 2100 (because of AGW). If such a population crash did occur over the next 90 years, I GUARANTEEE humans will be causing a lot less carbon dioxide emissions and fossil fuel usage will decline (quite dramatically most likely). The theorized temperature increase would not materialize to the degree that current projections indicate.

Just based on (optimistic) renewable energy usage and the population leveling off, I ran a simulation where carbon dioxide emissions peaked 2 decades from now and declined the rest of the century. In this scenario (based on one simple model), AGW would be much less than currently theorized.

Further reading on emissions scenarios:

1. Many scenarios displayed graphically here.

2. Discussion of different scenarios. Most with high population growth and energy dominated by hydrocarbons all the way through 2100.

Getting back to population growth, I saw a great headline today: “US Birthrates Decline in Wake of Poor Economy“. As you know, I have recently been arguing against the traditional “growth” measures of economic and societal health/progress. I have seen enough urban sprawl and pollution in this country and elsewhere. Not only are declining birthrates good for the environment, paradoxically (according to mainstream economic thought) they are probably good for the “economy”. Less kids likely means less people needing food stamps, welfare, and other government support.

In other climate news, a new satellite is being proposed that could be a “gold standard” for measuring the radiation balance of the earth-atmosphere system. I think this is a good idea since there has been some controversy regarding satellite observations in the past. The proposed acronym name for the satellite is “TRUTHS”, which is not so great in my view. I understand the idea they are going for with the acronym, but it hints of an ongoing propaganda war.

Also, in an ongoing effort to improve climate models, the carbon balance of the earth continues to be studied. Recent research has suggested that nature, as a whole, probably absorbs more carbon that has been thought in the past.

Have a nice Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Peak Oil, Pollution