The Accusations of 'Manipulating Climate Data'

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

10:24 P.M.

Don Easterbrook speaking at the 4th International Conference on Climate Change, sponsored by The Heartland Institute - May 16, 2010: Retrieved from nofrakkingconsensus.com

I spend a lot of time on KOMO's website, particularly because of their wonderful weather forecasts by Shannon O'Donnell and Scott Sistek. I've always been impressed with the writing of these two, and if their excellent weather discussions weren't enough, Scott Sistek runs an excellent weather blog about miscellaneous weather and other scientific topics. You can visit his blog here: http://www.komonews.com/weather/blogs/scott.

Because I visit the KOMO website so often, I see all the other news and articles that are posted up there. Yesterday, I came across a headline that caught my attention. The article was titled: "Washington lawmakers here from global warming skeptic." Here's a link to it for your convenience. http://www.komonews.com/news/local/Washington-lawmakers-hear-from-global-warming-skeptic-200149941.html

This article talks about Don Easterbrook, a professor emeritus of geology at Western Washington University, and a Republican-dominated majority in the state Senate setting aside some time to listen to his views on climate change. Easterbrook believes that federal agencies like NOAA and NASA manipulate climate data, and he bases this claim off his beliefs that the climate is not warming but cooling and that carbon dioxide does not account for global warming. His findings that the climate is actually cooling are backed by his use of different climatic data than is used by most scientists, who use the data collected by NASA and NOAA to assist in their research. The article did not mention where Easterbrook got his data and stated that Easterbrook has no hypothesis as to why these federal agencies would tamper with climatic data.

As most of you know, Easterbrook's views are contrary to the scientific consensus on climate change. Ninety-seven percent of the most prominent climate scientists believe that global warming is caused by anthropogenic emissions of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and other various greenhouse gasses, and even more believe that the Earth is warming. In response to Easterbrook's presentation, the Western geology department stated that they agree with the scientific findings my the National Academies of Science, the National Research Council, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that global climate has warmed significantly since the 1950s and that anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gasses are responsible for this warming. Finally, the article connects Easterbrook's views and the hearing that was attended by the Republican majority of the state Senate to a measure passed by Washington's state Legislature that would result in a study of the practices most suitable for mitigating climate change.

After reading this article, the first thing that came to my mind was how polarized the whole global warming debate has become in our current political climate. Despite the overwhelming majority of scientists believing in global warming, there is a huge rift in the political atmosphere with respect to it. Things were much less polarized before Al Gore's movie, which, by the way, is a very scientifically sound movie and it is unfortunate that the skeptical side to the global warming debate has painted this as untrue. And no, those puns weren't intended, my obsession with weather carries over to my writing.

But the biggest thing that stood out to me was Eastenbrook's belief that American scientists are tampering with data to support their claims that global warming is occurring. It is healthy for there to be differing scientific opinions regarding global warming when they are backed up by solid evidence. The only evidence that Eastenbrook has to support his claim is that the numbers he used were different than the ones used by the thousands of climatologists who dedicate their lives to studying the effects of human-induced global warming. Eastenbrook makes a very serious accusation, but he does not have substantial evidence to back it up.

While it is true that the evidence for global warming based on measured temperature rises is currently not that obvious due to natural variability and the lag behind carbon dioxide emissions and the resulting increase in Earth's temperature due to the many positive feedbacks that amplify a warming climate, the evidence for global warming occurring based on ice cores, model predictions, and environmental trends is very strong. The evidence for measured temperature rises will become obvious by 2050 and will only increase exponentially from there.

There are lots of misconceptions regarding global warming... I will explain these in detail in a later post. I have to be careful not to get too riled up regarding global warming deniers... but it's a serious issue for my generation and will only get worse. If you have any questions or comments about this post or global warming in general, comment below! And if you'd like me to address one of your questions with a blog post, I'd be happy to do so.

On another note, I'm still looking for bloggers for WeatherOn. If you are interested in blogging for us, contact me. It's a great opportunity to help any prospective atmospheric scientists improve their resume, and it's really fun too.

Meteorologically yours,

Charlie

Not So Fast, Mister Spring

Thursday, March 21, 2013
6:08 P.M.

This past winter was, by all accounts, unbearably boring. I made a seasonal weather outlook for WeatherOn last fall calling for an increased probability of 'extreme' events, since this was forecast to be a 'neutral' (not El Nino or La Nina) winter and neutral winters often bring our biggest storms.

Boy was I ever wrong.

But spring has given me new hope. Ever since 4:02 A.M. March 20, weather life has been looking up. We had a vigorous storm system come through yesterday (on par with the strongest we've seen all winter long) that brought a solid dose of rain to the lowlands, gobs of snow to the mountains, and some surprisingly strong winds throughout the Puget Sound metropolitan area.

Muggy and Rainy

March 11, 2013
10:40 P.M.

I tried to be creative and somehow link the post I made ten days ago to this one, but when I typed "Lil' Wayne Rain" or even "Lil' Wayne Precipitation" on Google Images, all I got was Lil' Wayne making it rain (aka throwing money in the air, because that's what it takes to become a highly esteemed individual in 21st century pop culture. Kids these days...).

In any event, we are seeing that same sort of "atmospheric river" pattern I was talking about, except this time, we are getting clobbered with rain. Take a look at the column-integrated water vapor chart below. In essence, this chart shows how much water vapor is in the atmosphere, and you'll notice that a fat stash of good ol' gaseous dihydrogen monoxide is being conveniently transported right to the Pacific Northwest. Awesome.

Valid 11:00 am PDT Tue, 12 Mar 2013 - 18hr Fcst: UW 00z WRF-GFS: 36km Column Integrated Water Vapor

Compare this picture to the one on my last blog post, and you'll notice that this one has a lot more chutzpah, although it may not be as perfectly symmetrical.

Valid 04:00 am PST Fri, 01 Mar 2013: UW 12z WRF-GFS: 36km Column Integrated Water Vapor

What does this large influx of moisture mean? A LOT of rain. But not for everybody.

Pineapple Express events are the bringers of incredible amounts of moisture, but the Olympics to our west are the wringers of said moisture. I remember a time back in 2009 when there were record-setting floods on some of the Cascade Rivers. The Snoqualmie River at Carnation crested at 62.31 feet on January 8, over a foot above the previous record set in 2006. It was insane. But in the meantime, Seattle hardly got any rain. I remember going to school the morning of January 7 and having a hard time wrapping my head around the thought of major flooding occurring in the Cascades.

07:25 am PST Wed 07 Jan 2009

I remember Cliff Mass blogging about this storm. This is what he had to say in a blog he posted later that Wednesday morning.

It was kind of surreal for me this morning....I biked to work absolutely dry and in warm conditions, while ten miles to the south there was moderate rain and all hell was breaking loose in the mountains.

In any event, that same sort of thing is going to happen this time around too. The flooding in the mountains won't be anywhere close to as severe as it was back in January 2009, but the models still paint a pretty profound dry socket around Seattle.

Valid 05:00 pm PDT Wed, 13 Mar 2013 - 48hr Fcst: UW 00z WRF-GFS: 4km 48-Hour Precipitation, 10 meter winds

The 48-hour totals for the Olympics and North Cascades? Up to seven inches in spots. On the UW campus? Maybe one tenth of an inch.

Will most locations see gratuitous amounts of rainfall? Absolutely. Will most people see gratuitous amounts of rainfall? I'd have to do a census check before jumping to any conclusions, but Seattle looks to stay pretty darn dry throughout this entire event, and I know there's a good number of people here.

Alright, off to explore the wonders of alternating currents! Up, up, and awaayyyyy!!!

Charles

Muggy

Friday, March 1, 2013

11:39 A.M.

Weezy approves of the weather.

Well everybody, it has been awhile. I had a midterm today, and I have midterms Monday and Thursday next week. It never ends! However, I have a brief break between classes and I thought I'd post a blog instead of eat some lunch. I'm not hungry.

Although we don't get super humid like the East Coast, we can get relatively humid on winter days when some subtropical moisture gets entrained in the jet stream and is directed toward us. Many of you (especially those of you who live by rivers) are familiar with the infamous "Pineapple Express."  During a Pineapple Express event, an 'atmospheric river' of moisture from the subtropics (often originating near Hawaii, hence the name) is directed northward into our area and often brings incredible amounts of rain. Some might say it rains cats and dogs, but I prefer to say that it rains pineapples. The picture below is the only thing I could find on the internet that resembled the raining of said pineapples... I guess I'll have to buy a video camera to catch the raining of pineapples next time the Pineapple Express hits the west coast.

To summarize, Pineapple Express events involve obscenely high amounts of rainfall and very mild/humid air. We are seeing some pretty mild and humid air right now, but the rainfall over us is relatively sparse. So what's happening? 

Although our warmest wintertime temperatures come during Pineapple Express events, we can still get quite warm when the Express is to the north of us. And that's precisely what is happening now. We are getting the warm temperatures from the south side of the baroclinic band (which is a fancy way to describe a semi-stationary front) since the southern part of a storm in the northern hemisphere is where the warmest air resides, as air is pulled from the tropics into the low. 

11:30 am PST Fri 01 Mar 2013 - UW West Coast NWS GOES-West 4km Infrared Satellite

This isn't a very strong Pineapple Express... maybe you could call it a Pineapple Trolley. Nevertheless, so how the moisture coming into the area originates from the subtropics near Hawaii? That's where our warm air is coming from, even though the precipitation is above us. The moisture train itself is modeled beautifully by the UW's WRF model. Check out the picture below from the model initialization this morning.

Valid 04:00 am PST Fri, 01 Mar 2013: UW 12z WRF-GFS: 36km Column Integrated Water Vapor

You can really see why these streams of moisture originating from the subtropics and extending into the mid-latitudes are called atmospheric rivers. Moisture simply flows along this front, which is often stationary. The stationary factor is one of the reasons why these Pineapple express events cause flooding... they drop lots of rain over the Pacific Northwest (especially the mountains) and just don't let up. I remember the huge Pineapple Express event from November 5-7, 2006, in which an atmospheric river stalled over our area for nearly two days. Many rainfall records were broken, and Mt. Rainier was particularly hard hit, as they got 18 inches of rain in 36 hours. Simply incredible.

I could watch this all day. 

Ok, time to go to physics and learn about magnets!

Peace,

Charlie

A Week of Reciprocals

Friday, January 25, 2013
12:32 A.M.

Well, after one of the most horrendously academic stretches ever, I'm back to having some free time. Most people would consider this break in work I am experiencing relatively small compared to their schedules, but I consider it massive in depth, breadth, and lack of activity. (Although I have to admit, now I'm finishing this post on February 3, and the work is upon me once more.)

Most people would also consider the title of this post to be one of the dumbest headlines they've ever read. But once again, I consider it differently.

Over the past week, I'm sure many of you became familiar with inversions. When a parcel of air is forced to rise, it expands and cools due adiabatic processes. For those of you who don't know, an adiabatic process is a process where there is no heat exchanged with the environment. When an air parcel rises, the amount of heat in it stays the same, but it expands due to it being surrounded by lower environmental barometric pressures as it increases with elevation. When it expands, it must hold the same amount of heat energy, but does so over a wider area. The result is a lower density of kinetic energy per unit volume, because the kinetic energy is constant but the volume increases. I don't know the best way to explain all this stuff because I haven't taken any classes on adiabatic processes apart from a lecture on it in my Atmos 101 class with Cliff Mass 2011 fall quarter, but that's the general idea. When air rises, it cools and expands; when air sinks, it warms and compresses.

This is why we see temperature generally decreasing with height. But alas, things are not always so simple.

The thing about cold air is that it is dense. The coldest locales in the U.S. are not the highest mountains (sorry Coors Light, there are places much colder than the Rockies). One example that comes to mind is Peter Sinks, a natural, high elevation sinkhole in Northern Utah. Peter Sinks is shaped like a bowl, and at night, the coldest air in the region flows right into Peter Sinks, as the bowl shape is conducive to accumulating this dense air. The air that is relatively warmer stays on top of the bowl. In this scenario: the air is colder at the bottom than at the top, and because cold air cools even further when it rises and the warmer air above warms when it sinks, the atmosphere is extremely stable because air parcels do not want to move. This is an inversion... the "reciprocal" of the typical atmospheric configuration we see on Earth.

There have been some incredibly strong inversions over the past week. From January 17 to 22, there were a total of 6.5 hours of visibilities over a half mile. This means that over this 5-day period, it was foggy ~95% of the time. Credit to Scott Sistek for calculating this gloomy statistic. Yet while it was cold, smoggy, and disgusting down here, the snow levels were sky high in the mountains... above 12,000 feet. In fact, Paradise got into the 60s while we were in the 30s. Pretty ridiculous.

Anyway, I've got to go to bed... I started this post in January and finished it off by writing the last two paragraphs at 1:45 A.M. on Super Bowl Sunday. I'll try and keep you posted more regularly on what is going on. And I will have a post on WeatherOn this afternoon.

Charlie