Into the Storm: A book review
"Matt's compact Jeep became impossible to handle. Water rose on the road. We saw a family hiding in the nook of an overpass and decided that joining them was our best chance to escape danger. We parked the car and ran. Then the tornado ground straight in our direction. Thick tree branches snapped like bread sticks and made gunshot-style sounds that pierced the tornado's baritone howl. Mud flew everywhere. Air getting sucked into the tornado rushed through every seam in the overpass."
Meteorologist Reed Timmer, star of Discovery Channel's Storm Chasers, and writer Andrew Tilin have teamed up to write a highly entertaining and solidly educational book that is filled with gripping stories like this, detailing Timmer's amazing career as a storm-chasing meteorologist. Into the Storm begins in 1998, when Timmer enrolled as an undergraduate in the University of Oklahoma's meteorology program. His early chase stories leave one marveling that he is still alive, as his strong obsession to experience and learn about severe storms was not accompanied by much knowledge or common sense. The excerpt above is an account of his chase of the infamous F5 Bridge Creek, Oklahoma tornado of May 3, 1999--the strongest tornado ever measured, with Doppler-estimated winds of 302 mph. Timmer lucked out, as the tornado made a sudden turn and spared him its full fury. He goes on to explain in detail how taking shelter under an overpass in a tornado is a bad idea (the overpass can magnify the winds, you've elevated yourself into a region where surface friction is not slowing down the winds as much, and you're exposed to flying debris.)
Timmer's narrative of his encounter with the Bridge Creek tornado sets the tone for the book--chase stories interwoven with meteorological education. The meteorology is described in a way that a high school-educated person can understand, and is generally accurate and well-done (one exception: he fails to go into enough detail on how hurricanes get their energy, merely saying they get it from warm ocean waters.) Mixed in with the chase stories and meteorology lessons are details of Timmer's personal life, his past, and feelings about his severe weather fascination. These add a very human touch to the book that will make it appealing to a wide audience. A center eight-page section of color photos enhances the presentation, though I would have liked to see more photos illustrating the University of Oklahoma, the Storm Prediction Center, and the locations of the two dramatic hurricane chases told in the book. His chase stories of Hurricane Katrina (where he weathered the storm at the jail house in Slidell after getting arrested as a suspected looter), and Hurricane Floyd (where he spent the storm in a mobile home near the eyewall), are eye-poppingly insane. He also talks a good deal about the dilemma faced by many meteorologists--how to reconcile our passion for storms with the great suffering and destruction they wreak. He opens the book thusly:
"It's an interesting proposition, seeking happiness from tornadoes. For those few of us who are unquestionably mesmerized by them, chasing tornadoes can be the most fantastic experience in the world. Tornado chasing taxes your intellect and puts you at one with incredible, spectacular forces of nature. Chasing is also a fix for any adrenaline junkie and, if you do it often enough, can become your career. But an obsession with stalking tornadoes can kill or maim you too, and even if chasing doesn't leave you with physical scars or a need for crutches, it's hard to escape unscathed. You'll witness death and destruction of property that sickens your stomach and saddens your heart. Your family will worry about you. Significant others will tire of playing second fiddle. Peers will disagree with the way you chase, and you'll lose friends to your obsession."
Timmer achieves some degree of relief from this dilemma by realizing that storm chasers do a public service by calling in reports that lead to more accurate tornado warnings, saving lives. He is also dedicated to collecting data for tornado research using video and instrumented chase vehicles. Still, the dilemma of attempting to gain happiness from tornadoes is one Timmer does not entirely have the answers to, giving this book a human element often lacking in books written by scientists. I recommend Into the Storm to both scientists and non-scientists; the stories are amazing, and the science is presented in a non-obtrusive way that does not slow down the book, but instead enhances it. Teaching meteorology using stories is a great way to educate people, and Timmer has done a great service to the field of meteorology by writing this book. Three and a half out of four stars. Into the Storm is $16.33 (hardback) from amazon.com. The amazon website and Timmer's tornadovideos.net website also have a spectacular 2-minute video clip highlighting some of the chases documented in the book.
This review will appear later this year in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, and is Copyright 2011 American Meteorological Society (AMS). Permission to use figures, tables, and brief excerpts from this work in scientific and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is determined to be "fair use" under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act September 2010 Page 2 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC ?108, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the AMS's permission. Republication, systematic reproduction, posting in electronic form, such as on a web site or in a searchable database, or other uses of this material, except as exempted by the above statement, requires written permission or a license from the AMS. Additional details are provided in the AMS Copyright Policy, available on the AMS Web site located at (http://www.ametsoc.org/) or from the AMS at 617-227-2425 or copyright@ametsoc.org.
Wunderground hiring a climate scientist
Weather Underground, Inc. is seeking a full-time scientist with excellent communication and programming skills to improve our climate change and meteorology education web pages. Initial task: use downscaled climate model output to generate "far-future" forecasts. The position requires an M.S. or Ph.D. in meteorology. Consult our employment web page for a full job description and application info. The increase in significant weather events over the past year has kept me tied up blogging, giving me little time to work on expanding the content of our climate change and weather education web pages. It is time to get some help!
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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$100 billion? Jeez...Surely this is an exaggeration of some sort...
Either way 100 million? Still ridiculous for governor.
Conservative side definitely has more money.
That's not ridiculous by your terms?
And yet your side is accusing democrats of spending?
All time hypocrite.
*sigh*
First, communism is an economic philosophy. They have nothing to do with government. A common implementation for communism has been to use the government as the central planning authority for the economy, but communism does not dictate this, nor does it specify any type of government for implementation.
Communism in it's pure form is doomed to abject failure due to human nature (greed). In order to overcome this, communist nations built strong and controlling central governments. Of course, anytime this is done it usually devolves through corruption into authoritarian rule.
You can potentially have democratic communist nations, however it seems most nations who go down that path end up being democratic socialist/capitalist nations such as those in Europe.
China can hardly be called communist anymore. They are still ruled by an authoritarian government, but their economy has become a mixture of communism and capitalism.
Economic philosophies don't determine whether or not slave labor camps or any other atrocities happen. The government and society does. Our democratic government was quite content letting all sorts of atrocities happen on its watch, including slavery. Eventually as people gained their voice and SOCIETY evolved and changed, we put more and more of atrocities behind us.
And once again, you seem to enjoy using this mythological "liberal" paint brush to debase those you don't agree with. At best, this is intellectually dishonest. It also demonstrates that you have no idea what liberal really means, nor how to properly quantify exactly which form of "liberal" you're talking about. Are you talking about social liberals? Economic liberals? Conservative liberals? Classical liberals?
Liberalism is defined as the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but most liberals support such fundamental ideas as constitutions, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights, capitalism, free trade, and the freedom of religion.See more about liberalism here.
Does that sound like your idea of "liberal" to you? If it doesn't, then perhaps you should find another convenient label for people you disagree with. Fox has a whole list of them.
If you want to be taken seriously, try adopting tactics and arguments that aren't lifted from the Fox News playbook.
Im sure there's a Joke in dere somewhere,eh?
OMG, that is NOT the first time that happen is it ? LOL, bugs, flora and fauna?
DNA eh?
Oldest Known DNA Found in Greenland Ice Core
Are you not a Republican?
What percentage of ice mass has Greenland lost since 1979? I think that information would provide useful perspective on the situation.
Edited: Removed quote containing graphic...No sense in including such a large graphic since it's already appeared only a few posts ago.
There is absolutely no evidence anywhere in the fossil record to indicate that such rapid warming has taken place at any time in at least the last several hundred thousand years.
The planet is warming, and more rapidly than predicted.
That warming is due primarily to rising concentrations of CO2.
That CO2 is primarily from the burning of fossil fuels.
I think I understand the position you are in.
Let me rephrase my phrase from earlier "democrats are typically more involved with nature and humanity as a whole"
Because of this, I believe, though I have no direct evidence, that most democrats are happier than most republicans.
Where do you stand in that equation? No idea...
LOL, does it really matter SSIG? Ya can't deny DNA bro!
Science daily has some other articles... This is from 2009
Greenland Ice Cap Melting Faster Than Ever
Link
ScienceDaily (Nov. 13, 2009) %u2014 Satellite observations and a state-of-the art regional atmospheric model have independently confirmed that the Greenland ice sheet is losing mass at an accelerating rate, reports a new study in Science.
This mass loss is equally distributed between increased iceberg production, driven by acceleration of Greenland's fast-flowing outlet glaciers, and increased meltwater production at the ice sheet surface. Recent warm summers further accelerated the mass loss to 273 Gt per year (1 Gt is the mass of 1 cubic kilometre of water), in the period 2006-2008, which represents 0.75 mm of global sea level rise per year.
Professor Jonathan Bamber from the University of Bristol and an author on the paper said: "It is clear from these results that mass loss from Greenland has been accelerating since the late 1990s and the underlying causes suggest this trend is likely to continue in the near future. We have produced agreement between two totally independent estimates, giving us a lot of confidence in the numbers and our inferences about the processes".
The Greenland ice sheet contains enough water to cause a global sea level rise of seven metres.
Since 2000, the ice sheet has lost about 1500 Gt in total, representing on average a global sea level rise of about half a millimetre per year, or 5 mm since 2000.
But the Music isnt so bad.
Taps,lightly on his Keyboard.
And the total percentage of ice mass lost is...?
Tell me the percent attributed to man for today's warming? Show us how we can disprove it is not mostly natural. Here, tell me where these calculations are wrong. TIs it .28% or 5% that we contribute. Please show me the science oh all knowing one, or run from it as you usually do. . . .
Water Vapor Rules
the Greenhouse System
?????
I see many sharp increases and decreases.
Picture was taken from Levi's blog btw.
And neither can nature's influence on the current warming.
Humans do have an effect, but it isn't known how much. HOWEVER, if none of the other non human variables which contribute to our earth's warmth are changing, then co2 would be causing all of the warming.
Unfortunately, I do not know that none of the other variables haven't changed, though i am guessing they haven't changed much.
Maybe I'm wrong, but don't think there is a quantitative study or answer on that...
Except modern day missles are significantly more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb. A 1 megaton warhead, (which a modern missile can have 10) is the equivalent of 50 or more Hiroshima bombs, so it would hypothetically take fewer of them to create the effect.
A lot of nuclear testing happened during the late 40's through the 60's. I wonder if that had an appreciable cooling effect and if it could have been a contributing factor to the brief cooling period during those times. We know that sulfur emissions had a cooling effect, but I haven't seen any papers on nuclear testing.
Annual averages of global sea level. Red: sea-level since 1870; Blue: tide gauge data; Black: based on satellite observations. The inset shows global mean sea level rise since 1993 - a period over which sea level rise has accelerated. More information: Coastal Sensitivity to Sea Level Rise (USGCRP) and Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis.
Global mean sea level has been rising at an average rate of approximately 1.7 mm/year over the past 100 years (measured from tide gauge observations), which is significantly larger than the rate averaged over the last several thousand years. Since 1993, global sea level has risen at an accelerating rate of around 3.5 mm/year. Much of the sea level rise to date is a result of increasing heat of the ocean causing it to expand. It is expected that melting land ice (e.g. from Greenland and mountain glaciers) will play a more significant role in contributing to future sea level rise.
Simulated global temperature in experiments that include human influences (pink line), and model experiments that included only natural factors (blue line). The black line is observed temperature change.
Global climate models clearly show the effect of human-induced changes on global temperatures. The blue band shows how global temperatures would have changed due to natural forces only (without human influence). The pink band shows model projections of the effects of human and natural forces combined. The black line shows actual observed global average temperatures. The close match between the black line and the pink band indicates that observed warming over the last half-century cannot be explained by natural factors alone, and is instead caused primarily by human factors.
Even on your questionable graph, that warming took place over thousands of years, not decades as it has presently.
Oh, I've never run from anything, oh ye of little science. ;-) But you know that already. I may, however, refuse to waste time discussing actual science with those who have absolutely no interest in doing so, just as I won't again address the oft-debunked gibberish found on geocraft (I really do wish you'd post some peer-reviewed science supporting your denialism, though I realize that's
difficultimpossible). Casting pearls before swine and all that, you know? Anyway, I'll just leave you with this bit from NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt (for the hundredth time): "Over the last 40 or so years, natural drivers would have caused cooling, and so the warming there has been...is caused by a combination of human drivers and some degree of internal variability. I would judge the maximum amplitude of the internal variability to be roughly 0.1 deg C over that time period, and so given the warming of ~0.5 deg C, I%u2019d say somewhere between 80 to 120% of the warming. Slightly larger range if you want a large range for the internal stuff." You've been provided numerous links to peer-reviewed sources explaining how the 80%-120% number was arrived at; feel free to check them out at your leisure.@SouthDadeFish: as JFLORIDA alluded to, such previous temperature increases (and decreases) took place over thousands of years.
Goodnight, all.
Global annual average temperature measured over land and oceans. Red bars indicate temperatures above and blue bars indicate temperatures below the 1901-2000 average temperature. The black line shows atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration in parts per million.
Global average temperature is one of the most-cited indicators of global climate change, and shows an increase of approximately 1.4°F since the early 20th Century. The global surface temperature is based on air temperature data over land and sea-surface temperatures observed from ships, buoys and satellites. There is a clear long-term global warming trend, while each individual year does not always show a temperature increase relative to the previous year, and some years show greater changes than others. These year-to-year fluctuations in temperature are due to natural processes, such as the effects of El Ninos, La Ninas, and the eruption of large volcanoes. Notably, the 20 warmest years have all occurred since 1981, and the 10 warmest have all occurred in the past 12 years.
This is the Hurricane Landfall Outlook! This means this is the % of you having Hurricane effects!
Effects: 1. Winds Greater Than 74MPH 2. Heavy Tropical Rain 3. Huge Storm Surges 4. Desructive Storm Damage 5. Strong Tornadoes
Here are the top 3 storm tracks:
*Hurricanes can make landfall anywhere!*
Well according to here the total ice mass of the Greenland Ice Sheet is 2.66946x10¹⁵ metric tons or 2669460 gigatons. From your link in № 870, it says Greenland has lost 1500 Gt since 2000. (1500 Gt)/(2669460 Gt) = approximately 0.056%. [Hopefully I've made no math errors.]
I think while the 1500 gigaton figure is a bit too abstract for most to comprehend, the percentage figure is something everyone can relate to. People can draw their own conclusions from the results.
Ooh, ho-hold me Ooh, hold me
I know I used to run around
Now I'm swear I've settled down
May-maybe what they say is true
All those things I've done to you
People say that I don't change
The song still remains the same
Has he made any political claims? He's trying to avoid political debates, sounds good to me lol
Try something with a slightly longer timescale.
Link
It's likely we are currently meeting or exceeding the Holocene Optimum, and we're on track to exceed the optimums during the Pleistocene as well as the Pliocene.
Or in layman's terms, it's likely our global average temperature will be warmer than it has been for at least the past 5 million years.
But what do scientists know.
Yea I was tripping out on the whole conservative liberal stuff.
Was going to question it, but you're right
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