International Environmental Data Rescue Organization
While persusing the booths at this year's annual meeting of the American Meteorological Society, I stumbled across the International Environmental Data Rescue Organization (IEDRO), and non-profit organization dedicated to saving old climate records throughout the world. I quickly signed up the Weather Underground to be a financial supporter, and urge those of you interested to contribute to this worthwhile charity!
IEDRO works primarily in third-world countries such as Kenya, Malawi, and the Dominican Republic. They hire and train local people to scan in paper climate records using a digital camera. The data are then keyed into a computer in comma-delimited format, burned onto a CD-ROM, and sent via
courier from the local U.S. embassy directly to the U.S. The final CD-ROMs end up at the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).
In many of the countries IEDRO works in, the old climate records are literally molding away in old cardboard boxes. These records often have decayed into non-legibility. So, IEDRO is in a race against time to save the data before they are permanently lost. With the issue of climate change quickly emerging as one of the most important scientific challenges of all time to solve, as much historical data as possible needs to be saved so that we can better see where climate change might be occurring. IEDRO also provides employment to third-world workers who typically desperately need jobs, so IEDRO's efforts have a double benefit.
Dr. Rick Crouthamel of IEDRO describes how the workers they hire digitize data, using the digital camera on the stand behind him.
My next blog will be Friday.
Jeff Masters
Reader Comments
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Although the weather hereb has been in the 80's and that does bother me on how fast the waters will warm in the next few weeks... :-(
Taco
Globalize, what storms are you refering to when you mention some strengthen despite strong shear?
As far as tenacity is concerned, I wont disagree. But unless there is a fundamental change in weather patterns I dont see us having devastating storms from Dec-April. And I doubt a early season May, or late Nov storm will ever really cause much damage either, unless it stalls and produces flooding rains.
Look at a pot of warming water the vapor rises more and more the warmer you get it. Cool it down and the vapor stops rising and spreads out more.Could be that the rising vapor makes it harder for shear to effect the storm.The water vapor molecules are more dense than any dry air.
Actually, that's exactly wrong. "Water vapor molecules" are less dense than dry air.
According to the ideal gas law, which is "close enough" for most common gasses, the density of a gas is proportional to its molecular weight. The "molecular weight" of dry air is somewhere around 29, because it's 4 parts nitrogen (28), 1 part oxygen (32), and a little bit of stuff that doesn't make much of a difference. The molecular weight of steam is 18. So steam is actually less than 2/3 the density of dry air. As you mix in water vapor to make wet, er, humid air, the density of the the mixture is actually LOWER than that of dry air.
When the water condenses, of course, it's more dense than air, or any other gas (at least under standard conditions).
umm, so many things wrong with this statement, i don't know where to begin. but the fact is, moist air is LESS DENSE than dry air. period. there is no debate on this. if it weren't true, there wouldn't be any hurricanes, or any kind of storms, because the evaporation of water would cause sinking air, and no storms would form.
"volume much greater per cubic meter" is gibberish. perhaps you meant "mass is much greater", which would be possible, but it's not true. moist air is less dense than dry air, because the lighter water vapor replaces heavier N2 and O2 molecules within the parcel of air. this is a well-established fact, not debateable.
Link
Link
THE CENTRAL U.S WITH THE UPPER AXIS ALONG 100W. A MID-UPPER
LEVEL LOW JUST NE OF THE YUCATAN PENINSULA NEAR 22N87W IS
PRODUCING BROKEN/OVERCAST CLOUDS AND SCATTERED MODERATE SHOWERS
BETWEEN 83W-89W FROM 18N-26N. THIS FEATURE HAS A SURFACE
REFLECTION AS A TROUGH FROM 20N87W TO 26N84W...HOWEVER...AS OF
LATE THIS MORNING IT HAS MORE CURVATURE TO ITS STRUCTURE AND MAY
BE CLOSING OFF AS A SURFACE LOW IF THIS KEEPS UP. GLOBAL MODELS
DO NOT HAVE IT VERY WELL INITIALIZED AND THEREFORE ARE NOT
FORECASTING ANY
DEVELOPMENT.
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