Seems logical enough doesn’t it, a tropical cyclone is a tropical cyclone. Reality is a tropical cyclone is a tropical cyclone only when ‘someone’ decides it is a tropical cyclone. You are probably thinking so what, no real big difference there, but in a science primarily governed mathematical equations and the laws of physics and thermodynamics, that involvement of ‘someone’ can be very significant. So really there are two important questions here – When is a tropical cyclone a tropical cyclone? AND Why the heck does it matter? « continue reading »
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This time of year gets particularly busy for me with the start of the North Atlantic hurricane season (as you can probably tell by the lack of recent posts). However, that delay is your good fortune as all the latest predictions for this year’s hurricane season have come in, and if the majority our correct we are in for a season full of live report’s from various coastal locations by your favorite reporters. « continue reading » By Angela FritzWhen you want to determine how intense or how strong a hurricane season was, there are many ways you can calculate it. An obvious place to start would be summing the intensity of the individual tropical cyclones in that season. When a cyclone is defined as a tropical storm or a hurricane by the National Hurricane Center (NHC), it is given a ranking on the Saffir Simpson Hurricane Scale (SSHS). It can be a TS (tropical storm) or a category 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, with 5 having the strongest winds . Category 5’s that we can remember well would be Hurricane Andrew of 1992, or Katrina of 2005 (although I should note, Katrina was a Category 3 when it made landfall). When we take a step back and look at the number of strong hurricanes in a given season, we begin to get an idea of how bad that particular season was. That is, until we dig in a little deeper. Even after listening to it said multiple times I still can’t, but then again my language skills (especially for those based on Viking speak) have never been one of my strong points. If you want to learn, you can follow along as the Good Morning American Crew listens and admits their inability to get it. So while you may not be able to say Eyjafjallajokull, it is very likely that you have at least heard numerous stories in the last couple of weeks about people impacted by the ‘Icelandic Volcanic Eruption’. So how is it that an event that seems so remote can have such a major impact on so many people? « continue reading » This has been a common question for me over the last few weeks. For anyone who knows what I do, they all want to know if somehow weather or climate change is to some degree related to the rash of very strong earthquakes we have seen around the globe. Quickly I assure them this is not the case and try to do so without delving too deeply into the realm of thermodynamics because I get lost enough on that topic without any help. But of course prompted these inquiries prompted some questions in my mind like:
For anyone with experience making plans around a weather forecast, there is no doubt that you have wondered how sure the weather forecaster was about that forecast that seemed to be nothing like the day actually turned out. Of course there are many days when the forecast seems spot on (although we never seem to remember those). Now that blown forecast may be due to some lack of skill, but often if can be attributed to knowingly high uncertainty in the forecast when it was issued. So why in the world did they forecast a specific temperature or condition? « continue reading » Thankfully I do not know, but being roughly 200 miles away was close enough. Actually, I had not planned to discuss this topic but since the shaking struck again (zone of squiggly icons SW of Santiago in the graphic) as I was working on an alternate post yesterday, it seemed as I was being jolted for a reason.
Living in Santiago for many years now, one gets use to occasional tremors and generally speaking they are not strong enough to greatly influence your behavior. However, in the early morning hours of February 27th that changed. I was awakened as the bed moved (and yes I usually sleep through them), but unlike most this shake kept going and getting stronger. It being in the middle of the night, it was not until looking at the alarm that the power outage was confirmed. A quick look around the house inside and out revealed not serious damage, but not exactly something you go right back to sleep after. However, without power no easy way to get more info on the quake.
Finding out a bit later in the morning that it was an 8.8 and had struck just offshore (the star location) made my mind start racing. How bad was it closer to the #epicenter# (Concepcion is the green circle only 60 miles away)? Was there a #tsunami#? What would the #aftershocks# be like? And of course, were friends and colleagues ok? Without power or phones I suddenly felt completely unable to address any of these issues, so attention turns to the basics – do I have water, food, gas and batteries, thankfully yes. The next few days would reveal so much, and while I was fortunate enough to not lose anything meaningful, others weren’t so lucky.
The remainder of this post will provide you some lists to help convey important, interesting and even bizarre tidbits that have forever ingrained themselves into my long-term memory banks.
Trying to explain nerdy science stuff to non nerdy folks
Why is this #Richter scale# so confusing even if it is logical to nerdy folks – agreed when you try to comprehend that an 8.8 is 500 times more powerful than the 7.0 earthquake that struck Haiti – I recommend the #Modified Mercallie Scale# – which takes into account other variables like depth and position to create shake maps #like this one#
What is a #subduction zone# and why does it have to do with Chile earthquakes, volcanoes and even the Andes mountains -
Why does a tsunami form from an earthquake and why does it travel around the world
What it feels like on my own personal scale
Mild quakes remind me of being in a building when a large vehicle or train goes by, or being on a bridge as a large vehicle or multiple vehicles pass by.
Medium quakes take on two different qualities, the last longer and therefore cause you to really take notice and often are a bit less rhythmic like a washing machine that gets out of balance. It might feel like driving through a gravel road with sporadic potholes or multiple sets of train tracks
Strong quakes take on a level of intensity and uncertainty that is like being tossed around in a large wooden roller coaster or a long stretch of turbulence on an airplane. The biggest difference from both of these is usually you have enough time to get outside and realize that everything is moving and you don’t know when it will stop (very disturbing)
Severe quakes, don’t know personally and hope I never do
What was surreal
Finding power in another part of the city and finally making contact with family and friends via cell phones, email, #facebook#, #twitter# and #linkedin# while it seems business as usual in this Dunkin Donuts
Finding an open store with 50+ check out lines stacked 50+ people in each, some with the logical – bread, water, batteries, candles, etc., others with beer, wine, steak, etc., clearly different agendas
Major aftershocks one minute, people vacuuming, mowing and seemingly back to the same old routine the next
Powerful reminders
There is never a time too trivial to tell someone you care or take the time to spend with ones important to you – like that man teaching his 10 year old to drive on my street a few days later – just missed me, but precious moment to witness and clearly he realized he almost never had that chance
Losing power and communications for two days is nothing like losing everything you ever had, or ones you love – some things can never ever be replaced
First hand experience is the only real one – watching and reading coverage afterwards was no where close to what I actually felt and witnessed, and quite often focused on whatever would capture viewers and readers but not close to the overall reality
Be Prepared – I was never a boy scout, but what a great motto, think about where you live and work and know enough about events which could impact you and what you need to do so you can minimize the impact on you and those around you
Act – when exposed to these life events, they are a reminder to not let life, good and bad, pass you by without getting into the mix – helping, caring, changing, growing, living!
What you can do to help
The list that follows are some way you can donate to help those who have had their lives forever altered by natural disaster tragedies. For those of you who have already contributed – Thank You! For those of you who are not in a position to help financially, there are always ways you can give of your time and abilities to help those in need, seek those out.
Until next time – LIVE and make the most of your time, gifts, relationships, talents and abilities!
Living in Santiago for many years now, one gets use to occasional tremors and generally speaking they are not strong enough to greatly influence your behavior. However, in the early morning hours of February 27th that changed. I was awakened as the bed moved (and yes I usually sleep through them), but unlike most this shake kept going and getting stronger. It being in the middle of the night, it was not until looking at the alarm clock that the power outage was confirmed. A quick look around the house inside and out revealed no serious damage, but not exactly something you go right back to sleep after. However, without power there was no easy way to get more info on the quake right away. Finding out a bit later in the morning that it was an 8.8 magnitude earthquake and had struck just offshore (the star location) made my mind start racing. How bad was it closer to the epicenter (Concepcion is the green circle only 60 miles away)? Was there a tsunami? What would the aftershocks be like? And of course, were friends and colleagues ok? Without power or phones I suddenly felt completely unable to address any of these issues, so attention turns to the basics – do I have water, food, gas and batteries, thankfully yes. The next few days would reveal so much, and while I was fortunate enough to not lose anything meaningful, others weren’t so lucky. « continue reading » One of the major issues people have when dealing with the realness of environmental impacts or climate change is lack of direct visual or tactile effects. It can be very hard to imagine how a few degrees of warmth might impact you, how deforestation relates to your local community, how pollution may endanger a species, or how ice melting in the poles is even relevant to communities in which we live. It can often be nearly impossible to provide our senses with supporting evidence of these impacts we read and hear about. So you want some real in your face visuals – take a vacation. « continue reading » Sometimes it can be very easy to determine what impact your organization has. With a quick look at your financial records last year, you can fairly easily come up with how much you contributed to the *Gross Domestic Product (GDP)*, or you might be able to say a certain quantity of people were supported through your charitable activities. You can probably even quickly determine what your power or water usage levels were. However, measuring your impact on the climate or environment can quite often be a bit less straight forward and difficult to quantify. So is it really feasible to try and do in the first place?
Now, you don’t really need me to answer that question, do you? And while everyone may have different thresholds for the level of importance regarding climate/environmental issues, we are living in an age where the results of human behavior are becoming both more understood and quantifiable. You could in theory go on and do nothing for a while, but the likelihood is that at some point even if you do nothing now the regulatory end of society will catch up with things and force the changes. So whatever your reasoning, getting a grasp of how your company, government, association, family or even just you contributes to the environmental changes occurring around you is a logical choice.
Of course painting the complete picture will be an involved task, so the let’s focus today on how to get started. These steps will help you get underway, and when repeated can move you towards a more thorough understanding.
Pick a single item – don’t try to do this all in the once. Now if your organization is big enough to either give someone full responsibility or even hire help in this process that is great, but reality for most will be this will be an ancillary item / part-time task to begin with. So start by thinking about a single question like – ‘how much waste water do we produce?’
Start small – even once you pick a question you want to answer it might be best to either answer it only for a portion of your organization or for certain activities to get your hands the process of effective measurement. For instance understanding the power usage for lighting only or in an average office, is something you can measure and then extrapolate without having to directly measure across an entire location or facilities in different parts of the world.
Measurable directly – do not try to pick something that you can not easily measure yourself. While there are tools and calculators for measuring things like your *Carbon Footprint*, measuring something like this actually can be less explicit and usually less meaningful for your organization. You are better off understanding what you do that does contribute and measuring that directly. Like knowing that all your power comes from a coal power plant and therefore measuring your power usage is much easier for you and is something that is also more familiar and useful.
Think multi-beneficial items – even if you could measure the level of nitrates you are putting into the water supply through fertilizers in your green spaces, it is likely best to start with areas where you can also benefit your organization in other ways. For instance understanding the power consumption through the use of incandescent light bulbs can help you in the process of understanding your carbon dioxide outputs, but also with how you can save on your power bill. Of course the bigger the potential the results the more organizational buy in their is likely to be.
Input from others – do not hesitate to look to other organizations that are tied to yours for help or information. They may have either have tools or people that can help you in the process, or they may have undertaken similar tasks as well and have valuable recommendations of do’s and dont’s.
Understand and act – the absolute worse thing you can do in all this is just to go into it without really thinking about how it fits into both your short-term and long-term plans. It is also wise to spend some time in understanding how your direct actions influence climate and the environment. And maybe the most important aspect in answering your question(s) of choice is acting upon the answers to make change within your organization.
Hopefully once you try these steps for one item, you can use them again and again for additional items. Then when there is a comfort level you can proceed to a more in depth process and plan. I realize you might also need some help just getting out of the starting block, so here are a couple of websites that can help in sparking some of those initial questions for you -
If you really want to dig into this topic with some additional reading, I recommend *”Hot, Flat and Crowded”* by Thomas L. Friedman. The book provides a good large scale overview of the challenges and opportunities in this ‘greening’ world (I will caution that while the book is informative, the lack of siting sources in some cases means read it for thought provoking not firm answers).
Next time we will look at a very visual example of how we humans do indeed impact the environment through direct and indirect actions. Given the difficulties in really understanding our contributions as we have discussed today, sometimes only the blatantly obvious can really jog our systems. Until then, learn and act in a responsible and meaningful way!
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Thankfully I do not know, but being roughly 200 miles away was close enough. Actually, I had not planned to discuss this topic but since major shaking struck again (zone of squiggly icons SW of Santiago in the graphic) as I was working on an alternate post yesterday, it seemed as I was being jolted for a reason.
Sometimes it can be very easy to determine what impact your organization has. With a quick look at your financial records last year, you can fairly easily come up with how much you contributed to the 
Have you ever wondered what happens to your brain after spending all day for four days listening to presentations that last for 15 minutes each and are given by different speakers from all over the world? Well, for me I usually come to the end of that four days with more questions than answers, but that can actually be a good thing. I guess I should not expect anything different from a gathering of thousands of people who approach the fields of weather and climate from a variety career types and with very diverse objectives. Nor does it help you have to run around a huge conference center to make sure to see presentations from 20 people I knew personally who were presenting. So what should one really expect from a meeting that has a