My worst global warming fear: buckeyes in Ann Arbor
Last week, I blogged about how wintertime minimum temperatures in the U.S. have risen so much in recent decades, that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) had to update their Plant Hardiness Zone Map for gardeners for the first time since 1990. The Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location. I got to looking at the new zone map for Ann Arbor, Michigan, where I live, and saw how we've shifted one 5-degree Fahrenheit half-zone warmer. Ann Arbor used to be in Zone 5, but is now solidly in the warmer Zone 6. This got me to wondering, what sort of plants in Zone 6, until now rare or unknown in Ann Arbor, might migrate northwards in coming decades into the city? Then, with a sudden chill, I contemplated a truly awful possibility: The Ohio Buckeye Tree.
Figure 1. Comparison of the 1990 and 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Maps. Image credit: USDA and Arbor Day Foundation.
Buckeyes in Ann Arbor? The Horror!
For those of you unfamiliar the the buckeye tree, it is the emblem of Ohio State University. The Buckeyes of Ohio State have one of the most fierce rivalries in sports with that "school up north", the University of Michigan. As someone who spent twelve years of my life as a student at the University of Michigan, the thought of Buckeye trees in Ann Arbor is not one I care to contemplate. But the USDA Forest Service has published a Climate Change Tree Atlas which predicts that the most favorable habitat for the Ohio Buckeye Tree can be expected to move northwards with a warming climate. While they give their model for the Buckeye Tree a rating of "low reliability", it is nonetheless chilling to contemplate the potential infestation of Ann Arbor with this loathsome invader. I can only sadly predict that to stem the invasion, non-ecologically-minded University of Michigan students will unleash genetically engineered wolverines that eat buckeye seeds.
Figure 2. Potential changes in the mean center of distribution of the Ohio Buckeye tree. The green oval shows the current center of the range of the Buckeye Tree, well to the south of Ann Arbor. In a scenario where humans emit relatively low amounts of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide (light blue oval), the most favorable climate for the Buckeye Tree edges into Southern Michigan, and marches into Ann Arbor under the medium and high scenarios for emissions (other ovals.) Image credit: USDA Forest Service Climate Change Tree Atlas.
Libyan snowstorm triggered major Saharan dust storm
On February 6, a rare snow storm hit North Africa, bringing 2 - 3 inches of snow to Tripoli, Libya. It was the first snow in Tripoli since at least 2005, and may be the heaviest snow the Libyan capital has seen since February 6, 1956. The storm responsible for the North African snow also had strong winds that kicked up a tremendous amount of dust over Algeria during the week. This dust became suspended in a flow of air moving to the southwest, and is now over the Atlantic Ocean.
Figure 3. Dust storm on February 7, 2012, off the coast of West Africa, spawned by a storm that brought snow to North Africa on February 6. Note the beautiful vorticies shed by the Cape Verde Islands, showing that the air is flowing northeast to southwest. The red squares mark where fires are burning in West Africa. Image credit: NASA.
Have a great weekend, everyone, and I'll be back Monday with a new post.
Jeff Masters
NO SILLY NOT THE FOOTBALL TEAM .......THE REAL THING
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As others have noted, Madagascar is a hilly island that has been severely deforested (satellite images of the island are very depressing), so the many inches of rain that are expected to be dumped across the island have an alarmingly high chance of causing a large loss of life.
Tropical Cyclone Advisory #18
CYCLONE TROPICAL INTENSE GIOVANNA (09-20112012)
16:00 PM RET February 13 2012
================================
At 12:00 PM UTC, Intense Tropical Cyclone Giovanna (939 hPa) located at 18.8S 51.5E has 10 minute sustained winds of 100 knots with gusts of 140 knots. The cyclone is reported as moving west southwest at 12 knots.
Hurricane Force Winds
========================
40 NM radius from the center
Storm Force Winds
=================
60 NM radius from the center
Gale Force Winds
=================
120 NM radius from the center extending up to 145 NM in the northern semi-circle and the southeastern quadrant
Near Gale Force Winds
=====================
160 NM radius from the center, extending up to 170 NM in the southeastern quadrant
Dvorak Intensity: T5.5/6.0/S0.0/12 HRS
Forecast and Intensity
========================
12 HRS: 19.1S 49.0E - 85 knots (Cyclone Tropical)
24 HRS: 20.1S 45.4E - Depression sur Terre
48 HRS: 22.7S 40.6E - 30 knots (Depression Tropicale)
72 HRS: 23.6S 37.7E - 55 knots (Forte Tempête Tropicale)
Additional Information
=====================
Classical satellite imagery show a presentation that has not evolved for last 6 hours. Average DT on 6 hours is 5.5+. Winds radius have been recalibrated with 0526z ASCAT swath. Without recent microwave picture, it is difficult to follow eyewall replacement cycle that was visible this morning.
System is now undergoing the steering influence of the mid-level ridge rebuilding in its south. This deep mid-level ridge would steer the system on a westward to west-southwestward track today and then southwestward Tuesday as the the mid-level ridge shifts to the southeast of the cyclone.
Before its landfall, Giovanna should undergo a bit stronger easterly vertical wind shear on the northern side of rebuilding upper level high pressures. The impact of this increase with a shear that is in the same direction than the cyclone motion is difficult to appreciate for a system like Giovanna with a self-induced outflow. However, it is likely that intensity weakens a bit before the landfall on the eastern coast of Madagascar tonight.
The landfall is expected within a 80 km radius from Andovoranto. Weather conditions are expected to worsen rapidly within the next hours between Sainte-Marie island and Mananjary with intensifying rains progressing inland this night. Winds will increase, mainly over the coast within a 150 km radius from landfall where gusts should exceed 100 km/h. Gusts should exceed 180 km/h within a 70 km radius, mainly south from landfall. Storm surge between 2.5 to 3.0 meters are expected south from landfall area. All inhabitants of this sectors are invited to closely follow the arrival of this dangerous cyclone.
Giovanna should be back over waters of the Mozambique Channel Wednesday within a favorable atmospheric environment with a decreasing easterly shear as the system will move closer to an upper level ridge. Latest ECMWF run suggests a rapid re-intensification that is reflected in the official RSMC forecast.
The next tropical cyclone advisory on TC GIOVANNA issued by Seychelles Meteorological Services will be issued at 18:30 PM UTC..
Tropical Disturbance Advisory #19
TROPICAL CYCLONE JASMINE (12F)
0:00 AM FST February 14 2012
===================================
At 12:00 PM UTC, Tropical Cyclone Jasmine, Category One (993 hPa) located at 21.9S 176.2W has 10 minute sustained winds of 35 knots. The cyclone is reported as moving east northeast at 5 knots. Position poor based on hourly GMS imagery and peripheral surface reports.
Gale Force Winds
==================
50 NM from the center in northeast quadrant
20 NM from the center in southeast quadrant
20 NM from the center in southwest quadrant
50 NM from the center in northwest quadrant
Overall organization has decreased in the past 24 hours. Convection has also reduced significantly near the low level circulation center for the last 24 hours. The system lies under an upper trough center in a low sheared environment. Not much environmental steering. Sea surface temperature around 26C.
Dvorak analysis based on 0.3 wrap on log10 spiral, yielding DT=2.0, pt=2.0 and MET=2.0. Final Dvorak based on DT, CI was held at 3.0, 1.0 higher than Final Dvorak. Final Dvorak based on DT.
Dvorak Intensity: T2.0/3.0/W1.0/24 HRS
Most global models agree on this system being a cyclone in the next 72 hours and with a northeast movement.
Forecast and Intensity:
=======================
12 HRS: 21.1S 176.0W - 35 knots (CAT 1)
24 HRS: 20.7S 176.3W - 35 knots (CAT 1)
48 HRS: 21.4S 177.4W - 35 knots (CAT 1)
The next tropical disturbance advisory from Fiji Meteorological Services on TC JASMINE will be issued at 20:30 PM UTC..
Someone over there has to know how to put out a Greece fire.
And they are protesting because? Because Government is taking away benefits they simply can't afford. Sounds like the US is gonna be facing the same stuff in a few years.
Well that's really the stupid part now isn't it? Spent fuel actually still contains A LOT of fuel, just not enough to maintain the level of output for the reactor. The smart thing to do (and is done by other countries) would be to use breeder reactors (which can also produce electricity) to reprocess spent fuel into useable fuel again. Reprocessing can be performed several times, and greatly reduces the amount of waste produced by reactors overall. But the US banned that over 3 decades ago due to complete idiocy.
You see, breeder reactors can produce small amounts of bomb grade fissile material, and the fear was that terrorists (yes terrorists) would be able to steal this material. Of course, the idea is shear idiocy. The material isn't sitting in a nice little canister somewhere; it's mixed in with the reprocessed fuel. It takes a considerable amount of technology to separate out the bomb grade material, which only exists in countries like the US, France, Germany, etc. . So even if someone could steal enough fuel to get enough material to make a bomb (impossible without a trained crew to handle nuclear material), you still need a full scale nuclear processing center to refine enough material for even a small bomb. And that assumes you even have the technology to make a bomb work in the first place.
So in the meantime, we end up with piles of spent fuel that, ironically, still contains plenty of fuel for electrical production.
Months
Employees in Europe have obscene amounts of guaranteed payed vacation time and stuff like that, which Americans don't get, but this drives up costs to the employer immensely. This is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen, because in France everyone gets several weeks of pay-cation per year. I don't know how much it is in Greece.
They also get a lot more free medical services and internet services which the government pays.
Additionally, the price of gasoline is crippling in Europe, since many of the nations don't have strong oil reserves of their own, AND they have the ridiculous taxation on fuels, which they need to pay for all the services they give.
NR19/09 13/02/2012 1300 UTC
System CYCLONE TROPICAL INTENSE
Name GIOVANNA
Position NEAR 18° 7 S - 51° 5 E
Estimated minimum central Pressure 932 HPA
Maxi average wind (10 mn) near the center 105 KT (195 KM/H)
Gust maxi 145 KT (270 KM/H)
CI Number (Dvorak scale) CI 6.0+
Yes, this.
Only a couple percent of the fuel is actually depleted in a "spent" fuel rod.
If we did everything else like this, nothing at all would work...
Ha-ha :)
I never really realized how useful Google Earth was for viewing current conditions(Until all the weather stations in the area have been knocked out).
At 1400 utc, winds were around 26 mph along the madagascar coast
Speaking of Nuclear...
Nuclear Event
Event date: 13.02.2012 04:16:21
Country: United States
State: State of Tennessee
Location:- [Sequoyah Nuclear Power Plant]
N 35 13.580, W 85 5.496
Just a minor event
The baby boomers, etc, most especially.
Back when Social Security was invented, the plan was basicly that each generation would live off the backs of the future generations, but back then, the population growth rate was more like 4 or more children per woman.
Example: I actually have 16 great aunts and uncles on just one quarter of my family tree, and several of them had 4 or 5 kids each.
So you can see how gramps could be confident that the contribution of his 4 to 10 kids was going to pay for SS at the end of his life.
Even retirement plans such as stocks and mutual funds still basicly work(ed) on the same principle: live off the future population growth, and rely on each generation being twice as big as the previous.
In the past 30 years, population growth dropped to 2.1 children per woman, and in the past several years it has dropped to less than 2, I think.
So what this means is that for every 2 retirees, drawing SS and pensions, including state and federal retirements, there will be only 1 worker in the nation.
Additionally, many government retirement plans are paying as much as 90% of income in retirement...for life! With life expectancy increasing 1 year per decade, this means the cost of government wages and salaries is effectively doubled, if not a bit more than that.
Not only will it not work, but they basicly cannot retire....ever...nor can anyone else.
In fact, most people on retirement now need to get off it and go back to work.
In some cases, it's not legal, and they'll never get the votes to do it, but the governments need to abolish, even retroactively, the entire retirement system.
But that's not going to happen until all hell breaks loose.
Plus there isn't any work anyway, because automation and IT has replaced so many jobs.
12,844.97
+43.74
(in millions
2006 $)
Nuclear power plant accidents in the U.S. with more than US$140 million in property damage[50][51] March 28, 1979 Three Mile Island Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania Loss of coolant and partial core meltdown, see Three Mile Island accident and Three Mile Island accident health effects US$2,400
March 9, 1985 Browns Ferry Athens, Alabama Instrumentation systems malfunction during startup, which led to suspension of operations at all three Units US$1,830
April 11, 1986 Pilgrim Plymouth, Massachusetts Recurring equipment problems force emergency shutdown of Boston Edison%u2019s plant US$1,001
March 31, 1987 Peach Bottom Delta, Pennsylvania Units 2 and 3 shutdown due to cooling malfunctions and unexplained equipment problems US$400
December 19, 1987 Nine Mile Point Scriba, New York Malfunctions force Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation to shut down Unit 1 US$150
February 20, 1996 Millstone Waterford, Connecticut Leaking valve forces shutdown of Units 1 and 2, multiple equipment failures found US$254
September 2, 1996 Crystal River Crystal River, Florida Balance-of-plant equipment malfunction forces shutdown and extensive repairs US$384
February 16, 2002 Davis-Besse Oak Harbor, Ohio Severe corrosion of control rod forces 24-month outage US$143
February 1, 2010 Vermont Yankee Vernon, Vermont Deteriorating underground pipes leak radioactive tritium into groundwater supplies US$700--Wiki/
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