Now we ask why?

Anyone who watched the events of yesterday will agree that this was one massive storm that chewed its way across our state. Because of better technology, including tower cameras that recorded the wicked looking tornado in Cullman and the mile wide tornado that devastated Tuscaloosa and parts of Birmingham many people watched in horror as they realized the debris they were seeing in the air were pieces of homes and businesses and who knows what else.

Watch the Cullman tornado, which some people describes as a "demon, reaching down." Watch the entire thing. Evil.



One thing that had people on edge, but probably saved many lives in the Bessemer and Birmingham area, is that as we watched the tornado tearing up Tuscaloosa, we knew that we were in its path. We knew to prepare. Again, watch the entire video.



So why did this happen?

Here are some descriptions from the ABC33/40 weather blog prior to these storms. (I've put in bold the most important phrases as they relate to this discussion).

April 27, 2011

Dr. Tim Coleman 9:31 AM

Sunshine will warm temperatures quickly this morning through the 70s, and it will reach the lower 80s by afternoon. However, the morning balloon data from NWS Birmingham showed very cold air aloft. And, even though dewpoints dropped to the upper 50s as the thunderstorms mixed up the atmosphere, they are already rising, and will rise throughout the day. As the sun continues to heat the atmosphere up, the 70 mph winds at 3,000 feet will start to get mixed with the surface layer winds, so gradient winds will get very gusty by late morning, probably 30 mph at times. And those winds will be out of the south, bringing in Gulf moisture (dewpoints in SW Alabama are in the 70s). Once we get warm, humid air back in place at the surface by noon or so, with cold air aloft, the air will be very unstable. CAPE values (atmospheric potential energy) will reach 3,000 to 5,000 J/kg, supporting strong updrafts and intense storms this afternoon.

The other problem is the wind shear. The main upper-level system will approach by late afternoon. Winds will increase in speed and change direction with height, creating spin about a horizontal axis. Storm updrafts will tilt this rotation into the vertical (like a spiraling football getting tipped at the line of scrimmage), producing rotating storms. The helicity, or a measure of this wind shear, will also be very high, between 300 and 600 m2/s2. It is rare to see this much wind shear in an almost summerlike environment with warm, humid air like this.

The combination of extreme instability (like we see on summer afternoons) and extreme wind shear (like we see often in winter) will create a very dangerous setup over Alabama this afternoon. The energy-helicity index (a combo of CAPE and wind shear) measures the overall tornado potential well. Anything over 2 means tornadoes are possible, and over 5 tornadoes are likely. On April 8, 1998, the EHI was around 6. Today, as you can see on the maps below for 3, 5, and 7 pm, we expect EHI values of 8-10 over much of north and central Alabama, some of the highest I’ve ever seen.

Bill Murray 11:00 am

I don’t think I have ever heard a tornado watch referred to as a long lead time, long duration, particularly dangerous situation tornado watch before. But I have now in the latest mesoscale discussion from SPC.
That sounds bad…and it is bad. It will be issued for much of North and Central Mississippi, possibly into West Central Alabama.

James Spann 1:29 pm

A major severe weather outbreak is likely anytime from now until midnight. See the high STP (Significant Tornado Parameter) values from the RUC at 1:00… remember, anything over 2 is very significant. These are about as high as they get.

So let's look at the possible reasons for this severe weather outbreak. Remember, I am one who does not like to use anecdotal evidence to prove a position, but I will use it to support one.

God did it. Nope. God does not micromanage our lives or the world around us. But God probably does like to see how we respond to crisis, and there is opportunity for good to come out of any situation, including this one.

Random event. For weather or any other measurable thing there is a range of values for normal occurrences and sometimes results fall outside of that range. Records will be broken. This could just be a huge event, an outlier, that will now be the record that someday will be broken.

Result of global warming. Hmmm. With climate change, experts agree that there will be more extreme weather events. This could mean more frequent snowstorms (oddly enough) and more powerful hurricanes (Katrina). But tornadoes?

According to a 2007 report NASA scientists have developed a weather model that predicts that really violent storms may become more common due to global warming. Read it.

Their model simulates the strength of updrafts in storms, and estimates how the strength will increase with a warming climate. They explain this in the article, then conclude with:

The central and eastern areas of the United States are especially prone to severe storms and thunderstorms that arise when strong updrafts combine with horizontal winds that become stronger at higher altitudes. This combination produces damaging horizontal and vertical winds and is a major source of weather-related casualties. In the warmer climate simulation there is a small class of the most extreme storms with both strong updrafts and strong horizontal winds at higher levels that occur more often, and thus the model suggests that the most violent severe storms and tornadoes may become more common with warming.

The prediction of stronger continental storms and more lightning in a warmer climate is a natural consequence of the tendency of land surfaces to warm more than oceans and for the freezing level to rise with warming to an altitude where lightning-producing updrafts are stronger. These features of global warming are common to all models, but this is the first climate model to explore the ramifications of the warming for thunderstorms.

So there is evidence that climate change, aka global warming, makes this type of monster storm more possible because it creates an atmosphere where updrafts are stronger and horizontal winds are stronger. Together that provides the recipe for disaster.

Clearing the air...or not

One of the purposes of this blog is to make Bessemer a better place by promoting things that will improve this community and pointing out things that will not. Of course, Bessemer is not an island, so often I write about things on a state level or national level that might influence Bessemer one way or another. That includes the environment and congress and...

Indulge me for a moment. Off the subject a bit, yesterday a rerun of Glee was shown, in which the cute new guy, Sam, was introduced to the group.


He was asked to perform a duet with Kurt, who is gay, and Finn advises him not to because he will get labeled as gay, even though he is not.

The same thing can happen in congress. Let's say a Democrat votes alongside the Republicans who proclaim that global warming is junk science. Then she stands to be labeled a contrarian, or someone who is ignoring science, and she certainly wouldn't want that.

Terri Sewell voted in favor of HR 910, the so called Energy Tax Prevention Act (which mentions "tax" zero times in the bill, by the way) which could have been called any number of things more accurately.

Jared Polis of Colorado submitted an amendment to change the title to "The Dirty Air Act of 2011." Gerry Connolly of Virginia was somewhat more industrious. He submitted eight amendments including "The Koch Brothers Appreciation Act," "The Protecting Americans from Polar Bears Act," and "The Head in the Sand Act."

Anyway, the bill's purpose is "To amend the Clean Air Act to prohibit the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from promulgating any regulation concerning, taking action relating to, or taking into consideration the emission of a greenhouse gas to address climate change, and for other purposes.

The bill goes on to name water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and several other gases as "greenhouse gases."

In other words, the bill prohibits the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency from protecting the environment.

In effect, the bill would gut the EPA in its attempts to guarantee clean air. Fortunately the Senate will not pass it.

I spoke with someone in Ms. Sewell's office at length about the bill. He told me they had spoken to people in the scientific community and the manufacturing community before deciding how to vote. I asked him to name the scientists, but as it turns out there weren't any, just the "science committee members." (Terri sits on the "Science, Space and Technology Committee, by the way). The committee, like all committees in the house, is chaired by and controlled by Republicans.

They could have spoken to some real scientists at EPA, where they could have learned this. Pay particular attention to figures 1 and 2. You can click on them to enlarge them.

He also made a statement that the gases listed were not the ones causing climate change. And that there are two sides to the issue. And that they wanted the facts from both sides.

1. No credible scientist would say that carbon dioxide and methane do not contribute to climate change. Specifically, these gases do just that.
2. There are not two truthful sides to the issue. The contrarians are only interested in profits for the big companies and not in protecting the environment.
3. There are no facts on the other side regarding climate change, or, if there are some facts they are buried under fake headlines and crazy talk.
   

Ms. Sewell's office told me that she was concerned about jobs in the area. There is an assumption made that if the greenhouse gases are regulated that jobs would be lost. But maybe, just maybe, new job opportunities would open up with green technology being developed!!! And let's not get into how many jobs will be lost and lives affected if greenhouse gases are not regulated.

Air pollution and restrictive injunctions are not new to Birmingham and Jefferson County. This report tells of the 1971 use (the very first use) of the injunctive authority of the Federal Clean Air Act. Jefferson County is still feeling the effects, having been prevented from allowing certain manufacturing and industrial development because of our non-attainment status related to limitations on emissions.

Those were different pollutants, not greenhouse gases, but my point is that threats to our atmosphere need to be taken seriously, and that there are health risks, known and unknown, that are amplified when those threats are ignored.

Complicating the atmosphere (in a good way) the Obama administration recently reversed a Bush policy that allowed more industrial pollution. Again, these are not greenhouse gases, but other pollutants. But it shows that we do have a president who cares about the environment (at least on this issue).

The ruling is a victory for cleaner air across Alabama and especially in areas such as heavily-polluted Birmingham and Jefferson County, which has failed to meet federal air quality standards for dangerous fine particulates for many years, according to Michael Churchman, executive director of the Alabama Environmental Council.

“What happened here is that some of Alabama’s polluters convinced regulators to relax a rule that had been on the books for 30 years – only after citizens sued to enforce that rule. Today, the EPA recognized that was the wrong decision,” Churchman said in reacting to the news locally. “Technology is used all over the country to better control emissions and should be required to operate continuously in Alabama.”

The Birmingham area has been failing to meet minimum federal air quality standards for fine particles (soot) for seven years. These airborne, microscopic solids and liquid droplets (made up of acids, organic chemicals, metals, and other matter) can lodge deeply in the lungs and bloodstream, aggravating a number of cardiopulmonary diseases.

“There is a demonstrated link between fine particle pollution and asthma in children,” said Tiffany Schauer, Executive Director of Our Children’s Earth Foundation. “Thanks to today’s action, every family in Alabama can breathe a little easier.”

So, as one whose life and livelihood has been dramatically affected by asthma, I would like to have a clean atmosphere. And as one who has studied climate change, I would like to have responsible politicians that take our environment seriously. This is not buyer's remorse, but I do hope that Terri learns from this experience, and that when environmental issues come up in the future, that she can show a little more concern.

Global cooling - not the way to go

Every year on a cold morning I take a picture of the fountain in its frozen state and post it on this site. As far as I can tell, the goldfish and their brown progeny are still alive, but I won't know for sure until the thaw takes place. They have survived previous freezes.



But its cold for us southerners. Of course, my brother in Minnesota would laugh at us for being such weenies when it comes to cold weather.

Speaking of weenies, and the cold, I wonder if David, standing near the fountain, experiences "shrinkage" related to the cold weather.



But what if the cold weather became permanent. While our immediate and more pressing concern is climate change in the other direction, there is a theory about global cooling that could occur if a local nuclear skirmish between India and Pakistan occurred.

Scientific American has an article where Alan Robock and Owen Brian Toon explore that possibility. (The entire article is only available online if you are a subscriber. I have the magazine if you want to borrow it).

Here are the key concepts from the article.

Nuclear bombs dropped on cities and industrial areas in a fight between India and Pakistan would start firestorms that would put massive amounts of smoke into the upper atmosphere.

The particles would remain there for years, blocking the sun, making the earth's surface cold, dark and dry. Agricultural collapse and mass starvation could follow.

Cooling scenarios are based on computer models. but observations of volcanic eruptions, forest fire smoke and other phenomena provide confidence that the models are correct.

Here is why the smoke particles from the fires would not just be brought down to the earth by rain and gravity.

"Fires ignited by bombs would send smoke up through the troposphere within two days." (That's up about 12 kilometers). "The sun would then heat the tiny particles and loft them into the stratosphere," by day 49. (That is up to 50 kilometers). "Precipitation never occurs there, so particles would take about 10 years to fully settle to earth's surface. Smoke in the troposphere washes out within a week or so."

The sky would look overcast everywhere.

Less sunlight and cooler temperature would shorten the growing season everywhere.

The authors report on the effects of volcanoes and forest fires. the most remarkable was the 1815 Tambora eruption in Indonesia which darkened the skies and produced a global temperature decline of about 0.5 degrees C for a year. "1816 became known as 'The Year without a Summer' or 'Eighteen Hundred and Froze to Death.'"

"In New England, although the average summer temperature was lowered only a few degrees, crop-killing frosts occurred in every month."

There are more examples of past effects and future possibilities in the article.

A solution is offered as well: Abolition of nuclear weapons.

"...on September 24 (2009), the president led the United nations Security Council to approve a draft resolution that would step up efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons. Our modeling results only strengthen the reasons to support further progress on such policy."

Here, Molly discusses the effect on our world from a nuclear war. While her scenario is a bit more explosive, the results are the same.

Young Evangelicals

I've written previously about Rick Cizik and evangelicals in general. Cizik, of course, is the former vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals who was booted after saying he believed in civil unions for gays and lesbians during an interview on NPR's Fresh Air.

The Advocate has an article in their current issue titled "Reduce, Reuse, Religion?" The article focuses on Jonathan Merritt, a Southern Baptist student (or former student) who is becoming a leader in the growing "creation care" movement among evangelicals.


Read what Merritt said about his new found fame (or infamy) in this article from the Christian Index. He's been tagged a (gasp) liberal.

All because he is concerned about the environment. Southern Baptist Environment and Climate Initiative is the web site he started and his declaration that created the buzz can be found there.

My interest in the Advocate article (and I assume their purpose in printing it) is that it says young evangelicals are taking the focus off of divisive social issues and placing it on more pressing concerns. (The article is not available online as I write this) A majority of young white evangelicals (age 18-29) support either marriage or domestic partnership for same sex couples (58%), according to a 2008 study referenced in the article, compared to 46% of evangelicals over 30.

Merritt says it's easy to see why. Four out of ten evangelical youths say they have a close friend or family member who is gay, twice as many as their older counterparts. When the issue becomes personal, attitudes change. "Many older [evangelicals] are in disbelief when you quote that statistic," he says. "One man said to me, 'Well, I have a cousin who is gay.' I told him the difference is that I hang out with my friends who are gay on Friday nights. You just see your cousin at Christmastime."

The future looks bright(er) for the planet, and for equality.

Read an announcement about a distinguished speaker, Susan Solomon, coming to UAB Wednesday at Bessemer Science and Nature, speaking of climate change.

The Arctic is Melting...and from the Tribune, Why Trust Bush?

"The Arctic is often cited as the canary in the coal mine for climate warming," said Zwally, who as a teenager hauled coal. "Now as a sign of climate warming, the canary has died. It is time to start getting out of the coal mines."

Jay Zwally is a NASA climate scientist, who also said, "At this rate, the Arctic Ocean could be nearly ice-free at the end of summer by 2012, much faster than previous predictions."

Read the story here on aol news. Now I know that anecdotal reports and individual events can not by themselves prove global warming to be a fact. But here it is 78 degrees in the middle of December and dry as a bone. The picture in The Birmingham News this morning of a sunbather at Oak Mountain State Park tells the story of the bigger picture of climate change that the vast majority of real scientists know to be fact.

Just think, if one of the Republican planet haters gets elected president, by the time their term ends, the Arctic ice could be no more. From 2008 to 2012, while they would continue to refuse to admit our country's (and our species') part and ignore steps that should be taken to help our planet, the Arctic (along with Alaska and Greenland...see the article) would be melting.

The republicans don't care about our planet. The rest of the world doesn't count to them. Oh, unless they have oil.

They care about two things: money and power. And to control those things, they only use one tactic: fear.

Fear of terror . But as we have seen this week and last, terror from abroad is not what affects us, or what we should fear. Terror from deranged U. S. citizens at shopping malls and churches and universities is much more likely to affect us than a foreign born agent slipping in to the country.

Fear of immigrants. Just listen to the hateful rhetoric from republican presidential candidates about illegal immigration.

Fear of the gay community. Although gay people have been a part of world history since Socrates (yes) and a part of our history since the time of Johnny Appleseed (no, but read Frontiers by Michael Jenson...I have the book if you want to borrow it), now the thought of "Adam and Steve" living happily together or fighting to protect our country is supposed to scare people into voting to preserve bigotry and keep them in power.

Fear of Hillary. There is a debate today (1:00 central time on CNN and others, the Dems debate tomorrow)of Republican candidates, if it the debates of the past are any indication, Hillary's name will be mentioned more than any thing else. They are scared of her because she is a woman. They are scared of her because she is a leader. They are scared of her because she is right. They are scared of her because she represents the truth.

Here is what we should really fear. The remaining 405 days of the Bush presidency. I addressed this in my Western Tribune column this week, and here it is. For those who want to wait and read it in the newspaper at home by the fireplace (it's too hot to be building a fire) this evening, stop now. There is nothing after the Tribune column (till someone posts comments).

*********************************

There are just a little more than 400 days left in the Bush administration, but I am not sure the country can stand the rest of his term.

I worry about the children that have been learning about our government with him as their role model over the last few years.

The latest and possibly the most egregious thing the president has done is his handling of the intelligence concerning Iran and its nuclear capabilities.

Last week we learned that the president knew that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program as early as August, but continued to use harsh language in what appeared to be a run-up to war. This is similar to the way he deceived the American people in the run-up to the war in Iraq in 2002 and 2003.

Is George W. Bush three years old? He made an excuse for not changing his tone by saying “nobody ever told me” to change the rhetoric about Iran. That sounds like something one of my kids would have said when they were toddlers being scolded for something they did.

Just as disturbing is that Iran actually halted the program in 2003, and it took our intelligence community 4 years to realize it and report it in the National Intelligence Estimate.

Now in what could be an effort to shift attention from his mishandling of the Iran situation, Bush has sent a letter to Kim Jong Il, the North Korean leader that Bush once called a “pygmy,” asking for full disclosure of the dictator’s nuclear programs. But isn’t this the guy that Bush for years has refused to even recognize, much less communicate directly with?

Bush is taking the advice of Democratic presidential candidates who in debates have urged dialogue and diplomacy with our enemies. Only by talking with our enemies (which in the case of the Middle East are difficult to separate from our allies) can we reach peaceful solutions to the multitude of problems that confront us in the world’s hot spots.

While I must support the diplomatic effort the president has put forth regarding North Korea, I have to wonder why we should expect the leaders of that country and others to believe he is sincere. The world knows this administration deceived them (and us) about Iraq, and now can clearly see he was trying to do the same with Iran.

Why trust him now?