JayStream

Three years ago, while attending a conference in eastern Europe, I was invited to an evening social gathering hosted by the local British ambassador. At one point, the ambassador asked if I thought it was possible to get the Kyoto treaty ratified in America.

Kyoto was an international agreement under which industrialized countries (as a whole) were to reduce their emissions of greenhouse gasses to 5.2 percent below what they were in 1990. It was legislation aimed at curbing manmade climate change identified by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Most of Europe and the rest of the world approved.

I replied to the Ambassador that I did not think it was possible to get the Kyoto treaty ratified in America. I did not see how my country would agree to self-cripple  industries and transportation systems. Besides, as recently as 1997, the US Senate passed a resolution stating opposition to the Kyoto treaty – and passed it by a 95-0 vote.

Since then, climate change has become a hot issue, with substantial funds spent to burn the fires of discourse. But, cue the fire extinguisher – there is no point in debating any further.

The US House passed President Obama’s Cap and Trade Act. No one in Congress is sure about everything in it (it is 1500 pages long), but they do know it will strictly limit greenhouse gas emissions in America. The same principles opposed unanimously in the Senate twelve years ago have now been approved 219-212 in the House.

President Obama and his administration have been masterful in reversing a tide of opposition into a groundswell of support in the halls of Congress.

Jay News, Weather

The sporting world witnessed a huge upset this week, at an event which drew widespread attention everywhere but in America. Which is surprising, since the victors were Americans.

The US Men’s National Soccer team beat Spain 2-0. Had Al Michaels been there, he would have asked if anyone still believed in miracles.

Spain is the top ranked soccer team on the planet, and had been undefeated in their last 35 matches. The US is perhaps the best team in North America.

The historic win occurred at the Confederations Cup in South Africa, a tune up to next year’s FIFA World Cup in that country. It followed an improbable advance to the semifinals by the US, which floundered in the opening games of the tournament. But in this game, the Americans played with exceptional determination. and defeated the soccer equivalent of Goliath to earn a place in Sunday’s final against Brazil.

Given soccer’s second class status among sports in America, it was nice to see ESPN show highlights of the match on Sports Center. Local sportscasts and the newspapers gave it a mention. But look at the headlines from other countries:

From the Clarin in Argentina: “The United States shocks the world of football and takes down Spain”

From El Mundo in Spain: “The US destroys the Spanish legend”

From Sky Sports in England: “USA stuns Spain to make the final”

From the Daily Star in England: “It’s S-pain as Yanks spank ‘em”

From the Gazeta in Brazil: “The miracle workers from the US appear once again and eliminate ‘The Fury’”

From the Dominion Post in New Zealand: “Utterly Stunning Ascent”

From the Bangkok Post in Thailand: “US celebrate huge victory over Spain”

Clearly the US victory was a huge, huge story in the rest of the world. Not so much so in the US.

Jay Sports Confederations Cup, soccer, Spain, US soccer

Journalists tend to rate the state of journalism based upon the number of media jobs that have been slashed during the current cycle. Let us rate the state of journalism on a different measure, whether journalists are meeting Webster’s definition of “gathering, writing, editing, and publishing or disseminating news.”

President Obama held a news conference on Tuesday. Breaking from tradition, Obama followed the AP opener by choosing his questioner from the “new media”, picking Nico Pitney from the left-wing website Huffington Post over prominent old-media representatives. The Washington Times hailed the selection of a blogger as “recognizing the power of new technology.”

But for what an old-fashioned journalist used to call “the rest of the story,” we need to read a “break from the pack” account from reporter Dana Milbank of the Washington Post:

White House aides had called Pitney the day before to invite him, and they had escorted him into the room. They told him the president was likely to call on him, with the understanding that he would ask a question about Iran that had been submitted online by an Iranian. “I know that there may actually be questions from people inIran who are communicating through the Internet,” Obama went on. “Do you have a question?” Pitney recognized his prompt. “That’s right,” he said, standing in the aisle and wearing a temporary White House press pass. “I wanted to use this opportunity to ask you a question directly from an Iranian.” Pitney asked his arranged question.

Reporters looked at one another in amazement at the stagecraft they were witnessing. White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel grinned at the surprised TV correspondents in the first row.

One would suspect that the lord correspondents from the networks would have been more than amazed. Surely this bit of information, that there had been a planted question at a White House news conference, would have been included in the network news reports. “Full disclosure,” as they say.

But who was going to call the all-powerful president on this bit of media manipulation? A journalist from ABC, the network that wins the lap dog award for extensive programming promoting the president’s health care agenda? A journalist from NBC, whose network recently did a flattering “day at the White House” documentary? Maybe a journalist from CBS, which might be irked that the network only received a morning show interview with the president?

None of the network journalists spoke up – even though this was a situation that demonstrates to the world that the free press in America is no longer what it used to be. It was left to the blogosphere for further dissemination of the Post’s report on White House chicanery. It seems that journalists in 2009 are “gathering, writing, editing, and publishing or disseminating” whatever the White House wants them to.

Jay News, Television industry blogger, blogosphere, journalist, network, white house

A small plane crashed into the side of a road on the northeast side of Sheldon, Iowa Tuesday morning. According to an Associated Press article carried in the Chicago Tribune, the FAA says the plane crash occurred about 11 a.m. when “thunderstorms with heavy rain were moving through the area.”

An examination of radar imagery suggests heavy rain was not occurring over the crash site. Assuming the plane went down at 11 a.m., the rainfall from a line of thunderstorms was still approximately ten miles west of Sheldon. But cold air surging out ahead of the thunderstorms was just reaching Sheldon in the form of a gust front at 11 a.m.

The “outflow boundary” is clearly visible on radar as a faint line of weak reflectivity. When this same north-south boundary passed over Sioux Falls airport an hour earlier, it produced a 43 mph wind gust at the surface. At 11:15 a.m., the automated sensor at Sheldon airport (KSHL) registered a short-lived, westerly wind gust of 39 knots, or 45 miles per hour.

A pilot clearly would have seen the line of thunderstorms approaching from the west, with dark clouds that lined the horizon. But the gust front, while visible on radar, might have been sudden and invisible to the eye. While it will be months before the FAA investigation is complete, my guess is that this unseen “wall of wind” played a role in the aviation accident.

Jay Weather aviation, crash, FAA, gust front, radar

A colleague of mine, Angela, insists that June is always starts cold in South Dakota. Clearly this June is extra cold, with daytime high temperatures averaging 6-7 degrees below normal in Sioux Falls, and the month is on pace to be the coldest-ever June in Rapid City.

My children concur with Angela’s hypothesis, based upon the lack of days spent at the neighborhood pool. So I decided to combine my kids’ observation and Angela’s hypothesis with the creation of a subjective barometer I will call the “Daytime Outdoor Pool Index”, or “DOPI” for short. It is not an unprecedented concept – farmers have an official index called growing degree days (GDD), and the energy people have indexes called heating degree days and cooling degree days (HDD and CDD), intended to reflect how much we operate our air conditioning and indoor furnaces.

In designing DOPI, I considered what parameters are essential for a good day at the pool. First and foremost, the public pools must be open. In the Northern Plains that generally means mid-May to mid-September. Secondly, it must be warm. Eighty degrees or better seems to be a nice round number, though the kids will agree to go to the pool if it as least 75 degrees early in the season. I will give half-credit for May days where the high temperature is between 75 and 79 degrees.

Sunshine is essential, since a healthy tan (a few shades short of a burn) seems to be desirable. I will decrease by one-quarter any pool day if the location receives less than half of its possible sunshine due to thick clouds. Another factor that will ruin an otherwise nice pool day is a strong wind. Even on a hot day, strong winds can make a body shivver when getting out of the water. So in DOPI, we will decrease by another one-quarter any pool day in which the average wind speed is over 15 miles per hour.

Putting together all of the numbers, here is how many acceptable pool days there have been in Sioux Falls, SD over the past few years:

So what does this prove? Absolutely nothing, except that this has been a lousy month to visit the local pool. And – perhaps – that there are too many meteorological indexes to keep track of.

Jay Weather DOPI

Vortex2, the biggest tornado research project in history (as The Weather Channel reminds us every five minutes), is an armada on wheels that has been roaming the Central and Northern Plains in search of tornadoes this Spring. The amateur storm chase community is an armada on wheels that has been roaming the Central and Northern Plains in search of tornadoes this Spring.

It has been fascinating to watch both groups in their quests to spot tornadic supercells. While storm chasers claim to have scientific skill and predictive prowess, they seem to be more interested in stalking the scientists with Vortex2 than in using their own judgment in positioning. Whererever Vortex2 has deployed, a gaggle of storm chasers has been sure to follow – clogging the roads and byways in Tornado Alley.

One example occurred on Tuesday. Vortex2 was in the vicinity of Wichita, KS, in what the Storm Prediction Center identified as a 15% tornado risk area. Like flies attracted to meat, at least fifty amateur storm chasers converged on Vortex2’s location. Admittedly, everyone could see the east-west fine line on radar showing a boundary for potential storm initiation. But what was interesting was that while Vortex2 and the attendant chase community waited in frustration for the boundary to ignite, there were real tornado warnings posted right across the border in Missouri – with hardly any chasers paying attention to them.

I suppose it is okay for chase beginners to cling to Vortex2 in hopes of observing a tornado. Surely, with the cache of brain power involved in the project, they should be pretty good at finding twisters even in this “down year” for Plains tornadoes. But if I was a chaser, I would want to demonstrate my knowledge and skill by breaking away from the pack – to predict, identify, and chase a tornado that nobody else is on. That is the difference between a pro and a lookie loo.

Jay Weather chasers, tornado, Vortex2