History
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Unlike older physical sciences like physics and chemistry, atmospheric sciences developed most of its theories in the 20th century, especially after the start of the aviation industry, when a three-dimensional picture of the atmosphere was needed to navigate safely. One of the puzzles in early weather forecasting was why it took longer to fly from…
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As a kid I remember reading a book about the refilling of the Mediterranean Sea after the strait at Gilbraltar was closed up for millions of years, keeping Atlantic Ocean water from entering the basin. Today I saw two separate stories about the Mediterranean Sea and paleoclimate, one based on the story I mentioned above…
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For those of you interested in severe weather and tornadoes, you will enjoy reading this journal article about the first known tornado forecast that was ever made. J. P. Finley was a military meteorologist who was fascinated by severe weather, especially tornadoes, and spent a lot of time studying how they formed. He made his…
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The Washington Post has an interesting discussion of how the climate of the Little Ice Age a few hundred years ago affected the development of civilizations across the world. During that time period centered on the 16th century, there was a lot of upheaval to world civilizations as cold conditions caused crop failures and altered…
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In trying to keep up with current climate science, I often run across articles that I think are interesting or challenging. Here are a few of the articles that have caught my eye in recent weeks. Cosmos magazine describes an counterintuitive impact of a warming climate at the end of the last Ice Age–a temporary…
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Climate scientists have known for over a century that carbon dioxide gas absorbs energy better than oxygen, nitrogen or most other atmospheric gases. The first discussion of this property and the likelihood that increases in CO2 would increase global temperature have been attributed to Irish physicist John Tyndall in 1859. But an article I recently…
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Since I worked for the National Weather Service a number of years ago on precipitation studies for dams, I’ve been fascinated at how they operate and (sometimes) how they fail. This article from The Advocate describes the Old River Project on the Mississippi River, which is designed to help prevent the Mississippi River from changing…