Downbursts and the Dallas Cowboys training facility collapse

5 05 2009

Many of you have already seen this footage below, but I thought it would be interesting for WUWT readers to get a look at the cause behind it. Meteorologist Mike Smith, from WeatherData,  sent an interesting picture and description of the incident vua email that I wanted to share. I’ve added some links and visuals also. – Anthony

Mike Smith writes: A “downburst” is a unique form of extreme winds unknown to meteorologists prior to 1977 when it was discovered by Drs. Ted Fujita and Horace Byers. While they can occur anywhere, the Dallas area has bitter experience with downbursts.

downburst_mrsmith_1978

First-ever photo of a downburst, taken by WeatherData's CEO, Mike Smith. The curling raindrops are a visual signature of a downburst. This photo, one of a series of seven, confirmed Fujita and Byers' downburst theory.

Delta Airlines’ flight 191 crashed in a downburst at DFW International Airport August 2, 1985, killing 135. In the quarter century since that horrible August day, meteorologists have made tremendous strides forecasting and warning of these small, but deadly, storms. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : weather

Unprecedented Incoherence In The Ice Message

5 05 2009
Guest post by Steven Goddard
Last week, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon warned that “polar ice caps were melting far faster than expected just two years ago“

This was based on a number of widely publicized scientific studies released this year claiming that both the Arctic and Antarctic are melting faster than expected.

A team of UK researchers claims to have new evidence that global warming is melting the ice in Antarctica faster than had previously been thought.

Icecaps around the North and South Poles are melting faster than expected, raising sea levels as a result of climate change, a major scientific survey has shown.

As recently as last week, scientists were sounding the alarm.
Tues., April 28, 2009
OSLO – The ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica have awakened and are melting faster than expected, a leading expert told peers ahead of a conference of ministers from nations with Arctic territory.
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen, an expert with the Center for Ice and Climate at the University of Copenhagen, told the conference in the Arctic town of Tromsoe that the need for a wake-up call was genuine for the polar and glacial regions.
He apparently didn’t read this paper from last Autumn’s AGU Meeting

Ice loss in Greenland has had some climatologists speculating that global warming might have brought on a scary new regime of wildly heightened ice loss and an ever-faster rise in sea level. But glaciologists reported at the American Geophysical Union meeting that Greenland ice’s Armageddon has come to an end.

One has to wonder if some scientists are lacking access to the Internet, as the amount of polar sea ice on the planet is above the 30 year mean. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 199 Comments »

Categories : sea ice