No, really, they must have been on crack when they came up with this one. I have no other explanation that works.
First a primer. What is “Space Weather”? Wikipedia (agreed not the best source but humor me, at least they understand the basics) says that it is:
Space weather is the concept of changing environmental conditions in near-Earth space or the space from the Sun’s atmosphere to the Earth’s atmosphere. It is distinct from the concept of weather within the Earth’s planetary atmosphere (troposphere and stratosphere).
You can see what that’s all about at NASA’s spaceweather.com
Note the “distinct from the concept of weather”.
Now, try to wrap your mind around that and this image below and figure out how they managed to get space weather to burn down the Empire State Building.
Yes that’s right, Space Weather. They ask the question “Ever thought about what would happen if Earth’s temperature reached 900 degrees like on Venus? Chances are it won’t be a good day! Buildings are reduced to dust in moments! Watch Deadliest Space Weather only on The Weather Channel, Thursdays at 9”
When I first saw this, I thought to myself “this has to be some sort of spoof“. Sadly, no. Here it is on TWC’s website:
But wait, there’s more! Space Weather causes acid rain and two-eyed cyclones too!
The descriptions:
– A bad day on Earth is nothing compared to a day on Venus! Winds create a massive cyclone with two eyes and rain that turns life forms into a pillar of carbon! Find out more on Deadliest Space Weather, only on The Weather Channel, Thursdays at 9pm!
– Imagine acid rain that can eat through solid steel! This isn’t the plot of a Hollywood disaster movie, it’s weather happening now in our solar system! See more extreme weather on Deadliest Space Weather, Thursdays at 9 on The Weather Channel!
Do they even hire science or meteorology majors at TWC anymore?
I’m just stunned. This has to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen.
UPDATE:
John Coleman says in comments:
As founder of The Weather Channel I am deeply saddened by what has become of my life’s work. I poured everything I had at the prime of my life into creating a basic channel that was focused on a mission to provide accurate and complete weather information for their location and the rest of our nation within a few minutes to everyone who tuned in. As televsion whiz kids have replaced adults and dedicated meteorologists the channel has been reduced to a hodge podge of silliness. Nothing against the many fine people who work there. But, a curse upon their leaders.
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Arts majors.
And no sub-editor at all.
I worry about the magma – thousands of degrees – boiling the oceans – as that would mean my cod and chips will feature boiled fish – not fried!
Catastrophe.
And very un-English!
[Right – Sarc, and Sars, off].
Anthony – it looks like ‘crack’ might be right!
The best part is I *just* saw an ad for this on television. It’s going to be a TV series! I do hope they do the one about “what would happen if space aliens attack us with their freeze ray”, and “what would happen if the earth simply disappeared.”
OK, just to be clear; the website http://www.spaceweather.com isn’t run by NASA, doesn’t run kooky stuff like that, and is clearly focused on astronomy; the only thing Earth-related that they do is auroras, meteor showers, eclipse photos and the like. VERY informative and reasonable.
This set appears to be focused on Venus. So the comparisons are what if we had Venusian conditions on Earth? I assume the series will move through the solar system and then perhaps to extra solar plants.
Maybe it will conclude with a show on the “weather” at the event horizon of a black hole.
If a large coronal mass ejection from the sun struck earth, what would be the result? In a case like that I would suspect both space weather and earth weather phenomena would be the result.
Two eyes. Really? These people need to get out a little more often. Or at least use their computers for something besides running climate models.
Unfortunately cataclysmic earth centered disasters seem to be the only way to get Americans interested in science. But some of them are fun.
I prefer the more cerebral “Finding Bigfoot” on Animal Planet. The Weather Channel is smelling kind of “squatchy” lately!
The picture in the upper right hand kind of looks like the Eye of Sauron.
I would have thought that the aurora borealis would qualify as an excellent example of an earth weather and space ‘weather’ interaction? At least good for some more pretty photos….
LOL. Well, technically in a few billion years, when our Sun goes Red Giant, I guess some of that will be true. But I doubt the Empire State building will be standing.
To be accurate “space weather” is really the offshoot of Solar Activity like CME, etc. The term was developed to keep lay people from getting confused – guess that failed.
Space Weather is best visualized as the Northern Lights – which is of course ions traveling down the EM paths to the poles.
It has NOTHING to do with weather UNLESS you subscribe to the cosmic ray impact on cloud formation. Which of course is the theory which challenges C-AGW and CO2 driven climate/weather changes.
So look at this way, at least the alarmists are now getting all alarmed over something probably more real than CO2/H20 forcing run amok.
Are you sure it’s crack? Acid seems to be more appropriate. Regardless, I want some of their drugs. Fantasy land seems to be a lot more interesting than reality.
Fear sells, no matter if real or not.
Auto says:
January 3, 2013 at 2:27 pm
Arts majors.
And no sub-editor at all.
I worry about the magma – thousands of degrees –
Al Gore said it is millions of degrees dude – you are way off,… /sarc
Well you just ensured their traffic peak of the year.
I think someone over there got a certain type of mushroom for Christmas.
Or is there really a cool-ade which causes cataclysmic weather disorder?
What I want to know is, where can I buy a camera robust enough to take a picture of that quality at 900 degrees ? Seriously, you’d never know when you might fall into an erupting volcano and feel inclined to take some pictures for posterity whilst on the way down.
John Coleman must be spinning in his grave. Oh wait – he’s not dead. Maybe he will wish he were when he sees what his programme has devolved into.
I saw some photo panels over on Fox yesterday that were just as goofy. Claimed the next glacial wouldn’t start until 50,000 years from now. It started 5,000 year AGO.
Oh my Gaia! They told us global warming was going to be hot. But, no, it’s gonna be even hotter than hot! [sarc/]
It kind of reminds me of the way alien invasion movies became popular during the cold war. Whether they were simply tapping into genuine and justified fear within society or actively trying to whip up paranoia and hysteria is much debated. But at least they never purported to be anything other than fiction.
This on the other hand …
Did they cut and paste the picture of the “Eye of Sauron” direct from the film?
Like the series what would happen if people disappeared, lots of silly conjecture interspersed with occasional interesting observations. I can’t wait for their next series “what would happen if you used a hand grenade as a suppository”
Larry
Unfortunately, even the names of the networks are misleading — “The History Channel” no longer has any programming about history and “The Learning Channel” is only accurate for a certain value of “learning”. (Is there such a thing as having knowledge sucked out of your brain? Apparently.) Why should we expect “The Weather Channel” to be any different?
I do have to stand up for Wikipedia, though. Although there is no editorial board, per se, that also means that there is no agenda-driven group controlling the content. If you want to try an experiment, go to an article in Wikipedia and edit one small paragraph (anyone can edit an article) to insert a blatantly false statement. See how long it takes before it is corrected. I assure you that it will not take long. Having written articles for mainstream encyclopedias as well as contributing to Wikipedia, I can state from experience that the Wikipedia model, while flawed, is no more flawed than the editorial-driven encyclopedias.
Hansen was right! Earth’s … er … Man-made CO2 levels are going to cause a Greenhouse Effect on the Sun which will cause it to become a Super Sun so that when the next Super Moon comes around the Empire State Building will be lit like a candle which will release even more CO2 which will cause … er … Maybe they should rename the series “Spaced-Out Weather”?
A side note: I remember a some time ago watching one of the familiar veterens in a segment with one of the new pretty talking heads. I wish I had it recorded or remembered it better but they were talking about the weather and he started to ask her questions. She didn’t have the answers. She shuffled some papers, put on a forced smile, and said, “All these questions!” They went to commercial or another segment. I always hoped he retired. It wasn’t long after that I didn’t notice him anymore.
The Weather Channel has just become another quick stop on the channel flipping. Seldom is there weather reporting actually on the channel; air freight lines, airplane deliveries, life guards and coast guards around the world are the main “reality TV programs.” Combine that with the new ploy of naming winter storms and the name should be changed to NBC-wc because it is no longer about the weather, just another different type of light weight entertainment.
And then there was our Canadian craziness, where one weathercaster earlier this week, told us that Alberta had “23 thousand” hours of sunshine a year. Wow! A simple misreading error I suppose, as there are just over 8,000 hours in a year.