A hot one!

It was August 8, 1981, and the Willamette Valley was toasty. I was trying to finish up my PhD prospectus at Oregon State, as I recall, and the non-air conditioned Ag Hall was just too hot. I headed home after a long day, and we decided to head up to Silver Falls State Park the next morning with our camping gear and our (then) 3 kids to escape the heat. The campground, and all Cascades-area campgrounds were already full. But a kindly park ranger told us there were some spots open on the coast, so off we went.

By the time we arrived, the coast campsites were full (traffic was awful!) so they were letting valley refugees set up camp at waysides. Tents were everywhere! And it was a glorious 58°F almost round-the-clock. Many non-weather-ready people had no sweatshirts or jackets with them so I imagine the shops did a brisk business.

And they'll do so this week, too, as the exodus occurs. Forecasts are for 3-5 days of 100°F or greater across the lowlands in western Oregon this week, so it will be a nice dry run to see if the east-west highways are ready for the eclipse in 3 weeks.  For those of you in Eugene, here are the observations for that week in August when it was so hot, and which set some records which may fall:

It remains to be seen how competitive this week's event will be across the valley compared to that one. Mainly I post this just to remind people that heat waves are not just occurring due to human-caused global warming. They are not unprecedented. However, they will likely be more commonplace as warming takes hold. And as always, use the National Weather Service for your forecast guidance - no hype, just taxpayer funded forecasts from the professionals.  

Is a NWS Reorganization Coming?

To all my friends and former students in the National Weather Service (NWS), I want to wish you good luck in your negotiations. To NWS management, I hope that negotiations will not be conducted following President Reagan's strategy used with air traffic controllers. According to the Seattle Times, the NWS has canceled its union contract.

Dan Sobien, President of NWSEO, and crew do fine work for this nation. The weather "enterprise" is changing for sure, but you won't be able to replace the human element, and NWS management should be (and probably is) exceptionally mindful of social science research related to high stress (and often rather boring) jobs that require community connections, local and scientific expertise.

Think about triage at a hospital that requires minimal staffing levels. Let's try to be realistic here.

And how's that search for NOAA leadership coming? Seems important at the moment.

I've long been a member of educational unions myself, first in Florida and then in Oregon, but find myself for the last two years a member of middle management. In this role I've been both frustrated by and honored by the role that union management at my institution plays in securing employee rights of both the #LCCEA and #LCCEF.  I grew up in New York, and as a teenager worked for my father and uncle in their non-union sheet metal factory and learned how to appreciate the idea of labor rights by seeing how employees were not necessarily treated well. I still worry about how former Senator Rick Santorum's efforts to largely privatize the NWS a few decades ago, aided by some large private weather corporations, may be back on the table.

I've been a proud supporter of both NWS management and employees over the years, and was proud to work with so many great individuals in collaborative projects involving NWS/NOAA employees in  education, satellite and data services, and line employees in collaborative research projects in Oregon, Colorado, Washington DC, and the Southern Region. The telling situation of nearly 700 vacancies across the NWS puts a strain on workforce. What is the breaking point, I ask as an outsider?

Collaboration is required for unions and management to work together. I hope that these coming negotiations will be good for the NWS, its employees, and the mission of the NWS which is designed to help protect the public. That's all of us.

Sometimes you just lose.

Florida's anti-science education bill became law, decries NCSE, and rightfully so.  "Sometimes you just lose" is what came to mind when I read it this morning.

That is what a FL legislative staffer told me back in 2008 or so when the legislature failed to fully implement our expert panel's recommendations on science education in Florida, which would have strengthened the way in which evolution and climate change (and other subjects) were taught. As a result, Florida got "everyone does Biology" in 9^th grade and that'll do as the de minimas standard. Some districts did fine and still do. See Paul Cottle's Bridge to Tomorrow blog for details on where decent science education across the spectrum takes place (hint - it often involves #physics).

9 years later...I'm saddened to see this. Floridians: sometimes you just lose. @NCSE, 2017 has sure been a tough year. But keep it up and thank you!

Paul Ruscher, PhD
Fellow, American Meteorological Society
Eugene, Oregon
29 June 2017

#POTUS takes out #WOTUS

Mr. Pruitt #EPA Administrator, is fully committed to enacting the President's agenda on environmental destruction, and today's action by the #EPA is no different.  If you go back to the President's Executive Order of February 28, announcing the intent to rescind #WOTUS, it is laughable from both a scientific and legal framework.

In particular, the late Justice Scalia's opinion made claims that silt cannot be washed downstream, and yet §3 of the EO calls for Justice Scalia's interpretation be cited as the controlling interpretation of what is meant by navigable waters and waterways subject to scrutiny under the Clean Water Act.

It is now abundantly clear (shall we say, absent of turbidity?) that when Mr. Trump campaigned to drain the swamp, he meant that we should, forthwith, drain all remaining wetlands in our great nation.  Goodbye migratory birds, dragonflies and butterflies, endangered reptiles and amphibians, beavers, and good luck to the young fish who rest in these wonderful areas that will now be ripe for development of the type that Rapanos and Carabell were known for when Rapanos v. United States was heard by #SCOTUS, but not really decided.

It took 9 years for #EPA and the #USACE to create #WOTUS in 2015, with substantial public input and engagement.  Today's announcement of its undoing is not good news for clean water supporters in this nation.  Looking forward to another opportunity to comment on environmental destruction; this truly is a #watershed moment in our nation's environmental history.

A headline could be:  #POTUS takes out #WOTUS using #SCOTUS non-binding decision to invoke his #modus operandi.

Why I'm not applying to EPA's Boards

The History of the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency; born: 1970; expired: 2017)

The EPA was founded to facilitate enactment of federal policy on clean air, water, and lands, as a follow up to important environmental legislation of the 1960s into 1970.  It was created by President Richard Nixon in 1970 and authorized by Congress in a bipartisan manner.

In 2017, President Donald J. Trump, Jr., nominated Scott Pruitt, former Attorney-General of Oklahoma, to be the new EPA Administrator.  His nomination was confirmed by the US Senate.  Pruitt has the distinction of being the person who has sued the EPA more than anyone else (I'm just making this up, but I'd encourage people to make a good list - I bet he's in the top 10!).

By the time 2017 is over, EPA will have been effectively renamed as the Economic Protection Agency, since the GOP power structure is invested in removing any regulation it deems harmful to the economy, and so many of the ones already removed and slated for removal fall under the purview of the EPA.

With the recent announcement that Scientific Advisors and Counselors are being told that their services are no longer needed, and all advisory board meetings for the summer are canceled (while the environmental deregulation moves apace), there is no scientific oversight of EPA.  We are left to trust the remaining civil servants who are now being offered buy-outs to meet the most severe budget cut of any large (pseudo-cabinet level) administration at the table.

That is why, in spite of several people who have suggested that I do so, I will not nominate myself for BOSC or any other EPA oversight board, since it is apparent from Mr. Pruitt's and Mr. Trump's own words that environmental protection mean nothing other than obstacles to economic growth.  No spin here, just using their own language.

I have an idea or two. For whatever bill comes out of the congressional negotiation process between the House and the Senate, the following amendments shall apply:

Be it resolved that any member of Congress and their staffers shall be required to participate in the new government healthcare system in effect in their home districts, with no exemption, when the new plan goes in effect for all of their constituents.

The second amendment I'm suggesting (oops, 3^rd rail language):

Any citizen of this country who makes more than 25 times the federal poverty level will be ineligible for insurance coverage under this new health care plan. They must pay the full price for any medical care directly to their provider, or arrange for their own private health insurance if they desire it.

Third Amendment:

The maximum contribution to the Social Security Administration and disability program based on income is hereby removed, effective upon adoption of this bill by Congress and signing by the President.

The 200-year History of Anthropogenic Climate Change Science ... in one tweet

It turns out that Sarah Silverman (a very funny lady) and Adam Baldwin (not Alex or William) don't like each other very much.  They recently got in a twitter battle about the evidence for climate change and human impacts.  I tried to help them with their thought process here.