That's more like it?

Many years ago, I first heard a story, although I no longer recall how I heard it.  The story concerns Allen D. (Al) Pearson, who at the time was the Director of the National Severe Storms Forecast Center in Kansas City, MO (which eventually became the Storm Prediction Center and moved to Norman, OK).  The story goes that some old woman was known to call the NSSFC and complain about every tornado warning for her location that turned out to be a false alarm.  After a tornado outbreak in that area, Al got a call from the woman, whose home (the story goes) was utterly destroyed by a tornado.  Her words to Al?  "Now that's more like it!"  This story may be apocryphal.  I don't know for certain, but it illustrates something that has always left me puzzled about how "the public" responds to weather warnings.

This has been a year characterized by some of the worst tornado events in our nation's history.  After several decades of relatively low tornado fatality counts, the nation has surpassed 500 fatalities with several months yet to go in the year.  We've had a single tornado in Joplin, Missouri, kill more than 150 people for the first time since 1947 (the tornado that hit Woodward, Oklahoma).   It's evident that tornadoes remain a deadly threat, which is what many of us have been saying for decades.   There's already considerable whining and complaining that Hurricane Irene hasn't lived up to the "hype" generated by the warnings.

It seems that there are many folks who, like the old woman in my story involving Allen Pearson, seemingly would prefer to become storm casualties and have their lives and property devastated!  I completely fail to understand the "logic" of this attitude.  Of course, no one wants to alarm people needlessly, but the fact is that our ability to predict storms falls well short of perfection.  False alarms are an inevitable consequence of meteorological uncertainty, as are occasions where a warning fails to go out and yet the event happens.  The only way to never miss an event is to predict the event everywhere, all the time.  The only way to never issue a false alarm is to never issue any warnings at all.  Reality is such that the science leaves us somewhere between these two unacceptable extremes.  An objective evaluation of the tornado warnings show that a considerable majority of them turn out to be false alarms.   By the way, for most of its history, the USA's public weather forecasters never issued tornado warnings because they were forbidden to do so!  It was feared by many otherwise intelligent folks that such a warning would cause a panic!

Some people have complained that the National Weather Service issues too many needless tornado warnings.  There may be some validity to such complaints, especially when considering individual NWS offices, whose office policies regarding warnings can vary from one office to another.  The basic idea behind this concern is the so-called "cry wolf" problem, where the working hypothesis is that "the public" is desensitized by too many warnings.  Various proposals by various people have been made to remedy the problem, mostly impractical or unjustifiable from the point of view of the science of storms.

I've argued that the overwarning problem (if it is indeed a problem) is the direct consequence of one inescapable fact:  no one is ever killed (at the time) by a false alarm!  Forecasters are much more likely to be condemned for not issuing a warning, thereby missing a storm event that winds up killing someone, than by issuing a warning that turns out to be a false alarm.  This is beyond any doubt the primary cause for the overwarning bias.  I've argued that one way to reduce or eliminate this bias is to convert to probabilistic warnings.  I hear constantly about how and why that won't work, but that's drifting off-point in this blog.

Consider the "desensitization argument":  One comment that I hear quoted in the media from time to time is "Oh, we hear tornado warnings all the time, and nothing ever happens!"  All the time?  Really?  I don't think the objective evidence comes anywhere even close to that clearly hyperbolic declaration.  In any given location, even in "Tornado Alley", tornado warnings are relatively infrequent.  Are people seriously expecting to hit by a tornado every time a tornado warning is issued?  Why would people think that?  What shortfall is responsible for such a patently absurd expectation?  Surely all the weather broadcasters who are complaining about NWS warnings could have done a better job of explaining the reality of the warning challenge to their audiences!  Nor am I attempting to make excuses for the NWS - in fact, I believe the accuracy of their warnings certainly could use some improvement.  But someone needs to understand just why "the public" has this attitude and start a public information campaign to eliminate it!

This has been a terrible year for weather tragedies:  not just tornadoes,  but also high winds, floods, hurricanes, etc.  Surely people should be thankful when a warning for potentially dangerous weather turns out to be a false alarm!  There are hundreds of dead people from storm hazards so far this year, and likely thousands of their friends and families who, if given the option, would prefer that those events had not happened at all.  That they had simply been another false alarm.  Any of them happily would change places with some whiner grousing about false alarms.

If you choose to take the attitude that so many warnings are false alarms that you can ignore them indefinitely, there's a chance you may be wrong at some point in the future - dead wrong!  Not a high probability, though.  So you're most likely going to be able to live a long and productive life, complaining about false alarms to the end of your days.  Shouldn't you be grateful?

Stock photography for storm photographers - Part 2

So the landscape for photographers with regard to stock photography agencies has evolved into an exploitative relationship with corporate behemoths.  While that might be good for the corporations, it's been bad for the photographers.  What's gone on with regard to the niche market associated with storm photography, in particular?

When I began storm chasing, it was a very small "fraternity" (mostly males) that produced an even smaller number of serious photographers with (expensive) high-quality photographic equipment.  As late as the late 1990s, there were just a few of us shooting medium-format images of storms.  This was the apex of the niche market for storm photography and we all pretty much knew each other - it was a friendly competition, because there were so few involved.

But after the turn of the century, things began to change.  Twister  flooded the "community of chasers" with hordes of brand-new new chasers who gave little thought to the market for storm images.  They were focused on themselves and their notoriety, not the photography market and not even the storms.  At about that time, digital cameras were becoming commonplace, including some with relatively high resolution at affordable prices.  Within a few years (say, by 2002), there were numerous chasers out there producing relatively high-quality images - often hungry enough for recognition that they would license their images for small licensing fees (even to the point of literally giving away their photographs for nothing!), in exchange for "fame" and personal recognition (worth little or nothing, in reality).

The corporate stock photography giants exploited the mass market of royalty-free and "microstock" images for their corporate "bottom line", where the price of individual images was reduced to very small values, in the interest of generating large corporate sales volumes (but giving back to the photographers only a very small percentage of the sales).  Some well-known storm chase photographers participated in this "sell-out" by contributing their "seconds" to these "el cheapo" markets of royalty-free images and microstock.  This, combined with the now-numerous chasers, flooded the niche market for storm photographs with inexpensive images of relatively high quality, contributing to a decline of market prices for everyone's photography.  A few selfish pricks (I could name names!) among the serious storm photographers contributed their images to this inexpensive market niche, essentially accelerating the overall decline of value associated with  storm images, to the point where the originally small niche market now is saturated with relatively inexpensive images.  It's become impossible to ask for a reasonable price to license storm images - clients can find inexpensive or even free images with a little searching.  You may think it's beneficial for promoting yourself to give images away for little or no value, but you're actually killing off the market value of your photographs, to say nothing of those from other photographers!

Relative newcomers to the storm photography market invariably are willing, more or less, to give away their images for the "credit" offered by image consumers.  This "credit" is, of course, worthless!  It gives virtually nothing back to photographers for the real costs associated with obtaining their storm images, but that illusion of recognition still seems to be an irresistible offer to the newcomer storm photographer.  The result:  the bottom has dropped out of the storm stock photography business.  Naturally, a small number of self-promoters (again, I could name names!) might still be able to command relatively high prices for their storm images, but the rest of us are shit out of luck!  It's become a dog-eat-dog world for storm stock photography.  If you're able to make a living at it, you likely have squeezed out those of us who find self-promotion problematic. 

Storm photography always was a small market, and it's been saturated by newcomers who evidently haven't thought through the business-related issues in their eagerness to promote themselves and their photographs.   The "fame" associated with licensing an image for a low price not only kills off the market for other photographers - it destroys your market, as well as that of others!

UPDATE:  I hasten to add that although I sell images at what I believe to be their fair market value, I'm not a pro photographer.  Image sales have never accounted for more than a tiny fraction of my income, so I don't depend on image sales to keep a roof over my head and food on the table.  Any profits I might have made have gone into supporting my photography habit.  Nevertheless, I respect those who are pro photographers enough to refuse to give my images away for peanuts.  Since I don't have to sell image licenses at all, I can charge whatever price seems right to me.  If buyers don't want to pay that much, they're free to look elsewhere. 

Stock photography for storm photographers - Part 1

Back in the latter parts of the last century (mid-1990s), after years of occasionally licensing the use of my storm photography on my own, I was invited to join the stock company managed by Tony Stone.  This was quite an honor, actually, since Tony Stone Images (TSI) was one of the most prestigious image stock photography agencies in the world.  This promised to transform my storm photography into an operation that could help pay off the very real costs incurred by storm chasing, and perhaps even generate a modest profit, with which I could maintain and upgrade my equipment.  It was around this time that I formed my own Oklahoma corporation, Chuck Doswell's Outdoor Images, Inc., which has become C. Doswell Enterprises, Inc.

Unfortunately, shortly after I began to submit images to TSI, they were bought out by what was then the start-up corporate giant, Getty Images.  Tony Stone himself likely was paid handsomely from the sale, but we photographers who were bought out had no say in the matter.  My original contract with TSI rant a scant two pages, as I recall.  After TSI's takeover by Getty, all the former Tony Stone photographers were offered a new contract to sign, with a very clear black-and-white decision to make.  It was about 27 pages long, mostly in unintelligible legalese (lawyer jargon).  That sent a very clear message to me!  The particulars of the contract offer by Getty were non-negotiable, which was another unmistakable signal!  Anyway, I didn't sign.  For five years after that, by the terms of the buy-out (about which I had no say, remember) Getty had exclusive rights to market those images of mine that they paid for when they bought out TSI, so I couldn't sell those particular images on my own.  That time has long passed, of course.

It was clear to me from the start that Getty Images wasn't a business partner with its "content providers" (photographers), as TSI had been all along.  A business partner negotiates agreements (contracts), rather than dictating terms.  Instead, Getty was exploiting the contributed images to gain further market share, with aggressive license fee reductions to drive out competitors (or force them to merge with Getty).  When I started with TSI, the photographers received 50% of any sales with TSI - a so-called "50% split".  With time, Getty cut the photographer's split down to 30% (last I heard), or even less for some sales.  Reducing the pay-out to photographers increased their ability to leverage their market share.  Typical sleazy corporate business tactics.  Getty sold some of my images for $1, so my take from the "sale" (more like a giveaway) would be 30 cents!!  Plus, they bought out other stock companies, such as Visuals Unlimited (VU)  Sadly, when VU was bought out by Getty, I had a contract with VU for a 50% split.  When they became "partners" with Getty (i.e., they sold out!), then my split from VU became 50% of the 30% from Getty - that is, 15%!  Getty had reached out and bit my ass again, even though I had never signed a contract with them!!

I still receive occasional checks from Getty and Visuals Unlimited for image sales from past submissions, but they amount to a mere shadow of what I used to receive.  I certainly have no plans to submit more images to VU (or Getty).  The stock companies siphon off the profits and give the photographers (now referred to as "content providers") whatever percentage the companies want to, and no photographer can do anything about it.  Some ex-Getty photographers tried to resist at first, and formed the Stock Artists Alliance (of which I was a charter member) to try to stand up to the Getty steamroller.  They basically failed in that effort, and I finally stopped renewing my SAA membership in 2009.  There was no point.  SAA got some trivial concessions but all the important matters (the split, for example) were simply non-negotiable and the SAA was powerless to do anything to change that.

The major stock companies, Getty and Corbis, have swallowed up most of the small-time stock photography operations.  In the process, the former relationship between photographers and their agents has been transformed into one of exploited "contract workers" for a giant corporation.  It might still be possible for photographers in general to make a reasonable living by stock photography - I have no direct knowledge of that - but I seriously doubt if anyone truly making a reasonable income by licensing photographs can only be working for these corporate giants.  During recent times, my income from stock image sales has declined to become just a tiny part of the income for my corporation, so I had to branch out into other things, such as scientific consulting.  Hence, the name change for my company. 

Next time, I'll discuss how the specific market for storm stock photographers has evolved.

Magnifying a tragedy

A terrible tragedy caused by a severe storm has occurred at the Indiana State Fair. You can watch a horrifying video of the event here, and read my colleague's commentary. I agree completely with him that these disasters are preventable, and some of us have been predicting these 'large venue' weather-related events for decades. Anyone familiar with the history of severe weather must come to the conclusion that it's inevitable that a really bad storm will intersect with a large venue event and create a truly large, devastating tragedy. This and several other similar recent events associated with concert stage collapses are just the warm-ups, unfortunately. One day, a significant tornado will hit a crowded 'large venue' - it's just a matter of time and the clock continues to tick. There have been some notable near misses and it's simply inevitable, even though no one (besides a handful of us) seems to care.

What magnifies this Indiana State Fair tragedy is that, like recent similar events, no one will learn anything from it! The whole mess will be papered over as an unfortunate "Act of God" - since god can't be sued and apparently won't be testifying in his own defense, there will be no assignment of responsibility for these deaths and injuries. The promoters will collect their insurance money for the damages and won't be called to account for any failures in preparation for a severe storm. Almost certainly, the venue operator had no plan in place to respond to a threatening storm and the people attending the event were not made aware of any actions they could have taken to protect themselves. If the promoters had a plan in place, and people were killed by a storm anyway, then they could be sued for having an inadequate plan! It's actually better and less risky for the promoters in our twisted, litigation-obsessed society to have no plan at all, and write it off as god's mysterious ways than it is to have a plan that may still result in casualties.

The losers, naturally, are the people affected by these tragedies - the people who pay for the tickets to attend the event, who buy the hot dogs and beer at inflated prices, and who suffer the consequences for the absence of preparation by greedy promoters and venue operators. The families and friends of the casualties also have to deal with the loss of their friends and/or loved ones. The economic and human cost of these events is never known fully.

Stage sets have no construction codes (UPDATE: see comments) - they're not designed to resist the wind and so are always vulnerable to collapse even in a relatively modest storm gust - perhaps even less than that 58 mph that qualifies it as "officially" severe. Venue operators are not required to make any preparations to respond in the case of an approaching severe storm. The show must go on - after all, profits are at stake! - no matter what might actually be looming on the weather horizon. These large venues often don't have anywhere for the crowds to go in the event of an approaching severe storm - no shelters. All they can do is cancel the event and evacuate. Just imagine thousands of people rushing to their cars in a panic, and then creating instant gridlock in the parking area as a tornado bears down on them. It's a terrifying thought to entertain but the worst part is that it's a very distinct possibility someday! You just can't evacuate thousands of people in the relatively few minutes warning you may have before a severe storm hits. The time to cancel the event is always well before the storm hits - and no forecaster can guarantee that a storm actually will hit the facility very far in advance, which is what venue operators likely will demand if they're going to risk losing money by canceling the event before the storm is riding up their backsides!

This is a no-win situation for everyone, it seems, except the venue operators. They call it an "Act of God" and walk away with some damage they have to spend their insurance money to repair. Just how much do we in American society value human life? Pious claims about that notwithstanding, it seems to me that all one needs to do is review the budget for the Indiana State Fair concert that wound up with five fatalities (Update:  now it is seven!) and you can see pretty clearly how much each life was worth to them!

And we all bear some responsibility for this. Most people will just shake their heads in sadness and vow to pray for the unfortunate victims and their families - apparently to the same god on whom they blamed the disaster in the first place! No grass-roots movement to demand safety standards with real substance for large-event venue operators is likely to arise. Why? Perhaps it's widespread apathy. Perhaps it's an inability to consider that the next tragedy could happen to us, not someone else. Perhaps it's the political clout of large-event venue operators to fight successfully against any mandatory preparations for severe storms.

I'm not a weather forecaster by trade, but I can make a prediction here about which I'm pretty confident: the important lessons from the Indiana State Fair disaster won't be learned, no one will be held accountable for those deaths, and things will roll along to the next severe weather-related disaster at a large venue. Maybe if the next one is a really big disaster, someone might actually be moved to do something substantial to prevent more of them. But I'm not optimistic, even then. After all, there are those profits to be made ...

Things as they are ...

I was discussing some issues regarding tornado preparedness with my wife, Vickie, this morning. She was describing some problems she knew about where incompetent, power-hungry nitwits had kissed asses to obtain their way, and thereby managed to render hopelessly inadequate certain storm preparedness levels in a place where many lives would be at stake should they ever be hit by a storm. This topic had been brought up in some email correspondence she'd had with a friend of mine, This friend of mine has a resume of qualifications that any sensible person should be eager to add to their staff, but he inexplicably has trouble getting prospective employers even to return his phone calls and emails. He's not my only friend with this sort of problem, and it truly saddens me when qualified, competent people are not given the opportunity to contribute while nitwits and the mediocre sit in their rightful place.

This got me to mulling over something that's bothered me all my life. When I was a boy, I imagined that all the strange, contradictory, and outright stupid things I saw around me might begin to make more sense, once I got older and could learn about the whys and wherefores about things as they are. My imagination was to prove to be totally wrong! As I've grown older, and indeed have learned more about how things really are, for the vast majority of instances, my lack of respect for things as they are has increased well beyond what it was when I was a boy! For the most part, things are worse than I imagined!! This is a pervasive problem that's everywhere - schools, government, the private sector - everywhere!! There's no paradise to be found anywhere, because all organizations are run by fallible, often stupid, and unqualified people!

Call me a cynic, if it makes you feel better. The difference between me and a cynic is that I've never completely given up hope that things as they are could be transformed into things as they should be. In my view of how things should be, incompetent nitwits should be struggling to find work, whereas the most competent, qualified people should be filling all positions of importance. Policies and processes within organizations shouldn't be driven by office politics and petty human jealousies, but rather reflect the realities they're intended to serve. Real accomplishments should be given their due, whereas sham accomplishments with no reality behind them other than someone's ego should never be given any significance. Awards recognizing performance should be going to those who truly have earned them, not to pretenders who didn't do anything to earn them other that to find the right ass to kiss, or learn the gamemanship in their organization.

O.K., call me an idealistic dreamer, if it makes you feel better. It always seemed to me that if I give in to cynicism, then the worst possible outcome results: I become what I've always despised. I become one of those organizational naysayers who resists every possible change because they're convinced it wouldn't work, or it messes with their power trip in the office, or it makes them look bad if policies actually need changing. Cynics are simply disillusioned idealists, who wind up contributing to the very aspects of things as they are that caused them to become cynical in the first place.

I'm not a cynic, but a realist. I know how things are in situations that matter to me - learning "the rules" (the real rules, which don't necessarily match what's down on paper) is an adaptive strategy that has always been helpful. I'm not usually in a position to make the rules, but it always seemed to me that if I wanted to accomplish something, I had to understand the rules well enough to find work-arounds, if possible. By being willing to pull no punches in pointing out things as they are, I've been in trouble of one sort or another many times during my professional career. So be it. As I discussed in a recent blog, I make no apologies for that!

To the extent that you have the energy and the will, you should never give up working for positive change, no matter how many times you're beaten down by the bastards who are responsible for things as they are. If you truly wish someday to see things as they should be, you should never, ever give up that hope. Don't sacrifice your principles for the dross of "job advancement" or the fear of vengeance from the coneheads. I'm over 65 and I don't believe I've ever given up any of my principles for the sake of some prize the system could offer me, or by the threat of some punishment. I certainly haven't succeeded in every battle I fought, but I've never given up the hope that someone smarter than me, with more energy and perhaps a key insight, can finally achieve those things I've failed to accomplish.

Death by ignorance

My career in meteorology began with the apparently simple goal of becoming a severe storms meteorologist. Along the way, I began to study not just the meteorology of severe storms but also the statistics of specific severe storm events, including the fatalities associated with each storm. I’ve learned that understanding why fatalities occur isn’t just about the storms and the forecast. We meteorologists could issue pretty much perfect forecasts and yet people still will die as a result of storms when they hit populated areas. Why is that?

It’s fatalities that justify the cost associated with studying severe storms. Society invests its resources in our research with the hope that increasing our understanding of storms will result in improved forecasts, in turn resulting in reductions of fatalities associated with storms. Perhaps there’s even some hope of mitigating the damage such storms produce, as well. In my examination of storms and the fatalities they produce, I’ve discovered that a significant fraction of storm fatalities arise from ignorance! Not all fatalities, to be sure – there are other factors that cause fatalities: poverty, physical handicaps, age, etc. But I believe the majority of deaths are directly or indirectly related to ignorance. People drive into tornadoes. People drive into rising flood waters. People ignore severe weather warnings. Why? In part, the answer seems to be ignorance, in one way or another.

There are two types of ignorance: the first is simply a lack of knowledge. Everyone has gaps in their knowledge for the simple reason that no one knows everything. But there’s another type of ignorance: willful ignorance. This is when someone has a good reason to know something, because that knowledge could save their lives, but they simply choose not to learn. This willful ignorance has a synonym: stupidity.

If you live in a mobile home in central Oklahoma, you surely must also know two things. First, violent tornadoes occur regularly in central Oklahoma. Second, your chances of surviving a violent tornado in a mobile home are about one-twentieth as high as if you live in an ordinary frame home. You may not know point #2, but if you live in a mobile home, this is information you certainly should know. Your mobile home is a death trap in a tornado and your ignorance of the facts could cost you and your loved ones your lives! Should you choose not to learn these facts, you could wind up as a statistic. The mobile home manufacturing industry has been successful in blocking state legislation requiring mobile home park operators to provide shelters – this means they’re putting the lives of mobile homeowners at risk for the sake of their profits!

If you live in Massachusetts, which has a much lower frequency of violent tornadoes than central Oklahoma, you might feel justified in not learning about tornado hazards. Unfortunately, 90 people died on 09 June 1953 when a violent tornado hit Worcester, Massachusetts – likely many of them died as a result of this willful ignorance: low frequency is simply not the same as a zero frequency. Why be prepared to take precautions if the chances of being hit by a violent tornado are so low? Because you still might wind up in the path of a violent tornado! This complacency in the face of reality is another example of ignorance that can be (and has been) fatal!

On 03 May 1999, a violent tornado hit central Oklahoma. In a FEMA study, it was found that many of the homes in the path of the tornado were poorly-constructed, thereby sustaining much more damage than had they been built soundly. Equivalent findings have emerged from similar studies of the 2011 tornadoes - the assessment of homes in the path of the 27 April 2011 tornado that hit Tuscaloosa, AL showed that many of them were flimsy and not much more protection than a mobile home. How many of those homeowners had thought to check the structural integrity of their homes when they bought them? Most homeowners don't know anything (i.e., they're ignorant) of the issues associated with structural integrity of their homes. Chances are they're far more concerned about the bathroom fixtures and the kitchen cabinets than they are about the attachment of the walls to the foundation or the connection between the roof and the walls. But in a tornado, those structural issues can be the difference between life and death in that home. Can you really be uncaring about your home's structural integrity when your life and those of your loved ones are at risk? This recent study is not the first to point out the flimsiness of most frame homes in America. The way to change this is via changes to the building codes in our communities, but the homebuilders have been effective at blocking any changes to the very lax building codes that exist throughout the tornado-prone parts of the US. We learned in 1999 on 03 May that poorly-constructed (but not necessarily low-priced!) homes in central Oklahoma likely resulted in fatalities. This begs the question: are we learning nothing from these studies? Can we not implement policies to do something about this shoddy construction that is so pervasive in the tornado-prone areas of the US? Flimsy homes mean an increased amount of flying debris in a tornado, which increases the degree of damage caused by that tornado. It also magnifies the risk to human life from flying debris (one of the biggest causes of death and injury in tornadoes).

If meteorologists choose to accept the challenge to put their understanding to use in saving lives, it’s not just about putting out an accurate forecast with useful lead time. It’s also about encouraging our society to take advantage of what we’ve learned about how people are killed in severe storms. And our society can’t just ignore what they’re being told. People in our society need to accept their personal responsibility to choose to do something about their ignorance, at the very least in matters where their lives can be at risk!

It’s frustrating to be able to anticipate tragic events in the future and yet be powerless to prevent those tragedies. History is the key to the future, and the history of severe storms makes it clear that there will be an increasing risk from severe weather as a result of urban sprawl and more recreational use of areas prone to such storms. The tornadoes of 2011 have inflicted horrific fatality counts, far beyond those of recent history. Unfortunately, some of us realized well before the events of April and May of 2011 that there was no reason to believe that our good luck would continue forever. Events of 2011 have proven us to be correct in our forecasts, but that's small consolation for the disasters we’ve seen. More of the same is in our future if we choose to continue our ignorance.

Another atmospheric tease ...

In case you're unaware, Oklahoma and Texas are experiencing record-breaking heat and drought in this summer of 2011. The lack of precipitation goes back to last year. The rain mostly keeps on missing us here in central Oklahoma. It's been worse to our southwest, if that's any consolation (not! - their misery doesn't make ours any easier to take!).

Tonight, I was preoccupied in the evening and missed the development of storms to our west. They were charging at us and we actually had a chance for meaningful rainfall - but the storms headed our way fizzled, only to re-develop to our east after the line had passed through here with only light sprinkles to show for it. A similar scenario occurred last night: storms all around but none of substance here! As a meteorologist, I know that the processes that result in weather are highly nonlinear and essentially random. Eventually, I know, we'll get some significant rain. But the feelings of frustration over being teased with nearby rainfall remind me of the 4 years I spent in Longmont, CO.

In Longmont, it almost never rains in the warm season. Storms that develop over the mountains typically dissipate by the time they get close to Longmont, only to re-develop to the east. And Longmont is between the Cheyenne Ridge and the Palmer Divide, so storms might fire north or south of us on those topographic features, but rarely near enough to Longmont to help us. In the neighborhood where we lived in Longmont, every yard (including ours) had Kentucky bluegrass! The only way to maintain such a lawn is to water it most every day - it almost never rains there in the warm season, after all. I spent many an hour maintaining that damned sprinkler system some previous owner had installed and never felt good about it. What a stupid thing - to grow a water-thirsty type of grass in the semi-arid rain shadow of the Rocky Mountains! Almost as stupid as a golf course in Nevada or Arizona!! Buffalo grass (a drought-resistant native grass) would make more sense.

Here in Oklahoma, our Bermuda grass simply goes dormant when in a drought. It only takes rain to bring it back to life. But the drought has other impacts - the dry soil cracks and pulls away from concrete foundations (and our pool sides), which undermines those structures and invites damage. So even here, the drought has more consequences than a brown lawn! And I'm struggling to keep flowers, shrubs, and the vegetable garden hanging on by a thread with waterings every other day.

Life in the interior of a continent inevitably involves weather extremes. That's what continental climates are like. When there are few severe storms in Oklahoma, there's likely to be a drought. Most people don't realize that most severe storms actually are a positive thing owing to the mostly beneficial rainfall they bring. Some areas to our east have experienced flooding, as storms have frequently developed near us only to move eastward away from us, without much rain here. Interstate-35 seems to be coincidentally located on a climatological dividing line!

As I await the eventual relief (which may be "sooner" - pun intended - or later!), I have to acknowledge this alternation between feast and famine is characteristic of these plains. The weather here is almost never "normal" - normal is just the average of extremes, here (and in most places). The range of extremes on the plains make their climate a harsh one in which to live. Our lifestyles often fail to recognize that reality. Everything has a price, it seems, and when the natural balance swings toward hostility to those lifestyle elements that depend on having a benign climate, that brings home how tough it can be to live here. In a strange way, it's a big part of what appeals to me about living on the US plains. Even if you want to, it's tough to ignore the weather here for long! It'll flat reach out and remind you - in a way you just can't ignore!!

The truth can hurt!

Recently, the consequences of telling the truth as one sees it were made evident in a personnel decision of which I've become aware. A person whose name I'll not give here has had a reputation of being outspoken, including being critical of decisions made by the organization for which s/he works. This has never been a formula for rapid advancement, as I've seen several times during the course of my professional life. My colleague was passed over for a position for which s/he truly was most qualified - of course, the real reason for that decision is prejudice against her/him for being outspoken. This is not the first time this has happened to a colleague!

To put this in perspective, let me tell something of my own story. When I was in high school, I ran afoul of "management" for being a critic of the school in a public medium. For this "sin" I was called in to the office, dressed down, and tasked with writing a public apology. I wrote my apology in such a way that it was a non-apologetic apology, something no one in the school administration apparently noticed (or if they did, they decided it was sufficient, anyway). I never have had any respect for arbitrary authority figures (those in a position they believe should command respect simply because of the authority of the position itself), although I find it easy to respect those who have earned respect!

From that point on, I made a decision about my future: I wanted to get to a position where I could say freely what I thought without regard for recriminations. I realized that having a doctorate was something that, once earned, couldn't be rescinded. Being a contributing scientist put me in a position where my obligations and commitment could be directed primarily to the science, and not to any organization for which I worked. Once I graduated with my doctorate, I embarked on a career in which I believed (and still believe) that it's my duty to speak the truth as I see it. From the start, I was outspoken, even before I achieved any status on the basis of my scientific publications. My policy has been simple - if I have to choose between saying what I think and sticking to my organization's "party line" then that's a no-brainer.

During much of my professional career, I've had people who supported me precisely because I was speaking the truth as I saw it. This has included folks who believed as I did but who were fearful of the consequences if they said what I was saying. I became something of a spokesman for those in "the system" who were unable to speak for themselves without fear of negative consequences. My version of John Paul Jones' famous saying, "Damn the consequences! Full speed ahead!" had consequences, of course. But those consequences were minor, and I think the reason for the modesty of those consequences was the support of my scientific colleagues (including some of my organizational managers), who valued my work and my honest opinion.

Many of the things I believe to be true could be wrong, of course. If I'm wrong, I expect someone to challenge what I say and to show me the error of my thinking in a convincing way. What I get, for the most part, is people thinking I'm a know-it-all, or people who fail to challenge me because they lack the courage to say what they think to my face. I dispute the accusation that I think I know it all, so I challenge anyone who thinks I'm wrong to confront me directly and explain why they think I'm wrong. Then we can both gain something from the confrontation, even if neither of us change our minds about the issue in dispute. And my mind can be changed by a sufficiently convincing argument, although I'm not going to roll over and concede just because you think I'm wrong!

As for people who lack the courage to challenge me - let me simply say that I don't respect such people for taking that position. And I similarly have no respect for those who punish people I know simply for being outspoken. In fact, seeing this happen to friends of mine is more infuriating than when it happens to me! Do they think that no one will notice what's going on? Do they think that someone actually believes the lies they use to justify their actions? That's insulting!

I made up my mind long ago to live with the consequences of my outspokenness. It's the only consolation I can offer to my friends when their outspokenness comes back to haunt them in their careers. I made it one level higher on the career ladder than I ever expected to reach, so for me, the consequences were not meaningful. I'm pleased about having a reputation for being able to call things as I see them - I say what I mean, and I mean what I say. When I look into the mirror, I'm not at all sorry for having stood up for what I thought was the truth! It's the only solace I need, and I commend it to my friends for their unhappiness over the consequences for their willingness to speak the truth.

Extremism - doing God's work?

As the story trickles in, the mass murderer in Norway apparently is a right-wing, christian fundamentalist extremist. It's ironic that this comes soon after my friend R.J. Evans posted here about the distinction between being a militant and being an extremist. Of course, my christian friends and followers of this blog will complain that not all christians are extremists. This is quite true, just as it's true that not all muslims are extremists. I suppose not all nazis or soviet communists were extremists, either - some were forced to join when those extremist political regimes took over whole nations.

Nevertheless, when barbaric acts occur, such as the murders committed by this home-grown Norwegian terrorist or any of his terrorist brethren on behalf of any cause, you can be sure that some form of extremism is behind it. The demagogues who spew forth the hatred and incitement to violence that motivate these terrorists are usually quick to say "I didn't order him to do that!" These "leaders" frequently back-pedal away from accepting any responsibility for the deeds committed by what are probably insane people that happen to believe in the demagogue's cause. Some of these leaders say that we deserved the violence we got, of course. They believe they are carrying out acts of justifiable violence on us, no matter how innocent of wrongdoing the victims might be!

Religion and politics are commonly associated with extremism because the extremists among the religious or political followers take their cause so very seriously. When "holy scriptures" (of any sort) enjoin followers to slay unbelievers and sinners, the extremists are the ones who accept this as a literal commandment to action. They see it as doing "god's work". The moderates amongst the believers deny that these people are "true believers," preferring to presume that their more peaceful interpretation of those scriptures is the correct one - that those scriptures shouldn't be taken literally word-for-word. This is, of course, a convenient way to rationalize the contradictions within those documents, and to avoid the need to take certain actions despite the clear commands within the literal words of these scriptures that, after all, form the foundation for those belief systems.

Radical political groups grow out of the frustration over the inability of moderates to accomplish certain political ends. Barry Goldwater once said "I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice!" I disagree with him. The end never justifies the means!!

Political extremists want political action without having to wait for a consensus in the electorate, and without regard to the possibility of harmful consequences created by that action. In the U.S., where two-party dominance has deeply polarized the electorate, various extremist positions are being encouraged by the rhetoric of the parties. Some of the followers, notably these days on the right wing (but historically also on the left wing), are ready to commit acts of violence. All they await is their moment of rage-triggered insanity. We have seen this already here in the U.S., in the case of the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995. The right-wing extremists capable of such violence are still out there - like the Norwegian mass murderer, so consumed by anger and hatred that murder and destruction seem to them to be the only acceptable alternative. In the U.S. of today, left-wing extremists may exist, but are pretty impotent and generally quiet. These days, it seems that to be a liberal is to be a left-wing extremist! That sort of polarizing rhetoric is exactly what concerns me.

We only need to look to the islamic theocracies of the Middle East today to see what happens to "moderates" when extremists (be they religious or political) manage to take control: moderates are given the simple choice of "With us? Or against us?" They either go along or suffer the consequences. This is a familiar pattern in history, borrowed by the muslim extremists (and others) from the ruthless ideology-based dictatorships of the past. I don't need to enumerate the violent, extremist examples from the past. We all know them by heart, but ... have we truly learned the lessons that such extremism has inflicted on us all? Will we recognize it for what it is and not allow it to carry the day? Apparently not everyone has learned those lessons, so the boundary between being a militant for some cause and being an extremist is being crossed, and potential terrorists emerge, ready to commit violent acts when the situation arises. No matter how crazy some fringe group of fanatics may seem to be, the lesson of history is clear: ignore them at your peril!

Tribalism is an evolutionary strategy for the success of tribes. We all carry that instinct for tribalism in our genes. Religion and politics tap into that tribalism to benefit their cause - to seek power and control over their members. The members who commit violent acts to further their causes are being manipulated by leaders who stand to gain power from this sort of terrorism. The best way to avoid becoming ensnared in this is to think for oneself and not let mere rhetoric sway your thinking toward extremism. The Mahatma Ghandis and Martin Luther Kings of history have shown that violence is not the only alternative in the face of perceived injustice and persecution. Peaceful change is possible. But it's up to us to decide the path to follow in order to produce change. Militant or extremist? Which do you choose to be?

An announcement ... and one more thing about AGW

First of all, henceforth, I will not publish any anonymous comments. If there is to be discourse here, it must be known who is making the comment.

Now ... back to anthropogenic global warming (AGW). I've become very irritated by the constant harping from AGW deniers that the scientists involved in climate research are advocating the AGW position for reasons of personal gain. This is both absurd and insulting.

Right away, naturally, I have to say that scientists are human, and occasionally a tiny minority of scientists engage in various forms of unethical behavior. Hence, the odd example of someone in science who forfeits their integrity for some perceived personal gain can be found. But this is nothing more than a reflection of the fact that science is a human endeavor, not some sort of broad-brush that can be used to tar and feather the majority of scientists. It says nothing that can be applied to the whole collection of scientists who participated in creating the IPCC reports. At most, it might apply to a handful of individuals, but I have little doubt that the vast majority of those scientists are supporting the notion of AGW because that's what the research shows, not for personal gain. When an individual scientist is shown to have engaged in unethical activities, their career in science is, for all intents and purposes, over. They will pay a huge price for their misdeeds within the scientific community, because honesty is a paramount virtue in science -- without it, the whole endeavor collapses. Losing the opportunity to be a practicing scientist would be very harsh punishment for the typical scientist, very passionate about the subject of their research, to say nothing of civil punishments for criminal forms of ethical transgressions.

Misrepresenting climate science for personal gain? It's simply nonsense to believe that such a conspiracy could exist among so many scientists. The risks are far too high for any imaginable rewards and only a very rare person or two would ever take such risks, and such rare instances likely would be very much "disturbed" persons.

Of course, any scientist worth his/her salt is a forceful advocate for their research. Is this an indication of moral turpitude? No way!! Anyone not believing in the value of what research they do shouldn't be funded -- if you don't believe in it, why do it? When scientists seek support for their research, it's so that they can do the work, not to become wealthy. In some very twisted minds, of course, this could be interpreting as seeking personal gain (i.e., doing something you want to do, as opposed to, say, something you're forced to do). If anyone wants to do anything, it has this "selfish" aspect, but the IPCC consensus is light years from some vast conspiracy among climate scientists for personal gain.

Of course, public funds are being used to support climate research (as well as most other forms of scientific research). The National Science Foundation (NSF) is a primary supporter of climate and weather research, mostly through universities.

How do NSF research grants work? I can't speak for other disciplines, but in weather and climate science, the contract is not between the scientist and NSF but rather between the university and NSF. The money isn't a check written into a researcher's bank account to dispense as they see fit! Rather, the funding must be used to accomplish the research as developed in the grant's proposed budget, an effort done jointly by the researcher and the university staff. Among the budget items, a university scientist usually seeks salary support for a few months out of each year of the grant. The salary support from NSF is dispensed over the life of the grant by the university (not NSF) to the researcher, at a rate determined by the researcher's status within the university, and fixed by the budget proposal.

The rest of the money in the budget mostly goes to support student research assistants, pay for travel to conferences, pay the page charges for publications coming out of the research, pay for field data collection, pay for office computers and supercomputer services, and pay the university to support the university's infrastructure within which the research operates (buildings, offices, lights, phones, power, etc.). This latter item is called "overhead" and it adds about 50% of the research cost to the grant, such that a $100,000 research project must be funded for $150,000. The overhead rate varies among institutions - 50% is just a representative value.

The only truly personal gain by the researcher is that few months of salary support. Note that most research universities only pay their faculty for 9 months of salary, so the faculty have to obtain grant support for the other 3 months. This is not a formula for the enrichment of the researchers! No Rolls-Royce limousines, no condos in the Mediterranean, no exclusive country club memberships, no Lear jets for personal travel, unless those scientists are independently wealthy to begin with. No university-based climate researcher is getting rich from NSF grants. Publicly-funded money from NSF to the universities is by a large margin supporting the research, not the research scientist!

Government scientists are not allowed to obtain salary support from the NSF grants -- if government researchers participate in an NSF grant, they can receive the benefits associated with the research (data collection, student research assistants, travel support, page charges, etc.) and nothing else. They are paid a regular government full salary according to their status in the agency for which they work. Although government salaries for research scientists are reasonably good (comparable to intermediate-level university faculty), it's not going to make them wealthy unless they can invest some of their income in some high-yield investment opportunity on their own. Government climate researchers also are not getting rich as a result of these grants, or this research.

These researchers are doing this work because, for the most part, they believe passionately in the science to which they are contributing. To question their motives in supporting the AGW consensus is monumentally astounding rubbish!! I know a few of the people involved in this work, and I find it really aggravating to hear ignorant people casting very negative aspersions on the motives of my friends.

Anyone has a right to an opinion, and when it comes to the use of public funds, it's anyone's right to question the merit of that expenditure. NSF was founded after WWII because it was realized by far-seeing people that federal support of research would pay huge dividends to this nation in terms of new technology for the good of everyone, and jobs for those who worked to make those new technologies available to the public. This is the way it has turned out, although it seems that we as a nation are having trouble deciding where to put our priorities and research of all sorts is being questioned.

Now a cruel spotlight has been directed at the climate scientists not because of their misdeeds, but because their findings are not pleasing to certain wealthy, politically-powerful segments of our society. In an effort to negate those research findings for reasons having nothing to do with the science, an absurd conspiracy theory has been hatched to dispute the science by discrediting the scientists! Their collective integrity has been questioned because of political and politically-inspired media pressure, not because of any widespread, validated wrongdoing in their actual research activities. Media accusations, innuendo, personal attacks on blogs, and so forth are fomenting discontent in the public regarding the climate research funded by their taxes. If you want to look for a conspiracy, look to the AGW deniers, not to the scientists doing the climate research. These AGW-denying narcissists are using a familiar tactic -- accuse your opponents of the very misdeeds you yourself are committing.

I, for one, stand ready to defend my climate science colleagues from this unwarranted attack on their personal integrity. Of course, any actual, proven wrongdoing by individuals is unacceptable, but does not automatically validate any conspiracy hypothesis.

The attack on "consensus" science

I've just concluded an "argument" with an enormously ignorant non-scientist who has cited various blogs about science in support of his conclusion that "faith in global warming consensus isn't science, it is anti-science." This person, like a surprising number of others (including those who should know better), has no comprehension of what scientific consensus really means.

Anthropogenic global warming deniers cite such notions as the "consensus in science (and religion) [was once] that the earth was the center of the universe" as "proof" that consensus science is just an argument by authority. That isn't the meaning of consensus science at all! It's not an argument by authority but rather is the core of the ideas that are currently accepted by the majority of those who are actually participating in that science. If we have no core of agreement, we can have no discussion at all!

By the way, these folks also talk glibly about "proof" in science. I've already discussed that here, and it's a clear indicator of ignorance about how science really works to hear someone talk about "scientific proof". Even more pathetic is their understanding of the so-called "scientific method" - as if some simple formulaic approach can constitute the "scientific method". Pitiful, indeed!

For people laboring under these ignorant delusions, I recommend they read my essay about how science works. In that essay, I state:

... it may come as something of a revelation to many that scientific consensus is the sole basis for scientific arguments. Most scientists accept certain principles and consequences of those basic principles as the starting point for their work. This large and pervasive consensus is the core of a science education curriculum - it takes years to be taught the fundamentals for a particular discipline and to know the acceptable rules for drawing deductions using those fundamentals. The "state of the art" in science is always on the margins of this dominant background consensus. Is the consensus always right? No. It's axiomatic that nothing in science is sacred, even elements that are widely accepted as fundamental and basic to all that scientists do. Most scientists understand this principle, but they don't act as if everything needs to be repeatedly validated. They simply accept the consensus - what T.S. Kuhn called the dominant paradigm. There are various levels of consensus on different topics - many scientists bristle at some of the consensus even as they accept the majority of its canons. Hence, on the whole, there's always an undercurrent of attack on the paradigms. Virtually all scientists accept another principle: if you take on something fundamental, you have to be prepared for a spirited response to your claims to have overthrown a paradigm. The saying goes (I know Carl Sagan said it in "Cosmos"), "If you make extraordinary claims, you have to be able to provide extraordinarily convincing evidence!" As already noted herein, someone with a talent for designing revealing experiments can go far in science. Some parts of the consensus understanding are always vulnerable, perhaps owing to their never having been tested sufficiently rigorously. Others may have seemed so obvious that they have hardly been tested at all, so there are always many targets for a young scientist seeking to make a contribution.

The basic notion here is that a consensus emerges when the majority of scientists active in some area of research accept "something", and this "something" is the consensus. No one is making any argument to the effect that the consensus is invariably and inevitably correct. This is simply what most scientists active in some field believe at any given moment. It's a provisional understanding that can be changed, but changing it will require evidence more substantive than just an opinion!

When it comes to the host of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) deniers, they're dominated by those who are not actively engaged in global climate research, including my recent "opponent" in an argument. They have opinions about this topic but those opinions simply can't carry the same weight as those whose work has been consistently in the field of global climate. Anyone is allowed to have any opinion they want, for whatever reasons, but in science, opinions are nothing particularly noteworthy unless they're backed up by serious research that is published in scientific journals. Not everything in journals is "true" in some absolute sense, but it has met some important standards (associated with peer review).

Yes, it's an elitist argument. But whose opinion should mean the most? Those who have been engaged in the field for many years, publishing articles in refereed journals on their scholarly research, or those who have no data of their own to present, no track record of publishing articles in scientific journals, nothing at all that is the result of their own research? Surely the answer to that is obvious.

As I've stated elsewhere, I know a thing or two about how the atmosphere works, and I know several of those whose work is represented in the IPCC "consensus". Although I'm not a climate scientist myself, I trust those people and I trust the consensus simply because I'm not qualified to gainsay their findings. But I understand enough of their arguments to be reasonably convinced about the consensus in which their work is represented. In any case , I daresay I'm a hell of a lot more qualified than those deniers whose background in science is nonexistent. A few of the deniers are, like me, atmospheric scientists but not participants in climate science. They should understand, as I do, that their credentials as a scientist in another subfield don't necessarily qualify them to contravene the work of specialists in another discipline. By far the majority of the deniers have essentially no credentials that would support their ability to dispute the consensus, notably including the person with whom I recently had an "argument" - sort of like debating with a moron, that. His contributions to science are essentially negligible and his credentials as a meteorologist are not such that he can argue credibly against the climate scientists.

Sure, the deniers might be right. That is a logical possibility, of course. Science is not determined by majority vote and the consensus understanding is not inevitably correct, as history has shown repeatedly. Science works because it fits the evidence - there is no other standard. But do I trust these amateurs to be able to marshal a convincing argument by scientific standards for their extraordinary claims to overthrow the IPCC consensus? No. A thousand times NO!

The whole debate is a slur on the integrity of those whom I know to have impeccable integrity. I resent the very notion that the IPCC consensus represents some sort of cabal to defraud the public for the personal gain of those framing that consensus. The very idea of such a conspiracy is ludicrous in the extreme for anyone who knows anything about how science really works, and who knows the people involved in developing that consensus.

A tribute to Nancy Knight

       Dr. Nancy Knight with an egg and the famous Coffeyville, KS, world record hailstone.

Today I learned the sad news that my friend and colleague, Dr. Nancy Knight died on 26 June. Nancy spent her career studying hail alongside her husband, Charlie, at the National Center for Atmospheric Reseach in Boulder, CO. Her body of work is large and very meaningful, quite evidently a labor of love reflecting a lifelong fascination with the topic of her studies. Nancy Knight was one of the world's leading hail scientists and that simple statement needs no embellishment or clarification. When I first met her, while I was a graduate student at OU, she was pioneering the use of storm chasing in hail research, driving a specially-designed hail collection vehicle into hail shafts. I instantly fell in love with her!! How could anyone not like someone so evidently enthusiastic as to drive deliberately into hail shafts?

With time, I came to know more about Nancy and her husband and their research. They made a great team, but make no mistake -- Nancy was not riding on Charlie's coattails!! She was fiercely independent and that was another trait I found endearing. But she was also gentle and thoughtful of others when the occasion warranted it. Nancy was unselfconsciously kind and caring, although this side of her personality might not always reveal itself. My wife and I had occasion to see it from time to time. Nancy was the sort of person who could make friends quickly because she was an open book -- no one had to struggle to know what she thought about something. Yet another endearing trait!

Although all of us who knew her will miss her terribly, the fact is that she leaves this world a much better place for her having been with us for a time. I'm very grateful to have been her friend and I treasure her memory. Her scientific legacy will live on, of course. I know she was an inspiration to many young scientists, perhaps especially so to aspiring young women for whom role models historically have been scarce.

My deepest condolences go to Charlie in his grief over his loss. I trust he knows what a blessing it was to have shared this life with Nancy. My sincere thanks to Charlie for sharing Nancy and her irrepressible spirit with the rest of us!!

A tribute to Charlie Chappell

Charlie Chappell when he was a lead forecaster in SELS.  He taught me his methods of surface analysis in my years there as a student trainee.  This was shot in the mid-1960s, when Don House was the Director of SELS.

This is not the first time I've posted about the incredible gift of friendship. It likely won't be the last. Last Tuesday evening, my friend Charles (Charlie) F. Chappell died. Unfortunately, it's an example of an opportunity I missed - to thank Charlie for the inspiration he provided me during the occasions we spent time together. Fortunately, my friend Mike Fritsch expressed his gratitude to Charlie for all that he gave to Mike in a very eloquent way in a letter before Charlie died. Mike has been an inspiration to me, in no small measure because he has done so much with the opportunities he was given. Mike is a brilliant meteorologist and was no doubt a source of great pride for Charlie. Charlie managed to inspire (directly or indirectly) five people who have received the Clarence Leroy Meisinger Award from the American Meteorological Society: Mike Fritsch, Bob Maddox, Da Lin Zhang, Dave Stensrud, and George Bryan. This is an amazing achievement for an amazing man. If you know these people, you must realize how important Charlie's legacy is! These people represent what Charlie was about - dedication to advancing our understanding of the science - and who have used what they were given to advance everyone's understanding. I'm proud to say I'm friends with all of them!

Mike Fritsch is an amazing man in his own rights, as is another "hero" of mine, Bob Maddox. Charlie inspired many of us, indirectly or directly, to achievements of substance. And it's been my privilege to know and admire many such people in my profession. I've known some amazing colleagues (living and dead) who have influenced me to achieve well beyond my own meager capabilities: Bob Maddox, Mike Fritsh, Fernando Caracena, Charlie Chappell, Fernando Caracena, Stan Barnes, Harold Brooks, Chad Shafer, Alan Moller, Ronnie Alberty, Yoshi Sasaki, Walt Saucier, Dave Barber, Barry Schwartz, Werner Schwerdtfeger ... the list is long and I have left out some here who certainly deserve recognition.

I often have said that the biggest regrets in my life are sins of omission: not having expressed my thanks to those who have helped me become what I wanted to be. Charlie Chappell's recent passing is one that bothers me because I never took the time to tell him how much he meant to me. For your own sake, please take that time to say "Thank You!" to those who played a positive role in your life. It probably means more to you than it does to them - they have been rewarded with seeing your success, whether you said anything or not. But to have expressed your gratitude helps a great deal when they've passed beyond your gratitude. Take the time now, while the opportunity still exists! Friendship with inspirational friends is important. Be grateful for it, as friendships inevitably end even as we live on.

What has happened to our national priorities?

It's becoming very clear to me that we as a nation have allowed ourselves to be bamboozled by those presuming to be our "leaders" (religious, political, media-based, etc.) into becoming obsessive about a number of issues that are pretty much irrelevant.

Our nation faces a number of really important problems that will have devastating consequences in the future:

• anthropogenic global climate change,
• a hemorrhaging balance of payments,
• an economic meltdown, especially for the middle and lower classes,
• massive unemployment
  
• corporate plundering to which the government seems uninterested in any meaningful response
  
• skyrocketing medical care costs,
• a public education system that has lost its focus on education,
• foreign wars that are economically disastrous and which are costing American lives as well as leaving many of our warfighters with debilitating physical and psychological trauma,
• aging physical infrastructure (roads, buildings, bridges, etc.),
• growing vulnerability to natural hazards,
• an inability to respond to astrophysical hazards such as asteroids,
• drug dependency and the crimes it produces,
• erosion of our Constitutional rights in the name of security,
  
• the imminent energy crisis as a result of the inevitable disappearance of cheap oil,
• rapid widening of the gap between the "haves" and the "have nots",
  

and so on. What we're now experiencing in the face of all these important problems is a national political standoff by the two dominant political parties, resulting in social paralysis caused by ceaseless political posturing rather than political compromise to find real solutions. The political parties may call attention to any of these aforementioned problems, usually to blame the other political party for what's going on, but our nation just can't seem to make any headway toward solving these problems.

Even more worrisome, we find our attention called to issues that are divisive, inciting passionate reactions, but which are diversions from what ails us as a nation. I find religion to be one of the most egregious of these diversions. Discussions about the separation of church and state are pointless -- it's the law of the land -- until we collectively choose to become a theocracy (of one flavor or another). Should we choose to become a theocracy, we will have repudiated the intentions of the nation's founders, embracing in the process another form of tyranny (which includes fascism and communism, as well as other despotic governmental forms) that our founders hoped desperately to avoid. Any discussion of this topic serves only to generate entropy (i.e., a disordered state) and waste our time. I consider the topic of "separation of church and state" to include all such related controversies as prayers in public schools, abortion rights, stem cell research, creationism versus evolution in public schools, religious icons on governmental property, and so on. Why would political "leaders" choose to involve themselves in this useless discussion that is outside the framework of the government created by the Constitution? The only plausible explanation I can think of is that it serves to position them for political power gain. Religion has become a litmus test for political candidates, despite the clear evidence in the Constitution forbidding such tests. Everyone in this nation (as it stands) is entitled to their religious beliefs (including to be free of any religious beliefs) - live and let live - let's move on to something useful.

In the name of responding to terrorism, we've embarked on pointless foreign wars that are bankrupting us, even as their pursuit leads to the loss of constitutional rights for American citizens. This is a political act right out of Orwell's 1984 - foreign wars to divert the attention of the public from more meaningful problems inside our nation. The number of Americans killed by terrorists now is considerably smaller than the number of Americans killed fighting in wars ostensibly intended to fight terrorism. Does this make any sense at all? The mistakes of Vietnam are being made again - having our warfighters as an occupying force on foreign soil without any clear military objective is a familiar formula that has inevitable failure written into its core.

And in the name of responding to the important national problem of drug dependency (and the crime it fosters), we've undertaken yet another unwinnable war - the national "war on drugs" - comparable to the absurd effort of national alcohol prohibition from 1920-1933. We've criminalized many Americans for a victimless crime - the use of drugs - warehousing many thousands of them in prisons and destroying their lives. We should be seeking to understand and do something about the reasons for why so many people become drug-dependent. Sending drug users to prison doesn't prevent other people from using drugs, clearly. As with national Prohibition, this "war" encourages the growth of massively organized crime. Going after the drug dealers just creates new opportunities for aspiring drug dealers. Going after the supply side doesn't stop people from becoming drug-dependent, and new suppliers will always step in to meet the demand, replacing those sent to prison for drug dealing. The same goes for other "wars" on other vices. Legislating morality by criminalizing various victimless acts is pointless and never works.

Our public education system, from elementary school right on through to universities, is in deep financial trouble. Federal, state, and local governments seek to "control" the educational content rather than letting educators do their jobs - to challenge students to learn how to think for themselves and to learn the concepts they'll need in an ever more complicated world. Governments exercise this control in various ways, including budget cuts, persecution of unorthodox educators, and mandates regarding standardized tests that are diluting the kind of things that can be taught. They apparently see public schools as indoctrination centers rather than educational institutions. At a time in our history when the demands on our citizens to learn about and understand the issues confronting us are becoming critically important, our public education is losing its ability to inform the electorate. A tragic "dumbing down" is underway, leading to increased vulnerability to demagoguery.

We as a nation seem obsessed by the private sexual choices made by some of our citizens. Do we really have the luxury of vast amounts of spare time to concern ourselves with such things? Can't we find more productive ways to use that time than to worry about what other people are doing behind closed doors? Many right-wing religious folks seem to be convinced that the failure to persecute homosexuals somehow will lead to the downfall of all sorts of things, including all of American society. I just don't see how homosexuality matters much in the scheme of things. It's been some part of all human societies for all time, but our nation has been whipped up into a frenzy over this issue, at a time when I believe we need to use our time to begin acting upon really important issues (see above).

I could go on - I'm under no illusion that writing a blog will change the world, but I wanted to make my position clear about what I see as real problems versus those problems manufactured by various "leaders" who I see as only leading our nation astray.

The sad state of American mathematics education

Some recent discussions via various media have spurred me to post something about how pathetic mathematics education in this country has been for a long time -- long enough that I myself was influenced by its sorry state. As a boy, I began to encounter math phobia in grade school, where a tyrannical math teacher instilled the fear of math in me. I suppose her intentions were good, perhaps hoping to motivate me to greater achievement, but her methods were not successful in stimulating the response she probably wanted. Many subsequent teachers reinforced my fears, including my math teacher for 4 years in high school. His plan was to humiliate me into doing better, not unlike the tactics adopted by the fearsome math teacher in grade school. It worked no better in high school than it did in grade school. Instead, I began to doubt my ability to master the subject. Those doubts grew with time, to the point where in my college days, it was undermining my confidence that I could pursue the career I wanted for myself because I was performing so badly in math. Meteorology is a subject that uses mathematics to a considerable extent -- being incompetent at math was simply not an option.

It took the insight of a graduate student teaching assistant at the University of Wisconsin to begin the process of overcoming my math phobia. At that point, I had two C's and a 5-credit D in 3rd semester Calculus behind me, with no prospect for a good performance in Differential Equations. But Mr. Hunter found a way to open my eyes to the subject and I managed a B! He showed me that I could understand the material and enjoy it at the same time!

In graduate school, my advisor looked over my transcript and made it clear to me I needed to minor in mathematics! I swallowed the lump of fear in my throat and did what I was told. By some miracle, I had three straight excellent math teachers (in Tensors and Vectors, Complex Variables, and Fourier Series & Boundary Value Problems) and aced all three!! My first A's in math since 2nd grade!! My fears were vanquished and I became fully confident regarding math from that point on. It was math phobia that had been holding me back, not my ability! I wonder how many people that applies to? If I overcame my fear, then I came to believe others could, too.

Since then, I've seen many people who have been denied a career in my field owing to their lack of math skills, and I believe that the abysmal teaching of math is largely responsible. Learning how to do math can be inspiring and insightful -- skills that are useful in a technological world that can be fun and exciting to apply to real-world problems. Why are so many turned off by math? I believe it's because math teachers are among the worst at teaching their subject. Math isn't about cookbook recipes that need to be memorized -- it's about understanding the abstract world that math occupies and being able to use it to solve problems of significance to the real world. Math teachers usually suck at connecting the abstract world they inhabit to reality. Most math teachers have no clue why anyone besides a mathematician might need mathematics!

It's a universal truth that no one can teach a topic they themselves don't understand. Most math teachers feel at home in their abstract world but can't relate to those who seek to see the value of those abstractions in their reality! These so-called teachers can't relate to the reality inhabited by their students because those mathematicians don't inhabit it! When I was a graduate student, the Engineering School at OU taught several math courses because the Math Department pretty much sucked at teaching those subjects, and the topics were very relevant to engineering. I benefited from several good teachers of applied mathematics in the Engineering School!

If you have math phobia, believe me when I say it's largely been manufactured in your own mind, likely the result of lousy teaching. If you believe me when I say that math skills are useful to you, no matter what your profession, then you should accept the responsibility to learn math in spite of the lousy teachers!! I promise you it will be worth it!!

A simple way to fix politics

Although I have great respect for the framers of the U.S. Constitution, I doubt very much that they'd be pleased with the political evolution that's taken place since the end of the 18th century. It's become commonplace to view politicians as lying, cheating, hypocritical swine robbing the public treasury to feather their own nests and caring not a fig for truth, justice, and the American way. We've become a nation divided by the silly label of which political party has our unswerving allegiance, indulging in the counterproductive tribalism of opposing everything carrying the label of our political "opponent." The majority of Americans seems to be adrift in a sea of ignorance about the important issues that confront us as a nation, confused and misinformed about those issues, and even about the very principles of individual freedom upon which our nation is supposed to be based. And political parties have become a handicap to moving the U.S. toward solutions to its very real problems.

So I have a modest proposal for a solution. Let's abolish the system of voting for political officeholders!! Rather than having a bunch of whores painting themselves the color of the day in order to attract votes, all government offices (at all levels of government, from town councils up to and including the U.S. President) now occupied by elected officials will be filled according to a random selection from the general public. I picture it as resembling how people are selected for jury duty or military service (when conscription is implemented). Every public office would be filled by ordinary citizens, selected at random -- not professional politicians. They would be paid a wage comparable to that of our military officers, with their pay grade determined by the level of the position they fill.

All people selected would be screened to eliminate certified lunatics, felonious criminals, terrorists, and peabrains. No one under 21 or over 61 would be selected. At this point, we're already ahead of the game, since there's clearly no such screening of those running for public office (witness the debates ongoing for the christian nationalist [a.k.a. the GOP] candidate for president or the Weiner scandal). Once the selectees pass the screening, they're given a mandatory leave of absence from any other employment they had, with that job guaranteed when their term of service is over. Anyone serving in the military or other forms of national service, say, the Peace Corps, would be given an automatic exemption for life. College students would be exempt during their time in college (including graduate school) and for 3 years thereafter (so they can find a job and hold it for a while).

All selectees would have a single 4-year term, during which they'd actually have a glorious civics lesson - an opportunity to see how government really works, with access to all the "inside" information about decision-making in government being required. Transparency at its finest! It would be pretty difficult for dirty little secrets to accumulate in smoke-filled backrooms and political party caucuses. Aha, so that's how it works, eh? Ordinary people would become informed about what is going on and so would be much more understanding of how their representatives make difficult and important decisions.

Since only one term in office is permitted, the professional politician will vanish from the face of the nation, to be replaced by ordinary folks from all walks of life, who would have their chance to serve their nation for a time, and then return to their important real lives. Everyone's professed desire to serve their nation when called upon would be satisfied for most Americans at some time or another in their lives. Most of us would have the honor of being able to say When I was called to serve my nation, I did my duty! And the public would be much more informed about what goes on -- much of which is now behind closed doors.

I can imagine the howls of protest regarding this modest proposal now -- But-but-but  -- I can hear the naysayers spluttering -- These people wouldn't be experienced enough to run the country! First of all, this is true of every last elected official when they take their first public office. And how do politicians gain experience in how things work? From experienced politicians and I think we all know what that means!! Corruption is learned behavior, taught to newcomers by their mentors. The more venal the new politician is, the easier it is for that self-service and hypocrisy to creep in from their peers wallowing in the political mud.

But-but-but ... would you want your country represented in the halls of power around the world by an amateur? All one has to do is look at Ronald Reagan or Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jesse Ventura to realize that amateurs have been elected to public office many times over the years. This is nothing new, actually. Could the use of ordinary citizens to represent us all be so bad? Isn't that what politicians try to present themselves as? They claim to be just like us in order to get our vote, but when elected, they behave as if they're the privileged elite and don't give a shit about the problems that ordinary people have anymore (if they ever really did care!). Could non-professional politicians do any worse than the politicians? Without the incentive of permanent power and lots of perks for life to drive their decision-making, I believe most ordinary citizens would do the best they can for their country and their fellow citizens during their term of service and yet be eager, for the most part, to return to their lives at the end of their 4 years in office. I've served on juries and been in the military and that's pretty much how ordinary citizens behave when asked to serve!!

But-but-but ... wouldn't your plan exclude those who are serving or have served in the military? Yes, it would. Although I respect those who have served or are serving in the military, I'm not a fan of those ex-servicefolks holding public office. It's an honorable profession but doesn't necessarily make for a qualified public officeholder. For one thing, they've done their duty and should be going about their ordinary lives outside of the military, allowing others the opportunity to serve in a different way. For another, the record of famous military men in public office isn't a very compelling argument for having more of them, however popular they may have been at the time. The qualities needed for military leadership don't necessarily overlap much with those needed to lead the nation.

Are all tornado warnings the same?

In the fallout from the large tornado death tolls this year, there are some who are finding fault with the warnings from the National Weather Service. Anyone who knows something about the weather must understand that weather forecasts, even those short-range forecasts we call "warnings" have uncertainty associated with them. The science of meteorology as of this moment simply doesn't permit forecasts without uncertainty. Nevertheless, either a warning is issued or it isn't -- technically, this means warnings are dichotomous (or binary): yes, a warning has been issued or no, a warning has not been issued.

At present, warnings come in two "flavors": severe thunderstorm warnings (coded "blue") and tornado warnings (coded "red"). By definition, a storm that produces one or more of the following -- large hail (the current threshold value is one inch diameter hail), strong "straight" winds (the current threshold is 50 knots or 58 miles per hour), or a tornado -- is a severe thunderstorm. Some storms for which blue warnings are issued go on to produce tornadoes, many storms for which tornado warnings are issued fail to produce tornadoes. Some storms for which no warnings are issued go on to produce severe weather (including tornadoes). The science of meteorology at its best offers no guarantees that these important distinctions can be made perfectly in advance. Generally speaking, a red warning is associated with a greater sense of threat than a blue warning -- tornadoes are far more likely to result in fatalities. But some severe thunderstorms can produce as much damage (or more) as most tornadoes (the vast majority of which fall well short of being classified as "violent" -- EF4 or EF5) and nontornadic severe thunderstorms can result in deaths, as well.

There are no tornado fatalities from false alarms! It's widely recognized by forecasters that the cost in lives for not issuing a warning can literally be infinitely greater than that associated with a false alarm. Forecasters aren't stupid -- they know that if they fail to issue a warning for a fatality-producing storm, there would be sharks of various sorts circling the waters around them. Nevertheless, our society demands from them that no storm-related fatality ever occur without warning. The problem is that the science simply doesn't permit that. If we were to issue a tornado warning for every storm that might go on to produce a tornado, the number of false alarms would become vastly larger than it now is. If we "raise the bar" for the threat level to reduce the number of false alarms, many more tornadoes will not be warned for in advance!

Assuming that the presence of a storm is necessary to issue a warning, some threshold threat level has to be achieved in order for the warning forecaster to decide to go with a warning, and presumably this must include the perceived threat of a tornado if the storm may need to be covered with a tornado warning. As it now stands, there is no uniformly-defined threat level associated with any of the decisions a warning forecaster has to make -- every warning forecaster is more or less on their own. Obviously, not every forecaster is a carbon copy of every other forecaster. Some make warning decisions better than others.

Recently, a new type of tornado warning has come into vogue -- the so-called "tornado emergency" (which has not been defined formally, either), presumably when a populated area is in the path of a very dangerous tornado. Implicitly, the perceived need for this is driven by the fact that the tornado threat varies from one situation to another. Yet another tough decision for a warning forecaster to make!

In my view of things, warnings should use probability to express different levels of threat for different phenomena: wind, hail, tornadoes. This permits the forecaster to use the science to estimate the likelihood of various outcomes in the path of a storm. It's an established fact that forecasters can become quite good at estimating uncertainty. I don't yet know how best to formulate probabilistic warnings -- I believe years of research are needed to inform us how probabilistic warnings could be made most effective. This is a complex problem that involves far more than the science of meteorology.

In the meantime, I would hope people who are not meteorologists would begin to understand that they bear the lion's share of the burden of responsibility for their personal safety. If they expect warning forecasters to be perfect -- they're actually putting themselves in considerable personal danger. One important factor in dealing with a tornado is having planned what to do in advance. Another is to be "situation aware" when thunderstorms are about rather than counting on someone else to do that for you.