Congratulations Graduates!

I had the pleasure of handing out diplomas on stage at the December graduation.  I can't believe I hadn't ever been to a graduation before, but let me tell you, this was the way to do it!  It was so rewarding to see three of our meteorology majors, a bunch of other EAS students I have had in classes, and one of my minors from the aviation department graduate.  Some of these students have become great friends over the years.  They are usually the hard-working ones that are in the lab at all hours of the day, the ones who I can go to to get opinions on something I want to try, the ones who make me proud.  I hate seeing them go, but have to remember they deserve to move on to bigger things!

Meteorology Majors

Mid-latitude Cyclone or Cinnamon Roll?

 

I just found this in one of my animations folders and had to bring it back!

Making Sense of Climate Science Denial MOOC

I'm a big fan of signing up for MOOCs (Massively Open Online Courses)!  These days you can learn so many things online, for free!  This isn't meant so much as a substitute for college, but a supplement for people of any age who are just looking to learn more about a topic.  For example, I took differential equations 12 years ago, but I could brush up on my skills using a MOOC.  I could also learn how to program, how to be a better teacher, how to solve the climate crisis using engineering, etc. 

Well, my new friend John Cook of www.skepticalscience.com has invited me to participate in his MOOC, "Making Sense of Climate Science Denial" or Denial 101.  I'll be creating a few lectures to contribute to the awesome program he has in store for students of the course.  It will be coming out this coming March. 

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Upcoming-MOOC-makes-sense-climate-science-denial.html

or

Sign up here:  https://www.edx.org/course/uqx/uqx-denial101x-making-sense-climate-4371#.VCrt_rbTYi_

Hey, that's me!

If you've never been to his site, I highly recommend it!  My favorite link, though, was the 97 hours of consensus page he built this month:  http://www.skepticalscience.com/nsh/?

I'm published!

The paper I wrote finally came out in the most recent themed issue of the Journal of Geoscience Education on climate literacy.  If you happen to be a member, happy reading.  If not, I'm working on getting a pdf so I can see what it looks like.  Be sure to check out my friends' John Cook, Dan Beford, and Scott Mandia's article as well:  "Raising Climate Literacy Through Addressing Misinformation: Case Studies in Agnotology-Based Learning." 

Want to take an Alaskan glacier cruise with me?

Email me ASAP (kschuene@msudenver.edu) or drop by (Science 2018) if you are interested in committing to the following course that environmental science professor Dr. Brazeau and I will offer together this coming May.  Deadline to commit with a deposit is Wednesday, September 10 so we can get reservations on the ship at the discounted rate!  I'm so excited to teach all about glaciers and climate change while getting up close and personal with the ecosystems, all we need is some students who are ready for a learning adventure!

Rare opportunity to sign up for MTR 1400 at the last minute

We have quite a few open seats in our fall MTR 1400 courses, which is quite rare.  My sections have a few seats left!  Take advantage and sign up today!  My sections (and probably others) of the course are getting a big makeover this year and I am so excited to get started!  Storm chasing this past spring reinvigorated my love for weather, so I am all set to go.  Here's a description:

Description:  This course introduces the fundamental physical processes in the atmosphere—heat and energy, temperature, pressure, wind, clouds, precipitation, and stability. These concepts provide the basis for understanding weather systems, such as thunderstorms, tornadoes, and hurricanes. These processes are also applied to climatic patterns and the impacts of human activity on weather and climate, such as air pollution and climate change. An optional 1-credit lab course, MTR 2020 Weather and Climate Lab for Scientists, is available for students interested in additional experience in the measurement and analysis of atmospheric data, and is required for some science programs.(Prerequisites: Minimum performance standard scores on reading, writing, and mathematics pre-assessment placement tests.) (GS Level II Natural Science, GS12 Natural/Physical Sciences, GT Physical & Life Sci No Lab)

Don't wait, August 4th is a big registration deadline for us to take stock of how many sections we can offer, and a deadline for students to register without a late fine.

Lightning Safety

I hate watching myself on video, but that doesn't mean you have to miss out on this important message from the Emmy award winning "The Met Report" and Meteorology student Josh Cozart on lightning safety!  Enjoy:

Storm Chasing Class, Week 1

My colleagues, Professors Sam Ng and Scott Landolt, generously let me tag along on their storm chasing class trip this year!  Our first week we saw some pretty awesome supercell structures and had quite the adventure!  My log below includes highlights from the trip thus far. 

It is so important to note that we had three mesoscale meteorology experts in the van who are meteorologists with several degrees and who are extremely experienced storm chasers.  We also had GPS, iphones, wireless, and a laptop with GRlevel3 radar products that give us better resolution and the ability to see rotation, something that is extremely difficult using radar you find on a webpage or a run of the mill app.  We also had contact with other trusted forecasters if needed.  We also had me as a backup navigator and generally cautious backseat driver/forecaster.  I am not a mesoscale specialist, even though I have a BS, MS, and PhD in meteorology.  I would never go storm chasing without these experts in the car with me!!!  Do not try this at home, kids!  Finally, we had nine students with us, the majority of whom have attended spotter training and are somewhere along the way in their meteorology degree at MSU Denver.  Our degree fulfills the NWS and AMS requirements and is one of the only programs around that does so.  These guys have taken more computer science, physics, calculus, chemistry, and meteorology courses than you can imagine!  Our students and I are out storm chasing with these experts so we can learn from them, and, in doing so, train the next generation of meteorologists who will be issuing the warnings or telling you about them on TV.  Without seeing these things up close and personal it is so difficult to understand the unique structure of severe thunderstorms. 

All photos are mine (yay iphone) unless otherwise noted.  

Monday, May 19, 2014
We left early for Ogallala, Nebraska.  We got there and discovered blue skies and a huge lack of action.  We stopped at Lake McConaughy for a few hours to stretch our legs, wiggle our toes in the water, and hang out while we waited for convection to start. 

Off in the distance we kept seeing storms fire up and die quickly.  Finally, we saw some legitimate convection going on and hit the road to head towards a cell that popped up on radar, it was a ways west of us.  Upon arrival, we found this beauty:

 

We were on the more southern storm when the northern one got warned. 

We were going to go take a peek, but the southern storm really started to build and we started getting a few stray pieces of hail while on our first dirt road, so we headed back to the highway and had to really keep the speed on to get away from the hail core. As we were outrunning it, I looked back and caught a few pictures of what I described to others without a view as, "You know the space ship from Independence Day?  That's following us!"  When I asked, "What IS that thing behind us?" Professor Landolt reminded me, "THAT is a supercell."  Yikes! 

We were finally far enough ahead that we could pull over for a few last pictures, but the lightning was insane, so none of us got out of the car, just passed up our cameras.  Alex Trellinger caught this lightning picture just out the van window!  Turns out there's a lightning cam app that detects the light and snaps the picture in time.  (I downloaded it that night!) 

Photo by Alex Trellinger

We made our way back to Ogallala where we had hotel reservations waiting for us.  Everything was closed except for the Denny's.  We had the most horrific meal and the longest wait for our food in the history of dining.  The next night we would race back to get to the steak house before it closed!  No steak until we see a tornado, though!  Our first day out was fantastic!  This supercell really was gorgeous. 

Tuesday, May 20, 2014
We woke up in Ogallala and guess what the Holiday Inn Express had for breakfast?  A gluten free bagel option!  I was in heaven!!!  Usually my travel food consists of french fries, bad salads, and hamburgers with no bun.  The bagel was a real treat.  We had a weather briefing before heading west to Wyoming to check out a few cells there. 

Turns out it's pretty up there!

This cow was really into us. 

 

We left the storm before getting precipitated on, and it was eventually tornado warned.  We kept in front of it through Scottsbluff, NE.

Close, but no cigar.

Time to call it a night and rush back for dinner in Ogallala so we don't have to eat at Denny's again! 

Wednesday, May 21, 2014
We woke up in Ogallala and got word that we needed to head southwest quickly.  We were out the door by 9:30 after another gluten free bagel.  Score!  We headed towards Denver, stopping for a while along the way for Burger King and waiting for things to kick off.  Suddenly we were in the perfect position to intercept a tornado warned storm in east Denver.  We saw the storm in the distance, but couldn't make out any obvious tornado the entire time, despite what you might think you see in the photos below.  This storm had several tornado reports come off of it, but I'm not sure any of them are confirmed, although several mention it being rain wrapped or "on the ground for at least five minutes."  It is so important that storm reports be accurate.  I hope they were. 

Flying eagle radar signature!

 

I bought these shoes the weekend before at the REI sale.  We had a little, um, run in with some quick-sand-type-mud.  Yes, that's my technical term for it!  While we were in Nebraska, this area got a bunch of rain, so we didn't realize how squishy the ground was!  It was a big oops and I was happy I had another pair of shoes along!  

DOWs and a traffic jam

After a lovely chase day so far, with only pleasant interactions with other chasers, we approached the paved road, hwy 36, and the DOWs were parked taking scans of the storm.  I love the DOWs, I have a good friend and two students that work with them, but what I didn't like was the line of cars along the highway gawking at the vehicles or parking (practically parallel parking on a highway) around them to check things out while the storm was bearing down on us.  We didn't need a traffic jam.  We were trying to stay out in front of the thing!  We made the executive decision to get off the highway ASAP.  We took a north dirt road that had no east option for 8 miles. 

We made it to our east option and sped away from the storm and made our way eventually back to hwy 36 without too much rain/hail.  Upon turning on 36 heading west back home, we got nailed by a really intense rain shaft.  It was so loud we couldn't say anything to each other, we couldn't see, we just drove ever so slowly until we came out of it.  It was fun because it wasn't hail!  After this we headed back home, the storm had lost its tornado potential and, unlike many of the other chasers apparently, we didn't feel like getting cored. 

On our way back, we hopped on twitter and noticed a few hail photos.  Then we looked northwest, and sure enough, it looked like it had snowed, but it was hail!   (Not that snow hadn't happened in the recent past, as we had a mother's day storm this year.)

See the big white hail swath in the distance?  In the foreground is flooding in a field next to our squishy dirt road covered in hail. 

 

I had already ruined one pair of shoes that day, so I was thankful that Dr. Ng agreed we should turn around instead of getting stuck as the hail got deeper and the road squishier. 

 I finally got home around 8:30 after Ryan and I found a BV bus.

Thursday, May 22, 2014
We met at the Walmart east of town the next morning and got in the van to do a local day chase.  We hopped on a storm that did not look ideal.  We didn't have a ton of hope for the day anyway, but thought we would give it a shot. 

Having some fun in Watkins (Bennet?)

While we were sitting here the NWS communications went down nationwide and my friend Eric Holthaus used one of my tweets about it in his article on the topic.   We didn't have radar data for a while, but the cell nearest Denver was tornado warned so we hopped on the highway and headed towards it.  This photo looked slightly promising, but it didn't surprise us too much when it fell apart. 

 We sat at Front Range Airport for a bit (see the FTG radar in the distance?) and snapped some mammatus photos before heading home just in time for me to get stuck in traffic at 0.1miles/minute on 270.  This is why I don't drive.  At least on the bus I can use my time in traffic to relax. 

Friday, May 23, 2014
We didn't storm chase on Friday, but boy did the storm come to me!  Just as I was leaving work around 6:00 we got pea sized hail and extremely heavy rain.  The streets and sidewalks were rivers!  I waited a bit, then finally rolled up my pants, broke out my umbrella (not a lot of lightning), and ran for Union Station.

Cherry Creek Friday at 6pm.

Loveland flooded Friday night from these big rains.  Some places reported 5"!  

Saturday Denver got yet another tornado warning, this time west of town.  The storm packed a punch with rainfall and hail that made its way towards Boulder as it died down.  The whole front range is in a flood watch while the mountains get more snow.  It was one heck of a week, but still no visible tornadoes for me!  Next week will bring more opportunities, we hope. 

National Climate Assessment

http://nca2014.globalchange.gov/

Another climate report?  Yup.  This one is pretty, though, I promise!  Check out the Southwest specific information here (including Colorado), or the front page here. 

On a selfish note, maybe this could have been released more than a day before my last day of class?    It looks like I have a good five reports to read before I update my Global Climate Change course for the summer.  Do people that teach anything else have to update their materials mid-semester just about every semester?  I guess I'll have 5 years to wait before the next IPCC report at least. 

Keystone XL Pipeline Would be Bad News for Colorado

Here is the speech I yelled into a megaphone in front of Senator Mark Udall's office building this afternoon as a part of a rally organized by Colorado's 350.org. 

"Thanks for being here today to help bring the Keystone XL pipeline vote to the attention of our fellow Coloradans and to let our senators know that we are strongly opposed to the pipeline. 

I’m Keah Schuenemann, a climate and meteorology professor right here in Denver, sporting a proud PhD in atmospheric science from the University of Colorado. 

Since moving to here 10 years ago for graduate school, I’ve gotten a true taste of Colorado living:  endless Sunny days and mild winters sprinkled with more powder days than a Wisconsin girl could dream of, but I’ve also had a wildfire threaten my home as I sweated out the heat wave of 2012 in a non-air conditioned condo; I’ve bailed buckets and shop vacs full of water from my flooded neighbors’ condos as they stood paralyzed while water poured from the sky and into their homes; I’ve learned that spring precipitation is welcome here not only to help our farmers, but to keep the state from burning to the ground during the dry days of summer. 

Of course as a weather and climate professor, I thrive on understanding Colorado’s delicate climate and moody weather, but I wonder if these events are just a flavor of things to come. 

Beyond the very direct negative effects the Keystone XL pipeline’s leaks and spills could have on our environment in the United States, committing to tapping unconventional, carbon intensive fuel like tar sands from this pipeline would be a long term commitment to irreversible climate change. 

The carbon footprint of the pipeline would send us down a path towards further global warming of levels the international community has agreed will have catastrophic effects.  In fact, the US National Climate Assessment was released today and claimed for our region,

1.    “Heat, drought, and competition for water supplies will increase with continued climate change.”

2.    “Projected regional temperature increases, combined with the way cities amplify heat, will pose increasing threats and costs to public health in cities.” 

3.    “Increased warming, drought, and insect outbreaks, all caused by, or linked to climate change, have increased wildfires and impacts to people and ecosystems.  Fire models project more wildfire and increased risks to communities across extensive areas.” 

4.    “Snowpack and streamflow amounts are projected to decline in parts of the region, decreasing surface water supply reliability for cities, agriculture, and ecosystems.” 

Tar sands pipeline!  Clever!

Imagine our future with this commitment to warming.  As sea levels rise, populations would be displaced worldwide, but also here in the United States along our very own vulnerable coastlines.  Imagine how far storm surges from future hurricanes would penetrate starting from a 2 foot higher sea!  Perhaps some of those people might find themselves a little more comfortable here in the Mile-High City where a downward trend in snow cover will limit our ability to sustain population growth due to dwindling water supplies.  

I tell my students all the time, “Fighting global warming isn’t about being a tree hugger/environmentalist!”  It’s about keeping the planet at a stable temperature for human society, to avoid climate catastrophes, to simply be able to grow food, something that might be a bit of a challenge in California this year after their historic drought. 

The Keystone XL pipeline isn’t good for the Front Range, for Colorado, for the United States, or for the global community.  Sometimes in our busy day-to-day lives we forget that our fuel decisions here in America can have enduring global consequences that last for centuries.  

We have all the tools we need to solve this problem, we can DO this, but tapping the Canadian tar sands CANNOT be a part of the energy portfolio that moves us safely forward, it would be a Giant Leap in the wrong direction.

Please join me in telling Colorado Senators Udall and Bennet that we are not willing to commit to long term climate change and we must say "No!" to the Keystone XL pipeline.

Thank you." 

Click here to let your senators know directly that you oppose the pipeline:  http://act.350.org/call/kxl-senate-2014-calls-1/ 
or
Tweet Mark Udall @MarkUdall and @SenBennetCO telling them to vote against Keystone XL! 

June 2012:  I'm watching the airplanes fly over as they try to put out the wildfire just two miles from the place I call home while we wait on pre-evacuation notice.