APRIL brokers update from JEFF or DAVE—cam 3
in JUST a few minutes you’ll have a chance to see Paul and Daphne answering questions ABOUT THE RESEARCH THEY’VE BEEN DOING, BUT FIRST, HOW ARE WE DOING ON GETTING THE BALLOON READY FOR LAUNCH???
JEFF K OR DAVE RUST PROVIDES COMMENTS…
APRIL PASSES ALONG QUESTION FROM E-MAIL…
JEFF K OR DAVE RUST ANSWER…
SHOW STUDENT ANEMOMETER AND LINK TO GUIDE ACTIVITY 3.1???—WIND SPEED AND DIRECTION
APRIL throws to tape
THANKS, GUYS… SO WE CAN EXPECT TO LAUNCH IN ABOUT 10 MINUTES??? RIGHT ON… WELL AS WE DISCOVERED LAST TIME, HURRICANES NEED OCEAN WATERS HOTTER THAN 80 DEGREES TO OCCUR. THAT’S WHY UNLIKE TORNADOES THERE REALLY IS A HURRICANE SEASON. NOW HURRICANES MAY SEEM SO HUGE AS TO BE BEYOND COMPREHENSION… BUT AS YOU’LL SEE THE ENGINE OF THIS BALLOON LAUNCH VEHICLE SHARES SOME CHARACTERISTICS WITH A HURRICANE!
APRIL AND CAM 3 MOVE TO CONF
NARRATION
NASA’S GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER, GREENBELT, MARYLAND…
GROUND CONTROL FOR THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE…
AND THE "SOHO" MISSION STUDYING THE SUN…
AND "TRMM, WHICH HAS BROUGHT US AMAZING NEW VIEWS OF HURRICANES.
IT’S ALL ABOUT AS HIGH-TECH AS YOU CAN IMAGINE.
BUT JUST DOWN THE ROAD, AT REIDY’S EXXON, TRMM SCIENTIST JEFF HALVERSON SHOWS YOU CAN UNDERSTAND HOW HURRICANES WORK WITH A VERY FAMILIAR EXAMPLE.
Super:
Jeff Halveron
Research Meteorologist, NASA Goddard
Space Flight Center
JEFF HALVERSON
We know that hurricanes are heat engines. What they do is they take extra heat energy that is accumulated in the tropical latitudes and they move it north towards the pole. And that way, the energy is distributed from one part of the planet to another.
Now, I want you to focus in on this engine here. Inside this engine block there are engine cylinders. They are hollow chambers where the process of combustion occurs. Now if you imagine a hurricane as a giant spiraling cloud with a lot of individual thunderstorm clouds bubbling up inside of it, that is like the cylinders inside the engine. The engine is like the hurricane, but the cylinders are the individual cloud inside the hurricane.
Inside the hurricane, we have water vapor, which is a fuel for the hurricane. It comes in and condenses and releases heat energy inside the hurricane, and warms up the inside of the hurricane. Inside this car, inside these cylinders, the fuel is gasoline that flows in from the tank, and enters the cylinders and the fuel is caused to combust. And the combustion releases heat energy. The combustion is like the condensation that occurs inside the hurricane. The engine produces so much heat that is has to get rid of it somehow. Some of it goes into the work that makes the car go down the road, but there is an excess and you have to get rid of that. And that occurs from the radiator.
This is the radiator. It has a fan that blows in front of the hot water that is moving around it and that allows the cooling of the engine to reduce the temperature. Now in the hurricane the same type of principle has to operate. A hurricane releases a tremendous amount of heat energy from condensation but there is still an excess of energy produced. The hurricane gets rid of this excess in a very similar way that a car engine gets rid of it. It has a radiator of sorts as well. Imagine the tops of all these thunder clouds inside a hurricane up near the top of the atmosphere are radiating the heat energy up and away into space. So in this sense a car and a hurricane are very, very similar.
Now where does the fuel from the car come from?
Come on back with me to see where the origin for the fuel of this car is. Right here, this is the gas tank for the engine. This holds the gasoline that provides the fuel for the combustion inside the engine. What is the fuel for the hurricane? When the sun beats down on the oceans of the earth, and heats up the surface of the water. Some of those molecules at the surface escape because they have extra energy. And this is why we call water vapor a fuel. In this car, the fuel gets from the tank to the engine by ways of a fuel line. Which is a little rubber hose. In the front of the engine, we have a fuel pump. Which helps to draw fuel out of the tank, through the line and to the engine. The hurricane is a low pressure center so it pulls in air just like a fuel pump does to fuel it.
It’s pretty amazing that we can take a car engine or a car and make a comparison with a hurricane. But as you can see, it really does work. There are comparisons you can make between cylinders and gas tanks and fuel pumps, and heat release inside an engine and that which goes inside a hurricane.
APRIL brokers PAUL and DAPHNE Q&A
PRETTY NEAT EXAMPLE, JEFF… NOW YOU CAN SEND QUESTIONS ABOUT NASA’S WEATHER AND CLIMATE RESEARCH VIA E-MAIL NOW AND AFTER THE PROGRAM… BUT RIGHT HERE IN NORMAN WE’VE GOT TORNADO RESEARCHERS PAUL AND DAPHNE READY TO ANSWER YOUR TWISTER QUESTIONS.
STUDENT #1, WHAT QUESTIONS HAVE YOU GOT FOR DAPHNE???
DAPHNE answers…
APRIL:
STUDENT #2, WHAT’S YOUR QUESTION FOR PAUL???
PAUL answers…
APRIL: I THINK WE’VE TIME FOR ONE MORE QUESTION FOR BOTH. STUDENT #1, ANOTHER ONE FOR DAPHNE???
DAPHNE answers…
APRIL:
STUDENT #2, ANOTHER ONE FOR PAUL???
PAUL answers…
APRIL THROWS TO DAN…
OK, THIS IS THE TIME OF YEAR WHEN WE SHOULD EXPECT TORNADOES… DAN, WHAT DO THE NEXT FEW WEEKS LOOK LIKE FOR TWISTERS? CAN YOU SEE THAT FAR AHEAD???
DAN to camera with graphics on live monitors…
APRIL:
DAN, WE HAVE ANOTHER QUESTION FOR YOU THAT’S COME IN VIA E-MAIL…
DAN answers…
and DAN throws to APRIL…
APRIL gets JANIS (the teacher) to describe what they have been doing…
APRIL gets DEIRDRE to describe the essence of Doppler radar…
APRIL ties the HANDS-ON and the REAL WORLD together!
APRIL brokers comment from DON
DOPPLER RADAR WAS KEY TO THE RECENT WEATHER SERVICE MODERNIZATION… DON, WHAT’S NEXT???
DON talks about making Doppler radar an "open system"…
APRIL throws to tape:
MAKING WEATHER INFORMATION MORE ACCESSIBLE IS WHAT OUR NEXT REPORT IS ALL ABOUT. NOW PERHAPS MOST OF US DON’T THINK ABOUT "FIRE WEATHER" BUT FIRE IS ANOTHER LIFE-THREATENING CRISIS IN WHICH THE WEATHER IS CRUCIAL… HERE’S WHY, AND WHAT NOAA HOPES TO DO ABOUT IT USING LAPTOP COMPUTERS AND THE INTERNET…
APRIL AND CAM 3 MOVE TO EXT.
NARRATION:
THINK OF NOAA WEATHER RESEARCH, AND HURRICANES AND TORNADOES COME TO MIND.
BUT FIRE AND FLOOD ARE ALSO MAJOR THREATS TO PUBLIC SAFETY, AND WEATHER AND CLIMATE SET THE STAGE FOR BOTH.
CONSIDER THE TOOLS OF THE FORECASTING TRADE, AND SATELLITES AND SUPER-COMPUTERS ARE THE FIRST THINGS YOU THINK OF.
BUT IN THE FUTURE, NOAA HOPES TO HAVE THE LATEST DATA AND CURRENT FORECASTS ACCESSIBLE DIRECTLY ON LAPTOP COMPUTERS CARRIED INTO THE FIELD BY FIREFIGHTERS AND EMERGENCY MANAGERS.
SATURDAY MORNINGS… MEMBERS OF THE PINEBROOK HILLS DEPARTMENT GET TOGETHER FOR TRAINING.
ON MARCH 7th. 2000 THEY RESPONDED TO A LOCAL WILDLAND FIRE ON STEEP TERRAIN IN HIGH WINDS.
THIS IS HOW "WEATHER ON A LAPTOP" WOULD HAVE HELPED THEM FIGHT THIS KIND OF FIRE…
THEN, AS NOW, THE RESPONSE BEGINS WITH WHAT’S CALLED A "TONE" FROM THE DISPATCHER…
WHAT WOULD BE NEW IS INSTANT ACCESS
TO THE LATEST WEATHER…
FIREFIGHTER
Alright guys, let’s go.
Super:
voice
of:
Don Whittemore
Chief, Boulder Mountain Fire Authority
DON WHITTEMORE speaks while driving
There are three components to the weather that we are really concerned about on a fire. First is temperature. Then is relative humidity, basically the amount of moisture that’s in the air. And then there is wind. All three of them work together to dictate the fire behavior. The hotter it is, the drier it is, and the windier it is, the more severe fire conditions we’re going to have.
NARRATION:
OUT AT THE FIRE SCENE, THE LAPTOP WOULD PROVIDE AN ALL IMPORTANT PREVIEW OF WIND SPEED AND DIRECTION OVER THE NEXT FEW HOURS…
DON WHITTEMORE:
The forecast has me real concerned, so if things start looking ugly fast, we’re just going to bail right back down here.
FIREFIGHTER #1 as they move away…
Let’s do it.
THE PROTOTYPE LAPTOP SYSTEM HAS BEEN DEVELOPED HERE IN BOULDER, AT NOAA’S FORECAST SYSTEMS LAB.
Interior scenes and computer screens
DEVELOPER CHRIS STEFFEN SHOWS HOW THE SYSTEM COULD ALSO HAVE ALERTED EMERGENCY MANGERS IN FORT COLLINS, COLORADO, TO A MAJOR STORM STALLED RIGHT OVER THEIR COMMUNITY.
THE DISPLAY CLEARLY SHOWS HEAVY RAIN FALLING DIRECTLY INTO A FLOOD-PRONE RIVER BASIN…
Exterior scenes:
IN THE MOUNTAINS OF THE WEST THERE’S DANGER IN TOO MUCH WATER…
…BUT ALSO TOO LITTLE.
BY DAY, DEB MILLER WORKS ALONGSIDE CHRIS IN NOAA’S LAB, DEVELOPING FORECAST TOOLS TO HELP EMERGENCY MANAGERS.
WEEKENDS SHE VOLUNTEERS AS A MEDIC FOR THE BOULDER MOUNTAIN FIRE AUTHORITY.
DEB KNOWS THIS WINTER’S SPARSE SNOWFALL MEANS THERE’S A DRY AND DANGEROUS SPRING AHEAD.
super:
Deborah Miller
Systems Analyst, FSL/NOAA
DEB:
If we don’t see some rain this spring, we’re in for quite a hot summer, and I mean fire-hot. There is too much growth due to the very wet spring last year. This is just waiting to ignite.
TEN YEARS AGO THIS AREA BURNED, AND YOU CAN STILL SEE THE SCARS… EVEN THO’ MOST HOMES ARE NOW REBUILT.
DEB WAS ON DUTY THAT DARK AND WINDY AND DANGEROUS NIGHT…
DEB driving:
That’s exactly where I was, down here. This was completely engulfed. All these homes, we evacuated all these people. The fire extended all the way to (route) 36 and it was jumping the highway because of these winds.
DEB standing beside burned tree:
I imagine that most people don’t realize that wind is one of the biggest components of our fire up here. If we’d have known that night that we were going to have wind from 65-80 mph for the next 24 hours, we’d have tried to fight this fire a little differently. Not sending people up into the mountains knowing that we were putting them in danger.
NARRATION:
IN A WILDLAND FIRE, A KEY LINE OF DEFENSE IS TO MAKE A FIRE BREAK TO TRY AND STOP FLAMES IN THEIR TRACKS.
OUT IN THE RUGGED BACKCOUNTRY THAT TAKES BRAVE FIREJUMPERS, OR MEN AND WOMEN WILLING TO CLIMB STEEP HILLS AND SCRAPE AWAY THE VEGETATION THAT OTHERWISE MIGHT BURN…
ON THE FRONTLINE OF A WILDFIRE, COMMANDERS LIKE DON WHITTEMORE WOULD USE THE NEW SYSTEM TO TRY AND KEEP THEIR MEN AND WOMEN SAFE…
DON WHITTEMORE:
Whenever we’re on a fire, the most important thing we have to worry about is the weather. That will dictate whether we’ve got big flames, whether the fire will move real fast, or where we can safely deploy the people. A tool like this is going to allow us to find out what the current weather is and to find out what the predicted weather is, what it’s going to be like an a hour or so from now, and that will let me decide where to put the people safely and how we’re going to fight the fire
NARRATION:
AS MORE AND MORE PEOPLE MOVE INTO THE MOUNTAINS OF THE WEST, FIRES BECOME MORE AND MORE OF A DANGER… AND IN RECENT YEARS, FIREFIGHTERS AND SMOKEJUMPERS RESPONDING TO THESE FIRES HAVE ALSO BEEN MORE AND MORE AT RISK.
DEB:
This year alone we’ve lost more firefighters
than ever before. It only tells you that the terrain and the conditions
are becoming more dangerous for the firefighters. We need all the help we
can get.
Super:
Dave Miller
Engineer, Boulder Mountain Fire
Authority
DAVE MILLER:
It’s true that the computer won’t go out and dig ditches for us and trenches and stuff, that still has to be done by humans, but as a safety tool, the computers can add a lot more to the safety and protection of the firefighters out there in the wild, fighting the wild life fires.
FROM HIGH TECH RESEARCH TO FIGHTING FIRE AND FLOODS, NOAA’S WEATHER WARRIORS STEP OUT OF THE LAB AND INTO THE BATTLE TO KEEP LIVES AND PROPERTY SAFE… IT’S "RESEARCH TO THE RESCUE…"
DEB:
Hopefully, we can say that we played a role in saving some lives because weather unlike any other science, is interrelated with human activity. Here we are actually a humanitarian science, and that’s why I love my job.
APRIL BROKERS COMMENTS FROM JEFF KIMPEL (?DAVE RUST?)
OK, DAVE, TIME TO LAUNCH: WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO BE CONCERNED ABOUT AT THIS STAGE…
THEY LAUNCH…
APRIL TO DAVE… How fast is it going? How high will it get? If this was a real research mission what kinds of things would you learn?
APRIL throws to DAN:
WELL THAT WAS A RESEARCH BALLOON, BUT AS WE SAW, SMALLER BALLOONS GET LAUNCHED TWICE A DAY HERE AND ELSEWHERE TO HELP GATHER DATA FOR WEATHER FORECAST. DAN—CAN YOU TELL US A LITTLE MORE ABOUT MAKING WEATHER MAPS AND CREATING FORECASTS?
APRIL AND CAM 3 MOVE TO CONF. AND STAY THERE!!!
DAN AND WEATHER MAP-MAKING, FROM GUIDE…
REAL LIFE AND REAL LEARNING…
DAN TALKS ABOUT ACTIVITIES 3.2 AND 3.3 FROM THE GUIDE AND COMPARES/CONTRASTS THEM WITH WHAT THE NWS DOES AND WORK IN SPC…
BACK TO YOU APRIL!
APRIL:
WELL WE’RE ALMOST OUT OF TIME… JUST A FEW MORE E-MAIL QUESTIONS TO OUR WEATHER EXPERTS…
E-MAIL QUESTION TO TBD
TBD ANSWERS
E-MAIL QUESTION TO TBD
TBD ANSWERS
APRIL IN CONF… AND ALL GUESTS AND STUDENTS…
SPECIAL SECTION: HAROLD AND DAPHNE AND DEIRDRE AND DENNIS ABOUT HOW STUDENTS CAN STAY SAFE…
GRAPHICS—TOP TEN THINGS YOU CAN DO… DWIGHT: THE INTENTION IS TO HAVE THE FOLKS IN NORMAN COME UP WITH SOME SHORT "TIPS" AND CALL THEM IN TO MSU TO HAVE SIMPLE TEXT ADDED OVER THE STILL FRAMES. IF THIS PROVES IMPOSSIBLE THEY WILL JUST SPEAK TO CAMERA…
NEED STILL FRAMES OF:
FLOOD
HURRICANE
TORNADO
WINTER STORM
FIRE
DAN IN SPC
APRIL PLUGS WEB SITE FOR MORE INFORMATION… TAPE PACKAGE???
DAVE RUST AT EXT
APRIL TO CAMERA
RUN LONG OR SHORT TO BALANCE OUT PROGRAM
special credits: GM, CH9, Interagency Fire Center, TIROS, Fernbank, Boulder Mtn Fire Authority and individuals, landowner in Boulder, etc. MSU field and studio crews, stock footage, etc.
LIVE FROM THE STORM is made possible, in part, by support from NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration…
…and by NASA, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration…
…and by UCAR, the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research