A picture sometimes says it all…Let’s look at SNOW DEPTH and compare 2010, 2011, and 2012:

2010:

2011:

 2012:

Here is the Nuance between El Nino & La Nina:

Ocean Water Temps control most of the World's weather

As you will see, a “typical La Nina” winter weather pattern means the cold air gets trapped up north in Canada…

Not so good for snow lovers…

Snow business not booming this year so far

This is quite a change from where we started out back in the last week of October 2011 (Winter 2011-12 starts off with a bang!)

And there are some other impacts we must consider…

Warm Weather threatens to extend U.S. drought 

(Reuters) – A New Year’s Eve “heat wave” melted away welcomed winter snow that had brought some drought relief to the U.S. Plains, reviving fears that harmfully warm and dry conditions will persist into 2012, U.S. climatologists said in a report issued Thursday.

“The return of warm, dry weather to the nation’s southern tier could be suggestive of an increasingly La Nina-driven atmospheric regime,” said the U.S. Drought Monitor report, issued weekly by a team of national, state and academic climatology experts.

La Nina, a phenomenon in which the surface temperature of the east-central Pacific Ocean is cooler than normal, often results in dry weather in the central United States. It is already affecting crop conditions in South America where dry weather is hurting corn and soy production.

Record highs for December 31 were notched in Childress, Texas, where the thermometer hit 83 degrees Fahrenheit, and in Topeka, Kansas, where the mercury climbed to 66 degrees.

Texas remained fully in the grip of extreme and “exceptional” levels of drought, with more than 67 percent of the state considered to be suffering the worst levels of dryness.

An estimated 80 percent of the rangeland and pastures in Texas remain in very poor to poor condition due to lack of sufficient moisture, according to an early-January report by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Wildfires raged through Texas, crops failed and cattle went hungry and thirsty amid the 2011 drought.

The one-year period between November 1, 2010, and October 31, 2011, was the driest in the state’s history, and the months of June through August in Texas were the hottest three-month period ever reported by any state in U.S. history, according to state and federal climate experts.

Recent rains have helped add to surface moisture, but deep moisture is still nearly nonexistent.

“We need 4-6 inches of rain to get the base moisture back. We’re still in a drought,” said Bill Hyman, executive director of the Independent Cattlemen’s Association of Texas.

Hyman said he has been culling his herd and will continue to sell if it remains dry.

“Pray. Pray for rain,” he said.

Oklahoma also continued to suffer from drought, with more than 27 percent of that farm state in extreme or exceptional drought and more than 50 percent rated severe or worse.

New Mexico, Louisiana and Kansas were also hit by drought, and in the Southeast, parts of Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina suffered from significant levels of dryness.

“Abnormal dryness” has also started to develop in western North Dakota, the Drought Monitor said. High temperatures remained at record-setting levels in the north-central United States, with Bismarck, North Dakota, hitting 55 degrees Fahrenheit on January 3, it noted.

For much of the nation, 2011 ended on a mild, dry note, though heavy precipitation and high winds hit the Northwest during the closing days of the year, the Drought Monitor reported.

(Reporting by Carey Gillam in Kansas City; additional reporting by Theopolis Waters in Chicago; editing by Jim Marshall)

Of course when the “chaos theory” is involved weather forecasting…you never know when the pattern will change just enough to allow some winter precipitation…

NWS Discussion as of 7:00 pm EST

.LONG TERM /WEDNESDAY THROUGH SATURDAY/...
MODELS ARE PROJECTING A TROUGH TO DIG INTO THE SOUTHERN STATES AND
MOVE NORTHEASTWARD...TRACKING OVER THE MID-ATLANTIC REGION MID-
WEEK. AHEAD OF THIS SYSTEM...WINDS WILL BEGIN TO BRING WARMER TEMPS
AND MOISTURE INTO THE AREA. HIGH TEMPS WILL BE UNSEASONABLY WARM
FOR THE SECOND WEEK OF JANUARY...AND FOR THE SECOND DAY IN A ROW
HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO REACH THE MID TO UPPER 50S. AS THE TROUGH
APPROACHES WEDNESDAY...RAIN WILL ENTER THE REGION FROM THE SW.
ENE FLOW OFF THE ATLANTIC WILL FORCE MOISTURE AND PW TO INCREASE.

GFS HAS PW OF AROUND 1 INCH FORECAST FOR WED/WED NIGHT. ELEVATED
CONVECTION MAY BE POSSIBLE AS LOW DEEPENS AND LAPSE RATES STEEPEN.
ISOLATED HEAVY RAIN MAY BE POSSIBLE WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON. AS
STACKED LOW MOVES OVER THE MID-ATLANTIC REGION BY WEDNESDAY
NIGHT...DRY AIR WILL ENTER THE REGION AND SCOUR OUT RAIN SHOWERS.
TEMPS ARE EXPECTED TO BE ABOVE FREEZING THROUGH THE ENTIRE
EVENT...SO LIQUID IS THE ONLY PTYPE EAST OF THE ALLEGHENY FRONT.
AS LOW MOVES OFF THE COAST AND TO OUR NE...UPSLOPE SNOW SHOWERS
ARE POSSIBLE.

A TROUGH OVER THE NORTHERN PLAINS IS EXPECTED TO BRING COLDER AIR
INTO THE REGION BEHIND EXITING SYSTEM ON FRIDAY. CURRENT GFS HAS A
COASTAL SYSTEM WITH THE POTENTIAL OF WINTRY PRECIP FOR NEXT
WEEKEND.

And there is disagreement on whether or not the pattern will change significantly…

American Wx Discussion:

Capital Weather Gang latest thoughts on the potential pattern change (here)

 

Joe Lundberg is not convinced a pattern change is going to happen: (here)

 

Global Patterns – Arctic & North Atlantic Oscillations {AO & NAO} (here)

Thanks again to American Atheists, Beltway Atheists, and NOVA Atheists for erecting this banner on the lawn of the Loudoun County Courthouse in old town Leesburg, VA.

“We are a way for the Cosmos to know itself.”
Carl Sagan

Carl Edward Sagan (English pronunciation: /ˈseɪɡən/) (November 9, 1934 – December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer,astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science popularizer, and science communicator in space and natural sciences. During his lifetime, he published more than 600 scientific papers and popular articles and was author, co-author, or editor of more than 20 books. In his works, he advocated scientifically skeptical inquiry and the scientific method, pioneered exobiology and promoted the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI).

Sagan became world-famous for his popular science books and for the award-winning 1980 television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, which he narrated and co-wrote.^[2] The book Cosmos was published to accompany the series. Sagan wrote the novelContact, the basis for a 1997 film of the same name.

Sagan’s contributions were central to the discovery of the high surface temperatures of the planet Venus. In the early 1960s no one knew for certain the basic conditions of that planet’s surface, and Sagan listed the possibilities in a report later depicted for popularization in a Time-Life book, Planets. His own view was that Venus was dry and very hot as opposed to the balmy paradise others had imagined. He had investigated radio emissions from Venus and concluded that there was a surface temperature of 500 °C (900 °F). As a visiting scientist to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, he contributed to the first Mariner missions to Venus, working on the design and management of the project. Mariner 2 confirmed his conclusions on the surface conditions of Venus in 1962.

Sagan was among the first to hypothesize that Saturn’s moon Titan might possess oceans of liquid compounds on its surface and that Jupiter’s moon Europa might possess subsurface oceans of water. This would make Europa potentially habitable for life.^[10] Europa’s subsurface ocean of water was later indirectly confirmed by the spacecraft Galileo. Sagan also helped solve the mystery of the reddish haze seen on Titan, revealing that it is composed of complex organic molecules constantly raining down onto the moon’s surface.^{[citation needed]}

He further contributed insights regarding the atmospheres of Venus and Jupiter as well as seasonal changes on Mars. Sagan established that the atmosphere of Venus is extremely hot and dense with pressures increasing steadily all the way down to the surface. He also perceived global warming as a growing, man-made danger and likened it to the natural development of Venus into a hot, life-hostile planet through a kind of runaway greenhouse effect. Sagan and his Cornell colleague Edwin Ernest Salpeter speculated about life in Jupiter’s clouds, given the planet’s dense atmospheric composition rich in organic molecules. He studied the observed color variations on Mars’ surface and concluded that they were not seasonal or vegetational changes as most believed but shifts in surface dust caused by windstorms.

Sagan is best known, however, for his research on the possibilities of extraterrestrial life, including experimental demonstration of the production of amino acids from basic chemicals byradiation.^[11]

He is also the 1994 recipient of the Public Welfare Medal, the highest award of the National Academy of Sciences for “distinguished contributions in the application of science to the public welfare.”^[12] He was denied membership in the Academy, reportedly because his media activities made him unpopular with many other scientists.^[13]

Sagan’s ability to convey his ideas allowed many people to better understand the cosmos—simultaneously emphasizing the value and worthiness of the human race, and the relative insignificance of the Earth in comparison to the universe. He delivered the 1977 series of Royal Institution Christmas Lectures in London. He hosted and, with Ann Druyan, co-wrote and co-produced the highly popular thirteen-part PBStelevision series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage modeled on Jacob Bronowski’s The Ascent of Man.

Sagan was a proponent of the search for extraterrestrial life. He urged the scientific community to listen with radio telescopes for signals from potential intelligent extraterrestrial life-forms. Sagan was so persuasive was that by 1982 he was able to get a petition advocating SETIpublished in the journal Science and signed by 70 scientists including seven Nobel Prize winners. This was a tremendous increase in the respectability of this controversial field. Sagan also helped Dr. Frank Drake write the Arecibo message, a radio message beamed into space from the Arecibo radio telescope on November 16, 1974, aimed at informing potential extraterrestrials about Earth.

Sagan was chief technology officer of the professional planetary research journal Icarus for twelve years. He co-founded the Planetary Society, the largest space-interest group in the world, with over 100,000 members in more than 149 countries, and was a member of the SETI InstituteBoard of Trustees. Sagan served as Chairman of the Division for Planetary Science of the American Astronomical Society, as President of the Planetology Section of the American Geophysical Union, and as Chairman of the Astronomy Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

At the height of the Cold War, Sagan became involved in public awareness efforts for the effects of nuclear war when a mathematical climate model suggested that a substantial nuclear exchange could upset the delicate balance of life on Earth. He was one of five authors—the “S” of the “TTAPS” report as the research paper came to be known. He eventually co-authored the scientific paper hypothesizing a global nuclear winter following nuclear war.^[14] He also co-authored the book A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter and the End of the Arms Race, a comprehensive examination of the phenomenon of nuclear winter.

Cosmos covered a wide range of scientific subjects including the origin of life and a perspective of our place in the universe. The series was first broadcast by the Public Broadcasting Service in 1980, winning an Emmy and a Peabody Award. It has been broadcast in more than 60 countries and seen by over 500 million people,^[2][15] making it the most widely watchedPBS program in history.^[16] In addition, Time magazine ran a cover story about Sagan soon after the show broadcast, referring to him as “creator, chief writer and host-narrator of the new public television series Cosmos, [and] takes the controls of his fantasy spaceship.”^[17]

Sagan also wrote books to popularize science which reflected and expanded upon some of the themes of A Personal Voyage, and became the best-selling science book ever published in English;^[18] The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence, which won a Pulitzer Prize; and Broca’s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science. Sagan also wrote the best-selling science fiction novel Contact in 1985, based on a film treatment he wrote with his wife in 1979, but he did not live to see the book’s 1997 motion picture adaptation, which starred Jodie Foster and won the 1998 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Adaption.

Pale Blue Dot: Earth is a bright pixel when photographed from “Voyager 1” six billion kilometers out (past Pluto). Sagan encouraged NASA to generate this image.

He wrote a sequel to Cosmos, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, which was selected as a notable book of 1995 by The New York Times. He appeared on PBS’ Charlie Rose program in January 1995.^[19] Sagan also wrote an introduction for the bestselling book by Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time. Sagan was also known for his popularization of science, his efforts to increase scientific understanding among the general public, and his positions in favor of scientific skepticism and against pseudoscience, such as his debunking of the Betty and Barney Hill abduction. To mark the tenth anniversary of Sagan’s death, David Morrison, a former student of Sagan, recalled “Sagan’s immense contributions to planetary research, the public understanding of science, and the skeptical movement” in Skeptical Inquirer.^[20]

Sagan hypothesized in January 1991 that enough smoke from the 1991 Kuwaiti oil fires ”might get so high as to disrupt agriculture in much of South Asia …” He later conceded in The Demon-Haunted World that this prediction did not turn out to be correct: “it was pitch black at noon and temperatures dropped 4°–6°C over the Persian Gulf, but not much smoke reached stratospheric altitudes and Asia was spared.”^[21] A 2007 study noted that modern computer models have been applied to the Kuwait oil fires, finding that individual smoke plumes are not able to loft smoke into the stratosphere, but that smoke from fires covering a large area, like some forest fires or the burning of cities that would be expected to follow a nuclear strike, would loft significant amounts of smoke into the stratosphere.^{[22][23][24][25]}

In his later years Sagan advocated the creation of an organized search for near Earth objects that might impact the Earth.^[26] When others suggested creating large nuclear bombs that could be used to alter the orbit of a NEO that was predicted to hit the Earth, Sagan proposed the Deflection Dilemma: If we create the ability to deflect an asteroid away from the Earth, then we also create the ability to deflect an asteroid towards the Earth—providing an evil power with a true doomsday bomb.^[27][28]

Sagan was married three times—in 1957, to biologist Lynn Margulis, mother of Dorion Sagan and Jeremy Sagan; in 1968, to artist Linda Salzman, mother of Nick Sagan; and in 1981, to author Ann Druyan, mother of Alexandra Rachel (Sasha) Sagan and Samuel Democritus Sagan. His marriage to Druyan continued until his death in 1996.

Isaac Asimov described Sagan as one of only two people he ever met whose intellect surpassed his own. The other, he claimed, was the computer scientist and artificial intelligenceexpert Marvin Minsky.^[37]

Sagan wrote frequently about religion and the relationship between religion and science, expressing his skepticism about the conventional conceptualization of God as a sapient being. For example:

Some people think God is an outsized, light-skinned male with a long white beard, sitting on a throne somewhere up there in the sky, busily tallying the fall of every sparrow. Others—for example Baruch Spinoza and Albert Einstein—considered God to be essentially the sum total of the physical laws which describe the universe. I do not know of any compelling evidence for anthropomorphic patriarchs controlling human destiny from some hidden celestial vantage point, but it would be madness to deny the existence of physical laws.^[38]

In another description of his view of God, Sagan emphatically writes:

The idea that God is an oversized white male with a flowing beard who sits in the sky and tallies the fall of every sparrow is ludicrous. But if by God one means the set of physical laws that govern the universe, then clearly there is such a God. This God is emotionally unsatisfying… it does not make much sense to pray to the law of gravity.^[39]

Despite his criticism of religion, Sagan denied that he was an atheist, saying “An atheist has to know a lot more than I know. An atheist is someone who knows there is no god. By some definitions atheism is very stupid.”^[40] In reply to a question in 1996 about his religious beliefs, Sagan answered, “I’m agnostic.”^[41] Sagan’s views on religion have been interpreted as a form of pantheism comparable to Einstein’s belief in Spinoza’s God.^[42] Sagan maintained that the idea of a creator of the universe was difficult to prove or disprove and that the only conceivable scientific discovery that could challenge it would be an infinitely old universe.^[43] According to his last wife, Ann Druyan, he was not a believer:

When my husband died, because he was so famous and known for not being a believer, many people would come up to me—it still sometimes happens—and ask me if Carl changed at the end and converted to a belief in an afterlife. They also frequently ask me if I think I will see him again. Carl faced his death with unflagging courage and never sought refuge in illusions. The tragedy was that we knew we would never see each other again. I don’t ever expect to be reunited with Carl.^[44]

In 2006, Ann Druyan edited Sagan’s 1985 Glasgow Gifford Lectures in Natural Theology into a book, The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God, in which he elaborates on his views of divinity in the natural world.

Carl Sagan (center) speaks with CDCemployees in 1988.

Sagan is also widely regarded as a freethinker or skeptic; one of his most famous quotations, in Cosmos, was, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”^[45] (called the “Sagan Standard” by some^[46]). This was based on a nearly identical statement by fellow founder of theCommittee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, Marcello Truzzi, “An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof.”^[47][48] This idea originated with Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749–1827), a French mathematician and astronomer who said, “The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness.”^[49]

Late in his life, Sagan’s books elaborated on his skeptical, naturalistic view of the world. In The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark, he presented tools for testing arguments and detecting fallacious or fraudulent ones, essentially advocating wide use of critical thinking and the scientific method. The compilation Billions and Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium, published in 1997 after Sagan’s death, contains essays written by Sagan, such as his views on abortion, and his widow Ann Druyan’s account of his death as a skeptic, agnostic, and freethinker.

Sagan warned against humans’ tendency towards anthropocentrism. He was the faculty adviser for the Cornell Students for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. In the Cosmos chapter “Blues For a Red Planet”, Sagan wrote, “If there is life on Mars, I believe we should do nothing with Mars. Mars then belongs to the Martians, even if the Martians are only microbes.”^[50]

Sagan was a user and advocate of marijuana. Under the pseudonym “Mr. X”, he contributed an essay about smoking cannabis to the 1971 book Marihuana Reconsidered.^[51][52] The essay explained that marijuana use had helped to inspire some of Sagan’s works and enhance sensual and intellectual experiences. After Sagan’s death, his friend Lester Grinspoondisclosed this information to Sagan’s biographer, Keay Davidson. The publishing of the biography, Carl Sagan: A Life, in 1999 brought media attention to this aspect of Sagan’s life.^[53][54][55] Not long after his death, widow Ann Druyan had gone on to preside over the board of directors of NORML, a foundation dedicated to reforming cannabis laws.^[56]

In 1994, engineers at Apple Computer code-named the Power Macintosh 7100 ”Carl Sagan” in the hope that Apple would make “billions and billions” with the sale of the PowerMac 7100.^[3] The name was only used internally, but Sagan was concerned that it would become a product endorsement and sent Apple a cease and desist letter. Apple complied, but engineers retaliated by changing the internal codename to “BHA” for “Butt-Head Astronomer“.^[57][58] Sagan then sued Apple for libel, a form of defamation, in federal court. The court granted Apple’s motion to dismiss Sagan’s claims and opined in dicta that a reader aware of the context would understand Apple was “clearly attempting to retaliate in a humorous and satirical way”, and that “It strains reason to conclude that Defendant was attempting to criticize Plaintiff’s reputation or competency as an astronomer. One does not seriously attack the expertise of a scientist using the undefined phrase ‘butt-head’.”^[57][59] Sagan then sued for Apple’s original use of his name and likeness, but again lost.^[60] Sagan appealed the ruling.^[60]In November 1995, an out of court settlement was reached and Apple’s office of trademarks and patents released a conciliatory statement that “Apple has always had great respect for Dr. Sagan. It was never Apple’s intention to cause Dr. Sagan or his family any embarrassment or concern.”^[61]

Sagan briefly served as an adviser on Stanley Kubrick‘s film 2001: A Space Odyssey.^[5] Sagan proposed that the film would suggest, rather than depict, extraterrestrial superintelligence.^[62]

The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark is a book by astrophysicist Carl Sagan, which was first published in 1995.

The book is intended to explain the scientific method to laypeople, and to encourage people to learn critical or skeptical thinking. It explains methods to help distinguish between ideas that are considered valid science, and ideas that can be considered pseudoscience. Sagan states that when new ideas are offered for consideration, they should be tested by means of skeptical thinking, and should stand up to rigorous questioning.

In the book, Sagan states that if a new idea continues in existence after an examination of the propositions has revealed it to be false, it should then be acknowledged as a supposition. Skeptical thinking essentially is a means to construct, understand, reason, and recognizevalid and invalid arguments. Wherever possible, there must be independent validation of the concepts whose truth should be proved. He states that reason and logic would succeed once the truth is known. Conclusions emerge from premises, and the acceptability of the premises should not be discounted or accepted because of bias.

As an example, Sagan relates the story from the Chapter “The Dragon In My Garage” (which he notes follows a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard L. Franklin^[1]) of the invisible fire-breathing dragon living in his garage. He asks, “what’s the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there’s no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true.”

Sagan presents a set of tools for skeptical thinking which he calls the “baloney detection kit”. Skeptical thinking consists both of constructing a reasoned argument and recognizing a fallacious or fraudulent one. In order to identify a fallacious argument, Sagan suggests the employment of such tools as independent confirmation of facts, quantification and the use of Occam’s razor. Sagan’s “baloney detection kit” also provides tools for detecting “the most common fallacies of logic and rhetoric”, such as argument from authority and statistics of small numbers. Through these tools, Sagan argues the benefits of a critical mind and the self-correcting nature of science can take place.

Sagan provides a skeptical analysis of several examples of what he refers to as superstition, fraud, pseudoscience and religious beliefs, such as gods, witches, UFOs, ESP and faith healing.

Morgan Harrington Suspect Sketch

Men's Black Pullover sweater with Zipper

Men's Light Colored Pants

 No arrests were made. Recently, Fairfax police received a call from a state police investigator, who told them forensic evidence had linked the case to Harrington’s death, said Lynn Coulter, a spokeswoman for the Fairfax Police Department.

Coulter declined to say what type of forensic evidence was collected in the sexual assault case.

It was about 10 p.m. Sept. 24, 2005, when the man grabbed the 26-year-old woman from behind and dragged her to a nearby pool outside the Oxford Row townhouses directly across the street from Lanier Middle School, police said. The man sexually assaulted the woman but took off running when a passerby came.

Lanier Middle School Fairfax, VA

Sources said the woman strenuously fought her attacker, and police at the time said he might have had scratches on his face. The woman described the man as black and about 6 feet tall. He had a medium build, short hair, and a moustache and beard.

A 26-year-old woman was walking along Jermantown Road, carrying two full Giant grocery bags to her townhouse at around 10 one night in September 2005. She didn’t get far before she sensed someone behind her.

The strange man said he was waiting for a friend, but something about him made her feel uneasy, said Det. Mike Boone, a Fairfax City Police Department violent crimes investigator who worked on the case. She kept walking and was almost at the front door of her townhouse when she heard his footsteps racing toward her. He grabbed her, lifted her and carried her into a dimly lit, wooded area near Rock Garden Drive, where he tried to strangle and rape her.

She screamed and fought. A neighbor heard her cries and walked to the edge of his driveway. He could hear her, but couldn’t see what was going on. The attacker dragged her even farther into the darkness, but the neighbor didn’t give up, remaining at the end of his driveway, searching

Lanier Middle School - Rock Garden Drive in relation to George Mason University

Spooked, the suspect fled, leaving behind crucial DNA evidence in the blood and skin under his victim’s fingernails.

This DNA connected the attacker to the murder of Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington, who disappeared during an October 2009 Metallica concert at the John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville. But after over five years of feeding that skin and blood evidence through state and national DNA databases, police have yet to find an exact match.

MH

October 2009

 Oct 17, 2009

UVA Campus – Copeley Road – Ivy Road – Massie Road

As the father and daughter traveled toward Ivy Road and over the railroad bridge, the ordinary ride suddenly took them past an unusual sight. A young woman, dressed all in black with long blond hair, was standing on the bridge with her thumb extended in the classic hitchhiking gesture.

The pair would soon learn that they were among the last to see Morgan Dana Harrington alive.

******************************************** 

It’s been more than a year since the body of the 20-year-old Virginia Tech education student was discovered. With no suspects named, police have been reaching out to the public in hopes that someone will be able to help take the investigation a step further. How did Morgan’s body end up in a cow pasture {Anchorage Farm} 10 miles away? Is a killer still stalking the streets of Charlottesville and Albemarle County?

 Details revealed

 During a recent tour tracing Morgan’s last known steps, Virginia State Police Special Agent Dino Cappuzzo shared the story of that father and daughter– and revealed that it was their witness testimony that permitted police to pinpoint the time Morgan was likely abducted.

After the students departed, Morgan walked along the fence that separates the lot from the UVA track, according to Cappuzzo, who says her trail was picked up by the bloodhound, which stopped near a small line of portable toilets at the lot’s rear. Cappuzzo says two non-student witnesses driving down a road that leads from the baseball stadium to the RV lot reported seeing Morgan in that area– and recalled yet another unusual behavior for a young woman alone on a dark rainy night.

“She curtsied,” says Cappuzzo, but she didn’t attempt to flag them down.

 As Metallica prepared to take the stage, one of the friends called Morgan to ask where she was. The time of that call– 8:48pm– suggests a conversation before she left the vicinity of the Arena, and Cappuzzo says her friends tried to offer her tips to get back inside.

“They were trying to tell her to get to the smoking area,” says Cappuzzo, who says the friend mistakenly believed that area could be accessed from outside. In fact, it is above ground and surrounded by concrete walls.

 Unable to get back in, Harrington told her friend, “I’ll get a ride.” She was soon walking across Massie Road with the basketball team.

Even without photographic proof, Cappuzzo says plenty of evidence confirms Morgan did end up alone in the RV lot. From the portable toilets where she curtsied, the bloodhound tracked Morgan back to the bridge and then over it before turning west on Ivy Road, where it lost her scent near the Foods of All Nations grocery store. Unbelievable as it seems, Cappuzzo says that 10 days after Morgan was there, the bloodhound would have been able to detect her scent even if she had gotten into a car.

The father, whose identity has not been revealed, dropped his daughter off at her dorm, Cappuzzo says, a few minutes after the bridge crossing. Her electronic key was logged at 9:23pm by her dorm’s security system.

On his way back to his hotel, the father stopped at the 7-11 convenience store on Ivy Road, says Cappuzzo. There, another time-stamp— this one in the form of a register receipt— provided police with another objective time mark around 9:30pm. When the father left the 7-11 and returned over the bridge no more than a minute or two later, Cappuzzo says, he remembered the young woman standing with short sleeves and no umbrella in the chilly drizzle. She was gone.

Within approximately 10 minutes of those two bridge crossings, two other unrelated witnesses reported to police that they’d seen a blond woman hitchhiking there. Cappuzzo says all witnesses’ stories have been thoroughly vetted by police, and none are considered suspects. 

==============================================

HELP WANTED: THE MENTALIST

==============================================

The Mentalist

Once again I would refer to the popular TV series that features an Atheist that solves crimes relying completely on Sherlock Holmes-esk powers of perception and observation.  Seemingly the Mentalist has such great powers that he can find a needle in stack of needles.

Elementary my dear Watson

“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

 

“Crime is common, logic is rare.”

 

“The decent thing to do is to catch the killer, not provide conflict for the cause.””

 

- Sherlock Holmes (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859-1930)

It suffices to say, I do not have these extraordinary powers of perception and/or observation.  I can only rely on wanted limited powers I have to analyze and deduce the evidence whilst sticking closely to the facts like a fat kid in a bakery.

 

Accordingly, I want to highlight some key points:

 

1. The Rapist/Killer must be very strong, and in good shape:

 He grabbed her, lifted her and carried her into a dimly lit, wooded area near Rock Garden Drive, where he tried to strangle and rape her.

When Morgan D. Harrington’s bones were found in an Albemarle County pasture, they had been shattered and broken into jagged pieces, her parents said Wednesday.

“When you view … not just a skeleton, but brutal damage to a skeleton, you can imagine what [her mother] must have gone through,” the victim’s father, Dan Harrington, said.

2. The Rapist/Killer is able to control his emotions, lust, actions, and strategy which suggests intelligence and sophistication:

Four {4} years had passed between victims <caveat: as far as we know> so either he completely got away with other rapes/killings in between that time…or he is complete control over his emotions/lusts/passions/desires.

The clothes he wore on the night of Sept 24, 2005 suggest sophistication

He didn’t stutter/stammer/or freak out when asked a question by the Fairfax victim, and obviously had been rehearsing an answer…..The strange man said he was waiting for a friend

The shattered bones of Morgan Harrington would suggest that he has moved from a rather remedial technique of strangulation {Fairfax woman} to a more sophisticated technique most likely using weapons.  This reminds me of the man who raped & killed Katie Sepich 

 

<An Aside>

 Katie’s Law, also known as the Katie Sepich Enhanced DNA Collection Act of 2010, is a proposed federal law to provide funding to states to implement minimum and enhanced DNA collection processes for felony arrests. The bill is named after Katie Sepich, who was brutally attacked outside of her New Mexico home in August 2003. She was raped, strangled, her body set on fire, and abandoned at an old dump site.^[1]

Katie’s attacker’s skin and blood were found under her fingernails. This DNA profile was sent to the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) where officials hoped a match would be made. A DNA match identified Gabriel Adrian Avila, who had been arrested in November 2003 for aggravated burglary and was serving time in the New Mexico Corrections System since November 2004. After being confronted with his DNA evidence, Avila subsequently confessed to the murder of Sepich.^[2]

The experience of Katie’s parents, Jayann and Dave Sepich, in bringing Katie’s killer to justice motivated them to advocate for legislation that would expand the use of DNA to arrest and convict criminals:

Jayann and Dave Sepich, Katie’s parents, began researching the role of DNA in solving crimes. At first they just wanted to find and punish the person who had murdered their daughter; but as they learned more about how DNA can solve crimes, they also learned it could do so much more–it can prevent crimes and save lives.^[3]

The proposed legislation encourages states to collect a sample through DNA profiling from individuals who are: arrested for, charged with or indicted for crimes involving murder, manslaughter, sexual assaults, and kidnapping or abduction. The collected samples are included in CODIS [1] which contains more than 5 million records and used by law enforcement agencies. DNA profiling is not the same as full genome sequencing and contains no genetic information. There are over 3 billion markers in the DNA molecule and only 13 of these markers go into CODIS.

Taking DNA samples upon arrest has been shown to prevent violent crimes. A study prepared by the Office of the Governor of Maryland identified 20 violent crimes that could have been prevented if DNA samples had been required upon arrest for just three individuals. In Colorado, the Denver District Attorney’s Office released a study of 47 violent crimes that could have been prevented if DNA had been collected upon felony arrest for five individuals.

3. He is specifically targeting young women, and is picking areas around big college campuses AND he chose the same time of year, fall, which is right around the start of  a new school year, and he chose Saturday nights, which of course is a very popular night of the week for co-ed parties.

 

4.  Much like the persona “Rollo Tomasi” in the movie L.A. Confidential – He thinks b/c he got away with it twice already, he can do so again.

Rollo Tomasi was the guy who thought he could get away with it

5.  Because he is in control over his emotions and is not easily flustered, he strikes me has a man who at least has a steady relationship, or more likely a family man with a loyal & loving “unsuspecting” wife, with children that adore him – which would make him much more like the “TRINITY” serial killer John Lithgow played in the popular cable series, DEXTER,

John Lithgow – DEXTER

6.  In Contrast from character who plays the weird, socially maladjusted, “Lone Wolf” killer in the movie THE LOVELY BONES:

Does not fit in well with the rest of society

7.  It could be this guy his independently wealthy, which gives him time to stake out areas to get comfortable with his surroundings, plan, and keep his secret life safely hidden away from others…much like the killer in the movie Se7en:

Preacher Man

My last point which will allow me to nicely segway into the Preaching aspect.  I do believe that this man has some kind of a superiority complex, is narcissistic, and throws his weight around like a typical arrogant morally presumptuous preacher.  His “super ideology” is simple…I am what society makes me, and therefore I will act accordingly and show these people how powerful my humanity can be when unleashed.

I wonder how narcissistic this man is….For instance, is he googleing his name everyday, or more to the point, is he googleing the two victims everyday…looking at media reports, and delighting in the commotion and disruption in normal society he has inflicted/caused.  If he is, could he be reading this new blog right now.

I wonder if his wife/significant other has ever suspected his intentions, or erratic behavior…maybe she’s curious and she’s looked around your secret places and you don’t know it yet.  Maybe she’s very afraid and doesn’t want to confront you about it b/c she might be your next victim.

Looking at wives of serial killers

Little research exists on the women who marry serial killers, or the nature of those relationships. Those serial killers who stay married tend to have wives who are submissive, nonassertive, unquestioning and perhaps fearful of losing their men. When their husbands are discovered, the women stand to lose much more, including their privacy

Hiding Behind The Veil Of Normal

The man Mary Elizabeth Harriman knew in her life was not the man who’s life is under scrutiny for the world to see. He would hold her hand on walks. They went on vacations, they golfed together, normal couple things that would raise no suspicions.

If your wife/significant other does go snooping what will she find?  For instance will she find this:

A trophy for a serial killer?

  Update in Morgan Harrington case: Necklace wasn’t with body

State police, who are trying to track down the jewelry, also said DNA links the case to another.

We know you will not be able to stop the urge, the lust, the passion when it comes stronger the next time.  We have a pretty good idea that America is a breeding ground for psychopaths:

from the book The Sociopath Next Door

Psycho Psycho Man...I wanna be a Psycho Man

It is entirely possible that the environmental influences on sociopathy are more reliably linked with broad cultural characteristics than with any particular child-rearing factors. Indeed, relating the occurrence of sociopathy to cultures has so far been more fruitful for researchers than looking for the answer in specific child-rearing variables. Instead of being the product of childhood abuse within the family, or of attachment disorder, maybe sociopathy involves some interaction between the innate neurological wiring of individuals and the larger society in which they end up spending their lives.

Apparently, cultural influences play a very important role in the development (or not) of sociopathy in any given population. Few people would disagree that, from the Wild West of the past to the corporate outlaws of the present, American society seems to allow and even encourage me-first attitudes devoted to the pursuit of domination. Robert Hare writes that he believes “our society is moving in the direction of permitting, reinforcing, and in some instances actually valuing some of the traits listed in the Psychopathy Checklist – traits such as impulsivity, irresponsibility, lack of remorse.”

Yes it’s truly eye-opening to realize just how many sociopaths and psychopaths live among us <caveat: not all become violent>:

It’s impossible to know exactly how many people are sociopaths. They are both men and women. They are found in all segments of society, all walks of life. What you really need to know is that there are millions of them, they can be anywhere, and watch out.

Dr. Robert Hare estimates that 1% of the population in North America are psychopaths, the term that he uses. The population of the United States is  more than 305 million. That means, according to his standards, there are more than 3 million psychopaths in the country.

A related diagnosis is antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). This is the term used by the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

Mental health professionals generally estimate that 3% of men and 1% of women in the United States have ASPD. That would be 4.5 million men and 1.5 million women, for a total of 6 million people. Psychiatrists generally refer to these people as sociopaths.

Dr. Hare believes ASPD has a broader definition than psychopath. In other words, he says all psychopaths have ASPD, but not everyone diagnosed with ASPD a psychopath.

In The Sociopath Next Door, Dr. Martha Stout says 4% of the population are sociopaths. That would add up to 12 million of them in the United States.

As you can see, estimates are all over the place. The Lovefraud Risk Calculator only projects the number of sociopaths in a community. The calculation assumes that between 1%  and 4% of the U.S. population are psychopaths or sociopaths.

I should know…I currently have a “real life sociopath” after me…last year I had to fight for my job b/c she tried to report me to the Inspector’s General’s Office just for being an atheist…..and this year I’m being sued for $350,000 b/c of a on-line joke/parody/rhetoric hyperbole.

I would like to meet this man IF/WHEN he’s caught…

….and yes sometimes they do get caught, case in point:

East Coast Rapist suspect arrested in Connecticut

A Connecticut man suspected in rapes and other attacks on 17 women since 1997 inEast Coast states including Virginia was arrested Friday, the U.S. Marshals Service said.

The suspect, whose name wasn’t immediately released, was captured in Connecticut based on a lead from authorities in Virginia, said U.S. Marshal Joe Faughnan.

The last known assault by the attacker authorities called the East Coast Rapist occurred on Halloween night in 2009, when two teenagers on their way home from trick-or-treating were raped in the Northern Virginia community of Woodbridge in Prince William County, authorities say.

 

Here’s something else that the killer may not have expected, which in all fairness, doesn’t always happen in these cases:

Roanoke business raising money for Morgan Harrington case

A Roanoke business is doing its part to help solve a local murder case.

Paco’s Tacos is holding an event called “Morgan’s Day.”

Proceeds from every item they sell goes to efforts in the name of Morgan Harrington.

The Virginia Tech student died in 2009, after being kidnapped at a Charlottesville Metallica concert.

Police still haven’t found her killer.

“We can’t bring Morgan back, but we can raise the concern for safety and for needing to find the person that did this to our daughter,” said Dan Harrington, Morgan Harrington’s father.

And then you have people like me who have a loyal, intelligent, and insightful reading audience…and this just incident just pushed me right over the edge…you see I’m a VT alum.

Some birds aren't meant to be caged

And this happened right after a few other terrible tragedies @ VT {see April 16, 2007} & {Heidi Childs & David Metzler}…so I’m a little more motivated that usual to follow this until this asshole is caught and put behind bars.

On comments posted by Harrington’s mother Gil on the family’s website on Wednesday, she warned her daughter’s killer that his luck would run out.

“That corpse will not rest. Morgan wants justice,” she wrote to the “monster” who killed her daughter. “A day of reckoning is coming!”

Can a Family Member’s DNA Solve a Fairfax Rape and Morgan Harrington’s Murder?

 Virginia Department of Forensic Science (DFS) now has the ability to search DNA databases for near-misses. This technique, called familial DNA searching, looks for those already in the database who have DNA similar to that obtained from the crime scene. Instead of needing an exact match to show up in the search results, this new practice lists those DNA profiles that bear a strong similarity to the crime scene profile, suggesting that the persons who provided the DNA may be related.

Virginia became the third state to be able to use this new technique in March. California used familial DNA searching to nab a murder suspect in the “Grim Sleeper” case. Colorado’s state district attorney developed the software required to run familial DNA searches and gave it to Virginia’s DFS, no charge.

 

WRONG PLACE + WRONG TIME = INSTANT DEATH

In a similar vein as Truman Capote’s IN COLD BLOOD,

Truman Capote once stated, "When I imagine how good this book can be, I can hardly breathe"

Isaiah 38:13 I waited patiently till dawn, but like a lion he …

I cried out until morning as if a lion had crushed all my bones. …
bible.cc/isaiah/38-13.htm

 

If  I had to pick a title for a book about this murder it would be the following:

IN THE LION’s MOUTH

“The Story of a beautiful young woman who was in the wrong place at the wrong time”

Hear my mighty ROAR

A violent storm lashed northern Virginia Sunday evening, toppling trees and powerlines. Arlington, VA bore the brunt of the storm where downed trees smashed cars and fell into homes. The National Weather Service estimates winds were between 60 to 70 miles per hour at the height of the storm. The National Weather Service classified the storm as a macro burst, a downward burst of strong winds that hit the ground and spread damage in all directions up to 2.5 miles in mere minutes. This image from the GOES East satellite at 2345Z on July 3, 2011 shows the burst forming.

The severe thunderstorm that ripped through Arlington and the District Sunday evening was truly explosive. The image above shows the incredible structure of the storm as it developed over Fairfax county. The effervescent cloud popping out of the image is a classic example of an overshooting thunderstorm top – penetrating 50,000+ feet into the atmosphere.

NOAA’s Environmental Visualization Laboratory featured the image on its website today, describing it accordingly:

A violent storm lashed northern Virginia Sunday evening, toppling trees and powerlines. Arlington, VA bore the brunt of the storm where downed trees smashed cars and fell into homes. The National Weather Service estimates winds were between 60 to 70 miles per hour at the height of the storm. The National Weather Service classified the storm as a macro burst, a downward burst of strong winds that hit the ground and spread damage in all directions up to 2.5 miles in mere minutes. This image from the GOES East satellite at 2345Z [7:45 p.m. local time] on July 3, 2011 shows the burst forming.

The cluster of thunderstorms formed as hot and very humid air collided with a cold front pushing southeast. The atmosphere was full of energy – or, in meteorological jargon CAPE (convective available potential energy). The billowing thunderstorm over Fairfax county (in the image) released a chunk of that energy in the violent downburst over Arlington and D.C. (particularly around Dupont Circle and Columbia Heights).

Damage in Arlington NeighborhoodDamage on Arlington Road

A downburst is created by an area of significantly rain-cooled air that, after reaching ground level, spreads out in all directions producing strong winds. Unlike winds in a tornado, winds in a downburst are directed outwards from the point where it hits land or water. Dry downbursts are associated with thunderstorms with very little rain, while wet downbursts are created by thunderstorms with high amounts of rainfall. Microbursts and macrobursts are downbursts at very small and larger scales respectively. Another variety, the heat burst, is created by vertical currents on the backside of old outflow boundaries and squall lines where rainfall is lacking. Heat bursts generate significantly higher temperatures due to the lack of rain-cooled air in their formation. Downbursts create vertical wind shear or microburst which is dangerous to aviation.

Downburst

A downburst is created by a column of sinking air that, after hitting ground level, spreads out in all directions and is capable of producing damaging straight-line winds of over 150 mph (240 km/h), often producing damage similar to, but distinguishable from, that caused by tornadoes. This is because the physical properties of a downburst are completely different from those of a tornado. Downburst damage will radiate from a central point as the descending column spreads out when impacting the surface, whereas tornado damage tends towards convergent damage consistent with rotating winds. To differentiate between tornado damage and damage from a downburst, the term straight-line winds is applied to damage from microbursts.

Downbursts are particularly strong downdrafts from thunderstorms. Downbursts in air that is precipitation free or contains virga are known as dry downbursts;^[1] those accompanied with precipitation are known as wet downbursts. Most downbursts are less than 2.5 miles (4 km) in extent: these are called microbursts.^[2] Downbursts larger than 2.5 miles (4 km) in extent are sometimes called macrobursts.^[2] Downbursts can occur over large areas. In the extreme case, a derecho can cover a huge area more than 200 miles (320 km) wide and over 1000 miles (1600 km) long, lasting up to 12 hours or more, and is associated with some of the most intense straight-line winds,^[3] but the generative process is somewhat different from that of most downbursts.

The formation of a downburst starts with hail or large raindrops falling through drier air. Hailstones melt and raindrops evaporate—this is an endothermic process that demands a lot of energy (in the form of latent heat) so the air is cooled. Cooler air has a higher density than the warmer air around it, so it falls as a “cold air balloon” (compare to a hot air balloon, which rises because hot air has a lower density than the surrounding air). As the cold air balloon hits the ground it spreads out and a mesoscale front can be observed as a gust front. Areas under and immediately adjacent to the downburst are the areas which receive the highest winds and rainfall, if any is present. Also, because the rain-cooled air is descending from the middle troposphere, a significant drop in temperatures is noticed. Due to interaction with the ground, the downburst quickly loses strength as it fans out and forms the distinctive “curl shape” that is commonly seen at the periphery of the microburst (see image). Downbursts usually last only a few minutes and then dissipate, except in the case of squall lines and derecho events. However, despite their short lifespan, microbursts are a serious hazard to aviation and property and can result in substantial damage to the area.

MACROBURST captured in Boston, MA

 

Downburst over Water

Or maybe there is:

The view from the door of a damaged home in Tuscaloosa, Ala. CREDIT: Emily Butler

Some climate models suggest that a warming future could herald more intense storms like those that ripped through the Southeast on Wednesday night.

But that doesn’t mean the southern storms and tornadoes were a manifestation of climate change, climate scientists say. That’s because teasing out the influence of climate on weather takes time.

“The impacts of climate change on any weather events will likely only be seen in the statistics — more rainfall that occurs in intense bursts, more overall water vapor, more heat waves, less cool nights,” Gavin Schmidt, a climate scientist with NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, wrote in an email to LiveScience. “But the combination of events that lead to the tornado swarms we’ve seen are both rare and complex, and to ask climate scientists to pronounce definitively on them the instant they happen is just asking for trouble.”

The death toll from this week’s line of storms has topped 200, making it likely the deadliest tornado outbreak since 1974.

Even in severe storms, tornados are relatively rare, said Morris Weisman, a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo. Long-lasting, rotating thunderstorms called supercell storms are the breeding grounds for severe tornadoes, Weisman told LiveScience, but only about 25 percent of supercell storms result in a tornado.

Ingredients for the perfect storm

To form, supercell storms require two atmospheric ingredients — warm, moist air near the surface colliding with cooler air high in the atmosphere, and a vertical windshear, or a change in speed and direction of wind with height. When warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico collides with vertical windshear caused by a strong jetstream, supercells form. [Infographic: Inside Look at Tornado Season]

The question for climate scientists, then, is whether climate change will make it more likely for these two atmospheric ingredients to clash into one another.

While there are no models precise enough to predict the birth of individual storms, climate researchers can use computer simulations to find out if the weather conditions that cause storms are likely to occur. In one 2007 study, Purdue University climate researcher Robert Trapp found that in a climate change scenario considered likely by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, there would be increases in storm-friendly conditions in some areas, including the Southeast.

“We primarily saw that regions that already experience severe weather would see an amplification of the frequency” of those conditions, Trapp told LiveScience. The increase held regardless of season.

Measuring tornado trends

Estimating climate effects on tornadoes is particularly difficult, Trapp said, because they aren’t as well recorded as other weather disasters such as hurricanes. Many of Wednesday’s tornadoes occurred in daylight in populated areas, Trapp said, but nighttime tornadoes in rural spots may not get entered into the record. He and his colleagues are working to figure out the real trends using more objective numbers.

“We’re investigating ways of trying to recreate and correct for biases using Doppler weather radar data,” Trapp said. “We’re also doing something similar with computer models.”

To show for certain that climate affects storms events, researchers will need to take that unbiased data and compare it across decades, Trapp said.

In the meantime, meteorologists are working to understand the conditions that trigger a tornado in a supercell. Researchers know the warning signs to look for, Weisman said, and they even know where tornadoes are likely to appear (the southwest flank of a storm, he said). But exactly what turns a given rotating storm into a tornado-spawning monster is still up in the air, Weisman said.

“A tornado is a very chaotic animal,” he said. “Getting that last detail — that last little step — is very difficult.”

Adios La Niña:

La Niña was all but done at the end of May, as shown by the warming signature in the above image. Credit: NOAA.

After hanging on for several months, the powerful climate system behind this year’s historic floods and terrible tornado season is finally gone, according to government climate scientists.

If you’ve been following the weather, this climate pattern is a household name by now. It’s called La Niña (Spanish for the little girl) and it’s a cyclical system of trade winds that cools the waters of the equatorial Pacific  (El Niño is La Niña’s warm-water counterpart.). La Niña can muck with global weather patterns, recurring every few years and lingering for as long as two years. [Weirdo Weather: 7 Rare Weather Events]

The recent La Niña is one of the strongest since climatologists began recording the phenomenon 50 years ago. But now that it’s gone, neutral conditions have developed and are expected to continue at least through the 2011 Northern Hemisphere summer, according to a forecast from the Climate Prediction Center in Camp Spring, Md.

So what’s next for the weather?

“More of the same,” said climatologist Jake Crouch with the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. That’s because there is a delay between what’s happening in the tropical Pacific and what’s happening in the atmosphere, Crouch said.

For people in the United States, much of the damage is already done.

La Niña leftovers

Remember all that snow this past winter? That was La Niña at work. For most people battling the recent heat wave, that snow is a distant memory. But folks along the flooded Missouri River can’t shake this past winter’s huge snowpack.

“The La Niña weather pattern did set up the regime that set up the unusual amounts of snow and rain so far,” said Lynn Maximuk, deputy director of the National Weather Service’s Central Region in Kansas City, Mo.

All that water has run into the Missouri River, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been forced to release record amounts of water from the river’s reservoirs to cope with the flooding. They could be releasing water well into August, according to Kevin Grode of the corps.

Terrible tornadoes

La Niña has been blamed for this year’s terrible tornado season as well. But this blame comes more for what it didn’t do than what it did.

La Niña began its exit around three months ago, which allowed the jet stream to go rogue, driving winds into the heart of the U.S., where it violently mixed cool and warm air masses, creating the thunderstorms that spawned killer tornadoes.

Had La Niña stayed strong, the jet stream would have been farther north during the first few months of tornado season. There is no official forecast for tornadoes, so how the neutral conditions in the Pacific will affect the remainder of tornado season is “a little more of a gray area,” Crouch told OurAmazingPlanet.

Summer and beyond

La Niña is also linked to increased hurricane activity in the Atlantic basin. And while this year’s La Niña has mostly wrapped up, its impacts — including reduced wind shear, which can cut off a developing storm — are expected to continue into the hurricane season, Crouch said.

The 2011 Atlantic hurricane season is forecast to be above average, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It may see 12 to 18 named storms (which include tropical storms and hurricanes) and six to 10 hurricanes, with up to six of those as major hurricanes. Hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

The forecast for the equatorial Pacific after the Northern Hemisphere summer and into the end of hurricane seasonis not as reliable, and the Climate Prediction Center will issue another forecast in July.

• A History of Destruction: 8 Great Hurricanes
• Natural Disasters: Top 10 U.S. Threats
• The World’s Weirdest Weather

Reach OurAmazingPlanet staff writer Brett Israel at bisrael@techmedianetwork.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . Follow him on Twitter @btisrael.

Spring extreme weather events in 2011 in U.S.: historic and record setting:

So does this guy have magical maggots that appear from his mouth?

A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never.

Downtown KC - May 25 2011 {Late May Tornado Outbreak}

I thought when I worte this piece {Super Tornado Outbreak April 25-28 2011} that would be the climax of the tornado season, and it would stay relatively quiet from there on out…and I was correct in my thinking for the first few weeks in May…unfortunately that did not hold true into this week, and as we all know, another EF5 tornado rolled thru Joplin, MO:

Satellite Image courtesy of NOAA NWS {May 22 approx 6pm CDT} Image courtesy of NOAA NWS Doppler Radar Image of Joplin Tornado {Notice Debris Ball at the tip of the strong Hook Echo}

Image courtesy of NOAA NWS Joplin Tornado Doppler Radar Image {Debris Ball & Strong Hook Echo}

Joplin Tornado Doppler Radar Image {Debris Ball & Hook Echo}

 The 2011 Joplin tornado was a multiple-vortex tornado rated as an EF5 which struck Joplin, Missouri USA at about or shortly before 5:41 p.m. CDT (2241 UTC) on May 22, 2011. It was part of a larger late-May tornado outbreak and reached a maximum 0.75 miles (1.21 km) wide during its path through the city.^[1] It rapidly intensified and tracked eastward across the city, and then continued eastward across Interstate 44 into rural portions of Jasper County. This was the first significant tornado to strike Joplin since May 1971.^[2] The May 2011 tornado was the deadliest tornado to hit the United States since 1947 and the eighth-deadliest single tornado in U.S. history, killing at least 125 and injuring over 1,000. ^[3][

Anyone who thinks Storm Chasing looks like it could be fun, and without risk...think again:

Active Tornadic Year 2011

May 2011 tornado outbreak

April 2011 was the most active month on record, capped by an extreme tornado outbreak that killed over 340 people in the final week. By contrast, the first three weeks of May were remarkably quiet with no major outbreaks and only isolated tornadoes. However, that pattern abruptly changed as a strong low pressure area and associated dry line and cold front tracked eastward.

EF3 tornado that struck Reading, Kansas.

WATCH:

On May 21, a small system of thunderstorms began to develop in Brown County, Kansas. At the same time, another system formed to the southeast of Emporia, Kansas. The Brown county system developed into a tornado over Shawnee County, Kansas, and touched down over Topeka, Kansas, for several seconds causing minor damage nearby. Meanwhile the Emporia system continued to move to the northeast, where an EF3 (Enhanced Fujita Scale) tornado heavily damaged the town of Reading, Kansas. One person was killed there, several others were injured and at least 20 houses were destroyed.^[3] After hitting Topeka it hit several towns including Oskaloosa, Kansas, doing extensive damage to that community. Several other tornadoes touched down in the region that evening.^[4]

A moderate risk of severe weather was issued for much of the Midwest south to Oklahoma for May 22. The first tornadic supercell that day developed in the mid-afternoon hours over the western Twin Cities with a swath of damage, especially in and around Minneapolis, Minnesota.^[5] An intense tornado also tracked towards Harmony, Minnesota, that afternoon and a tornado emergency was issued. Late that afternoon, a very large and intense multiple-vortex tornado resulted in catastrophic damage in Joplin, Missouri. It was the deadliest single tornado in the U.S. since at least 1947.

Once again, a moderate risk of severe weather was issued for two regions on May 23 – the southern Plains and the lower Great Lakes – although the tornado threat was lower with the main threats being damaging wind and large hail. Isolated tornadoes were reported across several states from those cells, but most were weak as the stationary front lacked the necessary wind shear.

On May 24, a high risk of severe weather was issued for parts of south-central Kansas, central and eastern Oklahoma and extreme north-central Texas, and a moderate risk was issued for surrounding areas in those three states plus northwestern Arkansas and southwestern Missouri (including Joplin), with strong to violent tornadoes considered to be a major threat as the stationary front maintained its position while wind shear is expected to greatly increase associated with an incoming trough. Late that morning, the tornado threat increased to 45%, a rare occurance matching April 27.^[6] At 12:50 p.m. CDT, the SPC issued a PDS tornado watch for parts of central Oklahoma, including Oklahoma City, and northern Texas, in effect until 10:00 p.m. CDT.^{[SPC 1]} Numerous tornadoes touched down in several regions, with the first activity being in western Oklahoma that afternoon where several very intense tornadoes developed. Fortunately, they weakened before reaching the heavily populated Interstate 35 corridor and did not redevelop. Other tornado clusters developed in central Kansas that afternoon and in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex that evening.

Once again on May 25, a high risk of severe storms was issued for the middle Mississippi River valley from near Memphis, Tennessee northward to north of Evansville, Indiana, and was expanded late that morning northward to near Indianapolis, Indiana, northwest to near St. Louis, Missouri, southeast to just west of Nashville, Tennessee and southwest to near Little Rock, Arkansas.^[7] Several hours before the outbreak was set to begin, a PDS tornado watch was issued for western Kentucky, southern Indiana, the southern half of Illinois and eastern Missouri. The entire state of Indiana, southern Michigan, and most of Missouri were under tornado watches.

Tornado Alley

Mind-boggling tornado count, deaths raise hard questions about causes, warnings & response

Approximately 1,000 tornadoes. Nearly 500 dead. The numbers are staggering as the 2011 tornado season rages at a record pace. From the the EF5 tornado that struck Joplin, Mo., killing at least 122 people to become the deadliest tornado in the U.S. since 1950, to the pair of explosive and deadly April tornado outbreaks, and now also yesterday’s Plains outbreak moving east today, this year’s barrage of violent twisters has people asking questions about everything from the impact of climate change on tornadoes, to the accuracy and effectiveness of short-term severe weather warnings.

Given the sheer volume of the tornado chatter, the online equivalent to a twister’s whipping winds, it’s useful to take a step back and review the important questions that need to be asked at this point, while reminding ourselves of what is generally known.

Climate change connection?

First, on the “are all these tornadoes a manifestation of global warming?” question, there is a consensus on that, but it’s neither comforting nor conclusive. We simply don’t know.

As I wrote last month, climate change is expected to change key ingredients needed for tornado formation (for example, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere worldwide is already on the rise, and this can contribute to greater atmospheric instability), but there hasn’t been any trend in observational data to suggest that tornado behavior – either frequency, strength, or regions they typically strike – is shifting. Tornadoes are extremely capricious events, and teasing out statistically significant trends from historical records is very difficult.

High-resolution radar image of a tornado south of Oklahoma City yesterday. (Twitpic from Brad Panovich, WCNC-TV (@wxbrad))

Climate scientists have already demonstrated trends in other extreme weather and climate events, including floods and heat waves, showing that manmade climate change is tilting the odds in favor of their occurrence. However, such research is lacking when it comes to tornadoes, with computer modeling studies suggesting that conditions may become more favorable for tornadoes as the climate warms, but perhaps not by very much.

Jeff Masters at Weather Underground discussed yesterday the causes of this year’s high tornado count and summarized his thoughts with the following:

“In summary, this year’s incredibly violent tornado season is not part of a trend. It is either a fluke, the start of a new trend, or an early warning symptom that the climate is growing unstable and is transitioning to a new, higher energy state with the potential to create unprecedented weather and climate events. All are reasonable explanations, but we don’t have a long enough history of good tornado data to judge which is most likely to be correct.”

So while the jury is out on the relationship between climate change and tornadoes, there is one factor that has clearly played a major role in this year’s high tornado death toll: Bad luck. Sure, the more tornadoes there are the better chance that one or more will eventually tear through a highly populated area. But just think, had a tornado in southwest Missouri Sunday evening tracked just a few miles further north or south – well, a lot fewer of us would know where to find Joplin on a map right now.

Killer tornadoes trumping technology, warning system

Next, this tornado season has obliterated the notion that massive investment in a national severe weather forecasting infrastructure and early-warning network ensures a low tornado death toll. When this devastating tornado season finally ends, the meteorology community, along with emergency planners and social scientists, need to explore how it is that despite a network of Doppler radars, National Weather Service forecast offices, tornado sirens, live TV coverage and social media alerts, we still lost so many people.

As Russell Schneider, the director of NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center, told the Associated Press:

”I think we have to ask ourselves the tough questions now.”

”Why is this happening? The complexity of our society, the density of our populations in traditional tornado-prone regions of the world, community and family preparedness? Our science and technology — are we fully exploiting that to protect Americans?”

Masters made a keen observation when he put the human toll into historical perspective (bold emphasis added): “The first tornado warning wasn’t issued until 1948, and virtually all tornadoes from the 1950s and earlier hit with no warning. On average, tornado deaths in the United States decreased from 8 per 1 million people in 1925 to 0.12 per 1 million people in 2000. Had this year’s tornadoes occurred 50 years ago, I expect the death toll would have exceeded three thousand.”

Among tornado researchers, it’s widely recognized that population growth and the increasing urban sprawl is a driving factor that is placing more people in harm’s way. I gave a presentation to the American Meteorological Society several years ago on the challenge of dealing with urban tornadoes, and this issue has only grown in urgency since.

There are unique aspects of getting the word out about severe weather in cities that don’t necessarily apply in rural areas of “Tornado Alley.” Disseminating tornado warnings in urban areas can be especially difficult, since people are often tuned into different forms of media, and may not be reachable by tornado sirens, if they are even available. Forecasters are increasingly turning to new media — and social media platforms in particular — to spread tornado warnings. For example, Twitter can be a very effective system for pushing severe warnings to an affected area. Here at the Capital Weather Gang we’ve been increasingly turning to Twitter (@capitalweather and @dcweatheralerts to disseminate alerts for significant and severe weather.

Aerial view of Joplin tornado damage via FEMA director Craig Fugate’s Twitter feed (@CraigatFEMA).

Also relevant is the growth of the portion of Americans who live in mobile homes, which are particularly susceptible to strong winds, be they from tornadoes, hurricanes, or typical severe thunderstorms. According to the AP, citing U.S. Census records, seven percent of Americans – about 20 million people – now live in mobile homes. Also, the greatest share of mobile homes is in the South, where tornado deaths have been especially significant this year.

But making sure that people get the warnings is only half the battle. You also have to get people to take appropriate action once they get the warning, and considering that tornado warnings have a high false alarm rate (as high as 75 percent, by some estimates), people can be forgiven for being skeptical that a given warning will turn out to be the real deal.

Already some are discussing “tornado fatigue” and the ability of the human psyche to distance itself from existential threats, thereby leading people to avoid heeding tornado warnings that could be false alarms (a similar dynamic comes into play concerning climate change, but that involves a longer-term threat).

As Jeffrey Kluger wrote for Time.com,

“…paradoxically, what may be the true undoing of good tornado preparedness is the sheer number of the storms themselves. When twisters are touching down by the dozens per day (a whopping 68 were reported in the Midwest this past weekend), being more rather than less prepared would seem the way to go. But familiarity breeds habituation, and habituation, in turn, breeds insouciance. Of the many reasons the Department of Homeland Security recently scrapped its much-mocked color-coded terrorism alert system, one of the greatest was the arbitrary — and often politically cynical — way it was overused. The first time the alert went from yellow to orange, Americans jumped out of their skins. The 51st time, they simply rolled their eyes.”

The Christian Science Monitor ran an insightful article that provides a thorough overview of some of the insights that social scientists have been providing into how people respond to severe weather warnings.

Certainly some tornadoes have been met with what can most charitably be described as a laissez faire response by officials who should know better, as was the case when a violent tornado barreled toward Lambert-St. Louis International Airport on April 22. Despite 34 minutes of warning, the airport authority didn’t take action until the storm was practically on top of them, too late to make any public announcements about the danger to travelers in the terminal buildings.

However, when you’re dealing with so many violent tornadoes on the scale of EF3 and above, there is a limited array of options for people to pursue in order to ensure their safety. In Tuscaloosa and Joplin, many homes were wiped clean, leaving just their foundations. Thus, anyone not underground was in grave danger. Those kinds of monster tornadoes hitting populated areas are going to kill, no matter how accurate the forecast or how effective the warning system.

Courtesy NWS

Elkhart IA double tornado 1965

Warmer Ocean Fueling Tornadoes

The stats on tornadoes so far this year are horrifying. A record-breaking 482 people (and ABC News reports 1,500 are unaccounted for in Joplin, Missouri) have been confirmed killed as of 24 May.

We know that spring’s a bad season for tornadoes. We know that La Niña years fuel stormy Aprils. But 2011 is redefining even those parameters.

Super cell tornadic storm

Here’s what NOAA has to say about last month alone:

• April 2011 set anew record with a total of 875 tornadoes.
• The previous April record was set in 1974 with 267 tornadoes.
• The average number of tornadoes for the month of April during the past decade was 161.
• The previous record number of tornadoes duringany month was 542 tornadoes set in May 2003.
• NWS [National Weather Service] records indicate 321 people were killed during the April 25-28 tornado outbreak.
• NWS records indicate 361 people were killed during the entire month of April 2011.

Leading up to April’s extreme tornadoes were some extreme temperatures, noted Stu Ostro, Senior Meteorologist at the Weather Channel:

The temperature in Laredo reached 111 degrees the day prior to the peak [April] outbreak, the hottest on record at that location for so early in the season. Precipitation extremes have been extreme even by extreme precipitation standards, with April rainfall upwards of 20″ in Arkansas and record levels on some rivers in the central US, juxtaposed with an exceptionally large amount of Texas being classified in extreme or exceptional drought

Now May is racing to catch up to and maybe even pass April. Here’s what NOAA finds so far:

• The National Weather Service’s preliminary estimate is more than 100 tornadoes have occurred during the month of May 2011.
• The record number of tornadoes during the month of May was 542 tornadoes set in May 2003.
• The average number of tornadoes for the month of May during the past decade is 298.
• May is historically the most active month for tornadoes.

Sunday’s horrific twister at Joplin, Missouri, was likely a multiple vortex tornado, says Thomas Schwein, deputy director of the National Weather Service’s Central Region, reports the Kansas City Star.

Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog describes the Joplin tornado’s nine-minute path thus:

A violent high-end EF-4* [Enhanced Fujita Scale] tornado [initial assessment] with winds of 190-198 mph carved a 7-mile long, 3/4 to one mile-wide path of near-total destruction through Joplin beginning at 5:41pm CDT Sunday evening.

*UPDATE: After surveying the Joplin tornado track, the NWS announced that its winds exceeded 200 miles per hour. This makes it the fourth EF-5 tornado this year, according to WonderBlog—and the most costly ever. Initial estimates: $1-3 billion.

So what’s fueling this year’s record-breaking tornado season? There are the usual suspects, which the Cliff Mass Weather Blog lists as:

• Strong Instability
• Large Vertical Wind Shear
• Low Level Moisture
• Lift

His blog does a great job of explaining those in detail:

Why Does the U.S. Midwest Get So Many Severe Thunderstorms?

Last night another tragic bout of severe weather struck the U.S., Midwest, with a strong tornado leveling a large section of Joplin, Missouri (see video below). It may well happen again today. Looking at the climatology of U.S. tornadoes (below), you see that although the High Plains are struck most frequently, the southeast, and the upper Midwest have significant activity.

Why does this part of the U.S. get hit so often by severe thunderstorms?

It is a fascinating, but sobering, fact that the U.S. High Plains, Midwest and the adjacent southeast U.S. have the highest frequency of severe convection in the entire world.

Why?

It turns out that nearly every geographical and meteorological aspect conducive to severe convection comes together here.

Ingredient 1: Strong Instability.

To get big thunderstorms you need an atmosphere ready to convect, to mix in the vertical as a result of vertical instability. Such instability is aided by lots of low-level moisture and a large change of temperature with height. A good measure of such instability is a quantity called CAPE—Convective Available Potential Energy. Throw that term around at a party and people will take notice! Just think of it as a measure of the amount of energy available to drive the thunderstorms. Examining a plot of the average springtime CAPE (below) a fascinating fact is apparent (in image, darker values are higher)–no other midlatitude area in the world has as much CAPE as the High Plains of the U.S.! The highest values tend to be in the tropics, and no where does high values extend so far to the north as east of the Rockies.

The super-deluxe CAPE has a lot to do with the very warm Gulf of Mexico, which not only warms the air, but adds lots of moisture. This warm, moist air then moves northward across the eastern U.S., where it is heated further at low levels. We have the fuel! But truly severe convection needs more.

Ingredient 2: Large Vertical Wind Shear.

Vertical wind shear is a measure of how wind changes with height, either in direction or speed. A problem with typical thunderstorms is that they are essentially suicidal. The cold downdraft air they produce (due to cooling by evaporation and falling precipitation dragging the air downward) spreads out and eventually kills the warm, updraft air thunderstorms need to survive. A few years ago we learned that there was a way around this thunderstorm killer— you guessed it, wind shear. Although it is too involved to go into now, large wind shear allows thunderstorms to organize in a way so that they can survive many hours, long enough to become severe. But wait, there’s more! Large wind shear can also help produce rotation in strong thunderstorms, producing something call a mesocyclone, which in turn can spin up into a tornado!

Now guess what area has a large amount of wind shear during the spring, when CAPE is high?—the High Plains and the southeast! A Bermuda High off the SE U.S. causes southerly flow to move northward off the Gulf of Mexico (figure), while aloft the air is from the west.

The result: a consistent large shear from southerly at low levels to westerly aloft over the region. Suicide avoided and mesocyclones enabled.

Ingredient 3: Low Level Moisture

In some sense this is part of Ingredient 1 as well. Strong thunderstorms need moist air at low levels, since the condensation of water vapor is an important energy source for them. When water condenses it releases a large amount of latent heat—heat that it gained when the sun evaporated the water in the first place. The air coming off the Gulf of Mexico is very humid because the Gulf is so warm (the amount of water vapor air can contain depends on its temperature). A measure of this water vapor content is dewpoint (the temperature at which air becomes saturated when cooled), and dewpoints in the region can climb into the 60s and even 70s. Here is the Northwest we have low dewpoints even during the summer. Why? The cool waters of the Pacific.

Here is the dewpoint forecast map for later this afternoon–one in which severe convection is expected in Missouri and neighboring states. VERY high dewpoints are shown over the Gulf and northward into the U.S. A lot of fuel.

Ingredient 4: Lift

Even if you have lots of instability, moisture and shear, the atmosphere needs a little push to get convection going. Sort of like the starter on your auto engine. Lift comes in two forms. One is associated with large-scale weather features (like upper level troughs) and the other includes surface-based features such as fronts and dry lines.

Upper-level troughs are disturbances moving in the upper level westerly flow predominant in the midlatitudes, and the area in question is far enough north to troughts them during the spring. Here is what a trough looks like on an upper level trough (see figure). It is region of generally lower pressure or heights aloft.

And then there are low-level features that produce lift and focus convection…and the High Plains has a collection of these! The most important is the dry line–the boundary between dry air coming off the Rockies and moist air coming up from the Gulf. (see image)

Thunderstorms love to develop on the lift associated with this feature. If you ever watch movies about storm chasers they are always talking about dry lines.

Other Ingredients

There are other ways the High Plains and Midwest are well-positioned for severe convection. For example, to get truly big storms it is good to have a cap, a shallow stable region aloft that keeps the convection at bay until the convective energy gets enormous as the surface heats during the day. No cap and convection releases too fast and is not that strong. Too strong a cap and nothing happens. A modest cap—you get the big stuff. Guess what area often has the right kind of cap, often associated with air coming off the Rockies to the west. You guessed it.

In summary, the High Plains, Midwest, and parts of the SE of the U.S. are “endowed” with large amounts of the key ingredients for severe convection–particularly during the spring. The results often range from tornadoes and hail, to intense precipitation and straight-line winds. One of the grand challenges of my field is figuring how to forecast these events…and it is probably the most difficult problem in meteorology….but that will have to wait another blog. West Coast weather is easy in comparison.

Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly Gulf of Mexico May 2011

The Jetstream and formation of Tornadoes

Thanks again to NOVA-Atheists, Beltway Atheists Inc., and American Atheists for this month’s banner:

Science on the Lawn, Loundoun County Courthouse, Old Town Leesburg, VA

Our most holy religion is founded on Faith, not on reason.
… superstitions, which, being unable to defend themselves on fair ground, raise these intangling brambles to cover and protect their weakness. … The idea of God, as meaning an infinitely intelligent, wise and good Being, arises from reflecting on the operations of our own mind .. this theory of the universal energy and operation of the Supreme Being is too bold ever to carry conviction with it to a man .. We are ignorant, it is true, of the manner in which bodies operate on each other: Their force or energy is entirely incomprehensible: But are we not equally ignorant of the manner or force by which a mind, even the supreme mind, operates either on itself or on body? .. We have no idea of the Supreme Being but we learn from reflection on our own faculties. (David Hume, 1737)

Deep Ecology is rooted in a perception of reality that goes beyond the scientific framework to an intuitive awareness of the oneness of all life, the interdependence of its multiple manifestations and its cycles of change and transformation. When the concept of the human spirit is understood in this sense, its mode of consciousness in which the individual feels connected to the cosmos as a whole, it becomes clear that ecological awareness is truly spiritual. Indeed the idea of the individual being linked to the cosmos is expressed in the Latin root of the word religion, religare (to bind strongly), as well as the Sanskrityoga, which means union. (Fritjof Capra, 1982)

A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge. (Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot)

“Science does not promise absolute truth, nor does it consider that such a thing necessarily exists. Science does not even promise that everything in the Universe is amenable to the scientific process.”

“Creationists make it sound like a “theory” is something you dreamt up after being drunk all night.”

“The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not “Eureka!” (I found it!) but “That’s funny …”

Isaac Asimov (More Info) (1920-1992)

“Confronted with the universe, with fields of space sown thick with stars, with all there is of life, the wise man, being asked the origin and destiny of all, replies: “I do not know. These questions are beyond the powers of my mind.” The wise man is thoughtful and modest. He clings to facts. Beyond his intellectual horizon he does not pretend to see. He does not mistake hope for evidence or desire for demonstration. He is honest. He neither deceives himself nor others.”

“For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between Science and Faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have said, “Think!” The many have said, “Believe!”

“Our ignorance is God; what we know is science.”

“Science has nothing in common with religion. Facts and miracles never did, and never will agree. They are not in the least related. They are deadly foes. What has religion to do with facts? Nothing. Can there be Methodist mathematics, Catholic astronomy, Presbyterian geology, Baptist biology, or Episcopal botany? Why, then, should a sectarian college exist? Only that which somebody knows should be taught in our schools. We should not collect taxes to pay people for guessing. The common school is the bread of life for the people, and it should not be touched by the withering hand of superstition.”

“Science is the enemy of fear and credulity. It invites investigation, challenges the reason, stimulates inquiry, and welcomes the unbeliever. It seeks to give food and shelter, and raiment, education and liberty to the human race. It welcomes every fact and every truth. It has furnished a foundation of morals, a philosophy for the guidance of man. From all books it selects the good, and from all theories, the true. It seeks to civilize the human race by the cultivation of the intellect and heart. It refines, through art, music and the drama giving voice and expression to every noble thought. The mysterious does not excite the feeling of worship, but the ambition to understand. It does not pray it works. It does not answer inquiry with the malicious cry of “blasphemy.” Its feelings are not hurt by contradiction, neither does it ask to be protected by law from the laughter of heretics. It has taught man that he cannot walk beyond the horizon that the questions of origin and destiny cannot be answered they an infinite personality cannot be comprehended by a finite being, and that the truth of any system of religion based on the supernatural cannot by any possibility be established such a religion not being within the domain of evidence. And, above all, it teaches that all our duties are here that all our obligations are to sentient beings; that intelligence, guided by kindness, is the highest possible wisdom; and that “man believes not what he would, but what he can.”

“This century will be called Darwin’s century. He was one of the greatest men who ever touched this globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life than all of the religious teachers. Write the name of Charles Darwin on the one hand and the name of every theologian who ever lived on the other, and from that name has come more light to the world than from all of those. His doctrine of evolution, his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his doctrine of the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind the last vestige of orthodox Christianity. He has not only stated, but he has demonstrated, that the inspired writer knew nothing of this world, nothing of the origin of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, nothing of nature; that the Bible is a book written by ignorance at the instigation of fear. Think of the men who replied to him. Only a few years ago there was no person too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Darwin; and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully he undertook the task. He was held up to the ridicule, the scorn and contempt of the Christian world, and yet when he died, England was proud to put his dust with that of her noblest and her grandest. Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and his doctrines are now accepted facts.”

“We have already compared the benefits of theology and science. When the theologian governed the world, it was covered with huts and hovels for the many, palaces and cathedrals for the few. To nearly all the children of men, reading and writing were unknown arts. The poor were clad in rags and skins they devoured crusts, and gnawed bones. The day of Science dawned, and the luxuries of a century ago are the necessities of today. Men in the middle ranks of life have more of the conveniences and elegancies than the princes and kings of the theological times. But above and over all this, is the development of mind. There is more of value in the brain of an average man of today of a mastermechanic, of a chemist, of a naturalist, of an inventor, than there was in the brain of the world four hundred years ago. These blessings did not fall from the skies. These benefits did not drop from the outstretched hands of priests. They were not found in cathedrals or behind altars neither were they searched for with holy candles. They were not discovered by the closed eyes of prayer, nor did they come in answer to superstitious supplication. They are the children of freedom, the gifts of reason, observation and experience and for them all, man is indebted to man.”

Robert Green Ingersoll (More Info) (1833-1899)

“It is evident that a man with a scientific outlook on life cannot let himself be intimidated by texts of Scripture or by the teaching of the church. He will not be content to say “such -and-such an act is sinful, and that ends the matter.” He will inquire whether it does any harm or whether, on the contrary, the belief that it is sinful does harm. And he will find that, especially in what concerns sex, our current morality contains a very great deal of which the origin is surely superstitious. He will find also, that this superstition, like that of the Aztecs, involves needless cruelty and would be swept away if people were actuated by kindly feelings toward their neighbors. But the defenders of traditional morality are seldom people with warm hearts, as may be seen from the love of militarism displayed by church dignitaries. One is tempted to think that they value morals as affording a legitimate outlet for their desire to inflict pain; the sinner is fair game, and therefore away with tolerance!”

Bertrand Russell (More Info) (1872-1970)

Black Swan

The Black Swan Theory or Theory of Black Swan Events is a metaphor that encapsulates the concept that The event is a surprise (to the observer) and has a major impact. After the fact, the event is rationalized by hindsight. 

The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain: 

1. The disproportionate role of high-impact, hard to predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations in history, science, finance and technology
2. The non-computability of the probability of the consequential rare events using scientific methods (owing to the very nature of small probabilities)
3. The psychological biases that make people individually and collectively blind to uncertainty and unaware of the massive role of the rare event in historical affairs

Unlike the earlier philosophical “black swan problem“, the “Black Swan Theory” (capitalized) refers only to unexpected events of large magnitude and consequence and their dominant role in history. Such events, considered extreme outliers, collectively play vastly larger roles than regular occurrences.^[1] 

Epistemological approach  

Taleb’s black swan is different from the earlier philosophical versions of the problem, specifically in epistemology, as it concerns a phenomenon with specific empirical and statistical properties which he calls, “the fourth quadrant”.^[7] 

Taleb’s problem is about epistemic limitations in some parts of the areas covered in decision making. These limitations are twofold: philosophical (mathematical) and empirical (human known epistemic biases). The philosophical problem is about the decrease in knowledge when it comes to rare events as these are not visible in past samples and therefore require a strong a priori, or what one can call an extrapolating theory; accordingly events depend more and more on theories when their probability is small. In the fourth quadrant, knowledge is both uncertain and consequences are large, requiring more robustness.[citation needed] 

Before Taleb,^{[8][clarification needed]} those who dealt with the notion of the improbable, such as Hume, Mill, and Popper focused on the problem of induction in logic, specifically, that of drawing general conclusions from specific observations. Taleb’s Black Swan Event has a central and unique attribute, high impact. His claim is that almost all consequential events in history come from the unexpected—yet humans later convince themselves that these events are explainable in hindsight (bias). 

One problem, labeled the ludic fallacy by Taleb, is the belief that the unstructured randomness found in life resembles the structured randomness found in games. This stems from the assumption that the unexpected may be predicted by extrapolating from variations in statistics based on past observations, especially when these statistics are presumed to represent samples from a bell-shaped curve. These concerns often are highly relevant in financial markets, where major players use value at risk models, which imply normal distributions, although market returns typically have fat tail distributions.[citation needed] 

More generally, decision theory, based on a fixed universe or a model of possible outcomes, ignores and minimizes the effect of events that are “outside model”. For instance, a simple model of daily stock market returns may include extreme moves such as Black Monday (1987), but might not model the breakdown of markets following the September 11 attacks of 2001. A fixed model considers the “known unknowns”, but ignores the “unknown unknowns”.[citation needed] 

Taleb notes that other distributions are not usable with precision, but often are more descriptive, such as the fractal, power law, or scalable distributions and that awareness of these might help to temper expectations.^[9] 

Beyond this, he emphasizes that many events simply are without precedent, undercutting the basis of this type of reasoning altogether. 

Taleb also argues for the use of counterfactual reasoning when considering risk. 

A rainbow

The Black Swan of Bipolar and Depression

By Tom Wootton 

I gave a talk the other day for NAMI Santa Rosa about my next book and a woman remarked how different it is from my previous ones. I said that my first three were about me being the black swan.

She asked if I was referencing the movie called Black Swan and I have not seen it yet, so I do not know if it is related at all to Karl Popper’s concept from the 1930s that I was referencing. Have you seen it? Does it mention Popper? Should I see it either way?

Popper suggested that if you observe only white swans, you are using inductive reasoning to extrapolate that all swans are white. This was falsified when black swans were discovered by the English naturalist John Latham in 1790. Science was forced to change the hypothesis that all swans are white by the new evidence.

Almost a year ago, Jonah Lehrer wrote an article called “Depressions Upside” in the New York Times. I was very interested in the response to it because I expected him to get attacked for challenging the prevailing beliefs about depression. A particular response stuck with me to this day and happens to be from someone who writes occasionally on PsychCentral, Dr. Ronald Pies:

“I have seen many hundreds, if not thousands, of patients [with depression] over the past 30 years. I have never had one–no, not one–say to me, ‘Gosh, Doctor, there are some real 
benefits to all this depression!’”

Dr. Pies made the classic white swan mistake – inducing from his limited experience that all depressives are like the ones he has seen. A few days later he wrote an article called “The Myth of Depression’s Upside” right here on PsychCentral.

My sense at the time was that the emotions of the debate were way too high for me to challenge such notions, but the White Swan of Depression stuck with me ever since. Over the years I have run into the same argument many times and have tried various ways of challenging it, only to be met with complete refusal to even consider the fact that I find depression to be beautiful and among the most valuable experiences of my life. Instead of recognizing the black swan right in front of them, people make the strangest accusations and deny the possibility entirely.

A frequent critique of my work is that I do not represent all bipolar people. I never said that I do; only that my existence contradicts the paradigm that too many hold so rigidly. It is amazing how many people get so upset they accuse me of insisting that everyone is like me. That would be like saying that all swans are black, which is not at all what I was saying.

In the previous three books I was saying that if I could accomplish Bipolar In Order or Depression In Order, then perhaps others can too and we need to change the definition of what is possible to accommodate the new evidence. What I share in my new work are other people’s success stories along with a well defined path for others to follow, which is why the woman in Santa Rosa remarked about how my message has changed.

What is most interesting about Dr. Pies argument is that I meet many people who feel the way I do, or at least in ways that contradict the notion that there are no “real 
benefits to all this depression.” It seems that we attract people according to what we believe. If you believe it is not possible to see value in depression and therefor do not teach people how to, you spend 30 years with people who share your beliefs.

I run into people who see value all the time. I also have taught many who at first reacted as strongly as any that I am completely wrong, yet now say that depression has become a beautiful and valuable part of their lives too.

I have not met Dr. Pies, but have read much of his work and find him fascinating. Without this one point of contention I would not have been exposed to his insights, many of which I find valuable and I have learned much from him. His work is brilliant and a major contribution to our understanding. I also find him to be very open-minded and interested in things that would lead me to believe that once he met a black swan he would embrace it as strongly as the notion that we don’t exist. I hope that we do meet some day and in some small way I help him to learn something new too.

What is also interesting is that I agree with Dr. Pies about the myths that he pointed out and his specific critiques about studies that Jonah Lehrer sited in his article. They are not at all what I am talking about when I say depression has value. There are at least two distinct kinds of value in depression (including deep clinical depression); the value of learning something from having been through it, and the value of being in it in the moment. I am interested in both and cherish each new example I find.

Natalie Portman as the Black Swan

Black Swan & Psychology

So much more than a dance flick.

Harry “Breaker” Morant, an Australian-born horseman, soldier and poet, was executed in South Africa in 1902 for alleged war crimes committed during the Second Boer War. His famous (and awesome) last words were “shoot straight you bastards. Don’t make a mess of it.” Since that time, ol’ Harry “The Breaker” has become something of a folk hero in Australia, partly, no doubt, for his cool, debonair recalcitrance in the gravest of circumstances.

That the Aussies have accorded first-rate status to a criminal like Harry is perhaps not surprising, given how much their culture esteems moxy like his, a passion that is conspicuously betrayed in their cult of Cygnus Atratus (i.e., the black swan), an even more prominent figure in Australian culture and lore than he. This anomalous creature is on the flag and coat of arms of Western Australia, and has for a long time been the embodiment of the antipodean spirit in Australia. It is a bird that is at once rare, exceptional, and problematical, throwing a wrench, as it did, in our plans to continue calling swans necessarily white birds.

Amazingly Intense and visually stunning

Harry “Breaker” Morant, an Australian-born horseman, soldier and poet, was executed in South Africa in 1902 for alleged war crimes committed during the Second Boer War. His famous (and awesome) last words were “shoot straight you bastards. Don’t make a mess of it.” Since that time, ol’ Harry “The Breaker” has become something of a folk hero in Australia, partly, no doubt, for his cool, debonair recalcitrance in the gravest of circumstances. That the Aussies have accorded first-rate status to a criminal like Harry is perhaps not surprising, given how much their culture esteems moxy like his, a passion that is conspicuously betrayed in their cult of Cygnus Atratus (i.e., the black swan), an even more prominent figure in Australian culture and lore than he. This anomalous creature is on the flag and coat of arms of Western Australia, and has for a long time been the embodiment of the antipodean spirit in Australia. It is a bird that is at once rare, exceptional, and problematical, throwing a wrench, as it did, in our plans to continue calling swans necessarily white birds.

But that conception of black swans is not unique to Australia. It exists here, if in a significantly more diffuse and abstract form. Many of us know that to figuratively behold a black swan means to confront something wholly unexpected and unique, something that inconveniently challenges our beliefs and assumptions.

This understanding has penetrated the global pop culture ether, and naturally plays a prominent role in Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan, in which Nina’s antagonist – her black swan – is the exotically unpredictable Lily. Lily destabilizes Nina’s perceptions of many things, and threatens to take many things from her including her most central fixation: dance. Seemingly in an instant, Nina’s world collapses. But Lily does not serve solely destructive purposes; she also represents a potent, albeit utterly unanticipated and unwanted, force for change in Nina. These two facets of the relationship between Lily and Nina echo the bipolar opportunities that metaphorical black swans represent; always destructive, but often eventually constructive.

We can even get a little more concrete here and take a formal approach to understanding what the heck is going on with Nina. There is a theory, conveniently dubbed Black Swan Theory (or, the Theory of Black Swan Events; Taleb, 2007), which sheds light on the impact that unpredictable and rare black swan events (examples of which include the Internet revolution, World War I, and September 11th) have in our lives.

{OBL’s death: A defining moment for young America?}

White House spontaneous celebration after news got out that OBL was killed

Black Swan Theory is easy enough to understand; in a nutshell, it is this: Despite their relative rarity, events that are impossible to predict play a disproportionately large role compared to predictable events in shaping world history (as well as the personal histories of individual people like Nina). Despite this fact, people generally discount the tremendous causal impact of these unpredictable events after the fact, claiming in hindsight that such events were predictable after all, in fact they were expected. This hindsight bias makes us believe that the world is more predictable than it is in reality, blinding us to the potential for future black swan events.

Why does this happen? Because it is always comforting (and often useful, in fact) to believe that the world is a safe, predictable place. It feels good to be overly optimistic and to feel in control of one’s destiny, and that everyone else is in control of his or her destiny. That if I do a,b, and c then x,y, and z will result. But if we take this comforting and illusory form of thinking overboard by under-representing uncertainty in our efforts to predict the future, we leave ourselves vulnerable to the jarring peck of the black swan.

How can we cope with black swan events? The key is not to try to predict them because by definition they are not susceptible to that. We can, however, guard against them by basically being more cautious. Don’t allow corporations or industries to get so big that they are “too big to fail.” Back up your files. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. For Nina, the key would be to engage in an assortment of professional and leisurely pursuits in addition to dancing.

The bottom line is that unless you’re willing to risk a black swan smackdown, you must refrain from harboring undue confidence in your ability to predict how things will go. Check yourself before you wreck yourself, as it were. This requires a balanced approach tempered by reasonably conservative and tentative decisions. That should help you avoid the unforeseen hazards that are undoubtedly in your future, like firing squads.