 |
| National Center on Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado |
My father had one good idea.
OK, that is unfair. He had many good ideas. Marrying my mom, for starters. He also held patents in the design of compact nuclear reactors.
In fact, those two good ideas might be related — there was a shakedown cruise of an atomic-powered submarine that my father, a naval reservist, was keen to avoid. Married men were exempt. Perhaps it's cynical of me to connect them.
But he also had one really good idea that resonated around the world and has an impact today.
My father's really good idea occurred to him in the early 1970s. The 747 Jumbo Jet had been introduced, to endless publicity — the spiral staircase leading to the lounge in the bulging upper deck hump, the enormous capacity, 400 passengers, making long haul air travel economical for millions. And — what my father noticed — radar systems and other instruments that monitored atmospheric conditions around the plane. A constant stream of data.
You know ... Robert Steinberg thought ...what if that weather data wasn't just used to fly the plane? What if it was sent to a central location? And then used ... to predict the weather?
It would be a big improvement over weather stations — scattered mountaintop outposts, with thermometers and spinning anemometers and such. Plus weather balloons, instrument packages floated high into the upper atmosphere for expensive keyhole glimpses.
He wrote an article titled, "Role of Commercial Aircraft in Global Monitoring Systems," that ran in the April 27, 1973, issue of Science.
"The new family of wide-bodied jets such as the 747, DC-10, and L-1011 aircraft can be used to supply important global atmospheric and tropical meteorological data for which there is a pressing need," my father wrote. "In the final analysis, commercial aircraft may offer the most inexpensive way to monitor our atmosphere in the near future."
By summer, NASA loaned him out to NCAR — the National Center for Atmospheric Research — in Boulder, Colorado. NCAR was in a stunning, I.M. Pei-designed building of reddish concrete. Boulder was nice. Mountains. He traveled the world, signing up airlines. The idea took hold.
"Aircraft-based observations play a big role in the accuracy of weather forecasts — reducing forecast errors in numerical weather prediction systems by up to 10%" according to the World Meterological Association.
This is a long way of saying that, in an era of constant shocks to American science — 25,000 federal researchers and support staff left the government this past year, thousands of grants slashed, agencies shuttered, scientific data yanked off line, the U.S. scientific establishment being "systematically destroyed" in the words of the Union of Concerned Scientists, NCAR being scuttled stood out as personal.
And political. NCAR is being closed down by the Trump administration for the sin of "climate alarmism." Because atmospheric research points to uncomfortable facts that business and its handmaiden, government, don't want to think about anymore.
We should be clear why all of this is happening. Business makes money, but if it has to, oh, consider pollution, or worry about the purity of food or the efficacy of drugs, it makes less money. So watchdog agencies, and research facilities and university centers that would counterbalance the whims of business are being scrapped.
Scientists are not going quietly.
To continue reading, click here.
My father dedicated his life to collecting data used to determine where the cheapest hookers on Manheim road could be found along with seedy poker games.
ReplyDeleteAfter I told him my wife was pregnant with his first grand child he moved to vegas.
A few years later while we were sitting with my grandma in hospice at the end of her life I was contacted by friends that he has weapons had barricaded himself in his condo and I needed to come see if I could convince him to seek care.
When I got there he was sleeping under the mattress in the bathtub.
Hundreds of opioid tablets in the drawer.
Brought him to Chicago and got him committed at Rush.
In case you wonder why I'm sometimes a little annoying
It's clear that scientists have found conclusive evidence of climate change caused by human activity.
ReplyDeleteAnd the circumstances that we face as inhabitants of this planet will be severely disrupted.
Our country has not exactly been a leader in combating the behaviors that are causing global warming and extreme weather events.
We used to talk a good game about what needed to be done we just didn't do it.
The current administration is bold-faced about how business comes first in this country. That financial gain is the driver of our nation.
We have long exploited the resources of countries around the planet for our gain and Trump and his ilk refused to paper over our behavior with platitudes.
We've never reduced our emissions and barely reduced the increase in emissions that occur every year.
This has been the case for over 30 years.
People around the world have been aware of this and I'll see us for how we truly are. A ravenous consumer society driven by ruthless business interests.
What could possibly go wrong?
All anyone has to do is look at all the glaciers melting away & see the damage the rising temperatures are causing.
DeleteBut the deniers refuse to believe their lying eyes!
Trump (and his ikk) is transparent only because he wears his corruption boldly for all to see, BUT fails to show the depth and spoils of that corruption or take responsibilty for such actions - not credit, responsibilty - a true sociopath. A sociopath seeking out and rewarding other sociopaths, even psychopaths.
DeleteHistory is over-filled with the dead bodies of such confluences.
Neil,
ReplyDeleteYour piece today reminded me of why the Untied States of America is such a good thing. A place where ideas and theories abound. Where science and critical thinking join hands with revolutionaries and dreamers to build a better tomorrow. A place where the people are not burdened by the insecurities and failures of spoiled rich nobles, out to amass more money and more power.
Today, with your post, republicans daily "antics," and the Chicago Bears (the pride and joy of illinois) planning their exit from the state and city for "greener" pastures and better tax "breaks" in Hammond/Gary Indiana I was reminded of of how people used to be.
Charles Comiskey built Comiskey park as a shrine to his power and existence. He built it with his own money just to say he could. The same kind of place your father could marvel at the wings and ports of a gigantic metal beast and think, let's put this all together and see what we can learn!
That's the America a yearn for.
Republicans are cowards and frauds. The Bears (McKaskey's) might just be cowards and frauds. But your dad, the scientists across this great country, the people standing up to ice, cpb, and injustice, and even Charles "the crook" Comiskey are the people who make this country great.
vive la revolution. tax the rich.
There are too many Democrats, Libertairans, Independents and third parties equal cowards and frauds. Everyone and everything has been barcoded & priced.
DeleteThe Guardian has an article on the brain drain causing people with scientific backgrounds now refusing to work in the US & with American scientists going overseas to work, because the current corrupt & insane climate change denying loons cutting scientific research!
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/19/trump-science-funding-cuts
I regularly see a Doctor for a condition. He's Persian, and he's in utter despair. He said that scientists in his field are already leaving the country in equal parts because of our anti-science madness and because they're immigrants.
ReplyDeleteA family friend is Australian and an expert in transportation systems and urban planning. Every year until this year he came to an international conference in Wash. DC. Loved it. The reason he stopped is because the conference has been gutted and he also doesn't want TSA goons going through his social media history at the airport. He joked that it wouldn't take them long to figure out where he stood on things.
So in the end, the rest of the world will drive low-cost Chinese electric cars and buy Chinese solar panels and wind technology while we're committing national suicide. Like Capt. Willard said to Col. Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, "I don't see any method at all."
What an amazing thing your father did! Just brilliant. People don't often think of scientists as creative but it's that kind of creative thinking in science that I just love.
ReplyDeleteThe administration's gutting of science is stupid in a thousand ways. But science has always had to scrape and claw for funding for research. And funding for outreach & communication about all that research has not even been pocket change, which has led, in part, to what we see now in high levels of scientific illiteracy in the public, loss of respect for expertise, and complete denial of clear scientific findings. It's depressing.
As much as we'd like to think IL is different because, e.g., it is sticking with the WHO and opposing MAHA for medical science, it's not exactly a beacon for science. Between the IL Arts Council and Chicago's Dept of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the State and City spend ~$35Million *annually* of our tax dollars on arts and culture outreach. In the past 20 years that I've tracked it, the amount spent to support science outreach: $0.