It’s nine o’clock on a Friday,
The regular crowd shuffles in
With their buckets and mops, cleaners and socks
the nightly cleaning begins.

Yeah. I’m not a poet, but I am at work. T’was here until 2:00am “yesterday” night, and back in the chair by 10:00am “today”. So while everyone else is busy getting drunk tonight, I’m reading papers while enjoying a sandwich. Since you asked nicely, the one that caught my attention enough to write blog about it was Kiehl (1994).

This assumes that the clouds determining the cloud forcing are the optically thick cirrostratus clouds associated with deep convective cells. The tops of these clouds are indeed thought to be defined by the strong thermal stability directly above the tropical tropopause.

The strong thermal stability directly above the tropical tropopause? Perhaps caused by [[this phenomenon]]? That Wikipedia article is sadly typical of its dedication to quality. I suppose now that I’ve seen it I have an obligation to fix it. Since it was Kiehl’s paper that made me look it up, I’ll pass the buck to him.

* Kiehl, J., 1994: On the Observed Near Cancellation between Longwave and Shortwave Cloud Forcing in Tropical Regions. J. Climate, 7, 559–565.

NASA can find an acronym for anything. I’m sure some will recognize the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill, but what about this one:

REVEAL

No cheating. First correct response gets nothing except bragging rights.
I particularly like what the L stands for. As if that matters… but it completes the acronym.

I mentioned in one my latest posts that I’m going to be teaching an introductory weather and climate course this summer. I’ve exhausted the sources available, (why doesn’t the library seem to carry these introductory texts?) and the quality seems to range from “not what I’m looking for” to “might be able to use it” for the material that ”’I”’ think should be covered. Luckily, there’s this novel invention called interlibrary loan. It’s like magic. I click a link on a website, a form gets filled out automatically (which I’m supposed to check to make sure it’s right, but didn’t) and supposedly the book will appear in the library in a few days/weeks/months/sometime. If it works, it’ll be the best thing since Wikipedia. (I’m trying to change the phrase from ’sliced bread’. Although I’m not sure it works in this case, since IL probably existed before WP.)

I found 4 more potential textbooks to use, and 1 that just looked interesting. Can you tell which is which?

• The earth system by Kump, Kasting, and Crane
• Climatology by Rohli and Vega
• Earth’s climate : past and future by Ruddiman
• Climate change : picturing the science by Schmidt and Wolfe
• Understanding Earth by Grotzinger, Jordan, Press, and Siever

I’ve looked at these as possible texts, but they don’t have enough about climate.

• Essentials of Meteorology by Ahrens
• Meteorology Today: An Introduction to Weather, Climate, and the Environment by Ahrens
• Meteorology: The Atmosphere and Science of Weather by Moran, Morgan, and Pauley

This might be better, but I haven’t looked at it in depth yet.

• Understanding Weather and Climate by Aguado and Burt

I’m not quite sure a textbook exists that covers the material I want. Most seem to focus on meteorology. A few focus just on climatology. I’d like one that is about half and half. If I don’t make a decision soon, I’ll have to either use Essentials of Meteorology or have no official textbook. Any suggestions?

Scienceblogs is running their DonorsChoose drive again. I couldn’t make up my mind which one (or more) to donate to. There are a lot of worthy projects. Some teachers are asking for basic things like paper, pencils, hole punchers, and safety glasses. Luckily, Davig Ng at The World’s Fair found 3 very deserving environment related projects.

For every Atmoz reader that donates to one of these projects, I’ll make a donation of the same amount. If you decide to donate, please note it in the comments here. In the event there are no takers, I will split $100 among the 3.