Recreational Tornado Chasing: the Psychology of Risk

Who seeks the thrill of nature at its most beastly? Researchers at the University of Missouri’s School of Natural Resources surveyed people who sign up for tornado chasing with five different tour companies in Tornado Alley and found that:

  • 62 percent are male
  • 63 percent were single.
  • The mean age was almost 42.
  • More than 25 percent had an advance degree.
  • 33 percent earn more than $100,000 per year
  • More than half are visiting from outside the United States: one-third from Europe, 13 percent from Canada (although one company cooperating in the study chased in Canada), and 11 percent from Australia.

We know that chasing is a hobby that is hard to shake. Not all these tourists are newbies: 53 percent had previous chasing experience and fewer than half of those had done so with a tour company, yet over 30 percent of those with chasing experience had seen a tornado before. 68 percent said they would be willing to spend money on another chase tour.
In a Master’s thesis based on the study, Shuangyu Xu builds psychological profiles of people based on “sensation-seeking” scales of behavior that might identify motivations for chasing tornadoes (asking questions about, for example, predilections for strange foods, comfort with people who are different, and predilection for restlessness). Previous studies had used similar psychological tools to investigate mountaineering, sky diving, white water rafting, and other high risk recreation. The storm chasing tourists scored very moderately on these tests for sensation-seeking behavior.

[H]ang-glider pilots (Wagner & Houlihan, 1994), mountain climbers (Cronin, 1991), skiers, rock climbers, white water kayakers, and stunt flyers (Slanger & Rudestam, 1997) displayed high levels of sensation seeking across all dimensions. These results may suggest that recreational storm chasers are different from other risk recreation activity participants, especially because their personalities seem to be more drawn to new experiences rather than the risks involved.

The tourists professed to sign up to be near nature, to witness natural power and beauty, and to learn about tornadoes. They were not generally doing it to impress people or do something extraordinary, and only moderately interested in the thrill, danger, or risks.
About half of the tourists were able to see a funnel cloud on their trip (and almost 35 percent saw a tornado on the ground). Interestingly, though, while nine companies originally agreed to distribute surveys to customers, four ultimately did not, citing inadequate weather and challenging economic conditions. Maybe the real risk takers here are not the tourists but the tour operators, who put their financial well-being at the mercy of both the business climate and the weather.

Not Seasick…Science Smitten

What if you are asked to be part of a scientific expedition aboard a non-luxurious research vessel, surrounded by complete strangers, forced to face rough seas – and sea sickness, 16 hours’ work shifts, no weekends or recreational activities, no days off, lots of hours under the sun working with scientific equipment, poor internet connectivity and no interaction whatsoever with the outer world? While many people would say: “no thank you”, I was euphoric when I received an email which first line read: “Congratulations, you have been selected as a participant of the Sixth Aerosols and Oceans Science Expedition”.

So begins Mayra Oyola’s engaging story of work aboard the NOAA research vessel Ronald H. Brown for the AEROSE campaign

Beside The Ronald H. Brown.

under the auspices of Howard University, NOAA, and other institutions. It was apparently a love affair not just with the science and the sea, but with a lidar, too:

[E]very scientist is …assigned at least one particular instrument and is expected to become the one and only expert on that matter.  In a sense, every scientist establishes a sort of “bond” with his/her assigned instrument that is very similar romantic affair. You can grow such a strong love and hate relationship with it. There are days when you two can get along just fine. But other days you have to fight against temptations (like throwing it overboard or smashing it with a sledge hammer). There are days when your appointed instrument gets seduced by Murphy (in other words, goes haywire) and you have to make him/her understand that s/he is in a monogamous relationship with you.  As some partners, these instruments can be gold diggers (they cost hundreds/thousands of dollars) and are high maintenance as well.

And, this enticing view of the ocean:

When people say I must be crazy to have loved so much sailing on this expedition, I just ask them a couple of questions: Have you seen bioluminescence or done some fishing in the middle of the Atlantic basin? Or have you ever had the chance to catch a movie under the stars in the middle of the Sea? Well, I had.  There are some great perks about sailing on the Brown. There is nothing as beautiful as lying on deck at night for the most spectacular stargazing sessions you will experience in this world.  There are unusual things that you will never see in your everyday life: like watching a double rainbow or the most impressive towering cumulonimbus cloud EVER at the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITZC). I also loved watching different marine life forms like the flying fishes, dolphins and squids (oh yeah, we saw squids!). Oh and the sunsets… sunsets that will take your breath away!….But the highest reward is this:  we get to do REAL science to solve REAL problems, such as improving the quality of satellite operations,   understanding the effects of aerosols in hurricane formation and intensification and learning how tropospheric ozone can be linked to global warming, among many other things. There is nothing that can top that!

Check out the full story, and picture gallery, here, and kudos to Oyola for such drawing a compelling portrait of science at sea. We talk about the need to communicate science, and we’ll talk more about it as the Annual Meeting approaches, but she’s set a strong example already.

NOAA Names Regional Climate Services Directors

Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced the selection of six new NOAA regional climate services directors. According to NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco:

NOAA’s new regional directors are liaisons to state and regional users and providers of climate science and information; they will also bring information from the regions back into NOAA. They will work with our many partners to identify new and emerging regional climate issues and help NOAA develop products or services to address issues like local climate forecasts, drought plans or flood risk mapping.

The new directors will be stationed at the respective National Weather Service regional headquarters work for the National Climatic Data Center. They are:
Eastern Region: Ellen Mecray
For the last four years, Mecray led strategic planning for NOAA’s Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research  and facilitated  inter-and intra-agency dialog and collaboration on climate science in New England. She is the lead for the North Atlantic Regional Collaboration Team’s Climate sub-team which consists of 20 people representing all of NOAA’s line offices and key regional partners. Prior to joining NOAA, Mecray was an

Read more

"Media" Is Short for "Meteorology"

Studies of local TV news have been telling us this story for years: weather is what drives people to the media. Now, Nielsen Co. is saying the same thing about smart phone applications use. Weather app downloads rank near the top for all platforms.
Here’s a chart from their study, announced today at the AppNation conference in San Francisco, as reported by SDTimes.

National Climate Assessment Welcomes Your Comments

The US Global Change Research Program published its “US National Climate Assessment Objectives, Proposed Topics, and Next Steps” (also available here in html) in the 7 September 2010 issue of the Federal Register.
The program requests public comments on this document, which describes the objectives of the National Climate Assessment (NCA) process, provides an outline of the next NCA synthesis report (scheduled for publication in June 2013), and describes the next steps in planning for and implementing the NCA process.
Public comments on this document will be evaluated and, if appropriate, used to inform the NCA structure and process. Updates on the NCA structure and process will be posted on the NCA web site as they are available. Comments will also be provided to the Federal Advisory Committee for the NCA, the “National Climate Assessment Development and Advisory Committee,” when it is constituted this fall. All comments will be collated and posted on the NCA Web site.
Please submit comments here no later than 11:59 PM EST, October 8, 2010.

Art Gets Meteorological

Lawrence, Kansas, has been an epicenter of serious weather in the past–dating back at least to a killer tornado in 1913 and with numerous others documented there or nearby since.
An art show where you shouldn't forget to look up.Right now, however, Lawrence has got to be the epicenter of the weather-art world. First an ongoing exhibit through October 4 at the Lawrence Percolator gallery entitled “Clouds Are Easy to Love” features works on the walls–and ceiling–inspired by things meteorological. Channel 6 Meteorologist Jennifer Schack gave a talk at the gallery about the science of clouds.
Meanwhile, a “flash” exhibit in a vacant downtown retail space lasting less than a month, through the end of this week, is featuring some cerebral and sensory explorations of themes that ought to sound familiar: “explores the material attributes of the passage of light and its blockage (through opacity and diffusion)…”
Called “TRANS*parent TRANS*lucent,” the show at 739 Massachusetts St. in Lawrence features a drawing/painting on suspended mylar called “Meteorology,” by Linnea Spransy. Writes reviewer Ryan LaFerney,

"Meteorology," by Linnea Spransy.

[Spransy’s] work is about working within boundaries. She creates predetermined systems, underlying grids that her drawings and paintings are formed from. These grids serve as boundaries to be utilized and traversed. From these grids, which are determined by the artist, Spransy draws one single continuous line that blossoms into a labyrinth of molecular-looking abstractions. For Spransy, these limits generate surprise and even freedom. Meteorology is no different. The only difference is the physicality of the piece. It is experiential, like all of her

"Maelstrom," by Linnea Spransy.

work, but warrants a visceral response and physical interaction. Suspended from the ceiling, Meteorology, outstretched in transparent layers, reaches out to engulf the viewer. It is an inviting work that calls one to investigate the whirlwind of orderly detail from both sides ….The viewing experience is rendered not as one of solitude but as one best experienced in good company. Spransy ends up giving value both to the creative act and to community.

Sounds a lot like some atmospheric scientists we know. A sampling of Spransy’s  meteorologically oriented works, from her web site confirms the connection.

"Weak Potential Energy," by Linnea Spransy

"The Spectra of Light Emitted," by Linnea Spransy

"The Quantized Values of Angular Momentum," by Linnea Spransy.

The Rise of Mountain Meteorology

Mountains are already hard to miss, often hard to avoid, but in meteorology their prominence is only growing right now, according to John Horel and David Whiteman, chairs of last week’s AMS Conference on Mountain Meteorolog. Whiteman pointed in particular to new opportunities for modelers and observationalists to work together, bringing in new people to the field:

We’ve found over time that the models have improved at a faster rate than the observational equipment has improved, so what we tend to find is that there are people who are able to make their models work on smaller length scales but they find that they don’t have the observations to really evaluate how well the models are working. That’s been good for our community because we’ve also now been able to have a number of programs that combine these high performance models with an observational program….For the first time we can start to look at the very small features.

For more of Whiteman and Horel’s discussion with The Front Page, check out these video interviews (with apologies to John for the brilliant Sierra light in Squaw Valley!) from the AMS YouTube Channel, Ametsoc:


And for a more “down in the trenches” view of mountain meteorology (come to think of it, a rather nice view from the resort patio, between sessions), here’s another interview, with Thomas Chubb, Neil Lareau, and Temple Lee, recently uploaded to Ametsoc on YouTube:

How Much Was That Forecast Worth?

Despite the general good fortune that the storm stayed out at sea, there are plenty of grumblings about the cost of Hurricane Earl and more specifically the cost of preparing for it:

Last week’s storm was forecast to be the strongest to hit Long Island’s East End in nearly twenty years. And to handle possible outages, the Long Island Power Authority brought in 1,600 workers from out of state, at an estimated cost of $30 million. LIPA’s budget — already reeling from combating four major storms earlier this year — is now even further in the red.

(Fortunately, LIPA wisely understands the risks that Earl posed:

However, because the storm was supposed to hit such a wide area, LIPA says if it had to do it all over again, it still would’ve brought in those extra workers.)

And further north:

Airlines canceled dozens of flights into New England, and Amtrak suspended train service between New York and Boston….Massachusetts officials estimated that Cape Cod lost about 10 percent of its expected Labor Day weekend business, but were hopeful that last-minute vacationers would make up for it. Gov. Deval Patrick walked around Chatham on Saturday morning, proclaiming, “The sun is out and the Cape is open for business.”

So, as a palliative while people continue to grouse about paying the costs of meteorological uncertainties, read Mike Smith’s post about the savings this time when 450 miles of coastal warnings were issued compared to the much broader-brush (1,500 coastline miles warned) for Hurricane Floyd in 1999.

Instead of warning the entire East Coast as we had to during Floyd, the science of meteorology correctly identified that only the two areas (outer banks and far east Massachusetts) were at risk and warned accordingly. The forecast change in Earl’s direction of movement and rate of weakening were both remarkably good considering this forecast was two days out.

Taking NOAA’s calculations for evacuation costs per mile of coastline, and a reduction of 1,050 miles of warnings in similar situations, and do the math:

OK, now take those 1,050 miles and multiply them by a conservative figure of $700,000 in savings for each mile that correctly was not warned = $735 million dollars! ….And, when you figure in the value-added private sector hurricane forecasts issued by companies like WeatherData and its parent company AccuWeather, the savings grow further, perhaps approaching a billion dollars in total when the correct landfall forecast for Canada is factored in.

Clearly this depends on whether people actually evacuated based on the warnings, but the progress is clear, nonetheless, as are the positive benefits of recent improvements in track forecasts.

Welcome to the…Climate Zoo?

Astronomy has its Galaxy Zoo, in which citizen scientists across the internet–and hence the world–help professionals comb through millions of astronomical images in search of key celestial objects. Now the climate community may move toward creating what might end up being their own equivalent “Zoo” drawing on the vast resources of internet users to crunch temperature data.
At least that’s one of the possible outcomes of this week’s workshop in Exeter on developing global land surface temperature databases, which has been attracting considerably more media attention than most WMO workshops. Attendees include Google executives and Galaxy Zoo organizers who might help climatologists figure out a grassroots method to help digitize old ships logs and other climate data recovery efforts that require intensive processing.
On its YouTube channel, the UK Met Office, host of the workshop, posted the introduction from Peter Thorne, chair of the organizing committee:

Snow Rollers

Thanks to George Taylor (Applied Climate LLC) for pointing out excellent photos of snow rollers taken in 2009 by Tim Tevebaugh in Lewiston, Idaho, Here’s just one of several that can be found at the NWS-Spokane website:

.
Taylor’s blog provides a good description of the phenomenon.