[FRIAM] The Jet Stream

[Nicholas Thompson]

Calvin Simonds The WeatherWise Gardener.  Rodale Press,  1980 something.
The title is misleading.  It is a general meteorology text with gardeners
in mind.  One of a series I started which i called "understand-it-yourself"
books. I think it holds up remarkably well. The effects of climate warming
have altered some of the here rather than there, or the now, rather than in
two weeks, or the Holy Shit, rather than the merely awful.  But the general
principles are unchanged.   I am stupidly proud of it.    A lot more about
the role of the jet stream has come clear since its publication, so I am
hoping to correct that. If you have trouble finding a copy, I will send one
to you.

My grandson, about to graduate from Grinnell, an accomplished
bio-photographer and artist (see attached), would like to get back to
Peru;, which he visited briefly on his way back from a semester in Ecuador
and the Galapagos.  Any thoughts?

Gary, I have only met you once, but for some reason it was really
memorable.  Please stay in touch.

Nick



On Tue, Nov 19, 2024 at 12:59 PM Gary Schiltz <gary at naturesvisualarts.com>
wrote:

> Hey Nick, I knew you were interested in weather, but didn’t know you had a
> book about it. Reference please?
>
> On Tue, Nov 19, 2024 at 2:00 PM Nicholas Thompson <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> As a part of my plan to revise my weather book, I have been working on a
>> chapter on the jet stream.  I am thinking of using the passage below as a
>> kind of epigraph.  I am sending it along because it brings together two of
>> the salient concerns of Our Glorious Leader.  Comments, fact checks, grumpy
>> comments always welcome.
>>
>> *During the winter of 1944-5, in the last desperate days of World War II,
>> the Japanese military launched hundreds of incendiary balloons into the jet
>> stream, hoping to ignite fires in American forests.  This ingenious scheme
>> worked.  Many balloons made the 5,000 mile trip and some even started small
>> fires. However, the plan ultimately failed. For a large fire to be kindled
>> by one of these devices, the ground had to be had to be dry, the
>> temperature high, the humidity  low, the water table depleted, all
>> conditions that often occur during summer droughts.   Winter, however, is
>> the wet season in the American west. The same jet stream that brought in
>> the balloons, also brought in waves of pacific moisture that soaked the
>> ground and covered the high mountains in deep banks of snow.   *
>>
>> *This bit of military history illustrates the relationship between the
>> jet stream and the weather we all experience, day by day.  The jet stream
>> can initiate severe weather, can spark it, one might say, but only where
>> conditions below have been primed.  Its seeds can only flourish where the
>> ground has been prepared.  *
>>
>> --
>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
>> Clark University
>> nthompson at clarku.edu
>> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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-- 
Nicholas S. Thompson
Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
Clark University
nthompson at clarku.edu
https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
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