[FRIAM] The Jet Stream

Gary Schiltz gary at naturesvisualarts.com
Tue Nov 19 18:14:14 EST 2024


Hi Nick. Is Calvin Simonds your nom de plume? The book sounds great,
and I'd get it in a heartbeat if it was available electronically
(yeah, I'm one of *those* people LOL).

I don't really have anything to say about Peru, I barely know Ecuador
despite living here for 16 years, but if your grandson decides to
visit Ecuador instead, I'd be happy to meet him. I attended quite a
few FRIAM and Wedtech meetings back in the early 2000s, and on my only
trip back to the states, in 2012, which is probably when we met. I now
just lurk on FRIAM and occasionally post some snarky irrelevant
comment to cover how above my head are most of the conversations. But
I still enjoy the camaraderie of being around the complexity crowd.
Frank was my first boss in Santa Fe, at Bios Group. I still miss Santa
Fe, and am so sad that I'll never be able to shoot the breeze with
Carl Tollander. He was a true gentleman and scholar.

On Tue, Nov 19, 2024 at 5:02 PM Nicholas Thompson
<thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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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>>
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>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
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>
>
>
> --
> Nicholas S. Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Ethology
> Clark University
> nthompson at clarku.edu
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson
> .- .-.. .-.. / ..-. --- --- - . .-. ... / .- .-. . / .-- .-. --- -. --. / ... --- -- . / .- .-. . / ..- ... . ..-. ..- .-..
> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Fridays 9a-12p Friday St. Johns Cafe   /   Thursdays 9a-12p Zoom https://bit.ly/virtualfriam
> to (un)subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
> FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
> archives:  5/2017 thru present https://redfish.com/pipermail/friam_redfish.com/
>   1/2003 thru 6/2021  http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/



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