Eyes on the Southwest Pacific

Over the last couple of days a large region of enhanced cloudiness propagated from north of Australia towards the South Pacific Convergence Zone (SPCZ). In association with the passage of the region we saw the development of several tropical cyclones. There is good evidence that these are, at least partly due, by the eastward propagation of an active phase of the Madden-Julian Oscillation  (MJO). Below is an animation of the last days over this region.

Why this suspicion, well first CPC has low-level wind anomaly maps, which is showing a region of strong westerly wind anomalies north of Australia. 

Second, the now famous index for monitoring MJO activity of Wheeler and Hendon (2004, http://cawcr.gov.au/staff/mwheeler/maproom/RMM/) is showing a large index at phase 8. The corresponding map for a phase 8 disturbance is shown in the bottom right panel below. Both the CPC wind anomalies and the cloudiness over the southwest Pacific are consistent with an active MJO event in this region. 

I highly recommend people to check out the link below to see the Google Earth streamlines for this region, linked below

http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-186.51,-11.97,512

Coloring the grey skies: prologue

About a year ago I was walking in the hallways at a science festival in eastern Washington when I overheard a lady talking to his kids, two boys. The kid said to his mom:

"Mami yo quiero ir a estudiar a UW cuando sea grande" (Mom I wanna study at UW when I grow up)

To which his mother replied: "Si hijo eso sería maravilloso pero tendríamos que ahorrar mucho dinero" (Yes son that'd be wonderful  but we have to save a lot of money for that)

At that point I felt compelled to interrupt their conversation (and probably take them by surprise cause in all likelihood they weren't expecting me to understand their conversation) and talk to them in Spanish for a bit.

The conversation went like "I want my kids to go to a good college to get a great education but our family cannot afford it", to which I walked over a table, grabbed a tiny notepad and a pen and wrote down about 10 scholarships for her kids to apply to and a bunch of websites that gave tips on how to get into college. There were scholarships that helped with tuitions, loans, applications, SAT tips, well ... everything.

The lady thanked me and asked me why I helped her and I said:

"Todos merecemos tener la oportunidad de al menos luchar por lo que queremos tener"
(We all deserve a change to at least fight for what we want)

I think this is probably that I have responded to this kind of question this way. I usually say something that comes out as awkward or silly and then have to deal with embarrassment the rest of the day.  I could have honestly said something better anyways.

The truth is that I saw those kids, preteens. At such a young age they knew they wanted to go to college and get a degree. They had that sparkle in their eyes that only kids with ambition have. How could you deny them the opportunity to have a fighting chance?

So with a simple smile I gave them the notepad and pen and directed them to a bunch of booths where other people might be even more helpful. Outreach, sometimes I consider it the highlight of my career, to talk to people about science and all the excitement and travel you could possibly do.  It can be a double-edge sword, however. It's like you're at this beach with a bunch of people and you point them at this great island, and perhaps you help them get geared up to swim that way, but you don't tell them there's an undercurrent along the way.

Turned out that was the first pair of kids I talked to about college that day out of many. This is not a particularly special day, it has happened a couple of other times.  I just couldn't help but to wonder how life would be if every kid that wished to have a chance to pursue what they wanted could have a chance to do it? Truth be told, it hurts deep down in the soul to just think about that day, cause I feel like I sold them dreams to sweeten a bitter reality.