-Caveat Lector- What a neat way to cook the books, pun intended, and make it appear that global warming is actually taking place. Dupont needs to sell more of their new refrigerant worldwide now that their patent on freon has expired so we need it to appear to be really heating up. Let's just change the way we compute the chill factor so everything will appear to be escalating. And of course, outlaw the old freon and aerosol propellants. That should get those sales figures up there. ~Amelia~ A warmer winter ahead? Just on paper Terry Collins Star Tribune Thursday, August 16, 2001 Those days of a 70-below windchill factor in Minnesota are almost surely a thing of the past. That's not because of global warming, but because the windchill factor will be figured differently from now on. The National Weather Service is revising how cold it feels in a given combination of temperature and wind strength. In the past, the agency measured windchill at an altitude of 33 feet. Now readings will be taken at 5 feet above the ground, where most of us actually feel the arctic gusts biting our faces in January and February. For example, with the temp at zero and wind at 20 miles per hour, the windchill would be 39 below under the old formula. Starting in November, it would be 22 below. "We may not see numbers like [70 below] ever again," Craig Edwards, chief meteorologist at the Weather Service in Chanhassen, said Wednesday. "We have to rethink what our criteria will be for headlining a forecast with a windchill advisory or warning." For decades, the windchill factor -- which combines air temperature and wind speed for a reading of what it supposedly "feels like" -- has been a staple of winter weather forecasts, especially in Minnesota. Wednesday's temperature illustrates that windchill knows no season in Minnesota. At 2 p.m., the temperature in the Twin Cities was 65 degrees, but an 11-mph wind out of the southwest made it feel like 58, the Weather Service said. And that's with more than a month until fall, which starts Sept. 21. Last week, Minnesotans were concerned about the heat index, which factors in humidity to assess how hot it feels. From Aug. 5 to 8, the heat indices approached 110 to 115 degrees. A little history A change in the windchill factor has been a long time coming. It was created during an Antarctic expedition in the 1940s by U.S. Army Maj. Paul Siple, a geographer, and geologist Charles F. Passel. The two researchers hung plastic cylinders of water in the open air and measured the rate at which the water froze as temperatures and wind speeds changed. The Weather Service adopted the windchill index in 1973. But for decades, scientists have been concerned that the formula overestimates how cold it actually feels. Last year, the Weather Service appointed Maurice Blue stein, an engineering professor at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis, and Randall Osczevski, an environmental physicist with Canada's Defense Department, to develop a new system combining studies they had done independently over years. This summer, a dozen volunteers participated in a two-month study in Canada to examine the body's heat loss in simulated windchill conditions. The researchers focused on the face and head, the most exposed surfaces and most likely to suffer frostbite or cause hypothermia. They presented their findings to American and Canadian weather officials, who approved them for both countries earlier this month in Toronto. Starting in November, the public "will see warmer, more accurate readings, but the weather won't change," Blue stein said Wednesday. "It will still be cold." The new windchill system shows that humans generate heat, unlike the plastic cylinders used in the Siple-Passel model, Bluestein said. He added that the current windchill index also ignores human activity, not to mention sunshine and humidity. The sun's rays can make air temperature feel 10 degrees warmer, he said. Marcia Baisch, principal of Katherine Curren Elementary School in Hopkins, said Wednesday that warmer-sounding windchill readings will not deter her student recess policy next winter. "If there's no windchill, we'll go outside," Curren said. "If it's colder, we'll have indoor recess. We know Minnesota weather can change very quickly." Likewise, Edwards said he thinks Minnesotans who love outdoor winter activities, such as ice fishing and snowmobiling, shouldn't get a false of security with the new, balmier windchills. "I have a hard time believing that I'm going to feel warmer this winter. Cold is cold," he said. "But I'd like to think we're more informed. Nobody is going to argue that there isn't a windchill in the air, so we still have to be prepared." -- Terry Collins is at [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Return to top © Copyright 2001 Star Tribune. All rights reserved. <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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