Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Coast to Coast and my guest is
Speaker 2: Deborah Buris, and we are talking about weather Magic, which
Speaker 2: is the name of her book. Before the break, we
Speaker 2: were talking about more extreme patterns in the weather, and
Speaker 2: we were talking about the ocean's heating up, not cooling
Speaker 2: like they should be doing, and holding all of that
Speaker 2: co two in the atmosphere. Why tell me why it
Speaker 2: is heating up in the first place. I mean, your
Speaker 2: experience of that as an astrophysicist, I'm really curious.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean you can say, you can call it
Speaker 3: whatever word you want to call it, but humans have
Speaker 3: had an impact on this planet since the industrial age, right,
Speaker 3: so we are producing these gases and it's just the fact.
Speaker 4: And I'm just looking for the facts, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Our atmosphere is compared and nitrogen and oxygen, and
Speaker 3: it has some carbon dioxide in it naturally, and that's
Speaker 3: a good thing. Right. We need the green we need
Speaker 3: People used to call it say, oh, it's the green
Speaker 3: half effect. Well we need the greenhouse effect. You want
Speaker 3: some greenhouse effects, because if you don't have that, if
Speaker 3: you don't have the heat ability to keep a little
Speaker 3: bit of heat in the atmosphere, then you get these
Speaker 3: verit you would get this crazy extreme difference in temperature
Speaker 3: between night and day, like it would be you know,
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty degrees during the daytime and you
Speaker 3: know minus thirty at night, and when who wants that?
Speaker 4: Hat? Okay, So it keeps the temperatures, it.
Speaker 3: Moderates the temperature, and that's a good thing. What you
Speaker 3: don't want is the runaway green half effect, which is
Speaker 3: what the planet Venus has. Venus is an example of
Speaker 3: what you don't want. It is the atmosphere on Venus
Speaker 3: is full of not just carbon dioxide, but other more
Speaker 3: volatile gases that retain heat. And so the temperature on
Speaker 3: Venus is about the same all the time. It's about
Speaker 3: nine hundred degrees fahrenheit all the time because that heat
Speaker 3: gets trapped in there and it can't reradiate back out
Speaker 3: into the atmosphere, so they're back out into space. So
Speaker 3: think about, for example, in the winter, like we talk
Speaker 3: about when we start to look at like is it
Speaker 3: going to freeze tonight? Is there going to be a
Speaker 3: frost tonight? If you're a gardener, is it going to
Speaker 3: be a frost, Do I need to go outside and
Speaker 3: cover up my tomatoes or whatever? If it's the cloudy night,
Speaker 3: Generally that is not going to happen because the clouds,
Speaker 3: because they are full of water vapor, which also holds
Speaker 3: onto heat, kind of acts as an insulating blanket and
Speaker 3: it doesn't allow all of the heat to reradiate back
Speaker 3: out into space, and it keeps the temperature on average
Speaker 3: a little bit warmer overnight, and so your tomatoes don't
Speaker 3: get frost bite.
Speaker 4: That's why the coastal towns are so temperate.
Speaker 3: Right exactly exactly, clear night, you're going to probably get
Speaker 3: a frost because that he's going to just go back
Speaker 3: out and you know the daytime heating is going to
Speaker 3: reradiate back out in space. Yeah, you're exactly right. Coastal
Speaker 3: regions are a lot more temperate because of the water,
Speaker 3: whereas inland areas are a little bit have a little
Speaker 3: wider variation in those temperatures because there don't have the
Speaker 3: sort of that insulation of the water being close by.
Speaker 3: So to me, what's happening is if we get this
Speaker 3: two way, it's kind of a three part problem in
Speaker 3: my opinion, and I'm not a climatologist, so I'm just
Speaker 3: going to say what and from a from a physics
Speaker 3: point of view, what I see happening. You've got, you know,
Speaker 3: you get this heat coming in. You have an extra
Speaker 3: CO two in the atmosphere because we don't have Now,
Speaker 3: the vegetation is going away because we're you know, we're
Speaker 3: cutting down trees and we're clear cutting things for agriculture,
Speaker 3: which we've got to have to feed more people. And
Speaker 3: so if you get rid of plants and you pay
Speaker 3: Paradise to put up parking lot, what you do is
Speaker 3: you run out of the things that are going to
Speaker 3: help get that CO two out of the atmosphere. Then
Speaker 3: what that does is then you change the ability of
Speaker 3: the surfaces to absorb and release heat. Because you know,
Speaker 3: plants are good at absorbing heat and they kind of
Speaker 3: hang on to it. Whereas you get metallic surfaces in
Speaker 3: concrete and cities change the weather, they do they have
Speaker 3: their own sort of heat sink around them. You know,
Speaker 3: if you've ever been close to a brick building at night,
Speaker 3: you can feel the heat coming off the bricks. Right
Speaker 3: then you had the next pieces or the last piece
Speaker 3: of the puzzle to me is when you start heating
Speaker 3: up the oceans, you melt ice. Ice reflects light better
Speaker 3: than liquid water. That's why when you go outside on
Speaker 3: a snowy day and it's sunny, very bright outside, because
Speaker 3: snow and ice reflect light back into space. So if
Speaker 3: you lose that ability to reflect back some of the
Speaker 3: solar energy, now you're absorbing even more of it into
Speaker 3: the ocean. And so you you know, exacerbated the problem
Speaker 3: even more. So those pieces to me or what me
Speaker 3: is responsible or are responsible for what we're seeing in
Speaker 3: this more extreme weather patterns. Now, there will be people
Speaker 3: say that, well, this is a long term cycle that
Speaker 3: the Earth is goes through, and yet there are these
Speaker 3: very long term you know, ten thousand years, one hundred
Speaker 3: thousand year. I think they're called millan COVID cycles. I
Speaker 3: can't remember exactly because again I'm not a climate scientist.
Speaker 3: But the if you look at data from like a
Speaker 3: union of concerned scientist, you see that there's this overall
Speaker 3: upward trend that cannot be explained away by these long term,
Speaker 3: natural occurring cycles. So, you know, I like data. I
Speaker 3: tend to believe what the data says, and so I'm like,
Speaker 3: that's that's that's there, that there's a problem. And so
Speaker 3: if you've got this extra heat, one of the things
Speaker 3: that it's going to do is it's going to create
Speaker 3: you know, unpredictable or sometimes maybe predictable, but you know,
Speaker 3: how do you deal with changes in the weather, So
Speaker 3: bigger hurricanes, longer hurricane season, a bigger tornade, know, you know,
Speaker 3: the more dramatic bomb cyclones that we're seeing now. I
Speaker 3: think maybe either are all the results of this additional
Speaker 3: heat that we can't we can't just explain that away
Speaker 3: in my.
Speaker 2: Opinion, right, and this whole union of concerned scientists talk
Speaker 2: about that. I would just pulled up an article about
Speaker 2: heat waves and climate change and what science tells us
Speaker 2: about extreme heat events which we're heading into again for
Speaker 2: this summer, and they do keep getting longer and more intense,
Speaker 2: and you just explain beautifully why. Now I'm curious about
Speaker 2: how in terms of magic or.
Speaker 4: Rain making, I mean, can we help this?
Speaker 3: Well? Okay, so I'm gonna I have a lady who
Speaker 3: I adore. Her name is Dorothy Morrison, and she's an
Speaker 3: author of many many mini witch books, and she is
Speaker 3: sort of my hashtag itch goals, and she would do
Speaker 3: these workshops on how to use magic in your day
Speaker 3: to day life to get things done. And I remember
Speaker 3: very clearly there was a woman who said, you know,
Speaker 3: my husband started remodeling my kitchen and he won't finish it,
Speaker 3: and what magic do I need to do to get
Speaker 3: him to see that? From Texas? And she has a
Speaker 3: very Southern accent like I do, and she said, oh, honey,
Speaker 3: you don't need to do magic for that. You need
Speaker 3: to hire that done and charge his credit card. And
Speaker 3: I immediately fell in love with her in that instant.
Speaker 3: But there are things that we could do magically, but
Speaker 3: there are things we could do as you know, pagan
Speaker 3: communities or which communities or whatever. I go to so
Speaker 3: many events where there's no recycling, and I'm like, you're
Speaker 3: an outdoor event. We're supposed to be in earth based religion.
Speaker 3: Where's the recycling. Then I realized that it may seem
Speaker 3: like recycling is not is just a drop in the bucket,
Speaker 3: And it is, but it's better than no drops in
Speaker 3: the bucket. We can we can vote with our dollars.
Speaker 3: We can try to choose companies who promote greener practices.
Speaker 3: We can try to be greener ourselves. I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: we are I live in the south, there is very
Speaker 3: little public transportation, but you know, my boyfriend lives in town.
Speaker 3: We try to walk instead of drive, you know, the
Speaker 3: two blocks where is. So there are small things that
Speaker 3: we can do that are not magical, but they are
Speaker 3: earth centered, which you know, we we have to quep.
Speaker 3: One of the things that I get really irritated about
Speaker 3: is people treat this planet like it's a truck stops
Speaker 3: on the rate that are great beyond right. They see
Speaker 3: this as just, oh, this is just a temporary place.
Speaker 3: I don't really need to take care of it, and
Speaker 3: you do, and it's.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it gets trashed for that reason. And you can
Speaker 2: always tell where humans have been because they leave trash, right.
Speaker 3: And so those are not necessarily magical things you can do,
Speaker 3: but they are mindful things you can do. Now in
Speaker 3: terms of magical practices, I mean, you know, we can
Speaker 3: try to just work for To me, when I do
Speaker 3: magic for something like this, I don't try to say
Speaker 3: I want to change the heating of the ocean. I
Speaker 3: want to change the mindset and the energy of the
Speaker 3: people that I can impact. And then it's like that
Speaker 3: old was it the Dominoes commercial that you tell two friends,
Speaker 3: and they tell two friends, and then they tell two friends.
Speaker 3: If I can affect change in my immediate community to
Speaker 3: be more mindful, right, if I can ask for that
Speaker 3: in the universe, then maybe those people can spread those
Speaker 3: little ripples on out. Are there magic spells and things
Speaker 3: that you can do? Yeah, but I've tried to say
Speaker 3: my magical practices for things that are within my immediate route.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. Well, right, let's talk a lot
Speaker 2: a little bit about clouds. You so, say, for example,
Speaker 2: you're in an airplane and there's so much more turbulence
Speaker 2: than airplanes these days. What types of clouds should you
Speaker 2: be looking out for if you're flying? Or okay, are
Speaker 2: these extreme heat events?
Speaker 3: That's a very good that's a very good question. You know,
Speaker 3: when you get the what clouds the clouds you need
Speaker 3: to look for that you're going to know there's going
Speaker 3: to be turbulents or ones that we say have vertical development.
Speaker 3: So those are your cumula form clouds, your puppy clouds,
Speaker 3: like the clouds already draws and you tell them draw
Speaker 3: a cloud, right, those are called cumulus clouds, and they
Speaker 3: aren't considered a cloud with vertical development, because for them
Speaker 3: to be able to grow into like a cumulonimbus, which
Speaker 3: is the thunderstorm it, you have to have instability, a
Speaker 3: lost and you have to have rising air. And rising
Speaker 3: air with instability equals turbulence. So if you see, like
Speaker 3: if you fly close to a big thunderstorm, one of
Speaker 3: the things you can look for is very often those
Speaker 3: have those flat anble that sort of classic I don't
Speaker 3: whine gesturing with my hand, i'f I, but I'm doing that.
Speaker 3: They have that flat anvil top. But if they are
Speaker 3: a very strong storm with a lot of upward convection
Speaker 3: like the boiling of a pot is convection, like the
Speaker 3: upward moving of the air, they will have what's called
Speaker 3: an overshoot, which kind of looks like cauliflower tops on
Speaker 3: these flat anvils. If they have that, that means there's
Speaker 3: a lot of upward convection which can lead to more turbulence.
Speaker 3: So you see that a lot in these really big
Speaker 3: super cells that you get over sort of the great
Speaker 3: planes and Oklahoma. You know, I lived in Oklahoma for
Speaker 3: thirteen years, and I saw a lot of these really huge,
Speaker 3: massive thunderstorms. Maybe to have these sort of bubbly cauliflower
Speaker 3: overshooting tops, and those storms are the ones that are
Speaker 3: the most likely to become planatic. Really, so yeah, because
Speaker 3: what that means is there's a lot of vertical lift
Speaker 3: and it creates wind shear, which wind shehre is where
Speaker 3: you have two layers of air that are kind of
Speaker 3: moving at different speeds going over the top of each other.
Speaker 3: And what that does is that can create a role.
Speaker 3: Imagine like, well, we don't have big fat phone books
Speaker 3: anymore because they were the first example of this, But
Speaker 3: if you take a really thick book and you push
Speaker 3: on the top cover of it, it's going to kind
Speaker 3: of go, it's going to kind of lean a little bit. Oh,
Speaker 3: that's the shears. That's the shear. So you're pushing on
Speaker 3: that top layer and it's moving more than the layers
Speaker 3: beneath it, and so that creates that tilt. Well, imagine
Speaker 3: doing that with like water or air. That's going to
Speaker 3: cause that stuff to start to roll and you're going
Speaker 3: to get this burt this horizontal sort of rolling effect.
Speaker 3: Which then if you get a lot of uplift in
Speaker 3: your storm, that's going to kick that roll up and
Speaker 3: it's going to create rotation in the storm. So, uh,
Speaker 3: that's kind of a long explanation.
Speaker 4: No, I love this. This is great.
Speaker 2: So you could identify the clouds and if you're if
Speaker 2: you're in an airplane, or if you're looking up in
Speaker 2: the sky and you see the cauliflower type of clouds,
Speaker 2: you can expect wind to come with that right right.
Speaker 3: In storms, Yeah, it's the top especially it's the tops
Speaker 3: of these storms. The other thing you can look for
Speaker 3: in storms like that are in in in thunderstorm clouds,
Speaker 3: look for water called mammatis clouds. Mammatis clouds are named
Speaker 3: because they look like mammary glands. They look like, you know,
Speaker 3: utters on a cow breast. What are the little pouchy
Speaker 3: forms that form out in front of this cloud. They
Speaker 3: almost look like a bubble wrap in a way, you know,
Speaker 3: because there's these little pouches that form out in front
Speaker 3: of the storm. And what that means is there's a
Speaker 3: lot of turbulence and instability aloft in that storm. Again,
Speaker 3: that means a lot of uplift. Uplift can often lead
Speaker 3: to rotation, which then can be a tornado, a pop storm,
Speaker 3: or at least a storm that has the potential of
Speaker 3: a form a tornado. So that's another thing you can
Speaker 3: look for.
Speaker 2: There's so much when it comes to our weather and
Speaker 2: our sky and all the events that are happening. I'm
Speaker 2: in California and the wind event that happened here was
Speaker 2: close to one hundred mile an hour winds, which that
Speaker 2: ignited the Palisades and the Eton area. It was just
Speaker 2: impossible to prevent at the time because the winds were
Speaker 2: carrying the embers so fast and so far. But I
Speaker 2: had heard on the radio that morning. I was driving
Speaker 2: and it was earlier in the morning, and the meteorologists
Speaker 2: were on the air saying, this is going to be
Speaker 2: a stronger wind event that you've ever seen before. You
Speaker 2: can tell by the hot air and the cold air
Speaker 2: meeting and the clouds. And so there was cold air
Speaker 2: coming from the sierra the mountains, and then the hot
Speaker 2: air was coming from the valley and you could see
Speaker 2: the clouds rising up into the air with that puffy
Speaker 2: cauliflower top that they were dark right, So it was
Speaker 2: I guess there was a perfect storm happening out there.
Speaker 2: But meteorologists could tell this was going to be an
Speaker 2: eighty to ninety mile an hour wind. It was completely predictable.
Speaker 3: Right, well, because what they can do now is we
Speaker 3: It's something called the Cape index, which is getting WILLI
Speaker 3: like data? You know, I'm a data walk when it
Speaker 3: comes to meteorology. The Tape index is a measure of
Speaker 3: the instability. So it's a measure of what they were
Speaker 3: probably looking at, is that instability. Now, what happened with
Speaker 3: y'all is that air. You know, you had very cold
Speaker 3: air and you had very warm air. They were both
Speaker 3: dry air mashes, and that's why they create because what
Speaker 3: they did is not only were they carrying the embers,
Speaker 3: they were drying out the vegetation because they had no
Speaker 3: humidity in them.
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