Autumn 2011 Atmospheric Circulation Newsletter of the University of Washington Atmospheric Sciences Department Making of the YouTube Can Crushing Video by Kelly McCusker he Department of Atmospheric Sciences and boiled down to the essential information, all brief departure to smooth jazz while the Safety TOutreach group has recently ventured while remaining within the story arc and incor- Chicken shared his safety message. into a bold new frontier: YouTube. Composed porating some humor. “Due to recent advances The rest of the crew for this video included: of faculty, staff, and students, our group has in de-cylindrification theory, the power to crush Bryce Harrop, Brian Smoliak, Jack Scheff, and been volunteering time for over 20 years, shar- cans without undue physical exertion is now in yours truly, with new additions for upcoming ing science with youth on visits to the depart- the power of everyday citizens like yourself!” videos. The process was exceptionally fun, but ment, demonstrating concepts relevant to the Pure genius! We had lots of fun coming up with we did run across some pitfalls, many of which atmosphere, and generally illustrating the won- everyone’s lines. Can you pick out the lines that the group has since corrected. In order to cre- ders of our field. ate high definition video, we now utilize an reference an early 90’s song? In early 2009, the outreach group was HD video camera from the UW Student Tech Step three: filming. We used the department approached by UW’s Joint Institute for the Fee equipment office. We also now focus on Study of the Atmosphere and Ocean (JISAO) to video camera, providing us the flexibility to maintaining consistent audio throughout (care- participate in their Science in 180 initiative. The film on multiple days, including one afternoon ful placement of any microphones or backup idea was to create 3-minute videos for online where many grad-student volunteers acted as video cameras, avoiding echoes, etc.). Finally, distribution that demonstrate a simple scien- water vapor molecules and liquid water drops we acquired video editing software—thanks to tific concept at a middle school level. We were on the ATG roof. Thanks to hysterical bloop- our gracious Department Chair—so editing can excited from the start, envisioning viral videos ers and goofiness, the “crew” probably had the be done comfortably in-house, and with high- and movie-stardom for all. most laughs during filming. quality software. Our debut video involved “can-crushing,” Step four was less fun: editing the footage. The end result of our efforts—borne out of a popular demonstration wherein the power of This required many, many…many hours inside JISAO’s idea but very much distinctly Atmos. air pressure is used to crush a soda can. When the Odegaard Library computer lab using the Outreach—is a quirky, 290-second video that Assistant Professor Dargan Frierson signed on video-editing software. Thank goodness for now has almost 3,500 views on YouTube. You to help out with its creation, we knew it would Reid Wolcott, who accomplished the bulk of can find the link to the video and to our YouTube be a hit. the job. This was the most iterative step, and channel at the outreach website, www.atmos. Step one was storyboarding. In order to where the most improvements were made. At washington.edu/~outreach. Also, stay tuned maintain a viewer’s interest throughout, we cre- for the soon-to-be-released video: Cloud-in-a- one point we encountered a potentially disas- ated an overarching storyline—the main charac- Bottle: THE MOVIE! trous problem when the original video files ter (Cool Guy) is a poor soul who is incapable of By the way, the lines that reference the crushing a can. He feels uncool because he lacks were LOST FOREVER; we resorted to editing 1990’s song are in an exchange between the this ability, while it seems everyone else can do a less-flexible file format, which proved a bit Cool Guy and the Scientist. Cool Guy: “Let’s it—even felines! Enter the Scientist to save the frustrating. get this party started,” Scientist: “Right,” Cool day with air pressure. Finally, step five was musical scoring. The Guy: “Quickly”—in deference to lyrics from Step two was scripting the storyline. Our finishing touch is, of course, the soundtrack. the beginning of C&C Music Factory’s dance goals were to be clear, concise, and hilarious. Dargan Frierson provided a lively, bluegrass tune “Here We Go (Let’s Rock & Roll),” circa Concepts needed to be repeated in multiple ways score to keep the video moving along, with a 1990. The beginning and end of the 3-minute video starring Brian Smoliak as the Cool Guy. 1 Department of Atmospheric Sciences Chair’s Column This academic year, UW tuition is rising by Department News 20%. Each student’s tuition and mandatory fees any of you will total $10,574. Interestingly, Washington rof. Thomas Ackerman has been elected Mmay have State University will remain more pricey than Pas a Fellow of the AGU. heard about signifi- UW; WSU’s tuition and fees, which are going up Prof. David Battisti was one of the organizers cant changes in the more slowly (a 16% increase), will cost $10,798 for the College of the Environment’s public lec- tuition paid by UW per year. The UW will also remain less expen- ture series on “Food: Eating Your Environment.” students and the level sive than many of our peer public universities, Daniel Grosvenor joined Prof. Wood’s re- of support that the such as the University of Michigan ($13,434) search group as a postdoc in March 2011. Dan- UW receives from and UCLA ($11,643). iel got his Ph.D. from the School of Earth, At- the state. I have read Many of our undergrads work part time to mospheric and Environmental Sciences at the a few things about finance their education, and as we know all too University of Manchester. this that were mis- well, wages are not increasing at a rate remotely Prof. Dennis Hartmann was honored by be- leading, so I’d like to similar to that of college tuition. We always ing selected as the Bernhard Haurwitz Memorial take this opportunity greatly appreciate the donations that have been Lecturer for 2011. He was given the honor for to set the record straight. given to the department by our alumni and the many important and fundamental contribu- As shown in the accompanying figure, after friends. During these difficult economic times, tions to our understanding of atmospheric and accounting for inflation, the cost of educating a your help makes a tremendous difference. Con- climate dynamics. The lecture was presented at UW student (total student funding per FTE) is tributions to the Richard and Joan Reed Under- the American Meteorological Society’s annual slightly less today than it was in 1989. In 1990, graduate Endowed Scholarship fund will help meeting on January 25. the state provided nearly 80% of the funding provide financial support for our undergraduate Prof. Lyatt Jaeglé has been promoted to full per student and the students covered the other majors. professor effective September 16, 2011. 20%. From 1990 to 2008, there was a steady I’d like to close by again thanking those of Louise Leahy won second place in the AMS decline in state support and a roughly similar you who have sent us information about your student poster award for the Third Symposium steady increase in the tuition paid by undergrad- activities, which we have collected on page 7. It on Aerosol-Cloud-Climate Interactions. uates. Beginning in 2009 the situation changed; is always great to hear from you. Please help us Art Rangno, retired Cloud and Aerosol state support for UW has shrunk drastically, and share news about you and your family with your Research Group (CARG) meteorologist, volun- tuition has gone up sharply. As a consequence, classmates by sending us your updates. teered to do a mountain of work for the depart- in the new academic year, the students will now Best wishes, ment this spring. Art has scanned 16 boxes of CARG data over the last few months and com- pay for most of the cost of their instruction Dale Durran (about 70%) while the states contribution has piled them onto DVDs for the department. Art dwindled to roughly 30%. is also sending a copy of these DVDs to NCAR for their archives (Steve Williams, Data Man- ager). Kudos to Art for his hard work for the department and the bygone CARG! State and Tuition Funding per FTE Kristen Rasmussen and Scott Powell par- (in 2013 Dollars) ticipated in the Seattle Mariners and KOMO 4 $25,000 Weather Education Day on June 1. Approxi- mately 4,000 students attended the event at $17,000 $16,600 Safeco Field. Kristen and Scott did weather (FUNDING PER FTE) (FUNDING PER FTE) experiments by creating a cloud in a bottle as $20,000 well as imploding soda cans with a fun emphasis on atmospheric pressure. Steve Pool and Scott Sistek from KOMO TV/Radio and Ted Buehner of NWS Seattle were also among the educators. $15,000 Former visiting scientist, Ulrike (Ulli) Ro- matschke, successfully completed her Ph.D. defense (with a top grade of “sehr gut”) at the $10,000 University of Vienna on Dec. 13, 2011. Her dis- sertation research was all done at the UW under an agreement between Prof. Robert Houze and the University of Vienna. Her committee was $5,000 composed of Rinehold Steinacker, Hans Volkert, Tuition Revenue per FTE Vanda Grubisic, and Robert Houze.