Welcome
From Jul 2019 to Feb 2020 (and ongoing), I've been measuring the elevation of the volcanic arerosol cloud from the eruption of the Russian volcano Raikoke on 22 Jun 2019. See below for inormation on the twilight photometers I use for these measurements. The peak density of the volcanic cloud has ranged from 15 to 25 km with the average around 19-20 km. My data are a close match to the lidar measurements of the cloud at the Mauna Loa Observatory provbided by Dr. John Barnes.
Completed 160,000-word ebook "Environmental Science: An Explorer's Guide" for Intelligent Education. The book includes 920+ photos and charts.
Two Rolex Award colleagues and I received a major grant from Rolex to perform a comprehensive study of solar UV-B in Hawai'i. The 28-day study took place during July-August 2018. A detailed report plus many photos and charts are here.
Most exciting new science here continues to be measuring the altitude of dust layers overhead using an ultra-sensitive near-infrared photometer to measure the twilight glow before sunrise or after sunset. The method reliably detects the stratospheric aerosol layer and dust layers in the troposphere so long as the zenith sky is cloud free. The method also detected the altitude of the ozone layer over the Mauna Loa Observatory in June 2014-16. See details for the basic twilight aerosol profile system in my column in MAKE Magazine. This method also detects meteoric smoke from 70 to 130 km when conditions are good.
More of my science is at www.sunandsky.net. See video clips--including music made from my UV-B and cosmic ray data--at www.youtube.com/fmims. Science updates and links to my weekly science column are posted on Facebook (fmims or Forrest M. Mims III) and Twitter (@fmims). I've started a science blog here. Email me at fmims@aol.com.
News
New Book. Maker Media has published "Make: Forrest Mims' Science Experiments." This is a collection of 32 of my columns in MAKE Magazine. Included are two columns on twilight photometry. The first printing sold out quickly.
UAVs (Drones). Check out my MAKE columns on doing science with drones and concerns about over-regulating an important new science tool. (Search )
30 Years of Atmospheric Measurements. February 4, 2020: 30 full years of measurements of total ozone (the ozone layer), UV-B, total column water vapor and aerosol optical thickness (haze). Many additional measurements were added over the years. 26 of those years included calibration sessions at Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory, where I've spent 235 nights and many more days.
VR Documentary. Lineage Media was here to get more footage for their documentary about Mauna Loa Observatory (ML) and my science. They showed me Part 1 of their 3-part video. After loading the video onto my phone, they inserted the phone into goggles. The VR (virtual reality) camera captures a 360-degree view, so it was quite amazing to see me standing at Dobson 83 at MLO. Turing my head shifted the view to where I was looking. It was if I was standing at MLO again and looking around. AMAZING! While here, the film crew made videos of me making the daily atmospheric measurements at solar noon, a series of shorts that will be included as links in my new, online environmental science book, a few hours of interviews and a sunset drone flight to get photos for my twilight project.
40th Anniversary of Rolex Awards. Rolex asked Prof. Andrew McGonigle and me to give a talk about our Hawai'i UV study at their awards ceremony in Washington, DC, in June 2019. Andrew and I met at the 40th anniversary of Rolex Awards in Los Angeles (November 2016). It was a typically first class Rolex event with excellent speakers, some from the UCLA School of Business and several former award laureates. This year's awards were presented at the Dolby Theatre. Afterwards, the closing banquet was held on the stage under a sea of lights and a giant Rolex logo. There have now been 140 Rolex Awards (from 33,000 applications). The program has expanded from 5 awards every 3 years (as when I received a Rolex Award in 1993) to 10 awards every 2 years.
Rolex has updated the biographies of its award laureates. They have even included the incident in which I lost a major column assignment at Scientific American magazine after the editor learned I reject Darwinian evolution and abortion. That incident occurred a few years before I applied for a Rolex Award, and it received international publicity. I was concerned it would disqualify me, but that's not the Rolex way. Rolex even announced the award in Scientific American in a full page ad that included a photo of me holding the ozone instrument for which I received the award but was not allowed to publish in the column. The Rolex Award jump started my science career. It also led directly to Solar Light's Microtops II, around a thousand of which are now around the world measuring the ozone layer, the water vapor layer and atmospheric haze. Full details about the Rolex Award will be in a forthcoming memoir. The Scientific American story is here.
Calibrated World Standard Ozone Instrument (Dobson 83) at Mauna Loa Observatory (2016). This 2-month assignment from NOAA began 31 May 2016 and concluded 3 August 2016. This was the 25th year I have calibrated atmospheric instruments at MLO. Prior to leaving for Hawaii I received training on the instrument at NOAA's Earth Systems Research Lab in Boulder. New microwave systems at MLO caused major noise problems at times, usually beginning around 7:30 am. This also caused major problems for the Navy Research Lab's long-term microwave study of middle atmosphere ozone and water vapor. Dark tests of my original Microtops II also showed noise, as did an unshielded Microtops II being calibrated by Solar Light. NOAA has been made aware of the problem and, hopefully, will soon resolve it.
EL NINO NEWS. My 30-year total water vapor chart shows a large increase during the 1997-98 El Nino but none during the ongoing El Nino (2015-16). I assumed the El Nino forecasts of a wet, cool summer were wrong, and that was correct. The rain arrrived during late summer.
Mauna Loa Observatory book (see below) has received an award. Maria A. Latyszewskyj, Chair of the ASLI Choice Committee, writes: “On behalf of the Atmospheric Science Librarians International (ASLI), I would like to congratulate you for your book, Hawai'i's Mauna Loa Observatory : fifty years of monitoring the atmosphere which has been chosen as ASLI's Choice 2012 - History award for its engaging perspective on the scientists, discoveries, and ground-breaking atmospheric measurements done at Mauna Loa Observatory. It will be receiving a plaque in Austin, TX during the American Meteorological Society (AMS) Meeting on Wed. Jan. 9, 2012….ASLI's Choice is an award for the best book of 2012 in the fields of meteorology / climatology / atmospheric sciences. For more information on the award please see http://aslionline.org/wp/asli-choice/ and p. 714 of May 2012 issue of BAMS (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society)….”
"Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory: Fifty Years of Monitoring the Atmosphere" has been published by the University of Hawaii Press. NOAA provided major assistance for this four-year, 463-page book project, which includes 110 color plates and 56 photographs. The catalog copy is at http://www.uhpress.hawaii.edu/p-8614-9780824834319.aspx. Chapter One is here (free). This 265,000-word book was written under contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and was extensively revised and expanded following three rounds of reviews by a 25-member panel of scientists and former Mauna Loa Observatory staff and by two expert reviewers selected by the University of Hawaii Press. Dr. Robert Simpson, the founder of the original Mauna Loa Observatory, wrote the foreword.
My paper with by Dr. Lin Chambers (NASA LaRC) and Dr. David R. Brooks (IESRE) was published by the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (October 2011) following revisions in response to three expert reviewers. The paper describes a new method of measuring total column water vapor using an infrared thermometer pointed at cloud-free zenith sky. The paper describes 25 months of data here (Texas) and 10 days at Hawaii's Mauna Loa Observatory in June 2010. Abstract (with link to full PDF) is here.
Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has written "Idea Man" (Penguin/Portfolio, 2011), the first half of which is the most significant account to date of the founding of Microsoft and its early days at MITS in Albuquerque. See my review in MAKE magazine here.
Scrolll down to see "The Sum of All Twilights," an animated gif of a total lunar eclipse.
Check out LED Sun Photometry in Optics and Photonics News (vol. 20, pp. 32-38, 2009). This tells the story of LED sun photometers.
The Association of Former Students of Texas A&M University published in True Maroon, its electronic magazine, "Curiosity in Motion," "Raising Science-Savvy Kids" and a video interview. Most of this is about the science my family has done. The cover photo shows a full sky view made by photographing an aluminized glass sphere.
Many updates and revisions have been addded to this site with more to come. People still ask about the Scientific American affair, which jump-started my science career. Some skeptics and atheists are unhappy about this matter. Go here or click the Scientific American tab above for details. People also ask about my article on the controversial death wish lecture given by Prof. Eric Pianka. See my response under the Controversy header on the Biography page. Because of my advocacy of intelligent design, a skeptic objected to my selection by Discover Magazine as one of the "50 Best Brains in Science." Discover Magazine published his letter to the editor and defended my selection in an editorial note.
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