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Linked Environments for Atmospheric Discovery (LEAD) makes meteorological data, forecast models, and analysis and visualization tools available to anyone who wants to interactively explore the weather as it evolves. The LEAD Portal brings together all the necessary resources at one convenient access point

The scientists, Daniel Barrie and Daniel Kirk-Davidoff of the University of Maryland, calculated "what might happen if all the land from Texas to central Canada, and from the Great Lakes to the Rocky Mountains, were covered in one massive wind farm," according to Discovery News. The result of such an unlikely installation: a real serious Butterfly Effect.

The temptation to interpret model noise as forecast information invades our living rooms every night. TV weather-forecast maps look so realistic it is hard not to over-interpret tiny details - to imagine that the band of rain passing over Oxfordshire at noon next Saturday requires postponing a barbecue. Rain may indeed be likely somewhere in the area sometime on Saturday, but the details we see on TV forecasts are noise from the models. I think we are having exactly the same problem with climate projections.

Entitled "Severe Space Weather Events - Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts," it describes the consequences of solar flares unleashing waves of energy that could disrupt Earth's magnetic field, overwhelming high-voltage transformers with vast electrical currents and short-circuiting energy grids. Such a catastrophe would cost the United States "$1 trillion to $2 trillion in the first year," concluded the panel, and "full recovery could take four to 10 years." That would, of course, be just a fraction of global damages.