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Confession: I didn’t have a J book that immediately jumped out at me for the Bookbag. I was considering going with Jurassic Park, but the idea of reviewing a story that everyone knows (either via the book or movie) didn’t seem like that much fun.
So I searched the library at the elementary school where I work, and I found a J book that worked out nicely.
Jennifer Murdley’s Toad by Bruce Coville is a middle-grade urban fantasy about a fifth-grade girl who finds herself quite unattractive. I decided to finish this book after I read the first sentence.
If Jennifer Murdley hadn’t been forced to wear her brother’s underpants to school, the whole thing might never have happened.
Misadventures caused by underpants? You bet! See, word that she’s wearing her brother’s underpants (because of a laundry day snafu) gets out, and the other kids, who already see Jennifer as an easy target, tease her mercilessly. She runs away, finding herself on an unfamiliar street and entering an unfamiliar magic shop, where the owner sells her a toad named Bufo for seventy-five cents.
Of course, it’s not an ordinary toad. It talks, sometimes imitating his favorite actors. But Jennifer doesn’t know that until she’s left the shop and the toad answers a question.
Jennifer blinked and stared at the box. Obviously the voice couldn’t have come from there. But when she looked around, there was no other person in sight.
“Who said that?” she asked timidly.
“I did,” came the voice from the box.
Jennifer closed her eyes and tried to count to ten. Before she could finish, the voice bellowed, “Hello out there! Did you hear me?”
“I heard you!” shouted Jennifer. “Where are you?”
“Right here! In the box!”
She freaks out and drops the box, having to talk herself into returning to it.
“Were you speaking to me?” she whispered.
“Yes, I was,” said the toad. “And I must say, I don’t think much of the way you ran off. It’s a good way to kill a conversation. As for dropping me–well, you’d better hope word of that bit of foolishness doesn’t get back to you-know-who!”
She doesn’t know why she has a toad that can talk, and when she tries to find the shop again, she can’t. It seems the owner likes to move it around. The magic continues when Sharra, one of Jennifer’s bullies, is inspecting the toad. In a moment he thought would only be humorous, Bufo jumps from his box and kisses Sharra on the lips, turning her into a toad as well.
And thus begins a series of misadventures that are sometimes a bit scary and sometimes downright adorable. Jennifer learns a lot from the old toad – the very old toad, as it turns out–including what her purpose might be in her magical new world.
What J titles are in your Bookbag?
One thought on “The A-Z Bookbag: J is for Jennifer Murdley’s Toad”
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domain: library


text:
7048 W Higgins Ave, Chicago, IL 60656
Deciduous teeth are commonly referred to as baby teeth or primary teeth. Due to baby teeth erupting, your infant may be a little cranky. Use teething toys to help with your little one’s tender gums. Below is a chart showing when the teeth should erupt.
Baby bottle tooth decay is a term used to describe early childhood decay. Many children fall asleep drinking their bottle. The sugars that are in milk and juices then stay on the teeth, and overtime the sugars mix with bacteria, causing decay.
Pacifiers and thumb sucking in children is a therapeutic action done while the child is feeling calm, sleepy and secure. If a child is using a pacifier or sucking his or her thumb after the age of four, dental complications can occur. Front teeth may not form normally, creating an open bite, jaw misalignment, narrowing of the roof of the mouth, mouth sores, and more.
The AAPD (American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry) recommends a child’s first dental visit to be around the time of their first birthday . It’s very important for children to start getting used to being in a dental setting at an early age to create a positive association with dentistry
Newly formed teeth have a lot of anatomy, such as depressions and grooves, making the tooth harder to clean and susceptible to decay. A sealant is a thin coating painted on the chewing surfaces to fill in some of these grooves and depressions and “seal” off the tooth. The sealant works as a barrier of the tooth and the food or bacteria in the mouth.

domain: health


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After a pipe bomb explosion in the underground tunnel between the Port Authority and Times Square subway stations in Manhattan, the usual tweets and updates began to trickle out. Once again, we heard about how New Yorkers are unfazed by an attack. Brave New Yorkers refuse to be deterred. They move on with their day, worried about delayed trains and rubberneckers.
There’s nothing wrong with praising New Yorkers’ resilience after tragedies. It’s nice to glom onto civic pride, especially when it’s associated with toughness and grit. But what’s heroic about moving on with your day? Does being from or living in New York actually make you tougher? Or does it just mean you’re exposed to more craziness?
The same can be said of empathy. When tragedy strikes, New Yorkers are praised for caring about the people around them, despite stereotypes that say the opposite. Earlier this year, a scaffolding collapse in SoHo left a number of people injured. In the aftermath, people scurried to help lift the fallen metal off folks trapped underneath. It was an amazing scene, and even more amazing that no one was seriously injured. Articles about the incident immediately praised New Yorkers’ innate desire to help their fellow man.
People on the scene were truly heroic, doing everything they could before authorities arrived. But it wasn’t because they were New Yorkers, it was because they were people. Are people in an anonymous small town any less likely to try and pull people out from a collapsed structure?
The same logic applies to a bombing like the one earlier this week. If a large group of people from Montana witnessed some violent act, would they incite panic? Would they wallow in self pity rather than help those they were able to? Probably not.
Maybe it’s just a byproduct of living in a city with 8 million other people. Can you imagine how miserable this place would be if people started overreacting to every little impropriety they see (let alone botched terrorist attacks)?
So when media outlets praise the resiliency of New Yorkers, maybe what they’re really complimenting is the city’s ability to put up with bullshit. It’s a more accurate assessment of the word anyway—in New York people don’t panic, they get annoyed for being inconvenienced, because they’re always inconvenienced.
I guess in a world of panic and confusion, that’s a desirable trait. It’s better to be selfishly annoyed than communally panicked. New York is viewed as harsh and unforgiving because it is. The people that live and thrive here are special for various reasons. But it’s not because they’re better at helping people in immediate danger or moving on with their lives.
It’s because they don’t have time for this shit.

domain: psychology


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Has your Spartan got a story? Your Elite got a history? Share it here in our Halo database! Here you can post stories and create tales and vent your creativity of the Halo Universe!
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The Infinite tales of the Halo Saga
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Free forum : A Bungie.net Halo Roleplay
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The Forerunner Guard is a competitive Halo clan.
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free forum : Zero Tolerance Halo Trial/Halo 1 Clan.
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a gathering of classic driving machines
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The Halo: Aftermath RPG. Halo: Aftermath RPG. Halo: Aftermath RPG
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Free forum : Playing Halo on your Mac and PC. Free forum : PC Mac Halo
The best map makers in AssaultCube
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A text-based RPG that centers around the Halo Universe.
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The best and Fastest growing halo reach clan
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Free forum : Online Halo Custom Edition clan. Free forum : »A§« Aussie Snipers Halo CE Clan
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Free forum : This forum is based on the hit video game series Halo
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GoDz X Halo/Minecraft
Xbox 360 Clan for Modern Warfare 2, Black Ops, Halo 3, Halo reach and more.
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Forum of the United Falcon Clan - Halo 2 Vista
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We are a skilled Clan from Halo. Salute!
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Gulchtopia, a Halo Reach City RP.
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Laid Back Gaming Community, Halo, Call of Duty and Other Gaming Clubs, Rank Structured Clan, We Supply Respectable Gaming Atmosphere, With Simple Easy to Follow Code of Conduct
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Free forum : Clan forum for Dark Orbit.
Halo Heroes is a VRU-UK clan
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Small forums for the Corpus Halo players. Share tactics, form clans, share servers and organise wars here.
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Halo 4 Gaming
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Hello! and Welcome to the Virtual Monkeyz NEW Forum
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domain: entertainment


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PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. — Clovis High alum and New Mexico State junior Robert Goff is tied for 13th place going into the final round of the Sun Belt Conference Men’s Golf Championship.
Goff led the tournament after round one with a 5-under-par 67. But he ballooned to a 9-over 81 in Tuesday’s second round. He has a two-round score of 4-over 148.
The NMSU men’s golf team shot a 29-over 317 Tuesday to drop from second place to eighth.
The final round is today.

domain: news


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Who would have thought that a random Google search in 2013 would bring me half way around the world to the Baltics and Finland, two places I would have never dreamed of visiting before? Even more surprising is that I would discover Jewish life in these places to be thriving and hear stories of perseverance, strength, and the embrace of Jewish identity despite troubled histories.
But that experience did happen and I was fortunate that last month I joined with a group of young Jewish professionals to make our way to Finland and Estonia as part of a JDC Entwine Insider trip. Entwine is the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s initiative focusing on young Jewish leaders, influencers and advocates who want to make an impact on Jewish needs and international humanitarian issues. The organization does this through service trips, educational opportunities and leadership development.
There were 12 of us participating, and we were joined by a JDC Entwine professional who leads every trip. The group was diverse in terms of place of origin, age, gender and Jewish observance. I was the only person from the Midwest and I appreciated the opportunity to meet people from across the United States.
After leaving from New York, our first stop was Helsinki, the capital of Finland, often known as “the white city of the north” because of the number of buildings built with a local light-colored granite. Prior to the trip, I had almost no knowledge about the local Jewish community and its unique history. Founded by Jews from Russia’s Pale of Settlement who had been forced into the Russian army, the Jewish community gained full civil rights in 1917 when Finland gained its independence. The Jewish community survived the horrors of World War II, and as we learned when we volunteered at the Jewish cemetery in Helsinki, many Jews fought in the Finnish Army, oftentimes next to German soldiers, against the Soviets. The community’s synagogue, painted in beautiful green and blue and adorned with golden stars, is filled with tributes to the community’s history.
In addition to impactful visits to Jewish sites and a visit to Suomenlinna, a sea fortress that spans over six islands and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, we got to experience Jewish life today. We spent many festive meals engaging with young professionals from the Finnish Jewish community — eating more salmon than I ever had in my life — and visited with residents at an old-age home and talked to them about their lives.
In Finland, education is superb and the government takes great care of its citizens. The Jewish community is strong and well respected, but it struggles with the same kinds of challenges we do here in the United States: ensuring the future and finding support for its activities.
From Finland, we traveled to Tallinn, Estonia, a city noted for its medieval buildings in a country with one of the fastest growing economies, despite setbacks, in Europe.
Estonian Jews have a very different history. Estonia was the only country in Europe declared Judenfrei, free of Jews, by the Nazis during the Holocaust. In 1941, all Jews had been forced to flee the country, and those who stayed were executed. After the war, Soviet Jews immigrated to Estonia, although there was no formal Jewish activity allowed under Soviet rule. In the 1980s, the Jewish community created the Jewish Cultural Society in Tallinn giving rise to the small community found today. With support from JDC, Chabad, and other groups, the community has blossomed.
Our first day in Tallinn coincided with the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the new local synagogue. It was a big party, with renowned guests such as the president of Estonia, Kersti Kaljulaid, the chief Rabbi of Israel, David Lau, and Ariel Klas, the wife of late composer Eri Klas. It was an amazing opportunity to help celebrate the presence of the Jewish community in Estonia, and being together as a group, we experienced try bonding.
During our time there, we baked challot and painted candleholders that we delivered to needy elderly Jews in the city. Split into small groups, and accompanied by a translator who spoke Russian, we went to do our home visits. I visited Elya, a 93-year-old who had lived through the Leningrad Blockade in Russia. She was a nurse and then became a doctor. After the war, she moved to Estonia and now lives alone in a modest apartment in Tallinn. The community visits her weekly and she cherishes those moments. The translator did a good job of sharing the conversation with all of us present. I felt as if I understood everything that Elya was saying. Someone from the group asked her what was her message to our generation. She said: “Don’t forget that you are a Jew.”
During the rest of our time in Tallinn we visited the Jewish kindergarten and celebrated Shabbat as a group with Jewish young adults, many who participate in JDC programs focused on Jewish identity and culture. I attended services the next morning at the beautiful synagogue. I sat in the women’s balcony, and a young woman helped me find the siddur in English. When I said goodbye, the woman gestured that I should stay for lunch. And although I had to leave, I left feeling happy that, wherever I go, Jews are always the same.
We also engaged with the community’s madrichim, teenagers who volunteer to be trained to do programming with Jewish children. This group was full of positive energy and really cares to be part of the Jewish community.
During the trip, it was not just the local Jews with whom we formed strong bonds. We also forged ties among ourselves. I tended to join a woman who really liked to explore the cities we were visiting, and knew a lot about Tallinn.
I never expected anyone to be so excited about visiting Estonia, so when I asked her about this she explained that her family came from Tallinn. Her great-grandfather and grandparents were buried at the Jewish cemetery. She had never been to Estonia, and wanted to go to the cemetery, but her parents told her to not go alone.
So I joined her. When we got to the cemetery, we had to follow directions that her father gave her, but we still had to walk through most of the small cemetery to find them. Both of us read Russian, but I worried we might not find the graves as a lot of stones had the names eroded. As I walked through one of the paths, I heard my friend call my name. She had found the tombstones. I stood next to her as she placed rocks on each. This, to me, was the most special part of the trip. My friend came back to her roots, and I was very glad I could accompany her during this special moment.
By the time we returned to New York, my heart felt so full, and my mind had truly expanded. Wanting to share that experience with others, I am going to host an event for young adults who want to learn more about these trips, and how to get involved with the JDC Entwine.
Gaby Szteinberg is a Project Coordinator of General Chemistry Supplemental Programs at Washington University in St. Louis. She is involved with local Jewish young adult organizations, and is passionate about traveling and learning languages. For more information about JDC Entwine, contact Gaby at firstname.lastname@example.org.

domain: geography


Pamela Anderson Earns $18,000 for One-Night Club Appearance
Pamela Anderson picked up $18,000 for a one-night stand in London on Friday night, August 20. The former "Baywatch" pin-up, who is in the U.K. to promote her upcoming role in traditional Christmas pantomime "Aladdin", thrilled clubbers at Funky Mojoes in Essex when she showed up for the nightspot's two year anniversary celebrations.
According to Britain's The People newspaper, Anderson took home a whopping $18,000 for simply sipping booze in the VIP room and posing for snaps with revelers.
On another news, Anderson, during an interview on a British TV show, revealed that she likes to have a hectic schedule. She told hosts Alex Jones and Jason Manford, "I like the schedule, I mean I like to work. I like to work really hard so it keeps me in line, which is good because I need that structure."
More Pamela Anderson News
- Priyanka Chopra Throws Her Hat Into the Ring to Be Female James Bond
- Listen to a Preview of Shawn Mendes' New Song 'Better'
- Elijah Wood Clarifies Comment on Child Sex Abuse in Hollywood, Says It's Misinterpreted
- 'Pretty Little Liars' Boss Confirms Someone's Getting Married in Season 7
- Anne Hathaway Throws Shade at the Kardashians, Says It's Unintentional
- Eminem Sells Bricks of His Childhood Home for 'Marshall Mathers LP' Anniversary
- Did Jennifer Lawrence Just Say She Was Under the Influence While Filming 'The Hunger Games'?
- Helen Hunt Mistaken for Jodie Foster by Starbucks Barista. Read the Funny Story


YEREVAN (RFE/RL)–An 18-person Syrian government delegation arrived in Yerevan for the first official session of the Armenian-Syrian inter-governmental commission founded four years ago.
The session ends Friday. The Syrian delegation is headed by Economy and Trade Minister Dr. Mohammad al-Imadi. Armenia’s chief representative is Trade and Industry Minister Haik Gevorkian.
Dr. Al-Imadi told RFE/RL’s Yerevan bureau that cooperation between the two countries is not confined to the work of the commission–the primary aim of which is to seek to broaden bilateral cooperation. Participants at the session will hold a press conference Friday–when the new Syrian embassy compound in Yerevan is scheduled to be opened.


If you have not seen this yet, it is a must see. Looks like Iron Maidens take on current events. I like to look at the groups of people stuck outside
as the unvaccinated plebs. Enjoy Iron Maiden – The Writing On The Wall (Official Video)
edit on 13-9-2021 by TrollMagnet because: Added Extra Link and title
I have been listening to metal for about 3 decades in various forms and to me this song to me this song as everything I look for in heavy music. I'm
lucky in the sense that I have been a fan of this band since their second album which came out in 1996 and have gotten to hear them refine their sound
to adapting their sound to more recent releases. Anyone that tells you elements of their current sound were not there from the first album never heard
the first album. I have also been able to see them live roughly 15 times in different settings on different tours.
It's not just me that will always headbang to this album or more specifically the title track....
"In 2012, Loudwire listed the title track as the second best metal song of the 21st century"
"In 2020, Loudwire listed ???? as the number one progressive metal album of all time"
"In 2009, MetalSucks compiled a list of the "21 Best Metal Albums of the 21st Century So Far" based on the opinions of various musicians, managers,
publicists, label representatives and writers, where ???? ranked at No. 3 on the list. Decibel magazine similarly named ???? the 3rd best metal album
of the decade. The album was listed at No. 5 on Terrorizer's best albums of the 2000s.
These next two , coupled with my user name start to remove any questions about which band and song I am talking about...
"Rolling Stone ranked ???? as 55th on their list of 'The 100 Greatest Metal Albums of All Time."
"In June 2015, Rolling Stone ranked ???? at 28th place for their list of "Greatest Prog Rock Albums of All Time"
The band is Opeth, the album is Blackwater Park and the song is Blackwater Park.
The album is produced by Steven Wilson from Porcupine Tree among many other things so if prog is your thing I am sure you know his name.
It has grooves..It has huge wall of sound riffs..slow quiet parts, Hell opens its mouth and unleashes a sound parts, double bass kicks, odd time
signatures throughout, stereo bouncing in the mix, different bass styles...I was going to drop time stamps in here for the parts people usually point
to as being a highlight but in doing that I think it takes away from the overall quality of the experience in listening.
This is the studio version..Put on your preferred headphones and enjoy the next 12 minutes of you listening life. From the 5:00 mark on is a highlight
I think as everything just comes slamming in at you..Double kick, bass , vocals. ( i might be headbanging now!)
This live version is taken from the Royal Albert Hall 2010 concert...Opeth are one of the few bands to me that can bring a song of this level to a
live setting and not lose anything.
Why stop here with Opeth though.....Here is another live version from their concert they did at Red Rocks in 2018...THis has many of the same elements
I love about BWP but also adds in the fact that as they have matured as a band the amazing clean vocals of Mikael Akerfeldt started to play a bigger
roles. Watching him seamless transition from a guttural growl to clean singing all while playing guitar never gets old for me.
Ghost of Perdition
Branching out from my favorite band of all time into some other music...
Swallow the Sun = Cathedral Walls
Lets end with one of the most influential bands ever.. Emperor.. Ishaan brings out the Orc shoulder spikes for this live version....
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This content community relies on user-generated content from our member contributors. The opinions of our members are not those of site ownership who maintains strict editorial agnosticism and simply provides a collaborative venue for free expression.


text:
- African leader cancels trip to U.S. over Ebola outbreak; Obama still plans summit
- Sarah Palin’s online channel hits snag when Stephen Colbert buys similar URL
- SWAT spends seven hours in standoff with empty home
- U.S. troops told not to eat, drink in front of Muslims during Ramadan
- Iran’s Rouhani: Israel, Islamic State are ‘tumors derived from the same origin’
- Rep. Tim Murphy: GOP knew HealthCare.gov would be an ‘unmitigated disaster’
- Political speak: Planned Parenthood dumps ‘pro-choice’ for ‘women’s health’
- U.S. attorney warns Cuomo not to interfere with anti-corruption probes
- Investigators reach Ukraine jet crash site
- Ohio gives Obama a thumbs down; Hillary Clinton tops GOP all-stars: poll
Flyers edge Blackhawks 3-2 in OT
Question of the Day
“I honestly was ready to pull out my lineup card,” he said.
Claude Giroux made sure it wasn’t needed.
Giroux received a pass from defenseman Mark Streit and carried the puck over the blue line before letting a shot go from just above the right faceoff circle, beating Antti Raanta high to the blocker side.
“I went on the ice with maybe 15 seconds, 20 seconds, so I knew there wasn’t a lot of time,” Giroux said. “I was just trying to shoot as hard as I could to net. I didn’t really aim, to be honest. I just shot it on net.”
Giroux had previously assisted on a Scott Hartnell goal in the first period for a two-point night.
Asked about his captain’s play over the past two months, Berube said, “He’s been playing well for longer than that, I think. He’s playing hard. He’s really, skating, attacking. He’s leading our team.
“It starts on the bench. He’s vocal. He’s really into all the time. He does a good job of keeping everybody going.”
The Flyers needed that kind of leadership after a poor start.
Chicago opened an offense-filled first period with two goals just 3:51 into the game.
The first came when Andrew Shaw chipped a loose puck near the crease over goalie Ray Emery (23 saves) - the result of a Brayden Schenn turnover at the other end.
Less than 90 seconds later, Duncan Keith, the wide-open recipient of a pass from Jonathan Toews, overpowered Emery with a slap shot from the top of the slot.
But the Flyers rebounded thanks to two goals from Hartnell, one set up by Giroux and the other by the Blackhawks.
By Ted Cruz
Israel saves its enemies; Hamas endangers its friends
- Al Gore's climate-changers at EPA hearings foiled by cool temperatures
- Geraldo Rivera: Matt Drudge 'doing his best to stir up a civil war'
- Chicken pox outbreak puts illegal immigrant facility on lockdown
- GOP report sees ties between rich donors, green 'nonprofits'
- House votes to sue President Obama over claims of presidential power
- NAPOLITANO: Is the president incompetent or lawless?
- Lois Lerner hated conservatives, new emails show
- Israel surprised by Hamas tunnel network
- CRUZ: A tale of two hospitals: One in Israel, one in Gaza
- EDITORIAL: The real Lois Lerner exposed in newly released emails
Obama's biggest White House 'fails'
Celebrities turned politicians
Athletes turned actors
20 gadgets that changed the world


This is the brand-new Ford F-150 Lightning, and it’s a pickup truck that can fit an entire adult under the hood. That’s because it’s an all-electric version of America’s best-selling truck for the last 45 years, and it has a Mega Power Frunk instead of pistons.
In a good year, Ford sells close to a million of its F-Series trucks and turns over around $40 billion (P2.1 trillion) in the process. It’s an absolute titan and crucial not just to Ford’s balance sheet, but the US economy as a whole. All of which means messing with the formula like this, is kind of a big deal...
What is it about electric pickup trucks at the moment?
True, there are suddenly quite a few about, like the new Hummer EV, the Chevy Silverado EV, and Elon Musk’s stainless-steel wedge, the Tesla Cybertruck. What makes the Ford unique is it looks (by and large), like any other F-150, it’s affordable (prices start from under $40,000 or less than P2.1 million), and it’s ready. The four-ton Hummer is $100,000+ (over P5.2 million), and the Chevy doesn’t arrive until next year. Ford had to turn the tap off at 200,000 reservations, over a year’s worth of production, because it didn’t want things spiraling out of control and customers having to wait years for delivery.
Problem is, dazzling Silicon Valley types tired of waiting for their nonexistent Cybertruck to be delivered is the easy part...tempting Ford’s core audience over to an EV is going to be trickier. Darren Palmer, VP for the electric vehicle programs tells a lovely story about asking some grizzled Texan truck lovers what kind of animal an electric truck would be. “A chihuahua.” Okay, what drink would it be? “Pink champagne.”
He then proceeds to distract them by talking about the new F-150 Raptor before rattling off the specs of one more exciting future model. They get even more amped, then he tells them that’s the EV. “Cue half an hour of shouting, no way, you’re lying, disbelief,” Palmer recalls.
So the challenge is clear: This is a car with a shot at changing opinions on EVs across America. If it does, the floodgates could open, for Ford and other manufacturers of electric vehicles. Ford is calling this the most important car it’s launched since the Model T. They might be right.
Give us those ‘unbelievable’ specs, then?
There are two models to choose from: the entry-level version with a 98kWh battery, 446hp, and a 370km range, or the extended range model we drove with a mammoth 131kWh battery (removable from below with just eight bolts), 572hp, and a 515km range, except on the blingy top-spec Platinum variant where the range drops to 480km because of all the kit, an abattoir’s worth of leather, and less slippery 22-inch wheels.
Both versions produce 1,050Nm of torque, and the faster one will do 0-60mph (97kph) in 4.3sec. That’s just bonkers, sports-car pace from something the size of a small planet. Make no mistake, this is an enormous vehicle—the length of a long-wheelbase Merc S-Class...plus another 60cm, and it weighs the best part of three tons. Driving one of these in the UK would feel like a double decker bus, but in Texas, where everything is supersized, it just fits.
Find a non-Tesla rapid charger (we discovered most Walmarts had a bank of 350kW Electrify America chargers installed), and while charging speeds are capped at 150kW, that’s enough for 15% to 100% in 41 mins. Get Ford’s Charge Station Pro installed at your house and it’ll charge up the extended battery version in about eight hours, and turn your truck into a power station in the event of a blackout—a regular occurrence in parts of the US—feeding energy back into your house to keep the lights and all your other electrics on for up to three days, or 10 days if you ration the power. All hail the apocalypse-proof car.
On (and off) the road
It might accelerate like a sports car, but it doesn’t drive like one. Surprise, surprise, ey? The first thing you notice is wind noise: There’s a fair bit of it, which is to be expected when you’re trying to push a barn door through soupy air, there’s also some shudder through the chassis when you hit a bump or a crack, and the suspension clearly has a lot on its plate keeping all that mass in check. As a result, the ride is floaty on gentle undulations, then when you hit a compression, you really feel the weight.
How does it cope with bends?
Corners are interesting. On the plus side, there’s now newly designed independent rear suspension, which means the back end doesn’t pogo and skip around when you hit a mid-turn bump, but we found ourselves feeling sorry for the outside front tire bearing the brunt of the forces. Fortunately, they don’t have many corners in America, so the key is to settle in, take your time, get your cruise on, and enjoy the silence, smoothness, and oiled precision with which it barrels down the road. As a way to traverse America’s largely flat and featureless interstates, it’s a premium experience—so much so that you forget you’re in a pickup at all.
Sounds quite sedate given the power available...
Well, you may look at that headline-grabbing 0-60mph time and assume this is some sort of tire-chewing monster truck, but its character is far more subdued. It wants to be driven with a calm hand and a steady foot—and after an initial poke of the throttle to establish that, yes, it can gather a lot of momentum in not much time at all, you’ll only call upon full power on a slip road or for a swift overtake. We found using the one-pedal high-regen mode takes the stress out of stop-start traffic, but on the highway, you want to switch it off and coast along, making the most of all that momentum and maximizing the range.
What’s it like off the beaten track?
Unsurprisingly, with four-wheel drive, a boat load of torque, and a locking rear diff, it’s handy off-road, too. Thing is, if you just want to get the job done—to scale a mountain or escape a muddy car park—it’s more than capable, but if off-roading is your hobby, you’ll want something that offers more mechanical interaction with the process. It’s also quite good at pulling things, which is something that’s a huge priority to the Texans we met. Total towing capacity, if you get the big battery, is 4.5 tons. If that means little to you, put it this way —we pulled a large speedboat on a trailer. We also pulled an Airstream caravan, and had to double-check they were actually attached.
On the inside
The F-150’s interior is vast. Wide comfy front seats—heated and cooled, with a massage function in the Platinum model—sit on either side of a chucky center console. Got some time to kill? Hit a button and the gear lever folds out the way, letting you unfurl the center armrest into a massive flat space—for your laptop, lunch, a spot of tap dancing...whatever you fancy. There are cupholders and cubby holes everywhere, two gloveboxes, extra storage under the rear bench, which is surrounded by acres of leg and head space. Basically, it’s the ultimate work truck/fun bus...and we haven’t even got to the frunk and the bed.
On the top two trim levels (Lariat and Platinum), you get the same 15.5-inch screen as the Mustang Mach-E—whereas on the lower two (Pro and XLT) you get a 12-inch landscape display mounted above physical controls for the audio and air-con. It’s actually the latter that’s more satisfying to use, although for wow factor, the big screen walks it. Special mention to the 18-speaker B&O sound system standard on Platinum—it’s outrageous, but then the Platinum starts at $90,000 (P4,7 million), although you can get the more workmanlike Pro with the smaller battery, which is a bargain at $40,000.
Now for the fun stuff. The Mega Power Frunk—yes that’s it’s real name, sigh—offers an extra 400 liters (more than a VW Golf’s cargo area) of locked storage where an engine would normally be, and opens up on the click of a key fob like some giant oyster. Apparently, for such a simple idea, it was a complete pain to engineer and meet safety standards, ensuring it doesn’t fling open at the wrong moment.
Around the back, the tailgate lowers electrically, and raises again when you click the keyfob or lift it slightly. Keep it down and it’s littered with features—a step that pulls out of it and a slide-out bannister to hold onto, rulers molded into the plastic, holes for woodwork clamps, a bottle opener...the list goes on (we’ve tried it out in the PH-spec F-150 Diesel Lariat—watch our quick demo here). Round the front, you can fill your frunk with ice cubes because it has a drain hole in the bottom. If you’ve ever been to a beer and beef-fuelled tailgating party in the US, you’ll realize that’s a fairly major selling point.
On top of that, the F-150 Lightning is a massive power brick on wheels. Order it with the Pro Power Onboard and you get six USB ports and no fewer than 11 proper plug sockets—four 120V sockets in the frunk, two more in the cabin, another four in the bed alongside a 240V outlet—enough to charge another electric car at 7kW. Drive an EV? Got a friend with an F-150 Lightning? You’ll never be stranded again.
Is America ready for the electric car? Yes. And no. The public charging infrastructure in the US, as in the UK, needs a lot of attention especially given the bigger distances between towns, but if you can home-charge, that’s half the battle won. What we discovered was for every EV skeptic, there was someone whose head was turned by how relatively cheap (amid spiraling ‘gas’ prices) the Lightning was to charge, or how useful it is, or the performance figures. If ever there’s an EV capable of shifting American attitudes, it’s this one right here.
It looks familiar, it goes like a muscle car when you stomp on it, and it’s full of brilliant practical touches and features that will either solve a problem in your life, or at least give you something interesting to talk about over the garden fence. All things considered, it’s a better truck than the standard F-150, and hats off to Ford for getting the price down to near parity with the combustion model. The mission was to remove all the excuses for an F-150 customer not to buy the electric one, and the carmaker has done a remarkable job.
If you can get your head around the 300-mile range, America—we’d make the switch. And the early signs are good with the first year and a half of production sold out and reservations on hold to give them a chance to fulfil. existing orders. Over to you, Tesla.
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.


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The value of satellite observations in the analysis and short-range prediction of Asian dust
Asian dust is a seasonal meteorological phenomenon which affects east Asia, and has severe consequences on the air quality of China, North and South Korea and Japan. Despite the continental extent, the prediction of severe episodes and the anticipation of their consequences is challenging. Three 1-year experiments were run to assess the skill of the model of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) in monitoring Asian dust and understand its relative contribution to the aerosol load over China. Data used were the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Dark Target and the Deep Blue aerosol optical depth (AOD). In particular the experiments aimed at understanding the added value of data assimilation runs over a model run without any aerosol data. The year 2013 was chosen as representative of the availability of independent AOD data from two established ground-based networks (AERONET, Aerosol Robotic Network, and CARSNET, China Aerosol Remote Sensing Network), which could be used to evaluate experiments. Particulate matter (PM) data from the China Environmental Protection Agency were also used in the evaluation. Results show that the assimilation of satellite AOD data is beneficial to predict the extent and magnitude of desert dust events and to improve the short-range forecast of such events. The availability of observations from the MODIS Deep Blue algorithm over bright surfaces is an asset, allowing for a better localization of the sources and definition of the dust events. In general both experiments constrained by data assimilation perform better than the unconstrained experiment, generally showing smaller normalized mean bias and fractional gross error with respect to the independent verification datasets. The impact of the assimilated satellite observations is larger at analysis time, but lasts into the forecast up to 48 h. The performance of the global model in terms of particulate matter does not show the same degree of skill as the performance in terms of optical depth. Despite this, the global model is able to capture some regional pollution patterns. This indicates that the global model analyses may be used as boundary conditions for regional air quality models at higher resolution, enhancing their performance in situations in which part of the pollution may have originated from large-scale mechanisms. While assimilation is not a substitute for model development and characterization of the emission sources, results indicate that it can play a role in delivering improved monitoring of Asian dust optical depth.
Asian dust is a seasonal meteorological phenomenon which affects east Asia, particularly during spring. Dust is transported from the deserts of Taklimakan, Mongolia, northern China and Kazakhstan and can travel over long distances, affecting the air quality of China, North and South Korea and Japan. Occasionally, the dust can even be transported over the ocean over thousands of kilometers and reach the coasts of North America. Measurements at Mauna Loa, Hawaii, show the presence of dust of Asian origin (Shaw, 1980; Darzi and Winchester, 1982; Holmes and Zoller, 1996).
Dust is becoming a more serious concern due to the increase of industrial pollutants contained in it, also in connection to intensified desertification in China causing longer and more frequent occurrences, both linked to climate factors and to land use change in west Asia (Zhang et al., 2003; Chuluun and Ojima, 2002). Areas affected by dust experience poor air quality and, as a consequence, dust is known to cause a variety of health problems, including sore throats and asthma in otherwise healthy people. Often, people are advised to avoid or minimize outdoor activities, depending on the severity of the storms. For those who already have asthma or respiratory infections, dust-related pollution can be fatal (Lee et al., 2013; Goudie, 2014; Chen et al., 2011). The economic impact of dust storms connected to reduced air visibility, canceled flights and disrupted ground travel can also be high (Jeong, 2008).
Because of its health, social and economical impacts, it is critical to understand the source strength, transport and deposition of dust and to establish sand and dust storms (SDS) forecasting and early warning capabilities. Under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the need for a global SDS forecasting and early warning system was highlighted in 2005. More than 40 member countries expressed interest in participating in activities to improve capacities for more reliable SDS monitoring, forecasting and assessment. The SDS-WAS (Warning and Assessment System) was launched in 2007 with the mission to enhance the ability of countries to deliver timely and quality sand and dust storm forecasts, observations and information to users through an international partnership of research and operational communities. Towards this goal, three regional centers have been created: the Northern Africa–Middle East–Europe (NAMEE) node, the Pan-American node and the Asian node. The latter is hosted by the Chinese Meteorological Administration (CMA) and its focus is Asian dust prediction (Zhang and coauthors, 2015). Member countries of the Asian node include Japan, South Korea, Mongolia and Kazakhstan. All centers run their forecast models for the specific region (Gong and Zhang, 2008; Park et al., 2010). Some models such as that of the Japan Meteorological Agency run at the global scale (Tanaka and Chiba, 2005). The European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) also contributes its dust forecasts to the Asian node through a partnership between the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and CMA1.
Despite the recognized relevance, Asian dust monitoring and forecasting are still a challenge due to the poor characterization of the sources, which have strong spatial and temporal variability, and the paucity of observational data available to characterize both emissions and transport, especially in near-real time (NRT). A study by Uno et al. (2006) compared eight state-of-the-art dust models and showed that emission fluxes from the Taklimakan desert and Mongolia strongly differ among the models. They suggested that measurements of dust flux and accurate updated land use information are important to improve the models over these regions. They also found that modeling of dust transport and removal processes over key regions needs to be improved in order to obtain more skillful dust prediction that could underpin warning systems, improve preparedness and possibly lessen the impacts.
Although modeling problems need to be tackled at the level of the parameterization of the physical, dynamical and radiative processes, data assimilation of dust-related observations such as optical depth and lidar backscatter from satellite sensors can help alleviate problems and improve the forecast of dust events. This has been shown for example in a pioneering work by Sekiyama et al. (2010), in which the authors show that assimilation of data from the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) lidar in an ensemble Kalman filter framework improves the model simulation of Aeolian dust events. Assimilation efforts to specifically improve dust prediction have been undertaken at the global and regional scale by several institutes, both using ensemble methods in which emissions are also perturbed (Lin et al., 2008; Rubin et al., 2016; Di Tomaso et al., 2017) and variational methods (Niu et al., 2008; Liu et al., 2011). All studies show the positive impact of satellite and in situ data assimilation in desert-dust-affected regions for high load episodes, with some impact lasting into the forecast range.
Progress has been made in recent years thanks to the deployment of accurate, multi-channel aerosol sensors on satellite platforms and the improvement of ground-based networks which are now offering stable observations of good quality over long periods and increasingly in NRT. Given these opportunities in this paper, we will investigate the added benefit of data assimilation for the desert dust analysis and short-range prediction using ECMWF's Integrated Forecasting System (IFS) and aerosol optical depth (AOD) observations from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), which are now also available on bright surfaces (Deep Blue collection) in the framework of the 4D-Var assimilation system extended to aerosol species (Courtier et al., 1994; Benedetti et al., 2009). The novelty with respect to previous studies that also employed MODIS observations (i.e., Liu et al., 2011) rests in the use of a fully operational 4D-Var system in which the model dynamics serve as a constraint during the assimilation. For dust storms of synoptic extent, this constraint might imply a longer lasting impact of the assimilated data into the forecast range. The verification of the analysis and forecast benefits from the availability of data from the Aerosol Robotic Network (AERONET; Holben et al., 1998, 2001), as well from the China Aerosol Remote Sensing Network (CARSNET; Che et al., 2015). Additionally, PM data from the China Environmental Protection Agency (CEPA) are also used to assess the value of AOD assimilation in surface PM forecasts.
Desert dust forecasts are provided by the ECMWF CAMS system, which is a comprehensive modeling and assimilation system based on the IFS developed at ECMWF with the extended capabilities of including atmospheric composition tracers in the transport model and in the analysis (Flemming et al., 2015). The system has been developed in the CAMS precursor projects, Global and Regional Earth System Monitoring Using Satellite and In Situ Data (GEMS; Hollingsworth et al., 2008) and Monitoring Atmospheric Composition and Climate (MACC; Peuch and Engelen, 2012). Aerosols are forecast within the ECMWF CAMS global system by an aerosol model (Morcrette et al., 2009), based on earlier work by Reddy et al. (2005) and Boucher et al. (2002) that uses five species: dust, sea salt, black carbon, organic carbon and sulfates. In the version of the model used in this study, nitrates were not included. More recent versions of the model do include this important aerosol component.
Dust aerosols specifically are represented by three prognostic variables that correspond to three size bins, with bin limits of 0.03, 0.55, 0.9 and 20 µm radius. Specific dust processes that are parameterized are the production of dust through saltation and removal by wet and dry deposition and sedimentation. Various areas are marked as having the potential to emit dust based on surface albedo, moisture of the top soil level and bare soil fraction. Dust emissions are parameterized following Ginoux et al. (2001) as a function of the cubic power of 10 m wind speed. A correction is also applied to account for gustiness as described in Morcrette et al. (2008). Dry deposition depends on a prescribed deposition velocity and on the aerosol concentration in the model level closer to the surface.
For sea salt, a bin representation is used and emissions are also parameterized as a function of surface winds. For all other tropospheric aerosols (carbonaceous aerosols and sulfates), a bulk parameterization is used and emission sources are defined according to established inventories (Lamarque et al., 2010). Biomass burning emissions contributing to black carbon and organic matter loads are prescribed from the Global Fire Assimilation System (GFAS; Kaiser et al., 2012). Removal processes include sedimentation for dust and sea salt only, and wet and dry deposition and in-cloud and below-cloud scavenging for all particles. A simplified representation of the sulfur cycle is also included with only two variables, sulfur dioxide (SO2) acting as a precursor for sulfate (SO4) in particulate form. Overall, a total of 12 additional prognostic variables for the mass mixing ratio of the different components (bins or types) of the various aerosols are used in this configuration. The ECMWF CAMS system also includes chemically reactive tracers such as ozone, carbon monoxide, NOx and formaldehyde, as well as greenhouse gases.
The ECMWF CAMS system is used operationally to provide global forecasts of aerosols, reactive gases and greenhouse gases, as well as boundary conditions for higher resolution regional models proving air quality forecasts over Europe. Data are freely available from the CAMS website (https://atmosphere.copernicus.eu/; last access: 21 January 2019).
The ECMWF CAMS system also runs a 4D-Var assimilation of satellite- and ground-based data for the meteorological variables as well as the atmospheric composition variables. The aerosol assimilation uses total aerosol mixing ratio as a control variable. Each aerosol species is assumed to contribute to the total aerosol mixing ratio according to a fractional contribution which is assumed constant over the 12 h assimilation window. At the end of the minimization, the increments in total aerosol mixing ratio are distributed to the individual species according to their fractional contribution to the total mass. A forward model is used to calculate the aerosol optical depth (AOD) from the individual components using a lookup table approach. The aerosol optical properties are prescribed according to Bozzo et al. (2017). During the minimization, the tabulated optical properties of the individual species are retrieved and used in the calculation of the total extinction. The vertical integral of the extinction profile provided the total AOD, which is the observed quantity, at every observation location. The vertical profile of the aerosol mixing ratio is not modified by the assimilation as only AOD is used as observation. Thus, the vertical profile is largely dictated by the model and the distribution of the increments in the vertical is due to the vertical structure function in the background error.
AOD data at 550 nm from the MODIS sensors on board the Terra and Aqua satellites have been assimilated in the ECMWF 4D-Var system since 2008 (Benedetti et al., 2009). Initially, only the Dark Target product was used (Levy et al., 2010). Since 2015, both MODIS Dark Target and Deep Blue (Hsu et al., 2013) data have been used. Deep Blue offers the advantage of providing aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrievals over bright surfaces, which is of particular interest for getting insight on dust sources by means of data assimilation. It can be assumed that over deserts the biggest contribution to AOD comes from dust aerosols, even if the analysis uses total AOD and the other aerosol species are also included. Recently, MODIS Collection (Col.) 6 has become available (Levy et al., 2013; Sayer et al., 2013, 2014). This is the collection that has been used in this study.
The operational ECMWF CAMS system also uses AOD data from the MetOp Polar Multi-sensor Aerosol product (PMAp), operationally provided by EUMETSAT after February 2014, and hence not available for the experiments outlined in this paper. Assimilation of this product for the purpose of the application outlined here would need an independent assessment.
To investigate the impact of the assimilation on the dust prediction, three experiments were set up for the whole of 2013: one experiment with 4D-Var data assimilation of MODIS Col. 6 with the exclusion of Deep Blue data (indicated hereafter as DT), one experiment with 4D-Var assimilation of MODIS Col. 6 data with the inclusion of Deep Blue data (indicated as DTDB) and one control experiment with free-running aerosols (indicated as CONTROL). In the control experiment, no aerosol data are assimilated in the analysis. In this paper, we focus on results during the spring season (March–April–May 2013), when several marked events occurred.
The horizontal resolution of the operational version run in the context of CAMS is currently 40 km with 60 vertical levels and model top at 0.1 hPa. The experiments shown here were run with a previous version of the system, comparable with the CAMS configuration for 2013, with a horizontal resolution of 80 km and the same number of vertical levels.
4.1 Comparisons with independent AOD datasets
Results from the three experiments (DT, DTDB and CONTROL) are presented in the following. Comparisons were made with independent datasets from AERONET and CARSNET. AERONET data are routinely used for the verification of the ECMWF CAMS forecasts, but this is the first time that the CARSNET dataset has been used in this context. Model data were bilinearly interpolated to the AERONET and CARSNET site locations and then averaged over 24 h periods (from T+3 to T+24). AERONET data are similarly averaged, with each data value receiving a weight proportional to the time difference between the data values before and after it, up to a maximum of 3 h. The CARSNET data used were already in the form of daily averages and no further averaging was done.
While the entire year was considered, we focus in this paper on the spring season when Asian dust is at its peak due to the seasonal increased frequency of cyclonic weather systems with associated high surface wind speeds. At this time of the year the contrast between warm air masses in the south and cold air masses from Siberia and Mongolia is maximum. The high north–south thermal gradient can give rise to situations characterized by a high baroclinic instability, with the development of fast developing and moving lows associated with high winds over the dust-emitting regions of the Taklimakan and Gobi deserts and inner Mongolia.
As an example of the extent of these types of events, Fig. 1 shows the 9 March dust storm as simulated by the ECMWF model, along with the coverage provided by the MODIS Dark Target and Deep Blue AOD retrievals. Comparing with the satellite image on the same day (Fig. 2), courtesy of NASA, the model shows a good degree of qualitative agreement with the observations.
This particular dust storm was analyzed in detail by Chauhan et al. (2016). The storm originated in the Taklimakan and dust was first transported to northeastern China and further transported to the southeast. The air quality in Beijing was severely affected as the sandstorm spread. The dust further propagated to the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
Figure 3 shows a first look at the model performance via 2-D histograms of model versus observed values of AOD at 440 nm for March–May 2013. All stations are considered together. Data are plotted for central–northern China (30–45∘ N, 75–135∘ E). Visual inspection of the plots shows that both assimilation experiments have a more similar distribution than the control experiment with respect to the observations, particularly for large dust events (red shades). The mean of the observations is 0.593 versus 0.481 for experiment CONTROL, 0.599 for experiment DT and 0.602 for experiment DTDB. Correlation is the highest for experiment DTDB at 0.725 versus 0.707 for experiment DT and 0.668 for experiment CONTROL.
The statistical indicators presented here are fractional bias (FB, sometimes also referred to as modified normalized mean bias) and fractional gross error (FGE), although other indicators have been analyzed and have been found to lead to similar conclusions. The mathematical definitions for these parameters are the following:
where fi is the model output and oi are the observations; n represents the total number of observations. The FB is normalized to make it non-dimensionless. It varies between +2 and −2 and has an ideal value of zero for a perfect model (and perfect observations). The FGE ranges between 0 and 2 and behaves symmetrically with respect to under- and overestimation, without overemphasizing outliers (as instead the root mean square error does). See Yu et al. (2006) for further information.
Figure 4 shows maps of FB for aerosol optical depth (AOD) at 440 nm with respect to all AERONET and CARSNET sites for March–May 2013 over central–northern China at the analysis time. Within a certain margin of noise, it is possible to see that the performance of both experiments including assimilated MODIS data is more skillful than that of the control experiment. The figure also shows that including the Deep Blue data, which provide aerosol optical depth information over bright surfaces, helps to further reduce the bias with respect to the ground-based observations. Figure 5 shows maps of FGE and confirms that the error with respect to the independent observations is reduced in the runs with assimilated satellite data.
Time series of FB and FGE average over the same area are shown in Fig. 6. Again, the improvement in bias and error in the assimilation experiments is visible. The model has generally a similar bias when compared to the CARSNET observations and AERONET stations over this region. The bias is particularly large for the CONTROL experiment, except for some days. Yet again the experiments with assimilated satellite data perform visibly better than the CONTROL. If we focus on the FGE, its maximum value during the study period reached values of 1. Focusing, for example, on 10 April, the error in the experiment CONTROL is close to 1.1 with respect to the AERONET stations (solid red line) and 0.7 with respect to the CARSNET station (dotted red line). However, the FGE for the DT and DTDB experiments is around 0.2 for AERONET stations (green and blue solid lines) and 0.4 for CARSNET stations (green and blue dotted lines), with a 50 %–80 % reduction in error due to the assimilation of satellite data. However, on other dates, the improvement is less marked. The dust storm case of 9 March is quite interesting. The FGE is 0.9 for all experiments with respect to the CARSNET data (red, green and blue dotted lines), but is reduced to 0.3 the following day with a faster decrease for the DTDB experiment (blue dotted line) than for the other experiments. This indicates the additional benefits of including observational satellite information over source areas. Curiously on 10 March one can observe a similar behavior but this time with respect to the AERONET observations, with the FGE going from 0.9 in the CONTROL (red solid line) to 0.4 in experiments DT and DTDB (green and blue solid lines) for an improved agreement with the AOD at the AERONET stations close to 60 %. In this case, the satellite data have improved the analysis observations downwind of the storm (see Fig. 1).
Specific sites in China have also been selected in order to understand the model skill in both remote and urbanized regions that are particularly affected by Asian dust plumes. The agreement between the experiments and independent observations is generally better for AERONET stations than CARSNET stations with generally lower normalized mean bias and FGE, highlighting the fact that the arid Asian regions where some of the CARSNET stations are located are more challenging for the model to represent correctly.
This can also be seen in Fig. 7 in which the model is compared with the observations at several CARSNET stations over the whole spring season of 2013. The increase in AOD corresponding to the passage of the 9 March storm shown in Fig. 1 is evident in the ground-based CARSNET observations. The magnitude of the dust peak in the source region is best captured by the runs with assimilated Deep Blue AOD data, even though the secondary dust peak is still underestimated by the model, as shown in the time series for Tazhong (39.0∘ N–83.67∘ E). The improvement coming from assimilation is especially felt downwind of the source regions, as seen for example in Shangri-La (28.03∘ N–99.73∘ E) to the southeast and Xilinhot (43.95∘ N–116.12∘ E) to the northeast.
4.2 Impact of the assimilation on the short-range AOD forecasts
In the previous subsection, results have been presented that show how assimilation of AOD satellite data from the MODIS retrievals brings beneficial improvements to the simulation of AOD within the ECMWF CAMS system. The impact on the analysis is clearly shown in the improvement in the FB and FGE. The question that might arise at this point is whether the impact of the assimilated satellite data is only felt at the analysis time or whether it carries on to the subsequent forecast. To answer this question, the spatial data relative to FB shown in Fig. 4 are summarized in Fig. 8 using a histogram which shows the FB as a function of the number of AERONET and CARSNET sites. Panels a, b and c show the histogram for the analysis time, whereas panels d, e and f show the same for the 48 h forecast. Again, we can observe that the skill of the experiments with data assimilation is higher with respect to the control experiment. While this increased skill is higher at analysis time, it persists into the short-range forecast at 48 h.
Figure 9 shows the behavior of FB and FGE as a function of forecast range. This is another way to display what is already shown in Fig. 8. It can be seen that the average FB (FGE) over central–northern China is lower by about 0.4 (0.2) for experiments DT and DTDB with respect to the control experiment. Of particular interest is the fact that the skill of the two experiments with data assimilation is almost constant at various forecast lead times, indicating that the positive impact of the observations is also felt after the analysis into the short-range forecast.
ECMWF CAMS forecasts are issued out to day 5. However, some users utilize the forecast from day 2 for their applications. For example, for the management of solar power plants, it is the 48 h aerosol forecast that is considered to plan the plant operations (Schroedter-Homscheidt et al., 2013). In these instances, a reduction in the forecast bias from day 2 is a welcome development. Moreover, experiment DTDB, which included both MODIS Dark Target and Deep Blue data, shows a slightly lower fractional gross error in the comparison with CARSNET data than the DT experiment, indicating an additional beneficial impact of observations close to the dust sources.
4.3 Comparisons with independent PM data
PM data were obtained for the months of March–May 2013 from CEPA for several stations in the Beijing area. For clarity purposes, only the month of March is shown in Fig. 10, which presents the comparison between model PM10 values and observations (panel a) and a map with the location of the stations (panel b). The data for all stations show a peak in PM10 (all particles with diameter smaller than 10 µm), corresponding to the passage of the dust front on 9 March. The box plot represents the histograms of hourly data obtained from the 11 air quality stations available in the Beijing municipality. Outliers are indicated with a dot. The coarse resolution of the ECMWF model means that all station points are included in the same grid box.
The model captures the front passage which is visible in the increase of PM10. However, the timing of the PM maximum in the model is early by approximately 3 h. If we consider the average value of the PM10 observation peak, then the model underestimates it by ≈100 mg m−3. Outside the peak, the values of PM in the models are too large, indicating a broader spatial extent of the aerosol plume in the model with respect to what was observed. It is important to notice that the coarse model resolution does not allow the fine details of the local pollution to be resolved, particularly in regions in which the topography is varied. Moreover, not all species are modeled in the system. For example nitrates are not included in the model version used in this study and this missing component might partially be the cause of the clear disagreement between the model and observations (see, for example, Wu et al., 2017). However in situations dominated by large-scale synoptic events such as the case for the dust storm of 9 March, the model can give a qualitative indication of the cause of the increased pollution and can be used to provide a warning to the population. This is what is seen for all experiments in Fig. 10a. What we can also observe is that the assimilation is not able to improve the PM10 forecast. The small differences between the experiments with assimilated satellite data and the control experiment are well within the large differences between the model and observations. PM10 is increased in the DTDB experiment thanks to the additional AOD data, but it does not reach the observed peak. The spurious secondary peak of 10 March, not reported in the PM data, is reduced in the DTDB experiment. However, once again, the difference with the observed values of PM is of 2 orders of magnitude.
The operational ECMWF CAMS system was used to demonstrate the impact of assimilating satellite AOD data for an improved characterization of Asian dust storms. Three experiments were conducted: one control experiment with no aerosol data assimilated, one experiment with only Collection 6 MODIS Dark Target AOD retrievals, which do not offer coverage over bright surfaces, and one experiment with all available MODIS data including Deep Blue AOD retrievals.
Several concluding points can be learned from these experiments. Results confirm that assimilation of advanced satellite data is effective for improving the representation of desert dust distributions over Asia and for monitoring and forecasting dust episodes (in the short range). In particular, MODIS Deep Blue data are beneficial both in source regions (i.e., Tazhong) and downwind of desert areas (i.e., Xilinhot and Shangri-La). The fractional bias and the gross error with respect to independent AOD observations from the AERONET and CARSNET ground-based networks are lower in the assimilation experiments than in the control forecast with no assimilated aerosol data. Time series of FGE averaged over central–northern China reveal that in some extreme cases the FGE is reduced by as much as 60 %–80 % in the experiment which includes all MODIS data (DTDB) with respect to the experiment which has no aerosol data (CONTROL). The impact of the assimilated data is mainly felt at the analysis time but remains visible in the 48 h forecast.
Comparisons with PM10 data from the CEPA network for March 2013 in the Beijing area show that the model has skill in predicting the passage of a dust front. However there is a mismatch in PM10 values with large biases (up to 2 orders of magnitude in some cases) displayed by the model, even for the assimilation experiments. The assimilation of satellite AOD in this case can only make small adjustments to PM10 but is unable to improve the quality of forecast fundamentally. Despite this, the passage of the storm is captured, indicating that the global model is somewhat able to capture the regional pollution flow, even at coarse resolution. This indicates that the global model analyses may be used as boundary conditions for regional air quality models at higher resolution, enhancing their performance in situations when part of the pollution may have originated via synoptic flow mechanisms. However, the skill of the global model for PM10 is poor. This is likely due to model biases, coarse resolution, unresolved topography, a lack of resolved local emissions and a lack of observations to constrain the aerosol speciation and vertical structure. It is worth mentioning that AOD is less affected by these factors as it is a column-integrated variable. Also, spatial patterns of AOD do not always match with those of surface PM due to variability in aerosol hygroscopicity and relative humidity which can affect AOD greatly but leave PM10 completely unchanged.
These results highlight the crucial importance of the verifying datasets to assess model skill and assimilation impact. CARSNET data offer unprecedented coverage over remote Asian dust regions which are otherwise poorly observed. From the regional distribution maps of Fig. 4 it is possible to see that CARSNET and AERONET stations over Asia are largely complementary. Data availability in these regions both for assimilation and model evaluation and development is key to progress in further addressing the challenges of Asian dust prediction.
As part of CAMS, ECMWF is providing twice-daily forecasts of atmospheric composition (including desert dust) up to 5 days ahead, which are publicly available. These forecasts rely on assimilation of MODIS Collection 6.1 AOD (both Dark Target and Deep Blue data) as well as PMAp data. They have been shown to provide useful information and reliable boundary conditions for local air quality applications in Europe, China and east Asia, provided they are used in conjunction with high-resolution regional air quality models.
Model data can be obtained from ECMWF upon request by directly contacting the corresponding author (Angela Benedetti; firstname.lastname@example.org). AERONET data can be obtained from their website at https://aeronet.gsfc.nasa.gov/ (last acccess: 21 January 2019). The CARSNET and CEPA data used in this article were courtesy of Xiaoye Zhang (email@example.com).
FDG provided the initial motivation for this study, contributed to the writing of the manuscript, performed the PM10 verification and provided Figs. 1, 8 and 10. LJ provided the software for the plotting of Figs. 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9. VHP made several comments and suggestions for the original version of the manuscript and provided financial support through the PANDA project (FP7 606719). SR contributed to the revised version of the manuscript and provided input on the description of the model dust scheme which he had revised and developed. XZ kindly provided the CARSNET AOD and the CEPA PM10 data.
The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.
This work has been initiated and partly funded by the PANDA European Project
(FP7, no. 606719). The work has also been supported by the Copernicus
Atmosphere Monitoring Service, which is part of the European Union's flagship
space programme Copernicus. CAMS data are freely available from
http://atmosphere.copernicus.eu (last access: 21 January 2019). The data providers contributing to the
AERONET and CARSNET networks are also gratefully acknowledged. We acknowledge
the use of imagery from the NASA Worldview application
(https://worldview.earthdata.nasa.gov/; last access: 21 January 2019) operated by the NASA Goddard Space
Flight Center Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS) project. PM10
data were courtesy of the China Environmental Protection Agency network
(China). The co-editor Federic Fierli and two anonymous reviewers are
gratefully acknowledged for their useful comments which have greatly contributed to
the improvement of the original version of the manuscript. The design team at ECMWF (Anabel Bowen and Simon Witter) is also
gratefully acknowledged for revising all figures to comply with publication standards.
Edited by: Federico Fierli
Reviewed by: two anonymous referees
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TYDE Launches its Brand-New Website
TYDE launches its new website
TYDE, a Thomas Dudley Business is proud to announce the launch of their brand-new website! Designed with the customer in mind; TYDE’s new website provides easy access to their vast range of plumbing fittings and spares.
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You can visit the new TYDE website at www.thomasdudley.co.uk/tyde


text:
Everybody hates History right?
Well I do love Horrible Histories But everything has to start somewhere, even animation. This is only a small overview, there are tons more I can talk about but this is a website and people don’t like to read for long so I’ll keep it short but informative ^^;
The Early Days
Animation may have not been drawn on paper, but the earliest animation can be seen in Paleolithic cave paintings with animals with multiple sets of legs giving the impression at least 5000 years ago, a vase found in Iran had five images painted of a goat leaping to grab a leaf from a tree.
Moving to Paper
Many centuries later, inventions like the Magic Lantern, Thaumatrope, Phenakistoscope, Zoetrope, Praxinoscope and the Flipbook all helped bring the illusion of motion to life, but the only thing missing was sound. It was until 1928 that Walt Disney’s Steamboat Willie was the first short film to contain synchronized sound.
Colour was finally added to animation 5 years later in Flowers and Trees released by Walt Disney in 1932. The first ever full feature film was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs released in 1937, and made $416 million dolllars in box office sales, from then on, Walt Disney Studios has become the biggest animation company in the world.
Stop motion also had been around before in movies combining live action, however Aardman is the only well known animation company that produces feature length stop motion movies to this day.The first film to be completely stop motion/clay animated was The Adventures of Mark Twain released in 1985 directed by Will Vinton, although it made a theatrical release, it only made into 6 major cities.
Although Stop Motion is less popular with movies, a man and his dog still keep it alive. They are called Wallace and Gromit.
Created by Nick Park, he was able to get a job in Aardman to finish his first short film ‘A Grand Day Out’. Since then the famous duo won Oscars with 4 30 minute films, 11 shorts, a feature length movie and a special concert at the BBC Proms, and their films translated into over 20 languages.
Getting all technical
Pixar were the first to create animation completely on a computer with countless short films, before joining Disney to create the first ever computer animated feature length film grossing over $300 thousand, before making a $1 billion with Toy Story 3, the first ever animated movie to reach that much in box office sales. Pixar is now the most successful Computer animated animation company in the world.

domain: artistic


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Chief Judge Melissa Gillespie has announced new protocols for communication and testing related to COVID-19 in provincial courthouses.
The new rules were issued on Jan. 21, and took effect immediately, after representatives of the three levels of the court and court services branch met with senior health officials.
There are five main components, featuring a public health guidance document that’s publicly posted, and a webpage created by the BC Centre for Disease Control. Each regional health authority is responsible for investigating COVID-19 related incidents at courthouses within their jurisdiction as well as “response and timely communication” with the courts, Court Services Branch and “where appropriate” the public.
“If there is to be group testing at a courthouse, notice will be communicated by the regional health authority to those court participants relevant to the investigation,” the announcement reads. Moreover, there will be “targeted access” to COVID-19 testing related to “anticipated or ongoing court proceedings where, for example, a court participant is experiencing COVID-19 like symptoms and testing is required to determine whether the court proceeding can continue as scheduled.”
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text:
Mountain Province complete business combination with Kennady
13 April 2018
Mountain Province Diamonds Inc. and Kennady Diamonds Inc. are pleased to announce the successful completion of their previously announced business combination, pursuant to which Mountain Province has acquired all of the common shares of Kennady by way of a court approved plan of arrangement. Under the terms of the arrangement, holders of Kennady shares received 0.975 Mountain Province shares in exchange for each Kennady share. With the arrangement now complete, Mountain Province intends to cause the Kennady shares to be delisted from the TSX Venture Exchange and Kennady intends to submit an application to the applicable securities regulators to cease to be a reporting issuer and to terminate its public reporting obligations.


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domain: travel


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Ingratiating comedy-drama that tracks several characters as they dance, talk, love, and, uh, "groove" the night away at a warehouse rave. Serving mostly as a rave primer for the uninitiated, Groove often cuts back to the audience's surrogate character, a dorky newbie (Hamish Linklater) who is discovering everything for the first time: ecstasy, techno music, and of course cliched romance.… read more!
Movie Titles: G
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The history of protected nature areas in Armenia has duration of thousands years. The Armenian chroniclers say that since the end of the 3rd and begging of the 2nd centuries B.C. there was an evidence of activities aimed at nature protection.
The Khosrov forest has a history of about 1700 years. It preserves ancient cultural amenities, historical-architectural monuments, unique plant and animal species, splendid diversity of scientific landscapes.
The forest was founded in 334-338 by the order of Armenian King Khosrov II Kotak (Kotak means small), to improve the natural-climatic conditions of adjacent territories of Artashat city – the capital of Armenia of the given period and the newly established Dvin city to ensure conservation and enrichment of flora and fauna species; serve as a ground for royal hunting, military exercises and entertain. According to the chronicler Movses Khorenatsi during the king’s reign forest plantings were carried out on the territory of the present reserve and the whole country took part in that activity. In addition, on the same territory the king established special hunting grounds for bird and animal hunting. Later the forest was enriched with hunting animals brought in from other places, especially from Persia.
In accordance with the evidence of Armenian historian Pavstos Byuzand, two fenced forests, called “Tachar Mayri (Sacred Forest)” and “Khosrovakert”, were established on both banks of Azat river. “Tachar Mayri” forest started from Garni Temple and stretched to Dvin city. “Khosrovakert” was established in between Artashat and Dvin cities along the reeds. During many centauries “Khosrovakert” forest disappeared. The remained “Temple Mayri” was later merged with the natural forest. The King Khosrov’s forest remained during the centuries to become a reserve.
The area is closely linked with the history of Armenian nation and glorious episodes of historical past starting from the periods of polytheistic pagan and Hellenistic culture. In the historical past, the present territory of the reserve was included in Ayrarat State of Mets Hayk Kingdom. In the Middle Ages the state was one of the densely populated and lively areas. It was the area of central provinces Ayrarat and Syunik of Ancient Armenia (Great Hayq as per 7th century map), the residences of kings – capital Dvin and Artashat, the residence of Catholicosate (Havuts Tar) – the supreme patriarch of all Armenians, as well as the arena of historical events. It was also the place where famous personalities of religious and secular life, such as Grigor Lusavorich (240-326), Grigor Magistros (11th century), Gevorg Marzpetuni (10th century) and others lived and acted. The evidences of the historical past – preserved or partly destroyed remnants of secular and spiritual structures (fortresses, castles, churches, cross-stones, remnants of abandoned villages, grave-yards and others) together with the natural peculiarities of the area make Khosrov Forest reserve more famous and attractive.
People perpetuate the name of Khosrov King not only giving his name to the forest, but also to Khosrov settlement, Khosrov River and Khosrovasar Mountain.
In September of 1958 the Government of Armenia adopted a decision to declare Khosrov forest as reserve zones. It was created to conserve and improve the unique flora and fauna.
Khosrov forest is the evidence of the Armenian people’s caring attitude towards historical monuments. Thanks to their attitude, the virgin forest located near the current capital of Armenia-Yerevan has been preserved for 17 centuries.


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ABOUT CENTRE FOR PIANO AND VOICE PERFECTION
The Centre for Piano and Voice Perfection is an accredited registered academy of music based in Accra. The Center\'s major task is to promote the playing of piano and organ music, develop good quality singing voices for children and adults, train pianists, church organists and choirmasters in the West African Sub Region.
CENTRE FOR PIANO AND VOICE PERFECTION LOCATION
P.O. Box c-604, St Thomas Aquinas shs, CPVP, Cantonments Cantoments
Box Accra Greater Accra