I remember the first time I visited a penguin colony. It was not hard to find. Penguin colonies smell really really bad. Here’s why:
Monthly Archives: January 2012
Lake Elmo Ice Fishing Contest Canceled
Organizers with the Lake Elmo Lions Club announced the cancellation of next Sunday’s ice fishing contest…
Organizers measured the ice on the lake at about 12 inches, and said it needed to be 18 inches for everyone’s safety, especially because most participants would be parking their vehicles along the lake’s edge.
…this is the second time in recent years the event had to be canceled because of warm weather.
#occupy update
Things have gone south in Oakland
On Saturday, Occupy Oakland re-entered the national spotlight during a day-long effort to take over an empty building and transform it into a social center. Oakland police thwarted the efforts, arresting more than 400 people in the process, primarily during a mass nighttime arrest outside a downtown YMCA. That number included at least six journalists, myself included, in direct violation of OPD media relations policy that states “media shall never be targeted for dispersal or enforcement action because of their status.”
After an unsuccessful afternoon effort to occupy a former convention center, the more than 1,000 protesters elected to return to the site of their former encampment outside City Hall. On the way, they clashed with officers, advancing down a street with makeshift shields of corrugated metal and throwing objects at a police line. Officers responded with smoke grenades, tear gas, and bean bag projectiles. After protesters regrouped, they marched through downtown as police pursued and eventually contained a few hundred of them in an enclosed space outside a YMCA. Some entered the gym and were arrested inside.
As soon as it became clear that I would be kettled with the protesters.
..
How do you know when to stop squeezing?
If you are a snake. And, what causes some island dwelling boas to be smaller than the mainland variety?
If you want to know the answer to these two burning questions, click here and visit Smithsonian’s Surprising Science where I’ll be guest blogging for a couple of weeks. For the first question, there is some new and very cool research. For the second question, some older (but closely related) research.
Post SOTU weekly address
It’s about process. Or, more accurately, it’s about Republican obstructionism.
Global Warming Is Ruining The Minnesota Winter
I suspect that the complexity of global climate change is under-appreciated. If you live in a cold climate and I tell you that things will get warmer, you may see this as good news and look forward to a future where you no longer have to get your antifreeze checked and replace your old battery in September in preparation for the bitter cold of winter. But global warming is not the only kind of change happening because of the release of huge amounts of carbon in the atmosphere, and even with respect to the warming itself, things are much more complex than “it gets warm.” One example of this complexity is to be found in the Minnesota lakes, and in the closely related activity of fishing those lakes.
Minnesota normally gets quite cold, so ice forms on the lakes early, gets thick fast, survives any mid-winter warm spells, and stays solid late in the season. Minnesota normally gets relatively little snow and tends to be windy, so those ice-covered lakes, especially the larger ones, often have large areas where the ice is not covered by very much of the white fluffy stuff. Also, the waters at the time of freezing tend to be cooler than they strictly need to be to form ice; Deep water in the lakes stays cool all summer, so when winter comes the average temperature of the water in many lakes is lower than necessary to see ice formation at the surface.
Combined, these factors support two things:
Continue reading Global Warming Is Ruining The Minnesota Winter
Facing irrelevancy at the national level, Michel Bachmann makes important sounding statement of no substance
On meet the press, no less:
“I reserve the right to endorse someone but at this point I have not made a decision about endorsing any one of the candidates,” she said. “We are still in the process and I really truly do, Bob, want to be a unifying person in this party.”
Uh huh.
Political analyst Larry Jacobs of the Humphrey Institute said Bachmann may be holding off announcing an endorsement for “drama’s sake.”
Uh.
The Topsy Turvy World of the Republican Primary Process. And a dancing otter.
After a surprising showing in South Carolina, New Gingrich pulled way ahead of Mitt Romney, in pre-Florida Primary polling. But that sudden increase in numbers quickly eased off and Gingrich and Romney remained very close for a few days, with Romney a few points ahead. Over the last 36 hours, Romney has put significant distance between his candidacy and Gingrich’s, with Romney polling consistently above 40% and Gingrich consistanly double digits behind. Santorum is holding steady at 12-14%, and nobody cares about Ron Paul.
However, in comparing all of the candidates in polls asking people across the country which Republican they would vote for, Romney is NOT a clear winner. In fact, Gingrich tends to score a couple of points ahead of Romney. In one recent poll (NBC/Wall Street Journal) Gingrich was 9 points ahead. In the most recent poll (Gallup Tracking) Gingrich was just 2 points ahead.
But the preference for Gingrich does not align with national polls comparing the various republican candidates with Obama. In these polls, Romney tends to come closer to Obama’s lead than does Gingrich, who tends to get his ass whupped by the President, with Barack Obama showing a double-digit lead over the hapless and blithering ex-speaker.
But a lot can change in two days. Gingrich is on the attack against Romney, and his main point of attack seems to be to point out how Romney is on the attack against Gingrich. I don’t expect this to change the outcome of the Florida Primary. Romney will win there, although is it always possible that he will win by less than the current polls suggest. But what may happen over the longer term is a shift in the overall view of Gingrich and Romney by Republican voters in general. I expect there to be a downgrading of support for both “Front Runners” as they continue to slam each other. Santorum will come out a minor winner over the medium term, possibly even taking a state or two if his strategy is managed effectively and his money holds out.
Just for fun here’s Ron Paul’s attack ad ad d d attack attack ack ack ad d against Gingrich:
Continue reading The Topsy Turvy World of the Republican Primary Process. And a dancing otter.
New British Studies Confirms Climate Change Consensus, Daily Mail Gets It Totally Wrong
Since the Daily Mail is a British thing and the latest form of entertainment in Britain is Libel Tourism, I won’t say to you that the Daily Mail is a rag full of lies and deceit. Instead, I’ll let you be the judge.
These studies:
Decline in solar output unlikely to offset global warming
23 January 2012 – New research has found that solar output is likely to reduce over the next 90 years but that will not substantially delay expected increases in global temperatures caused by greenhouse gases.
Carried out by the Met Office and the University of Reading, the study establishes the most likely changes in the Sun’s activity and looks at how this could affect near-surface temperatures on Earth.
It found that the most likely outcome was that the Sun’s output would decrease up to 2100, but this would only cause a reduction in global temperatures of 0.08 °C. This compares to an expected warming of about 2.5 °C over the same period due to greenhouse gases (according to the IPCC’s B2 scenario for greenhouse gas emissions that does not involve efforts to mitigate emissions).
Gareth Jones, a climate change detection scientist with the Met Office, said: “This research shows that the most likely change in the Sun’s output will not have a big impact on global temperatures or do much to slow the warming we expect from greenhouse gases.
and
4 January 2012 – 2012 is expected to be around 0.48 °C warmer than the long-term (1961-1990) global average of 14.0 °C, with a predicted likely range of between 0.34 °C and 0.62 °C, according to the Met Office annual global temperature forecast.
The middle of this range would place 2012 within the top 10 warmest years in a series which goes back to 1850.
The prediction follows provisional figures published by the Met Office and University of East Anglia last month which showed that 2011 saw temperatures 0.36 °C above the long term average and is currently ranked the 11th warmest year on record in the HadCRUT3 temperature dataset.
At the same time the World Meteorological Organization published a global average temperature anomaly of 0.41 deg C based on an average of the three international global average temperature datasets1.
Both the global average temperature value from HadCRUT3 and the WMO falls within the range predicted by the Met Office for 2011 of between 0.28 °C and 0.60 °C, with a most likely value of 0.44 °C above the long term average. This is consistent with the Met Office forecast which indicated that 2011 was unlikely to be a record year.
What the Daily Mail said:
Can pubic lice enhance the sexual experience?
I’m sure it can … IF you are the lice. Otherwise, not so sure.
At Science Online 2012, Butt Girl covered this topic and in so doing did not beat around the bush. The audience ate it up. She cunningly had us wrapped around her finger. As it were.
Anyway, she’s written a bit bout this, which you can find here.
Will Coral Reefs be Gone by the End of the Century?
Quiet possibly. Ocean acidification caused by the same CO2 that causes global warming is causing them to die.
You might think you can take solace in the idea that coral reefs have been with us forever even when ocean chemistry changes, that there must be some way in which coral reefs survive through changing conditions, and that they may look different for a while but they can’t possibly entirely disappear. But the thing is, scientists have known for decades that coral reefs have in fact re-evolved numerous times from entirely different phylogenetic stock. This probably means that ocean acidification has happened before. So no, we are not going to get out of this easily.
You may take solace in the idea that if coral reefs have disappeared before that this is a natural process and they can disappear again and we can still drive around in our SUV’s and stuff. Wrong again. Those prior turnovers in reef history seem to have been associated with mass extinctions. So, no. we don’t get a pass on that one either.
Anyway, here’s what I want you to know. 1) There is a new book out by Peter Sale (author of Our Dying Planet: An Ecologist’s View of the Crisis We Face
If coral reefs interest you, you may be interested in this book on the history of the study of coral reefs by David Dobbs, and this conversation with Dobbs about his book.
Evolution and Menstruation on Skeptically Speaking Podcast
This week, we’re talking about what may be the most stigmatized facet of human reproduction. We’re joined by Dr. Kate Clancy, anthropology professor and science blogger, to learn about the physiology and function of menstruation, and the history of how it’s been considered in medicine and myth. And on the podcast, biologist P.Z. Myers of Pharyngula looks at menstruation from an evolutionary perspective.
Two incontrovertible things: Anthropogenic Global Warming is Real, and the Wall Street Journal is Political Rag UPDATED
The Wall Street Journal has published one of the most offensive, untruthful, twisted reviews of what scientists think of climate change; the WSJ Lies about the facts and twists the story to accommodate the needs of head-in-the-sand industrialists and 1%ers; The most compelling part of their argument, according to them, is that the editorial has been signed by 16 scientists.
The scientists who signed to WSJ editorial are:
Claude Allegre, former director of the Institute for the Study of the Earth, University of Paris; J. Scott Armstrong, cofounder of the Journal of Forecasting and the International Journal of Forecasting; Jan Breslow, head of the Laboratory of Biochemical Genetics and Metabolism, Rockefeller University; Roger Cohen, fellow, American Physical Society; Edward David, member, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Sciences; William Happer, professor of physics, Princeton; Michael Kelly, professor of technology, University of Cambridge, U.K.; William Kininmonth, former head of climate research at the Australian Bureau of Meteorology; Richard Lindzen, professor of atmospheric sciences, MIT; James McGrath, professor of chemistry, Virginia Technical University; Rodney Nichols, former president and CEO of the New York Academy of Sciences; Burt Rutan, aerospace engineer, designer of Voyager and SpaceShipOne; Harrison H. Schmitt, Apollo 17 astronaut and former U.S. senator; Nir Shaviv, professor of astrophysics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Henk Tennekes, former director, Royal Dutch Meteorological Service; Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists, Geneva.
Emphasis added to underscore the fact that this is a group of older and often retired weathermen, engineers, or otherwise not-climate-scientists.
ADDED (from Media Matters)
Six Of The Scientists Have Been Linked To Fossil Fuel Interests. Roger Cohen and Edward David are both former employees of ExxonMobil. William Happer is the Chairman of the Board for the George C. Marshall Institute, which has received funding from Exxon. Rodney Nichols is also on the boards of the George Marshall Institute and the Manhattan Institute, which has been funded by Exxon and the Koch Foundations. Harrison Schmitt was the Chairman Emeritus of the Annapolis Center for Science-Based Public Policy, which was funded by oil refiners and electric utilities in the 1990s, according to a Wall Street Journal report (via Nexis). Richard Lindzen also served on the Economic Advisory Council of the Center, was funded by ExxonMobil through the 2000s.
Speaking of lists of scientists, here’s another one:
P. H. GLEICK
R. M. ADAMS
R. M. AMASINO
E. ANDERS
D. J. ANDERSON
W. W. ANDERSON
L. E. ANSELIN
M. K. ARROYO
B. ASFAW
F. J. AYALA
A. BAX
A. J. BEBBINGTON
G. BELL
M. V. L. BENNETT
J. L. BENNETZEN
M. R. BERENBAUM
O. B. BERLIN
P. J. BJORKMAN
E. BLACKBURN
J. E. BLAMONT
M. R. BOTCHAN
J. S. BOYER
E. A. BOYLE
D. BRANTON
S. P. BRIGGS
W. R. BRIGGS
W. J. BRILL
R. J. BRITTEN
W. S. BROECKER
J. H. BROWN
P. O. BROWN
A. T. BRUNGER
J. CAIRNS JR.
D. E. CANFIELD
S. R. CARPENTER
J. C. CARRINGTON
A. R. CASHMORE
J. C. CASTILLA
A. CAZENAVE
F. S. CHAPIN III
A. J. CIECHANOVER
D. E. CLAPHAM
W. C. CLARK
R. N. CLAYTON
M. D. COE
E. M. CONWELL
E. B. COWLING
R. M COWLING
C. S. COX
R. B. CROTEAU
D. M. CROTHERS
P. J. CRUTZEN
G. C. DAILY
G. B. DALRYMPLE
J. L. DANGL
S. A. DARST
D. R. DAVIES
M. B. DAVIS
P. V. DE CAMILLI
C. DEAN
R. S. DEFRIES
J. DEISENHOFER
D. P. DELMER
E. F. DELONG
D. J. DEROSIER
T. O.
DIENER
R. DIRZO
J. E. DIXON
M. J. DONOGHUE
R. F. DOOLITTLE
T. DUNNE
P. R. EHRLICH
S. N. EISENSTADT
T. EISNER
K. A. EMANUEL
S. W.
ENGLANDER
W. G. ERNST
P. G. FALKOWSKI
G. FEHER
J. A. FEREJOHN
A. FERSHT
E. H. FISCHER
R. FISCHER
K. V. FLANNERY
J. FRANK
P. A. FREY
I. FRIDOVICH
C. FRIEDEN
D. J. FUTUYMA
W. R. GARDNER
C. J. R. GARRETT
W. GILBERT
R. B. GOLDBERG
W. H. GOODENOUGH
C. S. GOODMAN
M. GOODMAN
P. GREENGARD
S. HAKE
G. HAMMEL
S. HANSON
S. C. HARRISON
S. R. HART
D. L. HARTL
R. HASELKORN
K. HAWKES
J. M. HAYES
B. HILLE
T. HÃ?KFELT
J. S. HOUSE
M. HOUT
D. M. HUNTEN
I. A. IZQUIERDO
A. T. JAGENDORF
D. H. JANZEN
R. JEANLOZ
C. S. JENCKS
W. A. JURY
H. R. KABACK
T. KAILATH
P. KAY
S. A. KAY
D. KENNEDY
A. KERR
R. C. KESSLER
G. S. KHUSH
S. W. KIEFFER
P. V. KIRCH
K. KIRK
M. G. KIVELSON
J. P. KLINMAN
A. KLUG
L. KNOPOFF
H. KORNBERG
J. E. KUTZBACH
J. C. LAGARIAS
K. LAMBECK
A. LANDY
C. H. LANGMUIR
B. A. LARKINS
X. T. LE PICHON
R. E. LENSKI
E. B. LEOPOLD
S. A. LEVIN
M. LEVITT
G. E. LIKENS
J. LIPPINCOTT-SCHWARTZ
L. LORAND
C. O. LOVEJOY
M. LYNCH
A. L. MABOGUNJE
T. F. MALONE
S. MANABE
J. MARCUS
D. S. MASSEY
J. C. MCWILLIAMS
E. MEDINA
H. J. MELOSH
D. J. MELTZER
C. D. MICHENER
E. L. MILES
H. A. MOONEY
P. B. MOORE
F. M. M. MOREL
E. S. MOSLEY-THOMPSON
B. MOSS
W. H. MUNK
N. MYERS
G. B. NAIR
J. NATHANS
E. W. NESTER
R. A. NICOLL
R. P. NOVICK
J. F. O’CONNELL
P. E. OLSEN
N. D. OPDYKE
G. F. OSTER
E. OSTROM
N. R. PACE
R. T. PAINE
R. D. PALMITER
J. PEDLOSKY
G. A. PETSKO
G. H. PETTENGILL
S. G. PHILANDER
D. R. PIPERNO
T. D. POLLARD
P. B. PRICE JR.
P. A. REICHARD
B. F. RESKIN
R. E. RICKLEFS
R. L. RIVEST
J. D. ROBERTS
A. K. ROMNEY
M. G. ROSSMANN
D. W. RUSSELL
W. J. RUTTER
J. A. SABLOFF
R. Z. SAGDEEV
M. D. SAHLINS
A. SALMOND
J. R. SANES
R. SCHEKMAN
J. SCHELLNHUBER
D. W. SCHINDLER
J. SCHMITT
S. H. SCHNEIDER
V. L. SCHRAMM
R. R. SEDEROFF
C. J. SHATZ
F. SHERMAN
R. L. SIDMAN
K. SIEH
E. L. SIMONS
B. H. SINGER
M. F. SINGER
B. SKYRMS
N. H. SLEEP
B. D. SMITH
S. H. SNYDER
R. R. SOKAL
C. S. SPENCER
T. A. STEITZ
K. B. STRIER
T. C. SÃ?DHOF
S. S. TAYLOR
J. TERBORGH
D. H. THOMAS
L. G. THOMPSON
R. T. T JIAN
M. G. TURNER
S. UYEDA
J. W. VALENTINE
J. S. VALENTINE
J. L. VAN ETTEN
K. E. VAN HOLDE
M. VAUGHAN
S. VERBA
P. H. VON HIPPEL
D. B. WAKE
A. WALKER
J. E. WALKER
E. B. WATSON
P. J. WATSON
D. WEIGEL
S. R. WESSLER
M. J. WEST-EBERHARD
T. D. WHITE
W. J. WILSON
R. V. WOLFENDEN
J. A. WOOD
G. M. WOODWELL
H. E. WRIGHT JR.
C. WU
C. WUNSCH
M. L. ZOBACK
Sad Anniversary, Apollo 1
I met Amy Shira Teitel at the Science Online 2012 conference, and we had an interesting conversation about the risks of spaceflight. Have a look at this extensive coverage by Amy of the Apollo 1 fire, which happened 45 years ago.
"Lord Lawson should name funder of climate sceptic think tank, judge told"
An anti-science climate denialist “think” tank (the word “think” clearly does not actually applyl here) is said to have received a big chunk of money from some anonymous source, and an effort has been made to find out who that source is. This is all happening in Britain where all the legal systems are strange and alien to me. Here’s a teaser and a link to the details.
THERE IS “enormous public interest” in naming the climate sceptic Global Warming Policy Foundation’s seed donor and “a pressing need to scrutinise” any links he has with the oil and coal industry, an information tribunal judge heard today (Friday, January 27, 2012).
Brendan Montague, the co-founder and director of the Request Initiative, asked the tribunal to reveal the name of the wealthy public figure who gave £50,000 to launch Lord Lawson’s think tank, an increasingly influential charity which attacks climate science and has called for changes to climate policies.
Mr Montague’s initial Freedom of Information request was refused by the Charity Commission in 2010 and that decision was upheld by the Information Commissioner on the grounds that it would be “unfair” to release personal data without permission from the funder.
However, Mr Montague took the case to the Information Tribunal arguing there is a “legitimate public interest”…
Read the rest here.
In a related matter, do consider visiting the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund page on Facebook. As you may know, I’m being threatened with a law suit for, like, a zillion pounds by a climate science denialist in Britain. I may need help! But if not me, than someone. Climate denialists will stop at nothing to force their bankrupt agenda.