“World Wide Mind: The Coming Integration of Humanity, Machines, and the Internet” by Michael Chorost
Monthly Archives: August 2012
Pat Robertson’s Advice on Dating Girls with Adopted Children: Don’t
OK, new theory. Everyone on the planet but Pat Robertson made a pact with Satan, and as a result, God sent Pat Robertson.
Who is to blame for politically shaded shootings?
Floyd Lee Corkins, armed with a gun, spare ammo, and 15 uneaten Chick-Fil-A sandwiches attacked the Family Research Council wounding an unarmed guard. Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, blamed the Southern Poverty Law Center for giving Corkins “license” to shoot at them. Steve Benen at The Maddow Blog discusses the question of assigning blame, suggesting that Perkins got that wrong.
Here’s the thing. One could say that Corkins was acting under some sort of inspiration created by organizations like the SPLC and other leftish or progressive organizations or groups who have spoken out against anti-gay rhetoric and policies. Similarly, one could say that when Jared Loughner killed and wounded a bunch of people at a Democratic Congresswoman’s public event people could have assigned blame to right wing rhetoric which is plenty enough laced with references to violence.
Is either of these assignations of blame valid? Yes. One is, one isn’t. Generally speaking these days, progressive movements and for the most part the “left” in America speaks out against violence, is more or less either anti-gun or pro gun regulation, mostly anti-war, and mostly pacifist, while the right wing tends to form heavily armed paramilitary militias, is totally against almost any kind of gun related regulations, is pro war, and bellicose. So when someone from the right shoots someone on the left, it really is a natural extension of what they talk about. When someone on the left shoots someone on the right, that’s a crazy person.
Correct?
The Melting of Earth's Northern Ice Cap: Update
We are becoming aware of two very important changes in the Arctic that you need to know about. These are separate thing but related, and both are almost certainly the outcome of anthropogenic global warming (AGW). They are:
- The sea ice that covers much of the Arctic Sea during the winter is normally reduced during the northern summer, but this year, the reduction has been dramatic. There is less sea ice in the Arctic Circle than recorded in recent history.
- The massive continental glacier on Greenland, the largest glacial mass in the Northern Hemisphere, has undergone more melting this summer than observed over recent years. A few weeks ago you may have heard about a great melt in Greenland. This is not that. The July Melting event was interesting and I’ll discuss it below, but the news story breaking today is about something else.
The Arctic Sea Ice
Every summer the large areas of the Arctic Sea’s ice melts away, then it refreezes each winter. The minimum extent of ice is typically reached in about mid September. The extent of ice at this minimum has been getting steadily less over time. Direct and accurate measurements don’t go back far enough to track the effects of AGW over the entire time this has been happening, but we can pretty easily look at the last few decades. Have a look at this graph:
Note that the total amount of sea ice in an average year in the 2000’s decade is about one third less than the total amount of ice in the 1980s, at the minimum period in September. Below the 2000’s line are plotted the three most ice-free years in the dataset; those are the extreme years. The present year, 2012, is tracked through mid-August on this graph.
The present year, 2012, is on track for breaking all records for the Arctic Sea ice minimum.
Here’s an interesting side story. Notice how the red line for 2012 is much straighter in a downward direction than the other lines for the same time period for the last several days of measurement. My understanding is that large storms in the Arctic appeared, covering the sea ice from observation for several days, and when the storms cleared a whole bunch of the ice was gone. This is not that unusual. Storms hasten the disappearance of sea ice. But this was a more dramatic than typical example of this event.
In case you were wondering if it was storminess and not AGW that is causing this year’s ice to be less than the other years, and I’m sure that climate change deniers will make this claim, keep in mind that a) this recent storminess does not explain more than a small amount of the ice reduction compared to overall melting and b) AGW has caused there to be more storminess in the Arctic and more warmth in the Arctic.
The Greenland Melt-off of July
Before getting to the really big news from Greenland, I want to first remind you of an interesting event that happened in July, reported by NASA (I mentioned it here). Every summer, some of the ice melts on the surface of Greenland’s massive glacier, then much of that refreezes. However, the melting is usually spotty…here and there and rarely everywhere. The highlands are too cold to melt at all in some years. But July was very warm and there were a few days when virtually the entire surface of greenland melted. There were slushy puddles everywhere. Then, much of it refroze. This happens now and then. We can assume that widespread melting like this is more common in a warmer world, and will be part of the process of glacial wasting as the Greenland Ice Sheet turns over time into seawater. But this particular event was in and of itself not entirely unheard of.
But there is a neat graph that shows why glacial melting is both more important than one might thing and also more complicated than one might think. Have a look:
Just as sea ice extent in the Arctic reduces every summer, the albedo of the Greenland Ice sheet reduces. The white fresh frozen snow that falls over the winter is highly reflective…has a high albedo…and as it melts and gets slushy and mixes with water is has lower albedo. Plain water has very low albedo compared to snow. This is important because high albedo surfaces reflect a lot of sunlight (which provides heat) back into space while low albedo surfaces absorb sunlight, converting it to heat that adds to the local and ultimately global temperature.
There is a feedback mechanism at work here. Imagine that something happens to make for a late Canadian winter with a widespread heavy snow storms much later than usual. This could be caused by a combination of events happening just right in a given year. So, late in the spring there is a lot more snow cover than normal. This snow will reflect a lot of sunlight away so the beginning of the summer is cooler. If this effect lasts into fall, early snows may cause the subsequent winter to be even colder and snow to fall instead of rain, producing more Albedo. Etc. Conversely, something that reduces albedo in a given year may cause more melting of snow and ice, which means less albedo, and thus more melting. You get the picture.
In the days before we understood Orbital Geometry and before we had a very good ida of how air and sea currents really work, this feedback effect with albedo was considered as a candidate for what causes glacial periods to come on and go away. We now know that albedo related forcing and feedback is not the prime mover in climate change, but it is still an effect.
In the graph above, you see the line for the present year. Note that Greenland albedo is lower for the entire year than for any of the other years plotted. Then, in July, that melting event occurs. Then, the water freezes. Albedo is not like sea ice extent (compare to the two graphs). Sea ice extent is a slowly changing ponderous slow moving variable, while Albedo is al wiggly-wobbly and highly variable. A big snow storm, albedo goes up. A big rain storm, albedo goes down. So, the wobbliness of the line does not mean too much, but it is very cool to see the direct relationship between observed widespread melting and albedo. And, this effect will probably play a role as the Greenland Ice Sheet melts away.
And now, for the big news
The really big new that is coming out today is about greenland. From a press release covering the findings of Mardo Tedesco, professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences at The City College of New York:
Melting over the Greenland ice sheet shattered the seasonal record on August 8 – a full four weeks before the close of the melting season…
This year, cumulative melting in the first week in August had already exceeded the record of 2010, taken over a full season
“With more yet to come in August, this year’s overall melting will fall way above the old records. That’s a goliath year – the greatest melt since satellite recording began in 1979.” …
This spells a change for the face of southern Greenland, he added, with the ice sheet thinning at its edges and lakes on top of glaciers proliferating.
Professor Tedesco noted that these changes jibe with what most of the models predict – the difference is how quickly this seems to be happening.
To quantify the changes, he calculated the duration and extent of melting throughout the season across the whole ice sheet, using data collected by microwave satellite sensors.
This ‘cumulative melting index’ can be seen as a measure of the ‘strength’ of the melting season: the higher the index, the more melting has occurred.
…
This year, Greenland experienced extreme melting in nearly every region – the west, northwest and northeast of the continent – but especially at high elevations. In most years, the ice and snow at high elevations in southern Greenland melt for a few days at most. This year it has already gone on for two months.
Here’s the graph showing the relative amount of ice melt per year in Greenland for the last few decades.
Stay tuned. And buy knickers.
Professor Tedesco’s Web Site is here.
Source Material (other than the press release):
Arctic Sea Ice Monitor
Sea Level Rise and Ice Melt
Satellites see Unprecedented Greenland Ice Sheet Melt
Albedo update for 2012
Atheist Voices of Minnesota: an Anthology of Personal Stories
Atheist Voices of Minnesota: an Anthology of Personal Stories
I just received a press release for the book, and thought I’d pass it on to you.
Atheist Voices of Minnesota: an Anthology of Personal Stories will be released August 28th
“A chorus not of arguments and positions but of shared human lives . . . At turns smart, funny, and deeply touching.” – Dale McGowan, author of Parenting Beyond Belief
ST. PAUL, Minn. (8/14/2012) —Atheists have turned a corner in public visibility in recent years, but they nevertheless remain one of America’s most misunderstood and mistrusted groups of people. A new anthology, Atheist Voices of Minnesota, attempts to address these preconceptions by letting thirty-six atheists from Minnesota openly share their personal and unique stories. The results are touching, fascinating, and diverse.
Since this is a cross section of how everyday atheists think and feel, this collection is an excellent introduction to atheism, and will inspire other atheists to come out to their family and friends. It includes contributions from well known atheists, such as PZ Myers, the world’s most popular atheist blogger, and Chris Stedman, a Huffington Post and Washington Post blogger. But it also contains previously unheard voices, part of its power and uniqueness.
The book has already received endorsements from major figures in the freethought community, and has a foreword by Greta Christina, a prominent atheist blogger, speaker, and author. Kendyl Gibbons, senior minister of the First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis, writes that the authors’ “thoughtful perspectives will be illuminating to people of any faith, or none.”
Several upcoming events offer a chance to hear from contributors, including:
- Aug 26: Atheists Talk radio show, on AM 950 KTNF at 9am, will be devoted to the book
- Aug 28: Official publication date of Atheist Voices of Minnesota
- Sep 16: The Minnesota Atheist public lecture at Southdale Library in Edina from 2 – 3:30pm will be devoted to author readings from the book. PZ Myers is one of the authors reading
- Oct 10: Several authors will read from the book at 7pm at Barnes & Noble in the HarMar Mall in Rosedale
- ct 13: Author reading at Minnesota Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Bloomington, MN, at 10:30am
For a complete and updated listing of events, visit Freethought House.
Atheist Voices of Minnesota is published by Freethought House. All net proceeds will go to Minnesota Atheists, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, with authors, editors, designers, and other volunteers receiving no financial benefit. Minnesota Atheists is Minnesota’s oldest, largest, and most active atheist organization. Its mission is to promote the positive contributions of atheism to society and to maintain separation of state and church. For more information, visit http://mnatheists.org.
Atheist Voices of Minnesota
Atheist Voices of Minnesota: an Anthology of Personal Stories
I just received a press release for the book, and thought I’d pass it on to you.
Atheist Voices of Minnesota: an Anthology of Personal Stories will be released August 28th
“A chorus not of arguments and positions but of shared human lives . . . At turns smart, funny, and deeply touching.” – Dale McGowan, author of Parenting Beyond Belief
ST. PAUL, Minn. (8/14/2012) —Atheists have turned a corner in public visibility in recent years, but they nevertheless remain one of America’s most misunderstood and mistrusted groups of people. A new anthology, Atheist Voices of Minnesota, attempts to address these preconceptions by letting thirty-six atheists from Minnesota openly share their personal and unique stories. The results are touching, fascinating, and diverse.
Since this is a cross section of how everyday atheists think and feel, this collection is an excellent introduction to atheism, and will inspire other atheists to come out to their family and friends. It includes contributions from well known atheists, such as PZ Myers, the world’s most popular atheist blogger, and Chris Stedman, a Huffington Post and Washington Post blogger. But it also contains previously unheard voices, part of its power and uniqueness.
The book has already received endorsements from major figures in the freethought community, and has a foreword by Greta Christina, a prominent atheist blogger, speaker, and author. Kendyl Gibbons, senior minister of the First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis, writes that the authors’ “thoughtful perspectives will be illuminating to people of any faith, or none.”
Several upcoming events offer a chance to hear from contributors, including:
- Aug 26: Atheists Talk radio show, on AM 950 KTNF at 9am, will be devoted to the book
- Aug 28: Official publication date of Atheist Voices of Minnesota
- Sep 16: The Minnesota Atheist public lecture at Southdale Library in Edina from 2 – 3:30pm will be devoted to author readings from the book. PZ Myers is one of the authors reading
- Oct 10: Several authors will read from the book at 7pm at Barnes & Noble in the HarMar Mall in Rosedale
- ct 13: Author reading at Minnesota Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in Bloomington, MN, at 10:30am
For a complete and updated listing of events, visit Freethought House.
Atheist Voices of Minnesota is published by Freethought House. All net proceeds will go to Minnesota Atheists, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, with authors, editors, designers, and other volunteers receiving no financial benefit. Minnesota Atheists is Minnesota’s oldest, largest, and most active atheist organization. Its mission is to promote the positive contributions of atheism to society and to maintain separation of state and church. For more information, visit http://mnatheists.org.
The GOP Plan To Win in November
Don’t expect compassion from a Romney-Ryan Whitehouse
There is a reason that Tea Party congresspersons do not have real public meetings.
It is important to be hated by the right people
And, generally, I am. Below the fold, not work safe.
Continue reading It is important to be hated by the right people
On The X Blog
I just wanted to remind you to check The X Blog.
Being Sunday, there are Sunday Funnies.
Also, a post-Mr. Paul Aints commentary is HERE.
From Ladysmith to London: A Harrowing Escape
In late November, 1899, a British military unit which included an embedded reporter was ambushed by an Afrikaner unit in what is now Natal Province, South Africa. This was during the Anglo-Boer war, which was to be the largest military adventure to date in the history of the United Kingdom. The British had been traveling in an armored battle train, a kind of tank-train hybrid that was being used in that war mostly with poor results. The train was partly derailed, and the British were under fire, their only hope to make a break for it, or to hunker down and wait for reinforcements which may or may not come. Suddenly and without warning one of the British soldiers threw up a white flag and surrendered. This moment of initiative caused confusion among both the Boer and British which in turn resulted in several Boer and British soldiers exposing themselves to each other’s direct fire. It is one thing to volley bullets back and forth and occasionally hit someone, but standing uncovered several feet apart and heavily armed, the soldiers on both sides collectively decided that taking what was now realized by some to have been a false signal as a valid appeal to surrender was a better choice than a massacre. The British Soldiers and the reporter were all taken prisoner. Over the subsequent month, the reporter was (against the standing rules of the time) mixed in with the soldiers, and they were processed and incarcerated in a facility in Pretoria.
On December 22, the reporter effected an escape which is one of the more remarkable stories I’ve ever read. It forms a chapter in his later writing, which I’ve cut down considerably for you to get the gist of the story. Below I’ll provide a link to the complete manuscript. Continue reading From Ladysmith to London: A Harrowing Escape
Back to the Failed Top-Down Policies
Barbara Forrest: Inside the Louisiana Science Education Act
Barbara Forest Wrote Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design
Can Missouri Students Skip Evolution Assignments If They Don't Believe In It? I
Two days ago, according to the NCSE, Missouri voters overwhelmingly approved Amendment 2 which protects the right of citizens to pray and express religious beliefs, which was already the case because of the US Constitution. However, the Amendment will have other effects that were not mentioned at the voting booth. For example, “no student shall be compelled to perform or participate in academic assignments or educational presentations that violate his or her religious beliefs.” What do you think THAT is going to lead to?
The Worst Political Decision of the Year
Romney’s choice of Paul Ryan to be his running mate does little more than changing one aspect of the election dynamic for the Presidency. But it an important change. Continue reading The Worst Political Decision of the Year