Monthly Archives: January 2015

Archaeologists find cool stuff as glaciers melt

January 17, 2015UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

A report in Science Nordic on artifacts melting out of ancient ice:

Mittens, shoes, weapons, walking sticks – lost in the high mountains of Norway thousands of years ago – are now emerging from melting ice.
…Among these were a horse skull and hiking staffs from the Viking Age. An arrow shaft found by the archaeologists is from the Stone Age.

An ancient route over the mountains once passed by the glacier where Lars Pilø and his colleagues conducted field work. People crossed the mountains with livestock, and went back and forth to their high summer farms – or simply travelled from one place to another. They have left a wide array of artefacts in their wake over the centuries, to the delight of 21st century archaeologists.

“We often find things associated with hunting. There are also ordinary objects such as mittens and shoes and the skeletons of horses that died on the trek across the mountains. This makes it a real thrill,” says Pilø.

More here.

Robotic Cuttlefish!?!?!

January 17, 2015UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

Propellers are good for moving a boat through water, but they’re noisy and stress out marine animals, making them a suboptimal solution for a vessel trying to film a natural ecosystem. To solve the problem, scientists have built a four-finned robot that mimics the graceful swimming of a cuttlefish (seen above). New Scientist reports that the robot (named Sepios) is nearly silent and that its fins don’t get tangled in aquatic plants.

“>SOURCE

New York Times Puts AGW Above The Fold, But …

January 17, 2015Uncategorized2014 warmest year, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change Graphics, Denialism, Global Warming, Global Warming, New York TimesGreg Laden

The New York Times put the news of 2014 being the warmest year on their front page, in the precious space known as “Above The Fold.” But, the venerable paper of record continues to give credence to science denialists by calling them “skeptics,” and continues to imply that there really is a debate between consensus based science and politically motivated denial of science. To underscore this point I created the above graphic.

I would also like to congratulate the Washington Post for putting this piece by Joby Warrick and Chris Mooney on the front of section A1.

And, TIME has also placed the latest AGW news in a prominent place, and explicitly puts deniers in their place: A Bad Day for Climate Change Deniers … And the Planet. (Hat tip: Paul Douglas)

Charlie Hebdo, Religious Rules, and Racism

January 17, 2015Race and RacismCharlie Hebdo, Race, Race and Racism, Racism, Religion, secularismGreg Laden

I will assume you are paying some attention to the discussion of racism vis-a-vis Charlie Hebdo, Muslim bashing, obnoxious religious (in this case Islamic) rules of behavior, freedom of speech and expression, etc. If you were thinking that this situation is simple you better check your thought process, or your privilege, or something. Get an oil change. Take a class on race and racism. Something. Because it is not simple.

The following thought experiment is still an oversimplification but perhaps worthy of consideration, as a means of parsing out the very first level of complexity and nuance. I’d love comments on it.

A religion includes a prohibition against drawing its prophet. Otherwise, nothing interesting happens. Practitioners of that religion are barely noticed by the rest of society. They are easily confused with Unitarians, perhaps, except this one rule they have. However, a very large percentage of people in this religion are not of the dominant ethnicity/race. Indeed, when a run of the mill working or middle class white person is found to be of that religion, almost invariably, people are at least a little surprised. So they are like brownish Unitarians. Indeed, for this thought experiment we shall call them the Brown Unitarians.

Somebody draws their prophet simply because there is a rule against it. Since these people are slightly brown, there is a certain amount of racism already baked in. This was a racist act. It might have been an intentionally racist act, or it might have been a blunder, but that would have the same effect, and failing to recognize the similarity is itself a racist act (intentional or otherwise). At the very least, the act is not polite, is harassment, and mild racism, but it could be worse depending on the nature of the drawing, the context in which it is distributed, and other factors. (It was possible that someone drew the Brown Unitarian Prophet entirely by accident, unknowingly, and the test of that is that if they are informed of the wishes of the Brown Unitarians, they make some effort to undraw the prophet and apologize, because, after all, offending people’s religion is a dick move, and why do that without a reason?)

Now imagine the same scenario as above, but previous instances in which the Brown Unitarian Prophet has been displayed have resulted in peaceful but strong protests.

In response, somebody draws the prophet again. This might be a racist act but it might also simply be a counter protest by someone concerned about free expression.

Now imagine the same scenario, but advanced one level. Some of the protests over drawing the Brown Unitarian Prophet are violent, and there is an attempt to codify the prohibition over creating this image into law.

In response, somebody draws the prophet again. This might be a racist act, or it might be a simple counter protest about free expression, but it could also be an important, not really optional, statement against the spread of bone-headed rules (like “you can’t draw a picture of my imaginary friend”) in otherwise secular society.

Now imagine the same scenario, but amid the various sorts of protests, we now have acts of deadly and bloody terrorism involving guns, bombs, etc. People linked with the drawing of the Brown Unitarian Prophet are now being gunned down now and then, occasionally in large numbers.

In response, somebody draws the prophet again. This might be a racist act … nothing that has happened has obviates that possibility. It might be a routine protest in favor of freedom of expression. But it might also be a brave and necessary, forceful and meaningful, slap in the face against those who want to repress others with their unreasonable, extremist, and very annoying rules based on dumb-ass rules about their imaginary friends.

Did you notice that this starts with the people drawing the prophet being dicks? Did you notice that the racism (actual or potential) never goes away? Did you notice all along there may be a large grey area in which racist acts can be achieved, but disguised as noble acts?

I think this is a partial analogy to the circumstances surrounding the Charlie Hebdo situation, except the beginning, the first scenario.

Thoughts?

The Hottest Year: 2014

January 16, 2015Uncategorized2014, Climate and weather, Climate Change, Climate Change, Global Warming, Global Warming, Hottest Year, Hurricane, NASA, NOAA, Sea Level RiseGreg Laden

NOAA will announce today that 2014 was the warmest year during the instrumental record, which begins in 1880. The announcement, which addresses findings of both NOAA and NASA, will be made today at 11:00 Eastern. Below is the press release from NOAA.

I talked about this and other climate matters in a radio interview at Green Divas:

Michael Mann has made the following statements regarding this news:

2014 Was Earth’s Warmest Year On Record
Three major climate organizations (JMA, NASA, and NOAA) have now released their official estimates for the 2014 Global Mean Surface Temperature. Both JMA and NOAA conclude that 2014 was substantially higher, i.e. outside the margin of error, of previous contenders (1998, 2005, and 2010) while NASA finds 2014 to be warmest, but within the margin of error of 2005 and 2010 (i.e. a “statistical tie”).

Based on the collective reports, it is therefore fair to declare 2014 the warmest year on record. This is significant for a number of reasons. Unlike past record years, 2014 broke the record without the “assist” of a large El Niño event. There was only the weakest semblance of an El Niño and tropical Pacific warmth contributed only moderately to the record 2014 global temperatures. Viewed in context, the record temperatures underscore the undeniable fact that we are witnessing, before our eyes, the effects of human-caused climate change. It is exceptionally unlikely that we would be seeing a record year, during a record warm decade, during a multidecadal period of warmth that appears to be unrivaled over at least the past millennium, were it not for the rising levels of planet-warming gases produced by fossil fuel burning.

The record temperatures *should* put to rest the absurd notion of a “pause” (what I refer to as the “Faux Pause” in Scientific American in global warming. There is a solid body of research now showing that any apparent slow-down of warming during the past decade was likely due to natural short-term factors (like small changes in solar output and volcanic activity) and internal fluctuations related to e.g. the El Nino phenomenon. The record 2014 temperatures underscore the fact that global warming and associated climate changes continue unabated as we continue to raise the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

The Press Release

NOAA: 2014 was Earth’s warmest year on record
December 2014 record warm; Global oceans also record warm for 2014

The globally averaged temperature over land and ocean surfaces for 2014 was the highest among all years since record keeping began in 1880, according to NOAA scientists. The December combined global land and ocean average surface temperature was also the highest on record.

This summary from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides to government, business, academia and the public to support informed decision-making.

In an independent analysis of the data also released today, NASA scientists also found 2014 to be the warmest on record.

2014

    <li>During 2014, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.24°F (0.69°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest among all years in the 1880-2014 record, surpassing the previous records of 2005 and 2010 by 0.07°F (0.04°C).</li>

    <li>Record warmth was spread around the world, including Far East Russia into western Alaska, the western United States, parts of interior South America most of Europe stretching into northern Africa, parts of eastern and western coastal Australia, much of the northeastern Pacific around the Gulf of Alaska, the central to western equatorial Pacific, large swaths of northwestern and southeastern Atlantic, most of the Norwegian Sea, and parts of the central to southern Indian Ocean.</li>

    <li>During 2014, the globally-averaged land surface temperature was 1.80°F (1.00°C) above the 20th century average. This was the fourth highest among all years in the 1880-2014 record.</li>

    <li>During 2014, the globally-averaged sea surface temperature was 1.03°F (0.57°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest among all years in the 1880-2014 record, surpassing the previous records of 1998 and 2003 by 0.09°F (0.05°C).</li>

    <li>Looking above Earth’s surface at certain layers of the atmosphere, two different analyses examined NOAA satellite-based data records for the lower and middle troposphere and the lower stratosphere.</li>

    <ul>
<li>The 2014 temperature for the lower troposphere (roughly the lowest five miles of the atmosphere) was third highest in the 1979-2014 record, at 0.50°F (0.28°C) above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by the University of Alabama Huntsville (UAH), and sixth highest on record, at 0.29°F (0.16°C) above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by Remote Sensing Systems (RSS).</li>


            <li><li>The 2014 temperature for the mid-troposphere (roughly two miles to six miles above the surface) was third highest in the 1979-2014 record, at 0.32°F (0.18°C) above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by UAH, and sixth highest on record, at 0.25°F (0.14°C) above the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by RSS.</li>


            <li><li>The temperature for the lower stratosphere (roughly 10 miles to 13 miles above the surface) was 13th lowest in the 1979-2014 record, at 0.56°F (0.31°C) below the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by UAH, and also 13th lowest on record, at 0.41°F (0.23°C) below the 1981–2010 average, as analyzed by RSS.  The stratospheric temperature is decreasing on average while the lower and middle troposphere temperatures are increasing on average, consistent with expectations in a greenhouse-warmed world.</li></ul>

According to data from NOAA analyzed by the Rutgers Global Snow Lab, the average annual Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent during 2014 was 24.95 million square miles, and near the middle of the historical record. The first half of 2014 saw generally below-normal snow cover extent, with above-average coverage later in the year.

Recent polar sea ice extent trends continued in 2014. The average annual sea ice extent in the Arctic was 10.99 million square miles, the sixth smallest annual value of the 36-year period of record. The annual Antarctic sea ice extent was record large for the second consecutive year, at 13.08 million square miles.

December 2014

    <li>During December, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.39°F (0.77°C) above the 20th century average. This was the highest for December in the 1880-2014 record, surpassing the previous record of 2006 by 0.04°F (0.02°C).</li>

    <li>During December, the globally-averaged land surface temperature was 2.45°F (1.36°C) above the 20th century average. This was the third highest for December in the 1880-2014 record.  </li>

    <li>During December, the globally-averaged sea surface temperature was 0.99°F (0.55°C) above the 20th century average. This was also the third highest for December in the 1880-2014 record.</li>

    <li>The average Arctic sea ice extent for December was 210,000 square miles (4.1 percent) below the 1981-2010 average. This was the ninth smallest December extent since records began in 1979, according to analysis by the National Snow and Ice Data Center based on data from NOAA and NASA.</li>

    <li>Antarctic sea ice during December was 430,000 square miles (9.9 percent) above the 1981-2010 average. This was the fourth largest December Antarctic sea ice extent on record.</li>

    <li>According to data from NOAA analyzed by the Rutgers Global Snow Lab, the Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent during December was 130,000 square miles below the 1981-2010. This was the 20th smallest December Northern Hemisphere snow cover extent in the 49-year period of record.</li>

A more complete summary of climate conditions and events can be found at: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/2014/13

Merchants of Doubt Trailer

January 16, 2015UncategorizedClimate Change, Climate Change, Denialism, Global Warming, Lies and Denial, Merchants of DoubtGreg Laden

A new documentary you’ll want to see.

An eye-opening documentary exploring the tactics of climate change deniers.

An overwhelming majority of scientists agree that global warming caused by human activity is one of the most critical dangers our planet faces. But a well-organised band of professional spinners and obfuscators toil in the shadows to pretend there is a genuine debate on the subject. That’s the argument put forward by this provocative new documentary from Robert Kenner, director of the Oscar nominated food industry expose, ‘Food, Inc’. Adapted from the book of the same title by Harvard professor Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway, the film begins by exploring how the tobacco industry spent decades trying to camouflage the dangers of smoking. It then moves on to reveal how climate change deniers now a use similar approach. Their intention, it’s claimed, is not to win the argument but to frustrate action by sowing the seeds of doubt.

Lots of new climate change science stuff

January 15, 2015Uncategorized2015 hurricane season, Climate Change, Climate Change, Global Warming, Global Warming, Sea Level Rise, Volcanoes, Warmest Year 2014Greg Laden

I just did an interview on Green Diva Radio, and talked about a lot of climate change science news. For those who want to see the sources, here is a quick summary:

On Friday, NASA and NOAA are expected to announce that 2014 was the hottest year on record. I had been planning to write an extensive blog post going into all sorts of details about how that works, how they calculate it, etc. But then the people at Climate Nexus wrote a post that would have blown mine out of the water with the detail and informtation provided in it. Go here to read this excellent post: 2014: Putting The Hottest Year Ever in Perspective.

More than one new paper has come out describing new work on melting glaciers, especially in the Antarctic. One of the papers is described by an author, John Abraham, in this blog post: The Antarctic ice sheet is a sleeping giant, beginning to stir. You can get to the original paper via a link in that blog post. Bottom line is that the polar ice sheets are melting faster and faster every time someone looks. There is also some interesting stuff about melting glaciers, gravity, and sea level rise. Very much worth a look.

There is also a new sea level rise curve. I’ve not looked at this so I have no comments on it, but you can see a write up here: A new sea level curve.

The first in a series of predictions for the 2015 Atlantic Hurricane seasons has come out: 2015 Hurricane Zone Predictions: Stronger Season with Three U.S. Hot Spots. Bottom line is that it will be a pretty average hurricane season, which, in turn, means more hurricanes and more severe hurricanes than during the last few years, which have been rather anemic. Which, by the way, is probably a side effect of climate change.

There has been some recent work confirming some earlier work, suggesting that a lot of “small” volcanoes have created a lot of dust contributing to cooling of the Earth’s atmosphere, slowing greenhouse gas caused warming. Despite what at lease one of these items says, we are now pretty sure that most of the surface temperature slowdown is because most of that heat is going into the ocean (see this), but volcanic dust has also made a contribution (as has the sun, being in a somewhat weak phase). So there are two things you should have a look at: Volcanoes may be responsible for most of the global surface warming slowdown and Small volcanic eruptions explain warming hiatus. Imma go out on a limb and guess that a little over 50% of the lack of warming (though it is warming, just slower) is from the ocean taking in more heat, the next biggest contribution is the volcanic dust, and a smaller but still two digit percentage (maybe) is from the sun. Feel free to challenge me on those numbers but do so with evidence please. I’ll be happy to see that estimate refined.

Top Global Warming Skeptic Explains Global Warming

January 10, 2015UncategorizedBEST research, Climate Change, Climate Change, Climate Change Graphics, Global Warming, Global Warming, Lies and Denial, skepticalGreg Laden

This is serious. A highly regarded and widely recognized planetery physicist put together the most dangerous scientific ingredients that exist: skepticism of the established science, a comprehensive list of hypotheses that stood in opposition to that established science, a huge amount of data, a healthy amount of funding including a good chunk from energy companies that mainly sell fossil carbon based fuels, and a hand selected research team of others who were also skeptics.

In the end, he came up with an explanation for what people call Global Warming. Personally, I believe him. I think he has it right. Whatever you were thinking as the cause of global warming, you have to look at this work and if you have not come to the same conclusion, you should reconsider.

Here’s an interview which includes an explanation of the whole process.

There is more context and additional video here.

Talking about the warmest year …

January 9, 2015UncategorizedClimate Change, Climate Change, Global Warming, Global Warming, Green Diva InterviewGreg Laden

I did an interview on Green Diva, which you can tune into and enjoy HERE or here:

My part starts just after 30:40 into the show, but do feel free to listen to the whole thing!

Green Round Table

January 7, 2015UncategorizedClimate Change, Global WarmingGreg Laden

I did a thing called the “Green Round Table” in which I addressed a number of questions about climate change and global warming.

HAVE A LOOK

An Open Letter to the Industrial Capitalists and Members of the %0.01

January 4, 2015UncategorizedClimate Change, Environment, Global Warming, Lies and Denial, PoliticsGreg Laden

The following is a letter from John Irving, posted originally on his Facebook page and reprinted here as a guest post:

NOTE: JOHN NOW HAS HIS OWN WEB SITE AND HAS POSTED HIS LETTER THERE. So do note that there are comments, including by John, below, but also go and visit his site!

Dear Industrial Capitalists and members of the %0.01,

I feel obliged to inform you that you’ve made a huge strategic blunder and things aren’t probably going to work out very well for you soon.

You recall that way back in 1965 – 50 years ago this year – President Lyndon B. Johnson was warned about the dangerous impact industrial activity was having on the Earth’s atmosphere. Unfortunately, rather than confronting the challenge you opted to do the complete opposite – you doubled down on fossil fuels.

Over the intervening years you employed many unethical and subversive tactics to maintain the dirty status quo. This included investing many billions of dollars to obfuscate the problem through the use of propaganda and so-called “think tanks,” covertly influencing government and lobbying politicians, suppressing alternate forms of clean energy technology, poisoning land and sea through toxic extraction techniques and transportation blunders, and shafting taxpayers to the tune of many trillions of dollars through outrageous and unwarranted subsidies.

As outlandish as all that was you went even further. Decades ago, when the public started to become aware of, and concerned about, widespread environmental damage that threatened your interests, you subverted democracy itself – the greatest invention since probably, well, ever! I could go on and on but co-opting the religious right, fabricating a protest movement (a.k.a. The Tea Party) and a fake cable news network are a few examples that come to mind.

And who could forget the invasion of Iraq under false pretences that led to hundreds of thousands of casualties and disrupted the lives of millions, the obstruction of every attempt by the global community to limit greenhouse gas emissions, and bringing the most powerful democracy the world has ever known to a grinding legislative halt (if not the brink of financial default).

Thanks to these underhanded methods of gaming the system for your own narrow interests and greed America now has levels of inequality not seen since 1929. Even worse the planet’s biosphere is now completely out of whack and will be for millennia. Hundreds of millions of people will be displaced and require aid due to sea level rise, extreme weather events, drought, crop failure and more. Countless species will go extinct. To put it bluntly – it’s an absolute mess!

People are now starting to realize what you have done and they are not very happy about being completely screwed over for decades just so you could have private jets, mansions and plastic surgery. Even some of your traditionally dependable supporters have been abandoning you lately. People are even talking about ditching capitalism itself – some are even talking about outright revolution (I’m not exaggerating!).

This is just my opinion but I think you might have gone a little bit overboard this time.

John Irving

Ottawa
John is on Twitter at: @ClimateNow
The original letter is here, where you will find additional comments.

Mario Cuomo Has Died.

January 1, 2015UncategorizedItalian American Club, Joseph Laden, Mario Cuomo, New York, PoliticsGreg Laden

I was a citizen of New York when Mario Cuomo became governor. I’ve written before about the ethnic angle of that event, how Cuomo, who was Italian, was the highest ranking ethnic Italian in New York, Italian immigrants still being repressed and seen as lesser folk by many even at that late date. When he became Governor, as I recall, people stopped telling certain jokes. He may have been one of the best governors ever, anywhere.

He got a lot done as governor. It was almost like he could be in two places at once. And, actually, he did that once. Let me tell you the story.

When my father retired, my sister pretended for a moment to be the governor. Convincingly.

You see, my father’s retirement was a big deal. The mayor, many other elected officials including members of the state government and federal legislators (present and former) were there. The governor was supposed to come but he could not make it. The retirement dinner was at the Italian American Club out on Wolf Road, which was a public (and very good) restaurant. The club tended to be visited mainly by members of the Italian-American community, as one might expect. But it was always a very welcoming place.

My siblings and I arranged to have a limo pick us all up near downtown, then drive to my parent’s house, where we would pick them up, then drive out to the retirement dinner. Working class people pretending to be rich, like when you go to the prom. But, while we were hanging around in the back of this huge stretch limo, we didn’t notice that the driver was utterly lost and had driven several miles in the wrong direction. We got him headed the right way, but by the time we got to my parent’s house, my mother had gotten antsy about being late, and she and my dad had already driven out to the Italian American Club on their own.

So, we had to do something about that. We were wearing cocktail dresses and suits (I had opted for the suit). We got to the club and had the limo pull up in front. People sitting at the long glass windows at the front of the building, diners, noticed the limo, and many were watching. I got out of the car by myself, and tried to look as much as I could like a body guard. I went into the club, and said just loudly enough to be heard by several diners, “The governor is out front. He does not have time to stop in to Joe Laden’s retirement dinner, but he’d like Mr. Laden to come out and say hello. Which way is the banquet hall?”

The maître d’ accompanied me back to the dining hall, where I found my father. He saw right through my disguise, but I said to him, “The governor is out front, it turns out, in his limo. He wants to say hi.”

So he came out in front with me. By this time half of the diners who were not seated by the windows were over there staring out at the limo. So almost everyone in the restaurant was watching. I accompanied my father to the limo, still trying to look like a body guard (thinking the suit was a good choice, instead of the cocktail dress). The back window of the limo opened, and a hand came out. It was my sister’s hand but you couldn’t tell who it was. My sister and father shook hands, exchanged a few words, and he went back inside. We had the limo drive around to the side of the building and eventually we all piled out and joined the reception.

So that is how, on one occasion at least, Governor Mario Cuomo got to be in two places at once.

You may not know this now, but there was real hope at one point that Mario Cuomo would run for and become president. But the world was not ready yet, at least in the US, for Italians to rise that high up. The glass ceiling was still in place, only partly shattered. The moment when many of us felt most strongly that he should be our leader is recorded, of course, in the following video:

Don’t you agree?

Cop Shoves a Gun in a Teen’s Face in a McDonald’s Drive-thru

January 1, 2015UncategorizedUncategorizedGreg Laden

From here:

One step in solving the police problem

January 1, 2015Uncategorized#Blacklivesmatter, Police State, Police StateGreg Laden

People, usually people of color, more often than not Native Americans and African Americans (according the the available statistics) suffer regular repression by the police. Day to day, the most common form of repression is about the small stuff. Jay walking, being out after curfew, walking around in a shopping mall, driving while black, and similar imagined (or at worst, very minor) offenses bring the police into contact with individuals, making day to day existence harder and for many building up a list of arrests, charges, and convictions that form an ever-growing albatross around those individuals’ necks.

The recent work slowdown in New York is being heralded by astute observers as an inadvertent, almost ironic, positive step. As long as the police refuse to “do their jobs” in this manner, they are incidentally refusing to engage in this day to day repression.

It is generally thought that the small stuff — citations for minor offenses that often don’t even rise to the level of violations of law — make up a part of the public safety or, more broadly, municipal budgets of the governmental institutions supporting the police (city, county, state).

But what if that income was never accessible to those institutions? What if all of the money collected in fines could not be put against the city, county, or state budget? That might remove the impetus, in part, to engage in this kind of policing. I’m not entirely sure where the money should go. If it went into some public program (food shelters, etc.) it might replace other budget items at the same level of government. That would not serve the intended purpose of sequestering these funds. But with a little imagination, it probably would not be too hard to find a way to use that flow of cash for purposes that would not benefit the government responsible for the police force, or any other class of people, corporation, or pubic authority that might have the power to direct increased enforcement.

A law, or in some cases, a constitutional amendment (at the state level) could suffice for this purpose. Don’t fund the police, or any unit of government, on the backs of those being repressed. This is only a partial solution to a larger problem but it could be a useful and meaningful single step. The “Back Turning” law.

Thoughts?