Tag Archives: Climate and weather

Good Bye Paul Douglas

i-0ae70547a45a0d7747840c44d387f66b-paul.jpgThe story goes like this: Paul Douglas was a back-room meteorologist for a local Twin Cities news show. He was one of the guys in the back that actually predicted the weather, which was then delivered by the pretty boy/girl weathermen/women on camera. One day the main weatherman was out of town, and the other weatherman was sick (details of the story vary), and nobody realized that they had no one to report the weather until the very last second. So they threw Paul a jacket and tie and said “Get out there, boy, you’re the weatherman today.”…. Continue reading Good Bye Paul Douglas

Berry Go Round #3

Welcome to Berry Go Round #3, the blog carnival deicated to all things botanical.The previous installment, Berry Go Round #2, is located here, at Further Thoughts. If you would like to submit an item to the next Berry Go Round, you may use this handy submission form. The Berry Go Round Home Page is here. Continue reading Berry Go Round #3

Give one hour to the Earth

During Earth Hour, you switch off the lights and other non-essential electronic devices. At 8:00 PM March 29th. You’ll save electricity, but more importantly, you’ll be making a point.

Created to take a stand against the greatest threat our planet has ever faced, Earth Hour uses the simple action of turning off the lights for one hour to deliver a powerful message about the need for action on global warming.This simple act has captured the hearts and minds of people all over the world. As a result, at 8pm March 29, 2008 millions of people in some of the world’s major capital cities, including Copenhagen, Toronto, Chicago, Melbourne, Brisbane and Tel Aviv will unite and switch off for Earth Hour

Here’s the web site.

Darwin and the Voyage: 09 ~ Fossil Quadrupeds

Charles Darwin wrote a book called Geological Observations on South America. Since Fitzroy needed to carry out intensive and extensive coastal mapping in South America, and Darwin was, at heart, a geologist more than anything else (at least during the Beagle’s voyage), this meant that Darwin would become the world’s expert on South American geology. Much of The Voyage is about his expeditions and observations. Part of this, of course, was figuring out the paleontology of the region. Continue reading Darwin and the Voyage: 09 ~ Fossil Quadrupeds

New Study of Antarctic Ice Loss

Blogging on Peer-Reviewed ResearchThe amount of ice lost to the sea from Antarctica has increased by 75 percent in the last 10 years. This is the result of an increase in glacial flow. It had previously been thought, and perhas was the case, that Greenland ice loss outpaced the Antarctica. This is no longer the case. Continue reading New Study of Antarctic Ice Loss

The Evolution of the Modern Climate: New Evidence from Plant Remains

Blogging on Peer-Reviewed ResearchThings are just not like what they used to be. You know this. You know that the Age of Dinosaurs, for instance, was full of dinosaurs and stuff, and before transitional fossil forms crawled out of the sea to colonize the land, all animals were aquatic, etc. But did you know that from a purely modern perspective, the Miocene was the most important geological period? Continue reading The Evolution of the Modern Climate: New Evidence from Plant Remains

Deep Sea Evidence of Major Volcanic Eruptions

Blogging on Peer-Reviewed ResearchPumice is rock that is ejected from a volcano, and has so much gas trapped in it that it can float. So when a pumice-ejecting volcano (not all volcanoes produce pumice) goes off near a body of water, you can get a raft of rock floating around for quite some time. By and by, water replaces the gas within the rock and it sinks. Like a rock. So, you can get layers of pumice on the bed of lakes, seas and oceans. A forthcoming paper in Deep Sea Research I describes two such pumice deposits of “Drift Pumice” in the Indian Ocean. Continue reading Deep Sea Evidence of Major Volcanic Eruptions

Geek the Vote

Popular Mechanics (one of those magazines that genteel people refuse to admit they read, but that is actually a blast) has published a thing called “Geek the Vote.” According to an email from PM, this is:

…an online guide to all the candidates’ stances on issues related to science and technology including energy policy and climate change, gun control, science education and infrastructure investment. The full chart, which can be navigated by candidate or issue, is [provided]

The site is here.This is apparently in response to (maybe not, but there is evidence to suggest this) the Science Debate 2008 initiative (see this). Continue reading Geek the Vote

Bali: Are we there yet?

The Cost of twenty years of Reagan and Bushes has been very high. In about 1991, I wrote an article for a monthly newspaper in which I summarized the available data for Global Warming, and was very easily able to conclude that it was a real phenomenon with consequences already felt in a number of areas, a reasonably well understood mechanism, and a tangible set of solutions to work on. In 1997, the Kyoto protocol was signed on to by a number of nations (the US not included because of congressional Republican opposition). This month, in Bali, a re-run of something like Kyoto happened, and finally, the US is also signed on with most of the rest of the world.

Continue reading Bali: Are we there yet?