Category: Environment & Weather

Solstice

The Winter Solstice, the moment when the Earth’s axial tilt is fully 23º26′ from the Sun, is tomorrow, Sunday, December 21st, at 4:03 PM MST in the northern hemisphere. It is, of course, the Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Earth’s orbit is elliptical not circular. The earliest sunset (in the northern hemisphere) was around two weeks ago. The latest sunrise is in about two weeks.

But Sunday is the shortest time between the two, the least daylight of the year in the northern hemisphere.

For more than 1600 years in western Europe the northern winter solstice was celebrated on December 25th, though astronomically it increasingly came later than that due to errors in the Julian calendar.

Black Sunday

It was 79 years ago today that the largest of the dust storms of the 1930s swept the western plains (April 14, 1935).

DustBowl_blkSundayKansas_tx800

Cyclic winds rolled up two miles high, stretched out a hundred miles and moved faster than 50 miles an hour. These storms destroyed vast areas of the Great Plains farmland. The methods of fighting the dust were as many and varied as were the means of finding a way to get something to eat and wear. Every possible crack was plugged, sheets were placed over windows and blankets were hung behind doors. Often the places were so tightly plugged against the dust (which still managed to get in) that the houses became extremely hot and stuffy.

Quotation from the Cimmaron Heritage Center, Boise City, Oklahoma. Boise City is in the Oklahoma panhandle near Colorado, New Mexico, Kansas and Texas.

Those on the road had to try to beat the storm home. Some, like Ed and Ada Phillips of Boise City, and their six-year-old daughter, had to stop on their way to seek shelter in an abandoned adobe hut. There they joined ten other people already huddled in the two-room ruin, sitting for four hours in the dark, fearing that they would be smothered. Cattle dealer Raymond Ellsaesser tells how he almost lost his wife when her car was shorted out by electricity and she decided to walk the three-quarters of a mile home. As her daughter ran ahead to get help, Ellsaesser’s wife wandered off the road in the blinding dust. The moving headlights of her husband’s truck, visible as he frantically drove back and forth along the road, eventually led her back

The American Experience

. . . And the old house was just a-vibratin’ like it was gonna blow away. And I started tryin’ to see my hand. And I kept bringin’ my hand up closer and closer and closer and closer and closer and I finally touched the end of my nose and I still couldn’t see my hand. That’s how black it was. And we burned kerosene lamps and Dad lit an old kerosene lamp, set it on the kitchen table and it was just across the room from me, about — about 14 feet. And I could just barely see that lamp flame across the room. That’s how dark it was and it was six o’clock in the afternoon. It was the 14th of April, 1935. The sun was still up, but it was totally black and that was blackest, worst dust storm, sand storm we had durin’ the whole time.

A lot of people died. A lot of children, especially, died of dust pneumonia. They’d take little kids and cover ’em with sheets and sprinkle water on the sheets to filter the dust out. . . .

Melt White, The American Experience

The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan is a history of the Dust Bowl that won the National Book Award. It is outstanding.

The Solstice

The Winter Solstice, the moment when the Earth’s axial tilt is fully 23º26′ from the Sun, is tomorrow, Friday, December 21st, at 4:12 AM MT in the northern hemisphere. It is, of course, the Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Earth’s orbit is elliptical not circular. The earliest sunset (in the northern hemisphere) was around two weeks ago. The latest sunrise is in about two weeks.

But Friday is the shortest time between the two, the shortest daylight of the year in the northern hemisphere.

For more than 1600 years in western Europe the northern winter solstice was celebrated on December 25th, though astronomically it increasingly came later than that due to errors in the Julian calendar.

Time for a Vacation? Climate Change and the Human Clock

In the natural world, scientists have documented a vast range of shifts in biological behavior related to climate change, from birds laying their eggs earlier to bears emerging earlier from hibernation in time for the first blossom of spring.

As it turns out, humans are not excluded from such behavioral changes. Over the last 30 years, a new study has found, peak park attendance has shifted by about four days, probably in response to climate change.

Green — A Blog About Energy and the Environment has more.

Planet Likely to Become Increasingly Hostile to Agriculture

To get a glimpse of the future, look to East Africa today.

The Horn of Africa is in the midst of its worst drought in 60 years: Crop failures have left up to 10 million at risk of famine; social order has broken down in Somalia, with thousands of refugees streaming into Kenya; British Aid alone is feeding 2.4 million people across the region.

That’s a taste of what’s to come, say scientists mapping the impact of a warming planet on agriculture and civilization.

Scientific American

Cooling the Debate

So a climate skeptic, a physicist at Cal Berkeley, thought the data was wrong and he could do better. He even got the Koch brothers to fund the work.

Guess what?

Global warming is real, according to a major study released today [October 20, 2011]. Despite issues raised by climate change skeptics, the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature study fines finds reliable evidence of a arise rise in the average world land temperature of approximately 1ºC since the mid-1950s.

Analyzing temperature data from 15 sources, in some cases going as far back as 1800, the Berkeley Earth study directly addressed scientific concerns raised by skeptics, including the the urban hear heat island effect, poor station quality, and the risk of data selection bias.

On the basis of its analysis, according to Berkeley Earth’s founder and scientific director, Professor Richard A. Muller, the group concluded that earlier studies based on more limited data by teams in the United States and Britain had accurately estimated the extent of land surface warming.

Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature

An Open Letter to Climate Change Deniers and Skeptics

At Forbes, Peter Gleick writes a letter. He begins:

To the few of you left,

OK, you have fought hard to deny or challenge the realities of climate change, perhaps because you are afraid of the policies that might have to be put in place; or are afraid of the possibilities of increased government intervention; or you don’t think it will be that bad; or you think it will be too expensive to do anything about; or you don’t understand the science; or you don’t trust scientists, including, by the way, every national academy of sciences and every professional scientific organization in the geosciences (see the list attached to this Congressional testimony); or whatever.

You may not think the expected consequences of climate change are bad enough to do anything, despite what researchers have been telling us for years about higher temperatures, worsening frequency and intensity of storms and droughts, rising sea levels, altered water quality and availability, growing health risks from pests and heat, and much more.

Fine. But you are dragging the rest of us, who still believe in science and think that things can and should be done quickly, down into what increasingly seems like a future hell. You need to get on board. Why? Here is the final straw.

Now click here to read about the FINAL STRAW

With Deaths of Forests, a Loss of Crucial Climate Protectors

You don’t have to be a scientist to see that the climate is changing, even on a human time scale. Just look at the forests of the west, as the Times does — With Deaths of Forests, a Loss of Crucial Climate Protectors. The article begins:

WISE RIVER, Mont. — The trees spanning many of the mountainsides of western Montana glow an earthy red, like a broadleaf forest at the beginning of autumn.

But these trees are not supposed to turn red. They are evergreens, falling victim to beetles that used to be controlled in part by bitterly cold winters. As the climate warms, scientists say, that control is no longer happening.

Across millions of acres, the pines of the northern and central Rockies are dying, just one among many types of forests that are showing signs of distress these days.

. . .

Oh, and did you know that trees absorb carbon dioxide, so if the trees die, less will be absorbed, more trees will die and … and … and we have a classic feedback loop.

Water year

It isn’t likely to rain today and local science and weather writer John Fleck is reporting a water year final total at my house: 4.94 inches (12.55 cm). 50.5% of normal. I believe John lives near the University of New Mexico in the central part of Albuquerque.

“Water Year” is a U.S. Geological Survey term running from October 1st through September 30th. This is because stream flows in the U.S. are usually at their lowest in October, therefore less variable from day-to-day.

Well I’ll Be Dammed

“Over the past century, dams made in the West have become more mismatched with their ambient climate. The Hoover Dam, for instance, was designed based on a 30-year period that had markedly higher precipitation levels than today. As a result of a decade of drought, the dam is now operating at only 30 percent of its capacity, said Matthews, and new mechanisms have been added to cope with the lower water levels.”

World’s Dams Unprepared for Climate Change Conditions: Scientific American

Best lines of the day

When it comes to foreign policy, the saying goes that politics stops at the water’s edge.

When it comes to climate science, we say that politics should stop at the atmosphere’s edge.

One of us is a Republican, the other a Democrat. We hold different views on many issues. But as scientists, we share a deep conviction that leaders of both parties must speak to the reality and risks of human-caused climate change, and commit themselves to finding bipartisan solutions.

Scientists have known for more than 100 years that carbon dioxide in our atmosphere traps heat. And today we know that the excess carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere from human activity – primarily, burning coal and oil and clearing forests – is altering our climate.

It’s a conclusion based on established physics and on evidence gathered from satellite data, ancient ice cores, temperature stations, fossilized trees and corals. …

Read more from Peter C. Frumhoff and Kerry Emanuel.

Upsetting

… to hear 5-year-old Reid crying in the background when I checked in with Jill about the earthquake. The epicenter was no more than 55-60 miles from both daughters’ homes. Things shook and fell, but no damage.

A 5.3 quake hit near Trinidad, Colorado, near the Colorado-New Mexico late last night. It was the biggest quake in Colorado in 129 years.

Update: Largest quake in Virginia since 1897.