Category: Environment & Weather

The Dark Side

A fascinating article about the night sky from 2007. I linked to it then, but it wasn’t available for free online. It is now. First, this excerpt:

In the early nineteen-nineties, Daniel worked in Los Angeles and he and his family lived in Glendale. His wife, Gina, told me that the street lights and other lights in their neighborhood were so bright that their bedrooms never got fully dark at night, even though they had curtains. When the Northridge earthquake struck, in 1994, the first thing she noticed, after the shaking had awakened her, was that she couldn’t see. “The earthquake had knocked out the power all over the city, and everything was black,” she said. “When we got the kids and ran outside, we found all our neighbors standing in the street, looking up at the sky and saying, ‘Wow.’ “

The Dark Side

Today’s Graphic

THE NOAA NATIONAL CLIMATIC DATA CENTER REPORTS THAT THE FIRST SEVEN MONTHS OF 2011 HAD BEEN THE DRIEST START TO ANY YEAR ON RECORD FOR NEW MEXICO. THROUGH JULY OF 2011…STATEWIDE PRECIPITATION WAS ONLY 42 PERCENT OF NORMAL.

AS OF EARLY AUGUST 2011…47 PERCENT OF NEW MEXICO WAS IN EXCEPTIONAL DROUGHT…THE WORST DROUGHT CATEGORY POSSIBLE. EXCEPTIONAL DROUGHT IS ESSENTIALLY A 50 YEAR RECURRENCE EVENT. ABOUT 93 PERCENT OF NEW MEXICO WAS IN SEVERE TO EXCEPTIONAL DROUGHT AS SPOTTY SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS HAD YET TO RESULT IN WIDESPREAD SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENTS.

National Weather Service Watch Warning Advisory Summary

Tweet of the day

“@DenaliNPS: Ripe soapberries can turn a river bar hike into a bear-y experience.”

Here’s the not terribly encouraging advice they direct you to:

If You Encounter a Bear

  • Running may elicit a chase response. Bears can run faster than 30 mph (50 km/hr). You cannot outrun them. If the bear is unaware of you, detour quickly and quietly away. Give the bear plenty of room, allowing it to continue its activities undisturbed. BACK AWAY SLOWLY IF THE BEAR IS AWARE OF YOU! Speak in a low, calm voice while waving your arms slowly above your head. Bears that stand up on their hind legs are not threatening you, but merely trying to identify you.
  • SHOULD A BEAR APPROACH OR CHARGE YOU—DO NOT RUN, DO NOT DROP YOUR PACK! Bears sometimes charge, coming within ten feet of a person before stopping or veering off. Dropping a pack may encourage the bear to approach people for food. STAND STILL until the bear moves away, then slowly back off.
  • IF A GRIZZLY MAKES CONTACT WITH YOU, PLAY DEAD. Curl up into a ball with your knees tucked into your stomach and your hands laced around the back of your neck. Leave your pack on to protect your back. If the attack is prolonged, fight back vigorously.
  • IF A BLACK BEAR MAKES CONTACT WITH YOU, FIGHT BACK.

Denali National Park and Preserve – Bear Safety

The only good advice in grizzly country is to hike with a partner that is slower than you.

Aphelion

In case you didn’t notice, Earth was its most distant from the Sun for 2011 around noon on Monday; 94,511,923 miles to be precise. Back in early January we were about 3 million miles closer (perihelion). The variation is caused by the elliptical nature of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.

The distance to the sun is not what causes seasons. The seasons result from the 23.44º tilt of the Earth’s axis. Right now, it is the northern hemisphere that is tilted toward the sun — and it is 86º at 9:30.

I guess we can stop yapping about our fires now

Take a look.

Puyehue volcano in southern Chile has spread volcanic ash far and wide since it erupted in early June. On Monday, Argentina’s president announced that economic relief would be provided to residents affected by the ash in the southwestern region of Patagonia. And as recent as July 1 ash in the atmosphere was disrupting flights at the Buenos Aires airport. These images show how the earth’s landscape has been affected. Here’s a link to view our original post on June 8. — Lloyd Young (32 photos total)

Ash covered landscape – The Big Picture

KABLAAAMMM!!!

[103] years ago today, a small chunk of rock or possibly ice was lazily making its way across the inner solar system when a large, blue-green planet got in its way. Traveling roughly westward, it entered the Earth’s atmosphere moving at tens of thousands kilometers per hour. Compressed and battered by tremendous forces, the object got about 5 – 10 kilometers from the ground before it succumbed, exploding like a gigantic multi-megaton bomb.

The air blast flattened trees for hundreds of square kilometers. The ground shook, witnesses felt the hellish heat from kilometers away, and the shock wave circled the world. It happened over the remote Podkammenaya Tungus river, a swampy region in Russia; had it happened over Moscow a million people might have died within minutes.

Now known as the Tunguska Event, it stands today as a shocking reminder that we live in a cosmic shooting gallery, and the Earth sits in the crosshairs of many objects.

Bad Astronomy Blog

A 2/4 rain

Dad, official late dad of NewMexiKen, provided this report on seasonal change in Tucson back in 2004:

Those of you familiar with the desert know that after two or three months of no rain we expect thunderheads to build up every afternoon south east of us. These are the rain clouds from the Gulf of Mexico, pushing up into the Sierra Madres in Mexico. Day by day they creep closer to us.

Yesterday while reading I was surprised by a loud clap of thunder. Glancing out the window it was true….. Rain………

I raced to the kitchen to gather my rain gauges and ruler; ran out the door and proceeded to record the event.

Taking numerous measurements, I concluded the drops averaged two inches apart and the rain had lasted four minutes…..a 2/4 rain.

1%

The relative humidity reached 1% this afternoon is Las Vegas, Nevada. The air temperature was 107° and the dew point minus 22°.

Humidity is 12% at just before 10 at Casa NewMexiKen, up from 5% this afternoon. There have actually been sprinkles at some higher altitudes — reportedly people on the patio at one bar broke into cheers when the few drops fell.

Lots of gusty wind tonight with the front moving through. Wind bad; humidity good.

Movin’ On Up

The pika, a small mammal that lives in talus slopes at high elevations in the mountains of the American West, has disappeared in the last decade at a rate five times faster than they disappeared during the 20th century, according to a study out this month.
. . .

The species is also moving to higher elevations at a faster rate, more than 10 times as fast as previously observed, presumably to stay within its preferred temperature range. In the last 10 years, they have moved up nearly 500 feet in elevation.

Pikas Have Moved to Higher Ground – NYTimes.com

Pikas are smarter than humans.

A Journey Through the Night Sky

“At full resolution, the 5 gigapixel mosaic was stitched together from over 37,000 images, the result of a season following, year long effort and 60,000 travel miles in search of still dark skies in the American west and the western Cape of South Africa.”

Click image to learn more and to see a larger version of the photo.

The ‘S’ word won’t go away

Sunday is May 1st for crying out loud.

.TODAY…PARTLY CLOUDY. WINDY. AREAS OF BLOWING DUST IN THE
AFTERNOON. HIGHS IN THE MID 70S TO LOWER 80S. SOUTH WINDS 20 TO
30 MPH INCREASING TO WEST 25 TO 35 MPH IN THE AFTERNOON. GUSTS UP TO
50 MPH.
.TONIGHT…MOSTLY CLEAR. WINDY. LOWS IN THE MID 20S TO LOWER 30S.
WEST WINDS 25 TO 35 MPH DECREASING TO 10 TO 15 MPH AFTER MIDNIGHT.
GUSTS UP TO 50 MPH.
.SATURDAY…MOSTLY SUNNY. MUCH COOLER. HIGHS IN THE UPPER 40S TO MID
50S. WEST WINDS 10 TO 20 MPH.
.SATURDAY NIGHT…PARTLY CLOUDY. COLDER. LOWS 15 TO 25. NORTHWEST
WINDS 10 TO 20 MPH IN THE EVENING.
.SUNDAY…PARTLY CLOUDY. SLIGHT CHANCE OF RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS IN
THE MORNING…THEN SLIGHT CHANCE OF SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS IN THE
AFTERNOON. HIGHS IN THE UPPER 40S TO MID 50S. EAST WINDS 10 TO
15 MPH IN THE AFTERNOON.

Today’s Longer Reads

“If you think global warming is some distant threat, come visit Yellowstone, our most beloved national park. Acres of trees are dying, trout runs are disappearing, and starving bears are attacking campers. It’s an ecosystem in collapse, and things are only getting worse.”

The Ghost Park | Men’s Journal

Interesting look by David Remnick at Malcolm X, his Autobiography written with Alex Haley in 1963, and the new biography by Manning Marable.

Manning Marable and the Life of Malcolm X : The New Yorker