Climate/Weather
tqa | April 22, 2009
Just in case you forgot (I did, somehow), today is Earth Day. The best bloggy way I can think of to celebrate Earth Day is to start a new meme. This one is on Earth Day resolutions.
I'd like you to take a minute or two to come up with three things that you can do to be more environmentally friendly. The first should be something that's small, and easy to do. The second should be more ambitious - something you'll try to do, but might not manage to pull off. The third should be something you can do to improve something you're already doing.
I'll start:
Small: From now on, all laundry will…
tqa | March 27, 2009
The New York Times has recently taken some flack as the result of Nicholas Dawidoff's New York Times Magazine profile of Princeton physicist Freeman Dyson. Times science blogger Andrew Revkin has also received some less than favorable reviews of a post he wrote about the article. The bulk of the criticism revolves around the treatment given to Dyson's views on climate change, and is well warranted.
Neither Dawidoff nor Revkin apparently thought it necessary or desirable to subject any of Dyson's views or proposals to any sort of reality check. This is at least somewhat strange. Dyson's…
tqa | January 16, 2009
When we talk about the role of fossil fuels in climate chance, what we're really talking about is the carbon cycle. That's the term that scientists use to describe the different forms that carbon is stored in on the earth, and the different ways that it can move from form to form. Understanding the carbon cycle is one of the keys to understanding both the effect of burning carbon-based fuels and the issues involved in trying to take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. According to a paper in the latest edition of Science, there may still be some pretty significant gaps in our knowledge of…
tqa | September 11, 2008
If you have any doubt about how dangerous Hurricane Ike is likely to be, I've got some pictures for you. These pictures were taken within the past two hours, on the shoreline along the grounds of Naval Air Station Pensacola.
This is a sheltered shoreline, protected by both barrier islands and sandbars, and typical wave heights run under one foot. Currently, they're running at about 3 feet, on top of a water level that looks to be at least 3-5 feet above where it should be. So far, this storm has done more to reshape the beaches I looked at than Gustav did, and Gustav came closer and was…
tqa | April 3, 2008
This one probably isn't the hardest quiz I've come up with, but give it a shot anyway. Here's the question: how is the specific airplane in this picture connected to atmospheric science research?
Let's try something new this week: email your answer to me at dunford@scienceblogs.com instead of posting it in the comments. I'll announce the names of everyone to get the right answer on Monday.
tqa | January 8, 2008
Over the last couple of decades, a great deal of research has been done on the effect of global warming on coral reefs. The vast majority of that research has focused on the currently observed and potential future effects of climate change on reef-building corals. Coral, however, are not the only organisms that contribute to building a reef. A group of organisms known as the "coralline algae" also secrete calcium carbonate, and contribute to building up reefs. In a paper available online in advance of publication at Nature Geoscience, a group of researchers report on the results of an…
tqa | December 11, 2007
Last night, in Oslo, Al Gore delivered a simple, powerful message. It's a familiar message to anyone who has watched him speak since 2000, or watched his movie, or read his books. It's simply a call for nothing more or less than the need for all of us to accept responsibility for the effects of our actions:
So today, we dumped another 70 million tons of global-warming pollution into the thin shell of atmosphere surrounding our planet, as if it were an open sewer. And tomorrow, we will dump a slightly larger amount, with the cumulative concentrations now trapping more and more heat from the…
tqa | September 13, 2007
I've been paying a little more attention to Hurricane Humburto than I do to most hurricanes, mostly because the thing came out of nowhere, and got really strong, really fast. I'm not a hurricane-pundit type, but I thought it was a little strange that the storm developed so quickly. Turns out I'm not the only one wondering how that happened. Here's a bit from the latest National Hurricane Center forecast discussion for the storm:
BASED ON OPERATIONAL ESTIMATES...HUMBERTO STRENGTHENED FROM A 30 KT
DEPRESSION AT 15Z YESTERDAY TO A 75 KT HURRICANE AT 09Z THIS
MORNING...AN INCREASE OF 45 KT IN…