English: General circulation of atmosphere (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A false-color satellite photograph of the Amazon River in Brazil. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
A satellite image of the city of Manaus with surrounding rivers. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: View of the crescent moon through the top of the earth's atmosphere. Photographed above 21.5°N, 113.3°E. by International Space Station crew Expedition 13 over the South China Sea, just south of Macau (NASA image ID: ISS013-E-54329). Français : Photo des couches hautes de l'atmosphère terrestre. Polski: Zdjęcie górnych warstw atmosfery ziemskiej z widocznym przejściem w przestrzeń kosmiczną. Ελληνικά: Η Γήινη ατμόσφαιρα, η φωτογραφία ελήφθη από το διάστημα κι ύψος 335 χιλιόμετρα (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Earth-Sun distance and Chandler Wobble
Continuing from The Pacemaker of the Chandler Wobble, Grumbine 2014: The Chandler Wobble (CW) is a small variation in the orientation of the earth’s rotational axis [Chandler, 1891]. It has a period near 433 days [Liao and Zhou, 2004] (0.8435cycles per year, 0.0023095 cycles per day). Some source of energy for the Chandler Wobble must exist because it dies out on a time scale of decades [Munk and MacDonald, 1960] if energy is not continuingly added. Gross [2000] found that atmosphere-ocean forcing on the earth’s rotation, computed in an ocean general circulation model drive... more »
The Pacemaker of the Chandler Wobble
*Abstract*: The Chandler Wobble is one of the largest circumannual periodic or quasi-periodic variations in the earth's orientation. After over a century of searching for its forcing, it was found to be caused by atmospheric circulation and induced ocean circulation and pressure. The question of why there should be such forcing from the atmosphere has remained open. I suggest that variations in earth-sun distance cause this forcing to the atmosphere and thence the ocean. Analysis of earth-sun distance, earth's orientation, and atmospheric winds shows a coherent relationship betwe... more »
Been a while hasn't it
Didn't mean to disappear quite that long, 2.5 months it turns out. Well, I'll be picking up my posting again. In the interim, I've been on vacation in the Peruvian Amazon, picture below, been a manager at work, and generally running around. You probably think of piranha when thinking about the Amazon river. We were on a fishing expedition for piranha. My wife, the pilot, and our guide all caught piranha -- mostly red bellied, but a couple white bellied. Above is my one catch. It is a sardine (about 10", 25 cm). I'm amused, or puzzled, or something. I'm happy about it. It's... more »
Data Horrors
"The great tragedy of science -- the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact." Thomas H. Huxley. Sometimes, though, you have to pay attention to just how ugly the observation (fact) is. And even more to how ugly a collection of observations is. Science fair project I judged a couple of years ago, the student mentioned his methods for keeping the experiment, which had to be untouched while going, out of reach of his young brother. This student has a firm grasp of the ugliness of data and trying to collect it. I gave him high marks. I also mentioned a story or two I kn... more »
Spectating on Science: Length of the Game
Science doesn't move as fast as basketball, so spectators need to adjust their expectations. The 'game' plays out over a period of years. The first play of the game is that someone publishes their work in the peer reviewed professional literature. But that's something like the first pass in football/basketball/hockey -- it might _eventually_ turn in to a score. But it isn't the score itself. The short-hand for this is 'single study syndrome'. All sorts of things show up in the media, or scientific literature, as being interesting and perhaps revolutionary. But almost no revolu... more »
How to build a climate model?
How is it that we go about building climate models? One thing is, that we would like to build our model to represent everything that we know happens. If we could actually do so -- mainly meaning if the computers were fast enough -- life would be simple. As usual, life is not simple. I'll take one feature as a poster child. We know the laws of motion pretty well. I could write them down pretty easily and with only a moderate amount more effort write a computer program to solve them. These are the Navier-Stokes equations. On one hand, they're surprisingly complex (from them com... more »
What is a model?
In the blogospheric talk about climate change 'model' gets mentioned a lot. Sometimes it's merely descriptive, and often it is perjorative. But it is mostly never really defined. Like or loath them, nobody says just what models are. Except for me, here and now. (And probably a number of other people at other times and places -- but still, few and far between. :-) 'Obviously' a model is a particularly attractive human. Right? I've actually received email at my workplace (a 'modelling branch') from people who were trying to advance the careers of their models, in this sense of ... more »
Bad philosophy 1
Different people are good at different things, which is no real surprise; but one of the common situations where some people suddenly become blind to this is scientists regarding philosophy. Plus, well, most non-philosophers regarding philosophy. I've had the good fortune to know a couple of serious philosophers of science, enough to appreciate that they've developed some understandings more profoundly than I have. And, I'm immodest enough to extend that to 'more profoundly than most non-philosophers'. One path of bad philosophy, the one which causes this post, follows from mist... more »
Playing With Numbers: Triangles and Squares
You can play with numbers; which will be a surprise to some and extremely obvious to others. I'm writing for those who will be surprised. Consider the picture of dots here: * * * We've got a triangle, a small one. It has 3 dots. Now put another row of dots, keeping it a triangle: * * * * * * There are 3 dots in the first triangle, 6 in the second. Next triangle will have 10 (as we add in a row of 4). For gaming: What is the 20th triangle number? Is there a way you can look at a number and tell whether it is triangular? Or you can play with squares: * * * * * * * * * *... more »
Autism Awareness month 2015
A reminder that April is Autism Awareness month. I can't say very much first hand, but won't let that stop me from writing. (As usual.) Couple notes. One is, though I'm not autistic, I'm also not dead center 'normal' (whatever that is). (what, you've noticed?). I deviate from 'normal' in some directions that point in the direction of autism. Not enough to be on the autism spectrum myself, but enough that my sister found me useful as a guidepost towards her autistic students. Partly because of this, I am irritated by people who say 'everybody in science is autistic'. Another... more »
Citizen Science Versus Science
It's impolitic to say so, but I dislike the term 'Citizen Science'. Scientists are supposed to be embracing 'Citizen Science' and all that. But I can't get rid of the feeling that it's a patronizing term. Nor can I ignore the echo that scientists are something other than citizens. Lose-lose. The patronizing, maybe you don't see it. But consider some other realms of activity. I am, for instance, a runner. Not a 'citizen runner', just a runner. I have been in races with some people who were anywhere from slow beginners to world record holders. In one race, I ran a 10 km again... more »
How to pick cherries
The not-so fine art of contriving to support the conclusion you predetermined is cherry picking. Really not a good thing for a scientist to do or condone, but pretty common in politics. The latest example comes from politician (now presidential candidate) Ted Cruz, being condoned/defended (even praised) by scientist Judy Curry. Suppose you're interested in global warming, just in understanding what's going on -- not in 'proving' that there is warming, or cooling, or that temperatures are unchanged. You're an actual skeptic -- looking for evidence and where the evidence leads. O... more »
Merchants of Doubt Movie
Do go see the Merchants of Doubt Movie. Los Angeles and New York March 6 opening, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington DC the 13th. More widely starting the 20th of March. The movie is inspired by the book of the same name, about how it is established industries can sell Doubt even in areas where the science is pretty well established. The movie is not the book, nor does it make the mistake of trying to put the book on screen. But it does pick up many of the threads, and, most importantly, shows well how the Merchants of Doubt ply their trade. And it does so in an engaging wa... more »
Better thoughts
During my weird week, I also had a couple signs of beauty. Both from my nieces, and one in the midst of sadness. If I haven't reminded you before: I've got great nieces! First, from my niece Kristen, whom you've heard from before, an observation about science/scientists: Somehow I was chosen as one of two students who got to share dinner at an excellent Cuban place (which the school paid for) with most of the chemistry professors and the person who gave a presentation to us tonight about his job as an environmental consultant. So much knowledge was tossed around at the dinner ta... more »
A weird week
Between people denying that there is a correlation between CO2 and temperature and several other items, last week was just plain weird for me. A few pieces of, I hope, some more general interest. One is, of course, the reminder that CO2 is indeed correlated with temperature. And, of course, since that original article is pushing 6 years old, I should make an update. (Clue: The conclusions won't change much -- 6 years isn't large compared to the 50+ already used.) But also the reminder that I really should write that note I've had in mind about just what correlation is. Then th... more »
Question place 2015
Time to hang out the shingle again for questions. What would you like to know about? In the mean time -- See Dr. Kate Marvel's distressingly accurate description of the peer review process. Fortunately it isn't always like that. Unfortunately, it sometimes is, or at least is close. While you're at it, add her to your regular reading. See her also at @DrKateMarvel on twitter. Also, If you need your fellow scientists to be dry & stern & aloof in order to take their work seriously, you are a terrible scientist. @AstroKatie Scientists are usually passionate about their science. ... more »
Forecast Evaluation
Boy, blow one historic blizzard forecast and people get all cranky*. Except, as H. Michael Mogildiscusses, it was an almost perfect forecast. For the specifics of that storm and its forecast, I refer you to Mogil's article. I'm going to take up the more narrow topic of forecast evaluation. (Disclosure: I do work for NOAA/NWS, but, as always, this blog presents my thoughts alone. Not least here, because I agree more with Mogil than the head of the NWS, Louis Uccellinni, about this forecast.) One school of forecast (or model) evaluation looks at computing large scale statistics. ... more »
Chandler and the Chandler Wobble
The fact that the earth wobbles was expected/predicted long before it was observed, which makes for a couple stories about the nature of science and the people who do it. The story of the Chandler wobble starts up almost a century before Chandler was born. In 1765, the Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler, whose name appears throughout mathematics and physics, was examining the mathematics for conservation of angular momentum on a rotating spheroid -- i.e., something like the earth. It turned out that such a body could have a wobble on top of its regular rotation. Given what was k... more »
New blog -- Philosophically Purple
Very different topics than here, very different writing style, but one similarity -- a love of the universe. Secondary similarity is that the author is my sister. Philosophically Purple From the close of her first note: *You will have to forgive what I can assure you will be phrasing and punctuating that lives outside the happy boundaries of the Chicago Manual of Style. I am aware of punctuation, I just reserve the right to use it — and word choice — as I see fit. Yep, control issues all over the place here.* *My ponderings tend to run along the themes of living life well, kids... more »
The earth wobbles
The earth wobbles about in its rotation. This was predicted long before it was observed, which is a story itself that I'll tell later. For now, consider the earth and its rotation. The north pole of the earth points towards the north star, and rotates once per day. Open your right hand. Your thumb points north, and when you close your fingers, they are moving in the direction of the earth's rotation. With your arm making a right angle at the elbow, hand aiming away from your torso, you have an x-y coordinate system. When you rotate your forearm, that moves your thumb in the x... more »
Amateurs on climate
Amateurs are the people who do something for the love of it, without getting paid for it. I get paid for doing what I love, so don't get to be called an amateur*. One of my favorite amateurs on climate is Jan Schloerer. He was active in the Usenet group Sci.environment in the 1990s, and wrote a number of articles on climate for nonprofessionals. A number of excellent articles. He ok'd my posting them to my personal web site (I used to be on radix.net) and I'm now, finally, moving my personal site to www.grumbinescience.org. Two of the great things about Jan as an amateur writer... more »
Martin Luther King Jr. Day
I share the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream. Among other things, for people to be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. It is an ideal. Since that dream has still not been achieved more than 50 years after he gave the speech, it's apparently a challenging ideal. Given events of the last few years, I'm not confident that we're closer to it than we were 20 years ago. Maybe I was just that naive 20 years ago, maybe I just hear about more than I used to. And maybe we as a nation have ceased the effort towards that ideal. In many... more »
Edging towards a climatology
I say edging towards climatology because the process of going from here, a state of not really knowing what the climatology is, to there, a state of having pretty solid knowledge, isn't one I like to take in a single jump. Even if scientists in professional journals present their work as if we did it in one jump, we seldom do it this way. Plus, for our purposes here, it's more meaningful to proceed in successive approximations For data, I'm going to use the Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (v2). I'll also be using the high resolution, in time and space, versions of the data. T... more »
Happy Perihelion 2015!
I was late to with you a happy New Year for 2015, so hope the perihelion (our closest approach to the sun each year, typically January 3rd) passes well for everyone and kicks off a year of good events and health. Year turnovers are good opportunities to look back at what I did the previous year (some good, some not so good, and not much blogging) and ponder what to do in the coming year (more good, less not so good, and more blogging). In the blogging side of the coming year, I plan to be more regular in posting. Part of that will be that I'll be less restrictive about scaring peo... more »
Girls on Ice 2015 Expeditions
A chance to go climb and sleep on glaciers in either Alaska or Washington State, plus learn and do science. Supported in part by the NSF and Alaska Climate Science Center. Application window opens 10 December 2014, closes 31 January 2015. From Girls on Ice Web Site: Girls on Ice is a unique, FREE, wilderness *science *education program for high school girls. Each year two teams of 9 teenage girls and 3 instructors spend 12 days exploring and learning about mountain glaciers and the alpine landscape through scientific field studies with professional glaciologists, ecologists, artists... more »
High School Educational Program on Greenland
For US High School Students -- a chance to work in Greenland doing science. Application deadline 9 January 2015 More information, including the application, is available at: http://www.arcus.org/jsep (From the web site:) *Joint Science Education Project (JSEP)* In this successful summer science and culture opportunity, students and teachers from the United States, Denmark, and Greenland come together to learn about the research conducted in Greenland and the logistics involved in supporting the research. They conduct experiments first-hand and participate in inquiry-based educatio... more »
Still living
Still living, just been away from the blogosphere on other things. Some of them will find their way back here as posts. In the mean time, Kevin O'Neill, who has introduced an interesting idea in one of his comments at Multiple Working Hypotheses, has encountered one of the annoying things about to do science. Namely, a data set he has been using was discontinued. I sympathize. At work, a satellite I was about to make use of in our operations died the week before our implementation. A resource for looking in to climate (at least as long as you don't need to go before 1979) is t... more »
Multiple Working Hypotheses
In exploring Arctic ice minima I was not so much trying to reach conclusions as to find hypotheses for further testing and exploration. Let's pick up the hypotheses side now, as I think it gets much too little attention in science education and science student practice. In saying that, I'm projecting my bias, of course. Part of that bias comes from having read and agreed with T. C. Chamberlin's Method of Multiple Hypotheses (1890). Or at least liked my take on it. It also has some correspondence to John Stuart Mill's ideas in On Liberty about a marketplace of ideas (1859), which... more »
Exploring Arctic Ice Minima
Every year 2007-2013 had a lower Arctic sea ice extent than every year before 2007. 2014 seems likely to continue this record. I'll also suggest below that maybe the Arctic has entered a 'new normal', with September ice extents bouncing around 4.7 million km^2. For some data to work with further, I pulled the NSIDC September figures. It's a small, simple text file, so you can check yourself what follows. First up, let's draw a figure of what we're looking at -- but don't connect the observation dots. Our eyes tend to be led to conclusions by the superposed lines. You can check... more »
How many links does it take?
How many links does it take to go from one part of science to another? To be a little more concrete, how many steps do you have to take to get from a paper on exercise physiology to a paper on black holes? This was the question my son and I discussed some Sunday night. It arose because I'd suggested PubMed as a good place for him to get information about exercise (what's good, or not, for you). PubMet is a great resource. At least the abstract of every paper (within some range of biology) is available there. If you want to know how much protein is too much, and just why that's ... more »
Arctic Ice Guesses 2014
Have to bite the bullet here and discuss my guesses for the September 2014 Arctic sea ice extent average. The thing which has made them so difficult is that they're so different from each other. Now, one method I've retired. It was simply so bad last year that there's no point in continuing it. That is the one I did based on a population growth (of ice-free area) curve. That leaves, however, two different model-based guessers. The first one, which appears at the Sea ice prediction network as 'Wang', is based on doing a statistical regression between what the CFSv2 (climate fore... more »
Yabba2 -- Construction
Katherine Monroe: Below are the full instructions on how to build exactly what I built. There is so much that could be done to improve the design. I know it is not anywhere close to perfect. The materials I used were makeshift, whatever was lying around the house or wasn’t too expensive. But that was the point. I like spontaneity. It doesn’t have to be extremely elaborate to work and to be useful. This is for anyone who wants to do anything with it or for anyone who is just interested. Materials 1. Vernier Flow Rate Sensor, Order Code: FLO-BTA/FLO-CBL 2. Vernier Lab Quest by Ver... more »
Yabba -- Building your own stream gauge
Katherine Monroe*, the author/inventor of this stream gauge, is a graduate of Eleanor Roosevelt High School, in the same class as Elliott Rebello. Her senior project was quite different, and you'll get to see the details in her own words. Part 1 is today, the narrative. Part 2 will be on Monday -- the full parts list and construction instructions. Engineering the “Yabba Dabba Doo” By: Katherine Monroe June 2014 Eleanor Roosevelt High School One year ago, as a rising senior at Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, MD, I was faced with the same grueling task that all student... more »
Data are ugly
Current news about whether there really is an increase in Antarctic sea ice cover is reinforcing my belief, shared by most people who deal with data, that data are ugly. This work argues that the trend that some have seen in some trend analyses has more to do with the data processing than with nature. I encourage you to read the article in full itself. It is freely available. From the abstract: Although our analysis does not definitively identify whether this change introduced an error or removed one, the resulting difference in the trends suggests that a substantial error exist... more »
Ice Science Cafe
This Thursday (June 26th) I'll be talking about ice, and, better, yet, answering questions about ice at the Annapolis Cafe Scientifique. The time will 6:30 PM. Same location as usual -- Cafe 49 West. Local folks are invited, and non-local are welcome to pose questions here. I'll also invite folks to suggest topics for me to prepare for. My sources of information on sea ice are pretty different than my audience's, so it's hard for me to tell what people have been hearing about. Our Sea Ice Outlook guesses this year are wildly different -- 4.8 million km^2 and 6.3 million km^2. ... more »
A challenge and offer
The challenge is for a science teacher to incorporate Science and/or Nature in to their teaching. The offer is that I'll pay for the subscription(s) for at least the first year. US High School teachers only (sorry others, but I'll exercise provincialism here). First come first served. The prompting here is that I've been reading some of my backlogged Science and Nature issues. Some articles are past almost all K-12 students (though not some I was talking to at Eleanor Roosevelt High School's Research Practicum celebration, so even the most rarefied will be useful in some institu... more »
Agriculture in changing climate
If you're one of the people who thinks that food grows in grocery stores, all the talk about climate change affecting agriculture is passing you by. You'd be wrong to think so, but most modern industrial country people are not involved in agriculture. Having grown up in the corn belt I'm perhaps a little sensitized to the fact that farming is hard work. And that farming is extremely sensitive to details of the weather. Anything sensitive to weather is sensitive to climate. Many foods depend on extremely specific climates. Not just current climates, but the history of climate fo... more »
Learning
"Kids are born learners. Job of parents and teachers is to avoid killing that drive." @rgrumbine That tweet from yesterday has gotten picked up more, and by wider group, than usual. No doubt this was aided by the fact that it was in midst of tweets between @louisck (I'm a fan) and @alexnazaryan. The twitter-storm is driven by 'common core', whatever that is these days, Alex making some surprising-to-me defenses, and Louis being peeved about the cc (by way of his daughters). I have some biases I'll discuss at the bottom Alex replied to my tweet: "Yes. But learning is a hungry be... more »
AABW in the news!
It only took 25 years, but my thesis topic is now becoming newsworthy! Gluttons for punishment can see at least the abstract at A model of the formation of high-salinity shelf water on polar continental shelves. Which is aimed at one of the important ingredients for AABW (Antarctic Bottom Water). I've been reluctant to blog about the topic because it is, after all, my baby and I'm sorely tempted to post at excruciating length and detail. (Not that there aren't other people who have studied the topic before or since, but I'm one of the people who has.) I'll take this note as oppo... more »
Harry Bulkeley: A few questions about global warming -- Answered
An opinion writer (a retired judge) asked a few questions in his Galesburg, IL local paper, and I'll provide some answers here. As always, I encourage you to read the original. The good judge, like the usually informative Mr. Krauthammer, starts off on a very wrong foot, with bad philosophy of science. There are many facts in science -- the earth is round, the sun is hot, there is a greenhouse effect, and CO2 is a greenhouse gas. All can be questioned -- but not in the trivial way that Bulkeley and Krauthammer seem to think. 'I question it' is trivial, and pointless. If you hav... more »
Science Fair Participants
First: Congratulations to Elliott Rebello, winning his category in the Eleanor Roosevelt HS Science Fair. (The reason I single him out -- he's my intern. Be sure, though: the work he presented was his. And it was his presentation and understanding that earned him his place. Yay Elliott!) Having judged another year's science fair at ERHS, I'll share some thoughts for participants. I'm a little emboldened that maybe I know something since Elliott did well. On the other hand, maybe he did well in spite of me. Use your own judgement on what ideas to make use of, and how to make u... more »
Hurricane Control?
Reader Bayesian Bouffant raised the question of whether we might be able to take some of the strength out of hurricanes, if not to really control them -- by way of an article Massive offshore turbine arrays would help us harness hurricanes. The article is more positive about chances for weather modification than I, but let's take a look at some details and issues. By way of background, hurricanes are heat engines. The heat source is partly warm oceans, but mostly the latent heat released when water vapor condenses in the atmosphere. The source of that water vapor is, again, warm ... more »
Science Fair Judges
I'll write about and to science fair judges before a note to the students. A joke I made today got its due chuckle, but there's a real point to it. I observed of judges that "We're very scary people." Now, we know ourselves, and scientists in general are not scary people at all. Even more so, if anything, those of us who do science fair judging. We tend to be parents with school age kids ourselves, or at least not too long since we were (and, in my case, I'm still an uncle to kids this age). And to like talking with kids and have a certain degree of understanding of (in today's... more »
PIOMAS ice volume anomaly q
Q: I've got a question that you may be able to answer with your sea ice hat on. Why is it that the minimum volume anomaly of ice appears in mid summer and not in September when the minimum volume happens? See piomas. (From Alastair) A: I'm hard-pressed to tell what season the anomaly extremes are occurring from this graph, but can say that your reading isn't surprising to me. At the seasonal minimum of ice volume, you're at the minimum -- so it is relatively difficult to get even lower. Late winter, towards the maximum doesn't have that problem -- since it's maximum, there's lots ... more »
Evaluating 2013 sea ice outlook estimates
Very late wrap on my 2013 sea ice season guesses, but, as I was thinking in early August, the straight statistical one busted pretty badly. The observed ( NSIDC) September Average sea ice extent was 5.35 million km^2. The guesses were: The original outlooks (end of May) were: 3.9 million km^2 -- Grumbine, Wu, Wang statistical 4.1 million km^2 -- Wu, Grumbine, Wang model-based 4.4 million km^2 -- Wang, Grumbine, Wu model-based statistical The end-June Wu et al. estimate was 4.7 million km^2. The end-July Wu et al. estimate is 4.57 million km^2. As I suggested then, I'm going to get back... more »
Science Tweeters to follow?
Yesterday I mentioned a few science tweeters. Today I'll ask you for your favorites on science. Any science.
Old links still of interest
I'm something of a pack rat -- keeping things eternally, or close to it. I still have, for instance, almost every program I wrote in college, plus almost everything ever since. I also have preserved links of interest from my blog reading back to ... well, not quite that long. Part of my getting back up to speed is to look through my old noted links of interest, and I'll share them out. I'm more or less arbitrarily diving them in to links of interest, and links to follow up. Everything actually fits in both categories, but a bit of a matter of emphasis between them. The items ... more »
Happy New Years's
Been away for a while, I now realize. A longer while than expected. So in the mean time, we've passed the winter solstice, Gregorian new year, and closest approach to the sun (perihelion), and are about to reach (January 31st) the Chinese new year. Hope all the astronomical and other dates of interest to you have been good. In the mean time, I've been making progress on writing at work, publishing a couple notes and finally finishing a draft of another. That's a part of the quiet here -- looks like I can only put down so many words per day in writing. Science reading has been m... more »
Alaska LEOS and rare Mourning Doves
I finally participated in my first LEO Webinar and had a great time. I'll be calling in for more of them as they come up monthly. LEO is the Local Environmental Observers program/project in Alaska. The principle being, the people actually living in an area are the prime observers for what is going on. This includes keeping an eye on birds, among many other things. The title comes from the September 13, 2013 observation by Richard Kuzuguk of a Mourning Dove in Shishmaref, AK. Very unusual up there. I don't have that species down here, but in general, they're very common here. ... more »
Question place!
Been a while since I hung out the shingle for questions. Have at it. Also, a couple astronomical things have come up in my 3d life, so remember that's an area to think/ask about too.
Civil Service Pride
Reading much of the commentary about civil servants during the current government shutdown has reminded me just how much so very much of the country loathes us. Yes, us. I do work for the US government (as always, I speak only for myself!). It also occurred to me that I seldom see anybody writing about civil servants working hard and taking pride in their work. The converse is common, that civil servants are lazy, should all be fired, that they're lying when they say they're there to help. Such things are even more common in political speeches. I'll redress that balance some. ... more »
Diversity in Science
"First rate minds try to surround themselves with first rate minds. Second rate minds try to surround themselves with third rate minds." That is a pragmatic point for today's topic. Whether I'm a first rate mind myself, I enjoy being around them. And it's obvious that science does best when we have the best people involved. My actual starting point is the morality that it is wrong to discriminate against people for who they are. What brings this up, and out of my usual range of posting, is events over the weekend that happened to Danielle Lee, @dnlee5, a biologist and blogger ... more »
Journalists' desires
I've seen several articles one telling scientists what journalists want, and why, and some going in to how. Most recently http://www.scidev.net/global/communication/practical-guide/what-journalists-want-from-scientists-and-why.html It's all useful advice, and the one time I was allowed to speak to a journalist, I had a very good experience. But, one thing very lacking in these articles is discussion of what it is that scientists may expect in return, why it is worth the scientist's time, and why it is worth the potential risk to professional standing and employment. Advice: Journa... more »
Where is south?
You, too, can be a space alien! All you'll need are a stick, some sun, string, and a way of making marks. At the end of this, you'll be able to perform feats that have caused many over the decades to say that the ancient Egyptians and others 'must' have been visited by space aliens. What you'll do is construct a very accurate definition for north+south. From there, you can build your own pyramid aligned accurately to north/south. Technologies involved are all 6000+ years old. So, first step is to get a long, straight stick. You can verify that it's straight by checking against ... more »
Which way is up?
Simple questions sometimes have subtle answers. Of course, some answers are also pretty simple. Which way is up starts out simple and then gets pretty subtle. (Note on scientist-speak: subtle = complicated and/or difficult). This winds up being related to What is a day? as we get a little more complex. But, while we can, let's go with simple. Up is the opposite of down. Slightly less simple, down is the direction a ball falls. Even less simple: hang a weight on a string. Hold it still. This is difficult, so maybe hang it from a nail or off a board. There's probably still a ... more »
Conservative and religious responses to climate change
Yes, there are such responses! - Kathryn Hayhoe and Tom Ackerman - 4 EPA directors under Republican Presidents - Republican Secretary of State, George Schultz - Bob Inglis, Republican Representative - Sherwood Boehlert, Republican Representative, chair of House Science and Technology Committe 2001-2007 Kathryn Hayhoe and Tom Ackerman are both evangelical Christians. Read their article for why the comedian is wrong to say that they don't exist. I also happen to know both (not well, but email with Kathryn and Tom in person for a couple years when we were both... more »
Do scientists have special obligations to society?
The subject line comes from Janet Stemwedel, who asks the question. There are two spots to answer, one if you are a scientist, and one if you're not. 'scientist' is defined in the articles. If you're a scientist Nonscientists' comments I think it's a worthwhile and interesting question, and encourage you all to go answer. Feel free to leave a copy of your answer here. Or do some free-range commenting on the question here if there's a reason not to post it over on Janet's blogs. *Added:* Something which hasn't been brought up (yet) at Janet's blogs is this: It is illegal to pr... more »
Bits and pieces
Somehow, even though I no longer am in school, or have kids of my own who are, I'm still pretty distracted from the net around back to school time. Maybe it's my nieces and their back to school time? Anyhow, many things going on, though you couldn't tell from the blog here. And some even have school connections. One part is, I've been talking to a middle school science teacher, J, about ideas, J's and mine, for grades 6-8. Of course I mentioned my water surface temperature project. Also some more specific ones. I've also been thinking of blogging some experiments that people a... more »
Sea ice prediction updates
I'm a little behind on our updated estimates for the September average sea ice extent for the ARCUS outlooks. The original outlooks (end of May) were: 3.9 million km^2 -- Grumbine, Wu, Wang statistical 4.1 million km^2 -- Wu, Grumbine, Wang model-based 4.4 million km^2 -- Wang, Grumbine, Wu model-based statistical The end-June Wu et al. estimate was 4.7 million km^2. The end-July Wu et al. estimate is 4.57 million km^2. In other words, it looks like the model has picked up on the relatively (compared to last year) slow decline in ice cover and is keeping more ice around. What will ac... more »
How to ask good questions
"Never ask a question you don't want the answer to." is one of my mother's better pieces of advice. Not always one of the easiest to follow. It comes to mind because I've been thinking off and on about Carl Zimmer's article An open letter to science students and science teachers. See the article for some examples of how not to ask questions, and the comments for how common it is to receive bad questions. Here, I'll take up the matter of how to ask good questions, at least as far as I've figured this out myself. One step is to follow my mother's advice -- if you don't want the a... more »
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Meeting of Waters in Manaus, Brazil(atlasobscura.com)
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