nature
Let the ocean come to you
Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world - (song is Please don't go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.
To pass along Jon's advice, "[g]ive this some time to load before watching...otherwise you won't have smooth playback."
The Suspicious Science Behind Man-Made Global Warming
I'd like to take a look at the evidence for global warming resulting from increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere: The argument is that more infrared radiation released by the Earth is captured given the higher concentration of CO2 in the air, thereby warming the planet. However, if you're looking for scientifically rigorous experiments linking CO2 to increased temperatures, I have bad news for you: It doesnt exist.
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Can any model accurately capture the complexities of the Earth's atmosphere? There are certainly many sophisticated ones out there. Happily, most of them use actual physical experiments to verify their underlying assumptions. However, until the "Flux Capacitor" from Back to the Future gets built, any climate model will need decades to verify its assumptions using real data.
Climate simply refers to one day of weather after another. Global-warming true believers, let me ask you the following question: Do you view weather forecast projections for 2 weeks from today with the same certainty that you do a computer model that purports to predict the weather 100 years from now? If not, why not? After all, they're both based on computer models.
If your neighbor told you he were getting a tent for his daughter's wedding reception 2 weeks from now, and you told him not to bother, because a computer model predicted sunny weather, do you think he'd take you seriously?
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Here's some science that no one with a vested political or financial interest in climate change would want you to know: The warmest year since 1934 was 1998, at the height of the strongest El Nino on record. The gold standard for CO2 measurement is taken at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. In 1998, the observatory recorded 366 parts per million (ppm) of CO2 in the atmosphere; it steadily rose to 386 ppm in 2008. In the meantime, the earth has cooled.
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The observed temperature data don't match what the model predicts. In physics (my field), we'd look at both the experiment and the data to see whether there was something wrong with the experiment's design, or whether the data were right and the theory wrong. Either way, we'd step back and reevaluate everything.
What we certainly wouldn't do is cram 300 pages of amendments through Congress at 3:00 a.m. and force a vote the next day.
Splitting the difference
WINTER DOESN'T OFFICIALLY END for another three weeks, but Daylight Savings Time arrives next Sunday, and with it the semiannual aggravation of resetting every clock and watch in our lives. (Don't forget the microwave! And the car dashboard!) Must we be saddled forever with this World War I-era relic? Contrary to popular belief, daylight savings doesn't reduce energy consumption, it increases it. And not everybody relishes late-evening daylight; plenty of people would rather see sunlight earlier in the morning.
We can end this spring-forward-fall-back madness once and for all -- and we can do so without having to choose between daylight time and standard time. The solution is simply to split the difference: Let's amend the Uniform Time Act so that clocks would be shifted by 30 minutes -- then let's leave them that way for good.
Hoo goes there?
Taking the garbage to the curb tonight, my eye caught winged movement to my right. I looked up to see a bird alighting on one my neighbor's gables. This wasn't a bird the size of a robin or some similar worm feeder. This was definitely a bird of prey, and what birds of prey hunt at night, dear children? A few minutes later, I followed the lads out in to the backyard, them to do their business before we retired for the evening, me to see if I could spot the owl with my flashlight without said light finding its way into neighboring windows. Both of the dogs reacted as the owl flew overhead, and it landed on the very top of the house behind ours, the silhouette unmistakable against the nightly sky of a nearly full moon. After a few seconds the lads lost interest, but I remained still, except to point my torch at the bird and hit the light. He was facing away from us, but did swivel that head around for a quick peek, the light reflecting orange in his eyes. I killed the light and continued to watch, and about thirty seconds later, off he flew toward another house. And despite the usage of the commonly associated owl call in this post's title, not a peep out of the bird the entire time I was able to observe him. I really wish I had some NVGs or a night-vision adapter for my camera, or something. There's an owl stalking within our neighborhood, and that's really cool.