We’re standing on the brink of what ENSO forecasters call the spring barrier, the time of year when forecasting coming El Niño/La Niña conditions is hardest. But federal forecasters stuck their neck out today: In a weekly update, scientists at the NOAA Climate Prediction Center noted that as the 2006-2007 El Niño faded, surface and …
Zippy: Zippy: No overcoats in February. What’s up with that? Zerbina: Global warming. I’m lovin’ it!
reading: Em Hall’s High and Dry, a classic on New Mexico water that’s one of those books that everyone says you should read. I am. paper of the day: ENSO as a mediator of the solar influence on climate, Julien Emile-Geay and colleagues, in paleoceanography last month: “ENSO may plausibly have acted as a mediator …
China’s state news agency is reporting drought on the Yangtze: Falling water levels in China’s Yangtze River have left 1 million people short of drinking water, state media reported Monday. A severe drought has caused the water level in China’s longest river to plunge over the last two weeks, severely cutting water-pumping capacity, Xinhua News …
Powell’s Grand Canyon Map Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. Our Map of the Week is a treasure from the Library of Congress: One of John Wesley Powell’s original Grand Canyon maps, made on completion of his survey work there in 1871-72. This is part of the Library’s amazing American Memory map collection.
For a variety of reasons, I’ve been starting to pay attention of late to the water-energy nexus. Which is why this drew my eye: According to news reports, Tampa is reviewing a request from Port Sutton EnviroFuels LCC for up to 500,000 gallons of freshwater per day to run Florida’s first Ethanol production plant. The …
Bridge bridge Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. It’s too early yet (Feb. 25, 2007) for the cottonwoods to be leafing out, but it seems worthwhile for phenological purposes to note when things aren’t happening as well as when they are – to sort of bracket the phenomenon. This is from a nice midday bike ride with …
From Happisburgh, on Britain’s eastern coast, an interesting story about the way adaptation decisions end up being made not at some global level, but one crumbling seawall at a time: Ronan Uhel, a top official at the European Environment Agency in Copenhagen, said the situation in Happisburgh shows that governments and insurance companies have finally …
This is apparently not satire (thought it’s sometimes hard to tell): Also, these scientists are mostly liberal athiests, untroubled by the hubris that man can destroy the Earth which God gave him. (See also Unicorn)
Tom Yulsman, in the comments below, raises an interesting question about yesterday’s release of the National Research Council Colorado River report: [N]othing in the NRC report sounded terribly new. We knew that droughts much worse than what we’ve experienced in the last 100 years have occurred in the past, we knew that the river is …