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Archive of entries posted by jfleck
stuff I wrote elsewhere: tree rings, climate change and our disappearing forests
When I wrote The Tree Rings’ Tale, its organizational premise was that tree rings are storytellers. And how. Park Williams latest research, which I featured in this morning’s Albuquerque Journal, combines tree ring records for the southwestern United States with contemporary climate data, fire data, tree mortality data and future modeling results to tell a …
bunk risk and the problem of debunking
On the twitter this evening, I stumbled across a fascinating paper (pdf) from a couple of years ago by Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler documenting problems that can ensue when journalists try to debunk bunk that has an ideological component: Results indicate that corrections frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the targeted ideological group. We also document several …
SHOUTING IN ALL CAPS ABOUT THE WEATHER
As Sandy converges on our stark, inevitable fate, people outside the weather nerd community are being again confronted by our dark, uncomfortable question – why do the official forecasts always make it seem like they’re shouting? Why do the forecasters always write in all caps? There are times when this feels right: FLOOD WATCH FOR …
Stuff I wrote elsewhere: more on the B61
Forgot to blog earlier in the week, a frustratingly inconclusive newspaper piece on the reasons behind the rising cost of refurbishing the US stockpile of B61 bombs: Is Sandia National Laboratories to blame for cost overruns in the multibillion-dollar effort to refurbish the U.S. arsenal of B61 nuclear bombs? A December 2011 evaluation by the …
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Tarrant: much ado about nothing
So what’s up with that full court PR madness from the folks in the Tarrant Regional Water District in Texas? Is the future of the many interstate water management compacts that govern water distribution among the western states really under threat. This may seem obscure, but if you follow water, you can’t help but have …
You should buy Nate Silver’s book because I am in it
On page 399 of The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver cites my work with Tom Peterson and William Connolley examining the claim that scientists in the 1970s were predicting global cooling. Footnote 88. This makes me embarrassingly fanboy happy.
Pat Mulroy on the value of water
From a great Circle of Blue interview, Pat Mulroy of the Southern Nevada Water Authority has some great insights into how we value water, but also how we think about paying the resulting costs: [W]e in the water business stand back, and we become amazed that somebody is willing to pay $US 80, $US 90, $US …
Oh Vegas: Ponzi Scheme at the Las Vegas Mob Experience?
One might expect the Las Vegas mob experience to involve criminal activity. But the Las Vegas Mob Experience, a tourist trap? Financing for the Las Vegas Mob Experience tourist attraction likely involved a “fraudulent transaction” and “the earmarks of a Ponzi scheme,” a court-appointed accountant has determined. (With a hat tip to Tampa Bay Times …
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