On the political turbulence affecting the Airborne Laser: A delay in a key test and a potential multi-billion dollar price tag to field a working system has members of Congress on the verge of grounding the anti-missile Airborne Laser. With headquarters at Kirtland Air Force Base and most of the hands-on development and testing being …
Simon Donner observes the hurricane-wildfire link: Has the epidemic of wildfires reached the point that we need to talk about the summer fire season the way we talk about the hurricane season? Should we be as concerned, or maybe even more concerned, about the migration to the edge of the national forests as the migration …
Last night’s spectacular thunderstorm over Albuquerque is a great example of the spatial variability of the summer thunderstorm season. Lissa and I were out for a wander around sunset and saw it coming from the north, great flashes of lightning against the sunset sky. We had to stop at the market to get some breakfast …
Big Toe, The Wrench Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. I knew Big Toe had some historic interest in bike racing, so I asked him this morning if he wanted to go over with us to Mom and Dad’s to watch the prologue of Le Tour. He said “No,” in a way that puzzled me. When we …
Via Mike Campana, an interesting essay by Chris Milly about the problem climate change poses for the folks who build dams and such: I would argue, in fact, that changing climate is the new “default hypothesis,” rapidly displacing the assumption of stationarity upon which generations of hydrologists and engineers have built their careers—not to mention …
Alan Johnston is free.
My colleague Bruce Daniels explains why the 0.87 inch of rain (and hail) that fell at my house early yesterday evening is not the monsoon.
The folks at BikeABQ are advocating what I think is a fabulous idea: the Silver Bike Boulevard. The idea is to take a street that is already low traffic, slow speed and turn it into a bike-friendly boulevard. Silver’s perfect for the job: it parallels Central, which is bad for bikes. It has a lot …
California Zephyr Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. Riding the Coal Avenue bridge over the railyard this morning I saw this: the California Zephyr, a string of cars in the old fashion, being towed behind the Amtrak. I had to stop and chat up the proprietor, a fellow named Alvin Bishop. The cars were built in 1948, …
From Jay Lindsay: Jim Riccio, of Greenpeace, said nuclear advocates are exploiting global warming fears to try to revive an industry that’s too risky to fool with. “You have better ways to boil water,” Riccio said. But environmentalists aren’t in lockstep on the issue. Bill Chameides, chief scientist for Environmental Defense, said anything that helps …