Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere
When is a secret not a “secret”?
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
Peak Oil
One of my favorite science journalists, Alex Witze, had an excellent recent piece in Nature on peak oil (sub. req.). It’s a terrific bit of work because of the thoughtful way Witze embraces the uncertainty, explaining to us why smart and reasonable people disagree about this issue, rather than trying to tell us which answer …
Scaaary
It is rare that my two journalistic specialties, climate and the blinding tools of nuclear Armageddon, converge as they have today in Chicago. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved up the hands on its famed Doomsday Clock – not just because of those pesky Norks with the nuclear testing and the plutonium and …
Quote of the Day
“Life is easy. Showbiz is hard.” – Bill Griffith update: OK, this is really amusing, the way the Zippy picture stretches down to the entry about drought in the west. Pray with Zippy!
Peak Water
Marty Hoerling’s discussion of western U.S. drought in the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report model runs (which I wrote about last fall) is out: Our study reveals that a sustained change in moisture conditions is unfolding within the broad range of natural variations. The Southwest is likely past the peak water experienced in the 20th century …
Here is a moose
mooseOriginally uploaded by heinemanfleck. When I was much younger, I wrote, under the non de plume Fernando Schwartz, A Poem of Nature: The flowers and the trees The sky and the birds Look at the buffalo Traveling in herds. Nora’s recent post-it art seems a fine illustration.
U.S. Precipitation, Last 90 Days
U.S. Precipitation, Last 90 Days Precipitation Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. This is not the U.S. precipitation pattern you expect in an El Niño winter. Here in Albuquerque, we’re living under a bit of an illusion, with the fourth storm since Christmas currently snowing east and north of us and clouds and a threat of rain …
The Press Release Problem
When I wrote a brief squib last month about the new Holland et al. paper on sea ice decline, I made fun of myself for picking the worst-case scenario, suggesting a “a chance of an ice-free late summer arctic by as soon as 2040.” Apparently I was not alone. In her RealClimate post on the …
ENSO Peaking
The monthly ENSO assessment, out today, suggests El Niño may be peaking (the “Kelvin waves” it talks about are essentially big pulses of warmth moving west to east across the equatorial ocean, which are a key feature of El Niño): Most of the statistical and coupled models, including the NCEP Climate Forecast System (CFS), indicate …
The Aquadoc
Mike Campana, one of my favorite water academics, launches WaterWired with a reprise of the case against bottled water.