La Niña

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La Niña is strengthening, according to the monthly diagnostic discussion out today. The pool of cool water continues to creep westward:

Pacific ocean temperature anomalies

The anticipated results:

Expected La Niña impacts during November – January include a continuation of above-average precipitation over Indonesia and below-average precipitation over the central equatorial Pacific. For the contiguous United States, potential impacts include above average precipitation in the Northern Rockies, Northern California, and in southern and eastern regions of the Pacific Northwest. Below-average precipitation is expected across the southern tier, particularly in the southwestern and southeastern states.

Compare that to the actual for the last 30 days over the United States, which is a nice first-order match:

US precip anomaly map

benthic bacteria

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I was all excited at the prospect that humans aren’t causing global warming after all, that it’s really benthic bacteria. Then Roger Pielke Jr., suspicious bastard that he is, had to go and pour cold water over the whole deal. Turns out that the University of Arizona doesn’t really have a “Department of Climatology,” as near as I can tell from talking to folks there who study, um, climatology. And whatever the “Journal of Geoclimatic Studies” is, Vol. 23 No. 3 seems to be the first time they’ve thought of posting their work on the intertubes:

Domain ID:D21379999-LRMS
Domain Name:GEOCLIMATICSTUDIES.INFO
Created On:02-Nov-2007 14:50:19 UTC
Expiration Date:02-Nov-2008 14:50:19 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:Tucows Inc. (R139-LRMS)

I’ll leave it to others to follow the trail of breadcrumbs back to its source, but I’d suggest that whoever did this has “the skills to interpret complex information in an imaginative and engaging way”.

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought….

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A couple of years ago, one of my favorite science teachers was extolling the virtues of those cheap hand held infrared thermometers. He said you just need to hand one to a kid and turn ’em loose and they’ll start asking all kinds of interesting questions and testing out the answers. So I was surprised today to see on Amazon the sorts of questions people seem to be using them to address.

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought:

  • How to be a ghost hunter
  • Ghost hunter’s guidebook
  • How to hunt ghosts: a practical guide

Seeing Drought in Real Time

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My friend Malcolm, who lives in Sydney, has some fascinating observations today on how hard it is to see drought as it is happening, something he (interestingly) noticed after returning to Sydney following a visit to a wetter place:

When you live in an area that changes by degrees month to month and year to year, you don’t automatically realise how large the accumulated change is. Particularly when it’s “home” and one’s reference point for “normal”. Looking around in the few days since I’ve been back, the signs of low rainfall are everywhere. Things don’t look any different than they did before, but having been exposed to the alternative for a while, it’s interesting to look with fresh eyes and notice the accumulated effect.

Some Good News Out of Georgia

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pecansDrought conditions have been good for Georgia’s pecan crop:

The record drought gripping the Southeast isn’t all bad news: It’s meant nearly perfect weather for growing pecans in Georgia.

The state is on pace to be the nation’s top pecan producer this year, with shellers predicting more than 125 million pounds harvested, said pecan horticulturist Lenny Wells of the University of Georgia’s agriculture extension.

Combine irrigation with the sunny skies you get when it doesn’t rain and you can do wonders.

Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere

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On the value of seasonal forecasts:

Gensler knows full well about the seasonal forecast. Odds are, the snowpack that provides the district’s water supply will be on the light side this winter. But he also knows there’s no point in worrying about that now.
His job in planning for next year’s irrigation season is made easier by the fact that El Vado Reservoir, which holds water used by the district to cope with dry years, is close to full. But more important, Gensler knows there’s not much he can do at this point but wait.
“There is no such thing as ‘normal’ on the Rio Grande,” he told me. “We go into every fall not having the faintest idea what we’re going to have in the spring.”

Train Leaving On Track Five For Anaheim, Azusa and Cucamonga

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Planet Brand orange crate labelI’m a New Mexican now, fully, but I remain a Californian by birth, family history, upbringing and nostalgia. That is where my family’s history comes together. My mother’s parents were part of California’s first great invention of itself in the early 20th century. My father came west after the Second World War to become part of California’s second great invention of itself. And it is that fundamental process, the self-invention, that so attracts me to California’s history and substance, even as I have fled California in actual fact.

The other night, hunting for a California picture for a blog post, I ran across the University of California’s Calisphere project, a remarkable web collection of pictures and texts about my roots. I had good reasons for leaving, but looking at the old pictures I got all nostalgic. They’re largely pictures of a thing that no longer exists, but it’s my foundation.

On Dogs

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man, dog, Mexico, floodBlog post of the week: David Appell’s riff on dogs and the fragility of modern existence.

update: Shortly after posting, I saw this AP story:

About 40 people, mostly Somalis, have drowned while crossing the Gulf of Aden on their way to Yemen in a desperate attempt to escape gunbattles back home, security officials and witnesses said Saturday.

About 90 others survived and managed to reach the Yemeni southern shores of Shokara after their rickety vessels capsized in the waters on Thursday, said a security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Fisherman Mohammed Saleh said beginning Thursday night, he saw bodies floating in the water.

“We saw mutilated bodies … scattered along the shores,” Saleh said.