Inkstain Staff Ornithologist Big Toe spotted the first hummingbird of spring yesterday (May 1), so I had him go back through the records of first hummingbird sightings at Inkstain World Headquarters. This sighting appears to be substantially later than in 2004 (April 20) and 2005 (April 16). Big Toe attributes this late migration to later spring warming in the hummingbirds’ wintering grounds, and suggests this is definitive evidence of global cooling.
Steve Brügge’s eighth graders have done their annual chemistry cartoons:
Puzzling Connections
From Amazon:
We’ve noticed that customers who have expressed interest in Prediction: Science, Decision Making, and the Future of Nature by Orrin H. Pilkey have also ordered The Most Important Fish in the Sea: Menhaden and America by H. Bruce Franklin.
California Snowpack
On California’s dismal snowpack, from the Chron:
The water content of the Sierra Nevada snowpack is at its lowest level in nearly 20 years — less than 40 percent of usual for this time of year, state water officials say.
The size of the snowpack — the source for most of the state’s drinking water — has already prompted calls for immediate conservation. And orders to curtail use of water could become mandatory this summer or next year if 2008 is also dry.
Usually the biggest accumulation of snow occurs around April 1. But this year the snowpack didn’t grow after the first week in March.
Elissa Lynn, senior meteorologist at the California Department of Water Resources, called the 2007 snowfall “pretty dismal.”
(Hat tip Belshaw.)
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere
New Mexico and Colorado are about to enter Rio Grande Compact Article VII restrictions. That means Elephant Butte, the big reservoir down south, is too low, and we’re prohibited from upstream storage. The meat:
In flirting with Rio Grande Compact restrictions, New Mexico finds itself in what has become a familiar situation, with the state’s water supplies barely able to cover agricultural and municipal needs.
That is very different from the period from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s. A wetter climate, combined with a smaller population and lower demands, meant Elephant Butte had twice as much water as needed to prevent the compact’s drought restrictions.
Johnston Alive
Members of the European Parliament have been told Alan Johnston is alive:
Members of the European Parliament have been told by Palestinian leaders that the kidnapped BBC correspondent, Alan Johnston, is alive.
A 12-member delegation of MEPs were given the assurances in a meeting with Palestinian Deputy PM Azzam al-Ahmad in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Mr Azzam also told them the Palestinian security services knew what they had to do to secure the reporter’s release.
Mr Johnston was seized at gunpoint in Gaza City on 12 March.
I Guess It Depends on Where You Are
Farm Group Says Rain Ends SA Drought:
The South Australian Farmers Federation senior vice-president says recent rains mean the drought is as good as over and he expects farmers to start seeding as soon as the ground is dry enough.
April Rains Fail to End NSW Drought:
Despite a wet April in some parts of NSW, drought continues to grip most of the state, this month’s rainfall figures show.
A reminder that Australia’s a big place, I guess, and that definitions of drought and not-drought vary.
Water in the Desert
You’re looking at one of the largest tributaries in the Middle Rio Grande – the discharge from Albuquerque’s sewage treatment plant. I don’t know the exact numbers, but we’re putting something in the neighborhood of 60,000 acre feet of water per year into the river. Currently, this is largely Pleistocene groundwater being mined from the city’s aquifer – used once, then dumped in the river to augment its flow.
Big Toe – Artist
In addition to his scientific background, Big Toe spent two semesters studying art at the Sorbonne, during which time he spent a good deal of time at the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, where several of Van Gogh’s self-portraits clearly influenced his current work. Today was his day off, but I dropped by Inkstain World Headquarters this afternoon to pick up some papers and found him at work on this. Something of a polymath, I guess.
More Fun With Science
Another one of those entertaining young scientist stories that makes me want to chuck it all and go back to school:
She clearly delights in the work, in part because it’s about answering questions scientists are only beginning to understand how to ask.
“I have no idea what I’m going to be doing in 20 years,” she says. “That’s what’s so fun about this.”