It being epiphany, the easy-do parties lady has put away her Santa hat until next Christmas.
Lilacs, Honeysuckle and Phenology
One of my favorite experiences as a science writer is asking a scientist to explain what I have assumed is a fundamental underlying bit of background, only to get the answer, “We don’t know.”
I’m reminded of that by an article in the latest Eos by Julio Betancourt about the efforts to create a national phenology network.
Phenology – the study of seasonal biological events, like animal migrations, plant flowerings, when trees drop their leaves – is one of those things I just assumed they (whoever “they” are) already knew everything about. It turns out, though, that there’s really very little systematic data collected on this.
Wickerpedia
From Nora: Wickerpedia. Do a search….
The red phalarope
Wouldn’t you love to live in a place where this is news?
The red phalarope, a small bird rarely seen on land in these parts, has been spotted in groups of up to 1,000 from Pescadero to Moss Beach. There were also reports of the birds making it as far from the coast as Millbrae and Mountain View.
Surf the Global Warming Wave
David Fields of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute has a paper in tomorrow’s Science (press release here) suggesting an interesting anthropogenic warming fingerprint: plankton in varves on the ocean floor. Both warm- and cold-water forams can be found, and the relative abundances of the various types works as a climate proxy.
Fields sees the “regime shift” of the mid-1970s (most famously called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation), and suggests that the patterns in the sediments from the late 20th century are unprecedented in the 1,400-year record. In other words, 20th century warming is fundamentally different than variations seen during that period, with “a deep, penetrative warming not observed in previous centuries.”
(Hat tip me.)
Daybook
book: J. Madeleine Nash’s El Niño: Unlocking the Secrets of the Master Weather-Maker. It’s been sitting unread on my shelf since it came out three years ago. It’s good so far, by which I mean she’s a) found a good line to follow through the story, and b) told me things I didn’t already know.
stuff I wrote elsewhere: There’s this great episode of the Simpsons where the Continental Soccer Association comes to Springfield: “It’s all here – fast-kicking, low scoring, and ties? You bet!” A soccer riot ensues as the residents of Springfield scramble to get out of the stadium because the game is so boring. Now come a group of physicsts from Los Alamos who have proven that soccer is the most interesting sport. (Is there any question physicists can’t answer?
quote of the day: “Prefer the specific to the general.” Strunk and White. With that in mind, and with the help of, shall we say, a “source familiar with the Simpsons,” for my soccer story I tracked down this bit of business:
That is what happened last November when middling Doncaster prevailed over Manchester City, then Aston Villa on the way to Britain’s coveted Carling Cup.
Climate News I Wrote Elsewhere
Of no great climate wars import, just a fun story about the people who collect the data: DOE Climate Study Spans the Planet
This is climate science at its most basic— understanding how energy moves through the atmosphere, making the warm spots warm, the cold spots cold, some places wet and some places dry.
Gleick on “consensus science”
Peter Gleick’s year-ender includes a discussion of one of my favorite topics: the misrepresentation of “consensus science”:
One such doughnut hole is what climate change skeptics call “consensus science.” They argue that just because the vast majority of serious climate scientists believe in the greenhouse effect – that humans are causing the earth’s climate to change in unprecedented ways – the consensus doesn’t make climate change “true.” Indeed, consensus doesn’t make something correct. But the theory that humans are causing unprecedented climate change is nevertheless a better explanation than any competing theory to explain the growing mass of evidence – coming from dozens of disciplines of science and millions of different observations. Such consensus among scientists is a tremendously powerful thing, for it indicates the strength of a theory.
(Hat tip Mike Campana, who runs a great little informal email list on water policy issues.)
More Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere
Last Link in the Chain: Dam Will Help Wean ABQ From Its Dependence On Aquifer Water. But you really ought to check it out in the paper copy of the newspaper if you have a chance, for maximum benefit of Carol Cooperrider’s lovely graphic explaining how the city’s new Alameda dam works, and for Jim Thompson’s photos of the construction site. I was more instigator (I’ve been curious about the project for a while) than journalist on this one.