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Open thread for April…
Reader Interactions
172 Responses to "Unforced Variations: Apr 2013"
Starting tomorrow, my climate thriller, Heat Wave, is free all week.
An assassin executes a U.S. presidential candidate.
To witness and eccentric reporter, Sam Emory, it echoes a killing three years earlier that transformed his life.
Voters elect a new, environmentalist president, a colleague of the slain candidate.
But a powerful industrialist stops at nothing, including murder, to control world energy markets.
And this isn't his first murder.
Emory and the president are the next in line.
In the not-so-distant future, an assassin kills a U.S. presidential candidate seeking to fix a world ravaged by climate change, and Sam Emory uncovers a chain of murders with a megalomaniac industrialist at its core. The newly elected president vows to solve the climate crisis. Can Emory and his friends stop the assassin from striking again?
HEAT WAVE begins in Chena Hot Springs, Alaska, but the political intrigue and murder spread to Washington, D.C., and into the labyrinth of an Aspen, Colorado energy research facility, where free-marketers manufacture chaos in the electrical grid, and where Emory confronts a terrifying a secret from his past.
I recently read this article in the Economist. http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21574461-climate-may-be-heating-up-less-response-greenhouse-gas-emissions While I have found the writers at the Economist to normally be pretty even handed (as opposed to, say, the WSJ), it seems like this particular author to be relying far too much on a specific kind of climate model to make his or her point. Since I'm not an expert on the topic (I do physical chemistry research on isotope effects relevant to the atmosphere), I wondered if anyone had any critiques of this article that aren't readily apparent. Thanks!
[Response: This discussion had the essential points – but I should do the update I promised… – gavin]
Thought it a good idea to move this here:
New Models Predict Drastically Greener Arctic in Coming Decades
Comment by David B. Benson — 31 Mar 2013 @ 7:52 PM
New research predicts that rising temperatures will lead to a massive "greening," or increase in plant cover, in the Arctic. In a paper published on March 31 in Nature Climate Change, scientists reveal new models projecting that wooded areas in the Arctic could increase by as much as 50 percent over the next few decades.
Paper by Bintanja et al.
1)Is this evidence for Arctic Antarctic seesaw ?
2)Hansen scenario of ice melt cooling ocean is coming true ?
Roger Pielke Jr has a post on Marcott and scientific integrity.
In the comments he demonstrates that he does not have any.
There are a few bad eggs, with the Real Climate mafia being among them, who are exploiting climate science for personal and political gain.
Simplifying somewhat, my understanding of the last decade or so is that a run of La Niñas have caused the excess heat to go into the deep oceans, rather than staying on the surface. Right? If so, any guesses as to whether this run is just a coincidence or whether there may be some sort of causal effect – high tropical temperatures cause La Niñas or the like? What's the current estimate of the probability of an El Niño in the next few years? Also, AIUI, the models produce their own ENSO as part of their operation. If that's right, do they show any bias to one or the other condition as temperatures change?
1) No, evidence for a curious feedback loop operating around Antarctica
2) Can you point me to Hansen's scenario?
Here's the latest from Dr. James Hansen about the leveling off of global temperatures and probable causes:
So what exactly does this portend? I'm having a difficult time figuring out where he's going with this in terms of consequences for the planet. Help?
In light of the reconstructions by Marcott et al, 2013 and Mann et al, 2008, each taken to best represent their primary time eras of focus– It could be said that the start of the instrumental temperature record came at roughly the coldest part of the entire Holocene (or at least the previous 9,000 years or so).
[Response: Yes. The evidence from glacier morraines from very widely different areas suggests that the NH LIA advances were the largest since the Younger Dryas, and dates of material found below the glaciers are often thousands of years old. – gavin]
If the super-majority of the warming that has occurred in the instrument record is anthroprogenic (75%-100%+ considering natural variability), what is the research out there to understand where we would have been if we didn't experience any industrially-forced warming under the same present assumptions of natural variability and non-anthroprogenic forcing trends/cycles? At first glance, it's got to be fairly chilly.
[Response: The long term (orbitally driven) trend is around 0.1/0.2 ºC per 1000 years (depending on latitude, weighting etc.), but that would not be expected to continue indefinitely. The orbital forcing is near to bottoming out. – gavin]
#9, Chuck–If I've got this correctly, he's saying that in the short term we may catch a break due to (probably) negative aerosol forcings and greater than expected biosphere carbon sinking, but the long-term outcome is likely unchanged, since a) it's unlikely that ever-increasing aerosol levels will be tolerated and b) it's unlikely that the biosphere will continue to be an ever-more effective sink as temperatures continue to rise.
It's worth mentioning, perhaps, that air pollution in China has indeed become a political and social issue–amusing, in a sardonic way, is the emergence of 'clean air tourism' there:
(Ironically typical of 20th-21st century life is the wrinkle that the increased auto exhaust then creates an additional air pollution problem.)
And further, the short-term 'break' may be actually counterproductive in that it reduces motivation to take effective action on emissions mitigation.
Re 9: (Thank You)
I'm assuming the long term trend being 0.1/0.2°C is more general for the instrumental time period (ie., can also be used for the present decade in addition to a similar decade in the late 1800s)?
[Response: I don't think this cooling trend is of much relevance on decadal timescales. It is an effect around 0.02ºC per decade, but that is much smaller than internal variability, let alone the effects from volcanoes or solar. – gavin]
One of the things I'm wondering about is that the record, shown here…
Has that abrupt turn-around after the LIA. If the instrumental warming is largely anthroprogenic, and indeed it is, and if Marcott et al precludes relatively rapid fluxes in temperature of a non-anthroprogenic mechanism, then wouldn't the turn-around have necessarily have taken longer or bottomed out deeper in keeping with the slow curve of change?
[Response: I think it's more useful to think of LIA like variations as happening on a baseline of long-term cooling, thus the LIA was anomalously cold compared to the temperatures expected based on orbital forcing, and the natural recovery of the LIA in the 1800's (as solar and volcanic went back to warmer levels) has been greatly enhanced by the subsequent anthropogenic forcing. ]
I realize this is immaterial now, but given the opportunity for feedbacks to spiral, I wonder if at least the early AGW gave us a slight reprieve from what we could have otherwise been treated to before finally coming up on this 0.1/0.2 trend? Perhaps a take-away is that "at least we know one way of avoiding another Little Ice Age" (other consequences notwithstanding)…
[Response: Perhaps. But we could come up with much more effective ways to prevent further orbitally-driven cooling if that was a threat. – gavin]
Can alkenones really make good medium to long term temperature proxies ?
If we assume that the current ratio of di/tri molecular production indicates optimal healthy growth for average current temperatures, is it not likely that after a few decades of marginally higher temperatures the species would have adapted such that the same "optimal growth signature" would then be associated with the new average ? This would have the unfortunate effect of severely dampening any reconstructed medium to long term temperature changes.
[Response: Interesting idea, but if it was correct you wouldn't see the ice age cycles in alkenones at all. There are potential other issues- seasonal bias in fluxes for instance – but the anomalous alkenone records tend to have a bigger signal than you might expect. This really speaks to the need for multiple proxy types in any assessment such as this. – gavin]
Geert Jan van Oldenborgh wrote on the 1st of April 2013 at 5:27 AM:
"1) No, evidence for a curious feedback loop operating around Antarctica"
I was thinking in terms of Antarctic ice melt possibly being triggered by Greenland melt
"2) Can you point me to Hansen's scenario?"
"Our simulations (Hansen and Sato, 2012) suggest that a strong negative feedback
kicks in when sea level rise reaches meter-scale, as the ice-melt has a large cooling and freshening effect on the regional ocean."
The Hansen and Sato (2012) reference seems to be
which in turn refers to a book in 2009.
Re- Comment by Killian — https://www.realclimate.org/?comments_popup=14729#comment-325935
I thought that your several statements advocating an "aboriginal lifestyle" for sustainability were "grade school rhetoric" and "demeaning to you and boring" when you first brought it up. It is a dumb idea.
re: 8 & 10.
It is very important to remember there is significant natural noise in short-term trends, in this case around 10 years. Specifically, there have been strong La Nina and El Nino years which have created short-term effects. For example, we know 1998 (the "cherry-pick" year the anti-science deniers always use to claim warming has slowed/stopped) was influenced by a record El Nino which added to the global temperature. There have since been several La Nina years which would serve to cool global temperatures yet in spite of the cooling effect, temperatures have continued to warm overall but just at a slower rate. Again, the signal-to-noise ratio in short-term trend analysis must be considered. Which is a primary reason why 30 years is the minimum period for climate trend analysis.
Aaron W @2
There was a post on that Economist 'climate sensitivity' article at SkepticalScience. As well as the article, the Economist magazine also ran an editorial leader which is far more reasonable in its coverage (ie no "15 years of flat temperature" or ambiguous final word). And if you want sight of the actual author, there is a 6 minute video on the subject of this article featuring him – John Parker – and another Economist journo. Parker is listed on The Economist website as energy & enviornment editor (althought on the video as globalisation editor). Energy & environment is a post he cannot be too long in as his predecessor (James Astill) was only appointed in 2011. (A second climate-themed video features John Parker this time putting the questions to a brace of fellow Economist journos in December 2012 in the aftermath of Doha.)
The take-away from the (first) video is more definite than the article. It rougly says that even if ECS does now look a bit lower than before, ther is no change as we weren't addressing the problem adequately before and because 2xCO2 will be exceeded under BAU, a lower ECS won't save the world serious pain (so that's a big thumbs down for unmitigated adaption policies, then).
The New York Times and 350.org are reporting the retirement of Dr. James Hansen from NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Sciences.
The New York Times and 350.org are reporting that Dr. James Hansen is retiring from NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Sciences.
And all this time we thought Eli Rabbett drove a Prius !
So, Gavin? Stepping up? If not, then who'll be at the helm?
8 Chuck H, Hansen is just noting that not only does fossil fuel use provide a few-day drop in temps which we eventually MUST release, but also that fossil fuel use releases stuff like nitrogen, which increases the take-up of CO2. (My guess is that Dead Zones are great carbon sequesterers – grow algae, choke everything, and let it sink – carbon burial is aided by Mass Death) So, it turns out that natural systems reduce the heating caused by fossil fuel use via aerosols and also the absolute concentration of CO2 compared to what it would have been via nitrogen and other stuff, but, unfortunately, it's all just a Ponzi scheme. Eventually you've got to stop spewing aerosols and fertilizer. At that point, the extra shading from aerosols WILL disappear and the extra growth and death from fertilizer WILL end. Both ends are essentially immediate, while CO2 emission effects are essentially permanent. So, in any particular decade, it's harmful to stop emissions, but stopping emissions is critical to long-term survival. We're like a heroin addict. Cold Turkey is gonna hurt – AND MIGHT BE A BAD IDEA EVEN IF THERE WERE NO ECONOMIC COSTS, but our veins are running out….
9 "The long term (orbitally driven) trend is around 0.1/0.2 ºC per 1000 years (depending on latitude, weighting etc.), but that would not be expected to continue indefinitely. The orbital forcing is near to bottoming out. – gavin]"
that confuses me. I thought the orbital forcing was NEGATIVE, and is going to go further and further negative for thousands of years. I thought we hit the Holocene Maximum thousands of years ago. Clarification?
Steve Fish said Re- Comment by Killian …I thought that your several statements advocating an "aboriginal lifestyle"
To be clear, I never advocated an aboriginal lifestyle. What I did do is suggest such lifestyles as the only true examples of sustainable societies and thus examples to learn from. That you see that as advocacy of literally living in the stone age is an issue with you, not with what I have written.
Given I have also repeatedly described a possible future as being a sort of Hobbiton with a hi-tech backbone (or, similar in form to some ecovillages, perhaps), your comments are nonsense.
These are serious times for serious people. Suggest you consider that with a mirror to hand.
These articles at nsidc.org under "NSIDC in the News: 2013" (26& 27 March) are of interest to me because I started to follow the meanderings of the jetstream (300 mb) when I found that the 6-hour time lapse satellite animations showed it coming almost straight south over my midlands locale, with volatile conditions re wind and temp, in spite of the continuing trend of precession of the arrival of spring.
I used the crws analyses here:
Dr. James Hansen, thank you for your service–which is still young, considering the human futures which you choose to represent, and of which you are acutely aware.
The aboriginal lifestyle or a hybrid modern form of the aboriginal lifestyle should be our long term goal. Wouldn't it be great to give the dinosaurs a run for their money regards longevity on planet earth. Considering our intellect and problem solving capacity is vastly superior to those glorified lizards we should be able to…or..so you would think??? To be considered a successful species we only have another 50-75 million years to prosper on this planet. Here's where I agree with Killian…the only way to achieve this is to be complementary..synergistic to our ecosystem and not parasitic and pathogenic like we are at present. We need to place personal happiness on environmental wellbeing. You all realise this ideology is fundamentally correct don't you! So lets' aim our future direction towards that picture.
In the meantime we are in the shit! The only way we have a hope of getting out of this shit is by quick and expensive technological fixes NOW!!! We simply do not have the time to pussyfoot with passive means. We have to apply the dead-man brakes immediately. This cannot rest or be achieved though due democratic process..again we do not have the time to negotiate and compromise and dilly dally. Governments world wide need to reorganise their federal budgets to fast track emission minimising technologies to their dirtiest factories.
Back to the above dilemma…democracy. Whether I agree with it or not handling this difficult task I figure we are stuck with it. Therefor the scientific establishment must unite like never before and apply REAL pressure to the energy/environment/treasury ministries and state clearly in one coherent voice the current state of climate change and our almost extinguished window of opportunity to rectify thus.
People have got to understand that when Joe Bloggs on the street put's his concern or even fear over the current state of the weather above drinking with his mates at the local bar it will be too late for 90% of life on planet earth within a finger snap in geological time. As this will be the first time in the phanerozoic eon that a single species has caused a catastrophic mass extinction.
Lawrence Coleman wrote: "The only way we have a hope of getting out of this shit is by quick and expensive technological fixes NOW!!!"
If by "this shit" you mean global warming caused by CO2 emissions, the good news is that the necessary "technological fixes" are already in hand, and they are in fact already being implemented "quickly" (although not yet quickly enough), and they are not particularly expensive.
22 Killian,
Good post. I suggest that the "real" issue is that you demanded prior proof and held up aboriginal lifestyles as the only ones that met that demand. In reality, we're on a path that BY DEFINITION is not sustainable if we don't complete the path. If you'd incorporate that Truth in your message, then you'd snag a ton more fish.
25 lawrence C,
You're confusing Nature with Modern Lifestyle Comfort. According to Nature, we could slaughter half of humanity and it would be a mere hiccup. According to MLC, that would be a "Disaster of unimaginable magnitude".
There is NO danger of our becoming less than totally dominant. Every other species larger than a mouse will go extinct before we do. Odds are that we'll only die off due to the demise of the Universe, with a small probability tick at the destruction of the Earth.
Climate change and Ecology are ruled by the First Law: Humans Die Last. Disagree? Name any time or place where anything of any size lived while humans became locally extinct. And I'm being argumentally charitive. The First law becomes stronger and stronger as humans advance. Can you imagine a future where humans DON'T eat everything to delay their own extinction?
If we die, the Earth will be populated by either nothing at all, or single-cell slime.
@ Lawrence Coleman who said, "In the meantime we are in the shit! The only way we have a hope of getting out of this shit is by quick and expensive technological fixes NOW!!! We simply do not have the time to pussyfoot with passive means. We have to apply the dead-man brakes immediately. This cannot rest or be achieved though due democratic process..again we do not have the time to negotiate and compromise and dilly dally. Governments world wide need to reorganise their federal budgets to fast track emission minimising technologies to their dirtiest factories."
Not being a scientist I'm sure I'm butting in here but I would like to reiterate what Lawrence said on post #25.
I think we need a unified, relatively simple, coherent SHOUT from the scientific community, apart from the IPCC reports that make it crystal clear to ALL MEDIA OUTLETS exactly what we're facing and how soon. It needs to be repeated loudly and often with highly descriptive illustrations as to what's to come for humans and the planet and all of its species. Surely some of you have access to the media and influence you could be using to get this done.
I do not have a clear grasp of the situation simply because I'm not a scientist but I DO represent the vast majority of the population who, like myself, don't fully and clearly understand what my daughter and her generation are facing. The scientific community here at realclimate.org needs to come together on this and start sounding the alarm. We're dithering and wasting valuable time IF what I'm reading and what many of you are saying is indeed true. Will humans make it to the end of this century the way things are headed now??? What are the odds of success as it stands today given that nothing seems to be happening. We just had a tar sands spill here in Arkansas that's making national news. Most folks didn't even know there was a tar sands pipeline in the state! Let alone in their own backyard. Our Republican controlled State legislature is dominated by people who still think the Earth is flat. We have gas wells everywhere and earthquakes on a weekly basis. It's "drill baby drill" and BAU from here on out unless you guys start sounding the alarm. Thanks for allowing me to butt in. I completely understand that everyone here is working their asses off to make things better but the problem I see is a real lack of communication between the scientific community and the country at large. I believe it all goes back to opening up the lines of communication and educating the public. There's a teacher in Idaho right now who is in trouble for saying the word Vagina and showing "An Inconvenient Truth" in SCIENCE CLASS!!! That's the level of ignorance you're dealing with here. Again, I apologize for butting in and I do appreciate everything you guys are doing. It's a tough fight.
Gavin thanks for the response (I had so much trouble with the captcha I thought it had not been posted, was just about to post the thought elsewhere).
You said: "Interesting idea, but if it was correct you wouldn't see the ice age cycles in alkenones at all."
I don't have access to the paper, but the abstract here:
seems to suggest ("…and correlated with glacial-interglacial cycles provide an organic geochemical measure of past sea-surface water temperatures") that the empirical temperature response is at least partially achieved through correlation with the glacial-interglacial cycles in the first place. Am I reading that incorrectly ? The sentence is somewhat clumsy, it's difficult for me to figure out (without access to the contents) whether they are saying "does correlate with" (an end result), or "is correlated against" (used during correlation procedure).
[Response: That paper relies on the spatial distribution of the alkenone ratios and the current temperatures to develop the calibration, and then evaluates it using the glacial-to-interglacial change. Other calibrations have used a wider distribution of sites, or in situ calibration from laboratory experiments. People do not use the change over time as a calibration – that would somewhat defeat the point. – gavin]
Jim Larson,
Many small islands in the South Pacific used to be inhabited by Polynesians and were abandoned before Europeans came to visit. See this reference: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16593606. This is an example of a location where humans became extinct and animals bigger than a mouse remain. See Kangaroo island in Australia for a bigger example. If the food supply gets too small the biggest animals (humans) become extinct before the smaller ones. It is certainly possible that humans could wipe themselves out if we are too stupid about the environment.
Rising Temperature Difference Between Hemispheres Could Dramatically Shift Rainfall Patterns in Tropics
Rain more northerly.
LC said: "The only way we have a hope of getting out of this shit is by quick and expensive technological fixes NOW!!!"
Far faster and cheaper is demand reduction/destruction. The 'economy' is a human construct. We can plan a relatively humane episode of global 'degrowth.'
Is average surface air temperature really the best and most appropriate defining measure of climate change? It seems to me that in the absence of continuous direct measurement of energy in and energy out at top of atmosphere that something like Nuticelli et al's ocean, earth, atmosphere and ice heat content more truly represents the actual extent of change to our planet's heat balance.
Has the historical accident of looking for signs of change in the available daily maximum and minimum temperatures collected by weather watching orgs really given the best defining measure of ongoing change?
Rather than the 2degrees or 6 we talk about would we be better talking about how much heat the world has and can be expected to gain? It seems to me that changes to average surface air temperatures is a secondary consequence of that gain in heat – which also shows much less internal variability; no claiming it has stopped for a decade and a half because hardly a year has passed when it failed to rise from ongoing warming.
31 MichaelS,
Good point, with two caveats. First, abandonment is different from local extinction in the way I was using the words (Humans die last). Second, your link notes the extinction of small birds, presumably caused by the Polynesians before they left, so the abstract is consistent with my comment. They killed off much of the wildlife bigger than a mouse, and then left. If there had been no escape, perhaps they'd have finished the job. (Or maybe they did. Are current birds re-populators or survivors?)
I retract my comment's absoluteness and ratchet down its magnitude, but stand by its flavor. If climate change starts killing off lots of people who, unlike the Polynesians, will have no escape, everything that's edible had better watch out.
re # 31 & 35 The spread of modern humans out of Africa and around the world can indeed be tracked by the extinctions of megafauna in our wake. Humans have had a vast footprint in the blood of other species driven to extinction directly or indirectly, even before we engineered our colossal carbon footprint, enscribed so clearly in the ice record. Maybe "footprint" is too nice a word. It's not a footprint, it's a trail of destruction, a smoking, ruined legacy of short-sighted irrevocable destruction. On the other hand, we are apparently the only species capable of understanding and doing something about our own behaviour.
Related to this, as regards Lawrence Coleman #25 and some related posts "Quick and expensive technological fixes" seems like a good way to risk making a bad situation even worse. An attempt at geoengineering needs to be very carefully considered if indeed it is to be attempted at all. The late great Nick Shackleton stated publicly that he was opposed to any such move in principle. While the situation is very serious, it would hardly be helped by a reflex response that risked further careless egotistical damage to an already stressed climate and ecosystem. Cut fossil CO2 emissions – that at least is something we can all agree on. Or would be, if it wasn't for a small group of …
30: None. Why don't you just get a new re-captcha challenge by clicking the circlular arrows on the top. Don't bother with the audio one, it's impossible to understand.
Wikipedias entry here on Kangaroo island is a better example of human extinction where animals remain. These humans went extinct. Kangaroos must remain or it would not have that name. It is too far to the mainland for the humans to have moved. It is possible for humans to be eliminated without the Venus effect killing everything. Everything edible has to watch out already in most locations. Hopefully we will not go so far down that road.
36: Simon C Nobody said tech fixes were without risk. Such as seeding the atmosphere with sulphur dioxide etc. The rarefication of the atmosphere vs the relative density and depth of the oceans should minimise further acidification apart from run off from waterways and the increasing carbonic acid build up from CO2. Correct me if I'm wrong!.
Then I had a thought… would a sudden drastic cut in CO2 over the coming 20-50 years considering it's been building up since the industrial revolution in the 1800's cause other unknown feedbacks. Just as anthropogenic CO2 is now amplifying many + feedback systems as 275-400ppm CO2 in a few hundred years is a sudden massive shock to the planets control systems, would a complete cessation of anthro CO2 now be just as big a shock to a system struggling to cope. Could the time frame of a sudden drop simply heterodyne onto the existing one and actually amplify the situation out of hand or would it gradually and smoothly begin to stabilise and lower CO2??
29: Chuck Hughes, you and I have the exact same concerns. I have a 7y/o son who keeps me focussed on my environmental priorities. Is your head as sore as mine by beating it against the brick wall of apathy, disinterest and denial.
Satellite temperature measurement breaking down?
The UAH satellite measurement shows a more than 4 degrees C cooling of the earth over the last few days. Is the earth becoming a snowball or just the satellite breaking down? With the previous failures, are we going to have working satellites any more?
[Response: this AMSU instrument has 'gone off message' so to speak, but there are two other instruments in different satellites that measure the same thing. Maintenance of long term remote sensing is however going to be a bigger problem going forward. -gavin]
Ancient Pool of Warm Water Questions Current Climate Models
Distinctly puzzling.
A huge pool of warm water that stretched out from Indonesia over to Africa and South America four million years ago suggests climate models might be too conservative in forecasting tropical changes.
Danged exciting!, in a sad sort of way. For those of us who have perceived patterns indicating very rapid changes (at least more rapid than virtually all others perceive thus far) this sort of finding supports the central thesis: We've changed the world in ways it ain't never been changed and the old rules generally just don't apply.
People of all types need to take that to the bank. Whatever your worst case scenario, if it isn't outright catastrophe, you need to use some sort of multiplier, at minimum, because, again, very simply, the planet has quite literally never been here before.
Risk assessment for catastrophic scenarios *is* based in the worst case scenario, but humanity continues to bargain with the devil in this regard.
Oh, so much that could be said…
Anything that increases or maintains significant risk has to go. Only solutions that have a high probability of making things better AND not making them worse, or not much worse, should be in play. Thus, any techno geo-engineering is out. Simple, human-scale changes are in.
The Arctic Sea Ice going bye-bye is going to make it a close shave no matter what we do, but I believe, deep within me, we *can* do this. (And this from a guy who is absolutely certain the margin is very thin and the cost of failure, if not extinction, may as well be.)
Let's do this thing.
"The Arctic Sea Ice going bye-bye…"
What are the short-term consequences of a newly mostly-open late-summer/early-fall Arctic Ocean?
Did we already see some of them over the last year? : Stalled fronts that caused drying in the US West and Mid-West and near-constant rain in the UK; Increased snow fall and colder and longer (than the average over the last decades or so) winter in the North Hemisphere continental interiors…
Should we expect an even more intense version of these in the coming year if, as most seem to expect, we will have an even-more-ice-free Arctic Ocean this summer and fall?
Or will the over-all warming overwhelm the latter and we in the middle of the continent see more of the winter-less winters we have grown accosted to in the last ten years or so?
The important-looking article linked by DBB at #40 is a bit confusingly (to me) worded in parts. If anyone has access to the full scholarly article it is based on, perhaps they could post significant bits or summarize it more fully for us?
@Lawrence Coleman #39
I plead ignorance here because to anyone reading my posts I think it's pretty obvious. I have a basic fundamental understanding of the Physics underlying Climate Change and I read credible sources such as skepticlscience.com/ClimateCentral/ClimateProgress – Joe Romm etc. I figure these guys know what they're talking about and I continue to hear dire predictions for the coming decades. I closely follow Dr. James Hansen and Dr. Peter Ward and others as well as Stephen Hawking. Most of these people are saying that this century will be a real test for humans. I can't visualize 9 billion people existing on this planet. The resources just aren't there. That's adding another China to the global population. We have finite resources and a limited capacity for food production as it is. Can we really sustain 9 billion people or 10 billion under a BAU scenario? I don't see it. The math just isn't there.
I keep hoping somebody like Gavin will chime in and tell me I'm full of shit and give me a few reasons to believe we're actually going to turn things around and explain how this is to be done. Peter Ward said in an interview that scientists who write books are looked down on by other scientists and passed over for promotions simply for communicating to the public. Is this really the way to solve our problems by penalizing those scientists for daring to communicate with the uneducated masses? How else do "we" educate the public if all we get are hacked e-mails taken out of context and exploited by the deniers for political gain?
Who amongst you are willing to sacrifice your reputation as scientists by opening up direct lines of communication to the morons at FOX News? Don't you think that an appearance by some of the credible moderators on National Television would help. Somebody with the scientific credentials has to be willing to enter the public sphere and start shouting from the mountain tops about this situation and the consequences we're facing. A youtube video that nobody can find isn't going to get the job done. Andrew Sullivan has a blog. Use it. Daily Kos, The Huffingtonpost, Joe Scarborough has a 3 hour show. Surely some of our more influential scientists can make a sacrifice for the greater good and get out there and start educating the public. Counter the bullshit from the deniers with PROOF. We have proof. Talking amongst yourselves is all fine and good but we're wasting time when it comes to drumming up the political will to change things.
The scientific community HAS TO BECOME A POLITICAL FORCE or we're all screwed. I hate politics just as much as the next guy but without the political will to get it done I don't see much hope for the future. Scientists must take on the political forces that are preventing any sort of meaningful change necessary for humans to survive. This is a political fight, not a scientific debate. You can expect the same sort of tactics we're seeing from the NRA on gun control because that's the level of ignorance we're dealing with here. When science teachers are getting fired for saying the word "Vagina" you know we're in serious trouble.
Anybody know what's going on with SkepticalScience.com? I just got the following message when I went to their site:
"This Account Has Been Suspended"
I'm trying not to theorize in advance of the data!
Re my 4 Apr 2013 at 3:05 PM: never mind, skepticalscience.com is accessible now.
Chuck Hughes – See the book picture half way down the sidebar? It's a link to the list of books authored by the scientists here, some/most of which have been covered by the press. There is no possibility of communicating with the morons at Faux News, they [and much of the American population] are ineducable, but Gavin and crew do regularly appear in media segments/articles. The "fight" is not political per se, it's economic, money from the oil barons and the NRA elect politicians who will keep the economy flowing unidirectionally to the top, scientists do science on a shoestring, and currently government debt is throttling that.
Back in the alternative solar system of Watts Up With That, Tallbloke is demanding equal time for Velikovsky's competition.
flxible @47 – the fight is very much political; what it isn't is scientific. The latter comes up with winners from fighting fair, the former doesn't.
Chuck @44 – I agree with a lot of that, although I'm sure a lot of scientists are quietly (and sometimes loudly) doing a lot more than we are seeing.
On these points. I listened with interest as Tim Flannery, the head of our fed climate change committee appeared on breakfast tv 3 mornings ago, basically saying we need to adopt zero emissions now. Then the morning show presenter asked him "are these latest disasters in Australia the direct result of CC" and Tim had to say it's impossible to say whether they are directly related because CC is such a complex issue blah blah which of course is scientifically correct
BUT PEOPLE DON'T UNDERSTAND THAT POINT!!, so I put myself in the shoes of the uneducated layman and thought..that news article is telling me they are not sure that our massive fires and flooding and prolonged heatwaves over the last 7-8 months is caused BY CC, so I'll go back to reading the morning paper's sports page..now where was I again..Ahh here we are! salary cap for the western bulldogs… I thought Oh Christ! Tim..here'e your chance to wake the public up and you are telling them that you can't be sure that such and such an event was directly caused by CC. That's the problem!!!
He did mention that with all the numerous records broken lately that the climate is on CC induced steroids.
Tim understands the urgency of the situation all right but he does not have the presentation skills to sell it to the public. He's in the same mould as Prof. Jim Hansen. I have upmost respect for Jim and I have learnt so much from him but he does present himself as the scientists scientist..maybe a green toupee would help?..haha!


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The USGS Volcano Hazards Program monitors volcanoes to detect signs of change that forewarn of volcanic reawakening.
Monitoring a volcano requires scientists to use of a variety of techniques that can hear and see activity inside a volcano. The USGS Volcano Hazards Program monitors volcanoes to detect signs of change that forewarn of volcanic reawakening. To fully understand a volcano's behavior, monitoring should include several types of observations (earthquakes, ground movement, volcanic gas, rock chemistry, water chemistry, remote satellite analysis) on a continuous or near-real-time basis.
Broad networks of many instruments result in a more complete picture of volcanic activity.
Scientists collect data from the instrument networks then analyze them to look for out-of-the-ordinary signals. By comparing the data analysis with similar results from past volcanic events, volcanologists are better able to forecast changes in volcanic activity and determine whether and when a volcano might erupt in the future. Most data can be accessed from our offices in the observatories but visits to the volcanoes, when possible, add valuable information.
Early detection of unrest with sensitive monitoring instruments helps reduce socioeconomic loss.
Rapid advances in technology are helping scientists develop efficient and accurate monitoring equipment. These new systems are capable of collecting and transmitting accurate real-time data from the volcano back to Observatory offices, which improves eruption forecasting. It is important that instruments be installed during quiet times when volcanoes are not active so that they are ready to detect the slightest bit of volcanic stirring. Early detection gives the maximum amount of time for people to prepare for an eruption.
Monitoring data help forecast the course of an eruption once unrest is detected.
When a volcano begins showing new or unusual signs of activity, monitoring data help answer critical questions necessary for assessing and then communicating timely information about volcanic hazards. For example, prior to the 2004 eruption at Mount St. Helens monitoring equipment recorded a large increase in earthquakeactivity. Scientists quickly examined other monitoring data including gas, ground deformation, and satellite imagery to assess if magma or fluid was moving towards the surface. Based on the history of the volcano and the analysis of the monitoring data scientists were able to determine the types of magma could be moving towards the surface. This type of knowledge helps scientists figure out the possible types of volcanic activity and the associated hazards to people. Knowing the hazards helps officials determine which real-time warnings are needed to prevent loss of life and property.

subset: commoncrawl


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Both Anne Hathaway and Samuel L. Jackson have movies coming out this holiday season that deal with some very bleak and heartbreaking content. Hathaway, of course, has Les Miserables, in which she plays a dying hooker working to support her child, and Jackson has Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, a film about a slave (Jamie Foxx) who attempts to earn his freedom by working as a bounty hunter. But now the big question: Whose movie is more tragic? It's a sad-off, motherfuckers!
The Sad Off with Samuel L. Jackson and Anne Hathaway from Samuel L Jackson


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Keyshia Cole
Celebrities are THE fashion icons for beauty, makeup — and of course, hairstyles. Keyshia Cole is no exception. That's why we've got Keyshia Cole photo galleries, pictures, and general beauty news on this celeb. Her style is totally inspiring and worth checking out. So if you're searching for some beauty tips, hairstyle options, and fashion advice, turn to Keyshia Cole. She'll bring your fashion to a whole new place.
Keyshia Cole Red, Curly Hairstyle
Keyshia Cole's red ringlets have a romantic feel that's perfect for date nights or proms. What to do: 1. To get the look, distribute a styling cream through damp hair, then blow dry. A rough dry is fine, as you'll be curling your hair too, just make sure it's completely dry before moving on. 2. Once hair is dry, wind half-inch sections around a thin-barreled curling iron from ends to roots. Hold the iron vertically while turning. 3. Hold the iron in place for a few seconds, then release the clamp while pulling the iron down and away from hair. 4. Allow the curls to cool, then spray with a medium-hold hairspray. Don't comb, don't brush -- don't even touch -- the curls or you'll ruin the ringlets.
Keyshia Cole Long, Formal Updo
Keyshia Cole's sleek bun with its crown of curly-cues is perfect for weddings and proms. Get her style: 1. To create this look, begin with flat-ironed, perfectly straight strands. Brush hair back into a high ponytail and secure with an elastic band. 2. Separate the hair coming out of the ponytail into several thick sections. Twist each into a cinnamon bun-like (mmmmm, sticky buns) shape and pin in place at the base of the pony. 3. Spray the style with a strong hold hairspray to secure.
Keyshia Cole Short, Formal Hairstyle
Keyshia Cole's swept-back, twisted hairstyle is a fun, faux updo for short hair. Steal her style: 1. Start by blow drying your hair straight, brushing it toward the back as you dry. 2. Once hair is dry, lift a 2-inch section and tease just at the roots. Next, loosely twist the section before pinning it in place. 3. Continue teasing, twisting, and pinning sections until all hair at the crown is off of your face. 4. Spray with hairspray to hold.
Keyshia Cole Funky, Blonde, Short Hairstyle
Keyshia Cole's funky pixie 'do is sweet and simple to style. 1. Apply a dollop of mousse to the length of your hair, scrunching it into the roots. 2. Using a vented brush, blow dry strands straight by lifting small sections and directing the hot air underneath, which will add volume at the roots. 3. For the front swoop, brush hair forward and against the scalp while drying.4. Finish the style by rubbing a few drops of a shine serum between palms, then smoothing over hair.


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Then you shall take some of the blood, and put it on the door posts and the lintels of the houses . . . and when I see the blood, I shall pass over you, and no plague shall fall upon you to destroy you, when I smite the land of Egypt.
—Exodus 12:7 & 13
They thought they were safe
that spring night, when they daubed
the doorways with sacrificial blood.
To be sure, the angel of death
passed them over, but for what?
Forty years in the desert
without a home, without a bed,
following new laws to an unknown land.
Easier to have died in Egypt
or stayed there a slave, pretending
there was safety in the old familiar.
But the promise, from those first
naked days outside the garden,
is that there is no safety,
only the terrible blessing
of the journey. You were born
through a doorway marked in blood.
We are, all of us, passed over,
brushed in the night by terrible wings.
Ask that fierce presence,
whose imagination you hold.
God did not promise that we shall live,
but that we might, at last, glimpse the stars,
brilliant in the desert sky.
"Passover" by Lynn Ungar. Text as published in What We Share: Collected Meditations, Volume Two, edited by Patricia Frevert (Skinner House, 2001).
Art credit: "Stars over the Negev Desert," photograph taken on June 7, 2007, by Matt O. From the caption: "much better in person."


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By Gideon V. – Sonic Electronix Editor
Great news – Autonet has extended their $200 off mail-in rebate offer on the Autonet Mobile Router to December 31, 2009. That means you can turn your car into a WiFi zone for just $169.99 after the mail-in rebate! Imagine having broadband internet to help pass the time on all of those long road trips. If you find yourself stuck in traffic and late for a meeting, the Autonet enables you to send and receive email on your laptop!
Check out our previous blog on the Autonet Mobile Router for more details about this extremely useful wireless internet router. You can use this router to access broadband internet while inside of your vehicle. All of your passengers can access the internet while you drive. In fact, this router creates a WiFi zone of 1000 feet in and around your vehicle, so you can even use the internet while sitting outside of your parked vehicle.
We have also written a guide on how to install the Autonet mobile router in our Knowledge Base section. You can use this article as a guide during your install. Remember, you will need to purchase a monthly subscription to access the internet with this router. Hurry, with a $200 rebate, supplies won't last!


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Choosing locally grown organic food is a sustainable living trend that's taken hold throughout North America. Celebrated farming expert Eliot Coleman helped start this movement with The New Organic Grower published 20 years ago. He continues to lead the way, pushing the limits of the harvest season while working his world-renowned organic farm in Harborside, Maine.
Now, with his long-awaited new book, The Winter Harvest Handbook, anyone can have access to his hard-won experience. Gardeners and farmers can use the innovative, highly successful methods Coleman describes in this comprehensive handbook to raise crops throughout the coldest of winters.
Building on the techniques that hundreds of thousands of farmers and gardeners adopted from The New Organic Grower and Four-Season Harvest, this new book focuses on growing produce of unparalleled freshness and quality in customized unheated or, in some cases, minimally heated, movable plastic greenhouses.
Coleman offers clear, concise details on greenhouse construction and maintenance, planting schedules, crop management, harvesting practices, and even marketing methods in this complete, meticulous, and illustrated guide. Readers have access to all the techniques that have proven to produce higher-quality crops on Coleman's own farm.
His painstaking research and experimentation with more than 30 different crops will be valuable to small farmers, homesteaders, and experienced home gardeners who seek to expand their production seasons.
A passionate advocate for the revival of small-scale sustainable farming, Coleman provides a practical model for supplying fresh, locally grown produce during the winter season, even in climates where conventional wisdom says it "just can't be done."
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Eliot Coleman has over fifty years experience in all aspects of organic farming, including field vegetables, greenhouse vegetables, rotational grazing of cattle and sheep, and range poultry. He is the author of The New Organic Grower, Four-Season Harvest, and The Winter Harvest Handbook, as well as the instructional workshop DVD Year-Round Vegetable Production with Eliot Coleman. Coleman and his wife, Barbara Damrosch, presently operate a commercial year-round market garden, in addition to horticultural research projects, at Four Season Farm in Harborside, Maine.
"When does gardening become farming? When are you no longer having dinner parties and running a restaurant instead? For those who are ready to graduate beyond coffee-can retail, the incomparable Eliot Coleman is back with THE WINTER HARVEST HANDBOOK: Year-Round Vegetable Production Using Deep-Organic Techniques and Unheated Greenhouses (Chelsea Green, paper, $29.95). I'm not one to quibble over the details of a "T-post anchor and homemade attaching bracket for securing the corners of a new rolling greenhouse design." Suffice it to say that this serious, meticulous, inspiring farmer and writer solves the problem of growing lettuce in Maine -- in January. Anyone living near Coleman's Four Season Farm is thrice blessed -- 1) to live in intense denial of the back-breaking effort he or she is 2) being spared in order to acquire what is surely 3) the tastiest, most wholesome and pure food available. Coleman's opus is as much a call to action for town planners to embrace local farms as it is a bible for small farmers. This book is for people who know what they're doing."-- The New York Times Book Review
"I just finished picking my first carrots, beets, and radishes from my new 'cold house' in Bedford, New York. It is so rewarding to harvest fresh vegetables and salads in the middle of winter and I grow them following the techniques of Eliot Coleman. I have been a devotee of Eliot's for years, fully agreeing with his methods for growing in winter, spring, summer, and fall, tasty, nutritious produce with a minimum consumption of fossil fuels. Congratulations on another volume of useful, practical, sensible, and enlightening information for the home gardener."--Martha Stewart
"Eliot Coleman's books have been called Bibles for small farmers and home gardeners. I suspect that's because he writes about not just gardening but about everything that connects to good food and pleasure; a Renaissance man for a new generation, he'll quote Goethe in the same breath as Ghandi, and as a result, you'll dig, weed, eat, think, and live more fully."--Dan Barber, Chef, Blue Hill and Blue Hill Stone Barns
"'Attention to detail is the major secret to success in any endeavor,' writes Eliot Coleman on page 156 of this absorbing and happily detailed report on his ongoing efforts to grow flawless vegetables without hothouses on the frozen 'back side' of the year. In chapters covering everything from The Yearly Schedule and Greenhouse Design to Weed Control and Marketing, Coleman tracks his own constant search for perfection, a quality that has led more than one young farmer to exclaim 'I'd follow him anywhere.' Well worth reading even if you don't grow vegetables, just to watch a master's mind at work."--Joan Dye Gussow, author of This Organic Life
"The Winter Harvest Handbook is a treasure trove of practical, proven techniques for producing crops on a year-round basis in any climate. Based on decades of on-farm research, this book is packed with useful ideas, tips and practices that anyone can use in pursuing the increasingly vital dream of local, organic food production using a minimum of precious resources. A masterful book from a master organic farmer. I wish I had had a copy 35 years ago!"--Amigo Bob Cantisano, President, Organic Ag Advisors
"How do you produce first-rate food all year-round in northern places? This is the big question facing the local food movement, and Eliot Coleman, one of America's most innovative farmers, has come up with excellent answers. Brimming with ingenuity, hope, and eminently practical advice, The Winter Harvest Handbook is an indispensable contribution."--Michael Pollan
"If we are going to create a good, clean, fair food system, we've got to learn how to grow affordable, local food year-round and make a living at it. Eliot Coleman knows more about this than anyone I've met. Here he gives the detailed information needed to make it work. The only way to learn it better would be to follow him around for a few seasons. And he won't let you."--Josh Viertel, President, Slow Food USA
"Eliot Coleman is widely recognized as the 'master' of the master gardeners. His new book, The Winter Harvest Handbook--which tells us how to produce local food even in winter in cold climates like Maine, without a lot of energy--now joins his other delightful books as another lovely read, packed with powerful and practical ideas that every gardener will treasure."--Frederick Kirschenmann, Distinguished Fellow, Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, and President of Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture
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SkypeOut is Skype terminology for making calls to standard phone lines. This includes land lines and mobile/cell phones – i.e. any number you can call from a standard phone except emergency numbers (e.g. 000, 999) and, in some cases, toll-free numbers.
SkypeOut calls are charged per minute. The rates are cheap (comparable to calling card rates). Quality can vary, from nearly equivalent to a normal phone, to very patchy, depending on a variety of factors. Calls to mobile phones can be problematic, as the glitches on the mobile network compound with glitches on the Skype network and internet, making some calls unworkable. However Skype are working to improve this and you can expect quality to improve over time.
The following steps show you how to make a SkypeOut call. They assume that you already have Skype installed and set up. (If you don't, click here to see how to do that).
To make a SkypeOut call:
1. Click here to add some Skype Credit to your account.
2. Wait for a confirmation email from Skype and for your new Skype Credits to appear added to your Skype balance.
3. Click on the "Dial" tab within Skype. Make sure the selected country is correct,
4. Dial the number by clicking the numbers on the keypad. You will need to include an area code, even for numbers that are within the same area code as you. Don't worry, you won't be charged long distance rates (Skype charge you the same low rate regardless from where in the world you are calling), however keep in mind that the charging is time-based, so on longer calls you may be charged more than for a local call using your normal phone, if your phone service provider provides fixed price local calls.
5. Click on the green call button and wait for the person you are calling to answer.
If you would like Skype video calls recorded, download a trial of VodBurner up the top of this page. VodBurner records Skype video calls and lets you edit. We offer a free 14 day trial.
In a nutshell, SkypeOut is basically the opposite of SkypeIn. If you want to call normal phones and have them be able to call you, you need both SkypeOut and SkypeIn. You can purchase your unique SkypeIn number here.


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Follow these links to resources for academic success at SDSU:
Student Affairs provides enriching experiences both inside and outside the classroom to help students reach their full potential.
SDSU's Love Library has more than 7 million items in its collection and over 800 public use computers. Learn more about the library.
The mission of Student Affairs is to support the growth and academic success of all students to help them meet their highest educational aspirations. Learn about how Student Affairs supports students' academic success.
Participation in New Student Orientation has been shown to boost the academic success of incoming students.
Students who live on campus have a 10-15% better chance of doing well in college.
What's it like to live on campus at SDSU? Watch this YouTube video.


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Buy the limited edition Reality Clash weapons only in the Reality Clash armoury app! Hurry, because they will never be available again! Test them out and start trading!
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BUDAPEST: Under fire from opposition parties, Viktor Orban said on Monday he would amend the constitution to ensure the European Union cannot settle migrants in Hungary after Sunday's referendum even though turnout was too low to make the vote valid.
The outcome deprived the maverick right-wing prime minister of a clear-cut victory with which to challenge EU migrant quotas and the radical nationalist Jobbik party called on him to quit.
Jobbik said Sunday's referendum, in which the government said quotas were rejected by 98.3 per cent of voters but only 40 per cent of eligible Hungarians cast a valid vote, was a fiasco that offered a "trump card" to Brussels.
At least 50 per cent turnout in the plebiscite was required to legitimise the result.
Along with other ex-Communist countries in eastern Europe, Hungary opposes a policy that would require all EU states to take in some of the hundreds of thousands of mainly Muslim migrants seeking asylum in the bloc after arriving last year.
Orban told parliament the referendum had achieved its goal as more Hungarians, some 3.28 million, repudiated the migrant quotas than had voted for EU membership in a 2003 referendum.
He said 1 million more voters supported his government's migration policy now than voted for his Fidesz party in the 2014 parliamentary election, when he was returned to power.
"This decision, this support (from the people) obliges me to act on it," Orban told parliament as opposition lawmakers hissed and booed.
"Fidesz and the Christian Democratic Party believe the appropriate, honest and necessary step is to give legal weight to the will of the people ... Therefore, I am initiating an amendment to the constitution," he said, without elaborating.
Jobbik chairman Gabor Vona has repeatedly called for a constitutional amendment to protect Hungary from migrant quotas imposed by the European Commission.
"Since yesterday you (Orban) have become a failed politician ... You will not be taken seriously by Brussels bureaucrats," Vona said in parliament on Monday.
"Brussels will ruthlessly exploit your irresponsibility and mistake." Vona said EU authorities would zero in on the fact that the referendum failed legally, and this would weaken Hungary's bargaining position in EU deliberations on migrant policy.
The European Commission said it took note of Hungary's referendum and it was up to Budapest to deal with the outcome.
Vona also said the referendum result ended a era in which Orban's government could use the migration issue to distract attention from all of Hungary's problems under its watch, including serious corruption and emigration due to low wages.
Orban has led resistance to the stance taken by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who has said EU states have an obligation to share the burden of taking in refugees.
He responded to the influx last year by sealing Hungary's southern borders with a razor-wire fence and deploying thousands of soldiers and police.
In power since 2010 and with his party still firmly ahead in opinion polls, Orban could still use the referendum to keep the issue of migration on the political agenda in the run-up to the 2018 election, some analysts say.
Many Hungarians were disappointed with Sunday's outcome.
"What is at stake is the future of the country. The people should have voted for the future of our children and yet many people were too lazy to go to vote. They should be ashamed of themselves," said Istvan Nemeth, a lawyer in Budapest.
Orban says deciding whether to accept migrants is a matter of national sovereignty.
He says Hungary - with its Christian roots - does not want to take in Muslims in large numbers as they pose a security risk.
Human rights groups criticised Orban's government for stoking fears and xenophobia with an aggressive campaign ahead of the referendum.


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|Instrument(s): Ensemble: Basso, viola da gamba, viola da gamba
|Style: Baroque
|Arranger(s): n/a
|Opus: Not known
|Date of composition: 1698
|Source: Facsimile
|Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5
|Last updated: 2005/Aug/07. View change history
|Music ID Number: Mutopia-2005/08/07-581
|Typeset using: LilyPond, version 2.6.3
|LilyPond files (zipped)
|MIDI files (zipped)
|A4 PDF files
|Letter PDF files
The maintainer has made a PDF score with the original layout as well as a facsimile of part of the original edition: sonate6-orig.pdf.
|Maintainer: Jean-Marc Legrand
|cjmlegrand (at) libertysurf.fr


text:
If you're a 2-year-old getting tubes in your ears in a big, scary hospital, a soft teddy bear might be just the distraction you need.
And if you're a first-year nursing student neck-deep in competitive, intensive study, placing that teddy bear in a child's arms might be just as therapeutic.
The pediatrics ward at Sarasota Memorial Hospital registered more smiles and cooing than usual Friday, as 27 students from the University of South Florida nursing school passed out bears that, like the students, were dressed in green and white nursing uniforms.
"I haven't worked with children yet," said Sarasota's Lucelly Alarcon, who is in her first semester at USF on her way to becoming a registered nurse. "I thought this would be a chance to be able to see some."
Brittny Chabalowski, director of pre-licensure in the nursing program, says students rotate into pediatrics in the fourth semester.
"So far, they've only worked with adults in acute care," Chabalowski says. "They've seen illness and things that are really tough to deal with.
"Ours is a very intensive program with their studies and their hours of clinical work. This is a good way to remind them of the reason we go into the field."
Not that the fuzzy white bears went unappreciated. Kara Hillabrand of Sarasota, whose daughter Izabella was born Nov. 24, settled the bear gently around her baby's head in the hospital bassinet.
It will be a welcome addition to the home nursery, which so far has a couple of Beanie Babies and a sock monkey blanket.
"She loves to be swaddled and to have Mommy hold her," she said of her newborn, who was born jaundiced and has needed extra care.
Trinity Donnell, 7, looking inexplicably cheerful after having surgery that morning for the insertion of tubes in her ears, already had given her bear a name: Snowflake.
It is her first teddy bear, destined to join a menagerie of other stuffed animals.
"I'm going to take this name tag and make a necklace out of it for Snowflake to wear," Trinity said.
This is the first year the nursing students have distributed the bears, under a new program called BEARS: Bulls Encouraging and Assisting through Research and Scholarship, with a nod to USF's mascot.
So far, about 100 USF students, faculty and staff members have donated $50 per bear to the group. The BEARS program also benefits the nonprofit USF Foundation, which in turn supports such nursing school efforts as working with veterans and at a health clinic in Panama.
Admission into the USF College of Nursing is competitive.
This fall, the school received about 500 applications for 120 spots.


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MÜNSTER, Germany – BASF and BMW have once again teamed up, this time for the i3, the BMW Group's first model driven purely by electric power. BASF is supplying basecoats in four colors for the new i3 production line at the BMW plant in Leipzig, Germany. The i3 was launched in November 2013.
With the coatings, BASF is contributing to the i3's unique design, which is clean and reduced but, at the same time, dynamic. The i3 has another special feature that also extends to the coating: the passenger compartment is made of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP). "We are very pleased to be a partner of the BMW Group also for this innovative model. Driving sustainable solutions is one of BASF's strategic principles," said Dr. Alexander Haunschild, head of Automotive OEM Coatings Europe at BASF.
The car consists of a CFRP body-in-white on which the coated plastic add-on parts are mounted. This concept means new challenges for the coating of the add-on parts and for the associated application processes, and BASF's many years of experience in coating add-on parts is helping. Frank Naber, BASF's Account Manager for BMW Europe, explained, "Our laboratory teams joined forces with the BMW Group to develop a coating for the special construction of the i3. In Leipzig, we also provide technical field service on site on a daily basis."


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Thickness: 3 mm.
Wear Layer: 0.3 mm.
Product size: 3 x 152 x 914 cm.
Packing: 3.34 sq.m/ 24 pcs./ box
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Photograph by Chris Rainier
A visit by an Enduring Voices team to India's Arunachal Pradesh state has yielded the first-known recordings of several rare and poorly understood languages. The group, which included a foremost Indian tribal scholar and member of the Santal tribe, focused its efforts on the languages and cultural traditions of the Aka and Apatani people. Stay tuned for a report from our November 2008 expedition to India.
The Enduring Voices team visited Arunachal Pradesh, the northeasternmost state in India in March 2008. We prioritized this region because it is a part of the Greater South Asia Language Hotspot. We visited two separate areas within this region, recording half a dozen languages, most of which lacked any available recordings and are extremely poorly known to science. In the first area, we were the first group of trained linguists that have ever visited. In the second, an Indian linguist had worked there in the 1980s, but no recordings of his work are available.
The Enduring Voices team consisted of Chris Rainier, Greg Anderson, David Harrison, and Ganesh Murmu, a linguist and member of an Indian indigenous tribal ethnic minority group, the Santals. Murmu is one of few tribal scholars in India to achieve such a high level of respect and expertise. He is the director of the Department of Tribal and Regional Languages at Ranchi University, a unique institution training a new generation of tribal scholars. Murmu's team received the first of our series of language technology kits, and Ranchi University will continue to serve as our host institution in India for future expeditions.
In the first region, we concentrated on the Aka people. Aka is a culture undergoing rapid change and facing strong pressures to assimilate to majority (Hindi) culture. Most people still live from domesticated animals, raising livestock such as cattle and pigs, and trading these for rice and other goods. Many still practice traditional (animist) religion. But a significant portion of the population now spends time in the lowlands working or participating in formal schooling, and they have brought many new cultural habits back to Aka country. The pressures on Aka culture are evident in rapid intergenerational shifts in language use, education, traditional architecture, clothing, and religious beliefs.
The second part of the trip focused on the Apatani. The Apatani live in compact bamboo villages, practice rice and fish cultivation, and still have many traits of traditional life. One cultural practice that is being lost, however, is the elaborate system of facial tattooing and ornamental nose plugs worn by women. During our visit, we were able to witness a Donyi-Polo (sun and moon worship) religious ceremony.
The Enduring Voices linguistics team will spend the next few months processing this data.
Related Features
Kaziranga Photo Gallery
With 100 tigers, 2,000 one-horned rhinos, and 1,800 wild buffalo, Kaziranga National Park is India's grassland kingdom.
Faces of India
See pictures and portraits of Indian people in this travel photo gallery from National Geographic.
India's Highways Photo Gallery
A new superhighway linking its four major cities is bringing old and new India into jarring proximity.
Rainwater Harvesting Finds Traction in India
How will vast regions of India cope with unreliable rainfall? One remote village is setting an example for the rest of the country, and world.
Meet the Team
Gregory Anderson, Linguist
Dr. Gregory D. S. Anderson is a linguist who is director of the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the documentation, revitalization, and maintenance of endangered languages.
David Harrison, Linguist
K. David Harrison is a linguist and leading specialist in the study of endangered languages. He co-leads the Enduring Voices project at National Geographic and is an associate professor at Swarthmore College.
Chris Rainier,
Chris Rainier is considered one of the leading documentary photographers working today. His life's mission is to put on film both the remaining natural wilderness and indigenous cultures around the globe and to use images to create social change.
Living Tongues
The Enduring Voices Project represents a partnership between National Geographic Mission Programs and the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.
Talking Dictionaries
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The Last Speakers
The Last Speakers
The poignant chronicle of K. David Harrison's expeditions around the world to meet with last speakers of vanishing languages.
"The Last Speakers" is now published in Japanese. Read the interview with Dr. Harrison here and purchase the Japanese edition here .


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When building work began to prepare the ground for the construction of a new highway tunnel in Oslo, excavators were not prepared for what they were about to find buried under the mud. As work progressed, the largest collection of antique shipwrecks ever found in Norway was gradually uncovered.
Once specialist archaeologists from the Norwegian Maritime museum stepped in to take over the dig, they were surprised to discover the remains of at least 14 wooden boats. The wrecks measure up to 17 metres (56 feet) and are believed to date from the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
The boats are all remarkably well-preserved due to the mixture of mud and fresh water found where the rivers run into the sea at Bjoervika, part of Oslo's old port, near the new national opera house.
Lin Hobberstad, an archaeologist onsite to oversee the safe recovery of the shipwrecks, explained that the removal process had to happen as quickly as possible so that the ships could be examined and construction work on the tunnel could start again:
"Oslo Vei, a construction specialist based in Oslo, recommended Tsurumi pumps for the onsite drainage," she said. "Good reliable pumps are an essential part of an archaeological project like this and Tsurumi was an obvious choice."
The pumps in question are 70 Tsurumi LB-480A contractor pumps – single-phase portable pumps with level sensors which start and stop the pump automatically. The 0.48 kW power-rated LB-480A can pump up to 225 litres/minute at maximum capacity. With the automatic shut-off it is therefore very economical and well-suited to this type of application. The pumps will remain onsite until the end of construction in 2012.


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November 25, 2013, Three Rivers, MA — For more than 30 years, you could have your Mustang seat in any color you wanted, so long as it was black. All that changes for 2014! A full array of colorful options and styles will be introduced to the media at the Long Beach Convention Center as part of Mustang's display at the International Motorcycle Show December 6-8.
"In a radical departure from long-standing Mustang tradition, we are now offering custom seats with a selection of different stitch patterns, inlay panels and thread colors to choose from," says Director Of Sales Steve Veltri. "This gives you the opportunity to make your seat as unique as your ride." The first step in the automated online seat design process is to pick a stitch pattern. Plain, Tuck and Roll or Diamond Stitch options are available. Then comes time to pick a color… don't worry, as you go through each step, you can see exactly how it will look. There is even a magnifying glass tool that enables you to take a close-up look at the contrasting stitching colors. "We added distressed brown to the mix last year, but now we have a full spectrum of colors to choose from, including everything from Sky Blue and Burgundy to Goldenrod and Gun Metal," adds Veltri. "We know that not everyone's computer monitor is properly color calibrated, so we will be happy to send you a color swatch to confirm it is exactly the shade you want before handcrafting your custom seat."
For you traditionalists, don't worry, Mustang still offers basic black. With the endless permutations of stitching options, insert colors and 12 contrasting thread colors, we are introducing the custom seat option on three of our most popular models for starters. Tripper™ Solo, Tripper Fastback™ and DayTripper™ are the three seat styles currently available to design your own seat from. "We did a soft launch of the Custom Seat program this summer to fine tune the process and see what customization options needed to be added," Veltri says. "Now it is ready for the official unveil at the IMS stop in Long Beach." If you can't make it to the motorcycle show to see it in person, click on www.mustangseats.com/custom to tailor your own seat.
The post Mustang Enters Custom Seat Market appeared first on USRiderNews.


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The amazing web site of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Industry and Idleness. Plate 2. The Industrious Apprentice performing the duty of a Christian, by Hogarth.
This is part of the web site of Shakespeare's sonnets
William Hogarth 1697 - 1764.
Industry and Idleness. Plate 2. The Industrious Apprentice performing the duty of a Christian. 1747.
first achieved fame as an artist through his series of moralistic
engravings, commencing with A
Harlot's Progress
in 1731. This was followed by A
Rake's Progress
in 1735, Marriage
in 1743-5, and Industry
and Idleness in
. Originally the sets of pictures were oil
paintings which
Hogarth subsequently published as engravings. However the
Industry and Idleness series was conceived entirely as a set
of engravings which were not copied from paintings. They were
put on sale for one shilling each, which is equivalent today, (2008),
to about ten pounds sterling (GBP). Evidently Hogarth was
to appeal to a wider audience than the upper class wealthy who were his
usual patrons.
The Industry and Idleness series is rather crudely moralistic, depicting how industry and virtue are rewarded with worldly success, while idleness, corruption and vice is ultimately punished by the gallows. Despite this rather tedious tale, which is not true to life and simplistically misrepresents the apprenticeship system of the time, the engravings are a superb record of both the lower and upper end of London life of the time. The banqueting scene of Plate 8 and the two final crowd scenes of the Tyburn spectacle and the Lord Mayor's Parade are incomparable and show the satirical Hogarth at his very best.
|In the
second scene the pious Frank Goodchild shares a hymnbook with the
pretty master's daughter. The church is St Martin in the
Fields, Trafalgar Square, which was built 1721-5, the architect being
James Gibbs. It is still there today and has recently
undergone extensive restoration. Hogarth's picture shows the
box pews which filled it at the time. The woman on the left
with a bunch of keys is the pew opener, and she faces away from the
preacher waiting to attend upon late arrivals. Behind Frank
and his sweetheart a clergyman lies asleep, a large woman shows off her
bosom and a bespectacled man, possibly a minor clergyman, ogles her
while he sings.
Return to Hogarth index
Return to Picture index
Back to Home Page
|Industry and Idleness. Plate 1. The two apprentices.
|Industry and Idleness. Plate 2. The industrious 'prentice performing the duty of a Christian.
|Industry and Idleness. Plate 3. The idle apprentice at play in the churchyard during divine service.
|Industry and Idleness. Plate 4. The Industrious 'prentice a favourite and entrusted by his master.
|Industry and Idleness. Plate 5. The idle 'prentice turned away and sent to sea.
|Industry and Idleness. Plate 6. The industrious 'prentice out of his time and married to his master's daughter.
| Industry
and Idleness. Plate 7. The idle 'prentice returned
from sea and in a garret with a common prostitute.
| Industry
and Idleness. Plate 8. The industrious 'prentice
grown rich and sheriff of London.
|Industry and Idleness. Plate 9. The idle 'prentice betrayed (by his whore) and taken in a night cellar with his accomplice.
|Industry and Idleness. Plate 10. The industrious 'prentice Alderman of London, the idle one brought before him and impeached by his accomplice.
| Industry
and Idleness. Plate 11. The idle 'prentice executed
at Tyburn.
| Industry
and Idleness. Plate 12. The industrious 'prentice
Lord Mayor of London.
Shakespeare's Sonnets:
|Start here with the first sonnet
|Sonnets 1 - 50
|Some links to other sites
|Sonnets 51 - 100
|Sonnets 101 - 154
a global search use all the sonnets as
plain text 1-154
or use the
first line index.
you have enjoyed this web site, please
visit its companion -
Pushkin's Poems
|Map of the site
|Views of London
as it was in 1616.
|London Bridge
As it was in Shakespeare's day, circa 1600.
search for a line or phrase in the sonnets
go to the
sonnets as plain text
and use the browser text search engine.
|Views of London
as it was in 1616.
| London Bridge
As it was in Shakespeare's day, circa 1600.
|To search for a line or phrase in the sonnets
go to the
Sonnets as plain text
and use the browser text search engine.
|Sonnets 1 - 50
|Back to home page
|Sonnets 51 - 100
you have enjoyed this web site, please
visit its companion -
Pushkin's Poems
|Sonnets 101 - 154
|If you wish to comment on this site please refer to details on the home page.
|Copyright ©of this site belongs to Oxquarry Books Ltd
Return to Hogarth index
Return to Picture index
Copyright ©of this site belongs to Oxquarry Books Ltd


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SINCE OUR NATION'S earliest days, America has been fixated on our roads, be they yellow brick, high or low, or the one less traveled. The United States has 4 million miles of roads, covering a surface area equivalent to that of South Carolina. They represent freedom, possibility, connection, and even escape. They are the circulation system of our culture and economy, shaping where we live and work, how we transfer goods, how we access services.
But roads have another side as well: a harmful one. Roads are the site of 30,000 deaths every year, but even beyond the obvious dangers, the network has its own, unintended effects on the country. Roads erode soils, trap heat, and disrupt wildlife habitat; they are expensive to create and even more so to maintain.
We've long fantasized that ultimately we'd see roads disappear completely, as Doc Brown suggests at the end of the classic 1985 movie "Back to the Future": "Where we're going, we don't need roads." He's talking about 2015, a time when, as we see in the sequel, people are flying in hovercraft. But as 2015 approaches, we still rely on roads as the backbone of our transportation networks, towns, and cities. As engineers, city planners, and "road ecologists" are realizing, we do need roads. We just need better ones.
A road may seem so basic as to be unchangeable — a strip of asphalt or concrete laid across the ground. But in recent years, researchers have started to ask imaginative questions
about how roads work and don't work — not just in their immediate impacts, but in the way they affect animals, water, energy use, and quality of life for people. They have begun to propose creative, even radical solutions to the problems that roads can cause, using everything from better highway design to smarter asphalt to reduce roads' harmful effects. And though it's still in early stages, some of this work goes even farther, plotting a future in which roads are not just a necessary evil, but can bring unexpected benefits to the land around them.
WHEN YOU'RE DRIVING on a highway through a vast desert or forest, it can seem as if the road is an insignificant part of the landscape. But that's an illusion. Though roads are conduits for one kind of movement, they're barriers as well: they block ancient patterns of animal migration and cause countless wildlife deaths every year. They help spread invasive plant species by dispersing seeds and allowing them to gain a foothold along the roadside corridor, while fragmenting and isolating native populations. That isolation can disrupt usual breeding patterns, making populations less genetically diverse and more vulnerable to being wiped out by catastrophic events.
The ecological effects of roads extend beyond the road surface; Richard Forman, an ecologist at Harvard, estimates that one-fifth of the nation's land is directly affected by roads. Noise from heavily trafficked roads can inhibit bird densities and breeding for several hundred yards on either side. The construction, use, and maintenance of roads causes erosion and spreads pollutants into surrounding air, soil, and water. Roads and related structures like culverts also disrupt water flows and wetlands, which can have far-reaching impacts on humans and other species. In fact, while roads may seem like an innocuous and narrow disruption, they actually amount to a re-engineering of habitat on a vast scale.
Forman is one of the founders of road ecology, the study of roads' effects on ecosystems. The discipline was founded in the 1990s, and research from the field is finally beginning to yield practical innovations in road design. Joseph Burns, who works in transportation ecology and species protection for the National Forest Service, says that a paradigm shift is taking place in the way highways are constructed. "Instead of breaking up systems — whether human communities or natural processes — now they're more permeable." To take one example, traffic collisions had been one of the top killers of Florida's panthers, one of the most endangered animals in the country. When a series of highway underpasses was built along I-75 in the 1990s, the panthers began using them for safe passage across, lowering collisions on the highway.
Wildlife overpasses and underpasses now straddle highways and roads throughout the country, particularly in the Rockies and in Florida, where large animals are frequently hit by cars. Bill Ruediger, a wildlife consultant in Montana who has been involved in over 100 wildlife crossing projects over the past decade or so, says that animals readily learn to use these structures. Although the will to build crossings is highest where collisions with large animals cause injuries and cost money for travelers, conservation activists and biologists are also looking for solutions for small animals like salamanders and frogs, whose survival depends on the connection of far-flung populations.
The flow of wildlife is not the only thing historically disrupted by roads: there's also the flow of water. Burns says that engineers are now taking waterways into account in considering how to plan and rebuild roads. Where highways once barreled through floodplains, they are now built to bridge them, which preserves water stores and habitat while also protecting roads from costly washouts. Roads that work with water systems, he says, "are adaptable and more cost effective." He adds that if designed correctly, such roads can even provide a service, withstanding the peak flows while helping to hold water in dry times.
THE STUFF OF ROADS — concrete and asphalt — has been used for centuries, and these simple materials have facilitated an astonishing degree of mobility for people and goods. But traditionally paved surfaces create a number of problems. They prevent rainwater from reaching soils, instead sending polluted runoff into nearby waterways. The high temperatures of pavement in summer make cities hotter, and the warm runoff from highways heats up nearby pools and streams, changing the species that can survive there. And producing them is problematic too: Concrete production is a major contributor of greenhouse gases, and asphalt is made with petroleum products. Both materials are becoming dramatically more expensive as demand for construction materials rises worldwide.
To mitigate these problems, road construction is already changing. For one thing, a growing percentage of asphalt is reclaimed. In some cases, recycling can be done on the spot, with pavement torn up, either milled and compacted or heated and remixed, and then relaid. In the past few years, states including Massachusetts have begun to use a technology called "warm-mix asphalt," which uses agents that make it possible to mix asphalt at lower heats, dramatically cutting the amount of energy needed to produce it and the greenhouse gas emissions released.
But researchers are going beyond these relatively simple improvements by developing other materials entirely: smarter pavements that come with lower environmental impacts. Several states are beginning to use permeable pavements that allow water to seep through; a new sidewalk in Cambridge will use permeable concrete along with a "rain garden" catchment system to keep polluted storm water from draining to the Charles River. Researchers are even developing pavements that filter impurities from the water that passes through them. A team at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands have developed a kind of concrete that purifies the air above it by sucking up nitrogen oxides. Other engineers are investigating asphalts made from plant biomass, and concrete made from industrial waste products.
Massachusetts drivers are all too familiar with another weakness of old-fashioned street materials: the ways extreme seasonal temperatures make road surfaces expand and contract, which causes them to ripple, crack, and collapse into potholes. Rajib Mallick, a civil engineer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, is developing road surfaces that don't reach extreme temperatures, to prevent rutting in the summer and cracking in the winter, while also reducing the "heat island effect" that paved surfaces cause. What he is trying to design, in other words, is a road that protects itself from the costly, near-constant rebuilding that plagues every American municipality where roads freeze and thaw. The approach involves using a layer of heat-conducting, flexible material below the surface of a road, which would direct heat into the surrounding soil, where it can more easily disperse.
And that might be just the beginning of a revolution in what roads do for us. Ideally, Mallick says, that conducted heat could someday be trapped and used for energy. With roads, he says, "you have millions of miles open to the sun." Right now we pour energy into transportation; a bigger question, he says, is "how can we utilize the transportation network as a source of energy?" If we could find a way to transform those inert miles of asphalt into the equivalent of solar panels, the enormous highway system where we burn so much fuel could actually begin to give something back.
ENVIRONMENTALISTS AND URBAN planners dream of a country less reliant on automobiles; so do people who have survived serious car accidents, or anyone who's watched their money tick away into the gas tank. But while cheaper and more environmentally friendly methods of transportation exist — bicycles, public transportation, small electric vehicles — transportation planners have struggled to entice people to give up their cars. Part of this is because of roads themselves. As much as they open up the landscape and allow us to live and work in far-flung places, they also lock us into certain ways of getting around.
So what if redesigning roads could open up new transportation possibilities? Ian Lockwood, a transportation engineer currently on a Loeb fellowship at Harvard, explains that after World War II, engineers tried to reduce congestion and boost the speed and efficiency of driving on major roads by making them wider, straighter, and faster — which causes development to spread out and makes us more dependent on our cars. Many cities are now reversing course, undergoing "road diets" to cut back lanes, and trying to revamp roads to encourage walking and biking.
This is simply a change in planning; no major additional resources are required. But Mark Delucchi, a transportation researcher at University of California Davis, is considering more expansive, imaginative fixes. Delucchi says that one reason people are reluctant to use smaller, less energy-intensive vehicles is that for now, they have to share the road with heavy, fast-moving SUVs. But what if there were a safe course on which to drive personal vehicles that require less energy per person — not just a bicycle or moped, but even a souped-up golf cart or a small electric car? With this idea in mind, Delucchi has advocated a new design for towns and suburbs: two separate road systems, with the majority of local roads designed for small, slow, neighborhood vehicles, and a smaller number of roads for regular cars that connect towns and suburbs. Although no community has yet adopted a system like this, there are a few places where people have ditched their cars to take advantage of alternative road networks. The master-planned community of Peachtree City, Ga., has a 90-mile network of paths for golf carts, pedestrians, and bicycles, while the town of Houten in the Netherlands has a dedicated network of bicycle paths, with limited access for cars in the town center.
As Delucchi's plan suggests, to truly promote new modes of transportation, we might need new kinds of roads entirely. In a recent article in the journal Solutions, Richard Forman and transportation researcher Daniel Sperling imagine a smarter road system of the future, which would replace highways in the most environmentally sensitive areas with raised roads they call "netways." In their vision, we wouldn't use cars at all, but electric, centrally powered personal pods that take us from place to place. These roads would be well out of reach of both wildlife and waterways. Though it's futuristic and ambitious, Forman insists that "almost all the technologies are there." A similar system is being piloted in the zero-energy planned city of Masdar in Abu Dhabi.
It may be a long time before we see entirely new systems of roads designed for small vehicles or pods. For now, we're seeing gradual revisions: from car culture to multiple modes of transportation, and from asphalt blockades to crossable, energy-efficient highways. If these efforts work, we will still have roads to inspire our imagination, but we'll draw even more rewards from their reality.
Courtney Humphries is a freelance writer in Boston and the author of "Superdove: How the Pigeon Took Manhattan...And the World."