SO MUCH FOR THE PAUSE Eugene Linden : endangered animals, rapid climate change, global deforestation, fragging

THE HAMMER OF THOR… AND LIZ AND BARBRA AND GEORGE AND KAMALA

Lately, I’ve returned to my roots in investigative journalism. I’m trying to get to the bottom to a recurrent episode of collective madness where every four years a marauding posse of celebrities, media figures, and supreme court justices go rampaging through the political landscape w...

SO MUCH FOR THE PAUSE

Friday November 15, 2013

That didn’t take long. Recall that just a few weeks ago climate change deniers were crowing about the "missing" global warming because the latest draft IPCC report on the state of the climate noted that in the years since 1997 the rate of warming seemed to have dropped. Part of the answer -- ignored by the denier crowd -- was that trends had been distored by the super El Nino of 1998. Now it seems that even with that skew there was no pause in warming.

From the climate modelers’ go-to site, realclimate.org, comes news of a study of global temperatures that argues that between 1997 and 2012 the world warmed at twice the rate reported in the latest draft IPCC report. According to Stefan Rahmstorf at RealClimate, the findings weren’t used by the IPCC because the researchers, Kevin Cowtan and Robert Way, responsibly waited until their report was published by the Royal Meteorological Society before going public. Basically, the scientists found that there were big gaps in temperature data from the Arctic (which has undergone extraordinary warming) because of the paucity of weather stations, and they figured out how to fill in those gaps using satellite data. Once adjusted, the global trend rose from 0.05 degrees C per decade to 0.12 degrees C per decade, which is in line with previous warming.

Presto! No more pause. No doubt the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and the hundreds of other media outlets that made a big deal out of the “missing” global warming will now issue retractions and updates.

Short Take

The Laws of Physics for Babies

[I published this years ago, but with friends having babies, I thought it might be a useful resource]

THE LAWS OF PHYSICS FOR BABIES

Close observation of babies has led me to believe that the infant universe is characterized by its own physics, quite distinct from particle physics or the Newtonian laws of motion. I welcome and will periodically post suggestions about additional laws of the baby universe.

LAWS OF MOTION:

1) The Inflationary Universe: Obects tend to recede when you reach for them.

2) The Boomerang Effect: Once successfully grabbed, however, objects usually reappear after being thrown, with the special exception of objects made of glass or metal.

3) The Relativity of Gravity:

a) Gravity and Acoustics. Gravity can be temporarily reversed by generating noises, but only in the presence of other people. The speed of this reversal is directly proportional to the decibel level of the sounds generated.

b) Gravity and Context. Gravity spontaneously and unexpectedly reverses itself when approaching stairs, antiques, and the Thanksgiving dinner table.

FLUID DYNAMICS: 1) Animal Spirits: Fluids have a vital forces that causes them to splash and spill unless contained in bottles and sippy cups.

MATERIALS PHYSICS:

1) Conservation of Shape: Once broken or bent, objects tend to reappear in their original configutation.

2) Transformation: When reached for, shiny metal objects tend to recede and then become transformed into plastic or rubber.

GRAND UNIFYING CONSTANT: The Attractive Pull of Mommy: the one universal force.