Climate Change in N.M.
The report on climate change in New Mexico is now posted.
Archive of entries posted on January 2006
Speed on the Bike Path
Riding down past Tingley Beach this morning, I was coming up on a runner in the distance when something didn’t seem right. It was taking me too long to close on him. He had this most beautiful stride, light, his toes barely touching the pavement. I slowed down to clock him on my bike’s speedometer, …
Drought
A couple of drought- and climate-related things in this morning’s Journal worthy of note. First, the near-term outlook from Tania Soussan: Two meteorological forecasts out Friday confirmed what anyone who’s been outside lately already knows— New Mexico is dry as a bone. The facts and figures in the federal reports are dire. New Mexico received …
Sea Level Rise
I don’t know much about sea level and climate change (what with New Mexico being landlocked, and all….), so I’m not clear on the significance of this from John Church and Neil White at CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research in Australia. They seem to be saying they’ve found heretofore undetected acceleration in sea level rise: …
Epiphany
It being epiphany, the easy-do parties lady has put away her Santa hat until next Christmas.
Lilacs, Honeysuckle and Phenology
One of my favorite experiences as a science writer is asking a scientist to explain what I have assumed is a fundamental underlying bit of background, only to get the answer, “We don’t know.” I’m reminded of that by an article in the latest Eos by Julio Betancourt about the efforts to create a national …
Wickerpedia
From Nora: Wickerpedia. Do a search….
The red phalarope
Wouldn’t you love to live in a place where this is news? The red phalarope, a small bird rarely seen on land in these parts, has been spotted in groups of up to 1,000 from Pescadero to Moss Beach. There were also reports of the birds making it as far from the coast as Millbrae …
Surf the Global Warming Wave
David Fields of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute has a paper in tomorrow’s Science (press release here) suggesting an interesting anthropogenic warming fingerprint: plankton in varves on the ocean floor. Both warm- and cold-water forams can be found, and the relative abundances of the various types works as a climate proxy. Fields sees the …
Daybook
book: J. Madeleine Nash’s El Niño: Unlocking the Secrets of the Master Weather-Maker. It’s been sitting unread on my shelf since it came out three years ago. It’s good so far, by which I mean she’s a) found a good line to follow through the story, and b) told me things I didn’t already know. …