Quiet MorningOriginally uploaded by heinemanfleck.

It’s quiet Saturday morning in Albuquerque, the sort of quiet you get when a light blanket of snow dampens the sound and keeps everyone inside, including the dogs. We’re going to be in trouble today when the mailman comes. There’ll be no dogs out to protect us.

• music: Django (the 1954 Modern Jazz Quartet, not the software). Milt Jackson makes sense on a quiet Saturday morning.
• paper of the day: Michael Notaro and colleagues’ incorporation of vegetation into climate models, with useful results: “While the radiative effect of rising CO₂ produces most of the warming, the physiological effect contributes additional warming by weakening the hydrologic cycle through reduced evapotranspiration.”
• drought: From Australia: “With a nearly countrywide drought now in its fifth year, reservoirs along Australia’s central eastern coast are down to 14 percent of capacity, and restrictions on water use are getting tough.”
• climate news: Apparently, according to Andy Revkin, there’s some new report about to come out that says humans are responsible for the whole global warming thing. Who knew?
• cycling: Tyler Hamilton found a ride.
• days: Jan. 20 is the feast day of St. Sebastian, one of history’s great underachievers. He’s the one who, back in the day, was supposed to protect folks against plague. Good job, Seb!
• quote of the day: “Nearly half of the lands of the United States, exclusive of Alaska, are arid.” – John Wesley Powell, stating the obvious in Century Magazine, March 1890