Lissa and I took a drive Sunday up State Route 4 through the Jemez to look at the big Las Conchas burn one year later. A couple of points worth noting: Miles of forest that has not burned Lots of forest that burned healthy (sprouting aspen on the forest floor) Elk grazing in the Valle …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: Las Conchas and a search for optimism about wildfire’ »
It’s all relative, I guess. I just finished my June backyard rain sheet for the National Weather Service, and realize I’ve had 8 times as much precipitation in the first six months of 2012 as I did over the same period last year – 2.21 inches (5.61 cm) compared to 0.27 inch (0.69 cm) last …
Hillary Rosner, writing at the New York Times, talked to Craig Allen and captured the essence of the angst as the west burns: “These forests did not evolve with this type of fire,” said Dr. Allen. “Fire was a big deal in New Mexico, but it was a different kind of fire.” The result, he …
When I interviewed Mike Connor, the Bureau of Reclamation’s then-newly minted commissioner, back in 2009, one of his central points was that the era of American dam building was behind us: Michael Connor, the New Mexican who took over as head of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation three months ago, inherited an empire. It is …
Over at the work blog, I’ve been having fun with the onset of the North American Monsoon (or lack thereof). My smartypants idea Tuesday, to crowdsource the problem of predicting the onset of our summer rains, turned out in retrospect to be lousy. I made a spreadsheet and everything. So far just four entires, what …
In the morning paper, I pine over our elusive monsoon forecast: I know this is the time you would really like a forecast. You would really like to know when New Mexico’s summer rains will finally get here, and whether we will have a wet monsoon season. Sorry. Can’t help. Believe me, I’d like to. …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: forecasting is hard, especially about the monsoon’ »
On Albuquerque’s appearance in the “our pipes are getting old!” discussion: Albuquerque’s water and sewer utility, facing hundreds of millions of dollars in costs over the next decade to replace aging pipes and treatment plants, is considering a series of rate increases in the next five years. When the last of the proposed rate hikes …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: ABQ water infrastructure’ »
Suggested storylines welcome.
With the Whitewater-Baldy fire pushing 260,000 acres (New Mexico’s largest by a wide margin), I spent some time talking with the forest-climate community about climate change, forest health and the role of natural variability in creating the conditions for the southwest’s recent megafires: Global warming is playing a role in the conditions in the Gila …
Continue reading ‘Stuff I wrote elsewhere: climate change and megafires’ »
Let us stipulate that my home weather records are subject to what Tversky and Kahneman would likely call “the law of small numbers“. Which is to say that, when I tell you May is the driest month of the year around here, you should suspect my statistical reasoning. That said, it is factually correct to …