Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal

Here in America, a house that is over 100 years old is not only rare, but considered to be quite old. A house that is over 200 years old is positively ancient and may very well be a museum! The old historic district here in Huntsville has some beautiful old homes. Some dating from before 1820. If I ever win the lottery, I will own one too. (It might help if I bought a ticket though!).

In Europe, old has a different meaning. I once stayed at a bed and breakfast in Edinburgh and asked the owner if the building was as old as it looked. She replied, no, this is the new part of town. This house was built in 1769! Old is no doubt a relative concept.

To Geologists, old has an entirely different meaning. Much like “far away” to Astronomers. Geology students sometimes have a tough time getting their head around the concept of deep time. The Earth has celebrated it’s millionth birthday party, 4,500 times!

Courtesy Nat. Park Service. Geologic time is broken down from Eons to Eras to Periods and Epochs.

Here is a fun way to imagine it. Hold your arms out as far as you can, and let that length be equal to those 4,500 million years. The Earth formed at the tip of your fingernails on your left hand. The Jurassic period, when dinosaurs ruled, is a small part of your RIGHT arm near your wrist. The first species we would call “Humans” evolved just a couple of million years ago and is the very tip of your fingernail, on your longest right finger.

Geologists have developed an age chart of the Earth that has been revised over the decades to make sense of this enormous amount of time. Most people are familiar with the names of some of these divisions. The movie Jurassic Park for instance. You likely have seen this chart in a text book or online.

Over this planet’s long history there seems to have been five times when life was nearly wiped out. The greatest of these mass extinctions is sometimes called the great Permian dying. At the end of the Permian period, nearly 90% of Earth species disappeared. If you ever went fossil hunting and found a trilobite, it was from the Permian or before. They were one of the casualties of this great extinction. What caused it? Evidence points to volcanoes, but it’s still uncertain.

This paved the way for the dinosaurs which ruled for over 150 million years until 65 million years ago, when they too met their end. The extinction of the dinosaurs along with many other species is likely solved.. It was probably a meteorite. Why are geologists so certain? The puzzle pieces fit together (See my last post).  (There are still some doubters, and you should know the Science is not completely settled on this)

From NASA

A Geologist in Italy was looking at a stack of rocks that spanned the end of the Cretaceous and the beginning of the Tertiary periods. He noticed a layer of an unusual mineral and it turned out to have a very high concentration of iridium. Iridium is rare on earth and it’s only formed in extreme pressures and temps.  When it was proposed that a meteor wiped out the dinosaurs, many geologists laughed. They aren’t laughing now. The crater was found deep under the Gulf of Mexico mud, and it’s been dated to exactly 65 million years old. The iridium shows up across the planet in rocks 65 million years old. There is now a growing body of independent evidence that something rocked our world 65.5 million years ago. (+/- 300k years)From NASA

The end of the dinosaurs allowed a little species called Mammals to thrive, and thrive they have, Humans now inhabit every corner of this planet and have controlled it’s rivers, changed it’s atmosphere markedly, by doubling the Methane and and increasing the Carbon Dioxide significantly in just 200 years. Just a blink of the eye in Geologic time. Cities and agriculture have increased the erosion rates dramatically. The oceans are now noticeably more acidic, and most of all there seems to be another mass extinction underway. We know for certain what is causing this 6th great extinction.  One of those Mammals that thrived after the “Terrible Lizards” were wiped out. It’s Homo Sapiens Sapiens. US.

Elizabeth Kolbert has a superb article in the New Yorker about this great extinction. It’s long, but you should really read it. Just this week, many caves here in the Southeast have been closed. They are trying to stop White Nose Syndrome. It’s killing bats rapidly. Just like the frogs, they are disappearing. Kolbert explains it well. If you read one long article this month-make it this one.

White Nose Syndrome in Bats - Courtesy Al Hicks NY Dept. Env. Con.

The question is this. Will Geologists of the far future look at the rocks of earth from our time, and say, “something changed there”. The answer seems to be a resounding yes. If so, where do you draw the line? Most of man’s affect on Earth starts showing up at the beginning of the industrial revolution.

In a paper published last year a group of Geologists, led by Jan Zalasiewic, supported strongly the idea, put forth in 2000 by Nobel Prize winner Paul Crutzen, that we are no longer living in the Holocene. The Holocene began 11,000 years ago, when we finished coming out of the last ice age (Pleistocene). Crutzen calls this new period the Anthropocene. Andy Revkin of the New York Times (He write an excellent blog), first suggested something similar called the Anthrocene as early as 1992.

At the end of the Permian, 96% of all marine species died off. 70% of land vertebrates like us. I can’t help but wonder what the Anthropocence will bring. Unlike the other 5 extinctions, this one is in our hands.

Sources: 1. Unweaving the Rainbow- Richard Dawkins (Imagining deep time) 2. The 6th Great Extinction Eliz. Kolbert- New Yorker May 25, 2009. 3.   Are We Now Living in the Anthropocene Jan Zalasiewic et.al GSA Today Feb. 2008. Evolution of the Earth by Dott and Prothero. NASA and NY Dep. Cons. for images. International Commision on Stratigraphy (ICS). wiki article on Anthropocene and Paul Crutzen.

Are complaints about Googles use of a new discovery an indication of the war on Science?

There has been a lot of talk about a war on Science. Especially here in America.

Is there a war?? If so why is this happening? What are the causes? Is war the right word for it?

There is certainly something going on. I can tell it from the comments and emails I get when I cover anything about climate change, and even when I mention other sciences like Biology. Google was recently inundated with complaints when they used the newly discovered (probably very significant) fossil, named IDA, in the artwork of their banner for a day! Complaints for recognizing a scientific discovery?

When a society attacks the pursuit of knowledge, something is very wrong.

It’s a step back toward the dark from which we came.

Galileo spent the last days of his life as a prisoner of the church for discovering the truth of the solar system. My high school science teacher was fired for teaching evolution. The school system will say it’s not so, but everyone knew the truth. Maybe we have not come as far as we think. Scientist who are used to the slow deliberate pace of the peer review process are unaccustomed to the shrill environment of the news cycle.

Quick quips, and sound bytes, don’t cut the mustard in real science. The public is confused about what to think, but I am not sure it’s justifiable. Citizens in a democracy have a responsibility to educate themselves. Not just about politics, but about science as well.

I know many meteorologists who work in TV, who will not touch anything to do with climate change. They know that if they do, they will get emails from hordes of people who spend much of their free time on pseudoscience web sites being told things that make  sense to them. Climate Scientist David Archer had it right when he said “The target audience of denialism is the lay audience. It’s made to look like Science, but it’s PR”.

One person is fighting back. Not sure who he is, but his YouTube videos get the Science spot on. They are well worth a view.

When I get snide comments or complaints, I do not get mad. I actually feel sadness. I cannot give a missing science education in a reply to an email. The best I can do is to suggest some very good books on the subject, written by those who known experts in the field.

The Natural History Museum in London tackled the controversy of Darwin's Theory in an exhibit last fall.

This is the main reason I write this journal. Anyone who works in any science field should take great pains to make sure that the wider public doesn’t just get told “This is what we know”. They should explain WHY we think, what we think. I could give the weather forecast in 30 seconds each day, and that would likely make the producers very happy, but I need the other 90 seconds to show WHY the weather will probably do what I’m forecasting.

Science never comes to a conclusion based on a single piece of information. The truly great thing about science is the discovery of how all the pieces fit together! This doesn’t happen that often. Thomas Huxley, the great 19th century British naturalist, said it best when he remarked on ‘the many beautiful theories that were ruined by a single observation!’

When it does come together, it’s a beautiful thing. Let me use Climate Science as a single example. Similar example from Biology, Geology, or any other Science would do as well.

When scientists at the Hadley Center first averaged the temperature records for the whole globe, they came up with a significant warming over the last 150 years. Science did not just accept that. The folks at NASA Goddard Institute of Space Science in New York did their own calculations. They got nearly the same result. Independently.

Surface Temp. record from the Hadley Center (UK MET OFFICE)

NASA GISS Surface temperature records. They use a slightly different method. The results are nearly identical.

However, that’s still not enough.

Difficult measurements using satellites were developed to measure the temperature of the troposphere. Did it agree? At first, it seemed not… but after much work, yes, they agreed. Measurements of the ocean temperature should also agree if the temperature record is accurate. They do.

Is this enough? No. The famous saying “Extraordinary Claims Require Extraordinary Proof ” applies here.

Ingenious ways of measuring the rate of change of temperatures down deep holes, bored in the earth, were developed. These borehole temperatures match well with the NASA GISS and Hadley Center  (UK) results. Methods were devised to measure temperature with tree rings and corals in the oceans. The result? A close match. Nearly every tropical glacier on the planet is melting. Now you see how the puzzle comes together.

Perhaps you now understand why there is little I can say to someone who says the the planet is not warming. They send me a graph from some pseudoscience web site that has never been in peer review as their proof. Even if the observations are correct, it’s far more likely that there is an alternate explanation to them than the overturning of all that I mentioned above.

Yet, until recently, this was a common theme of many emails to climate scientists. Only after the information I just wrote about above seeped into the public consciousness has the pendulum finally swung back toward reason.

This is why science must explain the WHY as well. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining that this is not happening. It is, and there are some fabulous books out there. NASA and NOAA have produced dozens of online publications explaining climate change. One that I am reading now is by NASA Scientist Gavin Schmidt and Photographer Joshua Wolfe. Click the image to order it. It’s a fabulous collection of gorgeous pictures and essays on climate science.

Read this book and understand... Click to go to Amazon.

More can be done though, and it is something that any researcher, or science journalist should best not forget. Take the time to make sure the “WHY WE KNOW” is given in any interview or publication.

Wonder itself is the bubbling spring of science. The pursuit of knowledge, is that tiny candle in the dark night of ignorance. If you have read my last post, and watched the video of Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, then you know that he understood this implicitly.

Carl Sagan was denied membership in the National Academies, supposedly, because he was too popular. What a terrible mistake. Science cannot afford mistakes like that, if they are fighting a war. They just might lose it. One doesn’t have to walk too far from a candle in a dark room to encounter darkness. It’s always there – waiting.

My son underneath one of the 5 first stage engines.

There is only one upright model of a Saturn V Moon Rocket. It’s right here in Huntsville, and it’s next to the first Saturn V ever built. (The real one is in a building to protect it!). The rocket that took man to the Moon is 363 feet high. That’s 36 stories.

Saturn 5 mock up- next to the real thing (enclosed).

It’s one of only three remaining, and is a priceless object of history. For my readers in other states, and other countries, it’s well worth a visit. The U.S. Space and Rocket Center is also located here, and is the home of Space Camp.

The Saturn 5 was built here in Huntsville and many residents still remember their windows rattling as the GIANT engines were tested in the mid 1960’s.

The real Saturn in the Davidson Center in Huntsville. It was the first one built. Only three Saturn Moon Rockets remain.

Walking through the Davidson Center is a truly awe inspiring experience. I am very lucky to have met two people who rode one of these beasts to the Moon.

WHNT -TV, the TV station I work for, installed a high definition camera at the top of the Saturn. I thought you might enjoy seeing a time lapse of Sunset from the top of the rocket. Taken on Wednesday evening 20 May 2009.

sunset0520

The photos are mine.

Later,

dan

The National Centers for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder Colorado is very familiar to those in my profession. Some of the best cutting edge research in atmospheric science is done there. One of the programs based there is COMET. COMET stand for Cooperative Online Meteorological Education and Training.

COMET produces educational modules of varying levels on primarily forecasting topics. Rarely does a month go by, that I do not take a COMET module, or review one I’ve already completed.

Meteorology is a VERY broad field. Sometimes I think the public believes that meteorologists either work for the National Weather Service or in TV. The truth of the matter is that many meteorologists have no idea what the weather is going to do tomorrow! They work in fields like Cloud Physics, or Climate Science, or do research into storm electricity. Me? I am a Synoptic Forecaster and since I work in TV, I try to keep myself up to date with all of earth science. If someone sees a bright star in the sky, they call the station and ask to speak to me!

The Climate folks at NOAA and NCAR have put together a SUPERB module on climate change science for TV folks. Since there is a wide range of education levels among on air TV weather folks, this is a basic, but wide ranging introduction to the current state of knowledge on climate.

COMET requires you register to view modules, but they are FREE. If you would like to take the module, set aside about two-three hours.  See if you can beat my score of 98! Click the image below to start.