Dan’s Wild Wild Science Journal

Robert Scott's hut at Hut Point near Mcmurdo Base, Antarctica. (Dan's pic Jan. 2010)

Here is a Great Google Tech talk on Antarctica. Having been in both Shackleton’s and Scott’s huts, I am of course a big advocate of preserving not only these sites but in preserving the last great unspoiled continent on Earth.

Well worth watching. It’s also nice to hear a Christ Church accent again!

What an incredible tragedy if these places and this continent is lost.

Cape Royds, Ross Island, Antarctica (Dan's Photo-ask before using please)

Yes, they are most definitely related.

I have been very busy reading lately. Books and papers. A presentation on the science underway in Antarctica is half finished, but I keep finding new things I just have to read right away. (I’m presenting at the AMS broadcast conference  in Miami in three weeks.)

There are some very interesting graphs and images I have stumbled onto and since the desktop folder (thankfully it’s a MAC desk top) is full, it is time to write a post and show them to someone besides science geeks.

Image from Nat. Snow Ice Data Center (NOAA) click for the large pretty version in colour.

Most of them are on the melting of ice. Arctic sea ice, Greenland ice and Antarctica ice.

Let’s start with the Arctic sea ice. The melt in late summer 2007 brought the lowest amounts ever seen in the High Arctic. How is 2010 shaping up? As the graph from NSIDC shows, we may very well be on track to break that record.

The areal extent is only a small part of the picture. There have been some recent publications that indicate that the real story is in the VOLUME of the Arctic sea ice.

A model has been developed that can estimate the Arctic sea ice volume. It’s called PIOMAS and was developed at the Polar Science Center at the University of Washington’s Applied Physics Laboratory.

So, take a look at what it’s showing:

From Polar Science Center Univ. of Washington (U- Dub).

Unlike some people, I don’t just make this stuff up!

See citation in image. click for the HD version in living colour.

Oh, but wait, there’s more. That folder is full remember…

GRACE stands for Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment. A major paper published in NATURE GEOSCIENCE late in 2009 shows that the PIOMAS models melting ice is not alone. GRACE data from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets speak for themselves.

It truly is amazing what we can do with satellites now. Remote sensing in Earth science is doing incredible things. If I wasn’t 50 years old, I’d go back and get a PhD in some field of Earth science and attempt to develop a new way of measuring our planet. I’m so jealous of the young people just entering grad. school in these fields.

Still more!

I just stumbled across this graphic on John Cook’s SKEPTICAL SCIENCE blog. It has updated GRACE data through 2009 into this year. If you do not have John’s iphone/iPad app you should get it. Then the  next time someone gives you one of those silly arguments from a junk science web site about why climate change is a hoax, you can quickly show them why there idea is full of bunk.

Is he done yet you ask? Is this the power point from hell?

No on both questions I hope.

You probably know that Dr. James Hansen is the head of NASA’s Goddard Inst. for Space Studies. He is also the nation’s premier climate expert. He just published a paper on the NASA GISS temperature  record. You can read the paper here.

DO read it!

From Hansen et. al. link to the paper in this post or click image to read it.

Here is the gist:

We conclude that global temperature continued to rise rapidly in the past decade, despite large year- to-year fluctuations associated with the El Nino-La Nina cycle of tropical ocean temperature. Record high global temperature during the period with instrumental data was reached in 2010. (Physicist Joe Romm points out that this comes at a time the sun has just passed a period of low irradiance)

Hansen’s papers are so matter of fact and easy to read, that they are always fascinating. He never tries to impress with fancy language. Just the science. This paper shows pretty conclusively that all the worry about cities “contaminating” the temperature record is pretty much history now.

Oh and one last graphic.

The satellite temperatures from U. A. Huntsville. Just a few miles from where I type this.

From John Christy, Roy Spencer's data at U. A. Huntsville.

The satellite derived lower troposphere temps. are currently at record levels too. This record of course, is much shorter than the surface temp. record compiled by NASA or the others compiled by NCDC or the Hadley Centre in the UK.

You might call all of these graphs the REAL COST OF OIL. Then again the birds on the Gulf Coast might beg to differ…

Dan

Note Sat June 5 2010:
Just came across a new paper published on Arctic sea ice. The authors are a “whos who” of paleo-climate experts. They conclude that Arctic ice is now at lowest levels in “several thousand years”. The abstract and citation are posted by me in the comments of this post.

I saw this video over on the GEOGRAPHILE Blog. I just added it to my google reader and am glad I did.

Sunset at the South Pole. From Nick Morgan Forecaster at South Pole Station.

Last but not least, someone finally told the truth about Lord Monckton. Some media love to quote this guy even though he knows nothing about the science. A good rule of thumb to follow is that any article with him quoted is probably lousy journalism. A decent science reporter would never use someone who knows nothing about a subject and has no scientific training as a source.

Peter Sinclair’s Climate Denier Crock of The Week takes him on. As usual he gets the science spot on.

Lee Hotz of the Wall Street Journal discusses a lunch invitation with a Skua in Antarctica.

Here is another video/slide-show of my January trip courtesy the National Science Foundation to see the Science underway in Antarctica. I am planing 5 parts now, because I want to spend more time on the astronomy and climate science being done. My travel colleague Ann Posegate of NEEF is also working on a similar project and I’ll post her’s here as well soon.

This was all edited on my macbook pro. The pictures were taken with a Canon 400d and 500d dslr. Movies were mainly done on a canon sd970 pocket cam that shoots incredibly good 720p video. I also had a station camera that shoots in full 1080p. I highly recommend the little sd-970. Best video for the price I’ve seen. We used the video for the “on TV” pieces in many spots and you could hardly tell the difference!

So here is more of what I saw, and the people I met. Extraordinary people with one common goal.

Conducting science, while enduring the harshest climate, at the most remote location on Earth.

Image of me on sea ice near Cape Royds Antarctica by Chaz Firestone- Thanks Chaz!

One of the main reasons the NSF took Ann Posegate and I to the bottom of the world was to foster student interest in science. This was fine with me because it is one of the main reasons I write this journal and the Wild Wild Weather Page.

I’ve just finished putting together a 5 minute slideshow with embedded video about my January trip to Antarctica and the South Pole. I edited it using iMovie  on my Mac and added in some of the TV version along with some pics and more audio.  This is part one of 4. I used some of the first TV special we did along with some extra pics. The video is also on the Wild Wild Weather Page which is aimed at the younger crowd from age 9-14.

Hopefully it gives a good idea of what it was like to travel down to the ice. Ann is working on a similar presentation and I am working on part two now!

Teachers can get the file here. Classroom use only please, email me for any other use.