Stories tagged The Water Cycle, Weather and Climate
You may have read a couple weeks ago a NASA report stating that October 2008 was the warmest October ever on record. An enormous hot spot was observed over Siberia, an incredible 10 degrees warmer than normal, raising the global average.
However, the appearance of the words “hot” and “Siberia” in the same sentence made some people suspicious. A couple of bloggers took a closer look at the data, and they found that, for dozens of reporting stations in Siberia, the average October temperature was exactly the same as the average October temperature. That’s pretty much impossible. Clearly what happened is someone copied the numbers from the wrong column, leading to greatly inflated figures, which were then eagerly reported.
So, what can we learn from this little episode?
1) Even experts make mistakes. Though this particular expert, Dr. James Hansen, seems especially prone to making mistakes that support his views. That’s only human, I suppose, but it means we should pay attention to who is publishing a study, and whether they are pushing a particular point of view.
2) Weather is not climate. One sparrow does not make a spring, and one October does not make a global warming crisis. Especially when the October in question was not actually, you know, warm.
3) Read the fine print. Just like the item below, the headline told one story, but the pesky little facts told a very different one. (One of the most important things it tells us is that the folks in charge of monitoring the world’s climate don’t even bother to double-check their own data!)
Tags : OK, Science Buzz writers! Time for a pop quiz. Let’s say you were writing a blog post based on the following two facts:
- Arctic sea ice, 2007: 1.59 million square miles (the lowest on record)
- Arctic sea ice 2008: 1.74 million square miles (the second-lowest on record)
What would your headline be?
Well, you could give it a positive spin and say something like, Sea ice grows, but that would rather miss the big picture, doncha’ think?
Or you could go all negative and say Sea ice near historic lows, which again would be accurate, but overlooks the dynamics of the situation.
A nice fair-and-balanced approach would be to say Sea ice grows, but remains near record low. That covers all your bases.
The one thing you cannot do is lie and say Arctic sea ice shrinks to 2nd-lowest on record Because it’s not, actually, you know, shrinking. It’s growing.
Lying is a bad idea, even if you don’t necessarily subscribe to the Ninth Commandment.
- Lying is bad for journalism. People look to journalists to give them the straight dope. If a newspaper can’t be trusted, why bother reading it? (This may explain the recent precipitous decline in newspaper readership.)
- Lying is bad for the environmental movement. When the lies are exposed – and they always are, though usually not in the second freakin’ paragraph – it confuses those who are undecided as to where they stand on this whole global warminging thing, and it gives ammunition to the skeptics who say it’s all a hoax and a scam.
- And most of all, lying is bad for the Earth. Governments are setting policies in response to climate change. If we take action based on the belief that sea ice is shrinking, when in fact it is growing, it could very well mean the end of life on this planet.
Just a little something to keep in mind as you compose your Buzz posts. Be careful out there.
It's a new day in America: Where should our energy come from now?
Courtesy timsamoffOn January 21, 2009, there’s going to be a brand new administration in the White house. Defining the energy policy of the United States is going to be a big issue, and one that’s likely to get tackled early on.
The members of the Obama Administration are going to have their own ideas about how our country should get its energy, but what do you think?
Is green energy your one and only? Are you a coal man? A nuclear gal? Or do you fall asleep murmuring “drill, baby, drill”?
Some options are going to be more expensive than others, each will affect the environment differently, and some are going to take more time before they’re ready. So what’s it going to be?
Voice your opinion in Science Buzz’s new poll: Energy and the Obama Administration.
You might not have been able to vote on November 4, but you can vote now, and you can let everyone know why you think what you think.
All over the world there are problems with safe drinking water. From food, health, learning, manufacturing...every aspect of life depends on water. During time I spent in 3rd world nations. What do you think the best way is to solve problem? Why do people still suffer from lack of water when the technology exisits to solve this problem? Is water a right or a priveledge?
Myanmar cyclone
Courtesy Robert Rohde
229,000 deaths
In the first six months of 2008, natural disasters resulted in 229,000 deaths, effecting 130 million people. The natural disasters responsible for these very high figures are Cyclone Nargis, which struck Myanmar last May 3-4, and the earthquake that shook China a few days later.
The severe hurricane season in the Caribbean and the current floods in India, which are reaching historic proportions, are also considered among the most serious disasters of 2008. (Sálvano Briceño, director of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction)
From Eurekalert.org
Contact: Jonathan Patz
patz@wisc.edu
608-262-4775
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Waterborne disease risk upped in Great Lakes
MADISON — An anticipated increased incidence of climate-related extreme rainfall events in the Great Lakes region may raise the public health risk for the 40 million people who depend on the lakes for their drinking water, according to a new study.
In a report published today (Oct. 7, 2008) in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, a team of Wisconsin researchers reports that a trend toward extreme weather such as the monsoon-like rainfall events that occurred in many parts of the region this past spring is likely to aggravate the risk for outbreaks of waterborne disease in the Great Lakes region.
"If weather extremes do intensify, as these findings suggest, our health will be at greater risk," according to Jonathan Patz, a University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health professor of population health and an expert on the health effects of climate change.
A primary threat to human health, says Patz, are the extreme precipitation events that overwhelm the combined urban storm water and sewage systems such as those in Milwaukee and Chicago, resulting in millions of gallons of raw sewage being diverted to Lake Michigan. Adding to the risk throughout the region, Patz notes, is the growing concentration of livestock operations where heavy rainfall can wash large amounts of animal waste into the rivers and streams that drain into the Great Lakes, the world's greatest concentration of fresh surface water.
"It's the perfect storm," notes Patz. "Deteriorating urban water infrastructure, intensified livestock operations, and extreme climate change-related weather events may well put water quality, and thereby our health, at risk."
Waterborne diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria, viruses and parasites are among the most common health risks of drinking water. In 1993, Milwaukee experienced an outbreak in city drinking water of the parasite Cryptosporidium that exposed more than 400,000 people and killed more than 50.
Patz, who is also affiliated with UW-Madison's Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies' Center for Sustainability and the Global Environment, conducted the study with Stephen Vavrus, a climatologist and director of the UW-Madison Center for Climatic Research, also part of the Nelson Institute.
Changes in regional weather patterns and, in particular, an increase in the number and intensity of severe rainfall events are predicted to accompany global warming. Climatologists have already cataloged a decades-long trend toward more tempestuous weather, says Vavrus.
"We have seen an uptick in the incidence of severe precipitation events in the last couple of years, but this has been a trend for decades," says Vavrus, noting an increased frequency of both major storms and total precipitation in the late 20th century. "And we are expecting climate (in the Great Lakes region) to change significantly in the future, so we'll very likely see an increase in these extreme precipitation events."
Climate change, scientists know, will prompt extremes of the hydrologic cycle, causing intensified precipitation as well as drought. Using the best available computer climate models, the Wisconsin researchers found that southern Wisconsin is likely to experience a 10 to 40 percent increase in the strength of extremely heavy precipitation events, leading to greater potential for flooding and the waterborne diseases that accompany the high discharge of sewage into Lake Michigan.
Previously, Patz led a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-funded study linking outbreaks of waterborne disease in the U.S. to extreme rainfall. That study, published in 2001, showed that two-thirds of waterborne disease outbreaks between 1948 and 1994 were correlated with heavy rainfall.
The new study, say Patz and Vavrus, points to a need to strengthen pubic health infrastructure and improve aging urban drinking water and sewage systems, and to improve land use planning to reduce the amount of runoff that occurs in urban areas during major precipitation events.
"This is where climate policy, land use policy and public health come together," Patz argues.
###
The new study, which was funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, was co-authored by Christopher Uejio of UW-Madison's Nelson Institute and Sandra McLellan of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
-- Terry Devitt, (608) 262-8282, trdevitt@wisc.edu
I was thinking… yeah, more balls, please.
in Life Science, Chemical Reactions, The Water Cycle, Weather and Climate, and Scientific Enterprise
Picture this with more balls: Nice, huh?
Courtesy Echo_29Southern California is ball-crazy! Sure, everyone loves balls, from babies to seniors, but SoCal has brought it to a whole new level.
Los Angeles, in particular, is doing things with balls I’d never even thought of. They’re putting them in the water… by the millions! Millions of balls in the water, I guess, will make it better to drink.
The issue here is cancer. Or carcinogens—materials that can cause cancer. So the issue here is cancer.
Bromide, a naturally occurring ion of the element bromine, happens to be found in Los Angeles’ reservoirs. Bromine isn’t much to worry about on its own, but it turns out that the ion interacts with chlorine and sunlight (both of which are also found in the LA reservoirs) to form bromates, a group of chemicals that contain carcinogens. I couldn’t find a reference that explains it fully, but it looks like this is how it (basically) works: chlorine dioxide, the form of chlorine we use to treat drinking water, breaks down in sunlight into chlorine and oxygen. The bromide ions end up grabbing on to some oxygen to form BrO3, the bromate anion (“anion” just means that it’s a molecule with a negative charge). When that negatively charged bromate anion combines with a positively charged ion, a bromate is formed. And those are, as we’ve established, often bad. The combination of sunlight, bromide, and chlorine in LA’s reservoirs means that their water sources are becoming contaminated with bromates.
So thank goodness for balls, lots of balls. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power means to solve the problem by removing sunlight from the situation. In about five years a huge underground reservoir should be finished, but until then LA has decided that the best way to block sunlight from the water is to cover it with millions and millions of black, plastic balls. They’ll float, and allow most things, but not sunlight, to pass through them. And they’ll look super crazy.
As we all know, however, you don’t just fill up a couple 10-acre reservoirs with balls in a weekend. Plus, the ball-making company can only produce about 100,000 balls a day, and there’s no doubt a great demand for balls beyond LADWP’s 6.5 million ball order. So this going to be a lengthy project. Over the next four years the Ivanhoe and Elysian reservoirs will be filled with about 3 million balls each. And then the underground reservoir will be ready. I expect there may be some spare balls around LA at that point.
Here’s more on the trouble with Bromates in drinking water.
And here’s more on balls.
A new river adventure
Living near the Mississippi River is a treat. My wife and I often go to Hidden Falls to sit and watch the river flow. When I went to this years Stone Arch Festival I was pleased to discover a new river adventure. There is a new Water Power Park by St. Anthony Falls (click link for map and details). Here is a quote from their website.
Never before has the general public been able to walk on this piece of land and experience the power of the mighty Mississippi River as it flows over St. Anthony Falls. You feel the power of the river, the spray from the falls as you stand on one of the three overlooks with the skyline of downtown Minneapolis in the back round. (WaterPowerPark.com)
You can get really close to the water falls as you will witness in this video I shot.
The Outdoor StreamLab is cool
Another feature included in the Water Power Park is the Outdoor StreamLab. The Outdoor StreamLab is part of the University of Minnesota's St. Anthony Falls Laboratory. The mission of SAFL is to "
St. Anthony Falls Laboratory
Courtesy Art Oglesby
"conduct interdisciplinary fluid mechanics research aimed at developing science-based, sustainable, and practical solutions to major societal problems related to the environment, renewable energy, and health.
Visitors to the Water Power Park can view researchers at work in the OSL. This link to the Outdoor StreamLab image gallery will give you a good preview. Click this to see a current aerial image of the Outdoor StreamLab that is refreshed every 30 minutes from SAFL's rooftop camera
Everything's ducky for NASA!
in Earth and Space Science, Scientific Inquiry, The Water Cycle, Weather and Climate, and Forces of Nature
Rubber ducky you're the one...
Courtesy Mark RyanBoy, times must be getting tough if NASA’s latest endeavor is any indication. Researchers from the space agency recently dropped a whole slew of rubber ducks into openings in Greenland's Jakobshaven Glacier in hopes of understanding how and where melt waters from the ice sheet ends up in Baffin Bay. They’re also trying to understand why glaciers increase their speed during the summer months. The Jakobshaven Glacier, which is suspected of calving the iceberg that sank the Titanic in 1912, is Greenland’s fastest moving glacier. The current thinking is that melt water forming on top of the ice flow during the summer months travels down narrow tubes called moulins to the glaciers base where it acts as a lubricant thus speeding up the ice sheet's movement. This isn’t exactly rocket science, is it? Anyway, each little ducky carries a label with the words "science experiment" and "reward" printed on it in three languages, along with an email address. The researchers hope that those who come across the toy quackers will contact them with information about when and where they found them. So far no one has gotten back to NASA but agency officials are confidant when they do it will add to our understanding of glaciers and their role in rising sea levels. So why has NASA has resorted to using such a low-tech approach? One source claims it's because a previous test using a metallic probe failed to return any data. Another source claims the probe is being used in conjunction with the rubber bath toys. Whatever the case it looks duck hunting season has opened.
SOURCES and LINKS
CNN story
NetworkWorld story
Discovery Channel story
Animation about Jakobshaven Glacier
This seems to be a big week for the Great Lakes, especially their restoration and preservation. The Great Lakes Legacy Act is making its way through Congress; presidential candidate Barack Obama has promised to set up a five billion dollar trust fund for protection of the 5 inland seas (in the spirit of non-partisan fairness here’s the Republicans’ response); the new Omnifilm, Mysteries of the Great Lakes just opened and is playing here at the SMM Omnitheater; and a new debate has started regarding the long-held practice of swabbing debris from the decks of Great Lake freighters once they get out on the lakes.
Great Lakes from space: Photo by NASAThe five Great Lakes, Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario contain something like 20 percent of the world’s fresh water, and are the source of drinking water for millions of Canadians and Americans who live around them. I grew up along the shores of Lake Superior (our hillside neighborhood in Duluth set on the prehistoric lake bottom of a larger Ice Age ancestor) so I’m partial to good old Gichigami and its siblings, and I’m really glad to see some serious attention is being paid to their clean-up and preservation.
Recent comments
What's going on with science careers?
Are Midwestern winters getting warmer? Why or why not? Share your thoughts on local climate change.
Write your own label for the plant pathogens
Are Midwestern winters getting warmer? Why or why not? Share your thoughts on local climate change.
Subscribe
I want to learn about
Science Buzz and all related activities
Science Museum of Minnesota, 2004-2008,
except where otherwise noted.
Copyright Information
Add a new comment