Climate
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Tell us again, Granddad, about ice
Today is Climate Impact Day, set up to connect the dots between climate change and extreme weather, effects felt from diatoms to humanity. What is past is prologue, and I think of two years ago when we flew back from Iceland. Our plane crossed over Greenland, and I took a few photographs through the jet’s…
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Winter: What is it good for?
Tomorrow is the last day of winter, a measure now more astronomical than seasonal. What did we miss this year? Snow, and the recharging of our water supplies with the spring thaw. Gateway NRA spent the last couple of months sending out warnings about the fire hazard created by zero snow cover, strong coastal winds,…
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Februarius Mirabilis
Are you old enough to remember when winter used to be winter, damn it, and spring, spring? On the way to Prospect Park today, the second day of February, I saw the flowering quince on Congress St. in bloom:And then, in a tree pit in Windsor Terrace, some bulbs were pushing up into the light:In…
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November Camellia
Following in the blogsteps of my neighbor, the 66 Square Footer, I walked by the confused camellia around the corner. Normally a very early spring bloomer, this is blooming now. On Monday, it was 70 degrees F, the warmest November 26th on record here in NYC.Today it’s a relatively cool 57, some fourteen degrees higher…
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Bee Wary
I’m as guilty as the next person: I’ve been reveling in this unseasonable weather. (It was 60 degrees here a few minutes ago.) But I’m reminded, by those canaries of the insect world, the honeybees, that something is amiss. You see, these warm days keep honeybees active. They’ve been flying out from the hive, but…
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Iceless Age
My apocalyptic post on the acidification of the seas, complete with junior home science experiement, turns out to be old news. Earth has been there, done that. Fifty-six million years ago, to be somewhat exact about it. This month’s National Geographic details the PETM: the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, in which a huge influx of carbon…
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Chilling Flashback
The Back 40 im Schnee, January 27, 2011. As it’s forecast to top 100F today — not including the heat index bump of broiling tarmac, radiating concrete, greenhouse glass, and over-stressed generators fighting it all and thus burning even more coal to help heat things up even more — this one’s for you, Midwest/East, and…
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Albedo in Brooklyn
The backyard light was on the other night and the light bounced back brightly into my apartment because of all the snow. Ah, I thought, albedo in action. Technically, albedo is a “ratio of reflected radiation from the surface to incident radiation upon it” (Wikipedia). Crossword fiends and Catholics will recognize the alb in the…
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Everybody talks about the climate
…(except the President) but nobody does anything about it, as Mark Twain almost said. A lot more snow than we’ve seen for a while and a brief snap of the Arctic chilly-willies means you must have heard the new cliché in the media stream, if not in person: “So much for global warming.” Meanwhile, the…
Backyard and Beyond 