climate

NASA finds that Arctic sea ice cover decreased by 14% between 2004 and 2005, a record loss. Read more...

Stephen Colbert explains the science behind global warming and behing Al Gore's movie, An Inconvinent Truth in his own documentary, The Convinientest Truth. Enjoy.

Sometime in February, NASA quietly altered its mission statement. Since 2002, the all-important mission statement read:

"To understand and protect our home planet; to explore the universe and search for life; to inspire the next generation of explorers ... as only NASA can."

This year, it was changed. The phrase "to understand and protect our home planet" was slipped out, and the mission, clearly published on this year's budget and planning documents, states tthe agency’s mission "to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research."

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works released a press statement, “AP Incorrectly Claims Scientists Praise Gore’s Movie,” but the statement lacks the scientific backing to substantiate the claims of its title.

The Associated Press contacted 100 climate scientists, including some well known "climate skeptics". Of the 19 that had seen the movie, all commended its scientific accuracy. Read my response below.

I encouraged one of my former students to publish a paper she wrote in my class. Here it is: Climate change threatens life, security and property. I'm thrilled to see this paper published. Obviously she scored an A on the paper!

I am surprised that I haven't seen more applause from the climate community for Dr. James Hansen, a climate change expert working for NASA who the government has tried to silence. According to Al Gore's speech:

[O]ne of the leading scientific experts on global warming in NASA has been ordered not to talk to members of the press and to keep a careful log of everyone he meets with so that the Executive Branch can monitor and control his discussions of global warming.

My scientific interests lay in climatology, glaciology, remote sensing, and field measurements. Below are some useful science-related links. Others can be found scattered throughout the pages of this site.

Science Links

CRYOLIST - LOTS of glaciology-related links within
Magnetic Declination and Field Value Calculator

Remote Sensing Data Sources

Remote Sensing Data Sources (Mike Binford)
EROS Data Center
USGS Earth Explorer
USGS Global Visualization image finder (awesome)
Here are some low-cost or free Landsat data sites:
MRLC program (Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics)
Global Land Cover Facility *NEW*
Canada Geogratis
Arizona ARIA
Southwest US

Other interesting Remote Sensing links:
GLIMS: Global Land and Ice Measurements from Space
j-track 3-D (satellite tracker)
The Nimbus Program
The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP)
ERS Missions
ENVI and IDL
IDRISI
ICESat
EO Library ICESat Properties

Remote Sensing Teaching/Learning Materials

Todd's Electromagnetic Radiation Text (pdf)

Todd's Electromagnetic Spectrum Figure

Todd's Wavelength

NASA's Imagine The Universe | Electromagnetic Spectrum

Climate Links

Greenland maximum melt extent
Greenland Climate Network
IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change)
World Glacier Monitoring Service
Glaciers online
OMEGA Glacier Research Project
Glacier Studies Project
US Global Change Research Program | What's new
NASA Earth Observatory (Image of the day and lots more)

It is now clear to the rest of the world that the US is responsible for far more than its share of pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, the gasses responsible for global warming. What is also clear is that the time for change has long since arrived and the Bush administration sits back and does nothing. What is worse is that 6 years ago, while first campaigning for president, Bush promised that he was committed to the environment and would sign and ratify the Kyoto Protocol. One of his first acts as president was to withdraw from the Kyoto talks and refuse to sign the treaty.

After much rumination both on and off the list, the members of CRYOLIST have decided to start a blog to act as a forum for discussions relating to cryospheric sciences. This new blog has been dubbed CRYOblog.

When you walk around the conference hall here, delegates are saying there are lots of issues on the agenda, but there's only one real problem, and that's the United States.
- Bill Hare of Greenpeace International

More than 8,000 environmentalists, scientists and government officials were attending the 10-day conference in Montreal. Some 120 environment ministers and other government leaders were expected to arrive next week for the final negotiations.

Originally from the Associate Press, November 30th, 2005