Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Environment

Correlation Between Solar Activity and Global Temperature

A couple of days ago, I received feedback from a reader who wanted to use our “Correlation Between Solar Activity and Global Temperature” animated graphic in his classes on Meteorology. “Professor Bob” who teaches at a community college in Virginia Beach, VA, is a rare find in academia these days. He shares our skepticism of the whole “Climate Change” hype. How refreshing is that?

The graphic, embedded at the right, originally appeared in a post we wrote back in August of 2006, “Correlating Solar Activity to Global Climate.” The post dealt with observations of sunspot activity and global temperature from 1600 to 1998 and correlated the two together. The graphic is an animated visual summary of the correlation between solar activity and global temperature.

Since the Professor wanted to include the graphic in a Microsoft Powerpoint presentation, I did some research on linking Flash™ to the presentation. I found some pretty good support from Microsoft on how to link to the graphic. I tried it here, saw that it worked, and sent the information to Bob. He emailed me this morning to say he had succeeded in getting the link to work at his end.

The whole climate scam, of course, is aimed at higher taxes on anything that emits CO2. That’s why Al Gore, most Democrats and the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in the U.K. have been lying about the temperature figures ever since they started to decline after 1998. We intend to continue debunking the scam as long as we’re able.

Congratulations to Professor Bob for getting the thing working, and just as importantly, for passing the information along to his Meteorology Students.

23 Aug 2010 by Environment Global Warming

Cool Your Heels

After a day of grueling errands and chores in the desert, a dip in the cement pond out back is sure great for Damsel’s tired feet. Click the image to enlarge.

damsels-feet.jpg

09 Aug 2010 by Arizona Environment

Solar “Conveyor Belt” Speeds Up

This is an interesting article on the SOHO website. The speeding of the internal plasma circulation is connected with the deepest solar minimum in a century.

solar conveyorOne of the outstanding questions facing solar physicists is the origin of the solar magnetic cycle: What drives the 11-year sunspot cycle? We have just passed an extended and deep minimum, unlike any in the past 100 years. The late onset of the new solar cycle (#24) and the unusually deep minimum between cycles 23 and 24 took all experts by surprise, which suggests that there is a fundamental lack in our understanding of the origin of the solar activity cycle.

Image: Artist’s concept of the Sun’s meridional circulation, a large scale flow that transports solar plasma from the equator to the poles and back like a giant conveyor belt. Credit: Science@NASA

The Sun’s meridional circulation is a massive flow pattern within the Sun that transports hot plasma near the surface from the solar equator to the poles and back to the equator in the deeper layers of the convection zone, similar to a “conveyor belt”. The flow is rather slow, with typical speeds of 10-15 m/s (20 to 30 mph). The structure and strength of this meridional flow is believed to play a key role in determining the strength of the Sun’s polar magnetic field, which in turn determines the strength of the sunspot cycles. One class of dynamo models predicts that a stronger meridional flow produces weaker polar fields, whereas another class of models predicts stronger polar fields (and a shorter sunspot cycle) for the same flow. [more]

08 Jul 2010 by Astronomy Environment Science

NASA Measures a 31 Inch Landshift

The 7.2 Baja earthquake of April 4, 2010 and numerous aftershocks have displaced the land around Calexico, CA, about 31 inches. From NASA:

NASA Radar Images Show How Mexico Quake Deformed Earth

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA has released the first-ever airborne radar images of the deformation in Earth’s surface caused by a major earthquake — the magnitude 7.2 temblor that rocked Mexico’s state of Baja California and parts of the American Southwest on April 4.

The data reveal that in the area studied, the quake moved the Calexico, Calif., region in a downward and southerly direction up to 80 centimeters (31 inches). The maps can be seen at: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/UAVSARimage20100623.html .

A science team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., used the JPL-developed Uninhabited Aerial Vehicle Synthetic Aperture Radar (UAVSAR) to measure surface deformation from the quake. The radar flies at an altitude of 12.5 kilometers (41,000 feet) on a Gulfstream-III aircraft from NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards, Calif.

The team used a technique that detects minute changes in the distance between the aircraft and the ground over repeated, GPS-guided flights. The team combined data from flights on Oct. 21, 2009, and April 13, 2010. The resulting maps are called interferograms.

interferometry

Overview of the UAVSAR interferogram of the magnitude 7.2 Baja California earthquake of April 4, 2010, overlaid atop a Google Earth image of the region. Major fault systems are shown by red lines, while recent aftershocks are denoted by yellow, orange and red dots. Image credit: NASA/JPL/USGS/Google

Click on the image to enlarge.

(More)

24 Jun 2010 by Environment Science

Desert Colors

desert-colors.jpg

Crossing the desert in the springtime is a very colorful experience. The ocotillo and wildflowers in this photo offer a small sample of the variety of desert colors. Click on the image to enlarge.

12 May 2010 by Environment Travel

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