Cap'n Bob & the Damsel

Environment

Racist Wins the Race

I understand why voters in California vote the way they do — they continue to elect liberals and get higher taxes and liberal social programs. I blame that on voter ignorance and union-sponsored political commercials filled with lies and deceptions. What I don’t understand is why the voters in New Orleans reelected the incompetent Ray Nagin to another term as mayor. I would think that they would be smart enough to see through all the post-Katrina rhetoric and send Nagin packing after his dismal performance in crisis and the racist rhetoric that followed. I guess I was wrong.

Image: Nagin sleeping on the job.

Read Michelle Malkin’s post-mortem on the New Orleans mayoral race, The Definition of Insanity.

21 May 2006 by Degenerates Environment Whacko Politics

The Sky is NOT Falling – Yet

NASA – NASA Satellites Observe Comet’s Trail

There will be no tsunamis, firestorms or mass extinctions to spoil your Memorial Day weekend.

Image right:This infrared image from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope shows the broken Comet skimming along a trail of debris left during its multiple trips around the sun. On the lower right lies the Ring Nebula, coincidentally in the same direction as the cometary fragment.

Despite speculation that Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 will strike the Earth on May 25, neither the main comet nor any of its more than 40 fragments pose a danger to Earth.

“We are very well acquainted with the trajectory of Comet 73P Schwassmann-Wachmann 3,” said Donald Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office. “There is absolutely no danger to people on the ground or the inhabitants of the International Space Station, as the main body of the object and any pieces from the breakup will pass many millions of miles beyond the Earth.”

However, you can see the comet falling apart right before your very eyes, thanks to NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, Swift X-Ray and Spitzer Space Telescope.

Click on the Space Rocks page for an animated preview of the next large comet impact.

14 May 2006 by Astronomy Environment Rocket Science

More Maunder Minimum in the Making?

In a previous article, I discussed the effects of the Sun’s behavior on our environment. In that article, I mentioned the Maunder Minimum which occurred coincidentally with a period of cooler-than-normal temperatures here on Earth. In another article, I discussed the “solar conveyor belt” concept of solar plasma circulation. That article has a reference to a NASA article predicting an upcoming “solar storm.”

Yesterday, NASA published an article about a predicted decline in solar activity. The article suggests that observations of the “conveyor belt” can be used to predict solar activity levels in the distant future. Their prediction is for fewer sunspot numbers and lower solar activity during solar cycle 25 following the current cycle (24). This “low” solar peak should occur in 2022.

I wonder if this means we’re in for a period of “Global Unwarming?” If that should happen, then what will ALGOR and the Enviroloons* do for their amusement?

Inset: ALGOR tries in vain to warm things up again.

*a former vice-president turned enviroloon and his band of unscientific non-thinker followers who ignore science in pursuit of their enviro-cultist religion.

Excerpt from the NASA article:

NASA – Long Range Solar Forecast

The Great Conveyor Belt is a massive circulating current of fire (hot plasma) within the Sun. It has two branches, north and south, each taking about 40 years to perform one complete circuit. Researchers believe the turning of the belt controls the sunspot cycle, and that’s why the slowdown is important.

[more]

11 May 2006 by Environment Global Warming Science Whacko Politics

Rock and Roll Volcano

Beelzebub just keeps turning the old crank under the Cascades . . .

Don’t miss the near-realtime VolcanoCam image!

From Longview (WA) Daily News Online:

Visitors to the Johnston Ridge Observatory Friday should have a “spectacular” view of the latest lava growth in the Mount St. Helens’ crater, a geologist said.

A large “slab” or “fin” of molten rock is growing within the crater, pushing itself up and over previous lava dome growth, said Dan Dzurisin, a geologist with the U.S. Geologic Survey in Vancouver.

The section with the fin has been growing since November, but it changed shape as it encountered other growth within the crater. It’s moving steadily toward the west, pushing other rock and debris out of its way as it goes.

The fin grows about four to five feet a day but loses some of that growth from rockfalls off its tip, Dzurisin said. The fin is about 300 feet tall from its base, reaching to 7,700 feet above sea level. That puts it about 70 feet below Shoestring Notch, the lowest point of the mountain’s horseshoe-shaped crater.

Photo: A helicopter inspects the outcropping (AP)

The feature is in full view from the Johnston Ridge Observatory, which opens after its winter shutdown on Friday. Clear skies are forecast.

Update From JRO:

The Johnston Ridge Observatory (JRO), home of the VolcanoCam, opens today and begins another visitor season.

The visitor center will be open from 10:00 am until 6:00pm, daily, throughout the summer. If views of Mount St. Helens via the VolcanoCam whet your appetite, standing just five miles from the only active volcano in the Lower 48 States is a five-course meal. Come up and get a first-hand look of the ongoing volcanic activity, including that 300 foot high “volcanic fin” jutting out from the new dome. It is only a matter of time before gravity collapses that fin.

05 May 2006 by Environment Science

See Spot Run

The newly-spawned “Red Spot Jr.” Jovian storm system appears that it will overtake “Big Red” in early July. Note the “significant climate change” reference in the article.

From New Scientist:

Hubble watches Jupiter’s ‘Red Spot Races’

Hubble has sent back the clearest pictures yet of Jupiter’s new red spot.

The storm, dubbed “Red Spot Junior” is roughly half the diameter of the Great Red Spot, a huge storm that has churned away on Jupiter for at least 400 years – when humans first started observing the gas giant planet.

On 8 April 2006, the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys took new pictures of the baby storm, which was initially known as White Oval BA before it changed to the same salmon hue as the Great Red Spot (see “Jupiter opens a second red eye”) . The storm formed when three white oval storms merged between 1998 and 2000. Those white storms existed for about 60 years.

Image – NASA – Hubble photos of (top) Jupiter and (bottom) Red Jr.

The red colouring could come from material brought up from deeper within Jupiter’s atmosphere and then altered by the Sun’s radiation. If this is indeed what is happening, it may be a sign that the storm is intensifying.

The newly released images may give weight to the idea that Jupiter is in the middle of significant climate change. Temperatures at some latitudes could be changing by over 5°C, scientists suggest.

Another link to climate is that Red Spot Jr is forming at a latitude of 34° south. Theory has it that this is the where the transfer of heat from the equator to the pole grinds to a halt.

Hmmmmm. It must be all them Jovian SUVs trucking around beneath the clouds causing this colossal climate change.

Update: NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day has a nice close up picture showing Jupiter and both red spots.

04 May 2006 by Astronomy Environment Rocket Science

Global Warming Resources

During the past couple of weeks I have been collecting some internet references to articles that discuss the hype and science of climate change. These are a few more to add to our list of references on this subject.

I hope to keep adding to this list and eventually make an information page in the sidebar that contains references to articles and to other “Global Warming” topical blog articles.

The above courtesy of Cox and Forkum in their fine post on “The Real recycling Problem.”

And one of my favorites:

These are all good resources to invoke when your local moonbat starts spewing the doom and gloom.

03 May 2006 by Environment Global Warming Science

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