procrastination and paleoclimate

It's lightly snowing, a flock of redpolls are at the feeder, my amaryllis bloomed, and I'm procrastinating.  Jon headed to Valdez for the weekend, to be followed up by Chickaloon adventures early next week.  I  couldn't go because I have way too much work to do, but somehow I find the time to sit around for two hours this morning drinking coffee and listening to NPR.  I'll regret this later...

I may have work this summer helping FWS with a dendrochronology project (that's the fancy word for a tree-ring study).  So I was thinking about this when NPR played a piece on California's current drought, which got me thinking about past North American climates (paleoclimates).  

We have instrumental records for about the last 100 years, but people can use all sorts of data to piece together what even earlier climates were like.  Tree rings are one of those things - rings are thinner during a drought, as the tree just doesn't have enough water to grow very much.  In the eastern U.S., researchers have used baldcypress trees to reconstruct the climate going back to 1185.  wow!  one of the two the biggest droughts in this 800 year period was around 1587, when the Roanoke colonists disappeared. 

Bristlecone pines in the Methuselah grove look even further back.  One tree was nearly 5,000 years old when cut down in 1964!  (how bad must that logger feel, taking out the world's oldest tree?)  Records from these trees and other techniques show that western North America has had some pretty wicked droughts.  Seriously bad, put the dustbowl and Roanoke colony droughts to shame bad.  This study looked back nearly 8,000 years and found 8 multi-decadal droughts, the most recent were in 924 and 1299 AD.  

There a neat paper I read for a course last year that talks about drought records and cultural responses (deMenocal 2001 Cultural Responses to Climate Change During the Late Holocene Science Magazine vol 292  www.sciencemag.org).  Basically positing climate - these long term droughts  - was a major factor in the disappearance of some historical cultures.  For example, he points out that the 1299 "mega-drought" coincided with abandonment of Anasazi settlements. 

Definitely makes me think about water resources in the west.  Paleoclimate work shows that these large, long-term droughts do occur in North America,so we can reasonably expect one to occur again (though who knows when - in 10 years, 100 years, 1000 years...?).  How would we, as a nation, have to adapt?   It sure wouldn't be pretty...

NOAA has a really nice site talking about drought and paleoclimate (Drought - A Paleo Perspective).  I definitely recommend poking around there, they do a great job of explaining things for the average joe.

OK, now back to work...

volcanoes schmalcanoes!

For those of you who caught Obama's address to the nation last night and Gov. Bobby Jindal's rebuttal, did you catch this bit by Jindal?

While some of the projects in the [stimulus] bill make sense, their legislation is larded with wasteful spending. It includes ... $140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.' Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, DC.

It's like you could see him through the radio, making those little quotation marks with his fingers.  This is from the governor of LA, a state that suffered horribly from a natural disaster in the recent past.  

Volcano monitoring saves lives.  We here in Anchorage are hearing near daily updates on Redoubt through the Alaska Volcano Observatory.  Yes, most of Alaska's volcanoes are in the Aleutians, but it's still very important to understand what's happening there.  You see, the AVO estimates ~30,000 people per day are in aircraft downwind from Aleutian volcanoes, and if a plane flies through an ash cloud its engines can fail.  That happened in 1989 - a 747 flying through Redoubt's ash cloud experienced engine failure, dropping over 3,000 meters before the crew could get the engines started again.  That's falling 1.8 miles through the sky - yikes!

Our nation also has military installations throughout the world.  In the early 1990s, Pinatubo (in the Phillipines) blew.  The USGS worked with Phillipinne volcanologists to monitor Pinatubo, and evacuations began before the eruption that are believed to have saved thousands of lives, including 18,000 US military personnel.

Here's a link to a volcanology grad student's response.  She's pretty heated up, but I though it was a good response.  

Or you can check out this popular mechanics article about Redoubt and airplanes.  

Anyways, point is that volcano monitoring (like hurricane monitoring!) is money well spent and Bobby Jindal should do his homework before addressing the nation.

Hat for Cameryn

I've just finished a hat for my new niece, Cameryn.  I really have no idea how big a baby's head is - at first this seemed absurdly small, now that it's done I wonder if it's really too big? Anyways, i really like the yarn (a bamboo/silk by Vickie Howell) and the color.

Happy Birthday Ansel Adams!

Happy birthday to a man who inspired conservation in the American west.

"In wisdom gathered over time I have found that every experience is a form of exploration."

 - Ansel Adams, 1902-1984

bali - uluwatu temple

Uluwatu is a town on Bali with nice surf (though a bit too hard for me!) and a beautiful temple.  I don't know how old it is, but these trees sure look like they've seen alot!  

There were impressive sculptures throughout the temple, from detail work on the tops of buildings and along fences to these figures at an entrance.

I thought this was pretty neat.  The things hanging inside the small building here are kind of like chimes.  People used to bang them to signal goings-on at the temple.

and who doesn't love baby monkeys?  There were monkeys everywhere!  You're required to take off all jewelry, sunglasses, etc before going into the temple.  At first we thought it was to show respect or a religious requirement, but now I'm sure it's so that you don't end up with a monkey on your head stealing your stuff!  Even with the no jewelry rule, while we were there we saw monkeys steal a pretty ribbon from a little girl's dress and make off with several camera cases.  You can buy little bags of banana pieces to feed the monkeys, and one guy had a monkey looking like he was willing to trade a stolen camera case for some bananas.  they're smart.  really, really smart.  and fast.

Every night at 6, there's a Kecak dance at the Uluwatu temple.  It's super cool - basically tells part of the Ramayana, where Rama's wife Sita is kidnaped and the monkey king Hanuman helps get her back.  Instead of musical instruments, there a chorus of ~70 (?) men chanting and singing.  

The performance ends with Hanuman captured by the bad guys after setting Sita free.  The bad guys tie him up and intend to set him on fire, but at the last second Hanuman breaks free and starts kicking the fire everywhere!  go Hanuman go!!

indonesia surf holiday

after all of the leeches and whatnot in Borneo, I met up with Jon in 

Bali for a little r&r at Padang Padang Surf Camp in Bali!  It was great - beautiful rooms (love walking in to flowers on the bed), great food, and super fun and patient instructors!  here are a few pics of the camp.  This is the view from our veranda (we had the sweet second story room).

lots of open air spots to hang out.  nice way to enjoy the breeze and avoid that brutal equatorial sun.

i don't have any actual surf pics, which may be for the best since I'm pretty beginner-ish and it isn't always pretty.  Jon picked it up pretty quickly and was riding bigger waves and having a blast by the time I got there.  He and Rick had been living it up for the previous week; they say they were surfing, but I suspect bintang and massages took up most of their time!  

here are a few shots of Padang Padang beach on a quiet night.  it's within walking distace of the camp and has a neat stairwell etched out of the rock leading down to the beach.