Trying to decide what to discuss tonight...

Odd Rooster isn't it? I think it is Japanese species.

My first instinct is to do this tomorrow night. There is some misunderstanding to species demise which I need dispel. It goes like this, where everyone is stating 'Global warming is no big deal and humans will survive, the real concern is species demise other than human. The catch is that IF these 'lower' species had more time to adapt Earth would be doing just fine even with the higher temperature climate." That is incorrect yet it is a widely held belief. I think that is what needs the most attention this week. The topic has been set aside so I could attempt to save human lives exposed to war. Go figure, huh? Trading immediate survival for the later discussion of Earth and it's ability to support life at 98.6 Fahrenheit.

I'd like to touch briefly on Iraq. The war is over. The USA is out of that country. That seems evident from all aspects. The Democrats did a great job. A presence in a majority has scared sense into a corrupt and criminal White House. The 'show' going on in Iraq now with the USA forces and Bush's 'face saving' maneuvers is just to provide a 'rational' for leaving as if the USA has finally declared "Mission Accomplished."

The presidential field for 2008 seems to be wide open.

Not really.

I believe men like Senator Brownback are using this 'opportunity' to appear far more worthy of his Senate seat than his constituency can imagine. He is an example of a 'fading' Republican. He has cast his 'image' and 'vote' so much in the Bush shadow that he is forced to take up the 'attempt' for a presidential nomination to just reestablish his legitimacy for his Senate seat. This past election highly conservative Senators found their winning margin to be far less than they are comfortable with and for that reason they are feeling insecure in their political 'careers.' I didn't now SERVING this country was a career to begin with it, but, to some it is. Orin Hatch really should go away already. Love Senator Bird, though. He held the constitution in his heart during this very trying period in the USA as he maneuvered through very tortures waters. Love the guy. When I heard him speak, I heard Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin from beyond the grave.

But, these men that are running like Brownback, are running against a voting record they want to recreate. They'll even say that Mr. Bush left Iraq prematurely and lead people to believe we will be back there in a sometime in the near future, because of the majority Democrats now. As a matter of fact to insure the Neocons and conservative Christians are 'in tow' someone like Brownback will allude to a return to those directives IF of course there is a return to the majority of Republicans as in the 'good days' of Bush.

Back Sunday at 8:30 PM.

Peace

Shalom

Morning Papers - It's Origins

The Rooster

"Okeydoke"

Northern Hemisphere Temperatures Mild in December 2006

As of early January 2007, the 2006-2007 Northern Hemisphere winter was proving to be a mild one in terms of temperatures. In North America, significant snows had yet to fall in many of the usual places, including most of New England. In the United States’ capital, the city’s famous cherry trees welcomed the new year with blooms—a show they don’t normally put on until spring. In Europe, World Cup ski events had to be moved, postponed, or canceled because of lack of snow in the mountains.

The unusually warm temperatures are apparent in this image, which shows the December 2006 land surface temperature compared to the average December temperatures from 2000-2005. (Land surface temperatures are how hot or cool the land surface would feel to the touch. It is different from the air temperature, which is what weather stations usually measure.) Based on data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite, the image shows places where daytime land surface temperatures were above the five-year average in red, places where it was below the average in blue, and places near the average as white. Dramatic swaths of red paint most of the Northern Hemisphere. In parts of Central Canada, the North American Great Lakes region, eastern and northern Europe, and central Siberia, the land surface was up to 10 degrees Celsius warmer than in the recent past. This pattern of unusual warmth across both North America and Eurasia is different from conditions observed by MODIS in the previous winter; in January 2006, North America was warmer than average, while Eurasia was chillier than average.

A few notable colder-than-normal spots stand out in the image. In the central United States, several whopping snow storms laid down a chilly blanket over the land surface in late December, creating a blue ribbon of cooler-than-normal temperatures that stretched northeastward from Colorado to Lake Michigan. Both Russia’s Far East (upper right) and Southwest Asia were cooler than average, as well. Persistent heavy rains in East Africa in late 2005 may be responsible for that region’s cooler-than-average condition in December.

Since (Northern Hemisphere) fall 2006, an El Niño had been brewing in the Pacific Ocean, making ocean surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific warmer than average and those in the Western Pacific cooler than average. During moderate to strong El Niño events, winters in the United States are often mild, with above-average precipitation in the country’s southwest and southeast.

NASA image by Jesse Allen, based on data from Zhengming Wan, MODIS Land Surface Temperature Group, Institute for Computational Earth System Science, University of California, Santa Barbara.

Ayles Ice Shelf, Ellesmere Island

On August 13, 2005, the remote Ayles Ice Shelf on Ellesmere Island in northern Canada broke free and began drifting out to sea. The ice shelf was roughly 66 square kilometers (25 square miles), slightly larger than Manhattan, New York, or 11,000 football fields. According to The New York Times and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the ice shelf broke free in less than an hour. Laurie Weir of the Canadian Ice Service first detected the ice shelf break when reviewing satellite images of the island.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured these images of the ice shelf on August 13, 2005. The top image shows the area before the ice shelf breakup, and the bottom image shows the area after the breakup. In the second image, the ice shelf has broken away from the island and is moving in a counter-clockwise direction out to sea. In the second image, the edge of the shelf still shows where it was connected to the island, but smaller pieces of ice also litter the water between the island and the newly broken-off shelf.

Unlike ice shelves in Antarctica and Greenland that are fed by massive glaciers, the Ayles Ice Shelf was comprised of compacted, thickened sea ice. Centuries of persistent winds blowing toward land had compressed the ice into a virtually permanent ice plate attached to the north coast of Ellesmere Island. The years 2002 through 2005 were unusually warm in the Arctic, and 2005 was marked by a strong decline in Arctic sea ice. Writing on his Website, Luke Copland, director of the University of Ottawa’s Laboratory for Cryospheric Research, said, “This [breakup] reduced the remaining ice shelves there from 6 to 5, and continues a trend of dramatic loss of these ice shelves over the past century. Since 1900, approximately 90% of the Ellesmere Island ice shelves have calved and floated away. This is a one-way process as there is insufficient new ice formation to replace the ice that has been lost. The Ayles calving event was the largest in at least the last 25 years....” In the The New York Times, Copland said that attributing the shelf collapse to human-caused global warming would be premature, although the shelf’s quick demise was a sign that warming temperatures are producing rapid changes in the Arctic.

Further Reading:
Environment Canada: The Calving of the Ayles Ice Shelf. Accessed January 5, 2007.
University of Ottowa Laboratory for Cryospheric Research: Ayles Ice Shelf Breaks in the Canadian Arctic. Accessed January 5, 2007.

NASA Earth Observatory: Larsen B Ice Shelf Collapse. Accessed January 5, 2007.
NASA Earth Observatory: Ward Hunt Ice Shelf. Accessed January 5, 2007.
NASA image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center

Ellesmere Island, Canada

Ayles Ice Shelf, Ellesmere Island

On August 13, 2005, the Ayles Ice Shelf on Ellesmere Island in northern Canada broke away from the island and floated out to sea. According to news reports, the break took less than an hour, and Luke Copland, director of the University of Ottawa’s Laboratory for Cryospheric Research, described the break as evidence of the Arctic’s rapid response to warming temperatures.

The Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) on NASA’s Terra satellite observed the area before and after the ice shelf breakup. The top image, acquired on August 14, 2002, shows the area three years before the ice shelf broke free. In this image, melt ponds mark the surface of the shelf. The parallel configuration of the melt ponds suggests that the ice had been compressed like an accordion into ridges against the coastline. Beyond the ice shelf is ice known as fast ice—sea ice that holds fast to a coastline or ice shelf. Farther out to sea is loose sea ice, floating on the ocean’s surface in plates of varying size.

The bottom image shows the area on July 1, 2006, almost a year after the ice shelf broke free. In this image, what remains of the ice shelf is also littered with melt ponds, but without the parallel pond configuration. Beyond the shelf remnant is compressed sea ice, which makes a blue-and-white mosaic. At image left, snow or glaciers on Ellesmere Island appear smoothly white against the bare, brown ground.