Watch the video below and see if you can see where the warming stops: (seen at the wonderful APOD site)
A commenter on the most recent edition of het's AWOGWN asks an interesting set of questions: How would temperature data have been seen during the last 10,000 years prior to the peak of each of the previous Milankovich cycles? What caused the temperature to reverse course in those cycles and why would we not expect it to occur again this time? First, here are the quick answers to those three questions, then some discussion.  1. It is not currently possible to resolve the temperature record that long ago to anything close to what we have today.  2. The cause of the temperature reversal is not…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 50 Table of Contents Chapter 52 Chapter 51 Soap, February 20, 2057 Anna came down the hall complaining. "Mommy, my tummy hurts." There were bubbles coming out of her mouth. Edie took one look and yelled, "Luc, call an ambulance!" I came out of the kitchen and saw Anna down on her hands and knees vomitting on the front room floor. There was a trail of liquid down the hall to the bathroom. Following the trail back, I found a shampoo bottle on the bathroom floor. It was about half full. "Do you know how much was in this?" "Oh my god!" exclaimed Edie. "…
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom July 28, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, MEF, Whiteman, Warnings Bottom Line, Subsidies, EIB, Pricing Nature, Cook Fukushima: Note, News, Related Papers Melting Arctic, Harp Seals, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production Hurricanes, New Weather, GHGs, Carbon Cycle, CO2 Fertilization Temperatures, Aerosols, Paleoclimate,…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 49 Table of Contents Chapter 51 Chapter 50 Eco 110 - Carrying Capacity, January 15, 2057 Notes on a lecture It was the first class of the term. I was purposefully late, because I wanted everyone to be present and impatient. I walked in, dropped my case on the wide black presentation desk and turned to face the old theatre style hall. "Okay, here is the question: Are we collectively smarter than a vat of yeast?" I let that sink in for a few seconds, then continued with: "The topic for today is carrying capacity. "Intuitively, the idea is how many…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 48 Table of Contents Chapter 50 Chapter 49 Solstice, December 27, 2056 I have not been writing much, because I have been busy with the lichen. Annoyingly, the symbiotic signalling continues to elude me. A colleague at CCU collaborated with me on a paper. "An examination of the laboratory growth rates of the lichen eFontaine1" by Luc C. Fontaine and George R. Collins. eFontaine1 was the proper name, but we all called it eF1. Last year by unspoken assent, Edie and I both more or less ignored xmas. This year Anna was old enough that she would realize…
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Information Overloadis Pattern Recognition July 21, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, International Tax, Antarctic Reserve, Pollution Mortality Bottom Line, Finance, Cook Fukushima: Note, News Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather Temperatures, Feedbacks, Aerosols, Paleoclimate Oceans, Extinctions…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 47 Table of Contents Chapter 49 Chapter 48 Edie's Questions , October 4, 2056 Since our talk about Neurolin last spring, Edie had applied herself to her distance courses and done well. She had stopped taking it when she finished the courses. Judging by the steady stream of customers who dropped around for fab created items, her basement business was thriving. I mentioned it to her once. "I noticed you set up another fab," I said. She nodded with a funny little smile. "Yeah, I've been busy," but no more was said. Several times Edie ambushed me with…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 46 Table of Contents Chapter 48 Chapter 47 Symbiosis, September 27, 2056 The next time I got into the lab, I started pulling apart lichen just to get a feel for the territory. Lichen is a symbiosis of an algae and a fungus. The fungus in the north is usually an ascomycetes. The algal component is usually a simple green algae, although occasionally a blue-green algae is found. A lot of work had been done on green algae earlier in the century while investigating their suitability for biofuel. It was the fungal component, the ascomycetes, which had not…
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundupskip to bottom Sipping from the Internet Firehose...July 14, 2013 Chuckles, China-USA, Pollution Deaths, Injection Earthquakes Sumatran Smog, Warnings, Rentiers, Bottom Line, Banks, CookFukushima: Note, News, Policies Melting Arctic, Methane, AntarcticaFood: Crisis, Fisheries, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs, GMOs, Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather Carbon Cycle, Temperatures, Feedbacks, Aerosols…
Things have been quiet here, even more than the usual slow pace... I am back now from a trip to Europe where I left the family with the kids maternal grandparents and I won't see them for nine weeks in all.  This was a bad plan, but it was the plan.  I have been home for a couple of weeks already, but I managed to lose my laptop traveling.  Yes, that is a big pain in the behind and it has made many previously simple and efficient things more difficult.  Mind you, it could have been much worse as the external hard drive I always keep in my laptop bag was not in my laptop bag and this is where…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 45 Table of Contents Chapter 47 Chapter 46 Boo-Boo, August 26, 2056 I found myself becoming quite anthropological watching Anna learn to walk and talk over the summer. She is a curious and rambunctious child who is always getting into things we thought out of reach. If it isn't pots and pans, it is the media padd, old shoes -- you name it -- any damned thing we inadvertently leave open. I walked into the kitchen one day and Anna was sitting in the middle of the floor chewing on a mud-covered carrot she had pulled from a pile on the counter. The dirt…
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years July 7, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, WMO, Steinacher, CO2 Fertilization, Desertec, Rabobank, Cook Fukushima: Note, News, Policies Melting Arctic, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Food vs. Biofuel, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, New Weather, GHGs, Temperatures, Aerosols Paleoclimate, ENSO, Biosphere, Extinctions,…
This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom June 30, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, Montreal Protocol, Indian Monsoon, Obama's Plan, Sumatran Smog Bottom Line, World Bank, Cook Fukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers Melting Arctic, Geopolitics Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Food vs. Biofuel, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather GHGs,…
Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Mid-Summer's Day Edition June 23, 2013 Chuckles, Solstice, COP19+, Post-G8, UK Meeting, Indian Monsoon Sumatran Smog, European Flood, World Bank, Cook Fukushima: Note, News, Policies Melting Arctic, Arctic Birds, Methane, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, GMOs, Production Hurricanes, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather, New Weather, Temperatures GHGs, Aerosols, Clouds,…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 44 Table of Contents Chapter 46 Chapter 45 Daedalus, August 19, 2056 What is it that makes the PR efforts of the space industry always look so lame? Don't get me wrong. I love space. I think humans are bound to colonize the solar system sooner or later. As Tsiolkovsky said, "The earth is the cradle of mankind, but we cannot stay in the cradle forever." But I have yet to see a space agency that could sell their mother a ride to the corner, let alone to Pluto. Carson Tyler Inc. announced the Daedalus Project with great fanfare when the five astronauts…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 43 Table of Contents Chapter 45 Chapter 44 An Unsettling Meeting, July 19, 2056 With the summer trimester, my schedule changed. Peter cut the UNGETF meetings down to once a month. I no longer had classes on Wednesday, the regular UNGETF meeting day. Usually I went in to work in the lab, but occasionally I stayed at home. As I walked downtown to the meeting that day, the sun was burning hot. I was sweating within a block. It was uncomfortable and I was thirsty, but mainly I was troubled by my membrane design. My artificial biology project was going…
Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Information is not Knowledge...Knowledge is not Wisdom June 16, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, Bonn, Xi-Obama, G8, IEA, EIA, Europe Flood, Cook Fukushima: Note, News, Policies, Related Papers Melting Arctic, Polar Bears, Methane, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, Land Grabs, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production Hurricanes, Monsoon, Notable Weather, Extreme Weather,…
Logging the Onset of The Bottleneck Years This weekly posting is brought to you courtesy of H. E. Taylor. Happy reading, I hope you enjoy this week's Global Warming news roundup skip to bottom Information Overloadis Pattern Recognition June 9, 2013 Chuckles, COP19+, Bonn, WED, WOD, European Floods, Patriot, CO2 Fertilization Bottom Line, Pricing Nature, Global Legal Framework, Cook, Warnings, Lu, Weathermen Fukushima: Note, News, Related Papers Melting Arctic, Geopolitics, Antarctica Food: Crisis, Fisheries, Prices, GMOs, GMO Labelling, Production Hurricanes,…
The Bottleneck Years by H.E. Taylor Chapter 42 Table of Contents Chapter 44 Chapter 43 Group 5, July 12, 2056 No announcement of Group 5 commencement was made. I heard one day that a rocket had been launched from Whitesands. A week later there was another and I wondered. I remembered Rhamaposa's call in March. I checked UNGETF's Group 5 website and saw that launches had been happening for a month and a half. Project Daedalus was going ahead. Group 5 was subdivided into four subgroups. At the heart of it was the L1 construction group. They were responsible for building the actual sun shield.…