progressive involvement

The winter solstice arrives today at 10:30 p.m. (MST)

Or, the shortest day will be tomorrow morning, December 22, 5:30 a.m. Universal Time.

The earth is tilted on its axis by 23 1/2 degrees.  As the earth travels around the sun, the "tilt" means that the northern and southern hemispheres trade places in receiving the most direct light from the sun.  EarthSky.org:  

At the December solstice, Earth is positioned in its orbit so that the sun stays 23-and-a-half degrees below the north pole horizon. As seen from 23-and-a-half degrees south of the equator, at the imaginary line encircling the globe known as the Tropic of Capricorn, the sun shines directly overhead at noon. This is as far south as the sun ever gets. All locations south of the equator have day lengths greater than 12 hours at the December solstice. Meanwhile, all locations north of the equator have day lengths less than 12 hours.

Here in Colorado, we're celebrating the last few hours of autumn with a snow storm.

Photo:  EarthSky, Stonehenge at the winter solstice in the 1980's.

More bad climate news, (yawn)

Worries about melting permafrost in Siberia were justified, and it's worse than anyone expected.  Plumes of methane gas, perhaps thousands of them, are emerging all through the region.

"Earlier we found torch-like structures like this but they were only tens of metres in diameter. This is the first time that we've found continuous, powerful and impressive seeping structures, more than 1,000 metres in diameter. It's amazing," Dr (Igor) Semiletov (Far Eastern branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences) said. "I was most impressed by the sheer scale and high density of the plumes. Over a relatively small area we found more than 100, but over a wider area there should be thousands of them."

Methane is "a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide."  The future is not going to be pleasant.

The most persuasive kind of argument is the one that involves someone changing their mind in light of the facts

Robert Muller set out, with Koch money, to disprove global warming, and, come to find out, he was forced to change his mind.

A bit gnarly, but Swedish tree is otherwise in good health

This tree is the oldest living thing on the planet, according to National Geographic.  Discovered in 2004, the lone Norway spruce—of the species traditionally used to decorate European homes during Christmas—represents the planet's longest-lived identified plant.  Its age was determined by radiocarbon-dating its roots.

Not exactly man's best friend

The GOP is upset about regulations on snake importation--nothing too surprising there.

But did you know that there were 100,000 Burmese pythons in the Florida Everglades?  They're not native to the region, but are, rather, the offspring of Burmese pythons that some Floridians had as pets which then escaped into the wild.  

One headline fits all

Obama caves.  On clean air this time.

Beating the Kansas heat

In this unposed and un-photoshoped pic, Elliot luxuriates in the ice dumped from his master's cooler in Russell, Kansas.

Coming soon: August 11

 

Two can play this game

God's vengeance against the nation's most conservative states continues unabated.  A stifling heatwave, and oppressive humidity is baking red states from North Dakota to Texas.

The Almighty seems particularly irate at Republican governors.  All the states that have posted record highs this year are governed by Republicans.

Nothing to see here folks, move along

Add to the lengthy and continually growing list of environmental disasters related to global warming:  drought in 14 states.  The entire state of Texas has been designated a "natural disaster area."

Most troubling is that the drought, which could go down as one of the nation’s worst, has come on extra hot and extra early. It has its roots in 2010 and continued through the winter. The five months from this February to June, for example, were so dry that they shattered a Texas record set in 1917, said Don Conlee, the acting state climatologist.