Thursday, November 21, 2024

October and Annual Update for Berkeley Earth: about 1.6°C

Some interesting graphs.

The surge in 2023 and then 2024 really is extraordinary. For the month:


and for their entire record:


Here's BE's prediction for the year: well above 1.5°C.


2025 is going to be very interesting. Will its temperature anomaly stay aloft like 2023 and 2024, or will it decline three- or four-tenths of a degree Celsius? It will likely depend on the ENSO-state, but the last ENSO prediction I saw had significantly lower probabilities of a La Nina emerging by September.... 

Two days ago the International Research Institute for Climate and Society at Columbia University issued its latest November 2024 ENSO Forecast (emphasis mine):
According to the ENSO forecast issued by the IRI in November 2024, ENSO-neutral conditions are favored (52% probability) for Nov-Jan 2025, while the likelihood of La Niña emerging has decreased to 48%. For December-February 2025, the probability of sea surface temperatures reaching La Niña thresholds is 50%, while the likelihood of ENSO-neutral conditions is estimated at 49%. From Jan-Mar 2025 to the end of the forecast period in Jul-Sep 2025, ENSO-neutral conditions are favored, with probabilities ranging from 51% to 77%, while La Niña probabilities during the same period are estimated between 18% and 42%. The probability of El Niño remains very low throughout the forecast period, staying below 10% until April-June 2025, and gradually increasing to 24% by Jul-Sep 2025.... 

A Few Things I've Noticed Lately

The difference between the melting point and boiling point of Xenon is only 4.7°C.

In the US, most kids born to non-college-educated parents are now born outside marriage.

More than 30% of the global land area now sees monthly temperatures above the two-sigma statistical level in any given year, up from about 1% in 1950. (Robinson+ Nature 2021, Figure 1a.)

"'We're concerned': Walmart, Lowe's among latest companies to warn Trump tariffs could raise product costs" (Yahoo Finance).

I just checked something on a weekly spreadsheet I keep. During Trump's first term, the average real price of gasoline in the US was $3.10. That was the nominal price adjusted weekly for inflation, using the interpolated Consumer Price Index. By now that's $3.724 in this week's dollars. The average real price under Biden so far is...$3.718.

"Early in the pandemic, people living near oil and gas wells experienced higher rates of COVID-19 and related mortality compared with those with no exposure to well pollution." (Eos)
In communities within 0.6 mile (1 kilometer) of an actively producing well, COVID-19 cases were 34% higher and mortality rates were 55% higher in the first 4 months of the pandemic. Though the results did not show a significant association between well production and COVID-19 cases over the entire year, mortality rates were higher in the areas with the highest production. 
"Few Minerals Are Named for Women - New research shows that less than 3% of all minerals are named after women, and progress has stalled since 1985." (Eos)
Emproto and his colleagues found that of the 2,738 minerals named for people, those named for men outnumbered those named for women by more than 15 to 1....

Because the number of women entering the geosciences has almost doubled since 1985, the group expected the number of minerals named after women to have also risen steadily. However, they saw that the increase in the rate that minerals were being named after women slowed significantly after around 1985. In the years since, women’s representation has plateaued at about 10% for new mineral namesakes each year....

Boulton said she suspects this effect might be related to fewer women being afforded positions in which they are more likely to have minerals named after them. Although most mineral eponyms were named for scientists, no minerals were named after graduate students and, on average, people were 60 years old when they had a mineral named for them. “Even now, it’s much harder for women to become senior scientists and to stay senior scientists,” she said....

According to the study’s findings, naming trends are variable worldwide. For example, Russian women account for about 43% of all women honored with mineral names, despite Russians constituting less than 15% of all mineral namesakes. Americans account for 16% of minerals named after women.

Emproto said that the large representation of Russian women likely reflects the Soviet Union’s emphasis on women’s participation in sciences."

Sunday, November 17, 2024

4 of 6 Projections Have Annual Temperature Above 1.5°C

Projections for the annual global temperature anomaly from six different groups, via Zeke Hausfather at Skeptical Science. All will be the warmest year in their data record. Doubt it will make any difference to the deniers.


Thanks to commentator EM.

Sunday, November 10, 2024

Copernicus: 2024 Likely First Year Above 1.5°C

 October's temperature anomaly, relative to 1850-1990, from Copernicus:


For annual temperatures. 2024 is through October; year-to-date anomaly=1.59°C. This will likely be the first year the annual temperature is above 1.5°C. (Last year it was 1.48°C.) Nov24 and Dec24 have to average 1.06°C or higher for the year to be 1.5°C. Seems very likely.


I wish they wouldn't color the tops (halfway through and higher) with darker orange, bordering on red; it biases the view. Just use one solid color and let us draw our own conclusions. 

Tuesday, November 05, 2024

Betting Market Doesn't Look Good

8:29 pm Eastern time:

Who's Winning the Election ?!?

I'm thinking that the best way to gauge the presidential election in real time might by following the betting markets. After all, these traders are buying and selling in real time based on whatever scraps of information (or rumors or gossip or misinformation) they can find. These markets were skewed for the last few weeks because some big buyers ("whales") were buying a lot of Trump shares, raising the price dramatically (and, some think, giving Trump another excuse to dispute the election). But now that it's push-come-to-shove that should be over and they're looking to make money based on reality and the whatever "information" is available to them.

With that, here's how the PredictIt Presidential Market has been going today. Trump is up, but the difference is now trending down.


Of course, the site has their own graph which is updated in real time:



More Map Porn

This circle holds half the world's population (of humans):

Monday, November 04, 2024

Young Voters Discover Trump is a Piece of Sh!t.

Here is longer audio of the Trump "grab her by the pussy." I've never heard this before, from the beginning.
 
Yes, people do lots of things for love & sex. Not all are the proudest moment of our lives. But most of us don't assault people. And who the F brags about it like this if they do?? And to the media, of all places.
 
Anyway I feel I have to post this because I've never heard it before. It's upsetting young Gen Z people who are voting for the first time but never knew this happened....as it should. 

What woman or Christian could vote for this piece of shit? Or any man who cares about women? I just don't get it. I don't understand what's happening in that half of America.
@toxicthotsyndrome @miss redacted✨🪩🩷🇵🇸 ♬ original sound - RepublicanVotersAgainstTrump

Sunday, November 03, 2024

The Scale of Lake Powell (3 mm = 1 BL)

 The other day I noticed that the level (elevation) of Lake Powell in the US changed by 0.01 ft:

I thought it would be fun to see how much water is in the 0.01 ft (= 3 mm). Subtracting the contents gives

785 acre-feet 
= 970,000 m3 
= 0.97 Mm3 
= 260 M gallons 
= 968 ML. 
≈ 1 billion liters

where L=liter. (using little L -- "l" -- for liter can get confusing).

So a water rise of 3 millimeters is about a billion liters of water. 

(I assumed vertical edges on the lake, so I can approximate the rise as a being in a box with nice vertical edges. But probably not a good assumption for more than that.)

PS: It's Excel's fault if I made any calculation errors. It always is. 

Saturday, November 02, 2024

Stupidity in America

The US has done much better after getting out of the Trump depression than most other countries:


Yes, Trump and his stupidity are responsible for the 1Q20 to 3Q20. Biden wasn't even elected until 4Q20 and didn't take office until 1Q21. 

It's all on Trump. His MAGA supporters really are too stupid to understand this. Simple data and they can't understand it. Or how well the Biden economy has done post 1Q21 when he was sworn in. 

Shear stupidity, nothing but, is going to drive a stake into the heart of America. Just watch. It's already happening. Stupid people who just can't think.

Maybe we deserve it. Probably, This country is a complete mess.

Friday, November 01, 2024

"I Can Fix Stupid"

Things are really starting to get crazy in parts of America:

A regional public health department in Idaho has outright banned COVID-19 jabs, the Associated Press reported Friday. The Southwest District Health Department board, which governs six counties along the Idaho-Oregon border, voted 4-3 against the recommendations of the district’s medical director, Dr. Perry Jansen. “Our request of the board is that we would be able to carry and offer those [vaccines], recognizing that we always have these discussions of risks and benefits,” Jansen said at the meeting last month. “This is not a blind, everybody-gets-a-shot approach. This is a thoughtful approach.” The ban appears to be the first such instance of a U.S. governmental body blocking inoculations, the AP noted.

If I'm reading this correctly, a local state clinic in the state of Idaho will no longer vaccinate people against COVID. 

Because they can't understand the difference between science and conspiracies. This is medieval.

I saw a little cartoon a few years ago. A woman in it says, "You can't fix stupid." A COVID virus replies to her, "I can fix stupid."