Quark Soup by David Appell
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Myanmar Earthquake Waves Traveling Through Europe
Sick Goal
Notice how Sidney Crosby--number 87 and one of the best hockey players in the visible universe--first whacks down a pass to him that was above the ice, controls the puck, then passes the puck while lifting it over the stick/blade of the guy defending him. Then Rust (#17) stretches and hits the puck after a bounce over the goalie. I've never seen a goal like this.
The Penguins, legendary in the '00s and '10s, have really lost it and are now ranked #28 in the league (of 32 teams). They will miss the playoffs for the third straight year. But it's worth watching because every game Crosby does something you've never seen before.
Friday, March 28, 2025
New Record Low for Arctic Sea Ice
On March 22, Arctic sea ice likely reached its maximum extent for the year, at 14.33 Mkm2..., the lowest in the 47-year satellite record. This year’s maximum extent is 1.31 Mkm2...below the 1981 to 2010 average maximum of 15.64 Mkm2...and 80,000 km2...below the previous lowest maximum that occurred on March 7, 2017.
Great Image of Venus
Tuesday, March 18, 2025
Is Ocean Heat Content Really Accelerating?
This warmth is especially apparent in the oceans, where key indicators of climate change are now accelerating.
Monday, March 17, 2025
Saturday, March 15, 2025
Early Blogger Kevin Drum Has Died
Friday, March 14, 2025
Thursday, March 13, 2025
Saturday, March 08, 2025
Roy Spencer's Comical, Sad, Desperate Arguments
Roy Spencer continues to make some very sad, desperate arguments in the name of climate denial. Arguments are that beneath him as a professional scientist. Arguments that show why he has no respect at all in the climate science community.
In a recent post he wrote:
"The regulation of CO2 emissions (and some other chemicals) by the EPA has also mystified me. However many of the EPA’s ~185 lawyers worked on the 2009 Endangerment Finding, they must have known that regulating CO2 emissions from U.S. cars and light-duty trucks would have no measurable impact on global climate, including sea level rise (which was a major argument in Massachusetts v. EPA).Of course, by this argument no one should do ever do anything about CO2 emissions because, individually, all regulations are "too small" to solve the global problem.None."
It's an intentionally deceitful argument that convinces no one except the hare-brained commenters on his site. And Roy knows enough to know this. Sad. It's a dumb argument and I'm wondering why he made it. This is exactly why people don't trust Roy or his "science."
"Their reason for existence is to regulate pollutants (and it doesn’t matter if Nature produces far more of a “pollutant” than people produce)."Another extremely, obviously vapid argument. Yes, Nature emits more CO2 than do humans. But Nature absorbs that amount of CO2 and even more, which is why only half (about) of anthropogenic emissions reside in the atmosphere.
Roy certainly knows this. So why pretend otherwise, to make such scientifically trashy arguments? Does he ever wonder why no real scientists take him seriously, and haven't for...decades?
It's very sad to see a senior scientist making such shitty arguments, thinking they do any good whatsoever. They only ruin whatever respectability he had, which was very low to begin with.
Thursday, March 06, 2025
How You Like Them Odds
Musk said he believed A.I. would be smarter than any individual human in the next year or two, and predicted that A.I. would be smarter than all humans combined by 2029 or 2030. He said he thought there was an 80 percent chance that A.I. would have a “good outcome,” and that there was a 20 percent chance of “annihilation.”
- Elon Musk, interview with Joe Rogan, covered by the New York Times March 3, 2025. (free link)
Thursday, February 27, 2025
Mass Firings at NOAA
If no one is researching climate, climate change doesn't exist.
Notifications of mass firings of NOAA employees were sent out Thursday afternoon, to mostly "probationary employees," recent new hires. 800 firings out of 13,000 employees (6%). New York Times (free link):
As is the case at other agencies, the Trump administration appears to be firing probationary employees at NOAA not because their work is necessarily less valuable than that of other staff members, but because they’re easier to dismiss.
More cuts are coming. This isn't about cutting the federal budget deficit or debt as federal employee salaries and benefits are only 3% of the federal budget. It gets even more ridiculous:
The General Services Administration, which manages government facilities, has begun canceling some of the contracts for buildings that NOAA uses, according to a person familiar with the matter. The agency has frozen credit cards used to pay for travel and sharply restricted the amount of money employees are able to put on those cards for other purchases.
The cuts are purely political:
NOAA has been singled out for especially deep cuts by members of the Trump administration. Project 2025, the policy blueprint published by the Heritage Foundation that is reflected in many of the actions taken by the Trump administration so far, calls the agency “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry.” The document urges that NOAA be dismantled and some of its programs be terminated.
Every billion saved is another billion for billionaires.... I can't tell if Trump is trying to destroy America or if he thinks he's saving it (and for whom). He's not much of a thinker, but the people around him know what they're doing. Disgusting.