What the US Government Spends on Health Care

Data sources:

• monthly national health care spending from the Altarum Institute
• Medicare and Medicaid US government spending via FRED

Medicare is for people 65 years or older. Medicaid is for poor people. 

It can't get high enough, as far as I'm concerned.

La Nina Enters the Realm

I hadn't checked the Nino3.4 sea surface temperature in several weeks, and was surprised to see this:

This is from tropicaltidbits.com.

An ENSO has to have the Nino3.4 temperature below -1.5°C for five months to be considered an El Nino or La Nina.... And now our watch begins. Winter (or at least La Nina) is coming. "Protect the weak and uphold the good," as the knights use as a motto. And never forget, "valar morghulis." 

The Autobiography of Kevin Trenberth

I didn't know that Kevin Trenberth, the long-time climate scientist at NOAA in Boulder, published an autobiography in 2023. It's titled A Personal Tale of the Development of Climate Science: The Life and Times of Kevin Trenberth. I can't find it for sale (maybe it wasn't published in book form), but here's an online version, and you can download a PDF there.

He retired in 2020 and in 2021 moved to New Zealand (his native country) with his wife. I haven't started to read his book fully yet, just jumped around. This is about his life after retirement, from page 128:

In 2018 I began a phased retirement that included a visit to New Zealand. Following the election of Donald Trump as President and denier-in-chief in 2017, my daughter Annika, with two young children, was ahead of most, and with strong support from her husband, Matt, took advantage of her New Zealand citizenship to plan to and then move her family to New Zealand in September 2018. This was a remarkable and courageous act. With my own retirement looming, there was a strong incentive for my wife and me to follow.

The foremost reason for leaving the U.S. was family, and the timing was determined by retirement. But Trump, the Republicans and U.S. society were also major factors. The latter included guns, school shootings, and the covid-19 response. The ineptitude of the U.S. in handling all of these is evident....

I'm seeing more and more people say or write that the US is no longer a country worth living in, it's a country worth escaping from. I even see video clips of younger Americans saying that. And clips from Americans who have moved abroad talk about how much better life is where they went, especially the escape from constant work, too little vacation, affordable health care, a gain of peace and the lack of constant political turmoil.

Trenberth never had a formal retirement gathering at NCAR. It was planned for March 16, 2021 but NCAR in Boulder closed on March 13, 2021 due to the pandemic. On March 22, 2001 there was a mass shooting in a grocery store in Boulder, with 10 killed. Surely that only reinforced their decision to leave. And of course the massacre that started this era of mass shootings happened just down the road in Columbine in 1999.

America's decline into dystopia might well have started with Columbine in 1999, 9/11 in 2021, and Bush Jr's lies that started the first Iraq War. The trend has been downward since, and with Trump II the chaos is just getting started and will undoubtably be worse than Trump I. Last month a majority of Americans voted to move up to the 20th floor, because the 10th floor apparently wasn't high enough for a decent suicide. It's very likely the elevator only goes in one direction.  

Al Gore Getting Angry: "We Are Not Winning"

Gore turns it on at about 4:30 into the video, with the word "but." This is from the World Economic Forum December 9, 2023.

 
As Andrew Dessler wrote last year, "Out-of-control corporate power is the real cause of climate change." 

Is a Kim Stanley Robinson solution the only thing that will work? Maybe Luigi Mangione has made a few fossil fuel CEOs wonder.... 

Cheaper Than Therapy*

* once you buy the boat.

via The New York Post.

Earth's Albedo is Decreasing Due to Fewer Low Clouds

This is from a paper in Science last week, "Recent global temperature surge intensified by record-low planetary albedo," Goessling et al, Science 6-Dec-2024. [Link] 

I can only make this chart so big, so expand it if you want a bigger picture. Same since Blogger insists on publishing fuzzy pictures (for me anyway). 

Top graph A is surface temperature; the relevant graph as a cause is the bottom graph F, low cloud cover, and to a lesser extent total cloud cover E. The units for both E and F are percentages relative to 2001-2022 (viz., the entire interval).

Then in Table 1 (below) they give their numbers: among them, the planetary albedo (reflectance) has decreased by about -0.4% (negative change => smaller albedo => less reflectance of sunlight => warmer temperature). What's causing reduced lower cloud cover? 

"Utilizing satellite and reanalysis data, we identify a record-low planetary albedo as the primary factor bridging this gap. The decline is apparently caused largely by a reduced low-cloud cover in the northern mid-latitudes and tropics, in continuation of a multi-annual trend. Further exploring the low-cloud trend and understanding how much of it is due to internal variability, reduced aerosol concentrations, or a possibly emerging low-cloud feedback will be crucial for assessing the current and expected future warming."

So if the planetary albedo was the canonical 0.30 (30% reflectance), it is now 0.2988. (Round that however you like.) Not much, but enough to matter.

Atmospheric Methane Level - Accelerating?

Methane concentration in the atmosphere. Eyeballing, it looks be accelerating since 2010. I'm not going to do a calculation based on just a few years, because the uncertainty will be too big to show anything useful. Something to keep an eye on.

Source: NASA

The Price of Chicken

Price of chicken breast in the US. November 2024 is a reference value of 100. (The Nov-2024 price is $4.01/pound.)


Prices adjusted via the Consumer Price Index.

Smith Island and Sea-Level Rise

Here's a long story by CBS News on Smith Island in the Chesapeake Bay, a tiny island that is shrinking due to erosion and sea level rise. Of course, the islanders are determined to stay.

 

Erosion eats away up to 12 feet of shoreline a year, according to the Army Corps of Engineers, writes CBS News. 

One resident said:

"When I was a little girl they used to say, 'The island's sinking. Now, this weren't yesterday. This has been a long time ago," Marshall said. "Well, fast forward 60-70 years, we're still here."

and

"While Maryland's 2013 offer to buy and demolish Smith Island homes was shot down, it did sound alarms for residents. Watermen and retirees learned how to apply for grants and lobby legislators. They've been successful, receiving more than $43 million for elevating roads, building jetties, restoring buildings and drawing in tourists." 

That's for an island of about 200 people, so $200,000 per resident. Add that to the cost of climate change. 

A similar island in the Bay, Tangiers Island, is in the same predicament and has the same denial. They want money to build a wall around their island. (What's the point of living on an island if you can't see the ocean?) They're asking for $20-$30 million.

These stories aren't new; they've been coming since decades. Here's an article from 2010.

This is sad and infuriating. Of course the residents want to stay--it's been their beautiful home for decades if not longer. For some it's the only life they know. Their denial is equally sad, and we know it will ultimately be futile, probably sooner than later. And it's infuriating because such situations will become more and more common in the next few decades, and everyone will want to stay, stay, stay until they too give up and, defeated, paddle ashore. What's infuriating is that US politicians simply don't care. Trump thinks the ocean will rise "one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years" and thinks that's fine because it will create more oceanfront property. There is simply no end to the amount of stupidity that comes out of his mouth, which presumably started in his brain. America elected this dumbass. This is the most shameful election result in the history of the US, so bad that I think it portends the end of the country (which, to be honest, has been coming on for awhile, about since 9/11 and the resulting Gulf War, certainly since the 2008 financial crisis). Or at least a country continuing--faster now--on its way to a shambles of a society. 50% of Americans deserve it. 50% will suffer along with them. Some will presumably drown in their own homes.

The Knot

I never knew this, though I probably should have. The nautical unit of speed is the knot, which is 1 nautical mile per hour. But it's really 1 arcsec/hr, where the arcmin is taken along the surface of the Earth. 

That is:

The nautical mile "was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute (⁠1/60 of a degree) of latitude at the equator, so that Earth's polar circumference is very near to 21,600 nautical miles (that is 60 minutes × 360 degrees). Today the international nautical mile is defined as 1,852 metres (about 6,076 ft; 1.151 mi). The derived unit of speed is the knot, one nautical mile per hour."

I always thought it had something to do with ropes with knots hanging off a ship moving in the water. Maybe that was how they estimated it when traveling, but it wasn't the (somewhat arbitrary) definition as I thought. Good to know.

 

IYKYK

This explains the joke.

7.0 Earthquake off Northern California

Here's the event page. 11:02 am Pacific Standard Time, 18:44 UTC.

There were 6.6 and 5.8 precursors in the 15 minutes before this big one.

It was less than 100 km offshore and tsunami warnings have been put up, but the quake(s) were over 2 hours ago so any tsunami would have perhaps hit already (?).

A little too close for comfort. I fear the coming M 9.0 earthquake in the Pacific Northwest will happen on a frigid January morning when I'm in the shower. I just hope I can find my eyeglasses and something to wear.

Total Warming, Japanese Style

The total global temperature change from the Japanese Meteorological Association, since 1890. Data here. I used 

total_change = (total_linear_slope)*(total_time_interval)

because what else are you supposed to do?

It sure looks like warming since the last 1970s is starting to accelerate.... But I'm sure that can be explained by someone once sneezing 21 years ago within 10 m of a single weather station in Greenland.  

US Coal Production Dropping Again

Here's the 52-week moving average in megatonnes per year:

  

Data from US Energy Information Administration

This average is down almost 60% from its maximum in early 2007. Similar for US coal consumption:

25% of coal mining workers had lost their jobs by the end of Trump's first term. This election they decided not to endorse a presidential candidate.

Sadly, their job losses will no doubt continue. Good news for the climate (relatively) but bad news for families, towns and regions. Politicians seems to have little interest in retraining programs. When Hillary Clinton labeled an entire group "deplorables," she proposed a $30 billion retraining program at the same time. Guess which got the headlines.

A Museum to Visit

Wild Story Behind the Discovery of Brainwaves

This year is the centennial anniversary of the invention of electroencephalography (EEG) by Hans Berger, a German psychiatrist. The story of his motivation is wild:

After attending Casimirianum, where he gained his abitur in 1892, Berger enrolled as a mathematics student at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena with the intention of becoming an astronomer. After one semester, he abandoned his studies and enlisted for a year of service in the cavalry. During a training exercise, his horse suddenly reared, and he landed in the path of a horse-drawn cannon. The driver of the artillery battery halted the horses in time, leaving the young Berger shaken but with no serious injuries. His sister, at home many kilometres away, had a feeling he was in danger and insisted their father telegram him. The incident made such an impression on Berger that, years later in 1940, he wrote: "It was a case of spontaneous telepathy in which at a time of mortal danger, and as I contemplated certain death, I transmitted my thoughts, while my sister, who was particularly close to me, acted as the receiver."

Descartes

Too busy to post much of anything through the end of the month. Meanwhile there's this:

My Team Sucks, But....

My Pittsburgh Penguins are really lousy this year, even worse than the prior two seasons:

but they're worth watching just to see what Sidney Crosby does every night, like this game-winning goal in overtime:

Crosby pic.twitter.com/ulujPA0qEX

— Dimitri Filipovic (@DimFilipovic) November 1, 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."