Open Water Arctic?

On Sunday night just past, MSNBC aired a show, “Journey,” on the conditions of Arctic ice,  water temperature, and possible implications for global warming. Following an expedition centered on a ship, the Tara, deliberately frozen into winter ice in the Arctic and allowed to drift with its crew, scientists and instruments, the show presents a fascinating story, full of drama, facts and suppositions.

I watched the show, and was interested and entertained, quite enough for me. I noted that the production was primarily the work of French documentarians, a fact which will guarantee scorn from those who are disposed to scoff at global warming. For about two years, the Tara drifted with ice floes southward across the Arctic Ocean, providing compelling footage of ice, weather, polar bears and the storms whipping across the roof of the world in winter.

The overall results showed definite warming of sea water in the Arctic, thinning of ice, and large expanses of open water compared to historical ranges up until the past half-century or so. Interviews with scientists with positions on global warming, especially James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Many of the observations made by the documentary parallel stories from other sources about warming in the Arctic, and I doubt that many minds will be changed by this show. All information is incremental, however, and more examination will doubtless follow. One key prediction is that the Arctic Ocean could be ice-free by 2013. That will settle some arguments, if it happens, and raise others, about how to abandon large areas of low-lying shoreline around the world. We shall see.

Breathing Easier

A rare day of rain, light and more mist than drops. The moist, cool air and the leaves falling faster with the weight of water makes me think of fall on Lookout Mountain in my childhood. The years-long drought in the southeastern region of the country now continuing makes wet, cool days few, the more to be relished. Some evocation of days when every occurence was new for the child I was, and the changeability of the weather kept the scenes moving.

On the television news this morning, more footage of low water levels in lakes. North Georgia especially hard-hit. No hint of climate change is permissible lest the forces of denial counterattack; “Just normal weather cycles, tree-huggers and lying liberals want to cripple business with regulations and expenses. They all hate America, kill preborn babies and believe we came from monkeys.”

Post-scientific America, the triumph of the Know-Nothings. But I look out my open windows, feel the breezes of autumns past, and enjoy my senses and my memories.

At the Perpendicular…Autumnal Equinox

Today at 11:44:18 a.m. EDT, at this latitude the sun will hang for an instant exactly in the east. The equinox, when day and night are equal in length. In astronomical terms, days in the northern hemisphere of earth will begin to be shorter than night, as that instant marks the beginning of Autumn.

Of course, leaves on trees will not immediately turn colors and begin to fall, although in the prolonged drought of the past few years, this happens earlier and earlier, nor will temperatures suddenly grow chilly. The great wheel of the planets and their sun work slowly, and the heating of the earth that has been growing since Spring will only reluctantly loosen its grip.

Were all the clocks and calendars to disappear, we could fall back on the stars, sun and moon to gauge our seasons, as generations in pre-history did for thousands of years. In the 21st century, that is unthinkable, of course, the stuff of dystopian fiction. So, just take a walk each evening and pick out the stars, planets and moon, remembering the cycles that rule us all, even in our technologically oriented life.

Consider the Stars

In this morning’s Chattanooga Times Free Press a feature article announced the imminent re-opening of the Clarence T. Jones Observatory. Age and the elements had necessitated a renovation of the building costing $280,000.00. Taxphobia in Chattanooga being what it is, I am surprised nobody has protested. Following the newspaper article, perhaps the usual suspects will rant about such a “frill” wasting taxpayers’ money. I don’t share that view.

Dark and Light

Science versus Ideology.

Will the characteristic image of the twentieth century be the mushroom cloud of the proof of Einstein’s theory of E=MC squared?

Or will the plumes of smoke from crematoriums burning the inconvenient bodies of persons in the way of a sick and twisted perversion of science, which nearly destroyed the culture of scientific inquiry, sign and signify the century just past?

There is a connection between the freedom of scientific inquiry and the stifling weight of bigoted theories.

Adolph Hitler drove out and attempted to erase the contributions of Jewish scientists who framed the great theoretical structure of modern physics.

Einstein, the originator of the Theory of Relativity, which worked out the definitions of gravity, energy and matter, was forced out of Germany by the Nazis.

Following on Einstein’s work, a team composed of several German scientists, including Liese Meitner, a Jewish woman physicist who, with Otto Hahn and others, built the experiment which first split an atom, was betrayed by Hahn at the instigation of the Nazi government, and Hahn received the Nobel Prize in 1944 for work built with Meitner, a Jew.

In a way, the Nazis collapsed because they repudiated the contributions of Jewish scientists who once worked to extend the boundaries of science, of the basis of creation. Theirs was not the creation preferred by the Nazis, and in spite of the fires of Auschwitz and Belsen, the truth was not twisted to fit the Nazi mythos.

Tennessee: Science-Hostile?

A story on the front of the Chattanooga Times Free Press Metro section this morning cited results of a state-wide poll asking Tenneseeans’ opinions on several statements about preferable science teaching in public schools. Of those polled, 40% would approve of teaching only creationism in science classes. Those who saw nothing wrong in including both creationism and evolutionary theory amounted to 72% of the sample (600 likely voters statewide, margin of error +/- 4%).

I find this disheartening, but unsurprising. Surveys on broader areas of education regularly show large numbers of people unaware of simple geography, like the location of whole continents. The questions of earth’s early history and the appearance of life are amply researched, documented and tested in many ways by the established methods of scientific inquiry.

The latest version of creationism, “intelligent design,” like creationism, rests on religious faith. (For a review of intelligent design from a scientific viewpoint, click here. ) I am fully in support of the freedom of religious belief for every citizen, however unsupported by facts. But to compel, or be willing to compel, the presentation of matters of faith as matters of fact in public school further devalues public education. Another link to a lengthy discussion of creationism, intelligent design and the scientific basis of the theory of evolution.