Our great landfill in the sky

I have two projects related to the atmosphere serving as a dump for our emissions. One, my usual topic, is about our CO2 emissions. For this, I've been working on some illustrations with the Skeptical Science team displayed in a post Talking Trash on Emissions by Andy Skuce and me:

These illustrations are based on a statistic by Professor Richard Alley that our emissions in CO2 are about 40 times the weight of our household trash. Both illustrations are available in a large format in the Skeptical Science graphics resources.

The second landfill-in-the-sky topic came up when I learned my region was under a wood-burning restriction on New Years Eve and again on Saturday the 4th. I decided to look into the history of this restriction put in place by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. Primarily, I want to research the scientific support for such policies, which I'm doing. This project may take a few weeks.

jg

Not a real planet

I've been tracking some sunspots this week, figuring that this is my best opportunity to capture a week or more of the sun's rotation in images. Last night, Christmas evening, I abandoned my scope to join family festivities, and when I returned the sun had moved behind stratified clouds. Normally, that means the end of a photo session, but in this case, I thought my cloud-draped sun images would make nice gas giant planets to use in my solar system presentation on Jan. 6. Though I'm depicting Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, my depictions will be of these worlds 4 billion years ago, so it's reasonable to portray them as gas giants, but different from how they appear today. Saturn, for example, would not necessarily have rings. Some color and texture differences would also be in order as the outer planets would be much closer to the sun and therefore receiving more energy to invigorate their climate systems.

So here is my sun through clouds, modified to look like an ice giant planet with two transiting moons. The shadows are the sunspots I've been tracking.

jg

Public Astronomy Events for January 2014

The next general meeting of the Temecula Valley Astronomers is Monday, January 6. The new location of our meetings is now at the Temecula Public Library at 30600 Pauba Road. Our meetings are now starting at 7:00 pm.

I will present my show on the Nice model of the solar system, entitled 4.6 Billion and Counting.

We will also have a presentation by TVA Vice President, Tim Deardoff, on what's up in the sky for January. Tim has been doing an excellent job of maintaining the Facebook page of the Temecula Valley Astronomers. You need not be a member to "like" us on Facebook; however, becoming a member does support our outreach.

I would also like to extend a thanks to the Rancho Water District for providing a low-cost meeting room for the past 20 or more years since the founding of the Temecula Valley Astronomers. I recently counted 43 unique schools or youth organizations that we've provided star parties for in the past 5 years (which is how far back my maps to events go). Considering my collection of maps as a fraction of the total locations we've attended, and that many of our locations are repeat events, the Rancho Water District's low cost meeting room has helped subsidize the experiences we've provided for schools and youth groups for 20 years.

The following night, 7 January 2014, we're having a public star party at the Murrieta Public Library. A map is provided below. The event is free and open to the general public. Typically, it draws a lot of families with young children, so the indoor show at 6:00 pm is oriented to a young and general audience. Observing will follow the 1/2 hour show till about 8:00pm.

jg

Combating a two-decade campaign against climate science

The magazine Europhysics News has published an article by Skeptical Science founder John Cook on the anti-science campaign against climate science. I created an illustration the cover page, which I've shown here:

The article is open access:
Combating a two-decade campaign attacking the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change

jg

A shooting star off the shoulder of Orion and double meteors

I watched the Geminid meteor shower from Borrego Springs the morning of Dec 14th 2013. The moon had set by 4:00 am, which allowed for a dark hour or two before sunrise. I saw a few fireballs and captured six or seven faint meteors with my camera. I'm sharing the brightest of these faint meteors below:

Geminid passing through Orion's shield. 

Exposure: 800 ISO, 26 seconds, F2, 28mm lens

Most of my 35 photos between 4 and 5 am were 1 minute long, the exception being that when I saw a meteor in or near my field, I'd stop my exposure so the background doesn't get any brighter. My photos represent about a 1/2 hour of cumulative exposure. Catching six or seven out of 35 minutes suggests a rate near 10 per hour. If my camera's field of view were 1/10th of the sky -- I'm confident its field is smaller -- that would suggest that the predicted rate of 100 per hour under a moonless sky was accurate. Caution should be taken with this estimate as it's based on my small sample group.

Why do I keep saying "six or seven"? Because one photo has three streaks but two are so closely in line that they may be one meteor:

Three faint streaks can be seen in this photo of Coma Berenices.

Tracing the streaks reveals that two are on the same radiant.

I've photographed two meteors apparently on one radiant during the Leonids in 2001, but this was on slide film and the two meteors were far apart on the film. So, I expected some distortion: that is, the lens would introduce some distortion and the film's slide mounting (lack of flatness when scanned) would introduce more.

Two or one meteor passing near the Pleiades in Taurus.

Tracing reveals parallel paths that could be on the same radiant. 

Curvature of the slide film can be seen at the bottom center of the frame.

I never believed that I had captured a meteor appearing, then dimming, then reappearing, but I think I have now.


jg

Global Warming Heat Widget at Skeptical Science

My friends at Skeptical Science have produced a web gadget, global warming counter, that can be embedded on blogs and websites, as I have done here for the right panel. The counter is a reminder that global warming is about the total heat in the climate system that is accruing mainly in the oceans, probably due to the dominance of la Nina conditions over the past decade. It is also possible that surface temperature stations fail to sample the poles adequately, which is where warming is expected to be more abrupt. Many skeptics have have pointed out the slow rise in surface temperatures (or lack of rise, depending on which data set is their favorite) over the past 15 years and proclaimed that global warming has stopped. The kindest response to the "warming has stopped" claim is that it is simply wrong and repeated without examination. Less kind, some people repeating the claim are ignoring the larger reservoir of ocean heat and the net lost of sea and surface ice during this time, the extended solar minimum, and volcanic aerosols. Therefore, they are being disingenuous.

A fair criticism is that many climate models predicted a greater temperature rise. This is scientifically interesting but not surprising, and this question is being examined in the peer-reviewed science.

In producing the ocean heat widget, Skeptical Science acknowledges that bombs aren't really going off in the ocean; therefore, it's an analogy, not a scientific description. But the analogy is an measure using a unit that is both large enough to describe the quantity of energy at work and within the comprehension of most people who will hear the un-examined claim that global warming has stopped.

By the way, I drew the globe, and I do recognize the the Earth is not truly hollow and filling like a bowl. I hope the metaphor reminds people that the bomb analogy has the qualities of an analogy: not the real description but a useful metric among a population that does not have a ready appreciation for Joules, or other units of energy.

jg

Sun spotting

The weekend of Nov. 2/3 offered some sunspots, a phenomenon that should be at a peak in it's 11-year cycle. This peak, however, is looking like a modest solar maximum. Here are sunspots photographed through a white light filter:

Viewed through a hydrogen-alpha scope, a Coronado PST, I saw an unusual brightening. The bright area was intense enough be visible in this photo, taken by holding a camera to the eyepiece (the afocal method).

I lack a means of getting effective photos through the hydrogen-alpha scope, but on rare occassions, a feature has been bright enough to photograph using the afocal method. You can see the bright spot just left of center.

This was the brightest spot I've seen on the sun, but more interesting, ten minutes after this photo, the bright spot was replaced by a sunspot with only brightness around the edges.

Two weeks later (the weekend of Nov. 16/14) I saw the largest sunspot I've ever observed, through my sunspotter telescope:

You might say, using my iPhone to photograph an image projected onto paper is taking the afocal concept to the extreme.

The following day, a Monday, was the first opportunity I had to get a better picture using a 3-inch scope:

  

Ideally, I would have used my larger scope on this, but it being work day, I had to go with what was portable and easy to set up in a parkeing lot. Here's a close ups of the interesting regions, which is the best I can do with the smaller scope:

jg