Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project acquired this image of asteroid 3122 Florence on August 28, 2017. The Virtual Telescope Project will have a livestream of this asteroid’s close pass. The livestream is scheduled for August 31, 2017, starting at 19:30 UTC; translate to your time zone.
Named for Florence Nightingale, asteroid 3122 Florence is the biggest near-Earth object to pass so close since this category of objects was discovered over a century ago! It’s at least 2.7 miles (4.35 km) in diameter. It’ll safely pass by our planet on September 1, 2017 at over 18 times the Earth-moon distance. It’s visible now in small telescopes and might even be visible in binoculars; here are charts that can help you find it.
Radar images of asteroid 3122 Florence, obtained from August 29, 2017 via Goldstone Radar in California. Higher resolution radar images expected in the next few days, as the space rock will also be studied from Arecibo Observatory. Image via NASA/JPL.
Bottom line: Photos of asteroid 3122 Florence, a large near-Earth object, which will pass Earth on September 1, 2017.
Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project acquired this image of asteroid 3122 Florence on August 28, 2017. The Virtual Telescope Project will have a livestream of this asteroid’s close pass. The livestream is scheduled for August 31, 2017, starting at 19:30 UTC; translate to your time zone.
Named for Florence Nightingale, asteroid 3122 Florence is the biggest near-Earth object to pass so close since this category of objects was discovered over a century ago! It’s at least 2.7 miles (4.35 km) in diameter. It’ll safely pass by our planet on September 1, 2017 at over 18 times the Earth-moon distance. It’s visible now in small telescopes and might even be visible in binoculars; here are charts that can help you find it.
Radar images of asteroid 3122 Florence, obtained from August 29, 2017 via Goldstone Radar in California. Higher resolution radar images expected in the next few days, as the space rock will also be studied from Arecibo Observatory. Image via NASA/JPL.
Bottom line: Photos of asteroid 3122 Florence, a large near-Earth object, which will pass Earth on September 1, 2017.
This is a re-post from Critical Angle
Participating in social media creates a wide and diverse network of acquaintances. Often, these people become “friends”, even though direct personal contact may never made with them. It can be hard to establish traditional friendships without face-to-face encounters. Before the Internet, reading body language, voice inflections and facial expressions was as big a part of communication as speech itself. For many of us who spend a disproportionate amount of time in front of screens, much of our communication has become disembodied. But we still have bodies and, unfortunately, bodies break down.
I never wanted to write this post, but I feel that I owe it to the people I have come to know as online friends. They deserve to know that I’m suffering from a fatal illness. However, I hate the idea of now being treated differently because of this disclosure. I am not fishing for compliments or looking for moral support.
In 2002, at age 48, I was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. I had a prostatectomy, but, despite the entire removal of the gland, there were small amounts of metastatic disease detected in nearby lymph nodes. The cancer had not been cured. Progression of the disease was slowed for many years by intermittent hormone treatment. I experienced no physical symptoms of the disease for twelve years, although the consequences of surgery and hormone treatment were no fun. But life continued and it was good.
As Hemingway remarked about going bankrupt, my cancer progressed gradually at first and then suddenly. About two years ago, my body’s plumbing and scaffolding started to show signs of trouble. More aggressive hormonal drugs were prescribed, which brought me back to good health for a year. Then, as the effectiveness of those drugs failed, chemotherapy beat back the worst symptoms for most of another year. Chemotherapy side-effects can often be managed quite well these days and it is not the horror that many imagine.
You become aware that the treatment options are running out when the oncologists start talking about maximizing quality, rather than quantity, of life. That’s where I am now. My life expectancy has been reduced from years to months. There still may be a few tricks left in my doctors’ books that may help extend my life beyond current expectations, but they are long shots and may not be available.
I was originally given a median life expectancy of six years. I have lasted fifteen and I’m not done quite yet. The palaeontologist and science writer Stephen Jay Gould wrote an excellent essay on statistics and cancer: The Median Isn’t the Message. He had an eight-month median life expectation after his diagnosis of mesothelioma, but Gould lasted twenty years and was eventually killed by a different kind of cancer.
Being born as a white, male baby-boomer into a good family in a prosperous country (Britain) and having made some lucky life choices means I’ve been a big winner in the human lottery. I’ve never had to live through a war, never gone hungry, never been abused. My career as an industrial scientist was challenging and rewarding. I even managed to sneak in a little publishable research along the way.
For most of my teenage and adult life I’ve been a keen—if average ability—rock-climber, back-county skier and alpinist. I’ve had several near-misses and the occasional epic outing, but never suffered any serious injury. A careless slip or an avalanche could easily have ended my life early. Only once did a climbing companion of mine need rescuing and hospitalization. He was hit by a falling rock in Bristol’s Avon Gorge. His helmet saved him from lasting injury, we lowered him to the roadside below and he was in an ambulance in minutes. I’ve indulged in many dangerous activities and never paid the price.
Living in Canada means that I have received first-class medical treatment, without once having had to worry about paying for it. I held a high-stress oil-company executive job for a few years before and after my diagnosis. I had an inkling that the long hours would have killed me if I had kept it up. My employer was understanding and eventually laid me off with a generous redundancy package. There wasn’t room in that corporate culture for employees who were not able to give their all.
I quit full-time work in 2005 and moved from Alberta to the beautiful coast of British Columbia. I became a geoscience consultant, setting my own hours and my own pace. Working mostly from home removes the stress of the daily commute, although I did have to make occasional trips to Calgary as well as to the UK, Peru, Argentina, Romania and Russia. Consultants get paid for travel time, employees often have to give up their weekends unpaid. The relationship between client and consultant is usually easier than between boss and employee.
There were no worries about losing health insurance. Had I been an American, I would likely have faced a terrible decision about whether to hang on to my stressful job, or impoverish my dependents by quitting and giving up health coverage.
Canada now permits physician-assisted suicide, so I’m reassured that I won’t have to needlessly endure a protracted death. I’m told that relatively few people follow through with it in practice, but it’s comforting to know that there is an option.
Most importantly, I have had indispensable support from loved ones. Family members can suffer as much or more than the patients. They feel obliged to stay strong and supportive whereas I’m allowed—even expected—to let go emotionally. Perhaps I’m revealing too much detail about myself in this blogpost, but I’m going to respect the privacy of my carers by saying nothing more about them.
There are plenty of younger, better people who have suffered worse diseases. The British physicist Sir David MacKay springs to mind. He died of cancer at age 48—the age at which I was diagnosed fifteen years ago—leaving behind a young family and the potential to add to his already brilliant contributions to the debate on climate solutions. MacKay wrote a detailed and fascinating account of his treatment on his blog, I’m not going to attempt to do that.
Seeing young children in cancer centres and the horror in the faces of their parents, provides a sense of perspective for those of us who face a perhaps untimely death after decades of happy lives.
Philip Larkin, in his masterpiece poem Aubade, expresses the deep fear of death that most of us have felt. An extract:
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
—The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
He writes later:
…Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Perhaps it’s understandable that a young man like Dylan Thomas (who died at 39) should urge his elders to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”, but older folk might be better advised instead try to find the wisdom to be grateful for a long life, well-lived, and accept the inevitable with as much grace as they can muster.
A recent, brilliantly written piece in the New Yorker by Cory Taylor expresses my current attitude about dying almost exactly.
Initial reactions to a dire diagnosis vary, but most of us initially suffer denial. People like me who are used to having technical control instinctively try to find out everything we can about the disease. Almost everyone I know who has been given a cancer diagnosis has looked for an unconventional cure at first. They try a drastic change of diet or concoctions of herbal infusions. I did too. But I’ve given up trying to pretend that I can find out anything that the specialists don’t already know. I’ve learned to try to focus on living well and leave the treatment choices to the consensus of the experts.
Many people become uncomfortable around cancer sufferers. There’s a natural tendency to look for reasons for the disease—why them, why not me?—and to resist the notion that in most cases getting cancer is just lousy luck. Humans instinctively try to find underlying reasons for outcomes. Good health can sometimes be attributed to having lived a virtuous life, with illness blamed on bad lifestyle choices. This can be partly true, of course, but more often than not, shit just happens.
With good intentions, friends will sometimes urge sufferers to adopt a more positive attitude. Certainly, if cancer patients are unduly stressed it may not be helpful for the progression of their disease—perhaps misery depresses immune systems and it certainly makes lives less bearable. But there’s scant evidence that urging sufferers to buck-up and look on the bright side helps outcomes at all. On the contrary, this can place an extra burden on the victims by making them feel they are not doing enough to help themselves. If you know someone with cancer, please put aside any advice and judgment. Just be nice.
Importantly, the family members on the front line of providing care can suffer even greater mental anguish than the patients. Their pain and grief will endure long after the patient has died. Help them, sympathize with them, never tell them they are not doing enough.
The certainty of a premature death focuses the mind. Strangely, at moments of acute stress, one sometimes feels the exhilarating sensation of living in the present moment—experiencing a beautiful, perfect, harmonic world—instant Zen mastery. But it is fleeting. Familiar mental attitudes reassert themselves. At least that’s what happens to me.
But one unexpected change is acquiring a lasting and enhanced appreciation for the humdrum, the everyday stuff of living, rather than the extraordinary experiences that we sometimes think ought to define our lives. As he died of cancer, the singer Warren Zevon advised: “Enjoy every sandwich.” It sounds trite, but it’s true.
Forget about bucket lists. Get used to replacing the thrill of new experiences with the intensity of doing ordinary things for perhaps the last time.
It may seem a little odd to end this disclosure about my looming demise with a technical commentary on climate change. However, concern about what happens to the planet after my death—whenever that date might be—has been important to me over the past few years. Having the fatal moment moved forward doesn’t change anything.
For the past ten years, I’ve become obsessive about learning and writing about climate change. I’ve done my best to provide my own perspective as an ex-oilman and geoscientist. Most of my contributions are recorded on this blog. I’ve lately found it hard to apply the sustained effort to research and write in-depth pieces that add anything coherent and novel enough to be worth publishing. I would love, for example, to dig deeper into the means and benefits of mitigation technologies and the costs of inaction.
I have become reluctantly pessimistic about our ability to avoid dangerous global change. If the best mitigation efforts are made and we get lucky with climate sensitivity and carbon-cycle feedbacks, we might succeed in limiting surface warming to 2-3°C. If we are mitigation laggards and the response of the Earth System to the abrupt chemical changes we are delivering to the atmosphere turns out to be severe, the consequences could be dire. Even in the best imaginable case, we are in for some nasty, disruptive shocks, unfairly focussed on the poorest people: those who have done the least to cause the problem.
A recent paper by Mora et al. predicts that parts of Brazil, W Africa and SE Asia will experience, by 2100, “deadly” outdoor conditions of heat and humidity for humans for most of the year, even under a middling emissions scenario like RCP4.5.
The very worst cases—much more than 4° C of average surface warming—may have only low chances of happening. Nevertheless, such outcomes would force such drastic transformations in the world order that conventional economic cost-benefit analysis and discount-rate considerations would no longer apply. When it becomes a matter of survival—war, disease, disaster—money becomes no object. Rates of return on investment and enhancing economic growth take a back seat when the future of civilization itself is threatened. Admittedly, finite resources would still need to be optimally allocated: I wouldn’t argue for throwing the entire discipline of economics out of the window.
I fear that the defining issue of the latter part of the twenty-first century will be the application of geoengineering, particularly albedo modification. The technical uncertainties and political implications are staggering. But it’s likely coming, whether we are ready or not. It’s crazy that policy makers and researchers are giving it so little attention.
We can speculate, of course, that there might be other perils—a horrible pandemic; out-of-control artificial intelligence; an all-out nuclear war; an asteroid; unforeseen consequences of genetic modification—that could prove even more destructive. But anthropogenic climate change is a certainty rather than some remote risk. The temptation to apply a quick fix will one day prove irresistible for those countries that find themselves under acute climatic stress.
I dislike applying both military and disease metaphors to the climate crisis. More often than not, they distort rather than illuminate the true nature of the problem.
Nevertheless, proposed geoengineering remedies for global warming have some parallels with cancer treatments. There’s little doubt that they will reduce the impact of some of the worst symptoms and prolong survival. But some problems, most notably ocean acidification, will remain unaddressed by solar radiation management. Even though average global temperatures can certainly be lowered by feeding reflective particles into the stratosphere—we know this from observations of big volcanic eruptions—regional consequences can’t yet be adequately predicted by climate models.
Cancer treatments affect only the patients. Medical ethics protects them by insisting on first obtaining their informed consent. Albedo geoengineering, in contrast, can be applied unilaterally and inexpensively by any middle-power country, which could well be oblivious to any negative consequences inflicted on its neighbours.
The dosage of the stratospheric sulphate medication will forever have to be maintained. It will have to be increased if we continue to burn fossil fuels. If, for any reason, the albedo meds were suddenly interrupted, the shock to the global climate system would be sudden and truly catastrophic. Global temperatures could shoot up several degrees in a few years: it would be like taking a wrecking ball to our planetary home.
The only “cure” for climate change will be in attempting to restore the stable climate in which human civilization developed. We will have to find a way to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations back to below 400ppm, perhaps even to 350ppm, as James Hansen and other scientists have recommended. That will be extraordinarily expensive and perhaps not even physically possible.
It will demand sacrifice, investment and restraint from the majority of the world to achieve a positive result that will take decades to manifest itself. It will require not only sucking CO2 out of the air, but a nearly equal and additional amount out of the oceans. Basically, we would have to put back in to the Earth most of the carbon we have taken out of it since the Industrial Revolution. The challenge is made harder because the physical mass of the required carbon disposal is amplified by a factor of more than three: those carbon atoms we dug up and burned are now wedded to two heavier oxygen atoms.
A long-term program of planetary CO2 liposuction, combined with a strict carbon diet, could eventually turn things around. But even with such an attempted cure, there will still be the earthly equivalents of scar tissue, damaged vital organs and lost limbs—coral reefs, ice sheets, precious ecosystems—that may never restore themselves within human timelines.
One of the great benefits of my engaging in research and activism on climate change has been making friends with some determined and talented people. They have taught me so much. They will continue the struggle to communicate the nature of the crisis and advocate for solutions. In particular, the volunteers in the Skeptical Science team have been an inspiration. Long may they run.
I’m still keen to continue conversations, especially with people I don’t agree with. There’s so much more to learn. A politically conservative perspective on climate solutions is essential. It’s a tragedy that many right-wingers have ruled themselves out of serious debate, with their idiotic, tribally motivated denial of basic science. To solve this problem we will have to change everything. That will require willing contributions from all of us.
Participating in the struggle against denial of the scientific consensus on climate is something I would dearly like to continue doing, but force majeure dictates some triage of my efforts. I’m no longer going to bicker with those who don’t engage in good faith. Life really is too short.
I’m not gone quite yet and I’ll try to keep doing what I can.
This is a re-post from Critical Angle
Participating in social media creates a wide and diverse network of acquaintances. Often, these people become “friends”, even though direct personal contact may never made with them. It can be hard to establish traditional friendships without face-to-face encounters. Before the Internet, reading body language, voice inflections and facial expressions was as big a part of communication as speech itself. For many of us who spend a disproportionate amount of time in front of screens, much of our communication has become disembodied. But we still have bodies and, unfortunately, bodies break down.
I never wanted to write this post, but I feel that I owe it to the people I have come to know as online friends. They deserve to know that I’m suffering from a fatal illness. However, I hate the idea of now being treated differently because of this disclosure. I am not fishing for compliments or looking for moral support.
In 2002, at age 48, I was diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer. I had a prostatectomy, but, despite the entire removal of the gland, there were small amounts of metastatic disease detected in nearby lymph nodes. The cancer had not been cured. Progression of the disease was slowed for many years by intermittent hormone treatment. I experienced no physical symptoms of the disease for twelve years, although the consequences of surgery and hormone treatment were no fun. But life continued and it was good.
As Hemingway remarked about going bankrupt, my cancer progressed gradually at first and then suddenly. About two years ago, my body’s plumbing and scaffolding started to show signs of trouble. More aggressive hormonal drugs were prescribed, which brought me back to good health for a year. Then, as the effectiveness of those drugs failed, chemotherapy beat back the worst symptoms for most of another year. Chemotherapy side-effects can often be managed quite well these days and it is not the horror that many imagine.
You become aware that the treatment options are running out when the oncologists start talking about maximizing quality, rather than quantity, of life. That’s where I am now. My life expectancy has been reduced from years to months. There still may be a few tricks left in my doctors’ books that may help extend my life beyond current expectations, but they are long shots and may not be available.
I was originally given a median life expectancy of six years. I have lasted fifteen and I’m not done quite yet. The palaeontologist and science writer Stephen Jay Gould wrote an excellent essay on statistics and cancer: The Median Isn’t the Message. He had an eight-month median life expectation after his diagnosis of mesothelioma, but Gould lasted twenty years and was eventually killed by a different kind of cancer.
Being born as a white, male baby-boomer into a good family in a prosperous country (Britain) and having made some lucky life choices means I’ve been a big winner in the human lottery. I’ve never had to live through a war, never gone hungry, never been abused. My career as an industrial scientist was challenging and rewarding. I even managed to sneak in a little publishable research along the way.
For most of my teenage and adult life I’ve been a keen—if average ability—rock-climber, back-county skier and alpinist. I’ve had several near-misses and the occasional epic outing, but never suffered any serious injury. A careless slip or an avalanche could easily have ended my life early. Only once did a climbing companion of mine need rescuing and hospitalization. He was hit by a falling rock in Bristol’s Avon Gorge. His helmet saved him from lasting injury, we lowered him to the roadside below and he was in an ambulance in minutes. I’ve indulged in many dangerous activities and never paid the price.
Living in Canada means that I have received first-class medical treatment, without once having had to worry about paying for it. I held a high-stress oil-company executive job for a few years before and after my diagnosis. I had an inkling that the long hours would have killed me if I had kept it up. My employer was understanding and eventually laid me off with a generous redundancy package. There wasn’t room in that corporate culture for employees who were not able to give their all.
I quit full-time work in 2005 and moved from Alberta to the beautiful coast of British Columbia. I became a geoscience consultant, setting my own hours and my own pace. Working mostly from home removes the stress of the daily commute, although I did have to make occasional trips to Calgary as well as to the UK, Peru, Argentina, Romania and Russia. Consultants get paid for travel time, employees often have to give up their weekends unpaid. The relationship between client and consultant is usually easier than between boss and employee.
There were no worries about losing health insurance. Had I been an American, I would likely have faced a terrible decision about whether to hang on to my stressful job, or impoverish my dependents by quitting and giving up health coverage.
Canada now permits physician-assisted suicide, so I’m reassured that I won’t have to needlessly endure a protracted death. I’m told that relatively few people follow through with it in practice, but it’s comforting to know that there is an option.
Most importantly, I have had indispensable support from loved ones. Family members can suffer as much or more than the patients. They feel obliged to stay strong and supportive whereas I’m allowed—even expected—to let go emotionally. Perhaps I’m revealing too much detail about myself in this blogpost, but I’m going to respect the privacy of my carers by saying nothing more about them.
There are plenty of younger, better people who have suffered worse diseases. The British physicist Sir David MacKay springs to mind. He died of cancer at age 48—the age at which I was diagnosed fifteen years ago—leaving behind a young family and the potential to add to his already brilliant contributions to the debate on climate solutions. MacKay wrote a detailed and fascinating account of his treatment on his blog, I’m not going to attempt to do that.
Seeing young children in cancer centres and the horror in the faces of their parents, provides a sense of perspective for those of us who face a perhaps untimely death after decades of happy lives.
Philip Larkin, in his masterpiece poem Aubade, expresses the deep fear of death that most of us have felt. An extract:
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
—The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused—nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear—no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
He writes later:
…Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Perhaps it’s understandable that a young man like Dylan Thomas (who died at 39) should urge his elders to “Rage, rage against the dying of the light”, but older folk might be better advised instead try to find the wisdom to be grateful for a long life, well-lived, and accept the inevitable with as much grace as they can muster.
A recent, brilliantly written piece in the New Yorker by Cory Taylor expresses my current attitude about dying almost exactly.
Initial reactions to a dire diagnosis vary, but most of us initially suffer denial. People like me who are used to having technical control instinctively try to find out everything we can about the disease. Almost everyone I know who has been given a cancer diagnosis has looked for an unconventional cure at first. They try a drastic change of diet or concoctions of herbal infusions. I did too. But I’ve given up trying to pretend that I can find out anything that the specialists don’t already know. I’ve learned to try to focus on living well and leave the treatment choices to the consensus of the experts.
Many people become uncomfortable around cancer sufferers. There’s a natural tendency to look for reasons for the disease—why them, why not me?—and to resist the notion that in most cases getting cancer is just lousy luck. Humans instinctively try to find underlying reasons for outcomes. Good health can sometimes be attributed to having lived a virtuous life, with illness blamed on bad lifestyle choices. This can be partly true, of course, but more often than not, shit just happens.
With good intentions, friends will sometimes urge sufferers to adopt a more positive attitude. Certainly, if cancer patients are unduly stressed it may not be helpful for the progression of their disease—perhaps misery depresses immune systems and it certainly makes lives less bearable. But there’s scant evidence that urging sufferers to buck-up and look on the bright side helps outcomes at all. On the contrary, this can place an extra burden on the victims by making them feel they are not doing enough to help themselves. If you know someone with cancer, please put aside any advice and judgment. Just be nice.
Importantly, the family members on the front line of providing care can suffer even greater mental anguish than the patients. Their pain and grief will endure long after the patient has died. Help them, sympathize with them, never tell them they are not doing enough.
The certainty of a premature death focuses the mind. Strangely, at moments of acute stress, one sometimes feels the exhilarating sensation of living in the present moment—experiencing a beautiful, perfect, harmonic world—instant Zen mastery. But it is fleeting. Familiar mental attitudes reassert themselves. At least that’s what happens to me.
But one unexpected change is acquiring a lasting and enhanced appreciation for the humdrum, the everyday stuff of living, rather than the extraordinary experiences that we sometimes think ought to define our lives. As he died of cancer, the singer Warren Zevon advised: “Enjoy every sandwich.” It sounds trite, but it’s true.
Forget about bucket lists. Get used to replacing the thrill of new experiences with the intensity of doing ordinary things for perhaps the last time.
It may seem a little odd to end this disclosure about my looming demise with a technical commentary on climate change. However, concern about what happens to the planet after my death—whenever that date might be—has been important to me over the past few years. Having the fatal moment moved forward doesn’t change anything.
For the past ten years, I’ve become obsessive about learning and writing about climate change. I’ve done my best to provide my own perspective as an ex-oilman and geoscientist. Most of my contributions are recorded on this blog. I’ve lately found it hard to apply the sustained effort to research and write in-depth pieces that add anything coherent and novel enough to be worth publishing. I would love, for example, to dig deeper into the means and benefits of mitigation technologies and the costs of inaction.
I have become reluctantly pessimistic about our ability to avoid dangerous global change. If the best mitigation efforts are made and we get lucky with climate sensitivity and carbon-cycle feedbacks, we might succeed in limiting surface warming to 2-3°C. If we are mitigation laggards and the response of the Earth System to the abrupt chemical changes we are delivering to the atmosphere turns out to be severe, the consequences could be dire. Even in the best imaginable case, we are in for some nasty, disruptive shocks, unfairly focussed on the poorest people: those who have done the least to cause the problem.
A recent paper by Mora et al. predicts that parts of Brazil, W Africa and SE Asia will experience, by 2100, “deadly” outdoor conditions of heat and humidity for humans for most of the year, even under a middling emissions scenario like RCP4.5.
The very worst cases—much more than 4° C of average surface warming—may have only low chances of happening. Nevertheless, such outcomes would force such drastic transformations in the world order that conventional economic cost-benefit analysis and discount-rate considerations would no longer apply. When it becomes a matter of survival—war, disease, disaster—money becomes no object. Rates of return on investment and enhancing economic growth take a back seat when the future of civilization itself is threatened. Admittedly, finite resources would still need to be optimally allocated: I wouldn’t argue for throwing the entire discipline of economics out of the window.
I fear that the defining issue of the latter part of the twenty-first century will be the application of geoengineering, particularly albedo modification. The technical uncertainties and political implications are staggering. But it’s likely coming, whether we are ready or not. It’s crazy that policy makers and researchers are giving it so little attention.
We can speculate, of course, that there might be other perils—a horrible pandemic; out-of-control artificial intelligence; an all-out nuclear war; an asteroid; unforeseen consequences of genetic modification—that could prove even more destructive. But anthropogenic climate change is a certainty rather than some remote risk. The temptation to apply a quick fix will one day prove irresistible for those countries that find themselves under acute climatic stress.
I dislike applying both military and disease metaphors to the climate crisis. More often than not, they distort rather than illuminate the true nature of the problem.
Nevertheless, proposed geoengineering remedies for global warming have some parallels with cancer treatments. There’s little doubt that they will reduce the impact of some of the worst symptoms and prolong survival. But some problems, most notably ocean acidification, will remain unaddressed by solar radiation management. Even though average global temperatures can certainly be lowered by feeding reflective particles into the stratosphere—we know this from observations of big volcanic eruptions—regional consequences can’t yet be adequately predicted by climate models.
Cancer treatments affect only the patients. Medical ethics protects them by insisting on first obtaining their informed consent. Albedo geoengineering, in contrast, can be applied unilaterally and inexpensively by any middle-power country, which could well be oblivious to any negative consequences inflicted on its neighbours.
The dosage of the stratospheric sulphate medication will forever have to be maintained. It will have to be increased if we continue to burn fossil fuels. If, for any reason, the albedo meds were suddenly interrupted, the shock to the global climate system would be sudden and truly catastrophic. Global temperatures could shoot up several degrees in a few years: it would be like taking a wrecking ball to our planetary home.
The only “cure” for climate change will be in attempting to restore the stable climate in which human civilization developed. We will have to find a way to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations back to below 400ppm, perhaps even to 350ppm, as James Hansen and other scientists have recommended. That will be extraordinarily expensive and perhaps not even physically possible.
It will demand sacrifice, investment and restraint from the majority of the world to achieve a positive result that will take decades to manifest itself. It will require not only sucking CO2 out of the air, but a nearly equal and additional amount out of the oceans. Basically, we would have to put back in to the Earth most of the carbon we have taken out of it since the Industrial Revolution. The challenge is made harder because the physical mass of the required carbon disposal is amplified by a factor of more than three: those carbon atoms we dug up and burned are now wedded to two heavier oxygen atoms.
A long-term program of planetary CO2 liposuction, combined with a strict carbon diet, could eventually turn things around. But even with such an attempted cure, there will still be the earthly equivalents of scar tissue, damaged vital organs and lost limbs—coral reefs, ice sheets, precious ecosystems—that may never restore themselves within human timelines.
One of the great benefits of my engaging in research and activism on climate change has been making friends with some determined and talented people. They have taught me so much. They will continue the struggle to communicate the nature of the crisis and advocate for solutions. In particular, the volunteers in the Skeptical Science team have been an inspiration. Long may they run.
I’m still keen to continue conversations, especially with people I don’t agree with. There’s so much more to learn. A politically conservative perspective on climate solutions is essential. It’s a tragedy that many right-wingers have ruled themselves out of serious debate, with their idiotic, tribally motivated denial of basic science. To solve this problem we will have to change everything. That will require willing contributions from all of us.
Participating in the struggle against denial of the scientific consensus on climate is something I would dearly like to continue doing, but force majeure dictates some triage of my efforts. I’m no longer going to bicker with those who don’t engage in good faith. Life really is too short.
I’m not gone quite yet and I’ll try to keep doing what I can.
About five years ago, Skeptical Science had a weekly feature called "new research from last week" which was compiled by me. I stopped doing the posts at the end of 2012. Now I'll start making those posts again. This time I won't promise to have a post at a certain time every week, but only that there will roughly be one new post per week.
Below are the new papers I noticed between August 21 and August 27. The title for each paper is shown and links to its abstract. Additionally, I have included a quote from the abstract for some papers. Papers have been divided into four categories: climate change (containing climate science relating to climate change), climate change impacts (contains papers on how climate change affects different things such as biosphere and mankind), climate change mitigation (contains research on actions we can do to mitigate climate change), and other papers (contains for example papers on past climates and on general climate science).
1. North Atlantic observations sharpen meridional overturning projections
"Our results present more evidence that AMOC likely already started slowing down."
2. Longwave Emission Trends over Africa and Implications for Atlantic Hurricanes
"GCMs predict a continuation of the increasing OLR gradient in response to greenhouse gas forcing. Assuming a steady linear relationship between African easterly waves and tropical cyclogenesis, this result suggests a future increase in Atlantic tropical cyclone frequency by 10% (20%) at the end of the 21st century under the RCP 4.5 (8.5) forcing scenario."
3. Evaluating the evidence of a global sea surface temperature threshold for tropical cyclone genesis
"Here, a basin-by-basin analysis of the SST distributions in the five most active ocean basins is performed, which shows that there is no global SST threshold for TC genesis. The distributions of genesis SST show substantial variations between basins."
4. How much have California winters warmed over the last century?
"Averaged across California over 1920-2015, Tmax trends vary from -0.30 to 1.2 °C/century while Tmin trends range from 1.2 to 1.9 °C/century."
5. Western North Pacific tropical cyclone model tracks in present and future climates
"The first is a statistically significant increase in the North-South expansion, which can also be viewed as a poleward shift, as TC tracks are prevented from expanding equatorward due to the weak Coriolis force near the Equator. The second change is an eastward shift in the storm tracks that occur near the central Pacific in one of the multi-model ensembles, indicating a possible increase in the occurrence of storms near Hawaii in a warming climate."
6. North Atlantic polar lows and weather regimes: do current links persist in a warmer climate?
"While a relationship has been identified for the present climate, under a warmer climate, polar low favorable conditions are expected to occur less often, and the large-scale circulation variability appears to have reduced influence on stability, and thus, on polar low occurrence."
7. Examining the Climatology of Shortwave Radiation in the Northeastern United States
"Statistically significant decreases in shortwave radiation are identified which are dominated by changes during the summer months. Because this coincides with the season of greatest insolation and the highest potential for energy production, financial implications may be large for the solar energy industry if such trends persist into the future."
"Concerning the warming in the SFB, an examination of the observations and the heat budget in an unstructured-grid numerical model simulation suggested that the warming during the second half of 2014 and early 2016 originated in the adjacent California coastal ocean and propagated through the Golden Gate into the Bay."
"Climate models show that the spatial variability in sea-level trends observed by tide-gauge records is dominated by the GIA contribution and the steric contribution over 1900-2015. Climate models also show that it is important to include all contributions to sea-level changes as they cause significant local deviations; for example, the groundwater depletion around India which is responsible for the low 20th century sea-level rise in the region."
10. Extreme cyclone events in the Arctic: Wintertime variability and trends
11. Atmospheric eddies mediate lapse rate feedback and Arctic amplification
13. Towards consistent diagnostics of the coupled atmosphere and ocean energy budgets
14. Mechanisms underlying recent decadal changes in subpolar North Atlantic Ocean heat content
15. The warmer the ocean surface, the shallower the mixed layer: How much of this is true?
16. Horizontal and vertical variability of observed soil temperatures
22. Climatic variability of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and western US snowpack
23. The influence of topography on midlatitude cyclones on Australia's east coast
24. Detection of Sea Level Fingerprints derived from GRACE gravity data
25. Climatology of Heavy Precipitation over Corsica in the Period 1985 – 2015
27. Variability of temperature properties over Kenya based on observed and reanalyzed datasets
28. Bathymetric control of warm ocean water access along the East Antarctic Margin
30. Promoting flood risk reduction: the role of insurance in Germany and England
"We find that in both countries FRM [Flood Risk Management] is still a reactive, event-driven process, while anticipatory FRM remains underdeveloped. However, collaboration between insurers and FRM decision-makers has already been successful, for example in improving risk knowledge and awareness, while in other areas insurance acts as a disincentive for more risk reduction action."
31. The Role of Health in Urban Climate Adaptation: An Analysis of Six U.S. Cities
"We found that interviewees’ ability to understand the connection between climate and health was a major determinant for health adaptation implementation."
32. The Brazilian World Cup: too hot for soccer?
"The results showed the air temperature and relative humidity data analyzed here both individually and in the form of an index indicate that the World Cup held in Brazil in 2014 did not put any of the players at risk due to extreme heat."
33. Environmental indicators of oyster norovirus outbreaks in coastal waters
"Among the six environmental indicators, the most important three indicators, including water temperature, solar radiation and gage height, are capable of explaining 77.7% of model-predicted oyster norovirus outbreaks while the extremely low temperature alone may explain 37.2% of oyster norovirus outbreaks."
34. Sound physiological knowledge and principles in modeling shrinking of fishes under climate change
35. A first look at factors affecting aragonite compensation depth in the eastern Arabian Sea
36. Implications of climate and outdoor thermal comfort on tourism: the case of Italy
37. Potential climate change impacts on fire intensity and key wildfire suppression thresholds in Canada
38. Simulating plant invasion dynamics in mountain ecosystems under global change scenarios
39. Humidity does not appear to trigger leaf out in woody plants
40. Tracing biogeochemical subsidies from glacier runoff into Alaska's coastal marine food webs
41. Net community production in the bottom of first-year sea ice over the Arctic spring bloom
42. Negative Emissions from Stopping Deforestation and Forest Degradation, Globally
"Accounting for these committed emissions, we estimate that stopping deforestation and allowing secondary forests to grow would yield cumulative negative emissions between 2016 and 2100 of about 120 PgC, globally. Extending the lifetimes of wood products could potentially remove another 10 PgC from the atmosphere, for a total of approximately 130 PgC, or about 13 years of fossil fuel use at today's rate." ... "But if greater negative emissions are to be realized, they will require an expansion of forest area, greater efficiencies in converting harvested wood to long-lasting products and sources of energy, and novel approaches for sequestering carbon in soils. That is, they will require current management practices to change."
43. Assessing ExxonMobil’s climate change communications (1977–2014)
"We conclude that ExxonMobil contributed to advancing climate science—by way of its scientists’ academic publications—but promoted doubt about it in advertorials. Given this discrepancy, we conclude that ExxonMobil misled the public."
"We found that technology change indeed reduced aggregate carbon dioxide emissions, but the scale and intensity effects of technology change separately expressed positive and negative values. As a consequence, previous studies that only consider the intensity effect overestimate the impact of technology change on carbon dioxide emissions."
"Carbon emissions due to loss of urban trees were found to be significant and unaccounted for the metro rail project."
46. The perspectives of the urban poor in climate vulnerability assessments – The case of Kota, India
47. How Much Does Wind Power Reduce CO2 Emissions? Evidence from the Irish Single Electricity Market
48. An 810-year history of cold season temperature variability for northern Poland
"Investigations into climate-growth relationships found year-to-year ring-width variability to be more strongly correlated to cold season temperature (November to April) prior to the growing season than summer temperatures during tree-ring formation."
49. Late Quaternary glaciation of the northern Urals: a review and new observations
52. Investigating δ18O of Turbo sarmaticus (L. 1758) as an indicator of sea surface temperatures
53. On the spatio-temporal representativeness of observations
About five years ago, Skeptical Science had a weekly feature called "new research from last week" which was compiled by me. I stopped doing the posts at the end of 2012. Now I'll start making those posts again. This time I won't promise to have a post at a certain time every week, but only that there will roughly be one new post per week.
Below are the new papers I noticed between August 21 and August 27. The title for each paper is shown and links to its abstract. Additionally, I have included a quote from the abstract for some papers. Papers have been divided into four categories: climate change (containing climate science relating to climate change), climate change impacts (contains papers on how climate change affects different things such as biosphere and mankind), climate change mitigation (contains research on actions we can do to mitigate climate change), and other papers (contains for example papers on past climates and on general climate science).
1. North Atlantic observations sharpen meridional overturning projections
"Our results present more evidence that AMOC likely already started slowing down."
2. Longwave Emission Trends over Africa and Implications for Atlantic Hurricanes
"GCMs predict a continuation of the increasing OLR gradient in response to greenhouse gas forcing. Assuming a steady linear relationship between African easterly waves and tropical cyclogenesis, this result suggests a future increase in Atlantic tropical cyclone frequency by 10% (20%) at the end of the 21st century under the RCP 4.5 (8.5) forcing scenario."
3. Evaluating the evidence of a global sea surface temperature threshold for tropical cyclone genesis
"Here, a basin-by-basin analysis of the SST distributions in the five most active ocean basins is performed, which shows that there is no global SST threshold for TC genesis. The distributions of genesis SST show substantial variations between basins."
4. How much have California winters warmed over the last century?
"Averaged across California over 1920-2015, Tmax trends vary from -0.30 to 1.2 °C/century while Tmin trends range from 1.2 to 1.9 °C/century."
5. Western North Pacific tropical cyclone model tracks in present and future climates
"The first is a statistically significant increase in the North-South expansion, which can also be viewed as a poleward shift, as TC tracks are prevented from expanding equatorward due to the weak Coriolis force near the Equator. The second change is an eastward shift in the storm tracks that occur near the central Pacific in one of the multi-model ensembles, indicating a possible increase in the occurrence of storms near Hawaii in a warming climate."
6. North Atlantic polar lows and weather regimes: do current links persist in a warmer climate?
"While a relationship has been identified for the present climate, under a warmer climate, polar low favorable conditions are expected to occur less often, and the large-scale circulation variability appears to have reduced influence on stability, and thus, on polar low occurrence."
7. Examining the Climatology of Shortwave Radiation in the Northeastern United States
"Statistically significant decreases in shortwave radiation are identified which are dominated by changes during the summer months. Because this coincides with the season of greatest insolation and the highest potential for energy production, financial implications may be large for the solar energy industry if such trends persist into the future."
"Concerning the warming in the SFB, an examination of the observations and the heat budget in an unstructured-grid numerical model simulation suggested that the warming during the second half of 2014 and early 2016 originated in the adjacent California coastal ocean and propagated through the Golden Gate into the Bay."
"Climate models show that the spatial variability in sea-level trends observed by tide-gauge records is dominated by the GIA contribution and the steric contribution over 1900-2015. Climate models also show that it is important to include all contributions to sea-level changes as they cause significant local deviations; for example, the groundwater depletion around India which is responsible for the low 20th century sea-level rise in the region."
10. Extreme cyclone events in the Arctic: Wintertime variability and trends
11. Atmospheric eddies mediate lapse rate feedback and Arctic amplification
13. Towards consistent diagnostics of the coupled atmosphere and ocean energy budgets
14. Mechanisms underlying recent decadal changes in subpolar North Atlantic Ocean heat content
15. The warmer the ocean surface, the shallower the mixed layer: How much of this is true?
16. Horizontal and vertical variability of observed soil temperatures
22. Climatic variability of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans and western US snowpack
23. The influence of topography on midlatitude cyclones on Australia's east coast
24. Detection of Sea Level Fingerprints derived from GRACE gravity data
25. Climatology of Heavy Precipitation over Corsica in the Period 1985 – 2015
27. Variability of temperature properties over Kenya based on observed and reanalyzed datasets
28. Bathymetric control of warm ocean water access along the East Antarctic Margin
30. Promoting flood risk reduction: the role of insurance in Germany and England
"We find that in both countries FRM [Flood Risk Management] is still a reactive, event-driven process, while anticipatory FRM remains underdeveloped. However, collaboration between insurers and FRM decision-makers has already been successful, for example in improving risk knowledge and awareness, while in other areas insurance acts as a disincentive for more risk reduction action."
31. The Role of Health in Urban Climate Adaptation: An Analysis of Six U.S. Cities
"We found that interviewees’ ability to understand the connection between climate and health was a major determinant for health adaptation implementation."
32. The Brazilian World Cup: too hot for soccer?
"The results showed the air temperature and relative humidity data analyzed here both individually and in the form of an index indicate that the World Cup held in Brazil in 2014 did not put any of the players at risk due to extreme heat."
33. Environmental indicators of oyster norovirus outbreaks in coastal waters
"Among the six environmental indicators, the most important three indicators, including water temperature, solar radiation and gage height, are capable of explaining 77.7% of model-predicted oyster norovirus outbreaks while the extremely low temperature alone may explain 37.2% of oyster norovirus outbreaks."
34. Sound physiological knowledge and principles in modeling shrinking of fishes under climate change
35. A first look at factors affecting aragonite compensation depth in the eastern Arabian Sea
36. Implications of climate and outdoor thermal comfort on tourism: the case of Italy
37. Potential climate change impacts on fire intensity and key wildfire suppression thresholds in Canada
38. Simulating plant invasion dynamics in mountain ecosystems under global change scenarios
39. Humidity does not appear to trigger leaf out in woody plants
40. Tracing biogeochemical subsidies from glacier runoff into Alaska's coastal marine food webs
41. Net community production in the bottom of first-year sea ice over the Arctic spring bloom
42. Negative Emissions from Stopping Deforestation and Forest Degradation, Globally
"Accounting for these committed emissions, we estimate that stopping deforestation and allowing secondary forests to grow would yield cumulative negative emissions between 2016 and 2100 of about 120 PgC, globally. Extending the lifetimes of wood products could potentially remove another 10 PgC from the atmosphere, for a total of approximately 130 PgC, or about 13 years of fossil fuel use at today's rate." ... "But if greater negative emissions are to be realized, they will require an expansion of forest area, greater efficiencies in converting harvested wood to long-lasting products and sources of energy, and novel approaches for sequestering carbon in soils. That is, they will require current management practices to change."
43. Assessing ExxonMobil’s climate change communications (1977–2014)
"We conclude that ExxonMobil contributed to advancing climate science—by way of its scientists’ academic publications—but promoted doubt about it in advertorials. Given this discrepancy, we conclude that ExxonMobil misled the public."
"We found that technology change indeed reduced aggregate carbon dioxide emissions, but the scale and intensity effects of technology change separately expressed positive and negative values. As a consequence, previous studies that only consider the intensity effect overestimate the impact of technology change on carbon dioxide emissions."
"Carbon emissions due to loss of urban trees were found to be significant and unaccounted for the metro rail project."
46. The perspectives of the urban poor in climate vulnerability assessments – The case of Kota, India
47. How Much Does Wind Power Reduce CO2 Emissions? Evidence from the Irish Single Electricity Market
48. An 810-year history of cold season temperature variability for northern Poland
"Investigations into climate-growth relationships found year-to-year ring-width variability to be more strongly correlated to cold season temperature (November to April) prior to the growing season than summer temperatures during tree-ring formation."
49. Late Quaternary glaciation of the northern Urals: a review and new observations
52. Investigating δ18O of Turbo sarmaticus (L. 1758) as an indicator of sea surface temperatures
53. On the spatio-temporal representativeness of observations
Approximately one-quarter of Americans identify as evangelical Christians, and that group also tends to be more resistant to the reality of human-caused global warming. As a new paper by Brian Webb and Doug Hayhoe notes:
a 2008 study found that just 44% of evangelicals believed global warming to be caused mostly by human activities, compared to 64% of nonevangelicals (Smith and Leiserowitz, 2013) while, a 2011 survey found that only 27% of white evangelicals believed there to be a scientific consensus on climate change, compared to 40% of the American public (Public Religion Research Institute, 2011).
These findings appear to stem from two primary factors. First, evangelicals tend to be socially and politically conservative, and climate change is among the many issues that have become politically polarized in America. Second, there is sometimes a perceived conflict between science and religion, as Christians distrust what they perceive as scientists’ “moral agenda” on issues like evolution, stem cell research, and climate change. As Webb and Hayhoe describe it:
theological conservatism, scientific skepticism, political affiliation, and sociocultural influences have reinforced one another to instill climate skepticism into the evangelical tribe mentality, thus creating a formidable barrier to climate education efforts.
There are also evangelicals who have tried to convince their peer group about the reality of human-caused climate change and our moral obligation to address it. These include the Evangelical Environmental Network, the Evangelical Climate Initiative, the Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, and evangelical climate scientists like Sir John Houghton and Doug Hayhoe’s daughter Katharine Hayhoe(one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people). However, a majority of evangelicals continue to reject the reality of human-caused climate change, and there hasn’t been research quantifying the effectiveness of these evangelical climate leadership efforts.
Brian Webb and Doug Hayhoe’s study did just that by testing the effectiveness of a climate lecture delivered by Katharine Hayhoe to undergraduate students at the predominantly evangelical Houghton College in New York. Approximately half of the participants self-identified as conservatives and Republicans, 28% as liberals and Democrats, and the remainder as neither liberal nor conservative. 63% of the participants identified as evangelicals (most of the rest were of other Christian denominations).
Katharine Hayhoe’s lecture presented climate science information through the lens of an evangelical tradition. In addition to presenting scientific evidence, it included an introduction about the difference between faith and science (faith is based on things that are spiritually discerned, whereas science is based on observation). About six minutes of the 33- to 53-minute lectures were devoted to theology-based ethics.
The participants filled out a survey before and after the lecture, detailing their acceptance that global warming is happening, its cause, whether there’s a scientific consensus, how high of a priority they consider it, how worried they are about it, and how much it will harm various groups. The results showed an increase in pro-climate beliefs for every single question after listening to Katharine Hayhoe’s lecture.
Acceptance that global warming is happening increased for 48% of participants, and that humans are causing it for 39%. Awareness of the expert scientific consensus increased among 27% of participants. 52% were more worried about climate change after watching the lecture, and 67% increased their responses about how much harm climate change will do. 55% of participants viewed addressing climate change a higher priority after attending Katharine Hayhoe’s lecture. For most of the remaining participants, there was no change in responses to these questions.
By testing three different lecture approaches, Webb and Hayhoe also concluded that the lecture was equally effective when presented in person or as a recorded video, and that adding material about common climate misconceptions didn’t make the lecture any more effective.
There’s been some debate among social scientists about how much facts matter in today’s politically polarized society.
Approximately one-quarter of Americans identify as evangelical Christians, and that group also tends to be more resistant to the reality of human-caused global warming. As a new paper by Brian Webb and Doug Hayhoe notes:
a 2008 study found that just 44% of evangelicals believed global warming to be caused mostly by human activities, compared to 64% of nonevangelicals (Smith and Leiserowitz, 2013) while, a 2011 survey found that only 27% of white evangelicals believed there to be a scientific consensus on climate change, compared to 40% of the American public (Public Religion Research Institute, 2011).
These findings appear to stem from two primary factors. First, evangelicals tend to be socially and politically conservative, and climate change is among the many issues that have become politically polarized in America. Second, there is sometimes a perceived conflict between science and religion, as Christians distrust what they perceive as scientists’ “moral agenda” on issues like evolution, stem cell research, and climate change. As Webb and Hayhoe describe it:
theological conservatism, scientific skepticism, political affiliation, and sociocultural influences have reinforced one another to instill climate skepticism into the evangelical tribe mentality, thus creating a formidable barrier to climate education efforts.
There are also evangelicals who have tried to convince their peer group about the reality of human-caused climate change and our moral obligation to address it. These include the Evangelical Environmental Network, the Evangelical Climate Initiative, the Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, and evangelical climate scientists like Sir John Houghton and Doug Hayhoe’s daughter Katharine Hayhoe(one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people). However, a majority of evangelicals continue to reject the reality of human-caused climate change, and there hasn’t been research quantifying the effectiveness of these evangelical climate leadership efforts.
Brian Webb and Doug Hayhoe’s study did just that by testing the effectiveness of a climate lecture delivered by Katharine Hayhoe to undergraduate students at the predominantly evangelical Houghton College in New York. Approximately half of the participants self-identified as conservatives and Republicans, 28% as liberals and Democrats, and the remainder as neither liberal nor conservative. 63% of the participants identified as evangelicals (most of the rest were of other Christian denominations).
Katharine Hayhoe’s lecture presented climate science information through the lens of an evangelical tradition. In addition to presenting scientific evidence, it included an introduction about the difference between faith and science (faith is based on things that are spiritually discerned, whereas science is based on observation). About six minutes of the 33- to 53-minute lectures were devoted to theology-based ethics.
The participants filled out a survey before and after the lecture, detailing their acceptance that global warming is happening, its cause, whether there’s a scientific consensus, how high of a priority they consider it, how worried they are about it, and how much it will harm various groups. The results showed an increase in pro-climate beliefs for every single question after listening to Katharine Hayhoe’s lecture.
Acceptance that global warming is happening increased for 48% of participants, and that humans are causing it for 39%. Awareness of the expert scientific consensus increased among 27% of participants. 52% were more worried about climate change after watching the lecture, and 67% increased their responses about how much harm climate change will do. 55% of participants viewed addressing climate change a higher priority after attending Katharine Hayhoe’s lecture. For most of the remaining participants, there was no change in responses to these questions.
By testing three different lecture approaches, Webb and Hayhoe also concluded that the lecture was equally effective when presented in person or as a recorded video, and that adding material about common climate misconceptions didn’t make the lecture any more effective.
There’s been some debate among social scientists about how much facts matter in today’s politically polarized society.
A Harvest Moon via Dan Bush of Missouri Skies
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we call the closest full moon to the autumn equinox the Harvest Moon. In 2017, the September equinox comes on September 22. And full moon comes much earlier in the month, on the night of September 5-6 for the Americas. Is the September 5-6 full moon the Harvest Moon? Or is the only true Harvest Moon for the the Northern Hemisphere the full moon of October 5, which is, in fact, the closest full moon to our autumn equinox? Follow the links below to learn more.
Is the Harvest Moon bigger, or brighter or more colorful?
When is the Harvest Moon in 2017?
How did the Harvest Moon get its name?
When is the Southern Hemisphere’s Harvest Moon?
What are some other full moon names?
Harvest Moon sunset and moonrise – September 19, 2013 – as seen by EarthSky Facebook friend Andy Somers in Noumea, New Caledonia. One of the characteristics of the Harvest Moon is that it rises around the time of sunset for several evenings in a row.
What is a Harvest Moon? In skylore, the Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the autumn equinox. Depending on the year, the Harvest Moon – by the usual definition of that name – can come anywhere from two weeks before to two weeks after the autumn equinox.
Harvest Moon is just a name. But this full moon does have special characteristics, related to the time of moonrise. Nature is particularly cooperative in giving us full-looking moons near the horizon after sunset, for several evenings in a row, around the time of the Harvest Moon.
Here’s what happens. On average, the moon rises about 50 minutes later each day. But when a full moon happens close to the autumn equinox, the moon (at mid-temperate latitudes) rises only about 30 to 35 minutes later daily for several days before and after the full Harvest moon. For very high northern latitudes, there’s even less time between successive moonrises. It happens because the ecliptic – or the moon’s orbital path – makes a narrow angle with the evening horizon near the autumn equinox.
The difference between 50 minutes and 35 minutes may not seem like much. But it means that, in the nights after the full Harvest Moon, you’ll see the moon ascending in the east relatively soon after sunset. The moon will rise during or near twilight on these nights, making it seem as if there are several full moons – for a few nights in a row – around the time of the Harvest Moon.
In autumn, the angle of the ecliptic – or sun and moon’s path – makes a narrow angle with the horizon. Image via classicalastronomy.com.
The narrow angle of the ecliptic means the moon rises noticeably farther north on the horizon, from one night to the next. So there is no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise. Image via classicalastronomy.com.
Jarred Donkersley caught this photo of 2016’s Harvest Moon at the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, California.
Is the Harvest Moon bigger, or brighter or more colorful? Not necessarily.
Because the moon’s orbit around Earth isn’t a perfect circle, the distance of the Harvest Moon is a bit different every year. But the 2017 Harvest Moon does not count as a bigger-than-average full moon. Instead, the moon’s perigee for September is the 13th; for October, it’s the 9th. The September and October full moons aren’t particularly close full moons.
Still, in any year, you might think the Harvest Moon looks bigger or brighter or more orange. That’s because the Harvest Moon has such a powerful mystique. Many people look for it shortly after sunset around the time of full moon. After sunset around any full moon, the moon will always be near the horizon. It’ll just have risen. It’s the location of the moon near the horizon that causes the Harvest Moon – or any full moon – to look big and orange in color.
The orange color of a moon near the horizon is a true physical effect. It stems from the fact that – when you look toward the horizon – you are looking through a greater thickness of Earth’s atmosphere than when you gaze up and overhead. The atmosphere scatters blue light – that’s why the sky looks blue. The greater thickness of atmosphere in the direction of a horizon scatters blue light most effectively, but it lets red light pass through to your eyes. So a moon near the horizon takes on a yellow or orange or reddish hue.
The bigger-than-usual size of a moon seen near the horizon is something else entirely. It’s a trick that your eyes are playing – an illusion – called the Moon Illusion. You can find many lengthy explanations of the Moon Illusion by doing an online search for those words yourself.
Worldwide map via the US Naval Observatory. Day and night sides of Earth at the instant of the full moon (2017 September 6 at 7:03 UTC). The shadow line passing to the left of Africa depicts sunrise and the shadow line to the right of Australia represents sunset.
When is the Harvest Moon in 2017? More often than not, the September full moon is the Northern Hemisphere’s Harvest Moon. The Harvest Moon is usually defined as the full moon closest to the autumn equinox, which – in the Northern Hemisphere – comes on or near September 22 each year.
2016’s Harvest Moon fell in September. 2018’s Harvest Moon will, too.
But, in 2017, the September 6 full moon comes too early to be the Northern Hemisphere’s official Harvest Moon, according to the most widely accepted definition of the term. That’s because the full moon of October 5, 2017, will fall closer to this year’s September 22 equinox. The October 2017 full moon will be this year’s Harvest Moon, while the September 5-6 full moon will carry its ordinary monthly full moon name of Fruit Moon in the Northern Hemisphere (and Worm Moon, Lenten Moon, Crow Moon, Sugar Moon, Chaste Moon or Sap Moon in the Southern Hemisphere). Read more about full moon names.
However, in most respects, the September 2017 and October 2017 full moons can be regarded as Harvest Moon co-stars. By that we mean that both have the characteristics of a Harvest Moon. The primary Harvest Moon characteristic has to do with the moonrise. On the average, the moon rises some 50 minutes later with each passing day. Around the time of the full Harvest Moon, the lag time between successive moonrises is reduced to a yearly low.
In 2017, there’s no appreciable difference between the lag in moonrise times associated with September and October full moons. In both of these months, the moon rises a shorter-than-usual time after sunset for several evenings in a row, following the date of full moon.
Ed and Bettina Berg in Las Vegas, Nevada contributed this image of the 2016 Harvest Moon.
How did the Harvest Moon get its name? The shorter-than-usual lag time between moonrises around the full Harvest Moon means no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise for days in succession.
In the days before tractor lights, the lamp of the Harvest Moon helped farmers to gather their crops, despite the diminishing daylight hours. As the sun’s light faded in the west, the moon would soon rise in the east to illuminate the fields throughout the night.
Who named the Harvest Moon? That name probably sprang to the lips of farmers throughout the Northern Hemisphere, on autumn evenings, as the Harvest Moon aided in bringing in the crops.
The name was popularized in the early 20th century by the song below.
Shine On Harvest Moon
By Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth (1903)
Shine on, shine on harvest moon
Up in the sky,
I ain’t had no lovin’
Since January, February, June or July
Snow time ain’t no time to stay
Outdoors and spoon,
So shine on, shine on harvest moon,
For me and my gal.
And don’t miss this more recent version of the song by Leon Redbone.
When is the Southern Hemisphere’s Harvest Moon? For the Southern Hemisphere, the autumn equinox falls in March. So the Southern Hemisphere always has a full moon with these same characteristics – rising shortly after sunset for several nights in a row – in March or April.
What are some other full moon names? Every full moon has a name. The names vary in cultures around the world, and they particularly vary between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. One of the most famous full moon names – other than Harvest Moon – is Hunter’s Moon. That’s the name for the full moon after the Harvest Moon. For the Northern Hemisphere, this year’s Hunter’s Moon comes on October 16. Read more about full moon names here.
Bottom line: According to folklore, the closest full moon to the autumn equinox is the Harvest Moon. In 2017, the autumnal equinox for the Northern Hemisphere comes on September 22. So this hemisphere’s Harvest Moon is the full moon of October 5. But many will call the full moon on the night of September 5-6 a Harvest Moon, too. Indeed, the September 2017 full moon shares the characteristics of a Harvest Moon.
A Harvest Moon via Dan Bush of Missouri Skies
Here in the Northern Hemisphere, we call the closest full moon to the autumn equinox the Harvest Moon. In 2017, the September equinox comes on September 22. And full moon comes much earlier in the month, on the night of September 5-6 for the Americas. Is the September 5-6 full moon the Harvest Moon? Or is the only true Harvest Moon for the the Northern Hemisphere the full moon of October 5, which is, in fact, the closest full moon to our autumn equinox? Follow the links below to learn more.
Is the Harvest Moon bigger, or brighter or more colorful?
When is the Harvest Moon in 2017?
How did the Harvest Moon get its name?
When is the Southern Hemisphere’s Harvest Moon?
What are some other full moon names?
Harvest Moon sunset and moonrise – September 19, 2013 – as seen by EarthSky Facebook friend Andy Somers in Noumea, New Caledonia. One of the characteristics of the Harvest Moon is that it rises around the time of sunset for several evenings in a row.
What is a Harvest Moon? In skylore, the Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the autumn equinox. Depending on the year, the Harvest Moon – by the usual definition of that name – can come anywhere from two weeks before to two weeks after the autumn equinox.
Harvest Moon is just a name. But this full moon does have special characteristics, related to the time of moonrise. Nature is particularly cooperative in giving us full-looking moons near the horizon after sunset, for several evenings in a row, around the time of the Harvest Moon.
Here’s what happens. On average, the moon rises about 50 minutes later each day. But when a full moon happens close to the autumn equinox, the moon (at mid-temperate latitudes) rises only about 30 to 35 minutes later daily for several days before and after the full Harvest moon. For very high northern latitudes, there’s even less time between successive moonrises. It happens because the ecliptic – or the moon’s orbital path – makes a narrow angle with the evening horizon near the autumn equinox.
The difference between 50 minutes and 35 minutes may not seem like much. But it means that, in the nights after the full Harvest Moon, you’ll see the moon ascending in the east relatively soon after sunset. The moon will rise during or near twilight on these nights, making it seem as if there are several full moons – for a few nights in a row – around the time of the Harvest Moon.
In autumn, the angle of the ecliptic – or sun and moon’s path – makes a narrow angle with the horizon. Image via classicalastronomy.com.
The narrow angle of the ecliptic means the moon rises noticeably farther north on the horizon, from one night to the next. So there is no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise. Image via classicalastronomy.com.
Jarred Donkersley caught this photo of 2016’s Harvest Moon at the Vincent Thomas Bridge in San Pedro, California.
Is the Harvest Moon bigger, or brighter or more colorful? Not necessarily.
Because the moon’s orbit around Earth isn’t a perfect circle, the distance of the Harvest Moon is a bit different every year. But the 2017 Harvest Moon does not count as a bigger-than-average full moon. Instead, the moon’s perigee for September is the 13th; for October, it’s the 9th. The September and October full moons aren’t particularly close full moons.
Still, in any year, you might think the Harvest Moon looks bigger or brighter or more orange. That’s because the Harvest Moon has such a powerful mystique. Many people look for it shortly after sunset around the time of full moon. After sunset around any full moon, the moon will always be near the horizon. It’ll just have risen. It’s the location of the moon near the horizon that causes the Harvest Moon – or any full moon – to look big and orange in color.
The orange color of a moon near the horizon is a true physical effect. It stems from the fact that – when you look toward the horizon – you are looking through a greater thickness of Earth’s atmosphere than when you gaze up and overhead. The atmosphere scatters blue light – that’s why the sky looks blue. The greater thickness of atmosphere in the direction of a horizon scatters blue light most effectively, but it lets red light pass through to your eyes. So a moon near the horizon takes on a yellow or orange or reddish hue.
The bigger-than-usual size of a moon seen near the horizon is something else entirely. It’s a trick that your eyes are playing – an illusion – called the Moon Illusion. You can find many lengthy explanations of the Moon Illusion by doing an online search for those words yourself.
Worldwide map via the US Naval Observatory. Day and night sides of Earth at the instant of the full moon (2017 September 6 at 7:03 UTC). The shadow line passing to the left of Africa depicts sunrise and the shadow line to the right of Australia represents sunset.
When is the Harvest Moon in 2017? More often than not, the September full moon is the Northern Hemisphere’s Harvest Moon. The Harvest Moon is usually defined as the full moon closest to the autumn equinox, which – in the Northern Hemisphere – comes on or near September 22 each year.
2016’s Harvest Moon fell in September. 2018’s Harvest Moon will, too.
But, in 2017, the September 6 full moon comes too early to be the Northern Hemisphere’s official Harvest Moon, according to the most widely accepted definition of the term. That’s because the full moon of October 5, 2017, will fall closer to this year’s September 22 equinox. The October 2017 full moon will be this year’s Harvest Moon, while the September 5-6 full moon will carry its ordinary monthly full moon name of Fruit Moon in the Northern Hemisphere (and Worm Moon, Lenten Moon, Crow Moon, Sugar Moon, Chaste Moon or Sap Moon in the Southern Hemisphere). Read more about full moon names.
However, in most respects, the September 2017 and October 2017 full moons can be regarded as Harvest Moon co-stars. By that we mean that both have the characteristics of a Harvest Moon. The primary Harvest Moon characteristic has to do with the moonrise. On the average, the moon rises some 50 minutes later with each passing day. Around the time of the full Harvest Moon, the lag time between successive moonrises is reduced to a yearly low.
In 2017, there’s no appreciable difference between the lag in moonrise times associated with September and October full moons. In both of these months, the moon rises a shorter-than-usual time after sunset for several evenings in a row, following the date of full moon.
Ed and Bettina Berg in Las Vegas, Nevada contributed this image of the 2016 Harvest Moon.
How did the Harvest Moon get its name? The shorter-than-usual lag time between moonrises around the full Harvest Moon means no long period of darkness between sunset and moonrise for days in succession.
In the days before tractor lights, the lamp of the Harvest Moon helped farmers to gather their crops, despite the diminishing daylight hours. As the sun’s light faded in the west, the moon would soon rise in the east to illuminate the fields throughout the night.
Who named the Harvest Moon? That name probably sprang to the lips of farmers throughout the Northern Hemisphere, on autumn evenings, as the Harvest Moon aided in bringing in the crops.
The name was popularized in the early 20th century by the song below.
Shine On Harvest Moon
By Nora Bayes and Jack Norworth (1903)
Shine on, shine on harvest moon
Up in the sky,
I ain’t had no lovin’
Since January, February, June or July
Snow time ain’t no time to stay
Outdoors and spoon,
So shine on, shine on harvest moon,
For me and my gal.
And don’t miss this more recent version of the song by Leon Redbone.
When is the Southern Hemisphere’s Harvest Moon? For the Southern Hemisphere, the autumn equinox falls in March. So the Southern Hemisphere always has a full moon with these same characteristics – rising shortly after sunset for several nights in a row – in March or April.
What are some other full moon names? Every full moon has a name. The names vary in cultures around the world, and they particularly vary between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. One of the most famous full moon names – other than Harvest Moon – is Hunter’s Moon. That’s the name for the full moon after the Harvest Moon. For the Northern Hemisphere, this year’s Hunter’s Moon comes on October 16. Read more about full moon names here.
Bottom line: According to folklore, the closest full moon to the autumn equinox is the Harvest Moon. In 2017, the autumnal equinox for the Northern Hemisphere comes on September 22. So this hemisphere’s Harvest Moon is the full moon of October 5. But many will call the full moon on the night of September 5-6 a Harvest Moon, too. Indeed, the September 2017 full moon shares the characteristics of a Harvest Moon.
North Carolina’s Fort Macon State Park host a monthly dark night astronomy program open to the public. With the help of the Crystal Coast Star Gazers Group, telescopes are set up for public viewing. In this photo, group member Fred Angeli”s headlamp leaves a streak of light as he approaches his ‘scope to focus on the night sky. Photo by Doug Waters.
Interested in astronomy, but not sure where to begin? A first step can be to seek out your local astronomy club. It consists of a roomful of willing and able amateur astronomers, whose telescopes may offer your first glimpse of the cosmos. The Astronomical League, an umbrella organization of 240 amateur astronomy clubs and societies in the U.S.
The Astronomical League also helps us create and maintain the list of events on this page. Click here to visit the Astronomical League’s website.
Know of an event that’s not on the list below? Contact us.
Do you have a great photo of a star party in your area? Submit here.
Looking for an astronomy club in your area? Click here.
Special thanks also to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada for help with this list.
Jump below the photo for a list of upcoming events! If no web link is given, it’s because the information for the upcoming event hasn’t been posted yet. Check back.
Jim Elliott of Powell, Ohio, contributed this photo. He wrote: “The moon over Jupiter over Columbus, Ohio, at the OSU planetarium star party. April 16, 2016.”
Upcoming astronomy events …fall, 2017, and beyond
September 12–17
Astroblast
Oil City, Pennsylvania
www.oras.org
September 14–18
Iowa Star Party
Whiterock Conservancy’s Whiterock Resort,
Coon Rapids, Iowa
http://ift.tt/1XwZIit
September 15 – 17
Night Sky Photography Workshop with Taylor Photography
Moosehead Lake, Maine
miketaylorphoto.smugmug.com
September 15–17
Connecticut River Valley
Astronomers’ Conjunction
Northfield Mountain Recreation
and Environmental Center, Massachusetts
http://ift.tt/1XwZKXJ
September 15–17
Idaho Star Party
Bruneau Dunes State Park, Idaho
http://ift.tt/1IwNmuI
September 16–24
Okie-Tex Star Party
Kenton, Oklahoma
Oklahoma City Astronomy Club
www.okie-tex.com
September 21–23
Illinois Dark Skies Star Party
Jim Edgar Panther Creek State Fish and Wildlife
Area, Illinois
www.sas-sky.org
September 21–23
Great Basin National Park Astronomy Festival
Baker, Nevada
http://ift.tt/2x4Ldwe
September 21–24
Great Lakes Star Gaze
Gladwin, Michigan
http://ift.tt/1IwNmuK
September 21 – 23, 2017
Flagstaff Star Party
The Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition
Flagstaff, Arizona
flagstaffstarparty.org
September 21–24
2017 Bootleg Astronomy Star Party
Green River Conservation Area, Harmon, Illinois
http://ift.tt/1UuLmh3
September 21–24
Acadia Night Sky Festival
Mount Desert Island, Maine
http://ift.tt/2clpvZ2
September 21–24
Hidden Hollow Star Party
Hidden Hollow Camp,
Mansfield, Ohio
http://ift.tt/2vEg27v
September 22–24
Connecticut Star Party
Edmund D. Strang Scout
Reservation,
Goshen, Connecticut
www.asnh.org
September 22–24
Black Forest Star Party
Cherry Springs State Park,
Pennsylvania
bfsp.org
September 24 – 25, 2017
Night Sky Photography Workshop with Taylor Photography
Marshall Point Light, Maine
miketaylorphoto.smugmug.com
September 29–30
Astronomy at the Beach
Island Lake State Recreation Area, Michigan
http://ift.tt/2vEEyoX
September 30
Ventura County Astronomical Society—
Astronomy Day
Charles Temple Observatory, Moorpark College,
California
www.vcas.org
October 13–14
Kopernik AstroFest
Vestal, New York
http://ift.tt/2civStO
October 15–22
Peach State Star Gaze
Deerlick Astronomy Village, Crawfordville,
Georgia
http://ift.tt/1MWtJ5H
October 15–22
OzSky Star Safari, a.k.a. the Deepest
South Texas Star Safari
Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia
www.ozsky.org
Attendance is extremely limited.
October 16–21
Eldorado Star Party
X-Bar Ranch, Eldorado, Texas
http://ift.tt/1MWtJ5F
October 16-22
Staunton River Star Party
Scottsburg, Virginia
http://ift.tt/1IwNpXs
October 17–21
Enchanted Skies Star Party
Socorro, New Mexico
http://ift.tt/1MWtK9S
October 17–22
Deep South Star Gaze
Norwood, Louisiana
http://ift.tt/1IwNmuP
October 19–22
Nightfall
Borrego Springs, California
nightfallstarparty.com
October 19-22, 2017
Heart of America Star Party
Astronomical Society of Kansas City
Butler, Missouri
http://ift.tt/2rSuD0G
October 19–22
SJAC Fall Star Party
Belleplain State Forest, New Jersey
http://ift.tt/2ckQma7
October 20–22
Bays Mountain StarFest
Bays Mountain Park, Kingsport, Tennessee
http://ift.tt/2vEvz73
October 20–22
Chiefland Star Party
Chiefland, Florida
chieflandstarpartygroup.com
October 21
Virginia Association of Astronomical Societies
Back Bay Amateur Astronomers
http://ift.tt/2vEUTK4
November 3–5
Custer Jamboree
Custer Institute, Southold, New York
custerobservatory.org
Here is Dan Lewelyn at Deerlick Astronomy Village near Atlanta, Georgia. Photo by Dave Woolsteen.
Texas Star Party, one of the biggest public astronomy events of each year, drawing about 500 deep-sky enthusiasts and their telescopes to the Davis Mountains of West Texas. Image used with permission, via Todd Hargis and Ron Ronhaar.
Bottom line: List of astronomy and night sky events for the public, for 2017, compiled in cooperation with the awesome Astronomical League. Join in, and have fun!
North Carolina’s Fort Macon State Park host a monthly dark night astronomy program open to the public. With the help of the Crystal Coast Star Gazers Group, telescopes are set up for public viewing. In this photo, group member Fred Angeli”s headlamp leaves a streak of light as he approaches his ‘scope to focus on the night sky. Photo by Doug Waters.
Interested in astronomy, but not sure where to begin? A first step can be to seek out your local astronomy club. It consists of a roomful of willing and able amateur astronomers, whose telescopes may offer your first glimpse of the cosmos. The Astronomical League, an umbrella organization of 240 amateur astronomy clubs and societies in the U.S.
The Astronomical League also helps us create and maintain the list of events on this page. Click here to visit the Astronomical League’s website.
Know of an event that’s not on the list below? Contact us.
Do you have a great photo of a star party in your area? Submit here.
Looking for an astronomy club in your area? Click here.
Special thanks also to the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada for help with this list.
Jump below the photo for a list of upcoming events! If no web link is given, it’s because the information for the upcoming event hasn’t been posted yet. Check back.
Jim Elliott of Powell, Ohio, contributed this photo. He wrote: “The moon over Jupiter over Columbus, Ohio, at the OSU planetarium star party. April 16, 2016.”
Upcoming astronomy events …fall, 2017, and beyond
September 12–17
Astroblast
Oil City, Pennsylvania
www.oras.org
September 14–18
Iowa Star Party
Whiterock Conservancy’s Whiterock Resort,
Coon Rapids, Iowa
http://ift.tt/1XwZIit
September 15 – 17
Night Sky Photography Workshop with Taylor Photography
Moosehead Lake, Maine
miketaylorphoto.smugmug.com
September 15–17
Connecticut River Valley
Astronomers’ Conjunction
Northfield Mountain Recreation
and Environmental Center, Massachusetts
http://ift.tt/1XwZKXJ
September 15–17
Idaho Star Party
Bruneau Dunes State Park, Idaho
http://ift.tt/1IwNmuI
September 16–24
Okie-Tex Star Party
Kenton, Oklahoma
Oklahoma City Astronomy Club
www.okie-tex.com
September 21–23
Illinois Dark Skies Star Party
Jim Edgar Panther Creek State Fish and Wildlife
Area, Illinois
www.sas-sky.org
September 21–23
Great Basin National Park Astronomy Festival
Baker, Nevada
http://ift.tt/2x4Ldwe
September 21–24
Great Lakes Star Gaze
Gladwin, Michigan
http://ift.tt/1IwNmuK
September 21 – 23, 2017
Flagstaff Star Party
The Flagstaff Dark Skies Coalition
Flagstaff, Arizona
flagstaffstarparty.org
September 21–24
2017 Bootleg Astronomy Star Party
Green River Conservation Area, Harmon, Illinois
http://ift.tt/1UuLmh3
September 21–24
Acadia Night Sky Festival
Mount Desert Island, Maine
http://ift.tt/2clpvZ2
September 21–24
Hidden Hollow Star Party
Hidden Hollow Camp,
Mansfield, Ohio
http://ift.tt/2vEg27v
September 22–24
Connecticut Star Party
Edmund D. Strang Scout
Reservation,
Goshen, Connecticut
www.asnh.org
September 22–24
Black Forest Star Party
Cherry Springs State Park,
Pennsylvania
bfsp.org
September 24 – 25, 2017
Night Sky Photography Workshop with Taylor Photography
Marshall Point Light, Maine
miketaylorphoto.smugmug.com
September 29–30
Astronomy at the Beach
Island Lake State Recreation Area, Michigan
http://ift.tt/2vEEyoX
September 30
Ventura County Astronomical Society—
Astronomy Day
Charles Temple Observatory, Moorpark College,
California
www.vcas.org
October 13–14
Kopernik AstroFest
Vestal, New York
http://ift.tt/2civStO
October 15–22
Peach State Star Gaze
Deerlick Astronomy Village, Crawfordville,
Georgia
http://ift.tt/1MWtJ5H
October 15–22
OzSky Star Safari, a.k.a. the Deepest
South Texas Star Safari
Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia
www.ozsky.org
Attendance is extremely limited.
October 16–21
Eldorado Star Party
X-Bar Ranch, Eldorado, Texas
http://ift.tt/1MWtJ5F
October 16-22
Staunton River Star Party
Scottsburg, Virginia
http://ift.tt/1IwNpXs
October 17–21
Enchanted Skies Star Party
Socorro, New Mexico
http://ift.tt/1MWtK9S
October 17–22
Deep South Star Gaze
Norwood, Louisiana
http://ift.tt/1IwNmuP
October 19–22
Nightfall
Borrego Springs, California
nightfallstarparty.com
October 19-22, 2017
Heart of America Star Party
Astronomical Society of Kansas City
Butler, Missouri
http://ift.tt/2rSuD0G
October 19–22
SJAC Fall Star Party
Belleplain State Forest, New Jersey
http://ift.tt/2ckQma7
October 20–22
Bays Mountain StarFest
Bays Mountain Park, Kingsport, Tennessee
http://ift.tt/2vEvz73
October 20–22
Chiefland Star Party
Chiefland, Florida
chieflandstarpartygroup.com
October 21
Virginia Association of Astronomical Societies
Back Bay Amateur Astronomers
http://ift.tt/2vEUTK4
November 3–5
Custer Jamboree
Custer Institute, Southold, New York
custerobservatory.org
Here is Dan Lewelyn at Deerlick Astronomy Village near Atlanta, Georgia. Photo by Dave Woolsteen.
Texas Star Party, one of the biggest public astronomy events of each year, drawing about 500 deep-sky enthusiasts and their telescopes to the Davis Mountains of West Texas. Image used with permission, via Todd Hargis and Ron Ronhaar.
Bottom line: List of astronomy and night sky events for the public, for 2017, compiled in cooperation with the awesome Astronomical League. Join in, and have fun!
Maiopatagium in Jurassic forest in crepuscular (dawn and dusk) light: A mother with a baby in suspending roosting posture, climbing on tree trunk, and in gliding. Image via April I. Neander/UChicago.
Scientists say that two 160 million-year-old mammal fossils discovered in China, from the dinosaur-dominated Jurassic Period are the are the oldest known gliders in the long history of early mammals. With long limbs, long hand and foot fingers, and wing-like membranes, these early mammals – Maiopatagium furculiferum and Vilevolodon diplomylos – evolved to glide and live in trees.
The new discoveries suggest that the volant – or flying – way of life evolved among mammalian ancestors 100 million years earlier than the first modern mammal fliers. That’s according to two papers international team of scientists from the University of Chicago and Beijing Museum of Natural History published in the journal Nature in August 2017 (here and here.)
Zhe-Xi Luo, PhD is a professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago and an author on both papers. Luo said in a statement:
These Jurassic mammals are truly ‘the first in glide.’ In a way, they got the first wings among all mammals.
With every new mammal fossil from the Age of Dinosaurs, we continue to be surprised by how diverse mammalian forerunners were in both feeding and locomotor adaptations. The groundwork for mammals’ successful diversification today appears to have been laid long ago.
The Jurassic Maiopatagium and Vilevolodon are from an entirely extinct branch on the mammalian evolutionary tree, but are considered to be among forerunners to modern mammals. From a University of Chicago statement about the studies:
The ability to glide in the air is one of the many remarkable adaptations in mammals. Most mammals live on land, but volant mammals, including flying squirrels and bats that flap bird-like wings, made an important transition between land and aerial habitats. The ability to glide between trees allowed the ancient animals to find food that was inaccessible to other land animals. That evolutionary advantage can still be seen among today’s mammals such as flying squirrels in North America and Asia, scaly-tailed gliders of Africa, marsupial sugar gliders of Australia and colugos of Southeast Asia.
A gliding mammaliaform feeding on the soft parts of a bennethelian plant of the Jurassic. Image via April I. Neander/UChicago.
Both of the fossils show the exquisitely fossilized, wing-like skin membranes between their front and back limbs. They also show many skeletal features in their shoulder joints and forelimbs that gave the ancient animals the agility to be capable gliders. Evolutionarily, the two fossils, discovered in the Tiaojishan Formation, northeast of Beijing, China, represent the earliest examples of gliding behavior among extinct mammal ancestors.
There are some differences between the two newly-discovered extinct mammals and modern gliders, the researchers noted. Today, the hallmark of most mammal gliders is their herbivorous diet that typically consists of seeds, fruits and other soft parts of flowering plants. But Maiopatagium and Vilevolodon lived in a Jurassic world where the plant life was dominated by ferns and gymnosperm plants like cycads, gingkoes and conifers – long before flowering plants came to dominate in the Cretaceous Period, and their way of life was also associated with feeding on these entirely different plants. This distinct diet and lifestyle evolved again some 100 million years later among modern mammals.
Bottom line: Two 160 million-year-old fossils discovered in China are the oldest known mammal gliders.
Read more from the University of Chicago
Maiopatagium in Jurassic forest in crepuscular (dawn and dusk) light: A mother with a baby in suspending roosting posture, climbing on tree trunk, and in gliding. Image via April I. Neander/UChicago.
Scientists say that two 160 million-year-old mammal fossils discovered in China, from the dinosaur-dominated Jurassic Period are the are the oldest known gliders in the long history of early mammals. With long limbs, long hand and foot fingers, and wing-like membranes, these early mammals – Maiopatagium furculiferum and Vilevolodon diplomylos – evolved to glide and live in trees.
The new discoveries suggest that the volant – or flying – way of life evolved among mammalian ancestors 100 million years earlier than the first modern mammal fliers. That’s according to two papers international team of scientists from the University of Chicago and Beijing Museum of Natural History published in the journal Nature in August 2017 (here and here.)
Zhe-Xi Luo, PhD is a professor of organismal biology and anatomy at the University of Chicago and an author on both papers. Luo said in a statement:
These Jurassic mammals are truly ‘the first in glide.’ In a way, they got the first wings among all mammals.
With every new mammal fossil from the Age of Dinosaurs, we continue to be surprised by how diverse mammalian forerunners were in both feeding and locomotor adaptations. The groundwork for mammals’ successful diversification today appears to have been laid long ago.
The Jurassic Maiopatagium and Vilevolodon are from an entirely extinct branch on the mammalian evolutionary tree, but are considered to be among forerunners to modern mammals. From a University of Chicago statement about the studies:
The ability to glide in the air is one of the many remarkable adaptations in mammals. Most mammals live on land, but volant mammals, including flying squirrels and bats that flap bird-like wings, made an important transition between land and aerial habitats. The ability to glide between trees allowed the ancient animals to find food that was inaccessible to other land animals. That evolutionary advantage can still be seen among today’s mammals such as flying squirrels in North America and Asia, scaly-tailed gliders of Africa, marsupial sugar gliders of Australia and colugos of Southeast Asia.
A gliding mammaliaform feeding on the soft parts of a bennethelian plant of the Jurassic. Image via April I. Neander/UChicago.
Both of the fossils show the exquisitely fossilized, wing-like skin membranes between their front and back limbs. They also show many skeletal features in their shoulder joints and forelimbs that gave the ancient animals the agility to be capable gliders. Evolutionarily, the two fossils, discovered in the Tiaojishan Formation, northeast of Beijing, China, represent the earliest examples of gliding behavior among extinct mammal ancestors.
There are some differences between the two newly-discovered extinct mammals and modern gliders, the researchers noted. Today, the hallmark of most mammal gliders is their herbivorous diet that typically consists of seeds, fruits and other soft parts of flowering plants. But Maiopatagium and Vilevolodon lived in a Jurassic world where the plant life was dominated by ferns and gymnosperm plants like cycads, gingkoes and conifers – long before flowering plants came to dominate in the Cretaceous Period, and their way of life was also associated with feeding on these entirely different plants. This distinct diet and lifestyle evolved again some 100 million years later among modern mammals.
Bottom line: Two 160 million-year-old fossils discovered in China are the oldest known mammal gliders.
Read more from the University of Chicago
Tonight – August 30, 2017 – the moon is quite close to the planet Saturn on the sky’s dome, and it’s also at or near apogee – the moon’s farthest point from Earth for the month. The apogee on August 30, 2017, has the distinction of being the closest apogee of 2017, making tonight’s moon the closest far-moon of 2017.
Wait … what? Closest far-moon. Yes, on August 30, 2017, at 11:25 UTC, the moon reaches apogee – its most distant point from Earth for the month. But this apogee is the closest of the 13 lunar apogees that occur in 2017.
At this month’s closest apogee, the moon lies 404,308 km distant. Contrast this with the farthest apogee of the year on December 19, 2017, when the moon will lie 406,603 km away. The mean apogee distance is 405,504 km.
The moon is also near first quarter phase now. First quarter moon happened the day before this month’s lunar apogee, on August 29. It’s no coincidence that the first quarter moon – and closest far-moon – happen in close vicinity of one another.
In any year, it’s either the first quarter moon or last quarter moon that closely coincides with the year’s closest apogee. Next year, in 2018, the closest apogee of the year (404,144 km) will happen when the last quarter moon and lunar apogee fall within a few hours of each other on April 8, 2018.
Often – but not always – the year’s closest apogee will recur in a period of 14 lunar months (14 successive returns to the same phase). That’s because 14 lunar months is nearly commensurate to 15 returns to apogee.
14 lunar months x 29.53059 days = 413.428 days
15 returns to apogee x 27.55455 days = 413.318 days
This 413-day period is approximately equal to one year, month month and 18 days. And, guess what? Fourteen lunar months lunar after 2019’s closest apogee on April 8, 2018 (404,144 km), the following year’s closest apogee will fall on May 26, 2019 (404,138 km). Then 14 lunar months after the year’s closest apogee on May 26, 2019 (404,138 km), it’ll be the year’s closest apogee on July 12, 2020 (404,199 km).
Today – August 30, 2017 – the lunar apogee distance of 404,308 km presents the closest apogee of the year.
Lunar perigee and apogee calculator
Moon at perigee and apogee: 2001 to 2100
Phases of the moon: 2001 to 2100
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Bottom line: The closest far-moon of 2017 happens on August 30. The year’s closest far-moon often takes place in the month that the quarter moon and apogee most closely align.
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Tonight – August 30, 2017 – the moon is quite close to the planet Saturn on the sky’s dome, and it’s also at or near apogee – the moon’s farthest point from Earth for the month. The apogee on August 30, 2017, has the distinction of being the closest apogee of 2017, making tonight’s moon the closest far-moon of 2017.
Wait … what? Closest far-moon. Yes, on August 30, 2017, at 11:25 UTC, the moon reaches apogee – its most distant point from Earth for the month. But this apogee is the closest of the 13 lunar apogees that occur in 2017.
At this month’s closest apogee, the moon lies 404,308 km distant. Contrast this with the farthest apogee of the year on December 19, 2017, when the moon will lie 406,603 km away. The mean apogee distance is 405,504 km.
The moon is also near first quarter phase now. First quarter moon happened the day before this month’s lunar apogee, on August 29. It’s no coincidence that the first quarter moon – and closest far-moon – happen in close vicinity of one another.
In any year, it’s either the first quarter moon or last quarter moon that closely coincides with the year’s closest apogee. Next year, in 2018, the closest apogee of the year (404,144 km) will happen when the last quarter moon and lunar apogee fall within a few hours of each other on April 8, 2018.
Often – but not always – the year’s closest apogee will recur in a period of 14 lunar months (14 successive returns to the same phase). That’s because 14 lunar months is nearly commensurate to 15 returns to apogee.
14 lunar months x 29.53059 days = 413.428 days
15 returns to apogee x 27.55455 days = 413.318 days
This 413-day period is approximately equal to one year, month month and 18 days. And, guess what? Fourteen lunar months lunar after 2019’s closest apogee on April 8, 2018 (404,144 km), the following year’s closest apogee will fall on May 26, 2019 (404,138 km). Then 14 lunar months after the year’s closest apogee on May 26, 2019 (404,138 km), it’ll be the year’s closest apogee on July 12, 2020 (404,199 km).
Today – August 30, 2017 – the lunar apogee distance of 404,308 km presents the closest apogee of the year.
Lunar perigee and apogee calculator
Moon at perigee and apogee: 2001 to 2100
Phases of the moon: 2001 to 2100
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Bottom line: The closest far-moon of 2017 happens on August 30. The year’s closest far-moon often takes place in the month that the quarter moon and apogee most closely align.
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Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project acquired this image of asteroid 3122 Florence on August 28, 2017. See their livestream on August 31.
Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project in Rome acquired this image of asteroid 3122 Florence on August 28, 2017. Named for Florence Nightingale, this asteroid is the biggest near-Earth object to pass this close since this category of objects was discovered over a century ago! It’s at least 2.7 miles (4.35 km) in diameter. It’ll safely pass by our planet on September 1, 2017 at over 18 times the Earth-moon distance.
The cool thing is that the asteroid will certainly be visible in small telescopes and might even be visible in binoculars; here are charts that can help you find it.
The Virtual Telescope Project will have a livestream of Florence’s close pass. The livestream is scheduled for August 31, 2017, starting at 19:30 UTC; translate to your time zone.
Thanks for the photo, Gian!
Bottom line: Photo of asteroid 3122 Florence, a large near-Earth object, which will pass Earth on September 1, 2017.
Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project acquired this image of asteroid 3122 Florence on August 28, 2017. See their livestream on August 31.
Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project in Rome acquired this image of asteroid 3122 Florence on August 28, 2017. Named for Florence Nightingale, this asteroid is the biggest near-Earth object to pass this close since this category of objects was discovered over a century ago! It’s at least 2.7 miles (4.35 km) in diameter. It’ll safely pass by our planet on September 1, 2017 at over 18 times the Earth-moon distance.
The cool thing is that the asteroid will certainly be visible in small telescopes and might even be visible in binoculars; here are charts that can help you find it.
The Virtual Telescope Project will have a livestream of Florence’s close pass. The livestream is scheduled for August 31, 2017, starting at 19:30 UTC; translate to your time zone.
Thanks for the photo, Gian!
Bottom line: Photo of asteroid 3122 Florence, a large near-Earth object, which will pass Earth on September 1, 2017.
Here’s what a first quarter moon looks like. The terminator line – or line between light and dark on the moon – appears straight. Aqilla Othman in Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia caught this photo on May 3, 2017. Notice that he caught Lunar X and Lunar V.
The moon reaches its first quarter phase on August 29, 2017, at 08:13 UTC. Full moon will be September 6 at 07:03 UTC; translate UTC to your time zone. Many will think of the September 6 full moon as the Harvest Moon, but others will say the Harvest Moon of 2017 falls in October. Read more about 2017’s Harvest Moon here.
A first quarter moon shows half of its lighted hemisphere – half of its day side – to Earth. At quarter moon, the moon’s disk is half-illuminated by sunlight and half-immersed in the moon’s own shadow.
We call this moon a quarter and not a half because it is one quarter of the way around in its orbit of Earth, as measured from one new moon to the next. Also, although a first quarter moon appears half-lit to us, the illuminated portion we see of a first quarter moon truly is just a quarter. We’re now seeing half the moon’s day side, that is. Another lighted quarter of the moon shines just as brightly in the direction opposite Earth!
Here’s a closer look at Lunar X and Lunar V. Photo taken May 3, 2017 by Izaty Liyana in Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. What is Lunar X?
And what about the term half moon? That’s a beloved term, but not an official one.
A first quarter moon rises at noon and is highest in the sky at sunset. It sets around midnight. First quarter moon comes a week after new moon. Now, as seen from above, the moon in its orbit around Earth is at right angles to a line between the Earth and sun.
As the moon orbits Earth, it changes phase in an orderly way. Follow these links to understand the various phases of the moon.
Four keys to understanding moon phases
Where’s the moon? Waxing crescent
Where’s the moon? First quarter
Where’s the moon? Waxing gibbous
What’s special about a full moon?
Where’s the moon? Waning gibbous
Where’s the moon? Last quarter
Where’s the moon? Waning crescent
Where’s the moon? New phase
Here’s what a first quarter moon looks like. The terminator line – or line between light and dark on the moon – appears straight. Aqilla Othman in Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia caught this photo on May 3, 2017. Notice that he caught Lunar X and Lunar V.
The moon reaches its first quarter phase on August 29, 2017, at 08:13 UTC. Full moon will be September 6 at 07:03 UTC; translate UTC to your time zone. Many will think of the September 6 full moon as the Harvest Moon, but others will say the Harvest Moon of 2017 falls in October. Read more about 2017’s Harvest Moon here.
A first quarter moon shows half of its lighted hemisphere – half of its day side – to Earth. At quarter moon, the moon’s disk is half-illuminated by sunlight and half-immersed in the moon’s own shadow.
We call this moon a quarter and not a half because it is one quarter of the way around in its orbit of Earth, as measured from one new moon to the next. Also, although a first quarter moon appears half-lit to us, the illuminated portion we see of a first quarter moon truly is just a quarter. We’re now seeing half the moon’s day side, that is. Another lighted quarter of the moon shines just as brightly in the direction opposite Earth!
Here’s a closer look at Lunar X and Lunar V. Photo taken May 3, 2017 by Izaty Liyana in Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan, Malaysia. What is Lunar X?
And what about the term half moon? That’s a beloved term, but not an official one.
A first quarter moon rises at noon and is highest in the sky at sunset. It sets around midnight. First quarter moon comes a week after new moon. Now, as seen from above, the moon in its orbit around Earth is at right angles to a line between the Earth and sun.
As the moon orbits Earth, it changes phase in an orderly way. Follow these links to understand the various phases of the moon.
Four keys to understanding moon phases
Where’s the moon? Waxing crescent
Where’s the moon? First quarter
Where’s the moon? Waxing gibbous
What’s special about a full moon?
Where’s the moon? Waning gibbous
Where’s the moon? Last quarter
Where’s the moon? Waning crescent
Where’s the moon? New phase
Two people walk down a flooded section of Interstate 610 in floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey on Sunday, August 27, 2017, in Houston, Texas. Image via The Conversation/AP Photo/David J. Phillip.
By Nina Lam, Louisiana State University
Catastrophic flooding in Houston from Hurricane Harvey is the latest reminder that floods kill more people in the United States than any other type of natural disaster and are the most common natural disaster worldwide. Many communities along U.S. coastlines have begun to take heed and have slowed development in coastal flood zones. The bad news, as Harvey shows, is that inland communities are also at risk – and in some, development in flood zones is increasing.
With post-doctoral research associate Yi Qiang and graduate students, I recently studied development patterns in the United States from 2001 to 2011. We found that while new urban development in flood zones near coasts has generally declined, it has grown in inland counties. This is a worrisome trend. It implies that people who have experienced flooding on the coast migrate inland, but may not realize that they are still vulnerable if they relocate to an inland flood zone.
That’s what we have seen firsthand here in Louisiana. Thousands of people fled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and settled 80 miles inland in Baton Rouge. A decade later, many of these same people lost everything again when a 500-year flood event struck Baton Rouge in August 2016.
Climate change effects, such as sea level rise and potentially more extreme weather, are increasing the risk of flooding, hurricanes and storm surges in coastal areas. Some communities are considering moving coastal populations inland to protect them. However, our research shows that people should be very careful about moving inland. They can still face flood hazards if their property is located in a high-risk flood zone.
Damage from floods in Boulder County, Colorado, September 2013. Image via Steve Zumwalt/FEMA.
Not just a coastal issue
Flooding can happen wherever large rainstorms stall over an area, as we have seen in Boulder, Colorado in 2013; in Texas and Louisiana in 2016; and over Houston now. However, if communities take steps to reduce flood risk, they can mitigate the danger to people and property.
When we assess flood risk in a given location, we consider three questions.
– Hazard: How likely is a flood event?
– Exposure: How many people and physical assets are located there?
– Vulnerability: Do people have the capacity to deal with the event?
Flood risk is the product of these three elements.
We can decrease flood risk by reducing any of the three elements. For example, communities can reduce hazard by building flood control structures, such as dams and levees. They can use laws and policies, such as land use controls, to reduce exposure by steering housing development away from flood zones. And they can make people and property less vulnerable through other measures, such as elevating houses and developing better flood warning systems and emergency preparedness plans.
How can people learn about flood risks where they live? The Federal Emergency Management Agency has created flood zone maps for most parts of the United States. The maps are based on models that consider factors such as elevation, average rainfall and whether a location is near a river or lake that could overflow.
FEMA maps classify flood zones into three categories: high-risk, moderate-low risk and undetermined. High-risk zones have at least a 1 percent chance of being inundated by flood in any given year. These areas are also called base flood or 100-year flood zones.
To obtain a federally insured mortgage on property in a 100-year flood zone, buyers are required to have flood insurance. This policy is designed to make people less vulnerable in the event of a flood, but it increases the cost of home ownership. As a result, flood zone designations can be very contentious.
100-year flood zones are based on a combination of statistics, hydrogeology and society’s tolerance for risk.
Moving into harm’s way
We undertook this study because we wanted to develop a clear baseline showing how Americans’ exposure to flood hazards has changed over the past decade. To assess levels of exposure to flood hazards nationwide, we compiled urban development, flood zone and census data and overlaid them on a county map of the nation.
Overall, we estimated that as of 2011, more than 25 million Americans lived in flood zones. We also found that inland communities were less responsive to flood hazards than coastal communities and were doing a poorer job of steering development out of flood-prone areas.
The three U.S. counties with the largest concentrations of people living in flood zones are located on the Gulf of Mexico. They are Cameron Parish, Louisiana (population 6,401, with 93.6 percent in flood zones); Monroe County, Florida (population 66,804, with 91.4 percent in flood zones); and Galveston County, Texas (population 241,204, with 82.8 percent in flood zones).
These are all coastal communities, where flood risks should be well-known to all residents. But we also found inland counties where the share of the total population living in flood zones increased over the decade we examined. A number of those with the largest increases are bordered by rivers, such as Marshall County in western Kentucky, which sits between Kentucky Lake and the Ohio River. We also identified several hot spots where urban development has increased in coastal flood zones, including New York City and Miami.
Heavy rainfall from Tropical Storm Harvey is forecast to reach hundreds of miles inland. Image via National Weather Service.
Reducing exposure now
This alarming trend points to a need for more awareness, education and communication about flood risk, especially in inland counties. More affordable housing in nonflood zones and strategies to mitigate floods are also needed, especially inland.
Why would people move to inland flood zone areas? Some may be unaware of the risk. Others may plan to adapt through steps such as elevating their houses or buying flood insurance. Still other may accept the risk because they want to be closer to relatives or workplaces, or for other cultural, political or institutional reasons.
Our analysis has pinpointed a number of regions of concern. The next step is to produce in-depth analyses of these regions, in order to understand why people are locating in flood zones there, and to devise local strategies to reduce overall U.S. flood risks. Climate change, land subsidence or sinking, and construction of new levees and dams will change long-term flood exposure in these areas over time. Therefore, local governments, mortgage lenders and homeowners should review current FEMA flood hazard maps for accuracy.
This research provides national context for a detailed study that we are carrying out examining resilience and sustainability in the Mississippi River Delta. Our goal is to understand how human actions combined with natural environmental conditions may have caused land to sink in the Mississippi Delta. Our research on development in flood zones reminds us that flooding problems in low-lying coastal regions are not unique and also affect areas well away from the shore.
Nina Lam, Distinguished Professor of Louisiana Environmental Studies, Louisiana State University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Two people walk down a flooded section of Interstate 610 in floodwaters from Tropical Storm Harvey on Sunday, August 27, 2017, in Houston, Texas. Image via The Conversation/AP Photo/David J. Phillip.
By Nina Lam, Louisiana State University
Catastrophic flooding in Houston from Hurricane Harvey is the latest reminder that floods kill more people in the United States than any other type of natural disaster and are the most common natural disaster worldwide. Many communities along U.S. coastlines have begun to take heed and have slowed development in coastal flood zones. The bad news, as Harvey shows, is that inland communities are also at risk – and in some, development in flood zones is increasing.
With post-doctoral research associate Yi Qiang and graduate students, I recently studied development patterns in the United States from 2001 to 2011. We found that while new urban development in flood zones near coasts has generally declined, it has grown in inland counties. This is a worrisome trend. It implies that people who have experienced flooding on the coast migrate inland, but may not realize that they are still vulnerable if they relocate to an inland flood zone.
That’s what we have seen firsthand here in Louisiana. Thousands of people fled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 and settled 80 miles inland in Baton Rouge. A decade later, many of these same people lost everything again when a 500-year flood event struck Baton Rouge in August 2016.
Climate change effects, such as sea level rise and potentially more extreme weather, are increasing the risk of flooding, hurricanes and storm surges in coastal areas. Some communities are considering moving coastal populations inland to protect them. However, our research shows that people should be very careful about moving inland. They can still face flood hazards if their property is located in a high-risk flood zone.
Damage from floods in Boulder County, Colorado, September 2013. Image via Steve Zumwalt/FEMA.
Not just a coastal issue
Flooding can happen wherever large rainstorms stall over an area, as we have seen in Boulder, Colorado in 2013; in Texas and Louisiana in 2016; and over Houston now. However, if communities take steps to reduce flood risk, they can mitigate the danger to people and property.
When we assess flood risk in a given location, we consider three questions.
– Hazard: How likely is a flood event?
– Exposure: How many people and physical assets are located there?
– Vulnerability: Do people have the capacity to deal with the event?
Flood risk is the product of these three elements.
We can decrease flood risk by reducing any of the three elements. For example, communities can reduce hazard by building flood control structures, such as dams and levees. They can use laws and policies, such as land use controls, to reduce exposure by steering housing development away from flood zones. And they can make people and property less vulnerable through other measures, such as elevating houses and developing better flood warning systems and emergency preparedness plans.
How can people learn about flood risks where they live? The Federal Emergency Management Agency has created flood zone maps for most parts of the United States. The maps are based on models that consider factors such as elevation, average rainfall and whether a location is near a river or lake that could overflow.
FEMA maps classify flood zones into three categories: high-risk, moderate-low risk and undetermined. High-risk zones have at least a 1 percent chance of being inundated by flood in any given year. These areas are also called base flood or 100-year flood zones.
To obtain a federally insured mortgage on property in a 100-year flood zone, buyers are required to have flood insurance. This policy is designed to make people less vulnerable in the event of a flood, but it increases the cost of home ownership. As a result, flood zone designations can be very contentious.
100-year flood zones are based on a combination of statistics, hydrogeology and society’s tolerance for risk.
Moving into harm’s way
We undertook this study because we wanted to develop a clear baseline showing how Americans’ exposure to flood hazards has changed over the past decade. To assess levels of exposure to flood hazards nationwide, we compiled urban development, flood zone and census data and overlaid them on a county map of the nation.
Overall, we estimated that as of 2011, more than 25 million Americans lived in flood zones. We also found that inland communities were less responsive to flood hazards than coastal communities and were doing a poorer job of steering development out of flood-prone areas.
The three U.S. counties with the largest concentrations of people living in flood zones are located on the Gulf of Mexico. They are Cameron Parish, Louisiana (population 6,401, with 93.6 percent in flood zones); Monroe County, Florida (population 66,804, with 91.4 percent in flood zones); and Galveston County, Texas (population 241,204, with 82.8 percent in flood zones).
These are all coastal communities, where flood risks should be well-known to all residents. But we also found inland counties where the share of the total population living in flood zones increased over the decade we examined. A number of those with the largest increases are bordered by rivers, such as Marshall County in western Kentucky, which sits between Kentucky Lake and the Ohio River. We also identified several hot spots where urban development has increased in coastal flood zones, including New York City and Miami.
Heavy rainfall from Tropical Storm Harvey is forecast to reach hundreds of miles inland. Image via National Weather Service.
Reducing exposure now
This alarming trend points to a need for more awareness, education and communication about flood risk, especially in inland counties. More affordable housing in nonflood zones and strategies to mitigate floods are also needed, especially inland.
Why would people move to inland flood zone areas? Some may be unaware of the risk. Others may plan to adapt through steps such as elevating their houses or buying flood insurance. Still other may accept the risk because they want to be closer to relatives or workplaces, or for other cultural, political or institutional reasons.
Our analysis has pinpointed a number of regions of concern. The next step is to produce in-depth analyses of these regions, in order to understand why people are locating in flood zones there, and to devise local strategies to reduce overall U.S. flood risks. Climate change, land subsidence or sinking, and construction of new levees and dams will change long-term flood exposure in these areas over time. Therefore, local governments, mortgage lenders and homeowners should review current FEMA flood hazard maps for accuracy.
This research provides national context for a detailed study that we are carrying out examining resilience and sustainability in the Mississippi River Delta. Our goal is to understand how human actions combined with natural environmental conditions may have caused land to sink in the Mississippi Delta. Our research on development in flood zones reminds us that flooding problems in low-lying coastal regions are not unique and also affect areas well away from the shore.
Nina Lam, Distinguished Professor of Louisiana Environmental Studies, Louisiana State University
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park, as captured by Yuri Beletsky Nightscapes in August, 2017.
One of the side benefits of last week’s eclipse has been that astrophotographers from around the globe came to the American West, especially around Wyoming, where the Astronomical League held its annual meeting (AstroCon 2017), just before eclipse day. Many astrophotographers then spent extra time in that part of the country, capturing photos of famous landmarks. Here’s a photo of Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park from one of our favorite photographers, Yuri Beletsky of Chile. He posted this at EarthSky Facebook on Sunday, August 27 and wrote:
Majestic Old Faithful under the stars in Yellowstone National Park :) I was truly fascinated by the scene! I’ve seen it so many times in text books and all over Internet, but it was my first time at the site. Watching it from such a close distance is a magical experience! On the images you can see numerous starts on the foreground including Polaris (upper right).
The foreground is actually illuminated by near artificial light coming from nearby hotels / facilities.
To suppress the light contamination, I used innovative ‘Clear Sky’ Optolong Filter for my Nikon D810a. Feel free to check it out if you’re in similar conditions. I hope you’ll enjoy it, too.
Thank you, Yuri!
Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park, as captured by Yuri Beletsky Nightscapes in August, 2017.
One of the side benefits of last week’s eclipse has been that astrophotographers from around the globe came to the American West, especially around Wyoming, where the Astronomical League held its annual meeting (AstroCon 2017), just before eclipse day. Many astrophotographers then spent extra time in that part of the country, capturing photos of famous landmarks. Here’s a photo of Old Faithful geyser in Yellowstone National Park from one of our favorite photographers, Yuri Beletsky of Chile. He posted this at EarthSky Facebook on Sunday, August 27 and wrote:
Majestic Old Faithful under the stars in Yellowstone National Park :) I was truly fascinated by the scene! I’ve seen it so many times in text books and all over Internet, but it was my first time at the site. Watching it from such a close distance is a magical experience! On the images you can see numerous starts on the foreground including Polaris (upper right).
The foreground is actually illuminated by near artificial light coming from nearby hotels / facilities.
To suppress the light contamination, I used innovative ‘Clear Sky’ Optolong Filter for my Nikon D810a. Feel free to check it out if you’re in similar conditions. I hope you’ll enjoy it, too.
Thank you, Yuri!
