San Fran 2008

What a great visit to the big city! It was a good AGU, a great visit with family and friends, and especially nice (and crazy!) to see Torsten’s cousin Taariq.

Global Weirding

A nice deep freeze (especially up in interior Alaska!) brought in 2009. In Juneau, we got 50+ inches of snow in the first 12 days of the year! The low temp for a few days was -10F. Then, yesterday (Jan 18) the thermometer went above 60F!! The airport temp (official recording spot) was 53F, a new record. Here’s the pictorial history of our back porch for the 12/26/2008 – 1/4/2009. Thanks to Bob & Jaye for the idea of taking the pictures!

The global weirding is from Friedman’s “Hot, Flat, and Crowded” which I’m reading after “The World is Flat” for our book group. It has interesting ideas (such as that global warming is much too simplistic a term–the prediction of more extremes, an acceleration of the hydrologic cycle, etc–who would believe that?!? :). But it also has some ridiculous prose and analysis, which is appropriately (and very well!) mocked at this blog post.