Lowest arctic ice area or volume ever reached

The New Arctic Abnormal: Record Low Sea Ice Volume, Area and Extent*
[Via Climate Progress]

AFP:  The area covered by Arctic sea ice reached its lowest point this week since the start of satellite observations in 1972, German researchers announced on Saturday….

“This is a new historic minimum,” said Georg Heygster, head of the Physical Analysis of Remote Sensing Images unit at the University of Bremen….

The Arctic death spiral continues.  We are reaching the climax of the Arctic sea ice melt season.  I asked Neven of the must-read Arctic Sea Ice Blog to set the scene for the finale (with some cool animations):

– by Neven of Arctic Sea Ice Blog

The incredible has happened. In the past week the 2011 melting season has started to surpass record year 2007. First, the good people from the Polar Science Center informed us of the fact that their PIOMAS model is showing a new sea ice volume record (as discussed here on Climate Progress).  A day later a new all-time low on the Cryosphere Today sea ice area graph was reached. And two days after that the same thing happened on the University of Bremen sea ice extent chart.  See figure above.

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The previous record  (2007) was reached under very unusual weather conditions. Not so much this year. The volme is about 1.3 of what it was 10 years ago.

Not going to be a great year.

Amazing graphic on Texas’ summer heat and drought

Global Warming Amplifying Texas Drought, Wildfires, Scientists Say
[Via Climate Central - News, Blogs & Features]

Just when it looked like weather conditions couldn’t get any worse in Texas, a new wildfire burning outside of Austin destroyed nearly 800 homes in the past few days. This came on the heels of the state’s hottest and driest summer in recorded history, with many parts of the state smashing all-time records by wide margins. Yesterday, Texas state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon announced this was the hottest summer on record for Texas — and the hottest summer ever for any U.S. state, based on preliminary numbers — and last month he declared Texas is in the midst of its worst one-year drought on record. The blend of hot weather and parched land has made for perfect fire conditions, and this has been the worst year for Texas wildfires in over a decade. Nearly 3.6 million acres of the “Lone Star State” have burned so far this year, an area roughly the size of Connecticut.

The heat and drought are record-breaking, but how unusual are they? According to Nielsen-Gammon’s own blog, it’s in a category unto itself:

“The year 2011 continues the recent trend of being much warmer than the historical precipitation-temperature relationship would indicate, although with no previous points so dry it’s hard to say exactly what history would say about a summer such as this one. Except that this summer is way beyond the previous envelope of summer temperature and precipitation,” Nielson-Gammon wrote.

 

In Texas, the summer of 2011 has been both the hottest and driest on record. The drought has cost billions in economic losses, mainly due to agricultural impacts and from wildfires. Credit: John Nielsen-Gammon, Texas State Climatologist.

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2011 is unlike any other summer ever in Texas. Hotter and drier by a lot than any other year. Glad i no longer live there.

Budweiser does great ad for 9/11

The difference is the time of the year – winter vs. summer – and the different skyline – with new tower rising up.

Brought tears to my eyes.

MacGyver with an iPhone

Scout Observer replaces military SATCOM, is powered by the iPhone 4
[Via Engadget]

If you need to channel your inner MacGyver, there’s a tool for that… predictably, it’s powered by your smartphone. By connecting an iPhone 4 to the Scout Observer’s Toolkit, it’s transformed into a spectrum analyzer, power meter, multimeter and Low Noise Block Downconverter (LNB). In English, that means the device lets you locate and verify satellite signals (including other mobile signals), measure their strength, and determine GPS location (amongst other things). The six-pound device replaces the standard 160-pound SATCOM terminal, making it the perfect accessory for covert operations — if those are the kinds of romps you prefer on the weekend. The company is now accepting pre-orders for shipment sometime in Q4, and hopes to roll out versions for other phones in the near future.

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I know some people are going to love this.

Ten Years Ago, I did no work

I was driving into work early. I turned on the radio as I usually do and heard a report that a plane had  hit the World Trade Center. They did not know what the size of the plane was or if it was an accident.

About 20 minutes later, they announced a second plane had hit the other tower. I heard that live. I muttered to myself that was no accident. It took another 15 minutes or so to get to work. I looked all around our offices for a TV set connected to cable. I found one in a conference room and turned it on.

Just in time to see the Pentagon get hit.

I did not work at all that day. I watched the TV. I heard about the South Tower collapsing and saw live the collapse of the North Tower  (as floor by floor pancaked on top of each other), I saw the thousands of people flooding out of the area, trying to find anywhere safe. I heard about our airspace being shut down amid the worry that there were other planes out there. I heard all the false reports of further bombs. I heard about Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.

I saw all the images that we have all seen over the years. But I saw them live.

I was the only one who did this. Everyone else just did their work. A few stopped by every so often but no one stayed.

I was struck by the inability of people living through historic events  to see the history. Everyone else at work just apparently went about a normal day. Not at all interested in what was happening a country away.

I sat and watched because I realized nothing would ever be the same again. I cried because I knew this was an event that would change all of us. This day was like no other.

But to so many people at the time, it was just another day.