Yesterday we were talking about ocean acidification in class and got onto the topic of figuring out how to predict future CO2 emissions. There are several scenarios - one in which we just keep going as we are now, what happens if it slows down, speeds up, etc.
Well, my prof told us that she read a paper that said becoming vegetarian is more helpful to the environment than buying a hybrid vehicle! Who knew? I wonder if I should become vegetarian?
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Concentrate?
I cannot concentrate today. Have quite a bit of work to do... And yet... Every ten minutes I look around or check my email or get up to go get something or... blah, blah, blah.
Oh well. I will work - and if I take a break every ten minutes, guess I'll just have to work longer. Good thing I started at 8.
Oh well. I will work - and if I take a break every ten minutes, guess I'll just have to work longer. Good thing I started at 8.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Terrible or Acceptable?
I read my TA evaluations... Let's just say, some of them were terrible. Comments about what a ditz a was (the word ditz was actually used), how unorganized I was, and how unknowledgable I was. Admittedly, I was teaching about dinosaurs, something I do not know about. There were also comments about how I was nice, approachable, helpful, and very organized. Definitely contradictory... Have no idea what to make of that. I'm glad Colleen came to talk to me about it. She helped me realize that while I was unknowledgeable about the topic, it wasn't my fault. I was forced into the situation. Which I knew, but it was nice to hear somebody else say it.
I don't know what to make of it for the most part though. I do know that it was a really bad idea to read them, and that I shouldn't have. I also know that I will be much more considerate of anybody I'm filling out an eval for. Some of the kids were just plain mean, and while I don't think I've ever written anything mean, I will be extra careful in the future. Constructive critcism, not jabs about personality or my voice (yes, my voice). I'm tired of hearing that one. Yes, I wish I could change my voice, but it's not going to be possible, so don't criticize it you stupid punk (yes, some of them made me angry).
Oh well, I will try and move past it. It would be easier if I weren't TAing this quarter. Sigh. If you're ever a TA don't read your evals!!
I don't know what to make of it for the most part though. I do know that it was a really bad idea to read them, and that I shouldn't have. I also know that I will be much more considerate of anybody I'm filling out an eval for. Some of the kids were just plain mean, and while I don't think I've ever written anything mean, I will be extra careful in the future. Constructive critcism, not jabs about personality or my voice (yes, my voice). I'm tired of hearing that one. Yes, I wish I could change my voice, but it's not going to be possible, so don't criticize it you stupid punk (yes, some of them made me angry).
Oh well, I will try and move past it. It would be easier if I weren't TAing this quarter. Sigh. If you're ever a TA don't read your evals!!
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Beyond Bizarre
I know this is an odd thing to post about, but here it goes. Anybody that has read my previous post knows that out of the last six eggs I've used, two of them had double yolks... Well, it has happened yet again! I decided to make an omelet for breakfast (2 eggs) and 1 had a double yolk!! Freaky!!
Thursday, April 19, 2007
What are the odds?
I've gotten into the habit of making myself eggs for breakfast. I had a carton of 1 dozen eggs. So far I've used 6 of them. Out of the six I've used two of them have had double yolks! Bizarre, right? I've only seen double yolks a couple times I can remember, and now I've seen them 2 out of six times I've cracked an egg open. I don't know the odds of this happening, but they've got be impressive... don't you think?
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Yellow!
Last week there were a few instances of Heather and I accidently matching color schemes as far as our clothes go. We both came to school with the same color blue shirts and similarly tinted jeans on. It was a bit embarrassing. Another day we both wore red shirts, although mine was a deep wine color whereas hers was a bright red. Today, while wearing different pants (her's khaki, mine jeans) we are wearing the same shirt. The same color yellow. Very odd. We've decided we need to do something about this. At least, we keep joking that we do. It has inspired me to go shopping at some point and pick up some new shirts. Something needs to be done! Hahaha.
On another note, I got into the Italy program! Yay. Susie and I are also planning to go to Italy a couple weeks before it is to start so that we can spend a few days in Rome, a few in Tuscany, and a few in Venice before I go to my program and she goes to another part of Europe to visit a friend. Exciting!!
On another note, I got into the Italy program! Yay. Susie and I are also planning to go to Italy a couple weeks before it is to start so that we can spend a few days in Rome, a few in Tuscany, and a few in Venice before I go to my program and she goes to another part of Europe to visit a friend. Exciting!!
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Italy?
On the USSP (Urbino Summer School of Paleoclimatology) website it says that people accepted into the program will be notified by April 15th (today). I haven't heard anything yet. But it seems odd that people would be notified on a Sunday. Perhaps I'll find out later? I don't know.
Well, all I can say is that if I don't get into the program I'm going to Europe anyway. Screw it. I want to travel!! :)
Well, all I can say is that if I don't get into the program I'm going to Europe anyway. Screw it. I want to travel!! :)
Thursday, April 12, 2007
A little bit about me
My post earlier today was a rant of frustration and a little bit of humor, although I'm not sure that came across. Anywho, a little bit about my personal life.
Got a shiny new phone!! It's very pretty. It's the MotoKRZR m1Fire (or something). It's shiny, red and sexy. I love it. It takes pictures and video. Plays music. And is sleek and thin. I even plunked down some cash to buy some ring tones for it. I got O Valencia by the Decemberists, Boston by Augustana, Here It Goes Again by OK Go, and Move Along by the All-American Rejects. If you'd like any of these particular songs to be the ring when you call (not that many people do) let me know. :) I'm sure I'll buy more ring tones at some point, even though I rarely ever get calls because it's fun. :)
What else? Busy day. Talks, classes, etc. Fun times I'm sure. Actually, the talks were pretty interesting. One on beach erosion in the Oceanside area (Adora's hometown) and one on magnetic inclinations of magnetic minerals on the Tibetan Plateau. Pretty interesting stuff. Stayed a bit late in my office to get some reading done. Good thing too, since I didn't really do anything when I got home. Was busy playing with my new phone. Although, I did do my federal taxes. Yay for me. Also yay, because I don't owe any money! hazaa. Thought I was going to.
Did feel a bit awkward for a bit. Apparently my department is having a Casino Night Cocktail party on Saturday. I wasn't really planning on attending for several reasons - heard last year there was quite a bit of drinking and drug use (yuck on both counts, but mainly the latter), would have to dress up, and yucky boy might be there. Anyway, was sitting in class today when two of my cohort asked if I was going - responded, "nope". Then they wanted to know why, I told them I didn't want to go - they didn't seem to think it was a good excuse. Cheryl, a girl I just met actually, came to my defense. She understood why I wouldn't want to go, and told them that if I didn't want to go I didn't want to go. So that was nice of her. We made introductions and all that, so that's nice. A class buddy. Even though I already know everyone else in the class, but it never hurts to have more class buddies.
Anyway... not much else going on. Am looking forward to going to bed. So I think I'll start doing the things to make that possible. Goodnight!
Got a shiny new phone!! It's very pretty. It's the MotoKRZR m1Fire (or something). It's shiny, red and sexy. I love it. It takes pictures and video. Plays music. And is sleek and thin. I even plunked down some cash to buy some ring tones for it. I got O Valencia by the Decemberists, Boston by Augustana, Here It Goes Again by OK Go, and Move Along by the All-American Rejects. If you'd like any of these particular songs to be the ring when you call (not that many people do) let me know. :) I'm sure I'll buy more ring tones at some point, even though I rarely ever get calls because it's fun. :)
What else? Busy day. Talks, classes, etc. Fun times I'm sure. Actually, the talks were pretty interesting. One on beach erosion in the Oceanside area (Adora's hometown) and one on magnetic inclinations of magnetic minerals on the Tibetan Plateau. Pretty interesting stuff. Stayed a bit late in my office to get some reading done. Good thing too, since I didn't really do anything when I got home. Was busy playing with my new phone. Although, I did do my federal taxes. Yay for me. Also yay, because I don't owe any money! hazaa. Thought I was going to.
Did feel a bit awkward for a bit. Apparently my department is having a Casino Night Cocktail party on Saturday. I wasn't really planning on attending for several reasons - heard last year there was quite a bit of drinking and drug use (yuck on both counts, but mainly the latter), would have to dress up, and yucky boy might be there. Anyway, was sitting in class today when two of my cohort asked if I was going - responded, "nope". Then they wanted to know why, I told them I didn't want to go - they didn't seem to think it was a good excuse. Cheryl, a girl I just met actually, came to my defense. She understood why I wouldn't want to go, and told them that if I didn't want to go I didn't want to go. So that was nice of her. We made introductions and all that, so that's nice. A class buddy. Even though I already know everyone else in the class, but it never hurts to have more class buddies.
Anyway... not much else going on. Am looking forward to going to bed. So I think I'll start doing the things to make that possible. Goodnight!
Can We Fix It?
(This is a long, semi-boring rant about global warming. The top is a discussion of how we know it's happening. The bottom is what people are trying to do about it.)
Global warming is a fact. It is happening. We can see this in numerous records (both from proxies and actual temperature measurements from instruments over the past couple centuries). It is also our fault. I know there are people out there that will try and tell you that this is a natural process, the Earth is doing it's own thing, as it has done for the past few billion years. Well, in the past it has been natural, and part of this change is probably natural, but we are contributing a great deal to the current climate changes and associated affects.
Not only are we adding CO2, CH4, O3, CFCs, and several other greenhouse gases (thus increasing the inputs) we are also reducing the sinks (deforestation, clear cutting, etc). The junk we are adding to the atmosphere is causing warmer temperatures, which increases the amount of water vapor that the atmosphere can hold. Water vapor is a tremendously powerful greenhouse gas. Here's a quick and dirty discussion of why greenhouse gases cause the planet to warm. We get shortwave radiation (visible light) from the Sun that enters the atmosphere (some of this is reflected back to space and some is absorbed by molecules in the atmosphere), it hits the Earth and the Earth sends back longwave radiation (Infra-red light) that then interacts with molecules in the atmosphere that absorb it and send half of it back down to Earth, trapping that energy in the atmosphere causing increased temperatures. So, different molecules absorb and re-emit different wavelengths of radiation. So CO2 absorbs and re-emits certain wavelengths, as does water, CH4, etc. Now, some of this radiation makes it all the way through the atmosphere and out to space - this is called the atmospheric window. This happens because there isn't a molecule or enough of that molecule in the atmosphere to absorb and re-radiate that wavelength of radiation - so it gets through free and clear. What we are doing is adding molecules to the atmosphere that will interact with wavelengths that before now got through unhindered - basically we are shutting the window. This is bad. Heat/Energy can't get out as well, so it's causing increased temperatures.
Now, if somebody tries to tell you that some natural process is increasing the concentrations of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere you can either be sure they are lying or they don't know what they are talking about (either because they've been misinformed, which is entirely possible in this political climate, or they are just talking about of their ass). We know this from simple calculations, we know what the concentrations of CO2 and CH4 and all the others are in the atmosphere, and it's not too difficult to calculate how much we've put in. There's also the isotopic signatures of the gases - which can tell something about their sources. It's us. Sad but true.
Why am I talking about this? Well, first off. I study it. Secondly, it seems like there are a lot of people out there that don't believe it (including my Father - but no, I didn't sit down and have this conversation with him, because then he may realize I'm studying climate and nobody wants to go down that road...). Third, we had a really cool discussion about what can be done about it in my biological oceanography class. There were two options dicussed for how to decrease the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (b/c even if we stop emitting there's already a whole hell of a lot of it in the atmosphere that needs to be dealt with).
1) Iron fertilization. Basically it's taking out ships and dumping nutrients, especially iron, into the oceans to cause phytoplankton blooms which should draw down CO2. This seems like a neat idea, increase the primary productivity of the oceans. Although, there are several drawbacks... We have no idea what effect this will have on higher trophic level organisms or on the ecosystem. Those phytoplankton that bloom can produce some very bad chemicals, by-products, such as demoic acid (toxic) and DMS (dimethyl sulfide).
2) Liquify the CO2 and put it at the bottom of the ocean. STUPID! This is a really terrible idea for several reasons. First off, what about all the organisms that live on the bottom of the ocean? This will kill them. Secondly, what if this changes the chemistry of the seawater making it acidic? If that happens, those little plants we're counting on from #1 to draw down CO2 won't be able to grow, and then what? Or what if somethings disturbs the CO2 on the bottom of the sea and it just comes back out again?
So these leads me to a few conclusions. #1 We're basically screwed. #2 We need better ideas about how to solve the problem. #3 People need to be educated about what is really going on.
Global warming is a fact. It is happening. We can see this in numerous records (both from proxies and actual temperature measurements from instruments over the past couple centuries). It is also our fault. I know there are people out there that will try and tell you that this is a natural process, the Earth is doing it's own thing, as it has done for the past few billion years. Well, in the past it has been natural, and part of this change is probably natural, but we are contributing a great deal to the current climate changes and associated affects.
Not only are we adding CO2, CH4, O3, CFCs, and several other greenhouse gases (thus increasing the inputs) we are also reducing the sinks (deforestation, clear cutting, etc). The junk we are adding to the atmosphere is causing warmer temperatures, which increases the amount of water vapor that the atmosphere can hold. Water vapor is a tremendously powerful greenhouse gas. Here's a quick and dirty discussion of why greenhouse gases cause the planet to warm. We get shortwave radiation (visible light) from the Sun that enters the atmosphere (some of this is reflected back to space and some is absorbed by molecules in the atmosphere), it hits the Earth and the Earth sends back longwave radiation (Infra-red light) that then interacts with molecules in the atmosphere that absorb it and send half of it back down to Earth, trapping that energy in the atmosphere causing increased temperatures. So, different molecules absorb and re-emit different wavelengths of radiation. So CO2 absorbs and re-emits certain wavelengths, as does water, CH4, etc. Now, some of this radiation makes it all the way through the atmosphere and out to space - this is called the atmospheric window. This happens because there isn't a molecule or enough of that molecule in the atmosphere to absorb and re-radiate that wavelength of radiation - so it gets through free and clear. What we are doing is adding molecules to the atmosphere that will interact with wavelengths that before now got through unhindered - basically we are shutting the window. This is bad. Heat/Energy can't get out as well, so it's causing increased temperatures.
Now, if somebody tries to tell you that some natural process is increasing the concentrations of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere you can either be sure they are lying or they don't know what they are talking about (either because they've been misinformed, which is entirely possible in this political climate, or they are just talking about of their ass). We know this from simple calculations, we know what the concentrations of CO2 and CH4 and all the others are in the atmosphere, and it's not too difficult to calculate how much we've put in. There's also the isotopic signatures of the gases - which can tell something about their sources. It's us. Sad but true.
Why am I talking about this? Well, first off. I study it. Secondly, it seems like there are a lot of people out there that don't believe it (including my Father - but no, I didn't sit down and have this conversation with him, because then he may realize I'm studying climate and nobody wants to go down that road...). Third, we had a really cool discussion about what can be done about it in my biological oceanography class. There were two options dicussed for how to decrease the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere (b/c even if we stop emitting there's already a whole hell of a lot of it in the atmosphere that needs to be dealt with).
1) Iron fertilization. Basically it's taking out ships and dumping nutrients, especially iron, into the oceans to cause phytoplankton blooms which should draw down CO2. This seems like a neat idea, increase the primary productivity of the oceans. Although, there are several drawbacks... We have no idea what effect this will have on higher trophic level organisms or on the ecosystem. Those phytoplankton that bloom can produce some very bad chemicals, by-products, such as demoic acid (toxic) and DMS (dimethyl sulfide).
2) Liquify the CO2 and put it at the bottom of the ocean. STUPID! This is a really terrible idea for several reasons. First off, what about all the organisms that live on the bottom of the ocean? This will kill them. Secondly, what if this changes the chemistry of the seawater making it acidic? If that happens, those little plants we're counting on from #1 to draw down CO2 won't be able to grow, and then what? Or what if somethings disturbs the CO2 on the bottom of the sea and it just comes back out again?
So these leads me to a few conclusions. #1 We're basically screwed. #2 We need better ideas about how to solve the problem. #3 People need to be educated about what is really going on.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
It All Begins... Again
The new quarter has started. Well... on Tuesday, so this is a bit behind.
I was freaking out in the beginning, but I've begun to settle back into things. I feel like it's going to be a pretty insane quarter as far as the amount of time I'm going to be spending on things. Two real classes - Biological Oceanography and The Climate System - which both have term papers and problem sets, one of which has a midterm and a final. TAing - teaching 4 sections! Yikes. Plus, Jim still has me reading papers and all that good stuff. And this might actually be the quarter when real work begins. Wouldn't that be shocking?
In other, but related news, there is going to be a new graduate student next year. A Rachel Brown. Don't really know anything about her, but it's strange to think that I won't be the baby anymore. I'll be one removed from the bottom rung! Somebody may come to me for advice, answers, etc. Crazy, right? Kind of makes you feel sorry for her! Hahaha.
Oh, AND, I got more info on the China trip. It's going to be interesting. There's so much stuff going on during the conference. Tons of talks, poster sessions, field trips, etc. There are some really neat tours that I'd love to do, but I'm not sure how much time I can spend doing the stuff. Although, perhaps I can extend my trip a bit to check some of the stuff out. I don't really know how this stuff all works. Heather and I plan to ask Jim about it tomorrow at our impromptu lab meeting tomorrow.
Hm... and since school is basically my life I don't really have much else to talk about. Hm... Tragic...
I was freaking out in the beginning, but I've begun to settle back into things. I feel like it's going to be a pretty insane quarter as far as the amount of time I'm going to be spending on things. Two real classes - Biological Oceanography and The Climate System - which both have term papers and problem sets, one of which has a midterm and a final. TAing - teaching 4 sections! Yikes. Plus, Jim still has me reading papers and all that good stuff. And this might actually be the quarter when real work begins. Wouldn't that be shocking?
In other, but related news, there is going to be a new graduate student next year. A Rachel Brown. Don't really know anything about her, but it's strange to think that I won't be the baby anymore. I'll be one removed from the bottom rung! Somebody may come to me for advice, answers, etc. Crazy, right? Kind of makes you feel sorry for her! Hahaha.
Oh, AND, I got more info on the China trip. It's going to be interesting. There's so much stuff going on during the conference. Tons of talks, poster sessions, field trips, etc. There are some really neat tours that I'd love to do, but I'm not sure how much time I can spend doing the stuff. Although, perhaps I can extend my trip a bit to check some of the stuff out. I don't really know how this stuff all works. Heather and I plan to ask Jim about it tomorrow at our impromptu lab meeting tomorrow.
Hm... and since school is basically my life I don't really have much else to talk about. Hm... Tragic...
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