But what story? Image stitched together by Tom Yulsman at CE Journal, question answered there. As he says, looks like Mondrian, but this isn’t about aesthetics it’s about effective communication — and I think this is particularly successful.
Author: Gareth
Prepare for business as unusual
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Here’s something thought provoking for a Friday: The ultimate roller coaster ride: a brief history of fossil fuels, a five minute encapsulation of humanity’s flirtation with coal and rock oil. Narrated by Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute, animated by Monstro Design. Worth five minutes of your day.
Merapi, volcanoes and cooling
Back in April, when Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland was erupting and causing much disruption to air travel in Europe and the North Atlantic, there was some concern that the volcano’s ash and aerosols could cause global cooling. As I said at the time, there was little chance of that happening because volcanoes need to be near the equator to cause global cooling events. However, we now we have an eruption in Indonesia that has the potential to cause a noticeable global cooling. Merapi is Indonesia’s most active volcano, and the eruptive sequence which began at the end of October has already killed at least 153 people and emitted a considerable amount of sulfate aerosols as this NASA Earth Observatory image shows:
At the time of writing the eruption was showing signs of easing off, and the amounts of sulfur emitted to date haven’t been sufficient (or reached high enough altitudes) to cause a significant cooling. However, as Jeff Masters notes, Merapi’s volcanic history indicates that it is capable of very powerful eruptions which could mimic or exceed the Pinatubo eruption in 19941991 which caused a 0.5ºC cooling over the following 18 months. As ever, the best place to follow events is at vulcanologist Erik Klemetti’s Eruptions blog (note: new web address). Definitely one to watch.
NZ glaciers holding their own (just)
New Zealand’s glaciers just about held their own over last summer, showing a very slight gain in mass on average according to NIWA’s annual end of summer snowline survey, released today. The Park Pass glacier (above) in the Mt Aspiring National Park between the Hollyford Valley and the head of Lake Wakatipu (map) is one of the 50 index glaciers in the NIWA survey. From the press release:
“A moderate El Niño developed in the tropical Pacific in spring last year. This brought more southwesterlies, with normal to below normal temperatures through last summer and into autumn this year. The overall effect was to hold snowlines in a near steady state this year,” says [NIWA scientist] Dr Hendrikx. The previous two years (2007–08 and 2008–09) had seen end-of-summer snowlines rise significantly as not enough snow fell to compensate for melting.
The impact of the El Niño shows as a (very) small uptick at the end of the ice mass graph, but the overall trend remains strongly downwards.
The full report (with lots of pictures from the aerial survey) can be downloaded from the NIWA web site. The Park Pass photo above was taken on March 6th this year on the fourth leg of NIWA’s alpine flight, and shows some spectacular icebergs in the proglacial lake. The extent of the glacier’s retreat can be seen in the Google Earth imagery at Mauri Pelto’s From A Glacier’s Perspective blog post on the nearby Donne Glacier. With a strong La Niña now influencing weather patterns in NZ, it’ll be interesting to see how the glaciers fare. I wonder if I can blag a seat on the 2011 flight? 
We’ve trashed the earth, so let’s go party…
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Put a little funk in your day with Scottish jazz musician Phil Bancroft‘s message from the future — a “pre-apocalyptic ironic dance number” entitled Too Late Now, So Party On. Phil says it’s a video “response” to the 10:10 red button video, but I think it’s a fantastic film with amazing production values and possibly the best tinfoil spaceship I’ve ever seen. The song’s first line says it all:
We’ve done it, we’ve trashed the earth, it’s too late now, so let’s go party…
Join Phil, wife Jude, Jazzer the cat and Jenny the dog as they escape the planet we trashed, and shake your funky thang. If that’s at all possible on a Tuesday during office hours. (More about Phil and his current project, Home Small As The World, here).