Author Archives: gymnosperm

Cold is the New Hot

Posted on March 4, 2014 by gymnosperm

Once it was that everything was getting hotter and hotter and pretty soon we would be frying eggs by just putting the pan outside. This was to have been because a certain trace gas was invested with magical powers far … Continue reading →

Posted in Anthropology, Climate, Climate Change, Cold is the New Hot, Global Warming, Religion, Shamanism | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Rocks, The Origional Hard Data

Posted on March 3, 2014 by gymnosperm

You simply can’t deny rock. Kick it and it throbs your toe. They lie around us, largely ignored, Farmers curse them and pile them in walls, yet a few dedicated folks with pointed hammers have picked them to yield an … Continue reading →

Posted in Continental Wander Path, Geography, Geological Evolution of the Western United States, Geology, hard data, Paleogeography, Plate Tectonics, Seafloor Isochrons | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A Graphic Study of the Greenhouse Effect

Posted on February 23, 2014 by gymnosperm

The greenhouse effect is poorly named. Nothing about it even vaguely resembles the protective shield of a greenhouse. The effect is about the florescence of certain gasses in a discontinuous fashion according to their individual spectral properties. When they shine, … Continue reading →

Posted in Greenhouse Effect, Greenhouse Spectra, Photon Food Fight, Unsaturated "black hole" H2O bands | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Around the World in Eighty Million Years

Posted on February 19, 2014 by gymnosperm

We have been doing a puzzle like you might have been given in first grade where there is some large animal with lines missing and your job is to connect the dots and fill it in. The joy is still … Continue reading →

Posted in Cretaceous normal superchron, Geography, Geology, Magnetic Reversals, Pacific Triangle, Paleogeography, Plate Tectonics, Seafloor Isochrons | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Carbon and the Second Coming

Posted on February 15, 2014 by gymnosperm

Why do we yearn the judgment day? Why is there always, on some street corner, somewhere, somebody proclaiming that the end is near? One must learn from their weaknesses, if possible. But this yearning keeps returning, again, and again. We … Continue reading →

Posted in Anthropology, Climate, Human need for Judgdment, Shamanism | Tagged , | Leave a comment

Ah, the Frogs

Posted on February 11, 2014 by gymnosperm

Almost forgot about the frogs. It has been dry, desert dry, in California for so long. They are tiny creatures, like what we used to call “tree” frogs, but they live in the grass. You can never imagine there would … Continue reading →

Posted in Biology, California Drought, Climate | Tagged , | Leave a comment

The Pacific Triangle Revisited, The Impact, The Wave

Posted on February 2, 2014 by gymnosperm

We have explored the Pacific Triangle and the Ring around Antarctica in prior posts. It just seems so outrageous that three spreading ridges would suddenly emerge from a single point in the Panthalassic Ocean 170 million years ago and begin migrating away in … Continue reading →

Posted in Asteroid Impacts, Geography, Geology, Pacific Triangle, Paleogeography, Plate Tectonics, Seafloor Isochrons | Tagged , | 4 Comments

A New Feature of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation?

Posted on January 24, 2014 by gymnosperm

We learn about things in mundane ways. Our conception of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) began with fish. Salmon are absolutely delicious. Tough handed people venture into dangerous conditions to catch them for us. It became apparent to the tough … Continue reading →

Posted in California Drought, Climate, Geography, San Francisco Rainfall | Tagged | 3 Comments

Some Things We’ve Noticed About the California Drought

Posted on January 17, 2014 by gymnosperm

California is a drought state. Our so called “Mediterranean” climate falls in a global zone just poleward of the great deserts and along the western continental margins that is characterized by winter rain and summer drought. Should we be surprised … Continue reading →

Posted in California Drought, Climate, Geography, Oceanography, Paleoclimate, Relationship of SST and 200hPa Anomalies, San Francisco Rainfall | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Carbon Dioxide, the Wimp

Posted on January 13, 2014 by gymnosperm

It is pretty well-known that CO2 represents only one part in 2500 in the atmosphere. Water vapor represents one part in 40. Not only is CO2 a wimpy constituent of the atmosphere, it is also a wimpy constituent of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Global Warming, Optical Material Properties | Tagged , , | 16 Comments