UAF

It was (once again) a beautiful morning. It's starting to cool off a little, but still fairly warm. I wanted a few pictures of campus so here is what I took. I really like this eerie light we are getting in the morning when it is (mostly) clear out.


Didn't have a lot of time to react. I went down to take a picture of the UAF sign. As I was putting away the camera this cow and her calf went running out into the road. Picture isn't very good, but it just isn't Alaska without a moose in the road.


The Geophysical Institute (with the giant dish) with Ester Dome in the background.


This is the Reichardt Building where I work and study. This is also the view from the Reichardt Building.


Here is the museum again. It is in between the Reichardt Building and the GI. It's a really great museum. I love the architecture.

Back to The Grind . . . Sort of

Today Kate had to go back to work. So, with little else to do I shuffled my feet back to the office to start writing some lesson plans for next semester. I have about two weeks before classes start, I think. The morning was productive, but I trailed off in the afternoon. Went outside to take some pictures in the eerie light. The light diffusing from the clouds above lit up the north side of the Alaska Range (58 miles away) so I took this shot of the airport.



The weather has turned gross again. Delta reported temperatures in the +50's F over the weekend. We've seen the +40's a couple of times and now it's raining and sleeting a little. The culprit is a chinook that's pushing back our cold arctic air. I hate cold rain. It is the only weather that I hate.

Our Home

I really like our dry cabin. It is tucked away in the woods away from town, but still only a five minute drive to the University. We have a few neighbors who are quiet and friendly. We are surrounded by trees. We have a large, panoramic, south-facing window downstairs that gets sunlight on all but a few days surrounding the winter solstice. Our couch faces this window. We look out at trees. I think this is our favorite thing to do when we are home. The sky is always so pretty here.

The view from our window. It's a little blurry because our window is dirty.

We finally got a kitchen table that is big enough that I can sit and work on homework on. That's exciting because I may be able to spend a little more time at home next semester. Ohhh, next semester is coming up fast. Back to cleaning dishes.

Unseasonably Warm Temperatures, Domes and Dog Mushing

I have become very preoccupied with my new camera. It arrived a few days ago and it has been hard to put down. I wanted to share a few of my favorite pictures from the last couple days, but first some updates:

It is a new year so I have stopped posting to my December and Friends set on flickr. Thanks to everyone who visited! It had a lot of views which just makes me want to go out and take more pictures!

Good grief it is warm. NOAA reported that last night, at 3am, the airport reached 41° F. That's 41 above 0. This ties a record high set in 1937. I saw three people today out running in shorts. The windshield we had replaced this fall is now leaking. I can't wait to spend more time getting this fixed.

I went out to take pictures because there was really pretty light this morning before sunrise. I ended up at the top of Ester Dome, one of the domes I haven't been to the top of yet (funny, it's the closest one to town). Here is about 270° in four pictures:


Tanana valley from the summit of Ester Dome (looking South). Really pretty.


Looking north-west at Murphy Dome from Ester Dome.


Looking toward the White Mountains and Chena hills from the summit of Ester Dome (Looking East).


Oh yeah, the Sun rose this morning. Took pictures from UAF.

After I got home I heard a loudspeaker from the house and realized there was a race at the mushing hall down the road. We drove over so we wouldn't miss it and watched the last four teams (out of 11) coming in. Dog mushing looks really fun.


The dogs all looked pretty hot as they came in. Probably because it's so hot.


Did you know Alaska is pretty?

Oh man, have I been lazy

So the last three days have been pretty much spent doing nothing. Watched some DVD's, made it to the grocery store, played Carcassonne with Kate. We had a wonderful Christmas morning and day and have finally had some good relaxation time.

I hope everyone else had a wonderful and relaxing time as well as we gear up for New Years. Fireworks and Thai food here! Oh yeah, we can once again see the Sun from our window!

Fox News is Blatently Irresponsible, Racist

I came across this little article today on Fox News:

'Anchor Baby' Constitutional Amendment to Face Scrutiny in Congress

It's a little piece from the Associated Press that strangely, does not go under the same title. In fact every other publication that used this article will be found with the title:

In Congress, A Harder Line On Illegal Immigrants (This link is to NPR, but you can just perform a google search on either title and see how many pop up.)

My main beef is that Fox News, under the guise of being 'fair and balanced' finds it acceptable to change an article title (that they did not write) to use more inflammatory language that suits it's own agenda. Well, maybe more angering is the use of the term 'anchor baby', which is pretty derogatory in it's own right, to describe what is the 14th amendment of the Constitution ratified in 1868. This amendment defines citizenship and personally I would rather not have Republican's rooting around and changing things in it.

It's additionally amusing because the claim is that the 'anchor baby' makes it so the parents can stay in the country. This is wrong. The child must be 21 years old before the parents can apply for a visa. Enforcement of the current laws in place is really all that is needed; we don't need to go changing the Constitution that Republicans, and Fox News claim is under attack by democrats (If you click this link, also take a look at the URL. It is pretty funny all on its own). Who does the Constitution need protection from?

Happy Solstice!

The Tanana Valley and Denali just after the Solstice sunset. This was our shortest day of the year at 3 hours 41 minutes 22 seconds. Today will be 9 seconds longer, and in a about three weeks we'll be gaining 6 minutes a day.

My schoolwork is finally all submitted and the semester is officially over. Kate's parents have been here for about a week and are heading home tonight. It's been a busy week. We had a lot of good food and spent a lot of time driving around the interior looking for pretty vistas and wildlife. Unfortunately, we saw no moose. How, how can anyone be in Alaska for a week and not see a moose? Kate and I saw three, two after dropping her parents off, and one going to pick them up. Ridiculous.

We did see a wolf on the Salcha river that had a fresh kill. It was really cool. Sorry, no pictures. We also saw a lot of ice; first at Christmas on Ice in North Pole and then in the year-round ice museum at Chena Hot Springs.

Dave, Sandi and Kate in North Pole at the Christmas on Ice carving extravaganza. It was a little uncomfortable it was so cold. But, we had fun anyway.

Christmas shopping happened all over the city. Dave and I drove up to Murphy Dome, where it was 7 degrees F above zero (it hasn't been above zero in Fairbanks in 18 days), but the wind was blowing very hard, so it wasn't really noticeable.

Alaska Range viewed from Murphy Dome. All pictures are in flickr.

Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, It's December

Since I won't be posting much again until the semester is over, I thought it would be nice to post some photos daily on my flickr account. Just random stuff that goes on and that we see while out and about.

Go to December and Friends Here!



Otis will snuggle! No amount of Sudoku can stop the cat.


We finally got around to decorating the tree today. Looks good.

New Day

World daylight map from die.net


So, even though it's pretty dark in Fairbanks right now (sunrise to sunset for December 7th: 4h 12m 30s), because of the shallow angle that the Sun sets we get a lot of twilight. And not the sparkly vampire kind, the good kind where you get pretty views like this one:



This was taken at 9:27 am, a little over 1 hour before sunrise. Color actually started to appear and the mountains took shape at about 8:30 am.

And no, I won't stop taking pictures of the same thing until I have a full years worth of them.

Venus has been really bright, and is just a little out of the frame here. Soon it will be a little closer to the horizon near sunrise and hopefully will make for some good photos if the weather stays clear.

Next Week and a Half

Just so you know, I probably won't post much in the next couple of weeks or so. Next week is finals week, and there's a lot of work and grading to wrap up. Check back soon though!

Thanks,
Lee

A little more on climate change

Here is a fantastic presentation by John Abraham on the fallacies of Christopher Monckton's attempts at debunking global warming with intent on changing public policy on climate change research. Monckton is not a scientist, but he still gets to take on the role of a climate change "policy-maker" in front of congress with the same misconstrued data that Abraham debunks. Abraham's argument is very well presented and very well cited. It's a little long (73 min. 36 sec.), but I highly encourage everyone to sit down some time and listen to it here:

John Abraham presentation: Who is Chris Monckton?

Abraham reviews a large chunk of Monckton's statements, extensively criticizes his lack of attributions (which I would take a step further and call plagiarism), and asks where the money comes from that supports climate change denialists (hint: it's oil money).

After Abraham's posting, Monckton demanded that it be taken down, that Abraham publicly apologize, and that he and his University pay $110,000 to a charity of his choice. You can read the full response at the SPPI site here. It's wack.

Fox news pretty frequently put's Monckton on a pedestal, which creates a scary, resonant phenomena that spreads (almost maliciously) misuse and abuse of science and public policy.

I just wanted to share this morning's sunrise with everyone

Happy December!

Cold Snap

Sunrise with parhelia over Fairbanks.

This time last week it was in the mid-thirties and raining. This morning it was thirty below zero. That's almost a 70 degree drop in temperature in a week!



Around 1:00 pm looking over the Tanana Valley to the Alaska Range.


I brought my camera to work today and got a few pictures of the sunrise. It now rises over the Alaska Range, and there was just enough ice in the air to create some parhelia, or sundogs, and some pretty powerful light pillars. The color was really nice through the fog.


After walking around a bit I had a good build-up of ice on my moustache and beard, and a little frostbite on my thumb. At one point my cheek stuck to the camera.

At sunset there was a superior mirage of the Alaska Range. This happens in times of temperature inversion, which is fairly frequent during winter in the interior of Alaska. This just means that warm air sits on top of the colder air in the valley. For a short time many of the mountains appeared to be inverted above the actual mountain range. Because the density of the air changes so rapidly, light from the top of the mountains is bent much more than light from the bottom giving the illusion of sort of a mountain 'forest'. Denali was looming over itself!



Superior mirage over the Alaska Range, with Denali in the center right. Click to enlarge.


I really can't believe how many atmospheric optic effects occur here. It's really, really cool.

Favorite not Totally Unscience Related Websites

Need to waste some time sitting out the most disgusting weather on the planet, otherwise known as 'just warm enough to not snow'?

(1)     If you're wondering if the Large Hadron Collider has destroyed the world yet, you can always check at this website (I provide you no link, it is more gratifying to type it. Don't cheat and copy and paste!):

http://www.hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com

A couple of my favorite comics are (mostly safe for work, but sometimes not):

(2)    Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

(3)    and XKCD (really my favorite). There is a disclaimer here: "Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)."



(4)    One that is sometimes funny, but almost always informative is Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy Blog on Discover Magazine.

Have fun, be safe, laugh, and maybe learn something cool.

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Icy conditions persist in Interior Alaska storm warning extended

Check out this picture in the News Miner this morning from Monday:

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner - Icy conditions persist in Interior Alaska storm warning extended

I worry that Kate and I brought some New England weather with us to Alaska. Unfortunately, New England weather does not mix very well with sub-zero Alaska roads. We're in for the day today, which is good. I need the time to catch up on some homework.