NatGeo: The changing rains
by Greg on Mar.24, 2009, under Science Life
Elizabeth Kolbert has an article in National Geographic where she expands her underdstanding on climate change. It highlights what I feel is missing from the current debate, an argument that trumps what all the deniers of global warming seem to not understand:
For many years, scholars blamed the empire’s fall on politics. But about a decade ago, climate scientists examining records from lake bottoms and the ocean floor discovered that right around the time that the empire disintegrated, rainfall in the region dropped dramatically. It is now believed that Akkad’s collapse was caused by a devastating drought. Other civilizations whose demise has recently been linked to shifts in rainfall include the Old Kingdom of Egypt, which fell right around the same time as Akkad; the Tiwanacu civilization, which thrived near Lake Titicaca, in the Andes, for more than a millennium before its fields were abandoned around A.D. 1100; and the Classic Maya civilization, which collapsed at the height of its development, around A.D. 800.
These are some of the greatest civilizations humans have ever created. As robust and strong our modern civilization seems, we live in a fortunate bubble of optimal world temperatures. Oh sure, we can try to find out if we have advanced so much that the industrialized nations of Earth can adapt to a wetter or dryer world, but what about the majority of the the citizens of the planet? How can they possibly adapt? It reminds me of that argument you hear from economists who champion letting the failed integral institutions of the global economy fail even if it is at the sake of lives lost. It’s a dangerously irresponsible way to think about the world.
:Climate Change, elizabeth kolbert, Global Warming
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Nasa's Image of the Day
Little Galaxy With a Tail
This infrared portrait of the Small Magellanic Cloud, taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, reveals stars and dust in this galaxy as never seen before. T The image shows the main body of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is comprised of the "bar" and "wing" on the left and the "tail" extending to the right. The bar contains both old stars (in blue) and young stars lighting up their natal dust (green/red). The wing mainly contains young stars. The tail contains only gas, dust and newly formed stars. Spitzer data has confirmed that the tail region was recently torn off the main body of the galaxy. Two of the tail clusters, which are still embedded in their birth clouds, can be seen as red dots. The data in this image are being used by astronomers to study the lifecycle of dust in the entire galaxy: from the formation in stellar atmospheres, to the reservoir containing the present day interstellar medium, and the dust consumed in forming new stars. The dust being formed in old, evolved stars (blue stars with a red tinge) is measured using mid-infrared wavelengths. The present day interstellar dust is weighed by measuring the intensity and color of emission at longer infrared wavelengths. The rate at which the raw material is being consumed is determined by studying ionized gas regions and the younger stars (yellow/red extended regions). The Small Magellanic Cloud, and its companion galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud, are the two galaxies where this type of study is possible. Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/STScI
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