20th Century Weather Data

It is possible to graphically plot weather data from any point on the Earth from any date over the last 100-or so years using GrADS software and data from NOAA's NOMADS data access platform. Or see a summary of other data sources.

Pourbaix diagram

A Pourbaix diagram is used to show mineral solubility or metal valence, graphed on a Redox (Eh)/pH graph:

Emergy is not the new Money

Emergy analysis aims to document and compare the amount of energy required to produce different products. In comparison to Embodied Energy analysis, which measures just human inputs of energy, Emergy analysis measures both natural and human energy inputs. The laudable goal is to put all calculations in the same currency so that everything can be compared. However, emergy is an impossible concept and, in the end, really just weird.

First, it is weird economics. In fact, it is Marxist economics because Emergy, like Marxism, seeks to go beyond the capitalist system that assigns value based on demand to an alternative system based on supply. But then Emergy turns around and assigns emergy to dollars, a blatant contradiction. Also, emergy is not able to account for opportunity costs. For example, there is still no way to value the salmon that would have lived had it not been for the dam that destroyed their spawning grounds.

Second, it is a weird way of valuing raw resources (inputs). Putting everything in terms of solar energy makes some sense, but not when a dubious logic is used to convert rain and wind into solar equivalents, let alone when metal ores are assigned an arbitrary emergy. The urge to put everything into a hegemonic coinage is as old as the simplifying instinct, and as faulty. Everything can't be reduced to solar energy. Sustainability needs a more adaptive system and a more adaptive framework to ask questions.

Third, it has weird system diagrams (see above). While they look cool at first, one quickly realizes their myriad failings by comparing emergy diagrams to contemporaneous dynamic stock-and-flow modeling software like Stella. Also, emergy puts the controlling forces in the same format as the flows of energy, confusing both.

Fourth, it is weird ecology. The idea of "resources required" for a certain product seems to assume that the resources are "used up" in making that product, but ecosystems don't work that way. The grass that the cow eats might otherwise have died and decomposed, or if a cow eats all the grass in the lot it may create better habitat for some bird species. Presence and absence, especially of niches, are not physical qualities of a habitat. An emergy-type analysis applied to fishing suggests that eating one tuna is equivalent to eating 1,000 sardines, but that is only true if you have to farm the sardines to feed a farmed tuna. In the wild, that tuna has already eaten 1,000 sardines, whether you now eat the tuna or not. In fact, your eating the tuna may spare the next 1,000 sardines from being eaten! While it may be desirable to spare the tuna for other reasons, emergy fails any.

Fifth, it is a weird idea of sustainability. Emergy explicitly doesn't want to "double count" sun and wind, yet a smart farmer could do just that by harvesting wind energy and solar energy. Emergy doesn't do a good job of figuring out what is sustainable versus what isn't: it provides a plethora of weird ratios for calculating "Environmental Yield Ratio" and other indices of sustainability, but these ratios are all based on predetermined categorization of whether a given input is sustainable or not, thus assuming the very thing they seek to prove.

To put everything in the same system to compare everything comes from a good motivation but the conclusions end up being trivial. In my humble opinion, it may be impossible to accurately compare fish and electricity and sedimentation in terms of the energy that went in to them. Weirdly, dollars are still best.

3D Protein Structures!

http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/home/home.do

UMBS Tree Girdling Study

Granger Causality

Need for closure OR Indecisive

I had thought that disagreement over Evolutionary Theory or Global Warming could be reinterpreted as an opportunity to engage other curious minds. As science becomes more egalitarian and open, more and more interested, educated citizens will join the debate. If science can learn with them (collaborative, constructivist model of knowledge), rather than teach toward them (defiency model of education in which learners need to be filled up with knowledge) we could realize a great opportunity.

However, not all arguers are open to persuasion. In complex, competing-message environments today some people pick their opinions first. Kruglanski has described a personality scale of closure/openess in decision-making. (Kruglanski, 1993)


Experiment
He asked:

Which phrases do you agree with?

I find that a well ordered life with regular hours suits my temperament.
I feel uncomfortable when I don't understand the reason why an event occurred in my life.
I don't like to go into a situation without knowing what I can expect from it.
When I am confused about an important issue, I feel very upset.
I usually make important decisions quickly and confidently
I don't like to be with people who are capable of unexpected actions.
I dislike it when a person's statement could mean many different things
I'd rather know bad news than stay in a state of uncertainty.

OR

When I go shopping, I have difficulty deciding exactly what it is that I want.
I tend to put off making important decisions until the last possible moment
I would describe myself as indecisive.
My personal space is usually messy and disorganized
I tend to struggle with most decisions


Kruglanski, A. W., Webster, D. M., & Klem, A. (1993). Motivated resistance and openness to persuasion in the presence or absence of prior information. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65 (5), 861-876

Human Appropriation of NPP

http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/es/hanpp.html

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Global_human_appropriation_of_net_primary_production_(HANPP)

Environmental Decisions: Easy, Common, Info, or Tough

http://dispatchnie.com/live/export-content/sites/dispatchnie/pdfs/2010InWeather.pdf

Managing Great Lakes Forests for Climate Change Mitigation

Dr. Peter Curtis presents information from the FASET project at UMBS in this video presentation produced as part of The Ohio State University's Changing Climate webinar series.