alaska

Hi!

I've been back home for a week. Coincidentally, I've also been laying on the couch for a week. Tired is such a simple word for such an all-consuming feeling, isn't it?

I had a good time in Alaska. I also had a bad time. I laughed, I cried, I drove out of town in a frustrated funk (on what turned out to be a frickin' LOOP ROAD. I couldn't even run away correctly that day. I didn't know whether to laugh hysterically or drive off a cliff when I figured out what I'd done. L.O.S.E.R. Or just overly sensitive naive one. Whatever). I worked from 8 am until 1 am a time or two, I had dinner with old friends. I wondered why I dared call myself a scientist (nervy). I also wrote a little bit for the Discovery Channel blog...but not as much as I'd wanted. Seems a lot of what I really wanted to say wasn't exactly the right sort of thing for an "official" blog. You know?

I couldn't exactly write about having beers down the hotel hall in the room of the guy that was lead scientist for the DC-8 and laughing at him about how pissed he was that when they were diverted to Iqaluit they discovered that they not only had to share rooms (4+ to a room, and this means sharing rooms with weird and excentric scientists), but also laughing at him at how disgusted he was that there was no beer anywhere nearby (all the while I was smiling at how stereotypically atypical he is with his penchant for bare feet and ponytails. What a good guy. Raises alpacas. Very very smart. Lives life the way he wants.). We also talked a lot about the science, and I felt on-board. It was a nice evening.

I couldn't write about Wonderboy admitting to me at our dinner one night that he thought atmospheric scientists were simultaneously the biggest bunch of alcoholics and vegetarians of any branch of science he's ever seen. I couldn't write about the lively political debates we had at dinner, particularly when Wonderboy, my conservative hero, was there. (I so enjoy talking with him because we are so different but still respect each other. He makes me realize that conservative doesn't always mean dolt. I don't agree with him, but he's got intelligent reasons for his beliefs, which I respect.)

I wrote about the wonders of dog sledding, but didn't post about my trip to Chena Hot Springs or my hike in Denali. Here are some photos:

Here are me and Mian in the hot springs (I was in grad school with Mian YEARS ago, and she's up at NASA Goddard now). Good heavens it was amazing. There was snow all over the place and we were thus in our bathing suits. If there had been seats and drinks served there in the pool, I would have stayed all night. (Apparently, it's one of the primo places for Japanese tourists to go in the winter/spring time to view the aurora. They believe that babies conceived during the aurora have special gifts. So that's why the winter is their busy season.) No conceptions were going on while we were there. We pretty much had the pool to ourselves.


A picture of the hot spring water flowing toward the pool. Very eerie looking.


Icicles.

Two of the six moose we saw on our drive back. Good god, those things are monsterous. My memory of this involves Mian shouting to Gao to stop in the middle of the road, Gao shouting at Mian to GET BACK IN THE CAR, THEY ARE BIG DANGEROUS animals, me frantically rolling down my window and standing up to lean over the car roof to take pictures while Gao was shouting at me that cars were coming and to please get back in the car. OMG, can you say TOURISTS? But they were MOOSE!!!! Like in Northern Exposure!! So cool! Can you even see them?



Me being attacked by one of the vicious sled dogs at Denali National Park. I was so frightened. He was such a brute.


Another one of the vicious sled dogs. Can't you feel the intimidation?


A shot of some of the Alaska range from Denali.


Me and friend Carolyn (University of New Hampshire) hiked for about 1.5 miles in the snow. While it snowed on us. Nice conversation, peaceful setting, mountains, snow, life was/is good.


More later.

impacts of climate change in the Arctic

If you want to check up on how the ARCTAS campaign is going (Arctic Research of the Composition of the Troposphere from Aircraft and Satellites), hop on over to the Discovery Channel website to find out... See if you can pick me out!!!!! (That's a joke, BTW. I'm the female.)

blogging from the Arctic

...the subarctic, really.

For the next few weeks, while I am here in Fairbanks, Alaska for a scientific field study to look at the impact of climate change on the Arctic atmosphere, I will be blogging for the Discovery Channel Earth Live webpage. The producer has told me it will go live on Monday, April 7.

The link to the general page is here.

You click on the "From the Field" button to the left of the globe, and then click on one of the pink pins that appears on the globe. (Mine, of course, will be in Fairbanks). I probably won't keep up with this blog much in the meantime. Stop on by and see how things are going up here from time to time! My days so far have been limited to sitting hunched over my computer in a meeting room. Some of those on the aiplanes have gotten to see polar bears trotting across the Arctic Canadian Islands, walruses diving off of the ice and caribou running below during some of their boundary layer (near surface) legs. On Wednesday they'll be flying just by the north pole, and those of you who laughed about us blundering into Russian air space, I'll have you know that Russia has claimed the north pole, so we have to be very careful about where we fly. (Besides, my co-worker filed that particular flight plan instead of me so I can't be blamed).

I'll update when I get the exact link for my part of the Discovery Channel blog...

In the meantime, here's a photo of the DC8. You can see all the inlets for the instruments making the measurements poking out every which way.

Happy Birthday sweet boy...

And then to complete the series, I searched for a good recent picture of Q and realized they're all either of him scowling or like this...


...which I suppose is OK, because he's twelve now and I think that's how it's expected to be.

Twelve years ago this morning I was walking up and down our street with my mom, trying to jump-start those forces of labor. I needn't have bothered. It was, you see, my actual due date and my son is the ultimate epitome of a rule-follower. He took his first steps on his first birthday. One of my goals is to help him learn to question authority. Those lessons will come after he's done being a teenager, though.

When this perfect, beautiful brand new baby was just home from the hospital I broke down into tears because he, who was obviously perfect, had been given ME as a mom - who knew nothing about little boy babies. I would sit and rock him for hours and feel guilty for depriving the rest of the world the chance to meet him. I was a cliche. I still am.

Q I love you more than you can understand right now. Which is a good thing because you are embarking down a tumultuous several years. I'll keep hanging on and when you're out of the adolescent hormonal rebel against your parents teenager phase, we'll watch some Monty Python together and laugh. And I'll never stop being proud.

international incident schmincident

Alrighty then.

The engines are revving up at work. Our field campaign is already starting to unfold, with the planes out in California for the instrument uploading and test flights. I'll take off for Alaska in about 10 days to join them all out there. My co-workers are getting slightly stressed. Today, WB, who is more or less running this whole show, came in to my office to make sure I was ready to run some of the visualization tools during flight planning.
Me: "Do what?"
Him: (stare).
Me: "ok, got it."
Apparently, the approach here is to nod and remain calm and pretend that I knew all along what I was meant to be doing. He apologized later for being harried. "You're not much hairier than usual" I responded. He didn't even flinch. He's stressed.

All was fine until he started describing the report I would draw up for the navigator after each planning meeting (almost daily).
Me: "The navigator, as in a pilot?"
Him: "Yes."
(silence)
Me:"Are you telling me I am going to be responsible for telling the plane where we want it to be FLYING?"
Him: (smile)
Me: (thinking): Holy CR*P!!

My mom and I had a good rip-roaring laugh over this one. When you hear of the international incident where a government research plane blunders over into Russian air space or runs out of fuel over the arctic ice pack, imagine me in all my insecurity putting together a job resume. I knit, remember.

don't even try to dissect this

Here's my dream from last night.

The setting was outdoors in bleachers, kind of like this:


(Yes I spent time searching the web for the "right" bleachers. It was important to the dream). We were all sitting in a group on the left side, waiting. I was with the Red Sox. (yep). Apparently, I was selected to be in some kind of group to try out. There was first going to be an exhibition game that the Sox played, in which some of us would be called in to show our stuff. I did not expect that I would be in this elite group of wannabes. Afterwards, however, we were going to practice with them, using the (Dah Dah Dah DAAAAAH) Kite Four. (Everyone was dutifully impressed that we were going to have that opportunity. I was then, as I am now, totally clueless). So, the real Red Sox players were hanging out together at the bottom of the bleachers while I was sitting toward the back with the rest of the newbies. There were, oh I don't know - some people from work, some friends, and several that I didn't know. The only exchange I remember was with someone I know from work who joked with me about being there to gawk. I was HIGHLY miffed. "I'm Trying OUT!!!" I retorted in my most patronizing fashion, effectively shutting her up for the rest of the night. (This bit was entirely consistent with my relationship with this person).

The thing was, though, that we sat there a long time. We were all getting restless. And I had to pee. I knew that I wasn't going to be called into the game because I wasn't good enough, but I did NOT want to miss practice with the (Dah Dah Dah DAAAAH) Kite Four. But I really really had to pee. I finally jumped up and threw off my shoes (apparently this is what you do in my personal dreamworld when you have to pee) and ran to the bathroom. Of course, when I got back, the game was over and the team and all the newbies had left for (Dah Dah Dah DAHHH) Kite Four practice.

At this point, I was all anxiety and confusion and frustration as I tried to find my shoes and socks to start to search out the rest of the team. I couldn't find my socks. Anywhere. I went running barefoot through the grass looking for the group. I finally found them (The real Red Sox, that is). I remember running up behind Mike Lowell and noticing that he had this nifty socks carrier on his back, under his shirt, as did the rest of the team. "AH!! I thought. So THAT'S why they never lose their socks!!!!

stars

Check out this story.

The explosion of a star halfway across the universe was so huge it set a record for the most distant object that could be seen on Earth by the naked eye.

It's not so much the distance that amazes me: 7.5 billion light years, which is roughly 4.4 x 10(22) miles (I can't figure out how to do superscript). That's ~4 with 22 zeros at the end of it, way further than anything else we can claim to have seen on this earth as we gaze up at the black night sky. Once you get into distances much larger than the diameter of the earth, my brain can't handle the thought of it, so that many light years simply registers as "damn BIG." No, the thing that really boggles my mind is this:

However, NASA has no reports that any skywatchers spotted the burst, which lasted less than an hour.

For the love of Pete. A star exploded halfway across the universe - in a galaxy we didn't even know existed before - and the light from this unfathomable violence traveled for 7.5 billion years to reach our little planet and then this mind boggling event was over in less than an hour? That's beyond my comprehension. I don't know how else to say it. It's jaw-dropping amazing.
There's something almost terrifying about such magnitudes of violence being instantaneous.

Meanwhile, I was oblivious to the whole mysterious happening. I was watching the cardinals and chickadees at our bird feeder. I find it beautiful that the universe is big enough to allow such isolation.

OM update

From Friday's post, you may have gotten the impression that I was worried about Q's OM team and their competition Saturday:

After I witnessed an impromptu psychotherapy session amongst some very stressed out middle schoolers in which they simultaneously tried to convince each other to stay team players while making farting noises, I snuck up to Mr. Drama teacher and asked if they were going to crash and burn tomorrow during the competition. "Maybe." he said. "Or maybe they won't."

Well for heaven's sake.

In the set-up room at the competition, the kids were tired and unenthusiastic and nervous. They couldn't remember any of their lines, and their coach just couldn't get them motivated.


But never underestimate the abilities of a small group of talented, overachieving preteens. When it was their turn and they had the stage, a freakin' miracle happened. They were on FIRE. The quiet ones started projecting, the storyline flowed, the set changes were flawless, the exploding dinosaur brain was perfect, and they were absolutely hilareous!! They ended up with the highest score out of the 9 in their category for both their long performance and their style (costumes, set design). For those not familiar with OM, the team of kids had to do EVERYTHING themselves. The coach can give instructions and facilitate, but the ideas, the entire script, costumes, set, everything is purely the kids. (BTW the storyline - they had to explain the demise of the dinosaurs. Their heads exploded from taking the SOLs - standards of learning tests. "Apparently, the stress was too much for them." LOL)

They didn't do so great on their spontaneous portion, meaning they ended up in 2nd place overall instead of 1st (beat out by 8 points out of 350). Who knew? This is a first-year team, almost all 6th graders. I couldn't believe how they came together like that.

Yes, I had tears in my eyes watching the screaming, jumping up and down group of them run up to get their trophy. I haven't seen a smile like that on Q's face in a while. What an awesome team-building experience that was. I'm sold on Odyssey of the Mind, despite the enormous time commitment. (Gah). Q is already asking about next year.

the snowball to hell

Doesn't it feel like that certain days just have worse karma than others? I'm not talking major, life-changing events. I'm talking about a simple accumulation of annoyances. You start with a stubbed toe and from there on out, things go downhill until you run the car into the ditch and respond "but of Course!!" This is all illustrative. No, I did not run my car into the ditch. The day, however, is not yet over.

We're all happy just now. The four children in my house (yes only two are legally mine) are watching a coveted show on Disney, half of them bathed and clean and sweet-smelling (the two preteen males, oddly enough), and all of them are blissfully downing dippin' dots. I made them all chant the mantra that I was the most awesomest mom of all time, or the most awesomest mom OTHER than their own mom of all time, before I let them have any.

From my credit card being denied at the grocery store this morning, to getting the threatening letter that my condominium was under-insured (no, we do not, nor have ever owned, rented, or contemplated a condominium), to getting an email at work demanding to know where I intended to get the 33K to fund a student this year (WTF???? I never even TALKED to any students about applying for any fellowship to be funded by me, nor do I have any extra money to fund one), to the fact that during our PTA Reflections awards ceremony today, the ONE kid who had their name misspelled on the certificate belonged to the ONE mom who'd had complaints about the way we'd handled the program this year (of all the sucky luck), to my DOG being the one that ultimately enjoyed the pizza that I'd painstakingly custom-made for the four picky kids with various combinations of lovingly chopped spinach and sliced black olives and slices of turkey pepperoni...it's been one blasted irritation after another.

When I picked my daughter and her BFF up from school, they both launched into long stories (simultaneously) about why they both ended up crying during recess and how my sweet daughter E irritated her wonderful teacher into getting all snarky with her today, and how BFF C was in tears all day over the thought of her mom and dad being gone ALL weekend, and then so-and-so pulled her hair and stomped on her foot. Gracious. There is bad karma in the air.

Q had an Odyssey of the Mind rehearsal after school and when I stopped by, it was freakin' soap-opera central. Boy M decided everyone else SUCKED so he wasn't going to even GO to the contest tomorrow, and he STORMED off into the deep netherlands of the middle school in a funk where no one could find him for a while. Dinosaur tails kept knocking over props (and breaking them) and the huge backdrop on the fancy swivel that Q and best friend R designed wouldn't fit through the door so it had to be cut, rendering its balance way off, resulting in a back drop that will require constant supervision (from nutso kids of course.) The exploding brain of the dinosaur is not working, and no one remembered to make the CD for the sound effects. After I witnessed an impromptu psychotherapy session amongst some very stressed out middle schoolers in which they simultaneously tried to convince each other to stay team players while making farting noises, I snuck up to Mr. Drama teacher and asked if they were going to crash and burn tomorrow during the competition. "Maybe." he said. "Or maybe they won't." Thanks, Mr. Drama teacher. (I snuck a semi-large contribution to the drama club to him as he walked by).

I swear I keep vowing to lay off the wine. Then days like this come along and I find myself at the store with a couple of bottles (and nothing else) at check-out. When I run into friend Paige, who asks me why I'm spending my Friday night shopping, I hold up the bag with two lone bottles of Cabernet and she understands. "Oh yeah, Yep. Gottcha." (she has kids too).

uncle

Disclaimer:
Any scientist who reads this post will likely roll his/her eyes at the naivity and shallowness and the gross "duh" factor. Forgive me. My middle name is Pollianna. Whatever. Plus, this blog is my personal journal as a way to stay in touch with my family and friends, rather than a science-based blog, as many of yours are. You and your blogs are needed and I thank you. I'm just an everyday kid working as a scientist but mostly working on being human and blogging about the journey, so I'm coming at it more as an individual and less from the science perspective. Not that interesting for you, but hopefully OK for my 1-8 readers. Any non-scientist will wonder what I'm going on and on about. Any global warming denialist will simply not believe me (as is the norm). Bear with me. I just need to get this out, and then I'm done with this.

I've not written many recent posts about global warming. This is because it exhausts me . I have still felt compelled to discuss the (ridiculously recycled) issues that continue to appear and reappear amongst the ardent crowd of folks who do not believe that global warming or climate change is occurring (I give myself permission to grossly generalize this group of people here for the sake of brevity. What shall I call them? "Deniers?"). Ultimately, what a waste of energy. This is a very small (albeit very vocal) minority on the global scale, and the per capita energy expenditure required to communicate with them tops out because I have found that they are persistently unwilling to engage in any kind of civil discussion...And that is what I have been unwilling to admit until now, and why I am so exhausted by this subject. Oh naivety. I had this ridiculous optimism that given enough perseverance and decency, civil discussion would ensue and understanding would blossom throughout the world. Silly, silly me. So much for us all holding hands and singing Kum-by-yah (my second reference to that song in just a few weeks...I have no idea why).

I would be more than happy to listen to ideas and concerns and partake in a civil discussion, and in fact view that as part of my job. I'm willing to do my part. In fact, I've spent a lot of time reading through the litany of "issues" with the research that are repeated around the blogosphere amongst this crowd and spending time finding reasoned responses to the more credible sounding arguments. (I can take a guess as how many of the "Deniers" have spent a comparable amount of time reading up on the published and peer-reviewed research that supports human-caused climate change. The number is tiny.) You give me any denialist "news item" or any "new finding" (ha), and I dare say I will be able to give you a reasoned, credible argument based in scientific study to show the flaws in such finding, or show you the blatant misrepresentation of data to come up with the findings. It's REALLY not hard. It is, however, time-consuming because I try to come at it with a clean slate and open mind, but that is ultimately ridiculous because no one is going to listen to me.

Here's the real problem. These folks aren't total idiots. They are, however, unwilling to open up and listen, and this is ultimately because they view climate science as having a political agenda. I can partially understand their point, though they are completely wrong. Yes, a large portion of PhDs and research folks are of the liberal persuasion on the political scale, and a large portion of the deniers are very, very right-wing conservative. I can understand the skepticism.

But here's the rub. Science itself is not political. (duh) It's really not. Despite political leanings, despite economic status or gender or race, the scientists I know (and I know a lot of them) are totally focused on finding out how things work. We are trained to look for flaws in any argument. When I have a paper to review, I try to find the chinks in the armor. I feel successful if I do find one. I won an award for a paper where I corrected some flawed arguments that had been published earlier. Science is absolutely relentless - to portray scientists as blindly following a political agenda and participating in any kind of conspiracy is so absurd that I have no words. I have never known a more diversified, more argumentative, or more open-minded crowd than scientists. To characterize scientists as collectively bowing to any overarching agenda, much less a vast conspiracy, or to politicize science completely misrepresents its entire definition.

In addition, I have to say that I work at a research institution where there are probably more researchers on the politically conservative side than not (it's not typical). Yet not a single one of them doubts climate change. This is because when you strip the issue of political colors and are willing to really study the science involved, it is overwhelming. Science is not a matter of interpretation. It is what it is.

But the deniers have decided to believe otherwise, and no amount of energy that I can expend is going to convince them that this is not the case. That totally sucks, and I have decided that it is not worth my time or energy to continue in this. There are some great scientists out there who are good at this (some of which are in my blogroll). But I'm don't have the energy.

It's so much more useful to spend my energy discussing and debating responses to the changing climate, or discussing aspects of the economic impacts of various courses of action and find ways to mitigate adverse impacts (no, I am not ignorant of the possible economic shockwaves that could resonate across the globe if we act drastically and without thinking). I'd prefer a vigorous debate over new energy sources. I'd mostly prefer to discuss aspects of my own research (understanding fast photochemistry in today's atmosphere based on regional observations from aircraft campaigns), but the number of people who would find THAT compelling are - uh - somewhat limited.

I guess I'm crying uncle. I thought there was a place to meet where open dialogue could occur with these folks. I was wrong. Maybe the right answer is to admit to myself there will always be a contingent that will persist in believing that science is really only a political tool, and move on. There will always be that component that will persist in convincing themselves that the world is being duped by a vast conspiracy, and that they are ultimately the only ones with enough fortitude and intelligence to know otherwise. How ironic that those who claim that they are the special few who are smarter than and are above the general "hoodwinked gullible" public are really only those who are the most closed-minded, the most misled, and the most deluded.