The Crows at Summer Camp

The Crows at Summer Camp on Flickr.
the young crows recently enjoyed a week at the Connaught Summer Institute in Arctic Science.

Newspaper Article About Crow Sham’s Trip to the Arctic

The article below recently appeared in a Sinhalese newspaper in Toronto about Crow Sham's trip to the arctic. Some of her great pictures were used in the article, which she tells has a few extrapolations by the author about Sham's background and the project. So if you can read it take the article with a grain of salt and if you can't enjoy some great pictures of the True North on a hot day (at least where this Crow perches!).

Echoes of Walkerton in Environment Canada cuts

Prof. Thomas Duck writes:

The cost of the Walkerton tragedy was estimated at the commission to be between $64.5 million and $155 million. It remains to be seen what the cuts to Environment Canada will ultimately cost us — both financially and in human terms.

Read the full piece in the Toronto Star to appreciate the damage the Harper government is doing to the public by their attack on environmental science.

Echoes of Walkerton in Environment Canada cuts | Toronto Star

Misconduct, Not Error, Accounts For Most Scientific Paper Retractions

Misconduct, Not Error, Accounts For Most Scientific Paper Retractions

Brought to my attention from my colleague Prof. deBruyn in Physics. 67.4% of the medical papers retracted were due to misconduct not errors!

Recollections of the ISSI Lidar Temperature and Ozone Algorithms Working Group: Meeting 3

Wow been just over a week since I left Switzerland after a (hard!) working group meeting on lidar temperature and ozone algorithms (part of the Network for Detection of Atmospheric Composition Change, NDACC, lidar group). The International Space Science Institute was very accommodating to us, the weather was too nice (hard to work indoors through much of the day) and the meeting extremely productive. The group (including NDACC lidar scientists not at this meeting) is working on various issues of our data analysis with the goal of further improving the uniformity of the global data sets available from the NDACC program. During the week we spent considerable time on several details, some of which seem at first to not be important to the problem at hand. For instance, using our temperature measurements in the middle and upper atmosphere to investigate atmospheric change requires a fairly precise knowledge of Earth’s gravity at the surface. So we have to expand our expertise beyond the atmosphere into other areas, which to me is a fun part of being a scientist.

Our working group leader Thierry had us marching along in tight formation all and we obediently followed (for a bunch of scientists).

We worked hard all day but enjoyed dining together in the evening.

And not to worry! I got both a goat bell

and a cowbell (slightly smaller :-)

Pat and I have been happily clanging away all week. Here are a couple more pictures.

Venus Transit Event @westernu

Nice to see some many people out in #ldnont getting a painless dose of #science at the #venustransit 

I’ve posted a few pictures on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bobsica/sets/72157634859742751/

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory science team has posted some terrific movies of SDO’s view of the Venus Transit. Plus you get to say ingress and egress!

The Hubble Space Telescope also captured the event.

Prof. T. Duck asks about the missing $35million the #HarperGovnt promised for atmospheric research? #TOStar #westernu

OpEd piece from the Toronto Star.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/1140330--ottawa-squan...

 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper should set scientists free, says Nature #Editorial from #TOstar

"For a western democracy, the Harper government has been moving entirely in the wrong direction when it comes to allowing freedom of speech for federal scientists." thestar.com

The Toronto Star weighed in today on its Editorial page on the recent publication in the journal Nature scolding the Harper government's on its insistence for muzzling federal scientists. I have had this happen to several colleagues, even to the level of having permission denied for trivial contacts (e.g. help from reports for local "Ask a Scientist" type columns). Reminiscent to me of the problems federal scientists working in the area of climate had in the U.S. had during the Busch administration.

Why Canadians should care about the closure of the PEARL Observatory. #CANDAC @westernu @lfpress @aguscipolicy @saveec @createarcticsci

Why Canadians should care about the closure of the PEARL Observatory

Yesterday we announced the closure of the Polar Environment Research Laboratory (PEARL) located in the high Arctic at Eureka, Nunavut. And what should disturb Canadians about this news has nothing to do with scientific entitlement, belief or disbelief in climate change or signalling our failure as a nation to be able to honour international agreements and commitments. We should be disturbed by the rejection of the notion of our sovereignty by the current Government. Sovereignty has been a cornerstone of the Canadian identify for hundreds of years. Sovereignty is a part of the Canadian mystique, our world-renown ability to stickhandle through difficult situations and find common ground and compromise in chaos.
The current Government has in recent months, in addition to closing the PEARL facility, attempted to stop all ozone research by Environment Canada as well as successfully eliminated the Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS). This well-coordinated attack on atmospheric science has two major implications for our sovereignty.

1. Developing policy. Traditionally when governments are trying to determine future policy actions they need information on which to base their decisions. For instance, how will changing climate affect Canadian agriculture? What affect will future climate changes have on air quality? If the Government is successful and rids itself of scientists investigating climate and weather issues, and further is successful in cutting support to University researchers, where is it going to get its information to make decisions? If you are in business and want to make a plan should you rely on your competitors (e.g. other nations) to provide the best possible advice to benefit you?
2. Health of citizens. Another important function of government is risk assessment. For instance, when the Antarctic Ozone Hole was discovered and was found to be growing its affects on humans was felt in New Zealand. It was critical for their government to be informed and know what was happening locally. Last winter measurements from the PEARL Observatory were a critical part of showing the first significant Arctic ozone losses that were at a level of the Antarctic Ozone Hole. We feel it is a responsibility of the Government to monitor atmospheric air quality so they have the knowledge necessary to bring forward policies protecting the health of Canadians. Do we want to rely on getting this information from other nations?

For a Government that has made mention many times about sovereignty, particularly in the context of the Arctic, the closure of the PEARL observatory is particularly troubling. So are we to accept the plan is to just “develop” the Arctic and let’s not bother with any informed thought on how we go about doing that? That logic was prevalent in the 19th century expansion across North America, but we learned some hard lessons from that experience we should not forget. The Government’s logic that Canada’s loss of an existing high Arctic research facility is compensated for by a plan to possibly build a facility in 2017 located 1600 km to the South is unacceptable (FYI 1600 km is about the distance from Toronto to Atlanta, Georgia!).
If your Canada includes homegrown scientific research into the environment to allow informed policy decisions and you want Canada to keep a scientific presence in the high Arctic to protect our sovereignty you can write to your MP, the Prime Minister and Minister Kent and let them know how you feel about the closure of the PEARL facility. Contact information is given at the end of this article.

Further Information:

• Dennis Bevington, MP from Western Arctic, NT, questions the Government about the closure of PEARL:

• Read the CANDAC closure notice.
• See the Save PEARL Facebook page.
• Read some facts about CFCAS.. The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences was the only funding available in Canada specifically for scientific investigations of climate and weather. The Harper Government chose to eliminate this program, thus making it difficult for weather and climate research to find support, as existing opportunities are either targeted for specific areas or have as a substantial part of their criteria, revenue generation.
• Article about sovereignty and its role in Canadian history.
• See an example of the Government’s commitment to development in the Arctic.

Contact Information to Let Your Voice be Heard

You can locate your MP’s information at: http://www.canada.gc.ca/directories-repertoires/direct-eng.html. Letters mailed to the following addresses in Canada do not require postage.

The Prime Minister address: Office of the Prime Minister, 80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2
Fax: 613–941–6900, E-mail: pm@pm.gc.ca

Enviroment Minister Kent can be reached at: The Honourable Peter Kent
Minister of the Environment, Member of Parliament for Thornhill (Ontario), Les Terrasses de la Chaudière, 10 Wellington Street, 28th Floor, Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0H3
Tel.: 819–997–1441, Fax: 819–953–0279, Email: Minister@ec.gc.ca

Researching weather with a laser - The Weather Network

via theweathernetwork.com

The Weather Network website just carried a news piece about our project.

Lidar Open House featuring our #ICFAR friends. Nov 12. Come on out: @uwoscience @westernu @westernmustangs @uwogazette @cpsxnews #westernu

We're having an open house out at the new observatory. Come on out, the laser will be on and you can tour both our facility and ICFAR (Institute for Chemicals and Fuels from Alternative Resources) a centre at Western dedicated to developing new and environmentally friendly energy alternatives. Saturday, Nov 12, 5-8 pm.

Lidar_ICFAR_Open_House_Final.pdf
Download this file

Any #agu11 Pranksters out there? inre: Deeply insightful abstract... - Geologic Froth

via geologicfroth.com

Thanks to Kyle House for bringing this to my attention: http://geologicfroth.com/deeply-insightful-abstract#. This kind of behaviour should be encouraged as a trade off for getting an 8 am Monday talk and a 1600 Friday poster in the same meeting!

Crow log supplemental (30 Sept 11):

Show this to Mrs. Sica who just started singing? Is this a mid-west thing, here's Lonzo and Oscar in 1948 (good ol' youtube):

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0I1gVqnGqM]