The latest thing going around the internet today is that the Sun rose on in a small burg called Ilulissat in Greenland on January 11th. Ilulissat is north of the arctic circle so it experiences 24 hours of darkness for several weeks. Nothing unusual there.
The unusual part is that the Sun usually rises again on January 13th. Therefore, the Sun came back two days early and the question is why.
The first thing to do is to verify the claims is true. I checked out the NOAA Sunrise/Sunset calculator (after finding what I think is the lat/long of Ilulissat. There are lots of places with similar names in Greenland!) and the US Naval Observatory. Sure enough, January 12th, no sunrise. January 13th, there is a sunrise and a very short day. Okay, NOAA and USNO agree with the prediction and they are pretty reputable in such matters.
The next thing is to verify the observation. This part is much trickier. The story has gone viral on the web. The best I can tell, it started with a story in the Daily Mail. Read it and you can see the details of who made the observations and where are pretty sketchy...okay, non-existant. No mention of the time of the observation, how long the Sun stayed up, location of observation, azimuth of the Sun (I don't consider the stock photo they used in the story to have any bearing on anything) or who made the observation. A photo of the sunrise with an identifiable landmark would have been REALLY useful!
Now on to the possible why (assuming it really happened).
First, let's get rid of all the crackpot theories. Earth's rotational axis has not changed. Astronomers use telescopes every night and measure the positions of stars down to tenths of an arc second (or finer) resolution every night. If something had happened like that, everyone around here would be totally whigged out about now, yet calm prevails at observatories around the world. This is not related to the bird deaths, 2012 non-sense, magnetic pole shifting, etc.
The idea that is getting the most play and traction is that global warming is to blame. Greenland has been well above average this year by about 3 degrees Celsius. The running idea is that the glaciers are melting and the horizon is lower. A lower horizon lets the Sun peak above it a little earlier. If this is the case, surveying crews should be able to make some measurements and confirm or deny this rather quickly.
I decided to play around a little bit and see what I could find out. Checking out the NOAA Solar Position Calculator , I found the center of the Sun was only 0.68 degrees below the horizon at local noon. Since the Sun has a radius of about .27 degrees, the center of the Sun was only .41 degrees below the horizon. Converting to radians gives an angle of about .007 radians. So now I have a pretty good idea of the the angle the tip of the glaciers must have descended to let the sun rise two days early.
But how many meters of melting would have to take place? The math is easy, but knowing the numbers to use is difficult. The answer depends very much on how far away these glaciers are located. Looking at Google Earth and Google maps is of limited utility since you I would need to know exactly where they were looking!
However, I can still make some general calculations here. Let's say the horizon is 10,000meters away (about six miles). The height the glaciers must have lost is simply the angle times the distance to the mountains (using the small angle approximation here and the angle is small enough that works pretty well) or 10,000*.007 = 70 meters or about 220 feet! Of course, if the glacier is much closer, the amount of ice lost could be much smaller. If you were 1000 meters away, it would only need to lose 7 meters (about 22 feet) off the top. However, without information on exactly where the observation was made, there's not much you can say about it (although that hasn't stopped any of the whackos out there!)
Now I should also point out that it could also be due to the ground rising. As glaciers melt, the ground will rise as there is less weight on it. I doubt this could rise enough in one year to create the effect by itself, but if the glaciers fell a little and the ground rose you might be in business.
However there are other explanations. Accuweather proposed an unusual concentration of methane in the atmosphere may have changed the index of refraction of the atmosphere at let the Sun be visible a couple of days early. I find this implausible as the amount of methane needed to do this would be huge! Volcanic eruptions can release enough pollutants into the atmosphere to give colorful sunsets, but even they do not change the atmosphere enough to affect the time of sunsets!
Much more likely is an atmospheric phenomena. A certain rare but understood shape of ice crystal (called a pyramidilly-terminated hexagonal prism for those following along at home) can produce a halo with a radius of 4 degrees. This halo would extend a little above the horizon giving the illusion of a sunrise. I think it is fairly safe to say that Greenland is cold enough for atmospheric ice crystals to form at this time of year. These are pretty rare but then again this doesn't happen every year! Again, a good picture of this would be amazingly useful.
Although I need more info, I would put my money on the small halo. The amount of ice that would have to fall off the top of a glacier is pretty large and a fall of that size probably would have been noticed so let's see some evidence of it (I know this just happened and in a pretty remote place, so I am willing to give them a little time to get the info here).
Hello, my sassy snowballs! How are you? We received another blanket of snow to grace our homes and streets. Just lovely, isn’t it? On my personal calendar, winter starts December 1 and ends February 28 (or 29). Spring: March, April, and May. Summer: June, July, and August. Fall: September, October, and November. So this Saturday is January 15, which means winter will be half over. Huzzah! Huzzah! It will be downhill from then on. I don’t care what Mr. T.S. Eliot said about April being the cruelest month; February can be a b-i-t-c-h. At least it’s short. I know it snows in March, dears, just like it sometimes does in November, but green buds peak up through the snow in March and that’s all the encouragement I need.
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From the Associated Press:I have a problem that is really bugging me. I use an Aide service that helps me around the house. Maid on steroids so to speak, or at least that's what one of them was. My first aide was a slow moving dim witted bovine. She had a nice personality, but she never finished a job, moved slowly as she did it, and couldn't remember what she had done the week before so was always asking me, “What do I do next?” I hate having to nursemaid someone that should be able to do simple tasks and complete them. I especially hate getting told the job is done and finding it half-assed or not finished at all. Eventually I had enough and told the agency to get me anyone but her.
My second Aide was, WOW! A self starter, always remembered what I needed, witty, fast moving, in fact so fast, many a time I cut her loose early because everything was done. She helped me out in the garage, got her hands dirty with joy, was a gear head, and soaked up EVERYTHING I taught her from machines, to electronics, to motorcycles, to computers. Sadly she left me for a job at one of our GOOD manufacturers and I'm proud of her and was told a lot of what she learned helped her get that job.
Now I'm on my third Aide and just don't know. While this one is faster than the first one, she seems even dimmer witted. I explained how I use water from my filter pitcher for ice cubes, then watched as she emptied a tray of ice cubes in the filter hopper. I explained no, water in the hopper, the filtered water in the ice trays. This was last week. This week I opened the fridge, saw the near empty pitcher and started to ask about filling it, and she beams at me and says, “I already got that done.” Huh? I open the hopper and it was filled with ice. Of course she refilled the ice trays from the tap... Yeah sure, I'm being neurotically picky, but that is just one example. These girls are CNAs! How do they get through their Certified Nursing Assistant courses?
My dilemma is that girls 1 and 3 are black, and girl 2 was white. I've seen intelligent industrious blacks. These are not them. Are they being slow out of choice? Is it like where you don't work fast or you will get more work thrown at you, and you don't use your brain or you might have to think? Is it an inability to think? I have a shirt that says Marilize Legaluanna. She read it and took near five minutes to put the words right so she got the joke. It's frustrating. How in the Hell do they teach their kids to excel when they don't know how to themselves?
I'm going to give her one more week then beg for a new girl. I'm going to specifically ask for a Hispanic one. I feel like I'm being racist, but I just can't be nurse maiding someone that has a bone head simple job and can't do it. When Aide #2 put in her notice, I specifically asked for someone with a brain and good work ethic. If this is their answer, I worry what I'll get next if I do request someone else. At least now I'm starting to understand why our school system is in so much trouble.
Red Tailed Hawk at River Bend
Austin's Finished Mural
Harley on a North Woods Path
Rush in Concert
Rustic Picture
Autumn at Petrifying Springs
Hello, my New Year Irregulars! How are you? Did you party till you dropped on New Year’s Eve? I must admit, I stayed in and watched Marx Brother movies on TV. Even though I’ve seen them many, many times, I love watching their old films. Surprisingly, I didn’t hear much gunfire this year at midnight. Actually, I didn’t even think about it until New Year’s Day when a friend mentioned the lack of gunfire in her neighborhood, too. That’s a promising trend. Now we just have to get people to stop shooting at other people. Let’s make that a city-wide resolution for 2011. Spread the love, my people.This is where my lack of pop music knowledge might be a hindrance...I understand this is a parody of a pop song video. See Jank's site, they did the original.
I don't think I need to see the original...I couldn't possibly take it seriously after this fun little ditty!
January starts off giving us a partial solar eclipse, about two weeks after our lunar eclipse (solar and lunar eclipses frequently occur in pairs like this...nothing unusual here!) Unfortunately for us in the Americas, the eclipse is visible from Europe, eastern Asia and northern Africa. Greatest eclipse occurs in northern Sweeden where about 85% of the Sun will be covered.
Partial eclipses are not safe to view with the naked eye. A properly filtered telescope is required or you can make your own pinhole projector. Various companies sell eclipse shades for a few dollars that are safe as well.
For those of us outside the path of the eclipse, we can watch webcasts from people who are in areas where the Sun will be eclipsed. Fortunately, there are several feeds in case one is clouded out. These include Barekat Observatory in Israel, the University of Barcelona and Astronomy Live. I am sure there are others as well, and I may add more as I find them.
Unfortunately, the eclipse begins at 6:40UT, reaches maximum at 8:50UT, and ends at 11:00UT. For the east coast of the U.S., that is at 1:40am EST for the start and 6:00am for the end (EST is five hours behind UT). I might watch the recordings and look at the images when I get up!The Quadrantid meteor shower is about to peak. The Quadrantids would be famous if they were occurred at a warmer time of year as their rates can frequently approach 100 per hour, comparing favorably with the Perseids in August. Unfortunately, you need some good cold weather gear to see this meteor shower.
The Quadrantids peak at about 1UT on January 4th (8pm EST, 5pm PST). The Quandrantids have a very narrow peak intensity that lasts only a few hours (unlike the Perseids and Geminids which can be good for a couple of days either side of their peaks) so you if you are going to catch them, you get one shot. Fortunately the new Moon is on the 4th so the skies will be nice and dark all night long for optimal viewing.
Most meteor showers are named for the constellation in which their radiant is located which means you might wonder where "Quadrantid" is located. They are named after the constellation Quadrans Muralis which just didn't make the cut when the constellations were made official. The constellation was between what is now Booetes and the head of Draco. You can see the location on the chart below.
You can see I made that chart for 3:15am, so it takes a while for the radiant to get up very high. You might catch a few Earth grazers early in the evening, but you have to stay up pretty late (or get up pretty early) for the real show to begin. Since the radiant of this shower is so far north, those basking in the southern hemisphere summer don't have a good view of this shower!
It is known to put on a good show...if you catch a break and get an abnormally warm January night, it's worth checking out.Every sunset has a potential for a green flash and every one is different. This one was a little pale as the sunset behind a mountain.
A little cloudy here this morning, but just enough breaks to get Venus, the crescent Moon and Mercury.
If you get a nice grouping of Venus, the Moon and Mercury, you would expect lots of people to blog about it and see it...unless it is in the pre-dawn sky in late December! I managed to get up this morning and get the camera setup.
I like the effect of bright Venus and the Moon poking through the trees. The Moon is a waning crescent but overexposed in this pic so you don't see that effet well. In order to get a better picture of the Moon, I reduced the exposure time. Of course then you don't see as many stars.
But I haven't shown you Mercury yet. There's a reason for that you can see in the next picture.
Just above the clouds you will see a star with an orange tint. That is Antares, the heart of Scorpio. Mercury is just to the lower left of Antares...in other words, right behind the clouds!
Tomorrow the Moon will have moved closer to Mercury and Sunday the VERY thin crescent will be just below Mercury. Your best best to see Mercury is probably about 45 minutes before sunrise. I am hoping for clear skies here the next couple of mornings!
It was a cold day for Tucson. A big winter storm passed through leaving the mountains coated in snow and daytime temperatures only in the 40's. Late in the afternoon, I noticed the sky had started clearing and decided to try sunset pictures. I am glad I did.
There were some low clouds in the area so I wasn't quite sure what I would get. I would not see the Sun behind the mountains. Let me show you a wide view of what I was dealing with.
Under such circumstances, prospects for a green flash are usually not seem as too good. Let's zoom in at the top of the Sun.
Yep, I caught a rare cloud-top green flash. I saw it as well as captured it with a camera. Not the brightest green flash I had ever seen, but not difficult to see either. I kept shooting and got a bonus a couple of shots later.
Lookey there...it turned blue! I did not see the blue visibly but got the picture. A cloud top blue flash!
Blue flashes are more rare since Earth's atmosphere scatters blue light more than green light. The blue light is usually scattered too much to see a blue flash. You need a very clear atmosphere with very few pollutants (both natural and human caused) to get a blue flash. Sometimes a nice storm system is just the ticket to clear things out enough to get that elusive blue flash.
"It's actually very good for a man to have unprotected sex as long as he doesn't ejaculate. Because I believe that all that semen has a lot of nutrition. A tablespoon of semen has your equivalent of steak, eggs, lemons and oranges. I am reabsorbing it into my body and it makes me go raaaaahh," he said.
Hello, my pretty penguins! How are you? Did you have a merry little Christmas, or a merry big one? Junior and I stayed home on Christmas Eve and had a very nice chat with Santa later on. I only get to see him once a year. Santa is just as jolly as they say he is. He is such a wonderful guy. Santa gave us each a present – nothing fancy, the recession has hit the North Pole, too. And then he was off in the twinkle of an eye. Ahem, let me admit here, if that man wasn’t happily married, I might make a play for him myself. Oh my!
r in the year to come and enjoy health and happiness. I love you all.December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo.
If so, one of my former students, Sarah Glendening just joined the cast of All My Children as Marissa. Today was here first episode. I have it on my DVR and just fast forwarded through it to catch a few of her scenes. She looks fantastic and I love seeing her do well and get roles. This is the first role I have seen her in on television where she didn't end up murdered (I saw the Law & Order: Criminal Intent and an episode of Cold Case where she was Corpse of the Week...Cold Case was really cool as she was the lead playing a hot shot female pilot in WWII).This is an Open Letter to Pope Benedict on behalf of all victims of child sexual abuse by catholic priests; on behalf of all catholic people, and all honorable catholic clergy; on behalf of every media outlet under the sun; and on behalf of The Holy Spirit.
Sir,
Some burning questions arise from the following statement you made in your Christmas address to your cardinals on December 20th regarding how it came to pass that the house of The Holy Spirit became a haven for criminals of a sexual nature.
"In the 1970's pedophilia was theorized [by the church] as something fully in conformity with man and even with children."
Please deign to respond to this letter directly and personally and put aside all the pomp and titles and so-called 'proper channels' -- all of which belong not in the 21st century but the 12th and are unbecoming of Christ.
Exactly who held the theory that pedophilia was fully in conformity with man and with children?
Please give us their names.
Exactly when did they hold this theory?
Exactly when if ever did they cease holding the theory?.
Why was this information not given to victims?
Why was it never given to any commissions of inquiry or civil authorities?
Why in all the years since these scandals broke out was yesterday the first mention of this information?
It is highly disrespectful of the victims that you would throw this out as an aside remark and not present yourself for questioning on such a very serious piece of information which would be key in the potential recovery of the church.
The Holy Spirit requires you to familiarize yourself with honesty and respect if you retain any desire to salvage the remains of the church which has been ruined by its being allowed to live by its own laws and not God's
~ Sinéad
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