Author Archives: zizroc

UCLA Geography professors Eric Sheppard and Helga Leitner organised a diverse group of senior professors to discuss the impacts of the new Administration on geopolitics and the environment. Discussants were: John Agnew (meaning from inconsistent statements from the POTUS-elect, decline of American image abroad); Helga Leitner (immigration and sanctuary cities); Eric Sheppard (globalization, nationalism); GlenContinue reading “UCLA Geography teach-in on the subject of the new US Administration”

We did it. NOAA agrees that 2016 was the hottest year on record [1]. Not a good race to be in, though, let alone to “win”. I recently watched a departmental colloquium from an hydrologist in Dennis Lettinmeier’s lab detailing just how anomalous the 2016 climatologies were for the Western US. That was the “strongest”Continue reading “From the frying pan, to the fire”

Just before AGU, my wife and I had the opportunity to be guest speakers in a special education initiative at the Alameda County Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, California. My wife is an expert on trauma psychology and spoke to inmates in this capacity. I addressed 2 classes of inmates regarding global warming, how weContinue reading “Climate, education, incarceration”

The animation shows rolling standard deviation for an 11 year window (evaluated at its 6th year midpoint). Source: Cook, E.R., Seager, R., Kushnir, Y., Briffa, K.R., Büntgen, U., Frank, D., Krusic, P.J., Tegel, W., van der Schrier, G., Andreu-Hayles, L. and Baillie, M., 2015. Old World megadroughts and pluvials during the Common Era. Science advances, 1(10),Continue reading “2000 years of drought variability in Europe”