March
2010

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Penn State Probe into Mann's Wrongdoing a 'Total Whitewash'

If we did all the things that we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.

Life at the Top
By Dennis Bauer, www.dennisbauer.com

Most people want to be at the top. “See you at the top.” “Top o’ the mornin’.” “Mountaintop experience.” “Can you top this?” “At the top of his game.”

If you had been with me that last weekend in May a few years back, you would have felt the snow crunch under your boots, you would have seen the bright sun and breathed the thin air, and you would have stood against the 60 mile an hour wind as you stood on top of 14,410’ Mt. Rainier, the 5^th highest mountain in America (not including Alaska). And do you know what’s at the top?

Nothing! Snow, ice, rock …that’s about it. Nothing really grows there. There are no delicate orchids, no fragrant roses …not even the lowly dandelion grows there. Life is not on the mountain top.

Do you know where life is? Life is in the valleys. The valleys …where sometimes you slog through the mires and bogs, the forests and fogs, and you can’t see very far ahead or even know what direction you face. But there …right there …is where life is. Life is not on the mountain tops. Life is in the valleys.

Valleys aren’t always fun. Layoffs, cutbacks, budget shortfalls, staffing challenges …if you’re there, you know you would never call that a mountain top experience. Losing a job is a very deep valley indeed. One of life’s greatest challenges is finding perspective when it’s dark and you can see neither the forest nor the trees. And yet, the experiences of so many who have been there before you teach you that going through these valleys will, in the end, enrich you with the beauty and fragrance of a very full life. But the process is never fun.

You need two things to get you through the valleys of life. The first thing you need is determination. Determination is what rolls you over in the morning when the alarm clock goes off so early and, feel like it or not, you plant your feet on the floor.

The second thing you need is endurance. Endurance is what makes you plant your feet on floor morning after morning after morning after morning after…… 

If you’ve been there, you know what I’m talking about. If you’re there right now, give thanks! If you haven’t been there yet, prepare.

I believe we should give thanks for the valleys of our lives because that’s where you grow.

Life is not on the mountain tops. Life is in the valleys.

 

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Penn State Probe into Mann's Wrongdoing a 'Total Whitewash'
By Ed Barnes, FOXNews.com

Penn State's probe that mostly cleared climate change scientist Michael Mann for any wrongdoing doesn't begin to scratch the surface, say critics.

How thoroughly did Penn State University investigate a top climate scientist who brought hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to the school? A growing number of critics say they hardly looked at all.

Penn State ended a two-month probe into the work of Michael Mann, a top climate scientist whose "hockey stick" graph of climbing world temperature helped galvanize support for the climate change movement, on Wednesday.

The probe stemmed from the release of thousands of hacked e-mails from a server at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England that showed the internal debate and, some say, the manipulation of data, to support the scientific underpinnings of the case for global, man-made warming of the planet. Mann's e-mails were among those released and critics charged that he used "tricks" to make his data match studies that confirmed warming trends.

A three-person board of inquiry cleared Mann of three of four charges brought by the university that he falsified or tried to destroy data, and recommended further study on the fourth charge that his methods "deviated from accepted practices" of the scientific community.

They wrote in their report that "that there exists no credible evidence that Dr. Mann had ever engaged in, or participated in, directly or indirectly, any actions with intent to delete, conceal or otherwise destroy e-mails, information and/or data."

But the findings and, more importantly, the focus have set off a wave of criticism accusing the university panel of failing to interview key people, neglecting to conduct more than a cursory review of allegations and structuring the inquiry so that the outcome -- exoneration -- was a foregone conclusion.

On Friday, Rep. Darrell Issa, the ranking Republican on the House Investigations Committee, charged that the Penn State's failure to settle all the charges and called into question professor Mann's work. He is demanding that all grants to the noted scientist be frozen.

Mann, according to published reports, has gotten a grant almost $550,000 in stimulus money to study climate change and is part of a nearly $2 million grant to Penn State to study the impact of climate change on various diseases.

"Until the investigation is completed," Issa said, "the National Science Foundation should immediately freeze all grants and funding, including the $541,184 stimulus grant, to Professor Mann."

Criticism directed at the conduct of the investigation is being spearheaded by Steven Milloy, a former Fox News contributor and publisher of Junk Science, a Web site dedicated to debunking global warming research.

"It was set up to be a total whitewash and the panel made no effort to investigate," Milloy said. "They didn't even interview the recipients of the e-mails. It is ridiculous."

He charges that the panel did little more than look at the e-mails Mann sent and that, despite claims that "hundreds of hours" of time had been put into the investigation, only two people were actually interviewed. "None of them had any direct knowledge of the e-mails," he said.

"The only interviews cited in the report other than Mann's are with Jerry North and Donald Kennedy," he said. "Both are Mann's supporters and none have anything to do with the charges. Kennedy was the editor of Science magazine, and North helped Mann defend the 'hockey stick' graph. Yet Phil Jones, who got the e-mails, wasn't contacted."

Steve McIntyre of the Web site Climate Audit also charged that the panel looked at papers that were already publicly available. "They did not examine any of Mann's correspondence that was not already in the public record," he said. In effect, he argued, the panel didn't use any of its investigatory powers to plumb deeper.

Pennsylvania's Commonwealth Foundation, a conservative research and educational institute, proposed that the state legislature conduct an independent investigation of the charges and Mann's research.

A spokesman for the foundation said it was a "conflict of interest" for Penn State to investigate itself. Republican State Rep. RoseMarie Swanger also called for a separate investigation to be conducted by the state.

Graduate School Dean Henry C. Foley, who headed the investigation, referred all calls on the subject to media representatives for the school, who failed to return phone calls.

Becca Robison - A Teenager Changing the World
From the pages of Inspire Me Today™

Becca is the founder and president of AstroTots, which offers free science camps for girls ages 4-10.

Climategate U-turn as scientist at center of dispute admits: There has been no global warming since 1995
By Jonathan Petre

The academic at the center of the ‘Climategate’ affair, whose raw data is crucial to the theory of climate change, has admitted that he has trouble ‘keeping track’ of the information.

Colleagues say that the reason Professor Phil Jones has refused Freedom of Information requests is that he may have actually lost the relevant papers. 

Professor Jones told the BBC yesterday there was truth in the observations of colleagues that he lacked organisational skills, that his office was swamped with piles of paper and that his record keeping is ‘not as good as it should be’.

The data is crucial to the famous ‘hockey stick graph’ used by climate change advocates to support the theory.
 

Professor Jones also conceded the possibility that the world was warmer in medieval times than now – suggesting global warming may not be a man-made phenomenon.

And he said that for the past 15 years there has been no ‘statistically significant’ warming.

The admissions will be seized on by skeptics as fresh evidence that there are serious flaws at the heart of the science of climate change and the orthodoxy that recent rises in temperature are largely man-made.

Professor Jones has been in the spotlight since he stepped down as director of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit after the leaking of emails that skeptics claim show scientists were manipulating data.

The raw data, collected from hundreds of weather stations around the world and analyzed by his unit, has been used for years to bolster efforts by the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to press governments to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

Following the leak of the emails, Professor Jones has been accused of ‘scientific fraud’ for allegedly deliberately suppressing information and refusing to share vital data with critics.

Discussing the interview, the BBC’s environmental analyst Roger Harrabin said he had spoken to colleagues of Professor Jones who had told him that his strengths included integrity and doggedness but not record-keeping and office tidying.

Mr Harrabin, who conducted the interview for the BBC’s website, said the professor had been collating tens of thousands of pieces of data from around the world to produce a coherent record of temperature change.

That material has been used to produce the ‘hockey stick graph’ which is relatively flat for centuries before rising steeply in recent decades.

According to Mr Harrabin, colleagues of Professor Jones said ‘his office is piled high with paper, fragments from over the years, tens of thousands of pieces of paper, and they suspect what happened was he took in the raw data to a central database and then let the pieces of paper go because he never realized that 20 years later he would be held to account over them’.

Asked by Mr Harrabin about these issues, Professor Jones admitted the lack of organization in the system had contributed to his reluctance to share data with critics, which he regretted.

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NOAA Scientists Unraveling El Niño’s Mysteries
New Clues Found in Stratosphere, Troposphere and Arctic Vortex

Like a stone tossed in a pond, El Niño’s appearance
in the Pacific Ocean has ripple effects that extend
around the world.
 

A natural phenomenon, El Niño (Spanish for
“the little boy”) refers to occasional periods of sea
surface temperature warming in the tropical Pacific
that influence the world’s weather patterns.

El Niño is known for stirring up weather across the globe:

However, unlike concentric rings expanding across a pond’s surface, El Niño’s ripples do not follow a simple pattern. They are highly complex, capable of altering atmospheric features from the surface of the ocean to miles above the Earth.

New Pieces to the Puzzle

NOAA scientists are studying El Niño’s effects to better understand not only how El Niño influences our weather, but also to separate natural El Niño fluctuations from human-caused climate change. The array of variables involved — ocean temperature, air temperature, ocean currents, winds at various altitudes, air pressure, to name a few — add to the challenge.

A new study by Melissa Free and Dian Seidel, climate scientists in NOAA’s Air Resources Laboratory in Silver Spring, Md., helps connect some of the pieces in the El Niño puzzle. Their work, published in the December 2009 Journal of Geophysical Research, traces one subset of El Niño ripples from the Pacific Ocean to the stratosphere above the Arctic, and then on to Europe where the phenomenon tends to make winters colder.

Free and Seidel’s work is part of an emerging area of interest for climate and weather researchers investigating how the stratosphere — a layer of the atmosphere  beginning about five miles above sea level — influences weather at ground level. The stratospheric layer of the atmosphere is located above the troposphere.

The troposphere begins at the Earth's surface and extends up to 4-12 miles (6-20 km) high. This is where we live. The stratosphere begins above the troposphere and extends up to 31 miles above the Earth's surface. This layer holds 19 percent of the atmosphere's gases but very little water vapor. Scientists are just beginning to learn how conditions in the stratosphere echo downward into the troposphere and affect weather.

Free and Seidel decided to look specifically at El Niño’s ability to influence weather at the ground level by first triggering changes several miles up.

A Need to Learn More

In recent years, scientists have found a connection between another atmospheric feature, swirling upper-level winds called the Arctic vortex, and colder than average winters in Europe. Studying data collected since 1958, Free and Seidel confirmed links between El Niño, the cooling of the tropical stratosphere and the warming of the Arctic stratosphere — three factors that also influence the Arctic vortex.

Scientists have long known about El Niño’s effect on temperatures in the lowest part of the atmosphere, but its effects on the stratosphere have only recently become clearer through studies like this one.  

Industries affected by severe weather, droughts or floods — agriculture, cargo shipping and transportation — pay close attention to El Niño. With further study, scientists are confident that we will improve our understanding of El Niño and, ultimately, our ability to prepare for its effects.

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A Teacher's Story

Her name was Mrs. Thompson. As she stood in front of her 5th grade class on the very first day of school, she told the children a lie. Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same. But that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard.

Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he didn't play well with the other children. His clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath. And Teddy could be unpleasant. It got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X's and then putting a big "F" at the top of his papers.

At the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each child's past records and she put Teddy's off until last. However, when she reviewed his file, she was in for a surprise.

Teddy's first grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is a bright child with a ready laugh. He does his work neatly and has good manners...He is a joy to be around."

His second grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is an excellent student, well liked by his classmates, but he is troubled because his mother has a terminal illness and life at home is a struggle."

His third grade teacher wrote, "His mother's death had been hard on him. He tries to do his best, but his father doesn't show much interest and his home life will soon affect him if some steps aren't taken."

Teddy's fourth grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is withdrawn and doesn't show much interest in school. He doesn't have many friends and he sometimes sleeps in class."

By now, Mrs. Thompson realized the problem and she was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when her students brought her Christmas presents wrapped in beautiful ribbons and bright paper, except for Teddy's. His present was clumsily wrapped in the heavy, brown paper that he got from a grocery bag. Mrs.Thompson took pains to open it in the middle of the other presents.

Some of the children started to laugh when she found a rhinestone bracelet with some of the stones missing, and a bottle that was one quarter-full of perfume. But she stifled the children's laughter when she exclaimed how pretty the bracelet was, putting it on, and dabbing some of the perfume on her wrist.

Teddy Stoddard stayed after school that day just long enough to say, "Mrs. Thompson, today you smelled just like my Mother used to."

After the children left she cried for at least an hour. On that very day, she quit teaching reading, and writing, and arithmetic. Instead, she began to teach children.

Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. As she worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged him, the faster he responded. By the end of the year, Teddy had become one of the smartest children in the class and, despite her lie that she would love all the children the same, Teddy became one of her "teacher's pets."

A year later, she found a note under her door, from Teddy, telling her that she was still the best teacher he ever had in his whole life. Six years went by before she got another note from Teddy. He then wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in his whole life.

Four years after that, she got another letter, saying that while things had been tough at times, he'd stayed in school, had stuck with it, and would soon graduate from college with the highest of honors. He assured Mrs. Thompson that she was still the best and favorite teacher he ever had in his whole life.

Then four more years passed and yet another letter came. This time he explained that after he got his bachelor's degree, he decided to go a little further. The letter explained that she was still the best and favorite teacher he ever had. But now his name was a little longer the letter was signed, Theodore F. Stoddard, MD.

The story doesn't end there. You see, there was yet another letter that spring. Teddy said he'd met this girl and was going to be married. He explained that his father had died a couple of years ago and he was wondering if Mrs. Thompson might agree to sit in the place at the wedding that was usually reserved for the mother of the groom.

Of course, Mrs. Thompson did. And guess what? She wore that bracelet, the one with several rhinestones missing. And she made sure she was wearing the perfume that Teddy remembered his mother wearing on their last Christmas together.

They hugged each other, and Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs.Thompson's ear, "Thank you Mrs. Thompson for believing in me. Thank you so much for making me feel important and showing me that I could make a difference."

Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back. She said, "Teddy, you have it all wrong. You were the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn't know how to teach until I met you."

Remember - that wherever you go, and whatever you do, you will have the opportunity to touch and/or change a person's outlook. Please try to do it in a positive way.

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Commerce Department Proposes Establishment of NOAA Climate Service

Individuals and decision-makers across widely diverse sectors – from agriculture to energy to transportation – increasingly are asking NOAA for information about climate change in order to make the best choices for their families, communities and businesses. To meet the rising tide of these requests, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke today announced the intent to create a NOAA Climate Service line office dedicated to bringing together the agency’s strong climate science and service delivery capabilities.

More and more, Americans are witnessing the impacts of climate change in their own backyards, including sea-level rise, longer growing seasons, changes in river flows, increases in heavy downpours, earlier snowmelt and extended ice-free seasons in our waters. People are searching for relevant and timely information about these changes to inform decision-making about virtually all aspects of their lives.

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Next Generation Weather/Environmental Satellite Marks Major Milestone

The development of a new series of weather and environmental monitoring satellites has marked a significant milestone with the delivery and the beginning of spacecraft integration efforts for a key science instrument.

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) will be one of five instruments to fly on the National Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellite System (NPOESS) Preparatory Project (NPP) spacecraft. VIIRS is regarded as a key component in NPP’s suite of instruments because it will provide highly detailed imagery of clouds, vegetation, snow cover, dust storms, sea surface temperature and other environmental phenomena.

NPP is a joint mission to extend the time series environmental data records initiated with NASA’s Earth Observing System, including measurements made by the Terra, Aqua, and Aura satellites, and to provide risk reduction for NPOESS instruments, algorithms, ground data processing, archive, and distribution prior to the launch of the first NPOESS spacecraft.

"The delivery of the VIIRS instrument marks a long awaited and huge step towards completing the integration of the NPP mission. VIIRS will be the fourth flight instrument integrated onto the NPP spacecraft, only the CrIS instrument remains," said Ken Schwer, NPP Project Manager at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The Raytheon Corporation, El Segundo, Calif. built VIIRS under contract to the NPOESS prime contractor, Northrop Grumman. The ITT Corporation, Fort Wayne, IN is building CrIS also under contract to the NPOESS prime contractor, Northrop Grumman. Ball Aerospace and Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. under contract to the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center built the NPP spacecraft and is performing the integration and checkout of the NPP spacecraft.

NPP is scheduled for launch in Fall 2011 aboard a Delta rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

The NPP Project is a joint effort of the NPOESS Integrated Program Office (IPO), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center manages the NPP mission on behalf of the Earth Science Division of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.

NPOESS represents the next-generation low-Earth orbiting weather and climate monitoring satellites that will provide operational and long-term weather and climate data for both military and civilian use for the next two decades.

The NPOESS will collect a massive amount of very precise earth surface, atmospheric and space environmental measurements from a variety of on-board sensors. This volume of data will allow scientists and forecasters to monitor and predict weather patterns with greater speed and accuracy.

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M.Y. S.P.A.C.E. Photos from the conference posted.
Click Here

Be a M.Y. S.P.A.C.E. Teacher
Click here
to find out how

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New NASA Web Site Launches Kids on Mission to Save Our Planet

Climate change can be a daunting topic for most adults to grasp, let alone kids. A new NASA Web site can help our future explorers and leaders understand how and why their planet is changing and what they can do to help keep it habitable.

Called "Climate Kids," the new Web site is the latest companion to NASA's award-winning Global Climate Change Web site, http://climate.nasa.gov . Geared toward students in grades 4 through 6, the multimedia-rich Climate Kids site uses age-appropriate language, games and humorous illustrations and animations to help break down the important issue of climate change. Climate Kids can be found at http://climate.nasa.gov/kids .

Visitors to Climate Kids can:

- Command an interactive Climate Time Machine to travel back and forth through time and see how climate changes have affected our world or may affect it in the future.
- Choose the "greenest" transportation options in a game called "Go Green," or go on a "Wild Weather Adventure."
- Learn about green careers from people who are working to understand climate change.

"The climate our children inherit will be different from what we as adults know today," said Diane Fisher of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., who developed the content for the site. "Climate Kids aims to answer some of the big questions about global climate change using simple, fun illustrations and language kids can relate to, helping them become better stewards of our fragile planet. Students will learn basic Earth science concepts such as what the difference is between weather and climate, how we know Earth's climate is changing and what the greenhouse effect is."

Climate Kids is a collaboration between JPL's Earth Science Communications Team and NASA's award-winning Space Place website, which is at http://spaceplace.nasa.gov .

NASA's Global Climate Change Web site is devoted to educating the public about Earth's changing climate, providing easy-to-understand information about the causes and effects of climate change and how NASA studies it. For more on NASA's Earth Science Program, visit: http://www.nasa.gov.

JPL is a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena

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Recycling Computers

Go inside Electronic Recyclers to see how they break down millions of pounds of electronics every month. Everything from computers to cell phones, TVs to Xboxes, comes through their doors to be crushed, shredded, melted down and reused.
Running time 5:14 minutes

Click here to view the movie and see hands-on math & problem solving activities

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Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco Unveil Landmark Climate.Gov Portal to Climate Information

In a press conference earlier today, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco unveiled a new Web site that will serve as a single point-of-entry for NOAA’s climate information, data, products and services. This climate portal will provide information about the impacts of climate on nearly every aspect of our lives from agriculture and energy to transportation.

“More and more individuals – community planners, farmers, public health officials and small business owners – are seeking reliable, user-friendly climate data and information,” said Lubchenco. “We envision this climate portal as the first step toward making the wealth of climate information at NOAA available in one easy-to-use resource.”

The site is designed to be adaptable and to respond to changes in users’ needs. Users are encouraged to offer comments and feedback; web designers will continue to update the site based on that feedback.

Known as the NOAA Climate Service Portal, the site is designed to address the needs of five broadly-defined user groups: decision makers and policy leaders, scientists and applications-oriented data users, educators, business users, and the public.

Highlights of the site include:

“This site presents climate issues in an exciting way. Storytelling is an ideal approach to convey scientific information, and NOAA has lots of great climate stories to tell,” said Lubchenco. “NOAA scientists are helping to solve the mysteries of how Earth’s climate system works and they are engaging with resource managers and business leaders across the nation and around the world to share their knowledge and benefit society.”

NOAA is one of the leading government agencies monitoring the state of the climate system worldwide, conducting climate science research, producing models to better understand and predict future climate scenarios and assessing the impacts of climate variability and climate change on global, national and regional scales. In recent years the agency has seen more visitors to its Web sites seeking information, asking questions and expressing concerns about climate change. In addition, the users of climate data and services are expanding to include business, local governments and many sectors concerned about the economic and societal impacts of climate change.

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