Monthly Archives: June 2011

Arizona Wallow fire

A Burning Earth

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Planet Afire

Take a look at this image.  It’s telling you something. Well, a lot of things, actually, But, there’s one very important thing that just leaps out at you.

Each of these fire maps accumulates the locations of the fires detected by MODIS on board the Terra and Aqua satellites over a 10-day period. Each colored dot indicates a location where MODIS detected at least one fire during the compositing period. Color ranges from red where the fire count is low to yellow where number of fires is large. The compositing periods are referenced by their start and end dates (julian day). The duration of each compositing period was set to 10 days. Compositing periods are reset every year to make year-to-year comparisons straightforward. The first compositing period of each year starts on January 1. The last compositing period of each year includes a few days from the next year. Courtesy NASA. Click to infernoate.

This map covers fires that were set from natural or human causes from 5/21/2011 through 5/30/2011. I would imagine that when the next map comes out, it will include a more extensive boundary for the Wallow Fire in Arizona, which is currently blowing huge clouds of smoke across the country both to the east and northeast.

Smoke from an Arizona wildfire spanned multiple states in early June 2011. According to the U.S. Air Quality “Smog Blog,” smoke from the Wallow Fire pushed air quality to unhealthy levels as far east as Alabama and Georgia. Closer to the source of the fire, thick smoke traveled across Colorado and into Nebraska. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on June 5, 2011. Smoke differs from nearby clouds in its darker color and less distinct margins. The smoke plume visible in this image appears disconnected from the Wallow Fire just west of the Arizona-New Mexico border, perhaps due to shifting winds. In Colorado, smoke extends northward across the state, blowing over the Rocky Mountains and into Wyoming and southwestern Nebraska. West of the smoke plume, skies are clear. The Wallow Fire appears in the lower left corner of the image, and the red outlines indicate active blazes. On June 6, InciWeb reported that the Wallow Fire had burned 192,746 acres (78,002 hectares). The fire broke out on May 29, and as of June 6, the cause of the fire was still under investigation. Courtesy NASA. Click to enlarge.

Where I live, we have been swimming in a sort of milky haze for days, and our sunsets have been gorgeously red and pink, due to suspended smoke particles in the air.  Unfortunately, those smoke particles are not great for human respiratory systems, and — an even sadder implication — they mean that thousands of acres of trees and brush have burned and people’s homes and businesses nearby are threatened with destruction.

The image of worldwide fires gives us pause for thought. What IS burning in all those places?  What’s it doing to our atmosphere?  To the countryside ravaged by fire? What are the fires doing to the humans who live and work nearby?  Could any of it have been avoided?

Certainly, in the case of some of these fires, natural causes such as lightning strikes are to blame. But, in other cases, it’s pretty clear (such as in the Amazon) that those fires are set on purpose, to use land that once was a rainforest for some other reason.  That’s called human-caused deforestation, and it is widespread. It may yield farmland for a while, but in a few decades (or less) those same lands will be a desert, featuring hard-pan crusts that won’t be yielding anything but dust.

Images such as these are part of the effort that scientists are making to study our planet, understand its systems, and — clearly to the dismay of climate change denialists — making some pretty clear points about what humans are doing to this planet.  But, visible evidence of fires, of melting ice caps, of whatever it is that our satellites see for us, is part of the scientific method. It’s evidence. It’s data. If you’re going to study a planet, and all its ecosystems and geological zones and life forms, you have to be prepared for what you’re going to find in the data — especially as we see the effects of human habitation.  We’ve come a long way toward a basic understanding of some systems. But, in other cases, such as understanding what good rainforests are for, we are still struggling with answers. Well, look at the pictures we get each day of our planet. That’s a world. It has its systems. We are working to understand them.  And, in some places, humans are working to destroy them.

You know,  I sit here and write little stories on this blog about what scientists discover, usually “out there” in the universe.  There are galaxies and stars and nebulae, and planets… and all the discoveries we make “out there” often bring us right back here, to the world we call home.  Astronauts float above it and remark on how peaceful it looks.  They marvel at its beauty.  They take pictures, as do our satellites.  And, people like me post them and write about them, in hopes that people like you… and you… and you… will be moved by the beauty of what our scientists are learning. And, if it moves you, I hope you are also moved to take action to support science research and education.  That’s my job — to bring it to you and tell you what the science case is. It’s your job as a voter (particularly in the U.S.)  to make sure that we keep exploring the universe.   That we don’t succumb to fear and hysteria of science by those who neither know science nor want to know it, but know that they hate it because it tells us some inconvenient truths about our planet and humanity’s place in the ecosystems that this world supports. That is, unfortunately, also part of the scientific method. If we are honest with ourselves, we will admit that, and move on to accepting that what we say and do has consequences.

So, here’s a challenge back to those who are waiting for leaders to tell them what to do when it comes to supporting science:

BE the change you want to see in our research and educational spheres.  If you want to see better science education, more funding for research, and more money for NASA, you have a duty and obligation as a citizen and voter to let your representatives know what you want.

Don’t wait for me or Neil Tyson or Phil Plait or others to lead you by the nose. We’ll keep bringing science to you, but you have do your part, too. As George Carlin used to say in a different context, “You gotta wanna…”  In this case, you gotta wanna learn and move ahead.”  I can’t make you “wanna”.  Nor can the other guys.  We can urge you and show you pictures and tell you stories… but, in the final analysis, it comes down to you taking some action to make changes.

I hope that the folks in Arizona survive this fire. It’s a disaster for them and the ecosystems they live in. In a small sense, they are facing what our whole planet is going to face as climate changes, hot places get hotter, cold places get colder, wet places get wetter, dry places get dryer, and extremes in weather loom on the horizon.

NASA, space flight, space shuttle

It’s Not The End of the Space Program

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It’s the End of the Shuttle Program

And WE Are Responsible For Our Scientific Future

I’ve seen a lot of bemoaning the fate of NASA the past few days in various places online, now that the end of the Shuttle Program is nigh. It’s natural, I suppose, to be sentimental about the passing of a very visible part of NASA’s many projects. The shuttles are proud reminders of what CAN be done if we stick our minds to the idea and work of getting humans to space. But, as many of us who have grown up watching this program mature, the seeds of the end of the shuttle program were planted decades ago, with the idea that while that program grew and bore fruit, NASA would be funded enough to start working on replacement programs (like the space plane and others).We all knew that this was one step of many that it would take to explore space and the near-Earth environment — and to reap the scientific rewards that always benefit any such endeavor. And, many of us know today that the next steps are going to involve not just NASA, but the private sector working WITH the space agency, and even some overseas partners.  But, it still takes funding for each leg of the tripod that holds up space science and other science research.

Well, that funding hasn’t exactly materialized. NASA’s budget is under attack from the anti-science crowd in Congress (particularly among the extremists of the right).  In fact, much of the funding for science programs in our country (NOAA and others, as well as science education) is under attack from what I can only observe is an ignorant bunch intent on gutting science in favor of lower taxes for wealthy people and bailouts for Wall Street bankers who may or may not pay those back. Some of that attack is politically motivated, under the rubric of “We don’t like what the science data are telling us about global warming (or some other science), so we’re going to vote to defund weather satellites and NASA and all them other things that give us inconvenient truths.”

That’s really short-sighted and ignorant, but the folks who vote and think like this are proud of their ignorance. The rest of us are ashamed of it.  Those of us who know that investments in R&D and basic science research all know that these things pay the country back in increased employment and higher standards of  living for many citizens.

Voting down science research and choking the rest of its funding is a very risky strategy that will only serve to put the U.S. further back in some very important areas of science. And, it may serve to endanger U.S. citizens.  The vote to defund NOAA weather satellites came just as Joplin, MO was ravaged by tornadoes. Without the satellites we have, MORE people in Joplin and surrounding areas would have died or been injured due to lack of warnings provided by our aging fleet of weather satellites. It takes a spectacular kind of science-hater and cynic to vote against something that saves lives. I hope that the congressional Republicans who voted against the satellites are in Joplin to explain their vote to the folks who suffered so much. I’d just about pay cash money to be there and watch as they try to tell the people who lost their loved ones just why predicting bad weather is something they don’t think is important, but funding tax cuts is.  A tax cut benefits a few wealthy folks who probably just bank the money. A weather satellite benefits millions of people who depend on it for accurate forecasts so they can protect their lives and property. Sure seems sensible to me.

In the international arena, the votes to defund science research are hurting our standing in international-cooperation science projects. Already, some U.S. scientists have had to pull out of some vitally interesting and important projects due to lack of funding, after the U.S. promised to be a part of them. The defunding, again led by Congressional extremists, amounts to a sort of bait-and-switch action that will further erode our prestige in the world.  And, I suspect that when the hue and cry FINALLY raises in the U.S. over our scientists being shut out of discoveries they worked on in the early stages, only to be yanked out of them when the going got tough, the people who voted to rescind their funding will be nowhere to be found. Or, more likely will be sitting on their verandahs sipping gin and appreciating the good money they got from lobbying against science research.

That’s what I think on my cynical days. Other days, I sigh and think that we’ve got to find people to represent us who have an ounce of sense when it comes to science and reality.  I say this because, ultimately it comes down to who WE send to Washington, D.C. to represent us. And, if WE don’t care to find and send people with brains and an understanding of science and how it works, then WE are ultimately responsible for the cuts to NASA and other vitally important science and technical programs (and science education). It isn’t one president or another that has gutted our space program and funding for increased weather satellites and so forth. It’s the people WE elected to represent us, and by extension — US.  Therefore, in a very real sense, it’s WE the PEOPLE who have failed our science and technological dreams, hopes and aspirations. And our children.

And so, WE have brought ourselves to this point in history where one important and special part of our space program is ramping down.  We should be sentimental about it, and praise the people who built, flew, and maintained these shuttles for longer than the program was originally thought to last. But, we should also look to the future, to newer vehicles and better chances to explore our environment.  It’s OUR job as voters to bring that about. If we don’t, then we get the space program we deserve.

In the meantime, I want to thank the shuttle teams and astronauts. They represent the best and brightest among us, a shining example of what Americans CAN do when we want to do it.