A conversation with Seattle
“Despite the breathtaking alpine terrain, North Cascades National Park remains virtually deserted compared with America’s marquee national parks,” says writer David Jensen. “Why?” You may already have guessed the answer: “Every time I hike this park, I hike in the rain.” Continue reading North Cascades National Park Makes List of Top 10 “Hidden Gems”
At story at UW News quotes principal investigator William Wilcock, a UW professor of oceanography, as saying the chattering whales “were kind of just a nuisance,” at least as far as seismographers were concerned. Researcher Dax Soule “created 154 individual fin whale paths and discovered three categories of vocalizing whales that swam south in winter and early spring of 2003.” Continue reading UW Oceanographers Find a Fin Whale Datamine in Seismograph Readings
Google’s new Earth Engine uses an archive of Landsat satellite images to create time-lapse videos of regions of the earth from space: cities, rain forests, glaciers, deserts, whatever you’d like to zoom in on. There’s no embedding capability yet, so here’s the link to Seattle’s growth since 1984. Continue reading Watching Seattle Grow on Google’s Earth Engine
Though the EU just voted to restrict the use of neonicotinoid pesticides for two years until their safety could be proved, Jim Jones, acting assistant administrator for chemical safety and pollution prevention, was quoted in the New York Times saying: “At E.P.A. we let science drive the outcome of decision making,” then noting the cost of a ban. Continue reading While EU Acts, EPA Blows Smoke in Bee Death Report
“Wine Economist” Mike Veseth points his fans toward this climate change video based on research by Conservation International and the Environmental Defense Fund. In it, reds denote where wine grapes currently thrive, green means the wine-song remains the same, and blue indicates where new viticultural areas could develop. Continue reading Climate Change May Put Washington Wineries on the March
It comes back to a conflict at the heart of the Duwamish clean-up — could the river ever be made safe enough for residents to eat the fish and shellfish that lived in it, or was it enough to approximate the urban contamination we live with in Elliott Bay, Lake Union, and Lake Washington? Continue reading How Clean is Our Water? How Clean Should It Be?
BNSF Railway Spokesperson Gus Melonas has blamed the mudslide epidemic on “extremely rainy conditions” — but, Mass says, not so fast with that “extremely”: “If we go back 6 months, the region around Everett stands out more, reaching 130-150 percent of normal [precipitation]. Yes, a bit wet, but I suspect we could find other periods to equal it.” Continue reading Trying to Reason With Mudslide Season