I recently watched a couple of episodes of Chicago Fire, and couldn't help noticing Jocelyn Hudon. I discovered she's been on the show since 2012.
The show has been on since 2012?
And she's been on it that long? She started as a teenager!
I can't catch up on all those episodes, but it would be interesting to watch her evolve in the role.
Meanwhile, here on some on- and off-set photos.
In just a couple of weeks, the National Zoo in Washington, DC will provide the first time the public can view a newly-born baby elephant (born on February 2).
See the first baby elephant born at Smithsonian’s National Zoo in nearly 25 years
They voted on a name:
The Public Has Spoken: The National Zoo's New Elephant Calf Is Named Linh Mai
The calf will first be viewable on April 22, Earth Day, on the Elephant Cam, which will be back online that day.
Below are a couple of pictures of the pachyderm tyke.
In case you're interested, with a hopefully successful Artemis II launch and mission slated to happen today, here's the National Academies of Sciences report on how to explore Mars, if humans actually get there.
A Science Strategy for the Human Exploration of Mars
I'd sure like to see Olympus Mons up close. Instead, we have to rely on great satellite views like this:
Just read about the idiotic Trump administration's plans to move the U.S. Forest Service to Utah, and while doing that, to close down thirty-one research sites.
The utter disdain of this administration for the value of science is appalling -- but we've known that for years. Yet to see it demonstrated again and again and again causes constant angst and pain for the loss of what sometimes has been long-standing research, and well, forests don't grow overnight.
Trump plans to move Forest Service headquarters to Utah and shutter research sites
"The Wilderness Society also pointed to Trump’s prior attempt with the BLM, saying that resulted in many staffers leaving who had valuable years of management experience. The group said this could end up hollowing out the Forest Service.For example, here's a description of their Experimental Forests and Ranges.
Many regional offices will close in the reorganization, and their services will shift to hubs in New Mexico, Georgia, Colorado, Wisconsin, Montana and California. Instead of maintaining multiple dispersed research stations with their own leadership, the agency will anchor its research at a single location in Fort Collins, Colorado."
"This research network provides an incredible wealth of records and knowledge of ecological change in natural and managed forest and grassland ecosystems across the United States. Hosted on a combination of public and private lands, the network provides a home for long-term science and management studies in most major vegetation types of the United States. Individual sites range in size from 47 to 22,500 ha."
If you want to see where they are in the Rocky Mountains (and nearby): Experimental Forest and Range Locations
Yes, the IDIOTS are going to shut that down.
Donald Trump decided to close the Kennedy Center he named after himself for 2 years, basically because nobody wants to play the venue he named after himself.
Here are a couple of quotes about how it got to this point.
"On Sunday, Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine, the top Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees funding for the Kennedy Center’s building, questioned the motivation for the planned closure in a video posted to social media, suggesting that the president was just “covering up the financial disaster he’s created there.”
" “This man has destroyed the place,” she said in the video. “He’s run it into the ground financially; he’s made it a place where performers don’t want to perform, and individuals don’t want to attend performances.”
Glamor model Cristy Ren doesn't take herself too seriously, but she has looks that require serious attention. Two recent captures are shown here. It's not hard to find her with a search: her name is sufficient but other descriptive words and provide more detail.
Even though the 2026 Winter Olympics and all of their drama (some of which was pretty dramatic) ended a month or so ago, but this article about former Olympic venues provides some historical perspective. I've actually been to one Olympic Games, and visited several places that hosted them, including both swimming venues for the 1936 and 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Sadly, now that we are in an era of temporary venues built in big stadiums (as will happen in 2028 for swimming in the Olympics) there won't be as many shrines to former athletic heroism to visit.
So, this list is interesting:
5 of the Oldest Olympic Venues Still in Use
The five of them are:
Regarding Ryde Pier, "this heritage structure on the Isle of Wight remains a popular local landmark more than a century on — not least because it’s the second-longest seaside pleasure pier in the U.K., after the Southend Pier. During the 1908 Games, spectators gathered at the end of the pier to watch yacht races, all of which were won by the Great Britain crews, to the delight of the crowd.This is Ryde Pier (actually, the end of it):
We won't be seeing the last of Sydney Sweeney anytime soon, I can guarantee that. And she also has her own line of lingerie. The pictures accompanying the Daily Mail article indicate that it fits her quite well.
Sydney Sweeney lifts the lid on her lingerie empire plans as she strips down for jaw-dropping photo shoot
I saw this on a short list of celebrity homes that are quite impressive. And this one is certainly that. The name of this impressive domicile is Friar Park, and it was owned by Beatle George Harrison for three decades. According to the list text, his wife still lives there.
A few other people could live there too.
Here's a short summary of what's there. This is from Country Life UK.
"The Victoria County History describes Friar Park as ‘a colourful and eccentric melange of French Flamboyant Gothic in brick, stone and terracotta, incorporating towers, pinnacles and large traceried windows’. It was enlarged and embellished by Sir Frank Crisp, a brilliant lawyer, who bubbled over with charm and energy, but was also an enthusiastic botanist and treasurer of the Linnaean Society of London. He was rich enough, too, to employ 45 gardeners at Friar Park. Alpine plants were his greatest passion and, in 1896, he began to develop his spectacular four-acre Alpine Garden, topped by a scaled-down copy of the Matterhorn."The house itself?
Some people like coffee more than others. Now, don't be concerned about the title of this post, because even if you drink a lot of coffee, it won't alter your DNA.
However, researchers have used caffeine to control gene manipulation with CRISPR. And here I thought caffeine was just a stimulant.
It's called chemogenetics -- and the article I'm about to cite says this:
"Chemogenetics refers to the ability to control cellular behavior using externally applied, small molecules — often drugs or dietary compounds — that activate genetically engineered switches inside cells. Unlike traditional drugs that broadly affect many tissues, chemogenetic approaches are designed to act only on cells that have been genetically programmed to respond."
Smart readers are already anticipating what comes next -- caffeine is the small molecule being used to activate the genetic switch. Let's see how.
"Zhou’s newest research builds on existing knowledge of genetic “switches” within cells by introducing a new chemogenetic approach that uses CRISPR and caffeine. The process begins with installing the cells in advance. Genes encoding the nanobody, its matching target protein and the CRISPR machinery are delivered using established gene-transfer methods, allowing cells to produce these components on their own. Once this molecular framework is in place, the process can be externally controlled. When a person later consumes a 20 mg dose of caffeine — such as from coffee, chocolate or a soda — it triggers a nanobody and its matching target protein to bind together, thereby activating CRISPR-driven gene modifications inside cells."Cool, right? What could that help with?
"When an engineered nanobody protein can be switched on by caffeine, it’s called a “caffebody.” By harnessing the power of these caffebodies, Zhou says scientists may someday be able to treat a range of diseases. In the long term, he believes it may be possible to engineer cells that allow people with diabetes to boost insulin production simply by drinking a cup of coffee."
Always glad to draw the attention of my readers to new lingerie offerings. This one is Avidlove (click the avidlove.com link for more). They're also on Facebook.
Some of their items are displayed below. I find them quite fetching. The models are helpful with that.
Apropos of nothing in particular, I discovered something about the Asian actress Ming-Na Wen, who I remembered all the way back to her stint on As the World Turns, and I know of her subsequently notable appearances in Mulan (Mulan's voice in the animation, briefly seen in the live action version), ER, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and most recently The Mandolorian, though she's had more work since.
So, she was also in a movie titled One Night Stand, with the top two cast positions occupied by Wesley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski. It was notable because she was briefly (and really) topless, qhite nicely, not aided by AI. I just never knew that before. You can take my word for it or do a bit of searching, if you want to know and see more.
But she has been and still is, quite attractive. The picture below shows her smiling; in many of her glamor pictures, she looks haughty and sexy, mouth closed. (And I should add, she's married with two kids. Not a problem for me.)
I checked before I did this Lighthouse of the Week post, and I've done five or six lighthouses in Newfoundland before this. That's not a problem, because there are many more. I find it hard to believe that I missed this one until now, because it is truly hard to miss. You'll see what I mean in a moment.
First of all, location-wise, it's nearly the easternmost location in North America, but Cape Spear (also with a lighthouse, which I've featured before) is a couple degree-seconds further east.
So Cape Bonavista is here, with St. John's shown for visual perspective.
The info I obtained from the Lighthouse Directory is below.
"1843. Inactive since 1966. 11 m (36 ft) round cylindrical stone tower with lantern and gallery, rising from a 2-story stone keeper's house. A very rare 1816 catoptric light, with six reflectors, is installed in the lantern. Lighthouse and lantern painted with vertical red and white stripes. Three additional dwellings and other buildings. ... This historic light station has been restored to its appearance during the 1870s. Restoration was delayed by a fire set by lightning on 3 August 2001 but the project was completed by reinstallation of the restored catoptric light in September 2003. The lighting apparatus used in Scotland from 1816 and transferred here in 1895 is on display."
Lighthouse Friends: Cape Bonavista, NF
Pictures (including, of course, the catoptric light) are below. Now you can see why it's hard to miss. There are some good fine art pictures of this one, but I'll let you search for them.
Technology constantly amazes. Researchers have come up with a new material that changes color in the same manner as nature's consummate color-changers, octopi and cuttlefish. Now, I don't think it's as adapted as these creatures to pattern- and color-match (example below), but given what can be accomplished with our amazing electronics and sensors and machine intelligence, that might happen sooner than imaginable.
So what can this remarkable material do?
"The team demonstrated that the same technique can be used to design and reveal complex, switchable color patterns. The researchers put thin, metallic layers on each side of the patterned polymer film to create Fabry-Pérot resonators, which isolate specific wavelengths of light based on the distance between the metal layers. As the polymer films swell to different widths, they display a variety of colors. With the same electron-beam patterning and the right mix of water and solvent, the single-colored sheet becomes a riot of colorful spots and splotches.
“By dynamically controlling the thickness and topography of a polymer film, you can realize a very large variety of beautiful colors and textures,” said Mark Brongersma, a professor of materials science and engineering and a senior author on the paper. “The introduction of soft materials that can expand, contract, and alter their shape opens up an entirely new toolbox in the world of optics to manipulate how things look.”
I recently found out about this Scottish dish, a fish soup featuring haddock, called "Cullen skink". I'm passing on a link to a recipe for it so that others won't confuse that with lizards that can lose their tails as a way to get away from predators.
Here's the Common (Five-Striped) Skink:
Here's a Cullen Skink:
And here's a recipe for Traditional Cullen Skink.
Just make sure you make it with fish, and not lizards.
I don't think I've featured a lot of lighthouses from Australia (I'm not going to count right now), but it has quite a few. This one has an interesting history, as it was very recently un-retired. Though I will get the basic information from the Lighthouse Directory, Wikipedia has a detailed article about it.
As the title says, it's in New South Wales, and to get a better idea of where in NSW it is, click here.
So, the basics about it are here:
"1883 (James Barnet). Reactivated (inactive 1992-2026); focal plane 39 m (118 ft); two white flashes every 15 s).. 29 m (95 ft) round concrete tower with lantern and gallery, painted white. Lower section of the tower is square pyramidal, upper section octagonal cylindrical. The original 1st order Fresnel lens is in use with a modern LED beacon. Two 1-story assistant keeper's houses are available for vacation rental. ... This is Australia's oldest concrete lighthouse. Located on a prominent headland about 40 km (25 mi) southeast of Eden."Here's the interesting part, from Wikipedia:
"In 1992 a solar powered lens on a modern lattice skeletal steel tower was constructed right next to the historic tower, and the light was officially turned off on 17 March 1992. The new light operated a 36 W lamp with an intensity of 37,500 cd. With this conversion, the lightstation was effectively de-staffed and a caretaker installed at the site. Once replaced by a new and fully automatic lighthouse, the station became a tourist destination and was recognised for its heritage values. In 2009, Green Cape Lightstation was designated an Engineering Heritage National Landmark – the first lighthouse to be accorded this level of recognition in Australia.
In 2026 [tha's this year] the steel tower had reached the end of its life and after considering cost and the site’s heritage it was replaced by installing a new rotating 10W LED light in the original tower, using the original lens and mercury floatation mechanism."
This post is about an article in which "NASA" picks what it thinks are the best and worst science fiction movies.
As the article notes, "After looking at the lists, I think we can conclude that the last couple of decades has been both good and bad when it comes to sci-fi in the movies. Special effects can make our imagination come to life on the screen, as in Jurassic Park, but it's no substitute for good storytelling, which is what the worst of the worst all seem to lack. It wasn't that the science itself was bad—that can be ignored if there's a payoff—but there wasn't anything good to balance it out."
NASA Picks Best and Worst Sci-Fi Movies. What Are Yours?"If you're curious, Neil deGrasse Tyson's approved sci-fi list also features several of these titles. Others he called out are "The Matrix," "The Martian," "Interstellar," the ever-classic "Back to the Future," "Deep Impact" from 1998, and Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" released in 1968."
I thought Interstellar, The Martian, and 2001 did deserve to be on the first list of the best, but they didn't make it.
I guess The Chronicles of Riddick doesn't have a chance, but it sure is fun.
Finally, I'd add the original Total Recall, despite the violence, and Arrival, which has a very interesting twist that Kurt Vonnegut would have probably liked.
I also liked Logan's Run, perhaps for different reasons than quality.
Eos is the magazine of the American Geophysical Union, and they have many good articles that have their fingertips on the pulse of the planet. So, it's not a read an article from Eos taking about the planetary fever, aka global warming (or global heating, which some sectors prefer).
The Past 3 Years Have Been the Three Hottest on Record
And to think that there are people that a) deny that this is even happening, b) deny what's causing it, and c) call it a hoax."The report’s authors called the exceptional heat of the past 3 years a “warming spike” that may indicate an acceleration in the rate of climate change. “The warming observed from 2023 through 2025 stands out clearly from the long-term trend,” said Robert Rohde, chief scientist at Berkeley Earth, in a statement.
“2023, 2024, and 2025 collectively cause us to rethink” Earth’s warming rate, Rohde said in a press briefing. Whether warming is accelerating or not, Earth’s temperature is rapidly exceeding key thresholds, such as the Paris Agreement limit of 1.5°C (2.7°F), he said."
Such a spike may also indicate that the past warming rate is no longer a reliable predictor of future warming, the authors wrote.
World Resources Institute has provided a guide to the High Seas Treaty. For a world that needs world governance, it's an important advance. (Note: the USA is a signatory, but has not ratified the treaty.)
After 20 Years, an Agreement to Safeguard the 'High Seas' Takes Force
"The ambition of the High Seas Treaty has always been immense. It seeks to facilitate international coordination on activities within Earth's largest public common, covering around half the planet's surface.
The high seas host a diverse array of marine life, from microscopic plankton to colossal blue whales. Alongside supporting global fisheries and food security, they are home to valuable natural resources that countries and companies are ever-more eager to explore and exploit. For example, marine genetic materials are increasingly sought after to support pharmaceuticals, biotechnology and other innovations.
Without a binding global treaty, the high seas have been governed patchwork style through regional fisheries agreements, shipping conventions, and scattered marine protected areas which cover less than 1% of the high seas. This leaves critical gaps in protecting marine biodiversity and ensuring that developing countries also benefit from discoveries made in international waters.
The High Seas Treaty will fill regulatory gaps, complement national efforts and enable coordinated conservation measures on the high seas, all of which will be critical for achieving international climate and biodiversity goals. It will also help guide regional cooperation and link seamlessly to countries' sustainable ocean plans, through which 21 nations have pledged to sustainably manage 100% of the ocean areas under their jurisdiction.
Together, these measures will come together to create a more cohesive system of ocean stewardship spanning from coastlines to open ocean."
"As of Jan. 15, the High Seas Treaty has been ratified by 83 parties, who are now legally bound to it. These are also the only countries that will have a say at the treaty summit (BBJN COP) later this year. Countries that have signed but not yet ratified the treaty are not currently legally required to fulfil its requirements. However, they are committed to refraining from activities that contradict the treaty's objectives."
AS if we weren't aware, when the global climate warms, Antarctica gets warmer, and when Antarctica gets warmer, its ice sheets shrink and retreat.
That's what research confirms.
Ancient Sediments Reveal Ice Sheet’s Vulnerability to Warming"A record of repeated retreat of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet during the past warm climates has been identified by IODP Exp379 Scientists. By analyzing deep-sea sediments from the Amundsen Sea and tracing their geochemical signatures, the study shows that the ice sheet retreated far inland at least five times during the warm Pliocene Epoch. The findings highlight the ice sheet’s sensitivity to warming and its potential to drive future sea-level rise.
The Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers, located in the Amundsen Sea sector of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), are among the fastest-melting glaciers on Earth. Together, they are losing ice more rapidly than any other part of Antarctica, raising serious concerns about the long-term stability of the ice sheet and its contribution to future sea-level rise."
"The team analyzed marine sediments collected during the IODP Expedition 379. The sediments recovered from the Site U1532 on the Amundsen Sea continental rise act as a historical archive, recording changes in ice sheets and ocean conditions over millions of years....
They identified two distinct sediment layers reflecting alternating cold and warm climate phases: thick, gray, and finely laminated clays from cold glacial periods, when ice extended across much of the continental shelf; and thinner, greenish layers formed during warmer interglacial periods. The green color comes from the microscopic algae, indicating open, icefree ocean waters. Crucially, these warm-period layers also contain iceberg-rafted debris (IRD), small rock fragments carried by icebergs, that broke off from the Antarctic continent. As these icebergs drifted across the Amundsen Sea and melted, they released this debris onto the seafloor."
"The sediment record reveals a consistent four-stage cycle of warming and cooling. During cold glacial periods, the ice sheet was extensive and stable, covering the continent. As the climate warmed, during the early interglacial stage, basal melting began, leading to the inland retreat of the ice sheet. At peak warmth, during the peak interglacial stage, large icebergs calved from the retreating ice margin and transported sediment from the Antarctic interior across the Amundsen Sea. As temperatures cooled again, during the glacial-onset stage, the ice sheet rapidly regrew, pushing previously deposited sediments toward the shelf edge and transporting them further downslope into deeper waters."
If you don't know where
Bodø is, I don't blame you. I wasn't sure either. I didn't even know what country it was in (Norway). Find it by clicking here. It's pretty far north. It's well north of Bergen. It's north of Trondheim. Hell, it's north of Iceland." The second-half sending-off of Rodri completed a miserable evening for big-spending City in Bodø, a fishing town with a population of around 55,000 and located north of the Arctic Circle -- more than 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) north of Oslo. "
Despite having one of the most dominant players in the world, who happens to be Norwegian, Erling Haaland (shown below in green), they couldn't beat the team wearing bright yellow. Maybe the bright yellow uniforms hurt their eyes.
OK, so I led off the prior post with a quote from Hamlet, and that led me to look for a lighthouse in Denmark. I've featured several Denmark lighthouses already in the ongoing Lighthouse of the Week series, and even a repeat for one that had to be move on account of it being threatened with sand dune inundation.
This one this week is the Sletterhage Fyr, and as is my custom, the location of it is here. It's on a peninsula (Helgenæs Peninsula) that really ought to be an island, because the isthmus (Dragsmur) connecting it to bigger areas of land is really narrow. The nearest populated place of note is Århus, across the water of the remarkably named Bay of Århus.
Now we can get some information on it, from where I get my information, the Lighthouse Directory:
"1894 (station established 1872). Active; focal plane 17 m (56 ft); white, red or green light, depending on direction, 7.5 s on, 2.5 s off. 16 m (52 ft) round cylindrical tower with lantern and gallery, attached to a 1-story keeper's house. Lighthouse painted white, lantern white with red horizontal bands. ... The original lighthouse, a wood tower, was built by the city of Århus. In 2009 a preservation group Sletterhage Fyrs Venner was formed to work for preservation of the lighthouse and to open it to the public. The lighthouse marks the end of the Helgenæs peninsula about 20 km (13 mi) east of Århus."
Three pictures and a video complete this post.
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Yes, I know, I know, I am not caught up. I am, in fact, quite far behind my optimum schedule. But I'm going to reverse that a bit in the next couple of days.
So, today, some quotes from two articles in the New York Times from January. And it's gotten considerably worse since then.
One Year of Trump. The Time to Act is Now, While We Still Can.
"We have become a country whose government is attacking its universities, defunding research, reversing scientific advances, assaulting museums and hollowing out cultural institutions. Few of these attacks — carried out in broad daylight, announced in executive orders, extolled in speeches and put on display in giant metal letters — meet meaningful resistance. We are making ourselves stupider.
We are a country ruled by a megalomaniac whose views are openly hateful and proudly ignorant, whose avarice knows no bounds and whose claim to power is absolute. Foreign leaders try to appease him with flattery and curry his favor with gifts. It rarely works to temper his appetite or even catch his attention, but it’s seemingly all they can do.
We still have elections. But how free and fair will the 2026 elections be? Trump doesn’t just carry a grudge against the election authorities of many states; he made that grudge a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign. Since he returned to office, his administration has taken a series of executive actions and filed a series of lawsuits aimed at restricting access to the polls, purging voter rolls, limiting the independence of local election authorities, and generally laying the groundwork for the systematic intimidation of both voters and election officials. States have joined this effort. Florida is cracking down on voter registration drives. Ohio and other states have introduced restrictive voter ID laws. Georgia has limited poll hours and banned providing food or water to people standing in line to vote. Texas has gerrymandered a map that threatens to disenfranchise Black and Latino voters and may wipe five Democratic congressional seats out of existence, and the Supreme Court has allowed this controversial new map to be used in the 2026 midterms."
"Both ICE’s occupation of Minneapolis and Trump’s threatened seizure of Greenland are part of the same story: An increasingly unpopular regime is rapidly radicalizing and testing how far it can go down the road toward autocracy. If people had predicted back in 2024 precisely what Trump’s return to the White House was going to look like, I suspect they’d have been accused of suffering from Trump derangement syndrome. But the shrillest of Resistance libs have always understood Trump better than those who make a show of their dispassion. As the heterodox writer Leighton Woodhouse put it on X, “The hysterical pussy hats were right.”Yes, I know, it is not good. Not good at all.
It's hard to believe, but salmon, Native Americans, and the environment recently scored a major win (over the evil in the White House) in the Pacific Northwest.
Judge sides with salmon against Trump administration in hydropower ruling
Federal judge in Oregon rejects bid to overturn Biden-era agreement to protect endangered fish populations
"In the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, a landmark salmon recovery plan brokered in late 2023, the federal government committed more than $1bn over a decade to support depleted salmon runs and new investments into clean energy projects in the area to replace the hydropower generated by the dams. The plan, however, would be short-lived.It's a battle, but it's worth it. Let's keep salmon swimming in Pacific Northwest rivers.
Months after returning to office, Trump withdrew from the agreement, calling it “radical environmentalism”, and the parties quickly returned to court.
But in a strongly worded ruling, issued late on Wednesday [Feb 25], the Oregon US district court judge Michael Simon rebuked [I love that word] the administration’s position and the “disappointing history of government avoidance and manipulation instead of sincere efforts at solving the problem”, and the evidence presented, which he said was created for the lawsuit and contradicted the scientific record.
In a report issued under Biden in 2024 and removed from public access by the Trump administration, the Department of the Interior acknowledged that the dams inflicted harm on the river and the Native American tribes that depend on it. Construction of the dams at the turn of the 20th century transformed riparian ecosystems and devastated salmon runs, flooded villages and burial grounds, and pushed tribal members from their lands, traditions, culture and food sources."
Not a week goes by (it seems) without the Daily Mail publishing an article showing Elizabeth "Liz" Hurley showing off.
And I have to admit, she's showing off pretty remarkably well.
This article demonstrates what I'm saying. (I have to admit, just seeing "topless" in Daily Mail headline, which is not uncommon, also piques my interests.)
This is the shot that caught the Daily Mail's attention:
What could possibly go wrong?
Britain/England/the United Kingdom, etc., just showed off a helicopter that flies entirely by itself, with no humans on board, particularly doing things like steering, taking off, landing, and important activities like that.
Autonomous automobiles can't even find their own parking space. So this is a good idea?
It is -- until it isn't. ("Mommy, what's that helicopter doing on our roof?"
Leonardo Proteus: Royal Navy flies UK’s first autonomous full-size helicopter
One of the best Playboy models ever, Ali Rose (who was a Playmate in an international edition) posted this picture a few years ago.
It's quite an appealing image -- and thought.
This article caught my attention; it's actually a short summary of another article (actually a research paper) in a different journal. It appears to be open access, so read it if you dare, or if you might be interested to. I'll provide the abstract.
First, the article about the paper:
Cascading drought-flood events amplify economic losses
"Specifically, the authors show that cascading drought-flood events are associated with higher maximum daily mean streamflow, deeper mean water depths, and greater economic losses (€33.09 million km−2 vs. €29.75 million km−2) than flood-only events."Cascading drought-flood events (CDFEs), also referred to as ‘drought-to-flood transitions’ or ‘drought–flood abrupt alternations,’ in which a flood follows a period of drought, may have different flood generation mechanisms than floods occurring independently from drought, as the drought could affect soil infiltration rates and, consequently, runoff dynamics. With the increasing frequency of extreme weather events driven by climate change, understanding the cascading nature of drought and flood events has become crucial for effective disaster risk management. However, there is a lack of empirical evidence on how these drought-flood interactions work and translate to economic losses. This study addresses this gap by identifying CDFEs and flood-only events (FEs) across Central Europe and linking them to their flood impacts from the modelled Historical Analysis of Natural Hazards in Europe database. CDFEs are associated with significantly higher maximum daily mean streamflow (58.51 m3 s−1 vs 38.20 m3 s−1), deeper mean water depths (1.90 m vs 1.88 m), and greater economic losses (€33.09 million km−2 vs €29.75 million km−2) compared to FEs. These findings underscore the special features of CDFEs and the need to take them into account in flood risk management."
And to think there are climate change deniers and lukewarmers who don't understand how an intensifying hydrologic cycle is going to be a problem.
It is.
I noted earlier that I'm an easy mark for these "best of" lists. This one (from thediscoverer.com blog) lists the best state parks in each state. Now, of course that's subjective, but of course I read it anyway. I've been to a few state parks in my life, and I am/was curious which ones (if any) on the list I've been to.
Turns out I've been to a couple of them. Also turns out I missed a few I should have seen when I had the chance, and there are a couple more I'd like to have the wherewithal and time to visit.
The Best State Park in Each State
It turns out I've been to 12 of them. (Guess which ones! If anyone responds to this post, I'll be stunned, but I am going to put this on Twitter/X. Maybe somebody will make a good guess.)
Of all the ones listed that I haven't been to, the one I'd put at the top of my list is Tahquamenon Falls State Park in Michigan. A couple of the ones I should have visited when I had the chance are Starved Rock in Illinois and Valley of Fire in Nevada.
Tahquamenon Falls shows why it's worth visiting in the autumn:
