Reading The Cryosphere

A picture is worth a thousand words - but only if you can speak the language.

When examining satellite images of the cryosphere it helps to know something of the mechanisms which can create the effects seen.  The skills needed in interpreting these images can be developed by looking at Google Earth or Wikimapia images without any annotations.  Check the history of an area and then go relic hunting.  Alternatively, look at some satellite images, find something odd and then try to guess what it is.  In general, form follows function.  For example, banks of earth in grids or rings not known to be prehistoric indicate that a site was probably once connected with pyrotechnic activities.

How The Media Has Hurt The Japanese People


First and foremost I have a personal message for the 180 or so heroes who have been working in shifts around the clock to save their nation from a worse disaster than the one that Japan has already suffered.


To the Heroes of Fukushima: 

May you each be most correctly and sincerely honored - not just by by your own nation, but by the whole world.  You have risked your lives to save others.  You are morally remarkable people who have actively taken part in serving our global society.  Through your diligence and perseverance you have become public role models.  You each deserve at least these three medals of honor:

Japan Earthquake Increases Flood Risk In Fukushima


During the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake in Japan, the ground level sank along the coast near Onahama Port,  Fukushima Prefecture. This has caused recent average tide levels to rise by about 40cm.

A tide level recording from Onahama Port shows the tide level fluctuations at the time of the quake and the subsquent increase in tide levels.


Tide level at Onahama, Fukushima Prefecture.
image source: JMA

Royally Screwed

Getting screwed - in the sense of being at the receiving end of a whole bunch of badness - has its origins in carpentry.  It's nothing to do with thumbscrews.  It has everything to do with keeping a thing under pressure - or releasing it.  Things can get literally screwed up or screwed down.

If you are trying to clamp something with screws you are screwing something down.  If you have a screw loose then your efforts will result in a screw-up.  A screw-up in a steam locomotive shop may result in a most public screw-up somewhere along the line.