The First Snow in Seoul

This morning, I saw tiny specks of ice scatter outside my window. Naturally, I was really excited.  The first snowfall of the year made it feel like Christmas was coming soon. More importantly, though, it brought me relief. 

After my blog post in November, the weather became surprisingly warm...almost to the extent that my friends and I joked that Spring was already here. The temperature stayed in the range of 11.3℃ to 8.3℃. It was worrying, because it actually seemed like the rest of nature had also skipped Winter. Flowers - famous for coloring February through April in shades of saffron and lavender pink - appeared in the middle of November. In small numbers, Forsythia and Azalea bloomed. It was surreal to see tiny flowers and buds beside snowflakes. Now, it finally feels like the winter holiday season has arrived. With the thermometer pointing below 0℃, I'm hopeful that the seasons will go back to normal. 

Here are some pictures I took today. The photos in the beginning don't show any snow but scroll down for the ones that do!

If I had seen this a few months later I would have been really happy...
instead of worrying about what would happen to it

Clumps of green and yellow

Can you see the buds up there?

"Caster Sugar", remember?

The next pictures were taken at Yangjaecheon.

Quite deserted

Try comparing the depth of water shown in other pictures
of the skipping stones in previous Yangjaecheon posts!

For those who have been waiting for my posts on climate skepticism ("Skeptics and Deniers"), I'm sorry for the delay. I will be uploading a post this week - an analysis on the book 'Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years" and the science related to some of the content in the book.

Before Snow Settles in Seoul

According to the Korea Tourism Organization, autumn lasts from September to November here. Although there can't be an official time of the year when a season starts or ends, the need for bracing against the wind in woolly scarves tells me that winter isn't very far away. 

I wanted to share a several snapshots of Autumn with you. Unlike the other photos that I posted earlier which had foliage of auburn and copper, these ones are mostly green. They were taken around the campus of Sookmyung Girls' High School and near Mountain Umyeon. Enjoy :))) 

 The bleached leaves almost look like sheets of snow.

A little bit shaky with an awkward part of a branch

 hanging on the right, but I do love the silver whistlegrass

under the clear blues, don't you?

 Before they burst into mustard and lemon

Skeptics and Deniers: Let's Talk Global Warming

First of all, I'm terribly sorry for such a late post. A lot of things are happening lately and I was just caught in the midst of a storm of deadlines, assessments, etc. I can truthfully say, though, that this post took a long time to write. Climate skepticism is one big issue, so quite a lot of research and thought went to this post. 

As written on the previous post, this series is going to be about the book written by Fred Singer and Dennis Avery: Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years which was published in 2006. Over 16 chapters, the authors argue that the current rise in global temperature is not due to greenhouse gases (GHGs) from human activity but part of natural cycles in the Earth's climate. Instead of trying to reduce gas emissions, they say, we should prepare for the effects that follow. 

Honestly, I began reading with a little doubt - how far could anyone challenge something that persists and prevails in education systems, political conversations, and scientific research? Climate skepticism wasn't a concept that I was greatly familiar with; as a firm believer in the influence of human activity on global warming, I decided to read this book to see what the other side was thinking about.

After a couple of hours of reading, I could see why it had caused such a sensation.  It quoted 'Greenhouse Warming Advocates" and "alarmists" and then directly refuted the details. This was a truly effective way to get the readers to question everything they had learned through primary and secondary education, newspapers and presentations. I began to realize that there may have been imperfections and flaws in the explanations for human impact on global warming. However, I noticed some serious errors and flaws in the book as well. Here's an example of a point that I found to be misguided or unfounded:

- What the book says: The rise in temperature caused by human industrial activity is insignificant. There has only been a few degrees increase. 
  What I noticed/realized: Nowhere in the book is ocean acidification mentioned. A huge bulk  - 25%, according to Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory - of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere is dissolved in oceans and other water bodies like rivers and lakes. The reaction with water forms carbonic acid which eventually gives a bicarbonate ion and hydrogen ion, increasing the water's acidity. This is a reason why the actual number of degrees increase in temperature has not been increasing as much...although this may change when the threshold for the maximum carbon dioxide for absorption is reached.

As you can see, there are some aspects of the story in the book that I cannot agree with. Throughout the series of these blog posts, I will give a glimpse of what the book says, as well as my own opinions and questions that I had while reading this book. 

Now, I will talk briefly about the relationship between the Earth and the Sun, a point that the authors make early in the book. Remember, the opinion in this book is that big alterations in our climate are not due to human activity but through inherent cycles of change that the Earth goes through anyway. It will give you a hint as to how they set out their story, as well as the science that is important to know in understanding how the Earth's climate system works. 

One crucial "linkage" between the Earth's climate and the changes in the sun is cosmic rays. Under normal conditions, the sun emits a "solar wind" that shields our planet from cosmic rays that "bombard the rest of the universe". When the sun is weak, more cosmic rays reach the Earth's atmosphere. Here is a direct quote from the book: "... more of the cosmic rays get through to the Earth's atmosphere. There, they ionize air molecules and create cloud nuclei. These nuclei then produce low, wet clouds that reflect solar radiation back into outer space. This cools the Earth."

We must consider another aspect which, of course, concerns the ozone layer in our stratosphere. According to climate models mentioned in the book (Ah, climate models! Another matter that has to be discussed, maybe in the next post), "a 0.1 percent change in the sun's radiation could cause a 2 percent change in the Earth's ozone radiation, affecting atmospheric heat and circulation." When the sun is in a more active state, there is an increase in the ultraviolet rays reaching the Earth. Below is a diagram of how ultraviolet rays break oxygen molecules, some of which turn into ozone. 

Image from Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

Derivative work by Smartse

What do you guys think? Do you think factors such as the sun's cycles of change give enough reasons for believing that we aren't really responsible for global warming? Why do you think our teachers, politicians and non-governmental organizations tell us otherwise? Why are some people so adamant on denying our impact on the Earth's system? 

If you would like to share your ideas, please post comments below! 

Next post will be on the authors' reasons why the "Greenhouse Theory fails". 

Read part of the book here: 

http://www.reasontofreedom.com/unstoppable_global_warming_by_s_fred_singer_and_dennis_t_avery.html

Reading "Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years"

Recently, I was strolling through the library aisles when I came across "Unstoppable Global Warming" by Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery. From the cover, I could immediately see that the book was about how mankind isn't responsible for "global warming" - or, the recent surges in global temperature. In fact, according to the book, the climate change phenomena are a result of 1,500-year climate cycles that the Earth has been going through for 4.5 billion years.

The book expresses its doubts about the Greenhouse Effect - the absorption of solar radiation by greenhouse gases such as CO2 and N2O; the emission of GHGs from human activity cannot have an effect as large as a global temperature surge. The writers of this book assert that instead of trying to cut down on the production of such gases, we should try to develop the adequate technologies and other measures to prepare for the changes in climate for the years to come - inevitable, because that is how the Earth's system has always been, going through repetitive circuits of warm periods and little ice ages. 

* Anyone who's been following my blog will know that what I believe in doesn't agree with what the book says. I've talked extensively about global warming, greenhouse gases and climate change, all from a point of view that is quite the opposite of that of the book. But in the last few years, I've met people who share the book's ideas - surprisingly not a very small number. Investigating what the book says is a way of figuring out what they believe in and clarifying or reinforcing my own knowledge.

For the next few months, I'll be posting about my reading of this book, with picture and weather posts in between. I hope it will interest you as much as it did to me; after all, global news are often scattered with articles about climate change, and in order to interpret them in the most accurate or balanced way, we should be armed with the appropriate knowledge. 

Cheers :)

Discovering Petrified Wood

At the end of my last blog post, I asked you what the picture below showed:

Wood...with a "metallic, rocky texture"

And the answer is...petrified wood!

Blocks of it were scattered around the bonsai park of the Hwa Dam Forest Arboretum in Gwangju. When I first touched one, I couldn't believe it was a type of "wood" because it felt just like the veneer of polished marble. The entire shape was of an ordinary log, but there was nothing less than extraordinary about it. It  Below are some pictures:

Looks like silvery paint brushed over an oily surface

There were even massive sculptures made of this material along with a notice board that explained briefly how this came to be:

Can you see two sculptures lurking in the background?

The sign talks of "the tree that became a stone" and as much as this sounds like something out of a fairy tale or a fantasy novel, the formation of this magnificent matter can be explained quite scientifically. 

Petrified wood, also known as silicified wood, is a type of fossil...or more accurately, "fossilized remains of terrestrial vegetation". It is formed when a tree's organic materials get replaced with minerals such as silica, calcite, pyrite and quartz. This occurs when the wood becomes buried in sediment through which dissolved solids flow through. The plant's lignin and cellulose decay, making room for stone mold to set. It is essential that there is protection from oxygen and various organisms to prevent aerobic decomposition. Petrified wood is an incredibly unique fossil: its original outline and shape are preserved without getting compressed or impressed like other types do. In fact, it would be quite accurate to say that it represents an three-dimensional record of the initial form. 

Enjoy more pictures! :)