geographica |
Intermittent wanderings exploring elements of geography and cartography. |
Linked here is an article from the Washington Post which explores the possibility of an El Nino climatic event later this year. Forecasters are seeing the elements come together that signal the onset of El Nino features within the weather and climate system. They explore five ways that El Nino could influence weather patterns in the near future.
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Here is an article in the New York Times that investigates issues related to water management in the Western States by focusing on the Rio Grande. The article discusses some of the potential effects that can be linked to a warming climatic system, and also discusses the legal situation concerning the distribution of the Rio Grande's waters.
A few years ago, the city of Boston in Massachusetts took a chance on a new technology to improve its transportation. A massive drilling machine was constructed to dig tunnels underneath the city so that highways could be transferred from the surface to subterranean tubes. This same technology is being used to improve transportation in downtown Seattle, right on the waterfront, by tunneling underground to eventually replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Here is a website that has information related to the status of the project.
In recent weeks, the state of California's water supply (and lack thereof) has been covered in quite a few news articles and stories. This is a multidimensional geographic issue since the large population of California relies on water for a variety of domestic, commercial, and agricultural uses. See the story linked here for more information about the impacts of a scarce and diminishing natural resource.
Here is a recent news article about the monitoring of Lake Coeur d'Alene's water chemistry. One of the environmental aftereffects of intensive regional mining has been the distribution of unwanted contaminants throughout the watershed that drains into Lake Coeur d'Alene.
This is a link to an article in the New York Times that ponders the fate of glaciers in Montana's Glacier National Park. The park actually extends into Canada as a joint "Peace Park" between nations. The glaciers from which the park derives its name are in the process of gradually disappearing.
Climate Change and Glacier National Park If you are interested in Geographic Information Systems (i.e., computer-based mapping, satellite image analysis, and related topics), please visit the link below and see the schedule of events for GIS Day on the University of Idaho campus. For anyone wandering by the displays, you might see me by the Geography Department table or wherever they place our computerized geography game.
GIS Day 2014 Here is a recent article discussing the retreat of a large glacier in Alaska. Links within the story point to time-series analyses of the Columbia Glacier and its impressive disappearing act.
The Ordnance Survey of Great Britain has created an interesting type of map, especially if you have Minecraft. "The world consists of more than 83 billion blocks representing over 220,000 square kilometres of mainland Great Britain and surrounding islands." The OS provides a 1 GB downloadable Zip archive that will expand to over 20 GB of space, and can be imported into licensed versions of Minecraft. Read more about this digital map here.
Currently, there is an incredible storm approaching Alaska, as chronicled by a blog posting on Accuweather.com's Jesse Ferrell... Click here to read. This storm is composed of remnants of Super Typhoon Nuri, and it is being slingshot across the northern Pacific. Interestingly enough, this storm will influence oscillations in the general circulation of the atmosphere, which will probably result in a "polar vortex" event next week over Canada and the Lower 48.
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AuthorNo matter where you go... there you are. - BB Archives
October 2018
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