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29 October 2021
#AntarcticLog: Charting a path forward by looking back
When it comes to climate change and the outcomes we face, time is short, and the world needs action. How do we know? Yes, through assessments of temperature and greenhouse gas emissions. But also through processes that open windows on the distant past — deep time. Ice cores carry us backward on a timeline so long it’s best expressed as a spiral.
22 October 2021
#AntarcticLog: Amal, Shackleton, & Nansen
Last week I posted my 200th #AntarcticLog science comic, about the 200 million people that the World Bank estimates will have to move because of the effects of climate change. That present concern is well represented by the journey of Little Amal, a giant puppet of a Syrian refugee girl who is currently on a march of her own.
15 October 2021
#AntarcticLog: 200 million displaced by climate change
It’s a week to celebrate for me: #AntarcticLog #200 just posted. Here it is. To acknowledge the moment, I looked for a topic that would reflect that number: 200. And what I came up with was sobering: the World Bank’s assessment of the number of humans due to be displaced by climate change. (And that’s just the humans.)
8 October 2021
#AntarcticLog: Kids are our (climate) future
When I think about what the world’s kids have been through for the last year and a half — since the start of the pandemic — I want to cry. And yet look at them — out stumping for climate change action, using their artwork to voice their concerns, wishes, and — as it right for the next generation — demands.
1 October 2021
#AntarcticLog: Visualizing climate change
At the Bigelow Laboratory in East Boothbay, Maine, the walls are made of glass. It facilitates communication, not just because it’s transparent, but because it gives the scientists something to draw on. Did you realize that scientists are dedicated doodlers? They embrace visual imagery to convey their processes and their findings. Case in point: Stephanie Peart’s demonstration of cloud formation, in this #AntarcticLog comic:
24 September 2021
#AntarcticLog: Edible (kind of) spiders
If you were going to make an Antarctic cake, what would you put on it? Rose McAdoo — steward at McMurdo station, polar explorer, and baker extraordinaire — has baked cakes to display scientists’ data, taught prison inmates to decorate cakes, and created this one, complete with sea spider.
17 September 2021
#AntarcticLog: The importance of stories
By now I shouldn’t be surprised — just grateful — at the way certain stories have broad appeal. I’m beginning to learn to trust myself — that stories and images that appeal to me will affect others too. Maybe not the same way as they affect me, but in the way of individual people wherever they are. For example, this one, featuring Mother Earth.
10 September 2021
#AntarcticLog: Caring for one ocean
The idea of the seven seas is a romantic notion; every ocean on Earth is one ocean. What happens in one part of the ocean system — say the melting of glacial ice into the Southern Ocean — impacts the rest. Likewise, the global warming causing glaciers to melt comes from an excess of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and that makes the ocean warmer — and more acidic.
3 September 2021
#AntarcticLog: Melting glaciers
The most vulnerable part of the Antarctic Ice is the Thwaites Glacier, part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. Could it melt? Yes — and it’s likely that it has, under different conditions many years in the past.
25 August 2021
#AGURocks: BumbleBee Blues
The natural world abounds with beauty and science reveals deeper patterns that provoke new questions. Science is not only a wellspring of inspiration for musicians but the tools and data of the scientific process can be used to create music as well. For example, I have used mathematical algorithms that mimic the behavior of flocking birds, predator/prey cycles and the human cardiovascular system to create some of my music compositions.
The Plainspoken Scientist is the science communication blog of AGU’s Sharing Science program. With this blog, we wish to showcase creative and effective science communication via multiple mediums and modes.
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