Fall into Winter: The Last Cross-Quarter of the Year

Some call it Halloween. And some call it El Dia de Los Muertos. It is called All Saints, All Souls, Samhain and Martinmas. It gets celebrated anytime between October 31 and November 7.



It is the fourth cross-quater day of the year and the actual astronomical event this year takes place on November 7.



This is the time when, as the earth completes her yearly cycle around the sun, it is exactly half-way between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice. The days are getting rapidly shorter now, and the sun appears to rise and set further and further toward the south every day.

This picture is of the sunrise this morning--a few days before the actual date, but close enough to see how far to the southeast it is actually rising. Our house faces the south-east, and today the sun rose just over the neighbor's house which is directly across from our front door.



Today was also the beginning of Standard Time, and it was too late coming in my humble opinion. Yesterday (Saturday) morning, the sun rose at nearly 8 AM and it did not actually get above the mountain until nearly 8:15 AM. That is really late. I was grateful that my N. was not shivering in the gloaming at a bus stop at 7:15!

It was also very strange how light it was on Halloween. I do wish the state would reconsider this lunacy of starting Mountain Standard Time later and later into the year. Since we need the lights in the mornings, I don't think it is buying us much.

But, I digress!




This is the sunset tonight (just before 5 PM MST) taken from the patio near our bedroom. The Sandia Mountain Front is well to the north (picture right) and that is where the sun set on the Summer Solstice.


In the Old Religion of Europe, this Cross-Quarter day is known as Samhain and is celebrated as the last harvest of the year. Coming as it does, at the very end of autumn, it is the Celtic new year and the beginning of winter according to the old calendar. In the Old Religion, this day marked a Royal Assembly and a time to honor the dead. The wheel of the year is moving us all toward the time of darkness and death, and accordingly Samhain represents a time when the boundaries are thin between this world and the world of spirits.


When Christianity came to Europe, it borrowed this old festival and made it into a holy day to honor All Hallows or All Saints. This is where we get the American Folk Holiday of Halloween which is derived from 'All Hallows Eve.' For the celebration of Halloween, people dress up as ghosts and witches, vampires and reapers, all a reminder of the origins of the day in honor of the dead. In the sacramental Christian churches, the next day after All Hallows is All Souls Day, a day to honor all the departed, which is an echo of Samhain. Here in the southwest, many people celebrate El Dia de Los Muertos--The Day of the Dead. They make altars decorated with mementos of their dear departed and eat candy skeletons and bread made in the shape of skulls and crossbones. Earlier today, in Albuquerque's South Valley neighborhoods, people made the annual Marigold Parade for Dia de Los Muertos.


There is no Jewish cognate for the fourth cross-quarter. We honor the dead with a special yizkor service at each of the three pilgrimage festivals and on Yom Kippur, as well as on the anniversaries of the deaths of our loved ones. We celebrated the last harvest last month during Sukkot. But this coming Friday is Rosh Chodesh, the new moon celebration that begins the month of Kislev which brings Hannukah and winter.

Winter is definitely on its way up here in Sedillo.
Bruce got the pellet stove running last weekend. It is connected to a thermostat and fires up every morning, now that we have programmed the set-back for warmth in the early morning and mid-evening times. We've had one frosty night after another, and after our last walk, Lily has taken up her old post by the warm stove.


The sunsets are moving every further south along the hills to our west. The sky is taking on the clouds and colors of winter.

And now that we have ended Daylight Time, the evenings are dark and the nights are long.

Happy cross-quarter day--whatever you call it--a little early!



On the actual day, I will be traveling up north where the nights are even longer and the weather is colder.

Global Climate Change: Science, Politics, and Ideologies

I was reading a post at Consent of the Governed yesterday about Al Gore, the IPCC, and the issue of global climate change. You can read what was written here. I started to write a reply to the post, but it began to get so long that I copied it to Word in order to post about on my own blog. So I will discuss the issue here today.


Before I go on, I think it would be helpful to state up front my claim to expertise in this matter. I have advanced degrees in geology and biology. In geology, I studied paleoclimatology and worked on the microfossil identifications for the Glacial Lake Estancia project with Dr. Roger Andersen. As a biologist, my focus was on ecology and evolution, and my specific interest was in the desert soil ecology of cryptogamic crusts. I also taught Genetics to undergraduates as an instructor (sometimes called a lecturer). In my first area of interest, paleoclimate, I learned quite a bit about the influences on climate on the earth and about the earth's history of climate change. In my second area of interest, desert ecology, I was involved in ongoing studies of desertification in the southwestern US, through work on the lands of the Servilleta Long Term Ecological Research Center and also at the Jornada del Muerte.


As I have been moving through my days, reading blogs, reading the newspaper, and having discussions, I have noticed that with respect to global climate change, science and politics are getting twisted together in a very confusing way. On the one hand, the science as it is reported in the popular press gets simplified and stated in absolute terms. Then political types get a hold of the simplification of results and use it to push very specific agendas. For those who oppose the political agendas that have been tied to scientific information, it has become almost de rigeur to deny the scientific evidence lock, stock and barrel and call it "junk" science. The fascination of scientific discussion is lost to both of these positions and the argument descends to insult and name calling that spirals to the point where lines are drawn in the concrete, and neither "side" can even bear to listen to the other. In other words, the science is lost in the political ideologies of left and right.


Those who embrace the ideologies as described above are generally not scientists, although politically astute scientists do use prevailing ideologies to get funding. We are human, after all. When scientists enter the popular discussion they are often at a disadvantage because many forget that the popular discussion is not conducted to get at a better understanding of physical reality and how it works, but rather to demonstrate the absolute rightness of one ideology over another.


Science does not work by proclaiming an absolute position and then going out to find evidence to support it. Rather, it works by hypothesis testing. A question is posed and then an experiment is developed to test the hypothesis. Information is extracted regardless of whether the hypothesis or the null is confirmed by the experiment. Of course, funding proposals being what they are, most scientists would rather be able to confirm the hypothesis rather than the null, and so we generally do a lot of ground work in order to make sure the hypothesis is a good one before commiting time, money, and professional reputation to it. This requires the willingness to spend much time learning the field. The purpose of all of this is advance our knowledge of physical reality bit by bit.



Most working scientists spend their years of research developing ideas that support the dominant paradigm of their field. In Geology, for example, that paradigm is plate tectonics, in Chemistry, it is the quantum structure of the atom, and in Biology it is evolution by natural selection. It is a rare and interesting time when the current paradigm no longer supports everything that is being discovered, and a new paradigm is developed. I was fortunate to begin my studies in Geology during exciting times when the paradigm shift to plate tectonics was taking place. A fascinating popular account of this shift is The Road to Jaramillo: Critical Years of the Revolution in Earth Science, by William Glen.



There is a popular misconception about what happens to previously developed knowledge in the event of a paradigm shift. It does not go away or cease to be a description of reality. It is, rather, subsumed under the new paradigm. For example, Newton's laws did not cease to operate when the revolution in Physics precipitated Quantum Mechanics in the early years of the 20th centuries.






Now that we've got that background explicated, let's talk about what we know about the science of global climate change. That the earth's climate has changed over time and continues to do so is not in question among scientists. The position of the continents now--particularly the fact that the north pole is positioned in ocean almost surrounded by continental landmasses, does indicate that the earth can be expected to undergo bouts of glaciation and inter-glacial periods, as has been occuring since the beginning of the Pleistocene. Cyclical warming and cooling can be expected as long as the continents remain the their present configuration.


Interglacial periods like the one we are in now, which are characterized by sea-level rises and warming of the earth's average temperature. Toward the end of these periods, the average temperature rises sharply and is followed by renewed glacial advances. This creates sea-level drops and cooling of the earth's average temperature.


These major changes also cause changes in precipitation patterns expected in different regions across the earth's surface. For example, here in New Mexico, glacial advances trigger "pluvials" or periods of higher rainfall, whereas glacial retreats are marked by dryer, desert conditions. This is turn changes the latitude and altitude of the major life zones. Again, in New Mexico, geomorphological studies and paleo-pollen studies indicate that what is now low desert grassland was often covered by water (such as Glacia Lake Estancia in the present Estancia Basin, and Glacial Lake San Agustin on what is now the plains of San Agustin). The other life zones were shifted down in altitude accordingly, with the pinon-juniper woodlands being below 5,000 feet, the Ponderosa Pine zones being below 6,000 feet, and so forth, all the way to a lower treeline in montaine topography.


The point here is that the earth's climate has changed in the past and can be expected to change in the future. Human beings tend to see things through the lens of a very short lifespan in comparison to the age of the earth, and so we tend to think that the way things are is the way things always were and always will be. To think about climate change as a dynamic process on the earth, requires us to take a longer view, one in which our history is an almost miniscule segment in the extremely long timeline of earth history.



There is also ample evidence that human activity has created a faster warming of the earth than has been seen at the end of other interglacial periods. Oxygen isotope data from the poles indicates that temperatures have risen before the beginning of each of the past four glacial advances, however the rate of change for the current average temperature rise appears to be much steeper than for the ends of any other interglacial period since the beginning of the Pleistocene. However, there are different ideas about how much steeper because there is error in these reconstructions.


This is not the first time in earth's history that life has altered conditions. Think about the Oxygen revolution at the beginning of the Phanerozoic. The evolution of photosynthetic bacteria changed the atmosphere of the earth to one that is oxygen-rich. The beautiful Banded Iron Formations in the Mesabi Range are only one piece of evidence of this major change. This was a major change that allowed oxygen-using life forms to evolve and pushed the anaerobic archaebacteria into very limited oxygen poor environments, such as the deep sea vents. I could go on and on about the alterations that the various phyla of life have made to the earth's environment. Think about the invasion of the land by plants and then animals. Think about the evolution of flowering plants in the early Cenezoic.



None of the above is controversial among scientists. There is ample evidence from a multitude of scientific disciplines, including Physics, Astronomy, Paleontology, Biology, Geology, Chemistry, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. If so, why the controvery?


I think much can be explained by the ideological uses to which this information has been put. In the world of politics, some people have used this evidence to make specific predictions, and based on these predictions, they have demanded certain political solutions that affect our current ways of doing business. Others, opposed to these solutions have then rejected the evidence rather than attack the proposed solutions.


In effect, one ideological camp is proclaiming: The climate is changing (scientifically supported) and therefore we must change our economic system (science cannot determine this) in order to stop the climate change (dubious endeavor). One might wonder if the real ideological goal here is to use the idea of climate change in order to further an anti-industrial, anti-capitalist political agenda. Another camp seems to be proclaiming: The climate is changing (scientifically supported) and human beings have caused it (not scientifically supported--we can only say that human action has contributed to the speed and magnitude of the ongoing change) and therefore human beings are bad (science cannot determine moral judgement).



The response on the other side seems to be something like this: We don't like the idea that we might be forced to change our economic system or way of life (science cannot evalute this) so therefore we reject the idea that the climate is changing (science does not support the conclusion).



My point here is that the debate is not actually a scientific debate. It is one in which scientific conclusions are either being used or rejected based on an a priori ideological stand. Is the debate over? That depends on how one defines what the debate is. There has never been any debate among earth scientists that climatic change is ongoing in earth history. There is no doubt among us that the earth has been warming over the past 10,000 years, since the end of the Wurm/Wisconsinin glaciation. There is a great deal of evidence that interglacial periods end with increasing global temperature means that create weather patterns that then cause renewed glacial advances. The preponderance of the evidence indicates that this time, the warming is happened faster and is greater than prior ends of interglacial periods. These results can be tied to increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. And we can measure the effect of human activities that put a great deal of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In particular, we are burning fossil fuels at ever increasing rates which is releasing carbon dioxide that was previously sequestered in the regolith for the past 250 million years mas o menos. All of these things are within the realm of science to test and demonstrate.




What we cannot say for certain is what the consequences of this will be for human civilizations. Predictions can be made based on evidence from past interglacial periods and whole vast epochs when carbon dioxide was more abundant in the earth's atmosphere. But conditions are not exactly the same. As the remaining glacial ice from the Wurm/Wisconsinin melts, we can expect sea levels to rise. We can measure the volume of the ice and make some prediction of how much water would be added to our oceans. But we cannot say how fast this would happen and exactly what the human consequences would be. We can predict that weather will become more extreme, because the earth's oceans are essentially great heat engines that distribute that energy around the planet via weather. But we cannot say whether or not a specific weather event was caused by climate change. There is not one cause of weather--it is a stochastic system. Anyway, any event has a chain of causes, some immediate and some more ultimate. Finally, we have no idea how much impact small changes we can make in the earth's carbon budget would have on climate change.



This is where the debate actually begins. Science can tell us what has happened, what is happening and how, and it can make predictions about consequences within a range of error. (In this case there are many variables and that range of error is rather large). Science cannot determine what, if anything, human beings should do about it. Science cannot properly make moral judgements about what the right actions would be. That is up to us as whole human beings who must balance knowledge across all human realms of knowledge: the physical, the moral and the spiritual.




As a scientist, I can say what the evidence tells us. And as a scientist, every conclusion I make must be stated within a range of error. But it is as a human being that I want to hold out some hope about climate change. One hundred and ten thousand years ago, the earth entered the last glacial advance (called the Wurm in Europe and the Wisconsinin in North America). The species Homo sapiens sapiens was around then. And during that glacial period, the human species underwent great adaptations that, by about 40,000 years ago, made us fully modern. The way our brains work, and many of the traits that arise from that, including modern cultural behavior (such as group organization and art) have been stable in the human population these last 40,000 years. We have much evidence of certain genetic polymorphisms (differences among individuals) that have been stable since this time. Change is continuous over time on this earth, and as a species, we certainly have the range of genetic variation to be able to adapt to change. And something more. In the past 40,000 years we have developed something unique for life on earth. Culture. And during the past 10,000 years we have developed something even more adaptable: Civilization. We are able to record and use information from our ancestors in order to expand our knowledge beyond that of a lifetime and now can adapt even more rapidly. Some of us call this way of passing on knowledge memes.



Even if the seas are rising my bet is that Homo sap sap has the memes to deal with it. And I wonder what people are doing about it now, while the ideologues argue? I don't have to be a betting woman for that. Individuals are moving forward even while governments wrangle and Al Gore refuses to reduce his carbon footprint. But neither 'gods nor governments' are getting it done. It is good old human ingenuity.





And it is this that gives me hope. Lots of it.

Late Fall in Sedillo...

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

When there's snow on Redondo Peak in the Jemez at dawn....














And snow and frost at Sandia Crest....















And the Aspen's gold turns to orange....

...and then to brown...

...and then branches are becoming bare against the sky...















And the scarecrow, and the pumpkin,

and corn, symbol of peace and plenty,

appear at the door...

...then we know that fall is dying,

and the season of rest and renewal approaches.

Carnival of Homeschooling #96: Yearbook Edition

I know I have a high school photo of me....somewhere! But it's in the garage. In a box.
A box that looks like about 100 other boxes from the move. Sigh!

So my listing in the Yearbook Edition of COH comes sans picture! Remember those blank spots with the caption: Absent on Picture Day? Well, I'm one of those. But you can still go on over to Sprittibee's blog and read some of the wonderful entries this week!

Maybe I'll have time to find one of those pictures. But it was the '70's. Big glasses. Gunny Sax dresses. Do I really want to?

Anyway, go on over and share the fun!

A Week of Observing:Full Moon at Perigee, The Space Station and Shuttle and a Comet

This past week has been a busy week for night sky observations.

On Thursday evening, we had dinner in stages. After the salad, we went outside and looked up to see the International Space Station (ISS) transit across from the northwest to the southeast, crossing the bowl of the Big Dipper--which was barely visible because the sun had set only about 15 minutes before. Then we began the main course, but before I served seconds, we were outside again, to see the Space Shuttle seeming to chase after the ISS from northwest to southeast. It went right through the handle of the Big Dipper on its way towards the rising moon.

And, speaking of the moon, did you notice how bright it was this past week? The fullness of the Hunter Moon was also at the Moon's Perigee, that time when its orbit brings it closest to the earth. It was so amazingly bright last week that when it began to shine through the clerestory in our bedroom, it woke me up early in the morning. I looked out the French doors to see the full moon casting dark shadows of trees and shrubs before it as it sank to the western horizon. I even managed a picture of it. It is a little blurred as I do not have tripod. You can see the deep shadow of the mountains it will sink behind at the bottom of the picture. The next morning, N. complained that the moonlight kept him awake as it shined in his window. We talked about orbits and perigee and apogee, and looked it all up at APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day).

Another amazing astronomical event this week is that Comet P17 Holmes, which was very dim when it passed us on its way toward the sun last spring, suddenly flared into brightness this weekend.

We looked for it on Friday night. In a sort of strange turn of events, I identified it first, whereas Bruce thought I was pointing to a star. Although he's the astronomer, in this case, I thought this object looked fuzzy, whereas a star would twinkle. The full moon made it difficult to see, but with binoculars steadied against the roof of Henry, we were even able to see a little tail. We looked for it again last night, and since the moon rose late, we actually saw a pretty good tail on it!

P17 Holmes is so bright because it is outgassing as it passes Jupiter. It is currently about 2.5 AU (that 2.5 x the distance from the earth to the sun) and is moving away from the sun now. It is a naked-eye object. It can be seen by identifying Cassiopia (the 'W' shaped constellation in the northern sky) and then looking east from there to find a triangle of stars. It is a point at the bottom of the triangle, and it looks fuzzy and does not twinkle like a star.

The picture of the comet above is from APOD. A friend of ours from TAAS (The Albuquerque Astronomical Society) also took a picture the other night, which includes the stars around it that can be seen at her blog Infinity. If you check her site out, you will see where to look for Comet P17 Holmes. Finally, NASA has schedules for when and where to look to see the ISS pass overhead, as well as where to look for the Space Shuttle when it is up.

It's interesting. Every time Bruce comes home with a schedule for viewing the ISS or the Shuttle or some other event that happens regularly, I think to myself, "Been there. Done that. Got the T-shirt." But then I always go out to see it. And it always amazes me. People are up there in space! I guess I am a space-junkie, even if I try to pretend I am jaded and experienced. I'll never get over the initial wonder.

Do take some time to go out and take a look at the night sky soon. The moon is now waning, so you will be able to see the comet well in the early evening. Check out the schedule for seeing the ISS and the Space Shuttle when it undocks. We all need a little wonder.

And as we say in the astronomy community:

Clear Skies!

Tai Kwando: Physical Education and Something More

Last year, when we started homeschooling, N. talked about wanting to start a sport.

He said he was considering football, but I nixed that. Football involves too many injuries to young bodies and especially to brains. People with neurological diagnoses are more vulnerable to mild traumatic brain injury and N. is in that category. Also, N. is exquisitely sensitive to being hurt by others on purpose, and that is what football is about.

I suggested that he consider either a track club or martial arts. Both of these are individual sports in which a person is competing only with his or her personal best. These kinds of sports are very good for people with Aspergers. After mulling it over for a while, N. said he wanted to do martial arts. But by then we were deep into Bar Mitzvah preparations, and I knew I could not take on one more thing! So I told him that we would investigate martial arts after the big day.

But we took a good long break in January. In February, N. started his museum science class and we were working with Dr. Sheri Florance on Brain Engineering. That was worthwhile, but definitely not inexpensive. In March, we discovered the Wilderness Awareness School and Kemana. April was Passover, and in May we got busy with summer plans...

Are you dectecting a pattern here?

In June, we started the flooring project and N. went to Boy Scout camp. In July, he was in Illinois for three weeks. If this was August, this must have been Coyote Tracks camp in California...September was the High Holy Days.

Wow! Time sure does fly when you're having fun!

Finally, last Monday, after some urging from N., I made the call to Blackman's Tai Kwando Academy. Master Blackman has taught martial arts to a number of the kids that learned Hebrew from me. Two of those kids are Black Belts now, and one is training for the Olympics. That kid--well, he's not really a kid anymore--time does fly!--is doing a class for kids with ASD at the JCC. We thought about that program, but N. wanted to pursue the sport without reference to his disability. So a week ago Monday, I called up Blackman's.

They certainly don't waste any time. That afternoon I took N. for a free trial lesson.

When it was over, the teacher said that N. seemed to do well, listening to each direction and working at the moves. N. said he wanted to sign up.

So N. is now a member of the school, complete with a uniform and practice DVD to get to the yellow belt. He can take lessons on Monday just before boy scouts and on Wednesday just before Machon (Religious Ed). I also take him in special on Thursdays. That is three hours a week of intensive training. Since he is 13, he takes his lessons with the beginning adults. Those groups are small and he gets a lot of individual attention.

The sign-up form had a list of goals for the student to choose and check-off. N. checked "self-defense," as well as "discipline" and "confidence." Those are interesting goals. When he was in school, N. had several bouts of problems with bullies. So self-defense seems like a natural goal for him in his martial arts training. I would have chosen "discipline" for him, as that is always important for teens. But I had not thought much about "confidence" lately.

Accomplishing the rigorous goals of the Bar Mitzvah was a step that made N.'s confidence bloom. So, too, was the experience with Kamana I and the Coyote Tracks camp. I had not really thought about it much, but N. has blossomed in the past year, with homeschooling, and these other accomplishments.

However, N. had a nasty bout with bullying in his scout troop just before we went to Coyote Tracks. It was antisemitic bullying from the other three members of his patrol. The actual things the kids said to N. indicated their complete ignorance of Judaism and of the Holocaust, but they were hurtful remarks none the less. We called the scoutmaster that very same night, and to his credit, an immediate stop was put to the behavior, N. moved out of that patrol and into another, and the troop board is planning a Holocaust educational trip to the local Holocaust museum. But it has taken N. a long time to bounce back. He missed getting his Second Class with the other boys because he was apathetic about one last requirement. He missed the court of honor anyway, because it was scheduled for the night of Yom Kippur. (That's another issue we are working with the troop on--this was the second year in a row the family camp-out was scheduled during the highest of the holy days). But he has seemed to regain some interest in the scouts again.

Still, in reflecting on his year, I realized that for someone with AS, targeting by bullies can become a way of life. And the best way to deal with bullies is confidence.

Today, N. completed a six hour training on self-defense using Combat Hapkido methods. These include anatomical targeting and using the force of the attacker against him. He will need to go to another day of this training before he gets his higher ranks in Tai Kwando. He said that they taught a lot about observing the environment and moving with confidence, because the best way to solve problems with bullies and other attackers begins with confidence.

Confidence. It is an important aspect of physical training that was never explicitly taught in the public schools PE classes. There, bully-proofing was limited to telling an adult--many of whom had never been taught how to actually stop bullying behaviors.

Confidence is not on the curriculum in schools. It would be extremely difficult to develop confidence during physical training in schools and, at the same time, take it away by the extreme sport that testing has become in the very same schools.

Confidence. Evidently, as he has developed some of it, N. has also developed the desire for more!

Fog, Rocks, Waves and Sand...

Nearly Wordless Wednesday

What would you do with a high-energy kid
before hopping into Henry the Big Red Truck for a 12 hour drive? On August 18, 2007 we did this:

We took him out for a nice breakfast.

And then we went to the beach in Pacifica, California.

The rocks were just calling out to be walked on.








And jumped across.















And keeping your balance takes agility, strength and concentration.

The fog and cool Pacific breeze made the air feel soft and wonderul.

In a few hours we would be in the desert.
But first, N. got to spend an hour being a kid on the beach.
By the end of that hour he was quiet and focused.



Nature's Prozac!