Is a New Ice Age on the Way?

Short answer: nobody really knows.

The news of some scientists predicting the possibility of a new “little Ice Age” broke a few days ago.  I didn't post anything right away, as I wanted to read up on both the original story and reactions to it.  Here's my summary, after reading a lot of articles:

• All the report really says is that what's being observed today looks an awful lot like what little we know about the beginning of the Maunder Minimum.
  
  
• The authors of the report then speculate about the possibility that this indicates we're about to enter such a period.
  
  
• It would take several years of consistently low sunspot counts before we could really say with any certainty that this was happening.
  
  
• The pro-AGW crowd is quite predictably reacting negatively to this potential destruction of their world view.  I'd expect nothing else.  But just because they're predictable doesn't mean they're wrong.

Debbie and I own property in Southern California and in Northern Idaho.  If we really did enter a new little Ice Age, I wonder what that would do to property values?  Idaho surely would become less attractive.  Southern California I'm not so sure about – it probably depends to a large extent about what reduced temperatures would do to rainfall...

Life Expectancy in the U.S...

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) has a fascinating interactive map that shows the changes in life expectancy over time.  At right I took a screenshot of the most recent data (green is good, red is bad).  I'm fascinated by how much regional difference there is even in a country as homogenous as the U.S.

If you visit their map page, play with the sliders at the bottom to select the period of time you're interested in...

Mercury, via MESSENGER...

MESSENGER has now spent more than one Mercury year (88 Earth days) in orbit, doing solid science.  Recently it made an adjustment to its orbit, bringing its closest approach to just 200 km high.  Some recent imagery is at right (click to enlarge), in false color, via APOD.  By all reports, MESSENGER is doing exactly what its science team had hoped it would do, and all of its systems are (in NASA-speak) “nominal”.

Long-time readers would be disappointed if I didn't include here my usual rant about the effectiveness (and glory!) of unmanned space exploration, as compared to the utter waste and uselessness of the current and proposed manned space program...

Libyan Rebels and Their Weapons...

The Libyan rebels aren't (at least to my knowledge) being supplied by anyone with a regular supply of weaponry and ammunition.  They're up against a relatively well-equipped regular Libyan Army and Air Force.  What do you do in such a situation?  You improvise, and improvise they have – like the homemade armored car at right...

Moon's Motion...

A very nice time-lapse video showing (in particular) how much the moon “wobbles” due to our changing perspective of it:

ORM: the Anti-Pattern?

Interesting post about the pros and cons of ORM (Object-Relational Mapping).  I have lots of experience using both ORM frameworks and roll-your-own flavor, and just one experience using a key-value store.  I've never tried a hybrid approach, but my one experience with a key-value store got me thinking that way...

Introversion...

One of the best collections of facts about introverts I've seen, all in clear layman's terms.  This resonates very strongly with me, each and every point...