[ExI] Death Valley

[Anders Sandberg]

Looks awesome. Someday I hope to catch the sight of it.

Over in Old Blighty we had a bit of spring - spring flowers, even 
daffodils and magnolia buds. But now it is back to the scheduled rain 
and cold, with irregular sunshine to lure people out for a bit of extra 
rain. I blame the positive NAO index this winter for all of this, rather 
than El Nino. Positive = interesting weather, negative = boring weather.

Next week I am headed for Luleå, which sports a mild -13 C spring 
weather. Up there the winter cold depends on whether the Central Asian 
highs blow Siberian air in that direction, or the Atlantic wins.

It looks like we almost have spring on the northern hemisphere, at least 
when checking the jetstreams:
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/overlay=temp/orthographic=-6.18,40.44,340/loc=-1.854,52.318

The global weather is an awesome dynamical system.


On 2016-02-23 23:48, spike wrote:
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
> Of BillK
> Sent: Tuesday, February 23, 2016 12:02 PM
> To: Extropy Chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: [ExI] Death Valley
>
> I wondered why Spike was camping in Death Valley???  :) I thought it was all
> desert and bleached bones.......
>
> <http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/23/science/death-valley-is-experiencing-a-co
> lorful-superbloom.html>
>
>
> BillK
> _______________________________________________
>
>
>
> Hi BillK, it is that way most of the time.  Once in a long while, conditions
> are just right for what is happening now.  Here's a wild coincidence for
> you.  I just happened to be passing thru Death Valley in March of 2005 on
> the way to somewhere else.  It was a motorcycle trip where I went over
> Carson and down 395 heading for Phoenix, decided to pass on thru while I was
> that close.  I didn't even know at the time that it was super blooming, just
> happened to catch it after being away for a long time.
>
> Last fall my bride suggested going down there camping in the spring, and I
> agreed having not been there in a decade.  She made the campground
> reservations in about September, which were already filling up, before any
> of the unusual conditions had happened.  Then... odd rainfall year, which in
> Death Valley means you can measure some rainfall.  Go down there, flowers
> all over, and nothing to compete with them.
>
> I saw things this time I had never seen before, for when there is a rare
> super bloom, a lot of unusual fauna (somehow) shows up with it, but they are
> weird things.  The buggage this time was astonishing.  I saw beasts there I
> hadn't seen before, beetles and such.  I don't know my beetles, especially
> the really tiny ones.  Oh for a thousand lifetimes to learn them all.
>
> spike
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

-- 
Anders Sandberg
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Oxford University