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| Sun Oct 7 17:40:58 2012 Mt Baker Prediction |
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| 2011 | |
| February | |
| Thu Feb 10 16:39:00 2011 Peak Oil Revisited |
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| January | |
| Mon Jan 3 20:27:34 2011 Charitable Giving |
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| Sun Oct 7 17:40:58 2012 Mt Baker Prediction How much snow will Mt Baker get in 2012-2013? |
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| Well, it is getting close to the 2012-2013 ski season. How much snow will Mt
Baker get? (I'm talking about the ski area).
I'm guessing around 600 inches this year. That's pretty good for most ski areas, but low for Mt Baker. Still, I think it will be a decent year, since although less precipitation is expected, it is supposed to stay cold. Historically, snowfall is influenced by ocean heating events such as El Nino (warmer than usual surface water in the tropical Pacific) and La Nina (colder than usual water). Oddly, the impacts aren't 100% predictable (you can get more or less snow with either) but generally they can influence predictions. The 2012-2013 season is expected to be an El Nino year, according to The Weather Centre. There are all sorts of El Nino years, apparently. This one is a "mainly west El Nino", meaning the warmer surface water is more to the west. That means as much to me as it does to you. Anyway, what have previous El Nina years looked like? Here is the list of total snowfall per year at Mt Baker, courtesy of bestsnow.net
Way back in 2009, I attempted to predict the snowfall for the 2009-2010 season ( The 2009-2010 Winter Forecast). I was way off: I guessed 450 inches, but in fact (you can see above) it was 634 inches. That was a good year! And that was another El Nino season. So this year may not be as epic as past years, but odds are it will still be very rideable throughout the winter. Comments |
Related: predictions > environment < Unrelated: books economics energy geopolitics lists mathematics science |
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| Thu Feb 10 16:39:00 2011 Peak Oil Revisited Are oil reserves overstated? |
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| Today I saw another mention of a leaked cable from the
Wikileaks trove. People are apparently publishing new leaked cables all the time as they find
interesting tidbits.
This particular series of leaked cables showed that throughout 2007-2009, US diplomats believed that Saudi Arabia had overstated its crude reserves by up to 40 percent. In particular, a high-ranking executive at Saudi Aramco, the Saudi Arabian national oil company, stated that he believed their reserves were inflated, and he convinced US diplomats and other international energy experts. In general, there have long been suspicions that OPEC countries have inflated their reserves. It has been hard to tell how worried to be: how much of the bump was due to improved measurements or accounting changes, versus more arbitrary changes? The leaked cables are significant because they indicate that even insiders believe the reserves are arbitrary inflated to a large extent. Does this mean we'll suddenly run out of oil? No, there are still around a trillion barrels of proven reserves. But the Saudi/Aramco reserves are most critical because now that Russian production is declining, Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world who is capable of keeping up with the world's growing oil consumption. And the problem with limited reserves isn't that we run out of oil, instead the problem with limited reserves is that the cheap oil runs out quickly, leaving only more expensive oil to be extracted. And so, over time, oil production peaks. The leaked cables indicate that Saudi oil production could peak in the next ten years, which they say is "not good news." Worse, it means global oil production could peak earlier--if it hasn't already. The bottom line? As I've said before ( Peak Oil), expect gas prices to start going up significantly again, and they probably won't come down. Or if they do come down, it will because of further economic recessions, not improved production. So start planning now! Expect gas to hit $5 or even $10 a gallon in the next ten years. If you do a lot of driving, see if you can move nearer to public transit, because you won't want to be driving much. Comments |
Related: economics geopolitics > environment < Unrelated: books energy lists mathematics predictions science |
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| Mon Jan 3 20:27:34 2011 Charitable Giving 2010 Summary and 2011 Plans |
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| Last year I re-vamped
My Charitable Giving, and in 2010 I intended to stick to the plan I came up with then.
However, I was somewhat worried about my finances earlier in the year, so I stopped giving for a while. Not great, but that's kind of the idea: you give to charity when you can, and don't when you can't. I think that's better than becoming a charity case myself! But by November of 2010 it was pretty clear that I'd be fine, so I caught up with all of my charitable giving in one night. The Internet makes giving very easy! Although there was one problem: The United Way of Whatcom County had a broken giving link for a while, and I missed my 2010 donation window. So I'll catch up to them in 2011. As I do every year, I bumped up the contribution amount over the previous year. This was the breakdown by charity categories:
All of those are worthwhile causes, but these are my three favorite charities (in alphabetical order):
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Related: economics > environment < Unrelated: books energy geopolitics lists mathematics predictions science |
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