Lake Michigan kissed its record low water level for October on one day last week, and federal officials now predict the world's fifth largest lake is likely going to plunge into never-seen-before levels in the coming months.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported on Monday that on one day last week, water levels were essentially at the lake's official record low for October, a monthly average that was set in 1964. The weekend rains brought a slight rebound of about an inch, though the long-term forecast calls for the level to continue dropping in the coming months into areas never seen since modern records began in 1918.

If the prediction holds, "We would tie the record low for November and December and then go below it from January through March," said Keith Kompoltowicz, chief of the Army Corps' watershed hydrology branch for the agency's Detroit district.

Water levels are tracked daily, though records are based on monthly averages. That means even if Lake Michigan dropped below its record low for October for a day or even a week, it would not be considered by the Army Corps to be a record low until the monthly average for October is tallied - and that average would have to be lower than the record set in 1964.

-more-

http://www.jsonline.com/features/health/lake-michigan-level-touches-record-low-for-month-pq78c8s-174408611.html

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to CNN's Piers Morgan: "Homosexuality ceases procreation"

In an interview airing tonight at 9 p.m. ET/PT on Piers Morgan Tonight, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad discussed a wide-range of topics with Piers Morgan including, the assassination of Ambassador Stevens and anti-American violence in the Middle East; Israel and a potential strike on Iran; and his views on homosexuality.

On the topic of homosexuality, Piers asks the Iranian President, "Shouldn’t freedom and individuality and all those things also extend to people who just happen to be gay? Who were born gay. They weren’t made gay." "Wouldn’t it be great for the President of Iran to say you know something, everyone’s entitled to be whatever sexuality they are born to be? That would be a great symbol of freedom."

"Do you really believe that someone is born homosexual?" says Ahmadinejad. "I’m sorry. Let me ask you this. Do you believe that anyone is giving birth through homosexuality? Homosexuality ceases procreation. Who has said that if you like or believe in doing something ugly, and others do not accept your behavior, that they’re denying your freedom?"


http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2012/09/24/mahmoud-ahmadinejad-to-cnns-piers-morgan-homosexuality-ceases-procreation/

Michael E. Mann

Director of Penn State Earth System Science Center; Author of 'Dire Predictions' and 'The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars'

If you're a science or math geek like me, you can't help but like Nate Silver. He's the fellow nerd who made good. His site FiveThirtyEight.com is a must for any serious polling buff, and he regularly graces the leading talk shows with his insightful if wonky commentary. So you can imagine how excited I was a year ago when Nate's assistant contacted me, indicating that he wanted to come to State College, PA -- the "happy valley" -- to interview me for his new book on "forecasting and prediction."

Nate, I was told, was working on a chapter about global warming. He sought me out because he felt my expertise would make me an "excellent guide to the history of climate modeling". He also expressed interest in my own upcoming (since published) book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars which details my experiences at the center of the climate change debate. Needless to say, I was very much looking forward to the meeting.

-snip-

And so I was rather crestfallen earlier this summer when I finally got a peek at a review copy of the The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail -- but Some Don't. It's not that Nate revealed himself to be a climate change denier; He accepts that human-caused climate change is real, and that it represents a challenge and potential threat. But he falls victim to a fallacy that has become all too common among those who view the issue through the prism of economics rather than science. Nate conflates problems of prediction in the realm of human behavior -- where there are no fundamental governing 'laws' and any "predictions" are potentially laden with subjective and untestable assumptions -- with problems such as climate change, which are governed by laws of physics, like the greenhouse effect, that are true whether or not you choose to believe them.

Nate devotes far too much space to the highly questionable claims of a University of Pennsylvania marketing Professor named J. Scott Armstrong. Armstrong made a name for himself in denialist circles back in 2007 by denouncing climate models has having no predictive value at all. Armstrong's arguments were fundamentally flawed, belied by a large body of primary scientific literature -- with which Armstrong was apparently unfamiliar -- demonstrating that climate model projections clearly do in fact out-perform naive predictions which ignore the effect of increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. As discussed in detail by my RealClimate.org co-founder, NASA scientist Gavin Schmidt, Armstrong simply didn't understand the science well enough to properly interpret, let alone, assess, the predictive skill of climate model predictions.

-more-

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-e-mann/nate-silver-climate-change_b_1909482.html

Walker launches petition drive in wake of ruling

MADISON — Gov. Scott Walker is urging his supporters to sign a petition in support of his law restricting collective bargaining that a judge last week largely struck down as unconstitutional.

Walker sent an email Thursday to supporters urging them to sign the online petition that derides Dane County Circuit Judge Juan Colas as an “activist” who “chose to put politics ahead of your votes.”

Madison teachers’ attorney Vince Powers has criticized Walker for attacking the judge instead of the merits of the decision. He has called on Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to say whether he stands by the statements.

Van Hollen has declined to comment. He asking Colas to put the ruling on hold while it is being appealed.

http://www.thenorthwestern.com/article/20120920/OSH0101/309200376/Walker-launches-petition-drive-wake-ruling?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

This week the National Review published an insulting and (very likely) libelous article about climate change expert Dr. Micheal Mann of Penn State University I suspect that a formal apology and a retraction are on the way. if not, Michael Mann will have a very good case against them. The writer of that article deserves to defend his words in court and I suspect he will.

THE FACTS

Dr. Mann has been subjected to an overwhelming amount of hate mail and death threats, (most of which are very badly spelled) because he published a paper several years ago, with the image above in it. You may have heard about this image, it’s called the “Hockey Stick”, and let me say right here, that no matter what you may read on the internet, this image has stood the test of dozens of reviews and investigations. Every scientific peer group that has looked at it says it’s good science and if anyone tells you differently, they are giving you political propaganda.

http://blogs.agu.org/wildwildscience/2012/07/22/slandering-someone-because-of-their-scientific-findings-can-be-very-costly/

Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere

| NATURE | VOL 486 | 7 JUNE 2012

Localized ecological systems are known to shift abruptly and irreversibly from one state to another when they are forced across critical thresholds. Here we review evidence that the global ecosystem as a whole can react in the same way and is approaching a planetary-scale critical transition as a result of human influence. The plausibility of a planetary-scale ‘tipping point’ highlights the need to improve biological forecasting by detecting early warning signs of critical transitions on global as well as local scales, and by detecting feedbacks that promote such transitions. It is also necessary to address root causes of how humans are forcing biological changes.

http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/docfeed/biosphere_state_shift_nature.pdf