Posts filed under ‘College of Earth and Mineral Sciences’
Michael Mann Cleared, Again
Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann, who was at the center of the 2009 controversy dubbed “Climategate,” did not engage in scientific misconduct, according to a new report by the National Science Foundation.
Bloomberg reported yesterday that the NSF has cleared Mann of wrongdoing; the Bloomberg story also includes a link to a download of the NSF’s report.
The controversy arose when a computer server at a British climate-research center was hacked in November 2009, and emails among climate researchers—including Mann—were published on the Internet. Climate-change skeptics claimed that the emails showed that Mann and the others had manipulated data in order to reach the conclusions that global warming is real.
Penn State investigated Mann a year ago in conjunction with the controversy and also found no evidence of research impropriety. Several other bodies, including the National Academy of Sciences, have reached the same conclusion.
Mann’s website at Penn State contains links to some of the news stories about him, including one from last month in which he talks about the attacks he’s experienced from global-warming skeptics and others.
Tina Hay, editor
A Crash Course in Climate Science
WGAL chief meteorologist Joe Calhoun learned more about the science behind climate change at Friday's workshop.
As the chief meteorologist for WGAL-TV in Lancaster, Pa., Joe Calhoun ’81 is concerned about the short term. Like most TV meteorologists, he has stories about viewers calling to ask whether it’s going to rain later that day and if they should cancel their picnic, or graduation, or whatever. He knows his viewers have bigger questions, too, about climate change, but he wasn’t always sure how to handle them. He’s been out of the classroom for a long time, and he wasn’t up on the latest science.
And that’s why he was part of a committee that helped to develop a one-day workshop in which Penn State’s top climate researchers gathered with about a dozen of the state’s television meteorologists to discuss the science of climate change.
“These are issues we need to address,” Calhoun said.
And as for the researchers? They wanted to explain the science to the meteorologists—in a politics-free, collegial environment—but they also wanted some help. As organizer Jon Nese ’83, ’85g ’89g, a senior lecturer in meteorology, explained, television viewers trust the meteorologists on their local channels, so by making sure that those meteorologists understand the science, researchers can make sure that television viewers are getting the best possible information.
Nese told the broadcasters, “You excel at telling engaging, simple stories about a complex phenomenon.” (more…)
Millennium Science Complex: A (Not Quite) Three-Hour Tour
In this photo by our editor, Tina Hay, you can look up through the cantilever.
The first thing I noticed about the Millennium Science Complex—the new gigantic (275,000 square feet), state-of-the-art building between Pollock Halls and the Eisenhower Auditorium parking garage—was the beautiful landscaping in the building’s northwest corner. My husband and I bicycled past a couple of weeks ago, and we stopped to admire the ferns and flowers nestled under what we called an “open spot” in the building’s roof.
Turns out, those ferns and flowers are far more than decoration.
On The Penn Stater’s tour of the building Thursday afternoon, senior project manager Dick Tennant explained (more…)
‘Mysterious Health Challenge’ Takes Mel Goldstein Off the Air
Mel Goldstein, the chief meteorologist at WTNH-TV in New Haven, Conn., pretty much qualifies as a medical miracle. For 16 years, he’s been fighting multiple myeloma, a blood cancer with a typical life expectancy of only three years. And for most of that time, he’s been on the air as the station’s morning meteorologist.
So it was sad to learn from this piece in the New Haven Register that Dr. Mel, as he’s universally known, is off the air—and in pain. He told the newspaper that his cancer levels haven’t risen, but that he has excruciating pain in his hip and groin. His wife, Marlene, said that when asked to rank his pain on a 1-10 scale, “Mel used to say ‘5’. “But now he says ’15.’”
Such sad news. Sending good wishes, and hoping to hear of some improvement.
Lori Shontz, senior editor
What’s on Joe Bastardi’s Mind
Never a guy to shy away from attention or controversy, Joe Bastardi ’78 EMS is in the news lately more than usual. A former Penn State wrestler, prolific local columnist, proud body builder, global-warming skeptic, and respected long-term forecaster, Bastardi last week abruptly quit his post at AccuWeather, a move that made national news.
So this is well timed: Bastardi was featured a few days ago in a Q&A on the Vanity Fair website, in which he discusses his work, his muscles, weird 1970s holiday cartoons, and the reliability of Punxsutawney Phil. It’s highly recommended reading.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
The Joy of Science with Richard Alley
Anyone attending Huddle with the Faculty on Saturday morning is in for a treat—the speaker is Richard Alley, Evan Pugh professor of geosciences and one of the climate scientists honored with the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
Better yet, even if you can’t make it to the Nittany Lion Inn at 9 a.m., you can still enjoy Alley’s talk—and even participate. You can watch live at this link from WPSU, and you’ll also be able to submit questions from the comfort of your own home (or tailgate, I guess). If you want to follow along on Twitter, the hashtag is #PSUhuddle10.
The multimedia and social media options are only appropriate considering the topic of Alley’s talk: “A Lark in the Parks: Communicating the Joy of Science in a YouTube World.” And if you’ve not seen Alley in action, you should definitely do a quick search on YouTube, where you’ll find gems including Alley putting his own spin on Proud Mary (“rolling … to the future”) and performing “Rock Around the Silicates.”
Lori Shontz, senior editor
Marcellus Shale: Just the Latest Pennsylvania Energy Source
Geosciences professor Rudy Slingerland knew what had brought so many people to his Huddle with the Faculty presentation Saturday morning: the Marcellus Shale. So he took a few minutes to disabuse us of the notion that he could provide any hot financial tips.
He explained how he had told his father that he had no interest in the family’s 600-acre dairy farm in Bradford County—”I’m going to be a geology professor,” Slingerland ’77g had said—and how someone else now owns the land that’s worth $2 million in natural gas leases.
But Slingerland’s career decision paid off for us as he traced Pennsylvania’s vital role in the energy industry, from wood to coal to oil to natural gas. He made sure we fully understood these two themes:
—A population’s demand for a certain energy source eventually depletes that energy source.
—There is no environmentally benign energy source.
That established, Slingerman delivered a wonderfully informative lecture. You want to talk about crossing the boundaries of academic disciplines? In the course of an hour, he touched on geology, history, art, and sports, and he even threw in a pop culture reference: “Black gold. Texas tea.” (Beverly Hillbillies, of course.) (more…)
The Marcellus Shale and Penn State
For some time now we’ve been watching the emergence of the Marcellus Shale as a major energy, economic, and environmental topic for Pennsylvania—and, indeed, the whole nation.
Back in March-April 2008 we ran a short Q&A with Terry Engelder ’68, the geosciences professor who (along with a colleague at SUNY Fredonia) is credited with discovering the enormous potential of the shale field for natural-gas production. But since then, we haven’t carried much in the magazine on the topic. We’ve probably been remiss in that regard, and lately we’ve been talking a lot about how best to tackle the subject in our pages. It’s a huge, complicated, and controversial topic, with big implications for (more…)
Richard Alley Warns of a “Tipping Point” in Greenland
Scientists who study climate change point out that no single weather event or natural disaster can be pegged conclusively to global warming. That said, most of those same experts agree that certain catastrophic events — like the record heat wave and huge fires currently ravaging Russia, and the ongoing flooding in Pakistan that the United Nations is calling the worst natural disaster in modern history — match predictions of extreme conditions caused by climate change. Another such event took place last week in the North Atlantic, and a Penn State expert was in Washington this week to weigh in on the potential consequences.
Richard Alley, the University’s Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences and a contributor to the U.N. panel that shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, spoke Tuesday in front of a Congressional committee on global warming. Alley’s expertise is glaciology and ice-sheet stability, making him an obvious candidate to discuss the collapse last week of a 100-square-mile chunk of ice from Greenland. His predictions weren’t encouraging: Describing current Arctic melting as “the biggest and fastest thing nature has ever done,” Alley told legislators that warming oceans may mean Greenland will reach a “tipping point” within the next decade, after which the island’s ice mass would be unsustainable. The eventual melt-off would lead to sea-level rise that would devastate coastal cities around the world.
When he took part in our global warming roundtable a few years ago, Alley sounded optimistic — in spite of everything his own research showed him about our changing planet — that humanity could solve such massive problems. I hope he remains so.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
Meet Your Future Volcanologists
We got a great email the other day from Joshua Pechter ’97, an alum who lives in Atlanta with his wife Meredith Carr Pechter ’98 and their four young children. We figured our readers would get a kick out of it. Here’s part of the note:
“My twin boys love volcanoes. While some boys idolize their favorite sports heroes, my guys love geologists — including Pete LaFemina, an assistant professor of geoscienes at Penn State. Pete is featured on a History Channel program called How the Earth Was Made. In an attempt to be cool to my kids, I wrote Pete an email… A few weeks later, we got a response. From Panama, Pete replied that he had carried with him lava from our favorite volcano, Hekla in Iceland, which would be sent to our boys when he got back to the U.S. My twins were over the moon.”
Not long after, we got a follow-up email, with this photo attached:
Good stuff, huh?
You can catch Pete LaFemina on How the Earth Was Made, including this complete episode on the History Channel website (he first shows up in the episode’s second segment.) And I imagine in 20 years or so, we might be seeing the Pechter twins with a volcano show of their own.
Ryan Jones, senior editor
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