Welcome back where everyone comes to hear sunny quips and cloudy cuckles! Yes we at Whimsical wavelengths are amazing at precipitating a good story.

Today the pod gets into climate vs weather and the increasing extremes. It might feel odd that a general science podcast would take soooooo long to get around to a climate episode. Well it is because the data is overwhelming, humans have changed the chemistry of our atmosphere which is causing it to change.

That is an observable fact. No political beliefs or anything else in that. What to do about it? That is political. Generally (there will be caveats) I plan to NOT get into politics but perhaps I would have a lot more listeners if I did. This is one of those science topics that for some reason crosses the political line.

To show how we know what we know about our changing climate and weather extremes Jared Rennie a Research Meteorologist with NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information joins us!

Useful links from the discussion

A book that came up and well worth a read: Saving Us: A Climate Scientist's Case for Hope and Healing in a Divided World by Dr Katharine Hayhoe

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/56379758-saving-us

Organizations that also calculate Earth temperature from data separately (not exhaustive):

https://www.copernicus.eu/en

https://berkeleyearth.org/data/

https://wmo.int/

https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/

https://www.csiro.au/en/

https://www.jma.go.jp/jma/indexe.html

https://www.nasa.gov/

Links for Whimsical Wavelengths:

Bluesky: @whimsicallambda.bsky.social

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Email: whimsical.wavelengths@gmail.com

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Today I am picking my favourite paper that I wrote. The origin of Mauna Loa's Ninole Hills - Evidence of rift zone reorganization. In geophysical research letters in 2015. It is already nearly 10 years old!

Well then a 10 year anniversary tour then?

In the past 4000 years lava has repaved 90% of Mauna Loa’s surface! Mauna Loa is huge. It is a very dynamic place. The Ninole Hills are 100,000 to 200,000 years old. Something special must have allowed for these rocks to be at the surface and not buried beneath newer lava flows. Today we are going to dive into one of my papers to figure out the the most likely candidates to explain this enigmatic feature on the slopes of Mauna Loa volcano.

Some useful show links

Hawaiian Volcano Observatory for all of your volcano updates!: https://www.usgs.gov/observatories/hvo

Where I was when I wrote the paper:

https://www.sfu.ca/volcanology.html

The paper itself (using the link above go to Journal articles and look for the citation if you want the paper without the paywall):

Zurek, J.M., Williams-Jones, G., Trusdell, F., Martin, S. (2015) The origin of Mauna Loa's Ninole Hills - Evidence of rift zone reorganization. Geophysical Research Letters, 42, doi: 10.1002/2015GL065863.

Links for Whimsical Wavelengths:

Bluesky: @whimsicallambda.bsky.social

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Email: whimsical.wavelengths@gmail.com

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Part2 jumps in where part 1 left off so more about Theropods! specifically about one of Dr François Therrien's recent studies about a Gorgosaurus and what was found inside its stomach!!!!

did I forget to mention T-shirt giveaway?

incase you missed it from the notes of the last episode:

Dr François Therrien - The Curator of Dinosaur Palaeoecology at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller Alberta https://tyrrellmuseum.com/

Dr François Therrien's Professional Highlights (lifted from the museum's website)

• Discovered the first feathered dinosaurs from North America.
• Researched Cryodrakon boreas, a new species of pterosaur that was among the largest and oldest in North America.
• Published on a theropod site from Mongolia that reveals that colonial nesting behaviour first evolved in the dinosaurian ancestors of birds.
• Researched Thanatotheristes degrootorum

Links for Whimsical Wavelengths:

Bluesky: @whimsicallambda.bsky.social

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instagram: @whimsical.wavelengths

Email: whimsical.wavelengths@gmail.com

Patreon: patreon.com/WhimsicalWavelengths