Tipping point? Arctic Sea Ice Lower than Ever

A new video produced by independent videographer Peter Sinclair for The Yale Forum on Climate Change & The Media explains what expert scientists now find to be the lowest extent of Arctic sea ice in recorded history.

Fear of flying: The Twilight Zone

Oregon Gov. Kitzhaber: Act now to save salmon and energy | OregonLive.com

We can end the Columbia basin salmon wars now by balancing energy, conservation | OregonLive.com:
By John Kitzhaber

If you look only at the courtroom record, environmentalists are winning the war to save salmon in the Northwest. A year ago, U.S. District Judge James Redden sent the federal plan for managing the Columbia hydro system back to the drawing board -- marking the fourth time in the past 20 years that federal agencies have failed to present a defensible program for saving salmon. 

View full sizeAssociated PressGov. John Kitzhaber

But wins in court don't keep our salmon and steelhead from going extinct. At almost the same time as Judge Redden's decision, the federal government released its most recent review of wild salmon in the Northwest. That review found that many runs remain at high risk of extinction and that the level of risk is not changing for most species. Federal agencies, including the Bonneville Power Administration, are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to stem the decline, but they are losing in court and they are losing in our rivers and streams. ....
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Valiam - Linda and Bill Anderson circle globe in homemade plywood sloop

Linda and Bill Anderson have covered a lot of territory - and water - in the past three years.  Thirty countries and thirty three thousand miles.  Aussies from the Suncoast, Queensland, they gave up the W word and  headed off in Valiam, their plywood, homemade sloop.  I met them in New York where they did a slideshow and talk at Le Cheile, our local Irish pub.  They're headed home (by plane.  Next will be the Med and northern Europe.  And some day these warm weather sailors are going to try Patagonia - the Magellan Strait and Cape Horn.  Follow their journeys HERE

Dismasted

After the storm

The storm of September 18 - gusting to 48 kts from the south according to the Execution Rocks buoy - sent a bunch of boats adrift at City Island.  One of them snagged the forestay of my North River 2, taking her mast down. (click pix to enlarge and for slideshow)

Eastchester Bay - wind gusting to 48 kts at Execution Rocks

No. 4 nun salvaged by CIYC launch

Under tow by salvager

Restless - no one aboard

Prout's Neck - Where Waves Moved Winslow Homer’s Brush - NYTimes.com

In Maine, Walking Where Waves Moved Winslow Homer’s Brush - NYTimes.com:

For the last hundred years or so, the only way visitors could see those cliffs was to stay at the Black Point Inn, the sole hotel on this two-and-a-half mile-promontory. But as of Sept. 25 the public will be able not just to observe the ocean as Homer did, but also to visit the two-story clapboard studio where the artist lived and painted what many consider to be his most majestic works.

This is thanks to the fact that the Portland Museum of Art bought the house six years ago when Homer’s great-grand-nephew decided to sell it. After Homer’s death in 1910 the house was passed down through a series of relatives and ultimately to this nephew, Charles Homer Willauer, who rented it to others for many summers. 

Winslow Homer's cottage

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Tornado at Breezy Point and Gerritsen Beach

New York's "Irish riviera" - Breezy Point at the west end of the Rockaways barrier beach - today was the site of a tornado.  As was Jamaica Bay at Gerritsen Beach.

Hurricane Isaac from space - NASA

An animation of the storm's progress from NASA

Armstrong’s White Flag Says What He Won’t - NYTimes.com

Armstrong’s White Flag Says What He Won’t - NYTimes.com: "Now he is for the ages, in his own Lance way. Lance Armstrong has joined the legion of the lost, the great athletes who were barred or exiled for sins admitted or charged or suspected."

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雪龙 Xuelong heads for north pole

Xue Long at dock in the ice-free port Akureyri in northern Iceland 

The Chinese icebreaker Xuelong 雪龙 (Snow Dragon) - having completed the northern passage  over the top of Russia - has left the northern Iceland port of Akureyri and is headed north - true north to the north pole. The website Arctic Portal reports that the Chinese expect that by 2020 global warming will make the straight line "central route" feasible for ice-hardened sea traffic.  You can follow the ship in real time HERE.