The Irish pull out a thriller, 3 to 2!

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Becky and I (and Alex Talcott) are at the volleyball subregional, where Notre Dame is warming up for its first round match with Dayton. Winner faces Northwestern tomorrow, after the Cats came from behind to beat Texas A&M.

The Outback Bowl has a poll on its website which allows visitors to vote on “which Big Ten and SEC team would you most like to see play in the 2006 Outback Bowl game.” Boi From Troy urges Pac-10 fans to “tell them you want to see the Ohio State Buckeyes in Tampa Bay for the January 2nd game. That way, they can’t take Oregon’s rightful spot in the Fiesta Bowl.” Heh.

Meanwhile, fellow ND 2L Alex Ho, the Irish Buckeye, is looking ahead to a possible Irish-Buckeyes Fiesta Bowl. He writes, “Fortunately for my ND friends, I’ll be at home during the Fiesta Bowl and not around to harrass them when OSU wins. :) Although I’ll have to make a note to avoid wearing my OSU shirts and sweatshirts for a while at the beginning of next semester if the two teams do play over break.” Funny, this Irish Trojan never thought of an Irish-Trojans football game as a reason not to wear Trojan paraphernalia… quite the contrary, in fact… :)

Coming soon to an ice age near you?

For all its scientific absurdities — preposterously fast climate change, impossible global superstorms, ridiculous “flash freezing” by a wave of sinister frost from the upper troposphere, and all manner of defiance of the laws of physics — last year’s blockbuster global warming/cooling flick, The Day After Tomorrow, did get one thing right: melting polar ice could potentially have the side effect of disrupting the North Atlantic Current (the movie, in a truly hilarious you-can’t-make-this-stuff-up blunder, contained a graphic which showed the current moving in the wrong direction, but never mind that), and if the North Atlantic Current were to severely weaken or shut down, that would be a very bad thing.

Well, the media is abuzz today with the news that, according to a new report in the journal Nature, it might be starting to happen. Here is Nature’s brief article about the report. Drudge is headlining the Guardian story, “Alarm over dramatic weakening of Gulf Stream.” But I prefer the summary from The Storm Track, written by Bryan Woods, a Yale meteorology grad student who (unlike, say, me, or a Guardian reporter, or Drudge) actually knows what he’s talking about:

Shockwaves have been sent through the climate science community today as a new article published in the December 1 issue of the journal Nature is reporting that the transport of water across the Atlantic Ocean towards Europe has decreased by 30 percent. This shutdown of the ocean’s circulation is thought to be caused by a build-up of fresh ocean water at high latitudes caused by rapidly melting ice packs. Increased input of fresh water from the melting of ice and increased precipitation at the poles are thought to be strongly linked to global warming. The implications of these findings are huge and could effect the climate across the globe. A shutdown of the North Atlantic’s circulation is thought to be the cause of the last ice age 12,000 years ago during a period known as the Younger Dryas.

The Gulf Stream provides incredible amounts of energy to warm Europe. Remembering that the ‘warm’ Mediterranean climate is located at the same latitude as New England will give you an idea of how substantial this warming is.

A slowdown in the warm water transport should theoretically lead to cooling of Europe. Such a cooling has yet to be observed, however, the dramatic warming trend observed during the 1990s has stopped. This has led researchers to believe that the cooling trend forced by the slowdown of the ocean currents may simply be cancelling the effects of greenhouse warming, while the rest of the world continues to warm. A decrease in warm water transport across the Atlantic would also leave considerably more warm water in the western Atlantic to fuel increased hurricane activity. Instead of warm water traveling across the Atlantic, the Gulf Stream was found to be recirculating warm water back into its own current off the US coast.

It is still not clear whether or not this is a long term trend or just an anomaly that will disappear. Some climate models have predicted that such a circulation shutdown would take place at the end of this century, but none forecasted a change like this so early. North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) production north of Europe seems to have slowed significantly. NADW is a significant player in the world wide ocean circulation system and it can be found clear across the globe. The elimination of NADW would likely completely alter the global circulation patterns. In the past the elimination of NADW has been directly linked to ice ages.

Hollywood has taken this long postulated change and used it for the basis of the movie The Day After Tomorrow. However, climate changes are almost always gradual and no catastrophic consequences like those in the movie are forecast. In fact, the movie went as far as to incorrectly diagram the direction of oceanic flow. With that said, nobody knows the true consequences of these findings. One thing that can be certain is that substantial attention will now be diverted to these sensational findings and their dramatic implications for the world in which we live.

If you want to read the full Nature article, you’ll have to pay $30, unless you’re a subscriber to the journal.

Anyway, interesting stuff.

Heh:

A junior at the University of Pennsylvania faces punishment from the school for posting photos he took of two naked students who could be seen through a dorm window, according to confidential memos obtained by a student newspaper. …

By featuring the pictures on his personal Web site hosted through the school’s server, the photographer violated the school’s code of student conduct, sexual harassment policy and policy on acceptable uses of electronic resources, the university said in the memos.

But a graduate student who is advising the photographer in the disciplinary process said the worst thing the student could be guilty of is poor taste.

“If somebody chooses to make a public spectacle of themselves, then they get what goes with that,” Andrew Geier told the school newspaper.

Since the pair was visible in the window, Geier said, the photos were taken in public and are completely legal. …

“The student took a photograph of a public event. That is protected expression,” said professor Alan Charles Kors.

In the interest of, ahem, promoting free speech, I am providing this link where you can see one of the photos for yourself (NSFW!!!).

UPDATE: Here’s the Daily Pennsylanian article — also NSFW, because it includes the photo… and more power to the Pennsylvanian editors for having the guts to publish it! Mona would never let the Daily Trojan publish something like that. (Hat tip: bink.)

UPDATE 2: Penn has dropped all charges. Hooray! God bless America! :)

P.S. On a somewhat related note, the president of the student government at Arizona State University wants his beloved school to stop appearing on the cover of Playboy:

Undergraduate Student Government President Yaser Alamoodi is hoping to pass a rule that would prohibit males and females from posing in magazines he believes are damaging to ASU’s reputation.

“I was concerned to see logos and the name of ASU being associated with such magazines,” he said. “I don’t want the name of ASU to be a joke anymore, and I think the Playboy association is a big reason why the ASU academic reputation is not up to what it should be.”

Dammit, this is America! Those hot hot hot ASU girls have a constitutional right to bare their boobies as they see fit!

David Bernstein, at the Volokh Conspiracy, has some interesting thoughts on the Solomon Amendment. (Hat tip: Insty.)

I’m getting married this month!! :)