This Week in Science

Via Jeff Masters at WeatherUnderground:

As I discussed in my previous post, record-breaking snowstorms are not an indication that global warming is not occurring. In fact, we can expect there may be more heavy snowstorms in regions where it is cold enough to snow, due to the extra moisture global warming has added to the atmosphere--an extra 4% since 1970. Snow is not the same as cold ...

Indeed, and even local record snow does not equate to record cold, despite the convenient conflations of the antiscience brigades. Snow on the ground really only tell us the temperature is below the freezing point of water at that locale. If someday we get a winter in the northern hemisphere where it doesn't go below that point, we have way, way bigger problems than we thought.  

• I know some of you oldtimers have read it. But sex, drugs, and paleo-botany! Hard to go wrong with that on Valentine's Day Eve. While I'm at it, don't want to link the Moonie Times directly, but Newt Gingrich has been sighted praising Obama's NASA policy.
• The Solar Dynamics Observatory is up and running. An especially interesting field as the sun emerges from the deepest solar minimum in a century.
• Why is it that some of the best science presented on cable news media these days routinely occurs on the freaking comedy channel? Well, on this coming Sunday Kos you can ask brainiac blogger Dr. Sean "Cosmic" Carroll any question you wish before he goes on Colbert.