PEACE IN THE NEW YEAR

E-mail:

2582 Crestview Road

Alan:  robock@envsci.rutgers.edu

Manasquan, NJ 08736 USA

Sherri:  swest@brookdalecc.edu

December 31, 2013

Telephone:  (732) 881-1610 (cell Alan), (732) 881-1609 (cell Sher)

To see previous years’ messages and pictures, click on the year:  1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009,  2010, 2011, or 2012

BE SURE TO CLICK ON UNDERLINED LINKS TO SEE PICTURES

Alan:   This has been a year of spending time with family and several nice trips, including to Tasmania, Nagasaki, Havana, Oslo, and Paris.  Sherri had a couple falls (detailed below), but is fine.  The grandkids are perfect.

   Things continue to go well at Rutgers.   I taught one course this Fall, on climate change to seniors, and used a new book, which made things go better.  Also, the new IPCC report just came out, so I was able to supplement the material with the new findings and my own experiences.  It was fun, except for the grading. 

Here's a link for you
to IPCC haiku
excellently done

    I continue to work on my two National Science Foundation grants on geoengineering, which support three of my graduate students.  Mira Berdahl, pregnant with twins, will have her dissertation defense in January, 2014.  Lili Xia will have hers in March.  And Corey Gabriel, in his second year, continues his work.  A fourth graduate student, Tom Collow is now funded by Brookhaven National Lab, and will also have his Ph.D. defense in March.  Our GeoMIP project produced a special section of the Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres, and I am a co-author of 6 already published papers there, 2 more in press, and 5 more under review.  Altogether in 2013, I published 11 refereed journal articles, 3 refereed book chapters, and 3 other articles, have 3 more in press, and have 11 more in review.  It has been a very productive year.  If you are interested in more information or want to read them, visit my home page and click on Publications.

   The Rutgers Meteorology Undergraduate Program, which I direct, continues to thrive.  Next year we will celebrate our 50th anniversary, including with events at the American Meteorological Society meeting in Atlanta in February and at Ag Field Day at Rutgers in April.  My only student ever to be named Dylan, Dylan Dreyer, is now doing the weather on the weekends on the Today Show.  Invited her to give a talk this fall, and had to get a bigger room than normal because of the interest.  She was a great student and I encouraged her to go to grad school, but she wanted to do TV, starting in Erie, Pennsylvania, and working her way up to Providence, Rhode Island, Boston, and now a national program in New York. She also appears on MSNBC on Morning Joe and on the NBC Nightly News.  Here is a picture of me with Dylan.

   Nuclear winter continues to be the most important thing I work on.  There has actually been some progress.  In March, I attended the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) Civil Society Forum, attended by Martin Sheen and John Dear, Jesuit priest and renowned peace activist and Cardinal John Onaiyekan (on his way to Rome to elect the new Pope) and the International Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Oslo, Norway.  At the latter meeting my work on the climatic and agricultural impacts of even a small nuclear war were presented.  Here I am with demonstrators outside. It was attended by 127 nations and also civil socitey organizations, and voted unanimously to ban nuclear weapons.  Other weapons of mass destruction are banned by international treaty, cluster bombs, chemical weapons, land mines, and chemical weapons.  They agreed that now is the time to ban the worst of them all, nuclear weapons.  This meeting will be followed by the second International Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.  I will attend and make a presentation.

  I was able to give a TEDx talk on nuclear winter in Hoboken on June 28.  It has had over 1300 views so far, which is something, but it is not that many, so I encourage you all to watch and tweet and facebook about it, to get it to trend.  (Did I get the social media jargon correct?)  I have also started to tweet, but confine myself mostly to my nuclear weapons agenda.  Please follow me.

    At the conference in Oslo, I met Akira Kawasaki from Peace Boat.  I wrote him that I was visiting Japan in the summer, and although he was out of the country, he put me in touch with Keiko Nakamura, from the Research Center for Nuclear Weapons Abolition, at Nagasaki University, who hosted Sherri and me for a 3-day visit on the way to my volcano conference in Kagoshima in July.  They arranged for us to lay a wreath at ground zero, visit the Atomic Bomb Museum (see Fat Boy and the bomb), and for me to give a public lecture and even appear on local television during an interview and when we placed the wreath.  It was great to be able to have my work help an organization whose purpose is to make Nagasaki the last city to be attacked with a nuclear weapon.  We were treated extremely well.  Akira also arranged for me to meet Fumi Yoshida, an Editor of Asahi Shimbun, the New York Times of Japan, who wrote an editorial about nuclear abolition a couple days later, based partly on my work.

   Ira Helfand (Physicians for Social Responsibility) and I were able to publish an op-ed at CNN on nuclear abolition on June 19, and I gave invited lectures on my nuclear winter work in Sydney, Australia in January, in Potsdam, Germany in February, at Yale University in February, at Princeton University in February, in Oslo, Norway in March, and at Nagasaki University in July, and at conferences in Vienna, Austria in April, in Colorado in June, and in San Francisco in December.

    With no action on global warming, geoengineering continues to be a hot topic.  I gave invited talks about it this year at Harvard University in February, at the University of Oslo in March, in Havana in March, at Penn State University in March, in Potsdam in April, to the American Institute of Chemical Engineers in New York City in May, at MIT in August, Harvard (again) in August, Brookhaven National Laboratory in August, to the National Academy of Sciences in September, and to Total (the biggest oil company in France) in Paris in December.  I also gave talks at conferences on geoengineering in Postdam in April, in Kagoshima, Japan in July, in Atlanta in October, at the University of Oslo in November, in Antalya, Turkey (via teleconference) in November, and in San Francisco in December.

    When Senator Frank Lautenberg died, I supported Congressman Rush Holt in the Democratic primay.  Somehow he latched onto me as a distinguished scientist supporting his effort.  I was privileged to be able to attend an "Einstein dinner" on August 9 with him, two Nobel Prize winners, and four supporters in the first house that Einstein lived in when he came to Princeton.  It was a gourmet meal with lively, interesting conversation.  Unfortunately, Rush did not win the primary and Corey Booker is now our Senator.  I voted for Booker in the general election, but think that Rush would have made a more effective and more liberal representative of my views.  Fortunately, Rush is still in Congress, but unfortunately not my representative.

    Later that night I bought a used elliptical machine from a Rutgers colleague who lives in Princeton and barely was able to get it into my Prius.  Now I can just go down to the basement to exercize, and try to do it more often. 

   When home we often had friends over for dinner.  Here's a picture of many of our local friends. 

   Our travels began with a trip to Tasmania in January, where I attended the last of four Lead Author's Meetings for the IPCC Fifth Assessment.  The night before we were to fly to Hobart, I got an email that our hotel reservations at a nearby peninsula were cancelled due to the terrible wildfires they were having.  We were able to change at the last minute and before the meeting drove up into the mountains to see the hydrolelectric projects and the big dam.  We then took the ferry to Bruny Island, where we saw wallabees right outside our cabin, beautfiful beaches, and views.  The conference was at a casino, where we dined in the revolving restaurant at the top, and took a nice cruise to a modern art gallery for the conference dinner.

    We then flew to Melbourne, where we attended the Australian Open, where we saw Serena, Maria, and Na practicing, Andy Murray playing, and practiced playing.  It was my third Grand Slam.  I only have Wimbledon left to attend.  Melbourne is beautiful.  We went to the art gallery and botanical gardens with Barry and Diana Pittock, top of the Eureka Tower, the second tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, with great views, and drove down the Great Ocean Road where we saw wild surf, koalas, kangaroos at a golf course, rain forests, and nice warning signs, and had a lunch with a lovely view.  We were invited to visit Helen Caldicott and her partner Mary Cunnane at their home in Bermagui.  It is a little fishing village with a great empty beach.  Their house has parrots as wild birds.  Here are Helen and me.  After a couple of delightful days, we drove to Sydney, where we attended a show at the Opera House, walked across the Harbour Bridge, with great views, and spent the last day at the harbor during Australia Day, before flying home.  I was invited to give an impromptu talk at a fancy party of a friend of and anti-nuclear colleague.

   Sherri stayed in California, while after a couple days, I flew to a geoengineering meeting in Potsdam.   I had been there once before, when it was still part of East Germany.  We drove from East Berlin into East Germany and around the wall that surrounded Berlin to Postdam.  At Cecilienhof, the palace where Stalin, Truman, Churchill (and later Atlee) met at the end of World War II, there had been a wall with cut glass and barbed wire separating it from the east side of West Berlin.  Now there is just a beautiful park, lakes and UNESCO world heritage site, much nicer than before.  I also visited Sanssouci, Frederick the Great's little get away, with spectacular rooms, a spectacular library, one of which Voltaire stayed in for a while.  There is even an Andy Warhol painting now of Frederick.  His grave is simple, just him and his many dogs.  People put potatoes there, as he was the Parmentier of Germany, introducing them as food for people.

   In February I went to Yale and Harvard to give invited lectures.  The snowstorm the day before almost stopped me, but I was on the first train after they started running again.  There was almost a meter of snow in downtown New Haven and on the Yale campus.  Later that month I visited the kids in San Rafael before a trip to Boulder, and stayed in the Granny Cave for the first time - it is very nice.

   Immediately after my UCAR Board of Trustees meeting in Boulder, I flew on March 1 to the ICAN and Humanitarian Impacts of Nuclear Weapons meetings in Oslo, discussed above.  I had time to visit the new Opera House, which you can climb and look at the great view in the harbor.  I also went to the Nobel Peace Prize Museum, with a display of former winners, including Obama and Gorbachev.  The Nobel Peace Prize is given every year in the Oslo City Council reception room.

   In March I took my fifth trip to Cuba, as part of the Norwegian XCUBE project.  We stayed at a fairly modern hotel outside of Havana, which even had internet that let me use Skype and where I could use my French credit card - small progress, but still just for foreigners.  One of the thrills was to visit the bar at the Hotel Nacional, where my picture is now displayed as one of their honored guests, on the same panel as Mahmoud Ahmadenijad!  The bartender recognized me (I guess he stares at my picture every day), and made me and my colleagues Michel Mesquita and Odd Helga Ottera the best mojito I have ever had.  Later we sat on the veranda and watched the sunset and then had dinner there.  We also had a dinner downtown, visited the Meteorological Institute (their weather bureau), across the harbor from Havana, and an exhibit nearby with copies of the Russian nuclear missiles that precipitated the Cuban missile crisis 51 years ago.  Interesting private cars served as taxis.

  In April I attended the EGU meeting in Vienna with my student Lili Xia, where I had dinner with Gera and Tanya.  We went to the opera with my friend Ulli Pechinger and had dinner with Hans Graf.  I went to the top of the Vienna Donauturm Tower near the conference center and we went for a ride on the famous Wiener Riesenrad Ferris wheel that was featured in The Third Man.  Lili and I then went to Potsdam for the GeoMIP meeting. We spent a day in Berlin, including at the Pergamon Museum and the Reichstag, and had dinner with Susi and Steffi Graf, Hans' daughters, and their husbands.

   In May, I attended a UCAR meeting in DC, and at the reception at Ebbett's Grill, I talked with Jim Carton, a friend and former colleague, which eventually resulted in my working on a paper with him and a student that we just submitted.  In June, after a week in San Rafael, I attended meetings at NCAR and on climate communications at a YMCA camp at Winter Park in the Rockies.  Practicing my TEDx talk there and getting feedback really improved the final product.

   In July we flew to Japan and spent one night at Narita where we walked to their famous Shinto temple.  In Nagasaki, in addition to my talks about nuclear issues, we visited Gunkanjima (battleship island), a coal mine and essentially slave labor camp outside the harbor.  Then we took the Shinkansen to Kagoshima, home of the Sakurajima, the most active volcano in Japan.  It was nice enough to erupt during our field trip.  While in Kagoshima we witnessed an annual festival where men walk around almost naked, and parade in humid 90°F weather in the Sun. The sashimi was great. We spent the last part of our trip in Yokohama where we visited the rooms Douglas MacArthur used as his office when he first came to Japan, attended a Shinto ceremony for Madoka's new house, had dinner with Madoka's family, and took our new heated toilet seats on the train to the airport to fly home.  Some interesting sights included a two-row control panel for the toilet in our Kagoshima hotel, detailed instructions for another toilet, ikura for less that $1 each, and melons for more than $80.

   At the end of August, we spent several days at Asilomar state park in Pacific Grove, California, near Monterey, at a family reunion, where we walked on the beach, had a family dinner, celebrated Lisa's birthday, and took the kids to the Aquarium, with beautiful jelly fish.  We bought Danny an ice cream and then he entertained us on the piano.  Here are Ginger and Vivi on the beach, and Little Man relaxing by the pool.  After the family left, Sherri and went to Big Sur, where we ate at our favorite Nepenthe restaurant.  On the way to California, I flew over Mono Lake, to which we later drove and the forest fires at Yosemite, which we later drove through, as Sherri and I spent several days in the Sierras, at Mammoth Mountain, where we went to the top with the Long Valley Caldera in the background, went to Devil's Postpile, a set of volcanic columns, visited Manzanar, one of the camps where they kept Japanese Americans during WW II, and the White Mountains bristlecone pine forest, source of the oldest tree ring records in the world, which are used to study past climate change.

   In October we drove to Rhinebeck, NY, for the wedding of Julia Sherman, Gene's daughter to Geoff Queck.  Before the wedding we walked across the Walkway Over the Hudson into Poughkeepsie with Ian and Norma, with great views of the Hudson, and then back on the Roosevelt Bridge.  Here are the happy couple with the Shermans and the old college roommates.

    I attended a couple brief conferences, in Atlanta in October and Oslo in November.  In Atlanta, I was able to make plans for an NSF proposal on improving seasonal and decadal predictions after volcanic eruptions.  In Oslo, I had the most expensive beer in my life at one of the oldest restaurants in Oslo, where Henrik Ibsen used to eat.

    I attended the Fall AGU Meeting in December.  I gave two talks and my student Lili Xia presented a poster.  Lili came with her mother and son, and took them to the Marin Headlands for a view the day before the meeting.  I was in the process of writing an NSF proposal, and learned a lot to help in writing it. One of the most exciting things was that Gov. Jerry Brown who attended the entire 2-hour session on abrupt climate change, and then gave a short talk at the end.  I was amazed that he took that much time out of his busy life.  And he did it with no announcement or fanfare.

    We spent the last week of the year in Paris, which was just a vacation.  We had great meals and bought lots of chocolate.  I even gave a talk about climate change at Total, the largest oil company in France, shown here behind a Calder bull, invited by Alain Goulois, whom I met at a sports bar along the Seine three years ago watching Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.  Nearby I liked the I. M. Pei-designed EDF building.  Notre Dame is shown here behind the Pont de l'Archevêché, adorned with love locks.  We went to the Eiffel Tower and had dinner with friends Laure and Paul.

    We did see Bob Dylan this year (my 45th show), but it was a disappointment.  It was on July 28, two days after getting home from our Japan trip, so we were quite tired.  It was nice going with friends David and Karen Katz, but we had to sit through two complete sets from warm up bands, it was raining hard, although we were covered, and then Dylan chose a lot of new, dark material, and the old stuff was not very melodic.  The previous two were good, but they were a couple years ago.I keep saying I will never do this again, but fully expect to change my mind the next time he is in the area.  I will not expect Sherri to come, though.  She has already been to 21 Dylan shows with me - that's true love.

     We were able to see Joan Baez in Newark on June 19, which was a fabulous concert - she's still got it. 

    Our solar panels (photovoltaic) continue to work well.  Here is an updated graph of our electric bill for the past few years.  It is easy to see when we turned the solar panels on.

    Wisconsin did not go to the Rose Bowl this year (after the three years in a row!), but still managed to play on New Year's Day 2014.  Rutgers is joining the Big Ten next year, and Wisconsin will be playing in New Brunswick on November 1, 2014.  I already have my ticket and can't wait.  Speaking of sports, my most enjoyable experience this year , in addition to the Australian Open discussed above, was to watch the America's Cup online and on TV, which was held this summer in San Francisco Bay.  To see these incredible machines flying over the water at 50 miles an hour was thrilling, and against the beautiful San Francisco scenery, just next to the Golden Gate Bridge.  And the US produced the greatest comeback in the history of sports, winning the last 8 races in a row to beet the Kiwis.

Sherri:  2013—a year of highs and lows, or should I say “falls.” In June, I fell down several steps in our home, broke a bone in my right arm and was in a sling for about 6 weeks. No surgery was required, but it put a dent in my writing and exercising. In October I was doing my civic duty, registering voters at the college where I still teach an online class, and fell down the steps of a bus that we were using, bonked my head and had to stay in the hospital for two days to monitor my injuries. I was fortunate to sustain no permanent injuries, and am trying to prevent future falls so that I can keep doing the wonderful things we’ve done in the past year, especially the many visits to California to see the kids, and travel. If you have any suggestions for how to slow me down a bit, please send them along!

Brian completed the “granny cave” in January, and I inaugurated it with a visit there upon our return from Tasmania and Australia. It’s a snazzily-decorated studio apartment, complete with Jacuzzi, microwave, and pictures of Paris. I’ve so enjoyed watching the kids grow, with Danny, turning 3 on November 27th, and now a student in a nearby Montessori school three days a week. He is so gregarious, and with a hearty, infectious laugh that reflects sheer joy. Even when I’m tired and troubled (mostly about our lame political situation or world events) being with him cheers me up. He’s now talking like a champ, but he’s still called “el jefe,” as he is easily able to command his way around the house and with his little sister, Vivi. She is now one year old, and I was there to celebrate her first birthday on December 10th. She is just beginning to walk and is more tranquil than her older brother, whose favorite words are “crash” and “no,” but she has a very even temperament. Here is Alan reading with her, and here I am with Brian and the kids.  Though I’m still a bit surprised by my eagerness at being a hands-on grandmother, I’m so fortunate to have the chance to spend so much time with the kids and plan to spend a bit of time there in 2014. So, thanks, Al, for those frequent flyer miles—keep flying the friendly skies!

Brian and Ginger still have crazy work schedules, with Ginger a nurse at the Veterans Administration Hospital in San Francisco, where she works the midnight - 8 am shift, and Brian an hour-long commute to his job as a computer graphics artist at Sledgehammer Games south of San Francisco. Both are doing well at work, and, with the help of a wonderful babysitter who comes to their house, Marylou, have been able to manage and enjoy the Bay area. They recently returned from a trip to Ginger’s home, New Orleans, so we celebrated Christmas with them when we were there in early December, complete with our tradition of making (and eating) cookie houses. Brian still loves surfing and loves my being out there so he can do a bit more, and both have friends over to their house on various occasions. Here’s a picture of our pumpkin picking back in October, and the carved pumpkins.

Dan is still working as in the deli department of a Safeway in San Rafael, and, while he’s not thrilled with his job, loves the climate and surroundings so that he never plans to move back to New Jersey. He’s still a sports fanatic, so our gift to him of a new HDTV has brought him endless joy as he watches ESPN Sports Center with Colin Cowherd’s brilliant commentary, and infinite hours of watching his fav, LeBron. He is planning on moving to another coworker’s house close to his work in early January, and is also the owner of a new Honda Accord, his last one dying a death by transmission failure just in time for Christmas! He still suffers from back pain, and is in a bad mood when his teams lose (and the Giants and Knicks continue not to amaze him), but he seems stable and enjoys being with the family there. He often comes with me to the Discovery Museum in Sausalito, and here’s a picture of Dan with Molly and Danny recently.

I’m gearing up to offer the online Modern Middle East class again this spring after its successful inauguration last year. Unfortunately, Brookdale has moved to a new online platform, which I’ve had to learn, and conditions in the Middle East continue to defy anyone’s predictions, but it does make for students interested in learning more about the region, as should we all. Last year’s class, which began with 21, ended with 16 successfully completing the course, many with As, which they definitely earned with their comments and questions. You’ve probably heard all of the skepticism over online teaching, especially in the MOOCs, and I concur that, without frequent interaction between faculty and students, no online experience can come close to matching that of a face-to-face class. Brookdale’s model of using faculty and not some humongous publishing corporation like Pearson, is the best way to serve the group of students that find online classes fulfilling, and retired professors like me, who can jet around the world, stay in the granny cave frequently, and still enjoy interacting with students.

This past year has also been a year of seeing family and friends, and my falls didn’t prevent me from traveling or from going to my 50th high school reunion in Hampton, VA, at the end of October. I saw several old friends, including Candy Carmel, now living in Oceanside, California, who spent the time with me at my sister, Gina’s. She was a perfect hostess, driving us around old haunts, and we even took a Sunday boat tour of the Hampton Roads, complete with a ride past the George H W Bush aircraft carrier! I also saw old friends Judy Bretana and Dolores Wells, and danced like an 18 year old, making a complete fool of myself, but how was I to know that I could still twist to the floor and not get back up? It was great seeing my sisters Jeffy and Gina, about to turn 60 on February 4th of this year, here along with Dean and Heather, and my brother Tommy and his wife, Janice, and daughter Christine (at the beach and on our deck), who visited us for a day in November after attending a New Jersey wedding. In addition, my former sister-in-law, Sheryl, was in town for a reunion of her own, and longtime friend Anne Prudente and I spent a wonderful, but too brief Sunday in the fall during her trip.

Though Alan has mentioned our visit with former exchange student Madoka Sato and his family, we had a double visit, as his family came to New Jersey about a week after we visited them in Machida, outside Tokyo. While here we visited Philadelphia, the Aquarium in Camden, the beach and many local places in search of souvenirs, and, they visited New York, and Madoka and older son, Hibiki, also traveled to Williamsburg and Washington, D.C. Here they are with old friends Lorraine and Bill.  It was fun to see so much of them, with the boys really enjoying our closeness to the park where they could play basketball.

I’ve also kept in touch with a high school friend, Marilyn Soulsburg, who lives in California, and here’s a picture of me with the America’s Cup ships in the background last spring. We try to see each other when I’m out there, so expect to update her on the reunion during my next trip in late January. When I’m home, we regularly get together with friends here, as in this picture taken in the summer, and I still exercise at a nearby health club and deliver Meals on Wheels. I am helping to develop another Big Read grant with the Center for Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Education at Brookdale, attend Dining for Women dinners, begun with a friend several years ago, and going strong, thanks to Sheryl Geisler’s leadership, and am the recording secretary for the Monmouth County Human Rights Commission. Whenever I can I visit one of my oldest New Jersey friends and Anne’s husband, Steve, a resident of a local assisted living facility due to a diagnosis of early onset Alzheimers. As I write, he’s struggling with his disease, which, along with my falls, makes me only more aware of the fragility of life, but on one of my recent visits, we sat in the sun, playing our favorite rock tunes, courtesy of my iPhone, and where I took this selfie (had to use the word of the year, didn’t I?), which made me appreciate the special moments, even in difficult times. (Updated as of January 11th--Steve died two days ago, but I was fortunate to have visited with him, Anne, and their daughters in the days before he died, and to tell him goodbye.  He was one of my oldest friends in New Jersey, a special person, and I'll always have those memories of our trips to the Vineyard, the sailing adventures, and, above all, the memory of his constant friendship and sparkling zanniness--We'll miss you, Steve.) 

2014 will find me in California with my kids, back in Paris, perhaps Portugal and Spain as well, and, in February, joining Alan for a trip to Puerto Vallerta to attend a humanitarian conference on the effects of nuclear war. Though somewhat incongruous, the resort destination might, in fact, focus attention on an issue difficult to remedy without the help of leaders willing to make tough decisions, but also willing to extend a hand in friendship, even to their adversaries. When Nelson Mandela died, I posted on my Facebook page, “we need more Mandelas,” and I’m ever mindful of that when I survey the political scene, both in the U.S. and abroad. Certainly our bully governor, Chris Christie, re-elected without my vote, wouldn’t fit (no intentional size jokes here) the bill, but John Kerry, making enormous efforts to secure peace in the Middle East, is the kind of leader that we need. So, I remain optimistic, but an optimism tempered by my years and the unceasing cruelty of many that reject helping their fellow human beings. May 2014 bring you health, joy, and to our door—please visit.

May your 2014 be a healthy and fulfilling one.  Happy New Year!

Love,
Alan and Sherri