My TEDx talk on nuclear winter now has 27,800 views so far, I have 2000 followers on Twitter, and now have 10 Huffington Post blogs.  But Brian Toon gave a TEDx talk on nuclear winter in November 2017, which was posted early this year, and he already has over 3,000,000 views.  (There was something about "my button's bigger than yours" happening at the time, which made people more scared, rightly so.)  Let’s see if social media can really change the world.

     I was really excited to pick up my new Tesla Model 3 at the end of January.  It already has 14,247 miles on it, including a trip to Colorado for the summer and back.  The only service I have done is to rotate the tires and fill up the windshield washer fluid.  It is so much fun to drive, and powering it with my solar panels, it makes me feel like I am doing a small part to address global warming.  Of course, my research is also helping.  It's the only car I have ever had that gets better with time, with regular over-the-air updates that make it faster, brake better, and drive automatically better, as well as updated entertainment options.  Here is a shot of the screen when I reached 10,000 miles.  At home it charges at 42 miles of range per hour (max range is 310 miles), but at a supercharger it can charge at more than 600 miles per hour.  I highly recommend you buy one, and when you do use my code https://ts.la/alan20766 for 1,000 miles of free supercharging.

    Things continue to go well at Rutgers.  My sabbatical ended in the summer, and I just finished teaching two courses in the Fall to undergraduate Meteorology majors.  I taught one course on Climate Dynamics, and here is the Halloween costume of one of my students, Ashley Cornish, who really learned the lesson on chaos, with Lorenz's equations on her shirt and butterfly wings on her back and head.  I'll have next semester free from teaching to focus on research, with some travel thrown in.  I still love my job.  I turned 70 in September (how did I get so old so fast?), but have no plans to retire.

    I am working on my National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to study geoengineering, and am in the process of submitting a renewal.  My NSF grant to study volcanic eruptions has ended but I have not lost interest in them.   Lili Xia continues to work with me as a Research Associate at Rutgers on geoengineering and nuclear winter.  And I have two  graduate students, Joshua Coupe and Hainan Zhang, working with me on the nuclear winter grant.  Altogether in 2019, I published 9 refereed journal articles and 4 other articles.  It has been another productive year.  If you are interested in more information or want to read them, visit my home page and click on Publications.

     I have to say that although the Trump administration has not started a nuclear war, I don't know where to start with what's wrong. I like Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg for President, but I'll vote for whomever the Dems nominate. And I can hope that the blue wave from last year continues in the election this Fall.

    We took lots of great trips again this year.  We spent January in New Orleans, continuing my sabbatical visit to Tulane.  On January 20 we saw a lunar eclipse, and it turned red after it was completely in Earth's shadow.  Danny and Sherri helped with the observations.  We drove across the Lake Ponchatrain causeway to visit LSU in Baton Rouge.  I gave a talk at the inaugural meeting of CLAMS, the Coastal Louisiana American Meteorological Society chapter.  We were hosted by Robert Rohli, who took us to the state capitol building, where Huey Long was murdered, and we could see down the Mississippi River.  On another trip we took the Huey Long Bridge across the Mississippi near New Orleans to drive on the Route 1 causeway to Grand Isle on the Gulf Coast.  You could see oil rigs out from the oily beach, and it was not very grand.  But they clearly are adapting to sea level rise.  We saw the Lake Ponchatrain causeway again on our flight back to New Jersey.

    I went to Arizona in February for a geoengineering meeting at Arizona State in Tempe, and then to visit the University of Arizona in Tucson, where I gave a talk and got a personal tour of Biosphere II by Dean Joaquin Ruiz, whom I had met in Puerto Vallarta the previous Fall, which was very gracious of him.  It has an ocean, a desert, and a rain forest, and looks very futuristic even today.  He even pointed out Noam Chomsky walking across the street as we returned to Tucson.

    In March I went to a climate conference at a ski resort in the Alps, Reideralp.  It has the longest glacier in the Alps.  The view from my room was spectacular, as was the view from lunch. There had just been a huge snowfall, but it was sunny while we were there for gondola rides and hikes.  You could see the Matterhorn, and we hiked back down a ski run from the top of the local mountain after a fondue conference dinner.

    I then went to Stockholm at the invitation of their local Pugwash group to give a talk about nuclear winter, but was not able to convince Sweden to sign the TPNW, as they erroneously think that NATO's nuclear weapons will somehow protect them from Russia, even though they are not a member.  They have psychedelic metro escalators.  The Stockholm city hall has a nice view across the river, and is where the annual Nobel banquet is given for most of the awards.  The parliament building has a nice view back to the city hall.  Stockholm University has a bust of Svante Arrhenius, father of global warming.  I gave a talk at the Swedish weather service on geoengineering, where they understand the real solutions to global warming.

     In April we took an amazing trip to Cambridge, UK, for a volcano conference, to Paris for fun, and then to Valladolid, Spain, where I gave invited talks on geoengineering, volcanic eruptions, and nuclear winter.  We stayed at the Gonville Hotel, which has two old Bentleys.  They picked us up at the train station and took us on a free tour of Cambridge.  We visited Anja Schmidt and Kay, and their daughter Lexi, who greeted us with an analog sign.  The view of the market and university from a church steeple was beautiful, and we walked across the Mathematical Bridge to Queen's College for a vegetarian conference banquet in a beautiful dining hall.  Sherri enjoyed the Revolution restaurant, with two of her favorite revolutionaries.

    Unfortunately, we arrived in Paris the day after Notre Dame burned.  There were still fire hoses in the streets of Ile St. Louis where we stayed, and broadcasters lined up.  Still we managed to enjoy ourselves, with Sherri eating Bertillon and window shopping while Notre Dame still smoldered.  As it was the 50th anniversary of our landing on the moon, we went to an exhibition with original photos, and another here, where Sherri and I stepped in a copy of the famous moon footprint, and admired moon art here, here, and here, and saw Galileo's original telescope.  We went with Lisa and Steve to a play about the invention of the Eiffel Tower.  We also took them to the Ateliers des Lumieres for a sound and light show about Van Gogh, with additional Japanese art, took them to Pere Lachaise to see Jim Morrison's grave, and walked back through the Jardin des Plantes with them.  At the Fondation Louis Vuitton, we saw amazing indoor art here and here, strange outdoor art, and got to go into an infinity room by Yayoi Kusuma, whom we discovered on a trip to Japan last year.  We and the police were there for the Yellow Vest demonstrations.

    Next we went to Valladolid, Spain, where I visited the University of Valladolid and gave three invited talks, the last one in Spanish (but reading from my iPad).  I even appeared on the local TV show with my host Ángel M. de Frutos Baraja, discussing my work in Spanish.  The town square had the city hall.  We visited the local church where we took a tour of the tower, with a nice view of another church and Jesus with a big heart.  Juan Carlos Antuña was there with his son (who is a grad student at the university), wife, father-in-law, daughter-in law, and granddaughter, and Ángel and Victoria.  The university library has some amazing rare books.  They like to eat meat, and at the Patagonia restaurant, they also had purple cotton candy with the cheese appetizer.  At one of the bars, they won a prize for a tapas called "Obama in the White House."

    We drove to Boulder for May, June, and July in the Tesla.  The car planned its own route.  There was always room at the superchargers, and it even drove itself.  It took 3 days each way, and was much easier than we had imagined.  The grandkids visited us for a total of five weeks, and we had a lot of fun with them.  I worked at the Univ. of Colorado and NCAR, and got a lot of work done.  But the grandkids were more photogenic.  I showed them the old Cray computer at NCAR, once the fastest in the world, and we had lunch at the cafeteria and took a picture outside.  Danny threatened me with a snowball on the way up the path.  Here's a nice photo from a hike out behind NCAR.  We took them to a cave park, a gold mine, to see dinosaur tracks, to the Boulder Fair bubbles and bouncy house, to the Denver Science Museum, and into the Rockies for a snowball fight.  Danny recycled Kleenex boxes.  Here's a picture of all of us when Dan was visiting.  We took them to the planetarium on the 50th anniversary of the moon landing.  I was able to see my former Maryland department chair Ferd Baer, former postdoc Gonzalo Miguez Macho, and former classmate Howie Bluestein with his wife Kathleen.  Sherri and I went to Red Rocks for a July 4 concert.  The sky was great.  We drove to Gold Hill one day, with my favorite road sign of all time.  We also drove to Aspen, where at the Continental Divide, small dots on the nearby hill turned into skiers and snowboarders.  The beautiful art museum had not much of interest inside, and even called a burning oven, pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, art.  This was Lebron James' house.  A gondola ride to the top of the mountain produced nice views.  At Maroon Bells, a rainstorm obscured the view, but did not match a hailstorm in Boulder.

    In June, I went to a climate engineering conference at the Academy of Sciences in Rio de Janeiro (Paulo Artaxo on the left was my host), and then visited the University of São Paulo.  Rio was covered with graffiti.  At the shore you could see Sugar Loaf behind the lovers and behind the scientist.  And Corcovado was in the distance.  The modern art museum included a piece of meat hanging and globes on turntables.  And there was traditional art, too.  We had dinner at Fogo de Chao, with as much meat on skewers as you wanted.  (There is also one just next to the Moscone Center in San Fransisco, if you are so inclined.)  We took off in the night from downtown Rio and as we approached gigantic, polluted São Paulo, we landed downtown amidst the buildings.  Here are the view from my hotel room and from Paulo's apartment.  The Uber drive to the São Paulo airport to leave was so slow that vendors stood on the expressway.  The University of São Paulo is very impressive, and I reconnected with guaraná, now available as diet guaraná from Amazon.

    In early October I went to the annual UCAR meeting in Boulder for two days.  The best part was a talk by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who is very impressive on climate change, and should be in the White House himself.  Then we went to a Wisconsin football game in October with my college roommates Gene (and his wife Ellen) and Ian (and his wife Norma), and they crushed Michigan State. A statue of Bucky Badger greeted us at the hotel, and we greeted him back, but then he greeted Sherri in person.  We visited the state capitol building.  It is beautiful inside, although controlled by Republicans.  We took a nice photo from the roof.  First the pep rally.  At the game, parachutists arrived, Wisconsin scored, and Barry Alvarez walked by.   We relived our revolutionary past, including visiting our apartment on Mifflin Street, home of the first block party and police riot 50 years ago when we lived there.

    In November we went into New York City to see Dylan (see below), but also went to the new MOMA, saw the Vessel, a Minecraft dandelion cow, and went to a play, The Sound Inside, with Mary Louise Parker (it was not very good - depressing and not very interesting).  We saw great art at MOMA, here, here, here, here, here, here, and this one, by Yayoi Kusuma.

    My last work trip of the year was to San Francisco for the Fall AGU Meeting.  We saw the lights in Union Square, and watched Wisconsin lose to Ohio State in the Big Ten Championships, but still make it to the Rose Bowl.  At our nuclear winter poster session, we got a picture of Turco, Toon, Ackerman, Robock, and Stenchikov, nuclear winter pioneers, and Brian Toon and I are still working on the problem.  At I dinner with Lili, I wore glasses made with pipe cleaners for her son.  At the Atmospheric Sciences Section dinner, we got a picture of past, present, and future section Presidents, Rich Turco, Joyce Penner, Jim Hurrell, Paul Newman, Bill Lau, me, and Warren Wiscombe.  At one of the sessions this guy with little hair was sitting behind Brian Toon, and then appeared on stage with Michael Bloomberg.  Brown was much more personable, but both agreed on the issues, particularly dealing with global warming.

    Our solar panels (photovoltaic, shown here with our electric car and hybrid) continue to work well.  Here is an updated graph of our electric bill for the past few years.  It is still easy to see when we turned the solar panels on.  SRECs are now $0.23 per kWh plus we get the electricity, worth another $0.12 per kWh.  I have updated the figure this year to explicitly take account of the SRECs and annual settling of the bill by the electric company.  All negative values are payments to us.  Since we earn about $2000 per year, plus get about $2000 worth of electricity, the solar panels make an annual $4000 profit. 

    Not only have we not paid an electric bill in years, but we emit no CO₂ for our electricity generation.  I know all my flying cancels this out, and we do use natural gas for heating and cooking, and buy products, mostly food, with carbon footprints, but at least I feel good about being green with the Tesla and electricity.  I will start paying carbon offsets for my emissions as soon as I can be sure I have found one that is legitimate.  And I am working with Rutgers, the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and the American Geophysical Union to pay carbon offsets for all travel, like the European Geosciences Union now does.  But as I say in my global warming talks, "it is more important to change your leaders that to change your lightbulbs," so I will pay even more in political donations than carbon offsets to address the global warming problem.

    We saw Bob Dylan this year, me for the 48th time and Sherri for the 24th, with Lisa and Steve, the first time for them.  He has a great band and it was in the beautiful Beacon Theater  with nice statues in New York, but he just croaked out the words, and his singing was not very enjoyable.  However, we did enjoy the Dylan Archives presentation for the four year in a row in Asbury Park.  But we also saw many of my other favorites, including Peter Yarrow in April, who even let Sherri sing with him, Joan Baez in Princeton in May, Robert Cray at Chautauqua in Boulder in July, and Arlo Guthrie in Asbury Park in September (great as usual).  We saw Christine Lavin in November, but she was with 4 other people, so we did not get enough of her.  But we did enjoy one of her partners, John Gorka.  Sherri even talked me into going to see Johnny Mathis with her in March in New Brunswick (talented, but not my cup of tea), and Steely Dan in Asbury Park in October, who were really terrible - much too loud with horrible music.

  Although Wisconsin lost to Illinois in a fluke, and to Ohio State twice legitimately, they are still going to the Rose Bowl on January 1, which I will watch with pleasure with Gene at his home in Palos Verdes Estates.  Since we have both gone before (I went 25 years ago), we decided it would be a lot less hassle to just watch on TV rather than attend.  And it may be our last chance to watch the best running back in the country, Jonathan Taylor, before he turns pro.

    And one final thought, which gives me hope.  There is this, and there is this.

Sherri:  And, following on Al’s last sentence, a comment on the state of the world, along with my hope for the world. Why? Because they’re smart, resilient, curious, and imaginative, and we need their help if we’re going to combat some of the problems that face us. I’m planning on stepping up a bit in 2020, having taken much of 2019 off, as you can see from Al’s comments and pictures above. “Speak the Ruth” and “March for Truth and Justice” will be my cause, and will work actively in the upcoming elections.

     I enjoyed being with the kids in New Orleans, where we stayed until the end of January, and then when they visited in Boulder where we took full advantage of the wonderful library and community center activities. Vivi, now 7 and in the first grade, is an excellent reader, and likes science, especially natural things like earthquakes or historical things, like the sinking of the Titanic. In fact, I gave her “Escape This Book - the Titanic” and Danny, not a big fan of reading, wanted to participate as well and even asked me to get him a book and another on Egypt that is being published! A win for Grandma and books, as opposed to various screens, which still seem to capture their attention way too much. Danny, now 9, is still crazy about Pokemon and Bey Blades, which he makes along with competing with Grandpa in stadiums with the ones he's given or made. And this past summer, he enjoyed playing Nerf guns in the lawn at our apartment with his Grandpa. And they do play nicely together, which they recently did at Encinitas Beach, where Al’s sister, Lisa, and her husband Steve, live. While tiring, it’s so much fun to be with the grand kids because I can act their age, and, aside from a few stares from people nearby, can get away with it!

     Brian now works for a new video game company in California, but can work remotely much of the time, but also gets a chance to visit and stay with his brother in San Rafael, as well as surf. Dan continues to enjoy sports, though disappointed at his teams, especially the Giants, and is good with his deli job at Nuggets. As I write this letter, having just returned from a lovely trip to Southern California, where we had a family dinner at Lisa’s and at Al’s friends Gene and Ellen, I’m glad to have been able to spend some time with both boys, who have sworn off New Jersey visits, except in the spring or summer.

     I had a good year, still volunteer at Meals and participate in Dining for Women with friends, and have seen some former students and colleagues. In Boulder, when the kids weren’t there, I enjoyed the Current Events discussions at the library, where I met and lunched with some nice people, attended the annual Shakespeare Festival at Colorado, where I attempted a theatrical pose and we saw “As You Like It,” (which we didn’t care for so much), and we lunched at a park near our home with the grandkids and Shirley Purcell, one of Alan’s friends, whom we hope to at future meetings. In September, Alan’s stepmother, Hanne, visited for an overnight. Here’s a photo of some Brookdale folks in NYC where we saw “Come From Away” with Susan, Tony, Tim, and Kathy, and met a former student, Varsha, when she returned to NJ for a visit to her family, and we saw another Brookdale colleague, Larry Hartzell, at the restaurant. My former Japanese exchange student, Madoka, visited in August and we traveled to Jamestown, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans, and got a change to visit family in Surry and Hampton, which was great.  We also got together with friends for one of our birthday dinners. As for music, I went to an interesting program at Monmouth University featuring my favorite musician, Marvin Gaye, and his album “What’s Going On?,” which I ask myself every day! Earlier in December during our trip to San Francisco, I saw both boys, had lunch with a friend, Tien, who has opened his own restaurant, Bacon, in Novato. I also had a good time with Hampton high school friend Marilyn, and saw the Tissot exhibit at the Legion of Honor with another friend, Tanya, had lunch with Camille Wehner, a San Francisco friend, as well as had dinner with Al’s colleague, Lili, her family, and the boys. I even had my own customized fortune cookies made at the Fortune Cookie Factory in Chinatown. I took full advantage of the gyms both in New Orleans and Boulder, as well as exercising when I’m home. So, aside from the usual aches and pains from my broken ankle (from 25 years ago), I’m doing well, may have to have cataract surgery this year, but standard for the age, and looking forward to our trip to France in February and Greenland in the summer. I’m sure I’ll get to New Orleans, maybe for Mardi Gras, and hope the kids will visit in the summer.

     But one of my priorities, as I mentioned at the beginning of my letter, is to bring civility back to this country, so will campaign for the Democrats and try to get more people out to vote. Please join me in this effort, and we’ll all have something to celebrate as 2021 dawns, or, more specifically, on Tuesday, November 3rd!