What do you call...

"What do you call a penguin in the desert?" was the question put to me, both casually and airily by the wrapped up chocolate biscuit. The answer I recieved produced puzzlement, shock and dismay to my mind. For a penguin in a desert is not "Lost." but very much at home!

When we think of penguins and where their habitats are, we are naturally drawn to think of Antartica; as shown here with regards to Kev O'Donnell and the BBC:

But that isn't the only place they naturally occupy on Earth. (I'm not thinking of zoos here!) They can also be found, somewhere you may not expect, the Atacama desert in Chile, with thanks to New Zealand Penguins:

It's hiding out of the sun under the rocks on the right of the picture, bless it! There are also other penguin populations across South America and also in some parts of Africa and in the Galapogas archipeligo, though all are restricted to the Southern Hemisphere. Have there ever been any in the Northern hemisphere? We'd have to look for fossil evidence, but it does appear the equator(being too warm) is acting as geographical boundary to penguin spread, though other factors such as human interaction and ocean currents may alos be at work.

What also remains to be said is that both the pictures of penguins above are taken in deserts!! As a desert by definition is an area or region that recieves little to no precipitation and is moisture deficient, this includes both hot sandy deserts like the Sahara as well as the wide, cold, desolate ice sheets of Antartica.

To conclude, a penguin in a desert is not necessarily lost, though a penguin in the N. Hemisphere would be...and a penguin finding it's way into a dessert even more so!

Eep

Unfortuantely the job market isn't like the housing market in Leeds at the moment. Here we can leave getting the house to the last moment and even force the landlords(or ladies!)to offer a lower than stated rent price due to an overabundance of housing, as to sell is better than not to sell at all. Despite this, most students still love to get in an awful tiz about it all, go haywire and panic buy one of the first properties they see. While it's probably true the best houses do go earlier in the season, all properties are hospitable(hopefully!) and those who buy later in the year have more levarage over the owners to make the property more amenable to themselves, whether that's by lowering the rent/installing a new washer/dryer, sticking the furniture to the ceiling. Buying later on also gives the added bonus of being able to work together with those you intend to live with, to find a property that will suit you all and even better! allows you more time to make sure you are spending your future with people you are comfortable around!

The current economic climate makes things pretty tough for the job market, which wasn't even all hoops and banners before the crash due it's competitiveness(more people with degrees and more people with other appropriate qualifications e.g. BTEC's), the ageing population and it can be hard to get a foothold on the ladder, especially as it is only one of many scary pressures affecting life you the young candidate right now - which makes it incredibly difficult to stay positive about the future... I mean a job is needed for money, but it only warrants a certain amount of energy to spent on trying for one before a depressive spiral takes hold. And even then you are still not safe!

Life's full of important lessons

Was shown this in my lecture today, totally irrelevant, but still hilarious!

Climatology: Intro

To help me structure (and show off) what I think I know of the world, specifically on the dynamics of the Earth I thought I'd do a series of blog posts, which incorporate what I know and vent my frustrations at how beautiful and yet incredulously complex our home planet is. I'll start off by describing the world in 1D (one dimension), which can be visualised as a line that takes us on a journey from the furthest reaches of the atmosphere to the very core of the Earth.

These are zones, or regions, or spaces with specific processes taking place within them. Some of them, particularly within the atmosphere are charachterized by their actual size and position, whereas others, particularly in the terrestrial (ground) layer are mixed- the biosphere, for example, incorporates the space taken up by all biological life which using ducks as an example includes their flying, diving and waddling activities!

Next time I'll draw a visual representation(s) of the below and outline what is actually meant by climate.

Atmosphere- Above Ground

• (Magnetosphere -  The region in outer space that the Earth's magnetic field has an influence on charged particles, particularly those which are ejected from the sun, called the solar wind. This makes it a similar shape in outline to that of a comet and it's streaks. )
  
• Exosphere - The transition zone between outer space and Earth's atmosphere, if a particle has enough velocity to get out of the exosphere it will no longer be dragged back to Earth by gravity.
• Thermosphere -From between 800 and 350 km up depending on solar activity. Temperature increases in height to a max. of 1500 °C, where the ISS orbits!
• Mesosphere -  Temperature decreases with height, from 80 ish km up and the layer where most space debris burns up.
• Stratosphere - Temperature increases with height below 51km up.
• Troposphere - approx.17-7km above the surface and roughly 80% of the atmospheres mass, warmed by surface energy fluxes, temperature decreases with height.

Terrestrial - Ground

• Biosphere - All life above, below and in the ground and oceans
• Anthroposphere - The space influenced by Humans - not only including life, but also our Industrial exploitations
  
• Cryosphere - Areas defined by glacial or icy activity
• Hydrosphere - Water- the streams (including those from melting glaciers), lakes, oceans, seas, groundwater

Sedimental - Below Ground

• Pedosphere - The soil regions
• Rhizosphere - The soil regions where roots are found
  
• Lithosphere -  This includes the crust (continental and oceanic) as well as the top and more rigid part of the mantle which acts elastically.
• Aesthenosphere -  The weaker, hotter and deeper area of the mantle which undergoes more deformation than the lithosphere and is more viscous in nature.
  
• Mesosphere - Yes there are two of them! This one is below the Earth's surface and above the core.
• THE CORE! - Hot as Hell?

With lots of help from these wiki pages: Atmos , Magneto, Bio, Hydro, Pedo, Litho
And as I'm sure you'll see, it's very easy to disagree with me.