..No mastodons yet, I spent the last 2 days working nearly nonstop, snow plowing, shoveling snow and other global warming delights. We had a very major blizzard and I assure everyone, I was snowplowing at 1am in near zero visibility and I wasn’t wearing a bikini, I was in a snow suit. Imagine that!
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ΩΩThe point here is, finally my mountain joined all the other places with lots and lots of fresh snow. And as always, the elements that created this ‘weather’ have been the usual suspects: volcanic eruptions and the phase of the ENSO Atlantic Ocean oscillation coupled with a very strong La Nina in the Pacific. What is really annoying about all of this is the need to shovel snow off of roofs. Dangerous work!
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ΩΩAnd even more amusing is the wind. Lots of that, too. All mere weather. Things are getting rather hysterical lately as the push to convince us that we are going to be roasting to death is faltering in the face of vast, icy, wintery weather so of course, the media works very hard to tell us otherwise: Is the world really getting warmer? | Environment | guardian.co.uk is a fine example of ‘don’t look out the window!’ type of reassuring us that we will be wearing bikinis and not mukluks. The latest missive is, the weather is changing even faster. Wow, I can’t wait!
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ΩΩPerhaps I should expect some robins to come bobbing to my mountain next week. The Guardian article does mention the ENSO and La Nina effect and even volcanoes but assures us these are coincidental and we should all tremble in our snow boots for fear it might not snow another 10 inches. For the last two days, we had snow an inch or more an hour for many hours and now have around 30 inches and thankfully, it stopped. By the way, in the photo, I am standing on snow, not the ground. Holding a shovel.
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ΩΩHere is another amusing article: British wildlife benefits from return to ‘traditional’ seasonal weather. Ah, the weather is now traditional again! That is a false story. Of course, the present life forms conform to present conditions but the climate has changed greatly over the last few million years. Nearly all of Britain as well as significant parts of the US and Canada and Europe have been under miles of ice. When the first Neanderthals and then humans came to these places, virtually nothing was the same species or environment as we are now accustomed to having today. It was tremendously different. Ask any Giant Ground Sloth or Mastodon!
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ΩΩThere is still some debate about what caused the Ice Ages and why they ended (hint: no one really knows totally, we mostly guess about this but I am betting this has a great deal to do with our frivolous sun and its changing character as it ages). Indeed, thinking about an elderly sun not functioning quite right due to too much helium and not enough hydrogen brings up really, really, REALLY scary thoughts.
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ΩΩFor if we think we control the weather and thus, the earth, we are nuts. But it makes us feel really good as we struggle to control things we can never control. We do impact nature tremendously but our best efforts just might be mercilessly brushed aside by the sun as it pops us abruptly into another Ice Age. History tells us, this is much more likely than global warming. That is, every interglacial has been short (ours is already less than 12,000 years old which is about the time limit for interglacials) and we may end up in another nasty cold cycle (the cold phases last over 120,000 years each!).
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ΩΩAs I keep saying, human vanity can be most amusing. Anyway, tonight it will be near 0 degrees. Rats. I keep waiting and waiting for the warm weather. Where is it? I am curious.
Its here in BC, still waiting for winter, AND it was ‘supposed’ to be a cold one due to La Nina. Lots of snow at elevation, as predicted by GW.
Not sure if it’s the blinding white snow, but in the photo you look a lot like Sara Palin in Alaska. Are those moose antlers sticking up in the snow behind you?
Its funny to read the major news sites and see people twisting themselves into a frenzy to support Global Warming (now called Global Change).
Do I think we have been causing minor changes due to our finagling? Of course. But I also think we are akin to a flea on a dog’s backside in terms of importance on earth for anything.
Nothing we can do about massive volcanic eruptions spewing ash into the air. I love how everyone discounts what you continually point out about natural events. Everyone would like to think that the “Year without a Summer” didn’t exist or that it’s cause is not possible in this day. That year was during the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. We were pumping a lot of things into the atmosphere. Why didn’t we stay warm?
Hello Elaine,
“Indeed, thinking about an elderly sun not functioning quite right due to too much helium and not enough hydrogen brings up really, really, REALLY scary thoughts.”
http://www.fatima.org/essentials/facts/miracle.asp
“I keep waiting and waiting for the warm weather. Where is it? I am curious.”
http://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1207.cfm
Regards,
PFO
It’s a simple equation: for lotsa snow, it takes lots of evaporated water. For lotsa of evaporated water, it takes lotsa heat. If you have lotsa heat, everything becomes turbulent. No? ever boil water?
BTW: great quake piece. Well done.
@shirt: I like the way you think. Science, it works, bitches.
The summer was extremely hot here in Finland and now we have loads of snow. If I recall correctly, climate scientists claim that extreme weather conditions will happen more often in their models with global warming, so I don’t see any conflict here.
@duski
What extreme weather?
It is a totally ordinary snowy winter here.
The likes of which we were not supposed to have anymore.
You guys are so boring and looking at yesterdays news.
Latest news:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png
Next couple of decades we should worry about the next ice-age for a change.
And global cooling.
Yeah, the three feet of snow in the photo used to ordinary weather in Eastern Kentucky, but it disappeared for a couple of decades. Now it is back. So what?
One thing did catch my eye. I saw on the weather news that a low pressure system was circling back over Canada instead of going out to sea and then I guess to wherever. I had never seen that before. It was weird. I don’t understand how it can circle back against the jetstream that runs west to east over America.
Maybe someone can explain that to me.
Low pressure systems do this all the time up here. We sort of call this a ‘blow back’ situation. Sometimes a nasty storm hangs out a long while, they even ‘back up’ over the Atlantic Ocean.
As for CO2: it is ONE COMPONENT in the weather riddle. There are several other ones and the #1 component by far and away, totally and utterly, is the sun. The sun overrides all other systems. And the sun is NOT stable, it evolves.
So few people know this! The sun is a star and stars have life cycles and these have several elements one of which is the process of ‘burning’ that is, turning hydrogen into helium. Generally speaking, the more helium in a star, the older it is.
Our sun is about 4 billion years old. This is old. This is WAY old. My astronomer grandaddy Edison Pettit often warned me that our personal star is elderly like himself.
It is OLD. And probably, has the stellar equivalent of arthritis and lumbago. Going senile.
We don’t like thinking this way. Just as our elderly empire is creaking in the joints but pretends it is ‘young’ so we think of the sun as a younger, vibrant star and not an old, old, old star. Nay, we refuse to think of it as a star in the first place.
DeVaul, i think you are referring to that big low over the gulf of alaska, that is a standard winter feature here, when it shifts south it drags the artic air behind and we get winter.
@duski
Warm, damp, snowless, perfectly-ordinary-winter = global warming we´re all going to die of heat, there will never be snow again
snowy, cold, perfectly-ordinary-winter = global climate disruption, we will all die of cold, snow and extreme weather
You can´t push this propaganda all the time and both ways.
More rain has got to have some positive effects somewhere?
More hydropower next fall?
Somewhere it rains where it has been drought?
No, no…
It´s all bad.
No, I was referring to a low pressure system that passed the east coast and then circled back over Nova Scotia into Canada. It looked like a hurricane over land, but moving in the wrong direction. It may have been just above the jet stream I think. It was hard to tell from the weather charts.
@Elaine
Based on what I said above, are you saying this is normal?
Devaul said Yeah, the three feet of snow in the photo used to ordinary weather in Eastern Kentucky, but it disappeared for a couple of decades.
I am over 50 and lived in Illinois most my life. This was normal weather growing up and the snow lasted all winter long. Then it disappeared as you said for decades. But I think this cycle of weather is going to be more extreme. Why? That’s for everyone else to figure out.
I remember learning the star life cycle in school. It was never mentioned that our star was in old age. That was pushed far off into the future.
So do you think the sun is beginning it’s red stage?
@Melponeme_k
“Looking on the bright side, the red giant Sun may be warm enough to melt the water rich, but now frozen moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Humanity, if it is still around, might relocate there.”
What type futures market casino do we need in order to speed up climate disruption on Io, Europa and Callisto?
(I know for a fact that Elaine has a rocket launch site on her mountain. The poverty tent stuff is all a cover up. Old proven nazi type rockets too not these flimsy Nasa pieces of kit.)
We will all die way before that happens.
http://www.universetoday.com/12648/will-earth-survive-when-the-sun-becomes-a-red-giant/
there is no warm only cold
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http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-181259944046452879&q=iluminati&total=111&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=4
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when its really cold its nice to turn up the heat
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101229/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/lt_drug_war_mexico
CIUDAD JUAREZ, Mexico – The last remaining police officer in the Mexican border town of Guadalupe has disappeared, and prosecutors in northern Chihuahua state said Tuesday they have started a search for her.
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when corruption becomes normal at the top of society… and the police are too busy fighting petty theft, moving violations, and drug abuse
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widespread laundering of money, corporate payoffs, mercenaries, corrupt bureaucrats, and the general failure to police society can become a complicated trust issue.
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COPS sacrificed it all man… what a fuckin’ joke
From http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/22/science/earth/22carbon.html?pagewanted=4&_r=2&ref=justingillis
Bubbles of ancient air trapped by glaciers and ice sheets have been tested, and they show that over the past 800,000 years, the amount of carbon dioxide in the air oscillated between roughly 200 and 300 parts per million. Just before the Industrial Revolution, the level was about 280 parts per million and had been there for several thousand years.
@nah,
No police! That sounds scary, but consider that if all the police in a town were corrupt, that might be a good thing!
But I’m sure the Lamestream Media will spin this into why we have to do another “military action.” Cripes. yet another one. We’ve been in six wars now, just started a seventh, and now we’re going to begin an eighth???
1. Afghanistan
2. Iraq
3. Colombia
4. Somalia
5. Pakistan
6. Yemen
7. Ivory Coast – just starting!
Manning, according to those dodgy chat logs Adrian Lamo produced, said he leaked all those documents because the people need to wake up to the true nature of the US Government and take action so things would change! Otherwise we’re totally effed as a society and doomed as a species. >:-(
Elaine,
The Sun seems quiet. One sunspot and two coronal holes. http://www.spaceweather.com/
The quieter the Sun the better the likelihood we’ll descend into an ice age. All the previous interglacials spiked in a fit of global warming, then suddenly collapsed into another chilly descent. Our interglacial is unusual and we’re overdue for a precipitous descent.
Ed, when we see permanant snow in summer i’ll start thinking about ice ages, see you next summer @ 90 +
Ed-M might have a point. Global warming, or whatever it is called, might actually be a short hockey-stick graph that occurs right before we descend into another ice age.
That would at least dovetail with the notion that nothing can go to infinity without collapsing back to zero (Fahrenheit hopefully, and not Kelvin).
DeVaul, trouble is we haven’t gone to infinity yet, ie + 8 degree. Elaine is right about everything but….and our winters are warmer.
@ziff house
You are not supposed to see global warming (no), climate change (no), global climate disruption for another 20-30 years.
It is 0,6 degrees over 100 years.
There are no visible effects anywhere yet.
So we will just have to believe that earths climate will collapse at 350 ppm.
And that there is a multiplier effect.
Politicians (taxes), corporations (profits), environmentalists (power, money) and UN (power, money, aid), scientists (power, money, fame) all wanted this to be true so badly that the truth “we don´t understand global climate” got lost and badly.
JT , you may be right about that,,,more to come,, i’m sending Elaine an article.
@ziff house
record high CO2 and emissions are up every year.
December 2010 was coldest in 30 years here in Helsinki.
January-February 2010 was coldest in 70 years.
December 2010 deepest snow tied with 1915 all time record.
Last march artic ice cover was briefly above the 30 year average.
It sure does not look like we are spiraling anywhere.
It seems to be warmer on top of american continent and colder on top of european continent.
I can personally guarantee you will not feel any effects of human caused climate change during your lifetime.
Peak oil is a whole different matter that we will all notice.
JT, after I claimed that climate scientists theories predict extremities in weather to increase, you outright dissed that. Then you, yourself, tell that December 2010 was coldest in 70 years in Helsinki.
Local weather patterns do not mean much when we talk about global weather.
And did you forget the absolutely crushing three weeks heatwave in summer?
The highs were higher
The lows were lower
so on average, nothing changed.
As I spent all day yesterday removing snow (thus, no time or energy to type much here!) I have to remind everyone that VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS cause lots of SNOW due to:
1. a dust layer in the higher stratosphere
2. dust collecting moisture
3. this leads to cooler temperatures and more snow!
See? How simple is this? This is NOT caused by global warming, it is caused by volcanoes. No volcanoes: less dust collecting moisture and coming down as snow.
This is what irritates me about global warming people. Yes, there is global warming. But it is NOT the cause of all ‘bad weather’. See? Volcanoes can and do cause lots and lots of bad weather. Epic bad weather!
About the latest concept of ‘climate CHANGE’: many, many things cause climate changes. Volcanoes and the sun are epic, big drivers of CHANGES. There is this ‘balance of nature’ system that exists DESPITE the sun and volcanoes.
The biggest and most dangerous disrupters of our precious status quo ‘natural’ system remains these two gigantic forces. Whenever the sun changes its energy output, the earth’s climate instantly responds by changing, too.
Ditto, any major mega-volcanic eruption like the Yellowstone or Long Lake systems or giant calderas in Indonesia can even cause Ice Ages especially if these eruptions happen when the sun capriciously decides to cut back on energy production a slight bit!
Add to this celestial objects that totally upend our natural balance and destroys entire life form systems from top to bottom. The great, great extinctions seem all to be caused by asteroid hits! From the Great Permian extinction to the end of the dinosaurs and perhaps a comet collision caused the extinction of the Clovis culture/life forms era in North America.
Yes Elaine, I agree with volcanoes probably being the current reason for snow. Biggest ones can really make drastic changes to climate as well.
Hrm, does it bother if I use your name, did not think about it at all… (and dunno if I it should bother me at all either haha)
Volcanoes blahblahblah…the recent lunar eclipse revealed that the atmosphere is quite dust free.
And, following a longer than normal solar minimum phase, the sunspot cycle fired right back up this past year. Spot free days 2009: 260 Spot free days 2010: 51
Hi. Back again. One thing that the global warming people and the global warming denial people have managed to distract EVERYBODY from is that the Oceans are gradually and slowly being poisoned by carbon! The Oceans are an immense Carbon sink and they’ve taken in so much carbon, it’s killing coral reefs and affecting the ability of small plankton to form shells! This could have a phenomenal effect on our seafood supply.
ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ
ELAINE: Correct. And one major volcanic event can dump an awful lot of carbon into the oceans. When India crashed into Asia, there was this immense eruption long, long ago that nearly wiped out most life forms when the Deccan plains were formed. Ditto when the Siberian Trap region erupted. Huge life die off especially in the oceans.
@duski
Human emissions of CO2 do not drive the climate.
What caused the cold spell 70 years ago?
Why on earth did we have lots of snow in 1915?
Where did all the past warm summers come from?
What caused the ice-ages?
CO2 = 1-2 degrees of warming, there are no multiplier effects
IPCC predictions are down the toilet and they know it perfectly well.
@duski
It would be nice if we could have a “manmade climate” and no annual changes in weather.
What type of climate would you like to have?
This reminds me a Sovjet era joke:
Sovjet leaders are travelling on a train, the train stops and the railroad tracks end in the middle of Siberia:
“Lenin: We´ll start rebuilding and this track will go all around the world!”
“Stalin: Let us shoot the people who didn´t finish this track!”
“Hrustsev: We should take some tracks from the behind and add them in front of the train.”
“Breznev: Let´s get back on the train, close the blinds and pretend the train is moving!”
ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ
ELAINE: Hahahah… and Nixon said, ‘Fuck the trains, let’s walk.’
”Human emissions of CO2 do not drive the climate.
CO2 = 1-2 degrees of warming, there are no multiplier effects”
Hmm ,Jt, you don’t see a contradiction there? and what, pray tell, will limit Co2. No multiplier? arctic methane? Jt, what are you doing here?
@ziff house
What about arctic methane?
It´s leaking as it always has.
“However, it is not clear whether the leakage is a new phenomenon. Graham Westbrook of the University of Birmingham, UK, reported 250 submarine methane hotspots off the Arctic islands of Svalbard last year, but did not determine whether they were affecting the atmosphere above. “The subsea permafrost has been degrading and leaking methane beneath for thousands of years,” he told New Scientist.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18614-methane-bubbling-out-of-arctic-ocean–but-is-it-new.html
It is -29 to -50 degrees celsius in Siberia at the moment.
Are you worried you might die if it is -27 to -48 over there?
@ziff house
If the coldest winters in Helsinki (a couple of years ago we were told that this is exactly where we will see the biggest effects of global warming) were 1943 and 2010;
and the snowiest were 1915 and 2010.
If you take these too data points and calculate an average?
Shouldn´t this be good news for someone waiting to die from climate change in 2050?
Renewd hope for life?
Jt i think you are pulling my leg, [where do you get those smiley buttons?] , two data points? hahahaa!
@ziff house
Heh,
do the math…
just as cold in 1943/2010 and same 70cm of snow in december 1915/2010.
No change in climate here, zero change between these 2 data points.
Happy New Year 2011!
(the time is 00:37 here)
And we had some champagne and wine with the wifey…
Happy new year! And..it is above freezing here! Global warming is great! Actually, this is the annual ‘mid winter thaw’ that is so famous in New England. Then winter roars back in. The coldest day ever in the last 50 years happened in mid-March back in I believe, 1992.
It was -40 below zero F. I had to work outdoors several hours that day! In 4 feet of snow. A week later, it was 60 degrees, the snow rapidly melted and my tent complex flooded. Lots of fun!
@elaine
We haven´t had above freezing temperatures since 19th of november (which is very rare here in south of Finland for december).
-4 celsius now and -18 tomorrow.
(cloudy today, bad for new year fireworks you cannot see the big ones, quite a bombing here in Espoo)
I like these snowy and frosty winters (-5 to -10 is the best winter weather IMO, above freezing and everything goes soggy and wet)
Happy New year and all the best.
And try not to slide off your mountain.
@ziff and elaine
“In the meantime, while I avoid making forecasts for tenths of a degree change in globally averaged temperature anomaly, I am quite willing to state that unprecedented climate catastrophes are not on the horizon though in several thousand years we may return to an ice age.”
Richard Lindzen congressional testimony, a good read.
http://democrats.science.house.gov/Media/file/Commdocs/hearings/2010/Energy/17nov/Lindzen_Testimony.pdf
cut & paste debate o well.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/04/lindzen-in-newsweek/
@ziff house
You can see the scale of things from Lindzens testimony very well.
You cannot feel any effects of “climate disruption” during you lifetime. You just have to believe.
So all the media spin and fearmongering is total and utter BS. Even the IPCC scientist admit this.
Rain or shine you are not equipped to detect it until we spiral out of control with multiplier effects and positive feedbacks. (2060?).
Climate is not linear it is cyclical.
We are riding this rollercoaster and shouting ice-age and global warming as we go.
Warming is not speeding up!
That alone means IPCC predictions are down the toilet.
@ziff house
“The Met Office warned ministers to expect an ‘exceptionally cold winter’ but then kept the prediction secret from the public.
‘But we weren’t let in on the secret because the Met Office no longer publishes its seasonal forecasts due to the ridicule it suffered for predicting a barbecue summer in 2009.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343863/Met-Office-knew-Decembers-big-freeze-coming-hushed-up.html#ixzz1A4iKpwA6
After climategate
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We have an idea but we are too embarrassed to publish our forecast.
Are you willing to pay 10x for energy, ship all our industries abroad and start a new gambling casino for banks on recommendations these guys make?
We don´t understand the climate yet (if ever) it is that simple.
”Rain or shine you are not equipped to detect it until we spiral out of control with multiplier effects and positive feedbacks. (2060?).”
Thats OK then, we can dump the problems on our children.
@ziff house
I do not believe there is a problem.
We are just looking at the wrong thing.
CO2 is up and there are huge positive feedbacks in the models.
We are way below all the IPCC estimates with record CO2 and no slowdown in output.
Well the climate does not follow CO2, we don´t know how it works.
CO2 warms the planet a bit, but it does not drive the climate.
Let´s do what we can.
Paint the roofs and streets white in the south
install solar panels in the south
install wind turbines where it is windy
Install geothermal heat and improve insulation in the north
Install scandinavian fireplaces in the north
Install air heat pumps in the north
Buy better MPG cars
Start using electric/natural gas buses in cities
Improve the railways
Start developing/building nuclear power again
Put sails back on freight ships
develop small local power stations
etc
You do need money to do this.
Not taxes shipped to rich leaders of developing countries or a bankster run carbon casino.
Not because of the climate but because oil will run out. They are two separate issues.
OK, warning; i’m not willing to type as much as you , really the subject is getting dull anyway as no one will do anythng about it anyway, so we will watch and learn.
@ziff house
Sorry JT but you keep posting that R. Lindzen stuff. The GW warming analogy is; such n’ such number of tiny xmas lights spread over the earths surface givng off a tiny amount of heat 24hrs, so what if the amount is below the daily fluctuation its still there.
Hi, Elaine… would you like some cheese with that whine?
Hey – you live on a mountain in northern New York. It snows there. If you don’t like snow, move to the plains of central Ohio. We’ve had 3 or 4 “snowfalls” here, with total accumulation of less than six inches. I have not gotten out my snow shovel yet; all I’ve needed to do was put some ice melter on the hill at the foot of the driveway.
I expect you’ll stay there, though: you thrive on adversity. Without a 3-foot snowfall what would you have to grouse about?