Archive for the 'Environment' Category
(Chronologically Listed)
The “Gore Effect” documented
The slightly tongue-in-cheek term “The Gore Effect” — meaning an abrupt change of local weather towards intense cold when or after Al Gore (prophet of Anthropogenic Global Warming) visits that location — became so-named after a few incidents several years ago (see the link above). These days, it’s generally applied whenever any Warmist group holds an event and is suddenly faced with unseasonably cold weather (e.g., the Global Warming Cruise aboard an icebreaker that subsequently got stuck in sea ice).
Now Steve McIntyre, famed debunker of the Mann Hockey Stick graph, points out that his own home town of Toronto, Canada, has experienced the Gore Effect first-hand. Here’s a graph of annual snowfall in Toronto:
As you can see, Al Gore visited Toronto in 2007 — three times, as it turned out. Now, 2008 has produced more snowfall in Toronto than any year in the past 120 years. Be sure to read Steve’s whole article for details (and photos!). ..bruce w..
The consequences of environmentalism
The city of Seattle (WA) has decided not to use salt or other chemicals in clearing ice and snow from roads, with predictable results:
To hear the city’s spin, Seattle’s road crews are making “great progress” in clearing the ice-caked streets.
But it turns out “plowed streets” in Seattle actually means “snow-packed,” as in there’s snow and ice left on major arterials by design.
“We’re trying to create a hard-packed surface,” said Alex Wiggins, chief of staff for the Seattle Department of Transportation. “It doesn’t look like anything you’d find in Chicago or New York.”
The city’s approach means crews clear the roads enough for all-wheel and four-wheel-drive vehicles, or those with front-wheel drive cars as long as they are using chains, Wiggins said.
The icy streets are the result of Seattle’s refusal to use salt, an effective ice-buster used by the state Department of Transportation and cities accustomed to dealing with heavy winter snows.
“If we were using salt, you’d see patches of bare road because salt is very effective,” Wiggins said. “We decided not to utilize salt because it’s not a healthy addition to Puget Sound.”
By ruling out salt and some of the chemicals routinely used by snowbound cities, Seattle has embraced a less-effective strategy for clearing roads, namely sand sprinkled on top of snowpack along major arterials, and a chemical de-icer that is effective when temperatures are below 32 degrees.
Seattle also equips its plows with rubber blades. That minimizes the damage to roads and manhole covers, but it doesn’t scrape off the ice, Wiggins said.
I predict this policy will last until there’s an accident causing death, injury, or major property damage. The resulting lawsuit will likely force Seattle to actually put public safety ahead of environmental concerns. ..bruce w..
Some seasonal cheer for you
Courtesy of The Daily Bayonet, who got it from Jammie Wearing Fool:
Heh.
UPDATE: And here, courtesy of Dave Barry, is striking scientific proof that white people — particularly Southern white people — are inherently rhythmically challenged:
..bruce w..
Global warming update
Accuweather delivers the bad news:
In the AccuWeather.com Winter Forecast released in early October, Chief Long-range Forecaster Joe Bastardi said the overall colder and snowier winter will be off to a cold start in December, which could be the roughest winter month for much of the nation.
Calling the winter of 2008-2009 one of the harshest in many years, Bastardi said, “It may be a shock to some when compared with the above-average temperatures of last year in the East. It will put some ‘brrrrrr’ in the saddle of folks who have not had to deal with such things for a while.”
Personally, I blame Bush. ..bruce w..
The vast and widespread consequences of global warming
It makes you wonder how earth (and humanity) ever survived the Medieval Warm Period or the Holocene Maximum:
Hat tip to Instapundit. ..bruce w..
Oh, the weather outside is frightful…
Like Phil at Bad Astronomy, I’ve always been intrigued by Antarctica and have wanted to visit there. But this video clip gives a brief — but sufficient — glimpse into the cold, dark, windy hell that Antarctica can be:
http://view.break.com/487339 - Watch more free videos
Wowza. That looks like “ten steps and die” weather. ..bruce w..
Just in case you were wondering…
…the sun is blank — no sunspots:
This is how the sun has been for the last six weeks or so. ..bruce w..
Idiotic hand-written sign o’ the day
A plaintive cry for help from the tree-sitters in Berkeley:
Hat tip to Little Green Footballs. ..bruce w..
Reality or Onion wannabe? You decide
Purple Avenger (at Ace of Spades) posted the following video. Avenger’s not sure if it’s real or a parody, neither am I:
This post over at Reason says that “Syndee L’ome Grace” is a real person, and her name certainly does show up via Google.
But . . . sheesh. ..bruce w..
Real Scientists Speak Up On… Global Cooling?
Get your snowboards waxed… the next ice age may be here soon!
I have been talking about how quiet sunspot cycle 24 has been, and how it’s possible that may foretell a cooler period in the Earth’s climate for the next set of years. I have also pointed out that I am a computer engineer, and come by these ideas based on personal study and application of new software techniques to assemble trends from huge quantities of information. That means take what I say with a grain of salt.
Now we get word from the excellent Watts Up With That site, stating that some of the real atmospheric scientists are starting to discuss the possibility of a much cooler world in a few years:
Four scientists, four scenarios, four more or less similar conclusions without actually saying it outright — the global warming trend is done, and a cooling trend is about to kick in. The implication: Future energy price response is likely to be significant.
Late last month, some leading climatologists and meteorologists met in New York at the Energy Business Watch Climate and Hurricane Forum. The theme of the forum strongly suggested that a period of global cooling is about emerge, though possible concerns for a political backlash kept it from being spelled out.
Words like “highly possible,” “likely” or “reasonably convincing” about what may soon occur were used frequently. Then there were other words like “mass pattern shift” and “wholesale change in anomalies” and “changes in global circulation.”
Noted presenters, such as William Gray, Harry van Loon, Rol Madden and Dave Melita, signaled in the strongest terms that huge climate changes are afoot. Each weather guru, from a different angle, suggested that global warming is part of a cycle that is nearing an end. All agreed the earth is in a warm cycle right now, and has been for a while, but that is about to change significantly.
The take away is that there are multiple atmospheric and solar factors pointing towards cooler temperatures for some period of time starting around the end of the decade. This could spell some serious trouble for scientists and weather networks who have staked their reputation on human boosted global warming.
In addition this interesting tidbit I stumbled across earlier today.. (Hey, I gave blood - I am allowed to be a bit stumbly!)
This is from NASA and is a long range forecast for sunspot cycle 25. Now these same goofs have been completely wrong on cycle 24 (the current cycle) with it clocking in well below their predictions. These graphs keep getting revised to push the cycle 24 bulge further right as the sun stays surprisingly quiet.
But if there is any accuracy in this, we could be looking at a marked decrease in solar energy reaching the earth for the next decade or two. For those of you wondering, that solar energy is the primary force that drives everything on earth, and is the only real mechanism to warm and heat the planet.
This will be interesting to monitor, but if you love snow sports (like I do) we may be headed into a golden age.