“The Arctic we see today is very different from the Arctic we saw even five years ago,” Jackie Richter-Menge, the report’s chief technical editor, said in a statement. “It’s a warmer place with less thick and more mobile sea ice, warmer and fresher ocean water, and increased stress on caribou, reindeer, polar bears and walrus in some regions.”
Scary stuff. That hasn’t ever happened before!
http://docs.lib.noaa.gov/rescue/mwr/050/mwr-050-11-0589a.pdf
Given time lags of 30-50 years, we might have already put enough extra greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to have crossed a threshold to these bombs exploding, their released greenhouse gases leading to ever accelerating global warming with future global temperatures maybe tens of degrees higher than our norms of human habitation and therefore extinction or very near extinction of humanity.
Over the last decade, temperatures have fallen. This is due to all the CO2 we pumped into the atmosphere 30-50 years ago.
“I met Jack Kennedy, and Barack Obama is no Jack Kennedy”
Cape Canaveral — NASA’s mighty astronaut corps has become a shadow of what it once was. And it’s only going to get smaller.
It’s down to 60 from an all-time high of 149 just a decade ago, with more departures coming once the Atlantis returns this week from the very last space shuttle voyage.
With no replacement on the horizon for the shuttle, astronauts are bailing fast, even though the International Space Station will need crews for at least another decade.
In celebrating the success of this weekend’s non-event known as Carmageddon, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, said he wanted to give everyone in the city “A big hug.” I will politely decline the political embrace, because instead of a big hug, all of us who drive the streets and freeway here want the big help.
This weekend, most especially Friday afternoon and evening proved something that I hope transportation planners, city leaders, and local citizens will keep in mind. It is as simple as it is true. Fewer cars on the road equal less traffic. Less traffic means better quality of life. So what is the real way to put fewer cars on the road, wider freeways and more HOV lanes? Of course not. We keep trying that solution and it fails again and again.
The best solution was the one we all learned on Friday with the only real expense being an over abundance of media attention. People stayed home. People worked from home. Employers staggered work schedules, enabling employees to take the day off, work from home, or leave early. And you know what.
It worked. It worked better than a multi-billion dollar subway, worked better than wider and wider freeways. People all over the Southland were given a crystal clear message and they responded. So, how do we repeat the sheer joy of Carmageddon. We do the same thing, all over again.
The future of modern transportation is right there on your shampoo bottle. Wash, rinse, repeat. With the key word being REPEAT.
We should select one weekend a month, maybe the third weekend of every month, or whatever, it doesn’t matter. Isolate a particular weekend, and isolate a particular Friday and give people the exact same message. Stay home. Work from home. Don’t take long trips unless absolutely necessary. Ask people to remember the pure pleasure of this past weekend. The chance to reconnect with family and friends at home, the chance to save some serious time and money and aggravation.
That is why everyone is moving from Florida to Winnipeg.
07.12.11
Fourteen U.S. states, from North Carolina to Arizona to Texas — where conditions are crushing records set in 1917 — are currently in the midst of devastating droughts. Many are seeking emergency disaster aid; most notably so is Governor Rick Perry of Texas, famous for his vociferous climate change denial. The New York Times covers the story in sordid detail, documenting the economic destruction, the scorching heat, the excruciating dryness. But they leave out one little thing. Guess what that could be?
Any mention of climate change. They come dangerously close to making the connection, interviewing a climatologist or two — but they end up pinning the blame on La Nina. But if I seem to recall correctly, there have been a La Nina or two since 1917 that didn’t smash drought records in Texas …
These idiots are just making up random numbers and statistics. By the time of next week’s drought report, the area of extreme drought will likely be reduced by 50% or more.
Southwestern U.S. headed for a ‘perpetual drought’
the terrible Dust Bowl years of the 1930s in North America ended, Dr. Richard Seager told the Toronto Star on Thursday. This one won’t.
Heavy rain is forecast for the permanent drought area this week.
http://wxmaps.org/pix/prec1.html
http://botd.wordpress.com/?lang=en
Yesterday was the first Sunday with more than 10,000 page views. We even beat out this site :
Coldest July on record across Midwest
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Record or near-record cold swept much of the middle part of the nation in July — with some records being broken from the 1860s
A July record were set in Cincinnati (70.1 degrees – 6.2 degrees below normal), Columbus had its fourth-coldest July (4.7 degrees below normal) and Dayton had its second-coldest July. Dayton’s mark was colder than the weather in Cleveland at 69.6 degrees, or 4.7 below normal.
Records were also set in Michigan cities of Flint and Saginaw, while Detroit had its third-coldest July in more than 100 years.
Indianapolis had its second-coldest July on record, behind only 1947.
Chicago had its ninth-coldest, but second coldest since its weather station moved further away from Lake Michigan in 1942.
