Sharing photos, videos, vintage images I've discovered, and -- occasionally -- commentary and thoughts from retired life and travels.

weather

Dodged an icy bullet!

January 29, 2010

We’ve been watching this storm system move our way all week – and we’ve been getting ready for it.

ice_coating_on_tree

Yesterday, the weather forecast was that we could get as a .75 inch coating of ice on trees and power lines – enough ice to be disastrous.

Fortunately, though, the ice here didn’t get more than a quarter of an inch. Fortunately, the freezing rain changed to sleet and, later, snow.

It was enough, though, that we didn’t venture out all day – no need.  We’ve got about 4 inches of snow on top of the ice.

We were ready, though, just in case.

One of the first things I did was to move the motorhome between the house and the shop.  The area where it is normally parked is next to and under several large pines.  After our close call last year, when an ice storm dropped branches, power lines and even whole trees not too far north of us, we decided that we would move it to a safer location if another ice storm was forecast for our area.

We also made sure we had enough groceries, which we did.

Just in case we lost power like we did last year, I had topped off the fuel tank in the motorhome.  I also moved our other smaller generator up to the front porch and made sure I found the cords for running power to the refrigerator, fireplace blower, computers and TV.

Despite the winter weather we’ve had this year, we haven’t lost power this season – yet!

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The weather is….

January 2, 2010

image

… more than a tad unusual lately, here in Arkansas, as I’m sure it seems to people in a lot of other places.

But, the weather for the next week is…, well…, ah…, it’s Winter!

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It’s winter like winter was when I was a kid growing up in Nebraska.  It’s cold – and it’s staying cold.

And it’s doing it in a lot of places other than Arkansas.

imageSomething called the Arctic Oscillation has gone into a deep negative phase, where atmospheric pressure in the Arctic is relatively high, while pressure is low in the middle latitudes.  In the negative phase, frigid winter weather extends further  into  the middle of North America than usual.

Hopefully, this thing will moderate soon – but I’m not counting on it.

How’s the weather where you are?

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Scaling back a bit

December 9, 2009

Read this first:

I made a decision after my last post on Climategate that I would scale back on my interest in anthropogenic global warming.

Before the emails and documents surfaced, I already knew there were issues with the some of the scientists and their data at East Anglia.  Unfortunately, it’s likely that similar issues related to climate change exist in other places.

I am now very satisfied that my doubt in anthropogenic global warming is justified and don’t feel the need to follow what’s happening with climate change quite so closely.

I’ve already stopped my Google alert on the phrase climate change, which has significantly reduced the amount of  items that I see in my feed reader.

This is my final post on climate change for the foreseeable future and I’m sharing here just a few of the many things I’ve learned before I get back to my regular posting.

I’m not looking to try to change any one’s mind, just share what I’ve learned.  I’ll still be learning as things show up in my feed reader – I just won’t be studying as aggressively .

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Many scientists and others who are skeptical of anthropogenic global warming would like the answer to one question that, so far, has not been answered:

What evidence is there that more CO2 forces temperature up further?

While there is laboratory evidence that carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide and global temperature have both been rising, real world proof that CO2 has caused the rise in global temperature does NOT exist.

While, at times,  there appears to be a rough correlation between CO2 and global temperature, correlation does not prove causation.

Even though anthropogenic global warming is an unproven hypothesis, it is likely that some historical warming resulted from carbon dioxide released to the atmosphere by humans. However, because of the physical properties of CO2, it’s done all the warming it can do.

Predictions of rising temperatures and the dire consequences of anthropogenic global warming are based on computer climate models.  The climate models include the assumption that global temperatures will rise as CO2 continues to rise.

Over the last decade, global temperatures have leveled off while CO2 continued to rise.  Temperature is trending below all of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predictions.

Joanne Nova, an Australian freelance science presenter & writer: Professional speaker, author, and former TV host, has prepared and published two excellent — and free — booklets on global warming.  The first, The Skeptics Handbook, has been translated by volunteers into many other languages, including German, French, Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, Turkish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Danish.

Sceptics Handbook

Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas by absorbing infrared radiation in three narrow bands of frequencies, (2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µM)), meaning that most of the heat producing infrared radiation frequencies escapes absorption by CO2.

Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas by absorbing infrared radiation in three narrow bands of frequencies, (2.7, 4.3 and 15 micrometers (µM)), meaning that most of the heat producing infrared radiation frequencies escapes absorption by CO2.  The main peak, 15 µM, is absorbed completely within about 10 meters of the ground meaning that there is no more to absorb.  Doubling the human contribution of CO2 would reduce this distance. Reducing the distance for absorption would not result in an increase in temperature.

imageThe sun appears to have entered a less active period and is providing less warmth to the Earth.  The sun is in an extended solar minimum that was predicted to end in March 2008, nearly 20 months ago.  Since 2004 there have been 770 days without sunspots.  A typical solar minimum averages about 485 days.  Solar magnetic activity continues to drop.

A number of scientists are projecting that global warming is over, for now, and that global average temperatures will be dropping for the next 20 to 30 years.

World temperature profile with projected cooling if sun is at the beginning of a lull in activity of historical magnitude.

“Tricks” apparently have been performed on more climate data than just the tree ring proxy information.  The figure below shows the adjustments made to the historical temperature record of Darwin, Australia.  The blue lines show the values for the original, “raw” temperature data. The red lines are the official NOAA/GHCN  ( National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — Global Historical Climate Network) data  after the values have been “homogenized” and averaged.  The black line are the values for the adjustment that was made (uses the scale on the right of the figure).

“Before getting homogenized, temperatures in Darwin were falling at 0.7 Celcius per century … but after the homogenization, they were warming at 1.2 Celcius per century. And the adjustment that they made was over two degrees per century …” – Willis Eschenbach, The Smoking Gun At Darwin Zero

Before getting homogenized, temperatures in Darwin were falling at 0.7 Celcius per century … but after the homogenization, they were warming at 1.2 Celcius per century.

American climate sceptics are now demanding a thorough investigation of NASA’s earth science programme, including the possibility that instruments on its satellites have been “tweaked” to give a “correct” result, and pointing out that the agency has repeatedly had to correct its data, going back to the 1930s. The common factor between CRU East Anglia and NASA is the destruction or withholding of research models and data which, if they are reliable, should be their pride and joy – documentation that would secure these institutions’ place in history, like Einstein’s equations. Telegraph.co.uk

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Dust storm

August 29, 2009

4a-8e03000u
April, 1935
Prowers County, Colorado.

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8e03000

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sunrise over the madison river, yellowstone national park, wyoming
Madison River,
Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

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“Around the Upper Loop” Yellowstone gallery

check out our Yellowstone information page

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Haw Creek galleries

day70

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crowley1

(Crowley’s Ridge State Park photo gallery.)

For the last night of our May 2009 trip, we stopped in northeast Arkansas at Crowley’s Ridge State Park.

Crowley’s Ridge rises 100 to 200 feet above the river plains of eastern Arkansas. A narrow arc of rolling hills, it extends from Cape Girardeau, Missouri, down to the Mississippi River in southeast Arkansas at Helena.

The ridge was named for a War of 1812 soldier, Benjamin F. Crowley, whose war land grant was the first settlement in the area.

crowley2The park is located near Paragould in Green County at Benjamin Crowley’s original homesite and is one of the original six Arkansas state parks. Construction by the Civilian Conservation Corps began in 1933.

While our stay was just for one night, we did have the opportunity for a couple of good walks and a few pictures in the evening and the next morning before we left. However, As a result of heavy rain, our evening plans for cooking outside didn’t pan out.

In February 2009, Crowley’s Ridge, along with a wide section of Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky, experienced a damaging ice storm. Evidence of the storm can still be seen in the ragged appearance from broken and missing branches of many trees in the park and along hundreds of miles of the route we traveled on May 26 and 27.

Haw Creek Galleries

day 20

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