Global Warming...

But you see, if it's cold it's because of global warming. If it's hot, you got it.... global warming. Wet... global warming. Drought....... global warming. Cheating on your wife with Larry David's wive..... global warming........... Making millions off your stocks, global warming.............. Being the biggest douche on the planet........ Al Gore. And to think, he was almost the president.

The thing about global temperatures is, they're global averages. Weather is variable, and local weather even more so. Statistical outlier months at individual locations or even statistical outlier YEARS GLOBALLY, mean NOTHING. When you're looking at a 2-3 degree trend on a global average over at century long time frame, looking only locally or over time periods less than a decade the signal to noise is too small to measure with any accuracy.

If I shrink my time domain only a couple orders of magnitude further, and use my house as the single location for the global measurement, I'd say starting around 4PM yesterday we were in a serious global cooling situation, and had it continued at the 4PM till midnight rate we would be well into the next ice age by Tuesday, and by next month we'll be at absolute zero. But between 6-9 this morning the trend flipped- looks like we have until early Wednesday afternoon before all of the water on earth will boil away.

That's ridiculous, of course, but no more ridiculous than using this season's weather in Seattle or NH as reference points for 100 year temperature averages of a few degrees, global in scope.

Weather is highly variable- count on it, and even a decade average would be close to the minimum time scale on which any information at all on the century scale trend would be relevant, and only with a very spatially diverse set of data collection locations. With the right filters applied to a diverse data set the global-weather signal-to-noise is quite tame-able (a more straightforward problem than the signal-to-noise filtering that allows your cell-phone to work.) It's not all BS- the trends are measurable, and the evidence is a distinct warming trend (of which we have barely more than order-of-magnitude precision), whether or not the proximate causes are all well understood.

The weather last week/month/year/decade in Schenectady or Timbuktu has no relevance in isolation, and to use things like that a reference point for confirming 100 year global trends is about as smart as my using the rapid temperature drop at my house last night as evidence of extreme global cooling.

But y'all knew that.

Any change in temperature can change weather patterns. The direction of the ocean currents has a big effect in Washington State. It can vary quite a bit season to season.
Before Seattle became more populated, the lake used to ice over between Bellevue and Mercer Island. I haven't seen that in my lifetime.

The ski areas are in talks to swap land for the higher elevations so they can continue operations in the future.
At least for now, things have been getting warmer. Some people say it could be more output from the Sun itself, and others man made, or it could be the double whammy of both things occurring.
Either way, we see glaciers receding year by year in our State.

My picture of my back yard was a Winter picture, I was just joking. It has been frigging cold here though. It just made it to 65 yesterday.
Heck, I can see 65 in February sometimes. This isn't Summer.

87 in DC right now and climbing. It will probably reach 92 degrees this afternoon.

That's hot and mostly caused by Americans driving their big cars.

It's time we all took the bus to work.

Your freedom is making me sweat.

Terry said:

Any change in temperature can change weather patterns. The direction of the ocean currents has a big effect in Washington State. It can vary quite a bit season to season.
Before Seattle became more populated, the lake used to ice over between Bellevue and Mercer Island. I haven't seen that in my lifetime.

The ski areas are in talks to swap land for the higher elevations so they can continue operations in the future.
At least for now, things have been getting warmer. Some people say it could be more output from the Sun itself, and others man made, or it could be the double whammy of both things occurring.
Either way, we see glaciers receding year by year in our State.

My picture of my back yard was a Winter picture, I was just joking. It has been frigging cold here though. It just made it to 65 yesterday.
Heck, I can see 65 in February sometimes. This isn't Summer.

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Variations in solar output (just like the volcatic ash factor) is a measureable, knowable, number and a factor that is included in even the crudest of climate models. There's no evidence that it's the driving factor for the measured longer term trend (and plenty of evidence that it's not.) A couple or three decades ago it was possible to say that the evidence for climate change being predominantly driven by human factors like taking carbon out of sequestration for use as fuel and dramatic reductions of temperate zone forests wasn't clear, but that would only be wishful thinking today. There are still plenty of unknown/lesser known factors that might upset the longer term aspects of the models (the 100-year error bars are large) but counting on seredipity to save the day isn't exactly a reasonable policy for most of us.

BTW: When was the last time Lake Washington had even a skim-coat of ice that extended from Mercer to the eastern shore? I lived in that area during all of the 1960s and off & on during much of the '70s and don't recall EVER encountering anything more than minor lake icing near shallower shorelines there. During a cold snap some ponds might skim over, but never to the point that ice skating was an option.

Ian- it's not all that hot INSIDE those big (air-conditioned) cars, eh? We should all be driving THEM to work! ;-) (On a bus full o' sweaty commuters the AC is easily overtaxed- and you know how yanks feel about anything overtaxed...)

Early 1900's, before 1950

There was ice on Lake Washington on the East side of 520 last Winter.

88 degrees now and still rising. My house will be so warm, I'll have to open the fridge door to keep it cool.

Correction. Just hit 89. Americans and their oil addiction are burning me up.

Wish they all lived closer to work, so they didn't have to drive and hurt everyone else on this planet.

Did you take a rowboat here Ian? If so, congrats. If you flew here you get some of the blame as well.
Hopefully my F150 is keeping up where the mustang left off, gotta keep up with my fair share. At least in Florida we are blessed with none of those pesky "inspection" things most of you guys get to go through every year. I think I'll go unhook the EGR this weekend.

No airconditioning here and it hit 90F. My cats are so hot they are asking to be shaved.

Did you take a rowboat here Ian? If so, congrats. If you flew here you get some of the blame as well.
Hopefully my F150 is keeping up where the mustang left off, gotta keep up with my fair share. At least in Florida we are blessed with none of those pesky "inspection" things most of you guys get to go through every year. I think I'll go unhook the EGR this weekend.

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No Florida. We did not need to take the boat with the rest of yers because we were the ones chasing yous out of town for your overly strict Christian beliefs.

I flew over to keep an eye on the colonies.

A 747 crossing the Atlantic one-way uses 20,000 gallons of jet fuel. That's about 48 gallons per passenger or 6 gallons per mile. That would keep your F150 running for, oh, I'd say a week at least (as long as it's not summer and you're not running the air-con). Per passenger, the 747 is getting about 8 miles to the gallon which probably makes it cheaper to run than your F150 too.

Last time I was in England I hired a diesel rental car. 140bhp, 1600cc turbo. Gave me 50 miles to the gallon and kept the planet cool to boot.

Only the best things come from across the Atlantic. Your ancestors, for one, and diesel cars soon as well. You'll bloody love 'em!

God Save the Queen!

Well, it was over 100 degrees in Washington DC today and the same is predicted for tomorrow. It's even getting warm in Washington State so I want some justice.

Americans are to blame for warming up our planet and this unseasonably hot spell. People living in America but not Americans are excused.

Specifically today I would like to throw mud at E350 Super Duty owners. Those vans are just too big.

Take the bus. Or use the train. Better yet walk and take your hose clamps with you.

Oh Hi Ian...

Mind if I park my drain snake next to ya on the bus...

Long Live The Queen! Keep them Brits paying for her upkeep...

I prefer a cube van, they hold 2.4 times more stuff in them, and get the same gas mileage.
I can also stand up in them. A big, big plus.
Why waste gas making multiple trips when it can be hauled in one?

Why waste gas at all when we can all just DIY?

DIY will green the planet and that is one reason why I do it.

So when a DIY is making multiple shopping trips to the box stores, that's okay
But when a contractor stocks his van so he can do several days worth of jobs without the trips to the hardware store, that's bad?
Plus, we can drive from job to job saving even more time, and gas. It's not "round trips" that a homeowner would make, it's a one way trip.

Ian, did you flunk math?

Ian, my neighborhood is mostly Italian. But, I have a neighbor from Russia, he drives a big SUV. I have down the road a neighbor from India and they are a 3 SUV family. Four families on the road own very large vans and they speak only Italian with some broken English. Another family from Thailand and they own a gas guzzler.

Me? I drive a small economy car and was born in the USA of parents hailed from Ireland, Germany and France.

oops, I always forget about one relative who was a (Seneca) Guyasuta Indian. SO, part of me really does belong here before most of you guys. The gas is all mine.

Look. The facts are simple.

Tomorrow will be 90 degrees in Bothell. Most of them folks there can't afford AC and (thanks to the "licensed" contractors) their windows often don't open.

So people in this country need to start driving smaller cars, like Cookie, else we all start to get hot.

And that includes the plumbers too.

Most DIYers do not need to make round trips to the home store. We read our local codes; make a plan and construct a list of materials; submit these for the permit; and, then we start work. Then it's off to the supply house and back. Schedule the inspection and done.

It's not rocket science (although deck building is).

Ps. I also drive a jeep. lol.

ON a sad note, a friend of my son's died yesterday while working outside. He was early 20's. So, not to preach to you all, just make sure you drink lots of water.

Ian,
If we drove what you drove, it would waste too much time, too much gas, too much rubber on the road.
It's not rocket science to us, but it is sounding like it is to you.
Golly.
We get way more work done in a day. We're not into mutilple days and trips, it's git er done time.

Cookie, it's too bad about your son's friend. It's not an obvious thing to think about, but it does happen every year to young people.
Rugged sells cooling fans with water misting for just that purpose. He's trying to get the schools to look into them to protect the kids during heat waves.

[video=youtube;JMRMW1FXSHw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMRMW1FXSHw[/video]