An Exchange With A Snowflake

The other day a friend of mine on Facebook posted his displeasure with PDT decision to pull out of the Paris Climate Accords. As you  might gather, I fully agree with this decision. This accord was nothing more than a movement of wealth from rich nations (Like the USA) to poor nations (mostly Africa). Interestingly, it wasn't my friend who decided to exchange thoughts with me, but rather his wife. I have known my friends for 10+ years, he was a junior officer I highly respected during my final few years in the service. But I never had the pleasure of meeting his wife other than just a brief meet and greet several years ago.  So I am going to post the exchange in order of posting. I would like your feedback in how I handled the situation.

This first is the original post. It was a response to a news article that my friend posted notifying that PDT has decided to pull the USA from the Paris Climate Accords.

Friend: Oh no!!!! No no no!!!!!!! Damn it!

ME: I'm glad we're done with this scam. Even reasonable folks who believe in hot/wet/cold/dry should view this agreement with disdain. It was nothing more than a massive transfer of wealth from the USA to other countries. Our financial contributions to the agreement far outstripped our "contribution" to global cooling/warming/climate change. The world will wring their hands over us "backing out". But not because the world will end, but because the greedy little jerks aren't gonna get our money.

Not the wife: I couldn't disagree more.

My Friends Wife (MFW): Is this guy serious?? We come in at 17% only 2nd to China at 20% and followed by India, the next highest at only 4%!! WE ARE THE PROBLEM!!! OF COURSE WE SHOULD PAY MORE!! My god I just can't even understand why any American wouldn't agree with joining forces with other countries to try and limit our negative effects of OUR GREED on the planet. You think it is THEIR greed?? Excuse me while I go apologize to my children for the absolute mess we as a nation are leaving them. (if you don't like the simple break down that Wiki provides, feel free to go to the main site for the Paris agreement- I just figure this one has it condensed)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement

Winter Hits PACNW Hard

Been a rough couple of days here in the PACNW. First off, we got slammed with about 10 inches of snow on Wednesday. School and business closings were the norm across the western half of the state. Then it began to rain, very lightly. By Thursday AM, everything was coated with a layer of ice about a half an inch thick. That is when the real fun began. It didn’t take long for the tress and branches to start falling and taking out power lines. Some places looked like a war zone. With the state motto being “The Evergreen State” you can imagine the number of trees that line the roads around here. Some of those trees fell across the highways, causing all kinds of havoc.

We lost power at about 8 AM Thursday AM. In fact, more than 250,000 folks across the area, from Seattle and points north down into Olympia and many of the smaller communities in the region. When I drove home from the class I have been attending the past month, there wasn’t a light on for 20 miles, unless power by a generator. It was eerie driving through my little town and not seeing a light anywhere.

While the power was out, we of course lost heat. The temp inside the house dropped to 51 degrees at the lowest point. We slept in longjohns and sweatpants with tons of covers. Fortunately we did have hot water since we have gas at the house. But because we have a newer stove that automatically shuts off the gas, we had to break out the camp cookstove heat up the meals.

Snow Photos

It has been snowing the PACNW. We have about eight inches on the ground with continued snowfall for the rest of the day. We aren’t going to be snowed in like Patrice and her crew over at Rural Revolution, but travel around my area is difficult to say the least.

Here are a few photos from the neighborhood.

The backyard

Looking across the street

Our teenage boys are going to have to dig us out.

Still Lots of Snow in Them Thar Hills

Anyone care to guess where 907 inches of global warming fell this past winter? So much fell, that visitor days to Mt Rainer National Park are down 30 percent this summer.

The winter of 2010-2011 was an epic snow year. So much so that ski resorts in California stayed open into June and the highway to Artist Point is covered with 30 feet of snow.

Is the Global Scam Losing Steam?

Is this article a sign that the whole global warming scam has run its course? First off, the article suggests that NASA data used by the “warming” crowd has been read incorrectly.

NASA satellite data from the years 2000 through 2011 show the Earth’s atmosphere is allowing far more heat to be released into space than alarmist computer models have predicted, reports a new study in the peer-reviewed science journal Remote Sensing. The study indicates far less future global warming will occur than United Nations computer models have predicted, and supports prior studies indicating increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide trap far less heat than alarmist have claimed. (Source: Yahoo News) (Emphasis PACNW Righty)

One of the co-authors of the study, Dr. Roy Spencer had this to say:

“The satellite observations suggest there is much more energy lost to space during and after warming than climate models show,” Spencer said in a July 26 University of Alabama press release. “There is a huge discrepancy between that data and the forecasts that is especially big over the oceans.”

In addition to finding that far less heat is being trapped than alarmist computer models have predicted, the NASA satellite data show the atmosphere begins shedding heat into space long before United Nations computer models predicted. (Source: Yahoo News)

I wonder how long it will be before OwlGore explodes. The more information that gets studied, the more clear it becomes that the global warming efforts were nothing more than an attempt at controlling our lives by people who think they are smarter than us. When the communist movement fell through, these radicals had to have another outlet. They choose the environmental movement. There they met kindred spirits; people that wanted to control what, where, and how we did things. It was a match made in mother earth.

Secondly, to get us back to the original point, I do find it interesting that Yahoo would use the term alarmist. This would be a change for them. Yahoo has traditionally been on the side of the global warming crowd. So, can we surmise that with Yahoo publishing an article that calls the global warming crowd “alarmists” that the global warming scam has run its course? Will we be able to get back to using terms like drought, and “more rain than normal”, and heavy snowfall in the mountains”, and “my gosh, it is HOT this week”?

I hope so.

Media Enables Global Warming Hysteria Narrative

We all know that the whole global warming/climate change scam is for one purpose and one purpose only; to gain control over how you heat and cool your home, what kind of vehicle you drive, and how you spend the money that you earn (higher taxes). This will be achieved through a series of laws and regulations that will completely stifle the economy and make the government even more intrusive in our lives.

We also know that the lame stream media is completely culpable in this scam. They have continuously feed us lies and distortions of the truth to further the leftist agenda of more control through these global warming regulations and laws. The recent coverage of the US heat wave is just a small example.

They touted OwlGore as a seer of climate knowledge when in fact his movie, An Inconvenient Truth was so filled with false information that the courts in England made them release a disclaimer when showing the movie. Plus the Science and Public Policy Institute released a report that showed as many as 35 errors in the movie. Did the media jump all over these inaccuracies? Of course not; and they even let Gore try (in vain I might add) to refute the errors.

The Mann Hockey stick temperature graph was an oft-quoted and highly recognized piece of global warming propaganda used by the global warming crowd as irrefutable evidence that the world was warmer today than any period over the last 2,000 years. There was only one problem; the builder of the graph might have fudged the data to hide a medieval warming period. When “Climategate” broke, the hockey graph was history, as well as the credibility of the folks who were responsible for the data manipulation. Where was the lame stream media when it was discovered the graph had false data? I think they might have been watching the Olympics.

The media silence was deafening when it was discovered that NASA (A noted Global Warming supporter) had used a faulty correction algorithm on the temperatures between 2000 and 2006. This really upset the whole global warming narrative apple cart. One of the favorite talking points of the left was that nine of the warmest years have occurred since 1995. Once NASA was pretty much forced to recalculate the corrections, turns out that four of the hottest years actually occurred during the 1930. One must note that 1930s are at the beginning of the hockey stick graph and the correct data was not used in the graph.

Well the media is at it again. It has been a hot summer for most of the US outside the PACNW. According to the media, it has been a record breaking year. Technically speaking, they are correct, temperatures have been broken. But listening to hysteria surround these record breaking temperatures, you’d think records would be falling left and right. Not so. Statistically speaking, very few high temperature records have actually fallen during the recent heat wave. So few temperature records have actually been broken that the heat wave is statistically insignificant.

I know, if you are suffering through the heat, it is not insignificant to you. And there has been tragedy as more than two dozen have perished due to the heat. But heat waves across the Midwest are not uncommon. I lived in Omaha, NE for nine summers during the 1990's and don’t recall a year where temps didn’t soar into the upper 90’s for weeks at a time. It was oppressive and I hated it. I couldn’t wait for fall and looked at the upcoming summers with dread.

As an added note, this has been the best snowfall season in 21 years for Australia.

Dang that Global Warming!

Snow fell in the mountains of Colorado yesterday, a sure sign that global warming is going to doom us all.

Weekend Updates

Weekend Updates

Missed last week. Just much too busy to even sit down at the computer, much less blog.  Here is the previous week’s post and updates (if any)

1. Snowfall Records Continue to Be Set. Not a big fan of the whole global warming/climate change horse-hockey.  I have not really seen anyone try to come out a say these records snowfalls are because of climate change/global warming. Maybe they realize they have played “Chicken Little” a bit too often and are starting to shut up.

-Here is another story about the significant snowpack, this time in the Rockies. Folks along the Missouri River are getting ready to evacuate due to heavy snow runoff cause by deep snows and a late arriving spring.

-Later this year I plan on posting a pro/con article on each of the Republican candidates but I see no reason not to start now. On the con side it seems that everyone’s safe (read: mainstream) candidate, Mitt Romney, is actually a believer in the man-caused global warming fairy tale.

2. House Votes Down Debt Ceiling Increase. This was really nothing more than show, but it does put a good many representatives on record. The tax cheat is due to bug Congress next week about increasing the debt ceiling or else the rood will cave in.  The Republicans are to insist there be significant budget cuts before the ceiling is raised
-On a related note, freshmen Congress-folks are not convinced Geithner or the Obama Administration is serious about tying debt ceiling increase with significant debt reduction strategies. Somebody needs to explain to these newbies these are tax and spend and spend and spend democrats they are referring to. What part of "spend and spend and spend" are they struggling to understand?

Snowfall Records Continue to Be Set

Most of my readers know that I am not a proponent of man-made global warming. This opposition is based on two things. First of all, I am a meteorologist. While I was not trained as some prestigious school like Peen State or MIT, steeped in scientific learning, I have years of practical experience. I have studied weather trends that occur over the short duration as well as climatic trends that occur over the centuries (and longer). And if there is one thing that I do know is that weather changes from day to day, year to year, decade to decade, century to century, and eon to eon.

The second reason why I have my doubts is that of those who believe in global warming and would like to change how we live (dramatic change in many cases) tend to be of the progressive/socialist belief system. To many of these people, it isn’t so much that they want necessarily want to change the way we live to save the planet, they want us to change our ways because they want to control our ways. The want to dictate what kind of car we drive, how warm or cool we keep our houses, and even where we live.

It is Not Climate Change

This is just stupid beyond belief. Al Roker, the “Today” show weather bubba is blaming the increased tornadoes on climate change. Well, he could have had a decent argument. The number of tornadoes is at the extreme maximum amount but my research indicates we are still below a couple of years in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Where he blew it and probably showed that he really might not know what he is talking about is when said this:

“We have had these tornadoes and earlier this week we had a tornado in Philadelphia. And so, you know out weather, or climate change is such now that we are seeing this kind of weather not just in rural parts of our country, but in urban centers as well.” (Source: The Daily Caller)

Depoe Bay Vacation, Day Four

Day Four today. Weather was dicey today. Wind and rain, even a few ice pellets.  Not as bad as over in the valley. Two inches of hail fell in some parts of Portland during rush hour, causing much havoc in the traffic pattern.

Did Mo's today. Got the Chowder Bowl and cheese bread.  Good stuff Maynard!  The wife and my mom picked up their glass creations today.  Interesting art work.  Took the older boy to another tattoo shop. We let him ask the questions this time. He asked the right questions, only needed a little help from his mom. He truly seems interested in doing this.  I am a bit worried that he is going to do something teenager (i.e. stupid) and get it done on the sly.

California No Longer "Cruising" Along

The bad news for California continues unabated. First off, they cannot seem to get control of their debt, the unemployment rate continues to remain above 12%, and businesses are leaving in droves (here are 10 reasons why).  Now comes word that the Cruise industry is abandoning California ports due to the economy and tourists’ fears of violence in Mexico.

See my previous posts (here and here) on the state of The State of California. But they do have nice weather.

Coldest Jan in Quite A While

The average temperature for January 2011 was -0.8F cooler than the 1901-2000 average.  It was also the coldest since 1994.

It is possible Georgia could set the record for their coldest winter ever.

The state of Oklahoma has set their all time record for the coldest temperature ever recorded.

Blizzard of 2011, Round II (A Letter to OwlGore)

Dear OwlGore,

  Hello from the Midwest! (actually, I'm not from the Midwest) How are you doing these days? Are you staying nice and warm in your massive Cadillac SUV, your 20 room mansion that uses more energy to heat then many small towns, or one your private fuel-sucking jet as you fly to far-flung locations around the world? It is a little chilly where a lot of us are from. See the maps that I have attached to this letter.

Minimum Temperatures

Blizzard of 2011

Do you want to see some cold? Here is a map of the low temperatures in the wake of the Blizzard of 2011 (Source: Plymouth State Weather Center)

Click the image for a larger view

Single digits as far south as El Paso, TX.

Below the fold is a wind chill and snow depths maps.

Blizzard of 2011

A large chunk of the US stretching from Oklahoma City through Chicago to Update New York are paralyzed due to the blizzard that began when warm air from the Gulf of Mexico clashed with cold air racing down from Canada. A perfect mixture for the heavy snows and blizzard conditions.

Chicago closed schools for the first time in years. O’Hara Airport won’t open until tomorrow (Thu), and Lakeshore Drive was shut down as more than a foot of snow fell on the Windy City.

Even worse, a band of freezing rain south of the snow has broken tree branches and caused widespread power outages due to snapped electrical lines.

For the most part, it looks like the storm has moved out into the Atlantic so now begins the process of digging out.  Good luck to all of you living in the region, stay safe and stay warm.

Weather Outlook

Take a look this post from one of my favorite bloggers about the impending weather outbreak in Midwest. It is short and sweet and to the point. The Midwest is about to get pounded.

Awesome Blizzard Video

This time-lapse video is beyond cool. Really gives you an idea of how fast the snow piled up. If the embed does not work, just click this link then view the video.

December 2010 Blizzard Timelapse from Michael Black on Vimeo.

Weather

The past 24 hours have brought some interesting weather to our little corner of the world. On Sat it was a cold rain with nearly a foot of snowfall in the mountains.  But come Sat evening, here comes the wind and torrential rainfall and warmer temperatures.  It got so warm the snow-level climbed to above 6,000 feet. In fact, most of the Cascade ski areas were either running limited operations, or were shut down completely.  Going to church this AM, the river was running pretty high. I have not seen any reports on major flooding, but I am sure the usual areas have been causing some problems.

It's Snowing

Well, not here at my house in the lowlands, but it has been falling fast and furious up on the passes.  Stevens Pass and White Pass have not yet given snowfall totals but the web cams show lots of the white stuff on the ground.  I wonder if this keeps up if the areas will be able to open by Thanksgiving.

Really looking forward to taking the boys up skiing this year. One of the best treats for my boys and I is that my wife (and their mother) comes with us although she is not a skier. She'll stake out a place in the White Pass lodge, giving us a base of operations. Armed with a book or needlepoint, she'll spend the day chatting with the other mothers, and occansional father, who do the same thing. We'll have cooler with sandwich makin's, probably some fruit salad, and drinks. We have to purchase some of the hot and greasy fries of course.