Some folks yearn for the 2 week camping trip, others for a beach, others for the luxury hotel and spa in a fabulous city. like Paris or Rome. I would not mind that, but for the current cost of traveling overseas. No matter where you go in the US, the employees are never obsequious enough for me - even at a Four Seasons level accommodation. For the truly heights of butt-kissing accommodations you need to go to France or Britain. And then, you need to fly, and unless you want to spend more on airfare than the fanciest suite in Paris for a week, you end up flying coach. Even then, you still need to go to an airport, and deal with the crowds.
But this is not about that . .. this is about travel with true luxury. Luxury of time, Luxury of space and luxury of ease. It may sound silly, but we have a vacation home on an ordinary middle class street on an ordinary public golf course in a small town in South Carolina. That town is truly the last small town on the coast between Down East Maine and Miami that is not over developed and ugly. Nor is is very expensive. This is an ordinary 3 bed 2 bath home, with the only distinguishing element being a pool.
Yet, provides the ultimate oasis. The reason is that we do not have to pack anything. Even traveling to a posh suite in Paris or Maui or wherever, you have to pack your stuff. You need to plan, and choose and select and pack and deal with the hassle of air travel and the risk that Chuck in Connecticut will rifle through your stuff because your stuff got sent there instead of to Charles DeGaulle. You have to lug your stuff to your posh suite, even if the butler puts it away.
In our case, we can fly our own airplane into the local small county airport, only 5.5 miles from the house, take a free courtesy shuttle van to out house, drive the van back to the airport with our local vehicle, go food shopping at the supermarket on the way home, and there we are - home.
We have clothes and toiletries and games and toys and liquor and food and everything we could want. ALREADY THERE.
We decide to go, and 6 hours later we are sitting on the porch having a libation. No TSA body cavity search, no rude french cabbies who are really islamic terrorists in training, No hassle. We save time. The ultimate luxury. I realized that waxing my wife's car for a mothers day gift today. I washed, and waxed and vacuumed and cleaned, and then waxed it again. Then I'll cook dinner for her. I gave her the luxury of time, of not worrying about when she can find time to clean the car, and not worrying about cleaning, or choosing a restaurant to dine in and to wait in line on mothers day. A quiet day. Simple, with family. And freedom of time.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Friday, May 11, 2007
Eastern US temps to be 110F in 2080
Lookie lookie - the sky is falling the sky is falling - oh what can we do now, please save us . .
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18601954/
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/extreme_summer.html
I read the article. I have some questions, and I posed them in an email to the principal researcher - see what you think. If he answers me, I'll post it here -
Professor Lynn - as an amateur astronomer, pilot and weather buff who has a home weather station and a decade of records, I am sorry that I could only view your article in the April 2007 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate with incredulity. While of course you are credentialed researcher and I am but a poor smuck on the street, your conclusion that somehow summer average temperatures will increase by 10F over the course the next 80 years strains my mental faculties. It moreover makes no sense based on obervable criteria.
Your computer models may tell you what your research published, but the conclusion is contradictory both internally and externally.
In order to make your conclusion viable, essentially, global warming must create a semi-permanent La Nina. In effect, the warming atmosphere will cause the ocean under it to cool across a vast area of the Pacific Ocean and allows a trough to form over the eastren Pacific, which encourages the development of a downstream ridge over the Eastern CONUS. Thereafter, that La Nina will not cause a heat imbalance, which would assist in reversing the pressures and then the temperature, but, remain a semi-permanent feature of summer, which downstream causes a teleconnection that pumps up the Azores / Bermuda High causing a decrease in precipiation which allows the ground to warm in a closed loop.
I'll state again that I am not a climate scientist, but your conclusion makes no sense based on 50 years of living in the northeast and watching what happen when temperatures warm in the area. You know for a fact that air becomes more able to carry moisture as it warms. So, where do your models show dewpoints in 80 years? There is no way that 70F+ dewpoints will not create at least airmass TSRA even in the absence of cold fronts. What will happen is that the influence of these warms temps and the Bermuda High will warm the ocean under it, which, as we know, will weaken the High, allowing cooler air from the poles to come south into this incredibly moist airmass. The TSRA will be spectacular and the droughts and high temps ended as the TSRA moisten the ground. What you are essentially stating is the summer climate of the Carolinas will come north 7-8 degrees latitude. What do we see every single day in the Carolinas from the Solstice to late August? Afternoon airmass TSRA. And that’s what you'll get in this situation. Efectively limiting the heating by the cloud cover in afternoon.
Every other study I have seen shows El Nino becoming predominant in a global warming scenario, not a La Nina. El nino summers are generally cool and damp the northeast USA since the warm air over the eastern Pacific creates a down stream trough in the atmosphere. You are essentially arguing that this will not happen since if an El nino becomes a semi=permanent phenomenom the normal consequence of that will not happen in the atmosphere because of 'Global Warming.' That is not a good enough excuse. The laws of physics and the way the atmosphere works do not change because someone has a computer model. You admit that the teleconnection between the EastPac trough and Eastern CONUS ridge exists, so if an El Nino forms, a trough will predominate over the Eastern CONUS, bringing cooler and not warmer temps.
In order to scientificablly viable, a global warming model, and in fact the entire argument for human caused global warming, needs to explain how global 'cooling' existed in the 1960's and 1970's. If a model cannot explain already known phenomena, then it cannot satisfy any reasonably rigorous scientific review. We should be able to wind the global warming models back to 1900, add the CO2 and recreate the climate that we KNOW happened. If we can't do that, then the models are wrong.
Finally, I have one question that I have NEVER seen answered simply and coherently. If one looks at the blackbody absorption spectra of water vapor and CO2, they overlap. Logically, if water vapor is already absorbing all of the radiation at a certain frequency, how is CO2 going to add to the absorbtion of re-radiated infrared? It is akin to adding a piece of paper to aluminum foil covering a window; the room gets no darker. Every purported explanation begs the question, and uses as an example the planet Venus, with its' dense CO2 atmosphere and high temperatures. However, Venus has orders of magnitude less water vapor than Earth. It is akin to looking at an apple and calling it an orange because it is a fruit.
I am not one of those deniers of global warming. I simply have an open mind and want to be convinced of the Science before I start tinkering as a species with the climate of a planet whose largess we need to continue to survive.
I look forward to your scholarly input -
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18601954/
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/extreme_summer.html
I read the article. I have some questions, and I posed them in an email to the principal researcher - see what you think. If he answers me, I'll post it here -
Professor Lynn - as an amateur astronomer, pilot and weather buff who has a home weather station and a decade of records, I am sorry that I could only view your article in the April 2007 issue of the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate with incredulity. While of course you are credentialed researcher and I am but a poor smuck on the street, your conclusion that somehow summer average temperatures will increase by 10F over the course the next 80 years strains my mental faculties. It moreover makes no sense based on obervable criteria.
Your computer models may tell you what your research published, but the conclusion is contradictory both internally and externally.
In order to make your conclusion viable, essentially, global warming must create a semi-permanent La Nina. In effect, the warming atmosphere will cause the ocean under it to cool across a vast area of the Pacific Ocean and allows a trough to form over the eastren Pacific, which encourages the development of a downstream ridge over the Eastern CONUS. Thereafter, that La Nina will not cause a heat imbalance, which would assist in reversing the pressures and then the temperature, but, remain a semi-permanent feature of summer, which downstream causes a teleconnection that pumps up the Azores / Bermuda High causing a decrease in precipiation which allows the ground to warm in a closed loop.
I'll state again that I am not a climate scientist, but your conclusion makes no sense based on 50 years of living in the northeast and watching what happen when temperatures warm in the area. You know for a fact that air becomes more able to carry moisture as it warms. So, where do your models show dewpoints in 80 years? There is no way that 70F+ dewpoints will not create at least airmass TSRA even in the absence of cold fronts. What will happen is that the influence of these warms temps and the Bermuda High will warm the ocean under it, which, as we know, will weaken the High, allowing cooler air from the poles to come south into this incredibly moist airmass. The TSRA will be spectacular and the droughts and high temps ended as the TSRA moisten the ground. What you are essentially stating is the summer climate of the Carolinas will come north 7-8 degrees latitude. What do we see every single day in the Carolinas from the Solstice to late August? Afternoon airmass TSRA. And that’s what you'll get in this situation. Efectively limiting the heating by the cloud cover in afternoon.
Every other study I have seen shows El Nino becoming predominant in a global warming scenario, not a La Nina. El nino summers are generally cool and damp the northeast USA since the warm air over the eastern Pacific creates a down stream trough in the atmosphere. You are essentially arguing that this will not happen since if an El nino becomes a semi=permanent phenomenom the normal consequence of that will not happen in the atmosphere because of 'Global Warming.' That is not a good enough excuse. The laws of physics and the way the atmosphere works do not change because someone has a computer model. You admit that the teleconnection between the EastPac trough and Eastern CONUS ridge exists, so if an El Nino forms, a trough will predominate over the Eastern CONUS, bringing cooler and not warmer temps.
In order to scientificablly viable, a global warming model, and in fact the entire argument for human caused global warming, needs to explain how global 'cooling' existed in the 1960's and 1970's. If a model cannot explain already known phenomena, then it cannot satisfy any reasonably rigorous scientific review. We should be able to wind the global warming models back to 1900, add the CO2 and recreate the climate that we KNOW happened. If we can't do that, then the models are wrong.
Finally, I have one question that I have NEVER seen answered simply and coherently. If one looks at the blackbody absorption spectra of water vapor and CO2, they overlap. Logically, if water vapor is already absorbing all of the radiation at a certain frequency, how is CO2 going to add to the absorbtion of re-radiated infrared? It is akin to adding a piece of paper to aluminum foil covering a window; the room gets no darker. Every purported explanation begs the question, and uses as an example the planet Venus, with its' dense CO2 atmosphere and high temperatures. However, Venus has orders of magnitude less water vapor than Earth. It is akin to looking at an apple and calling it an orange because it is a fruit.
I am not one of those deniers of global warming. I simply have an open mind and want to be convinced of the Science before I start tinkering as a species with the climate of a planet whose largess we need to continue to survive.
I look forward to your scholarly input -
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
I WON!!!
I won FreeLotto! I never even bought a ticket!! Maybe that is the key to winning the lottery, don't buy a ticket, and wait for them to come to you. This one has to be legit - it is in London! Why, all they need is my name, address, bank information, social security number [I wonder how they know about that in England?] annual income, last tax return [to establish identity of course] occupation and spouse and children's names. I can't believe I finally won the lottery.
Why, I will quit my job today and make sure my spouse does the same. I called the number and gave him all the information they asked for, he was very nice. Well, I made up the social security number using an '800' number - I think it was a phone number for sex line I saw in the back of FM magazine. There was little pause when I told him I was a Treasury Agent in charge of internet fraud schemes. He told me he had another call, and promised to call me back. We never got to my bank information so they could deposit the check. I guess we'll deal with that when he calls back.
One has to wonder - is anyone that stupid? Paypal, Tax Refund schemes, if there is a way to get your identity they'll steal it. The one scheme I have NOT seen yet is selling people goods for very low prices and using the stolen identities to deliver the goods to the first few dozen people so no one gets suspicious. Guess that might actually be work, and the scammers definitely want to avoid that.
At this point, anyone who gives any personal information over the internet via an unsolicited email deserves what they get.
The one that took the cake was my credit card company which for real sent out a newsletter that required you to log in to get it. Are they nuts? I called them, and after the usual transferring around finally spoke to someone in fraud and security who had a cow when I told them about it. That was about 6 months ago.
Does ANYONE really ever log in to the fake 'Fifth Third Bank" login? And where is the Fifth Third Bank anyway?
Why, I will quit my job today and make sure my spouse does the same. I called the number and gave him all the information they asked for, he was very nice. Well, I made up the social security number using an '800' number - I think it was a phone number for sex line I saw in the back of FM magazine. There was little pause when I told him I was a Treasury Agent in charge of internet fraud schemes. He told me he had another call, and promised to call me back. We never got to my bank information so they could deposit the check. I guess we'll deal with that when he calls back.
One has to wonder - is anyone that stupid? Paypal, Tax Refund schemes, if there is a way to get your identity they'll steal it. The one scheme I have NOT seen yet is selling people goods for very low prices and using the stolen identities to deliver the goods to the first few dozen people so no one gets suspicious. Guess that might actually be work, and the scammers definitely want to avoid that.
At this point, anyone who gives any personal information over the internet via an unsolicited email deserves what they get.
The one that took the cake was my credit card company which for real sent out a newsletter that required you to log in to get it. Are they nuts? I called them, and after the usual transferring around finally spoke to someone in fraud and security who had a cow when I told them about it. That was about 6 months ago.
Does ANYONE really ever log in to the fake 'Fifth Third Bank" login? And where is the Fifth Third Bank anyway?
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