Global Warming

[Soldier4Christ]

Sun Still In Deep Slumber - 2008 Now Ranks #2 Since 1900 in # Sunspotless Days

With the number of sunspotless days reaching 16 so far this month, we have now exceeded 1912 as the 2nd quietest sun year since 1900. Only 1913 ranked higher with 311 days. With 12 more days this month as of this writing, we could reach as high as 266 days. Note that 2007 also ranked in the top 10.

And guess what? An extreme cold period hit the world in 1912 and 1913 just as it is doing now.

[Soldier4Christ]

Record snowstorm shuts down Spokane
The most snow - ever! – in a 24-hour period


The winter storm that paralyzed Spokane set a record for the amount of snow dumped in a 24-hour period, the National Weather Service said Thursday.

Some 17 inches of snow was recorded at Spokane International Airport, 4 inches more than the record 13 inches set in 1984. Records have been kept since 1881.

More than 3 additional inches of snow had fallen on the city since 4 a.m., the weather service said, driving the total to more than 20 inches.

Last year the region endured one of the snowiest winters in its history.

..... and there is more yet to come.


Parade of winter storms to continue into Hanukkah and Christmas

Three more storms will travel from the West Coast to the Midwest to the Northeast in the days leading up to the holiday, producing substantial snow and soaking rain over the Midwest and Northeast. A layer of ice will be sandwiched in between.

The current storm train will emerge onto the Plains tonight, but not before blanketing the southern Rockies with up to a foot of snow today.

Between 6 to 12 inches is forecast from southern Wisconsin to southern New England, including the cities of Detroit, Buffalo and Boston.

Twenty-two inches of snow blanketed Llano, California, in the upper deserts northeast of Los Angeles. Wrightwood, a nearby mountain, received 30 inches.

Another storm will likely dump more snow the two days before Christmas.

[Soldier4Christ]

Scientists: Man caused global warming ... 8,000 years ago
Study says development of agriculture has prevented new ice age

ScienceDaily (Dec. 18, 2008) — The common wisdom is that the invention of the steam engine and the advent of the coal-fueled industrial age marked the beginning of human influence on global climate.

But gathering physical evidence, backed by powerful simulations on the world's most advanced computer climate models, is reshaping that view and lending strong support to the radical idea that human-induced climate change began not 200 years ago, but thousands of years ago with the onset of large-scale agriculture in Asia and extensive deforestation in Europe.

What's more, according to the same computer simulations, the cumulative effect of thousands of years of human influence on climate is preventing the world from entering a new glacial age, altering a clockwork rhythm of periodic cooling of the planet that extends back more than a million years.

"This challenges the paradigm that things began changing with the Industrial Revolution," says Stephen Vavrus, a climatologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Climatic Research and the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies. "If you think about even a small rate of increase over a long period of time, it becomes important."

Addressing scientists on Dec 17 at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Vavrus and colleagues John Kutzbach and Gwenaëlle Philippon provided detailed evidence in support of a controversial idea first put forward by climatologist William F. Ruddiman of the University of Virginia. That idea, debated for the past several years by climate scientists, holds that the introduction of large-scale rice agriculture in Asia, coupled with extensive deforestation in Europe began to alter world climate by pumping significant amounts of greenhouse gases — methane from terraced rice paddies and carbon dioxide from burning forests — into the atmosphere. In turn, a warmer atmosphere heated the oceans making them much less efficient storehouses of carbon dioxide and reinforcing global warming.

That one-two punch, say Kutzbach and Vavrus, was enough to set human-induced climate change in motion.

"No one disputes the large rate of increase in greenhouse gases with the Industrial Revolution," Kutzbach notes. "The large-scale burning of coal for industry has swamped everything else" in the record.

But looking farther back in time, using climatic archives such as 850,000-year-old ice core records from Antarctica, scientists are teasing out evidence of past greenhouse gases in the form of fossil air trapped in the ice. That ancient air, say Vavrus and Kutzbach, contains the unmistakable signature of increased levels of atmospheric methane and carbon dioxide beginning thousands of years before the industrial age.

"Between 5,000 and 8,000 years ago, both methane and carbon dioxide started an upward trend, unlike during previous interglacial periods," explains Kutzbach. Indeed, Ruddiman has shown that during the latter stages of six previous interglacials, greenhouse gases trended downward, not upward. Thus, the accumulation of greenhouse gases over the past few thousands of years, the Wisconsin-Virginia team argue, is very likely forestalling the onset of a new glacial cycle, such as have occurred at regular 100,000-year intervals during the last million years. Each glacial period has been paced by regular and predictable changes in the orbit of the Earth known as Milankovitch cycles, a mechanism thought to kick start glacial cycles.

"We're at a very favorable state right now for increased glaciation," says Kutzbach. "Nature is favoring it at this time in orbital cycles, and if humans weren't in the picture it would probably be happening today."

Importantly, the new research underscores the key role of greenhouse gases in influencing Earth's climate. Whereas decreasing greenhouse gases in the past helped initiate glaciations, the early agricultural and recent industrial increases in greenhouse gases may be forestalling them, say Kutzbach and Vavrus.

Using three different climate models and removing the amount of greenhouse gases humans have injected into the atmosphere during the past 5,000 to 8,000 years, Vavrus and Kutzbach observed more permanent snow and ice cover in regions of Canada, Siberia, Greenland and the Rocky Mountains, all known to be seed regions for glaciers from previous ice ages. Vavrus notes: "With every feedback we've included, it seems to support the hypothesis (of a forestalled ice age) even more. We keep getting the same answer."

[Soldier4Christ]

With the science of global warming falling flat on it's face those scientists that have been global warming advocates are fighting to save face. They are struggling and grasping at any straw in the dark just to maintain their false theories and continued attempt to prove that they are right and God is wrong.

Even if they were correct in saying that mankind is responsible for global warming (which they aren't) what is wrong with this? A glacial age would be detrimental to both the earth and to all living things on the earth.

[HisDaughter]

Record snowstorm shuts down Spokane
The most snow - ever! – in a 24-hour period


The winter storm that paralyzed Spokane set a record for the amount of snow dumped in a 24-hour period, the National Weather Service said Thursday.

Some 17 inches of snow was recorded at Spokane International Airport, 4 inches more than the record 13 inches set in 1984. Records have been kept since 1881.

More than 3 additional inches of snow had fallen on the city since 4 a.m., the weather service said, driving the total to more than 20 inches.

Last year the region endured one of the snowiest winters in its history.

..... and there is more yet to come.


Parade of winter storms to continue into Hanukkah and Christmas

Three more storms will travel from the West Coast to the Midwest to the Northeast in the days leading up to the holiday, producing substantial snow and soaking rain over the Midwest and Northeast. A layer of ice will be sandwiched in between.

The current storm train will emerge onto the Plains tonight, but not before blanketing the southern Rockies with up to a foot of snow today.

Between 6 to 12 inches is forecast from southern Wisconsin to southern New England, including the cities of Detroit, Buffalo and Boston.

Twenty-two inches of snow blanketed Llano, California, in the upper deserts northeast of Los Angeles. Wrightwood, a nearby mountain, received 30 inches.

Another storm will likely dump more snow the two days before Christmas.

One of my grandaughters and one of my best friends live in Spokane.  My grandaughter is supposed to fly into Seattle today for Christmas break.  We are still waiting to see if she can make it.

[nChrist]

There is one good thing about the extremely COLD weather. It might slow down or stop the nude bicycle riding.   

[Soldier4Christ]

Nearly 1500 cold temp records & 770 snow records set in U.S. in past week!
Atlanta Bismarck Boise Butte Chicago Denver Houston Miami Minneapolis Mobile New York Oklahoma City Phoenix Portland Raleigh San Francisco Seattle St. Louis

Yep, "human influence on climate is preventing the world from entering a new glacial age" ... ri-ight....


 

[Shammu]

Using three different climate models and removing the amount of greenhouse gases humans have injected into the atmosphere during the past 5,000 to 8,000 years

That would be kind of hard, since this world is only 6,000 years old.

There is one good thing about the extremely COLD weather. It might slow down or stop the nude bicycle riding.   

Nearly 1500 cold temp records & 770 snow records set in U.S. in past week!
Atlanta Bismarck Boise Butte Chicago Denver Houston Miami Minneapolis Mobile New York Oklahoma City Phoenix Portland Raleigh San Francisco Seattle St. Louis

Yep, "human influence on climate is preventing the world from entering a new glacial age" ... ri-ight....


 

I don't know about y'all but, we had a heat wave here. It got up to 44 degrees, now that is above the norm. My normal temp here is around 33-35 degrees. But it is suppose to cool back down Monday.

I kind of enjoyed the warmth today.

With the science of global warming falling flat on it's face those scientists that have been global warming advocates are fighting to save face. They are struggling and grasping at any straw in the dark just to maintain their false theories and continued attempt to prove that they are right and God is wrong.

All man can do is lie to get his way.

[HisDaughter]

I just got home.  Buses are few and far between.  We've got another snow storm that is expected to drop 6-8in on top of the 4-6 that we had the other day.  At my house we've already got the extra 5 and it only started late this afternoon.  It's expected to last all day tomorrow.

If Al Gore were here I would make him lay down, at squirtgun point and make snow angles while hollering to the world: "I'm an idiot!!", "I'm a liar!!", I'm an idiot!!"
What a moron.

At least my grandaughter made it in from Spokane so I will have all my grandchildren here for Christmas! (She is only 6 just in case some you think I'm old...I'M NOT!)   

[Soldier4Christ]

I just got home.  Buses are few and far between.  We've got another snow storm that is expected to drop 6-8in on top of the 4-6 that we had the other day.  At my house we've already got the extra 5 and it only started late this afternoon.  It's expected to last all day tomorrow.

If Al Gore were here I would make him lay down, at squirtgun point and make snow angles while hollering to the world: "I'm an idiot!!", "I'm a liar!!", I'm an idiot!!"
What a moron.

Obama needs to be right along side of him.

_____________

If politics were a beach, President-elect Barack Obama would be kicking a little Al Gore sand onto President Bush today.

In his Saturday web address to the nation, the next president, in announcing the completion of his White House science team, says his administration will be marked by a respect for scientific inquiry even when the truths it reveals are "inconvenient."

Obama said in part:

Because the truth is that promoting science isn't just about providing resources--it's about protecting free and open inquiry. It's about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It's about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it's inconvenient--especially when it's inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as President of the United States--and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work.

Former Vice President Gore has spent recent years castigating Bush and his administration for ignoring scientific results that didn't fit with their conservative worldview, a critique that culminated in Gore's Oscar-winning movie "An Inconvenient Truth" and in his winning a Nobel Prize.

It was a criticism made by many others that appeared to be borne out by reporting by journalists.

Those days are over, Obama was essentially saying.

Obama's science team includes Harvard University professor John Holdren who will be assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Dr. Harold Varmus, a Nobel-Prize winning cancer researcher and onetime Director of the National Institutes of Health, and Eric Lander of MIT and Harvard, a leader of the Human Genome Project, were named Council of Advisors on Science and Technology co-chairs.

Also, Jane Lubchenco, an Oregon State University marine scientist respected for her environmental research, was named administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration which is part of the Commerce Department.

At least my grandaughter made it in from Spokane so I will have all my grandchildren here for Christmas! (She is only 6 just in case some you think I'm old...I'M NOT!)  

 

[HisDaughter]

quote: Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us.

I thought that's what we turned to GOD for.

[Soldier4Christ]

quote: Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us.

I thought that's what we turned to GOD for.

Only those that believe in Him do. Others turn to their false god's.

[HisDaughter]

Only those that believe in Him do. Others turn to their false god's.

Exactly.

[HisDaughter]

Dan DeLong / P-ITwo buses slid down the snow- and ice-covered East Thomas Street, hitting each other and then careening on through a guardrail on Melrose Avenue East, and finally stopping, 20 to 30 feet above Interstate 5.
Students screamed as bus crashed through I-5 barrier
'Start praying now'
By MIKE BARBER, BRAD WONG AND KERY MURAKAMI
P-I REPORTERS

Packed with students ready for the holidays, two chartered buses headed downtown Friday on Seattle's icy, snowy streets.

Drivers had taken the buses -- weighing tens of thousands of pounds -- down East Thomas Street because it is part of a loop used by buses exiting northbound Interstate 5 onto Olive Way. They can't turn left where Olive crosses Denny Way.

Suddenly, "I was watching the cars drive below us," said Jesse Till, a 20-year-old passenger who was on the phone with his mother at the time.

The two Northwestern Trailways buses slid down the snow-covered cobblestones of East Thomas on Capitol Hill and smashed into each other, careening through a guardrail on Melrose Avenue East, 20 to 30 feet above Interstate 5.

Till's one thought: "I'm going to die."

The buses were caravanning about 80 students with the Columbia Basin Job Corps home for Christmas break from Moses Lake to Seattle's Greyhound bus station. A third bus in the caravan escaped the crash.

Instead of reaching the station, the buses came to rest with their front ends hanging over I-5.

Seattle police were investigating the accident Friday, but a report could take months to complete, department spokeswoman Renee Witt said.

Neither driver received a citation at the scene, she said, and "drivers were not aware of the icy conditions on East Thomas."

Rick Sheridan, a Seattle Department of Transportation spokesman, said transportation crews keep a list of streets that could be closed because of snow and ice.

"It is not one that we typically highlight for being closed," he said. "But again, it's all about conditions of a specific storm."

Witt was uncertain whether East Thomas was officially open or not. Exactly why the street had vehicles traveling on it, including buses that measured 40 to 45 feet, remained unclear Friday.

All the passengers got off the buses with mainly minor injuries. A dozen, ranging in age from 18 to 23, were taken to Harborview Medical Center as a precaution.

They suffered bumps, bruises, minor cuts, and neck and knee pain, a hospital spokeswoman said.

A representative for Northwestern Trailways, which has offices in Spokane and Boise, Idaho, said Friday evening that supervisors were unavailable to comment.

On Friday night, crews managed to remove the buses, a state transportation spokeswoman said. The accident, which occurred around 12:30 p.m., had closed the two right northbound lanes of Interstate 5, causing a half-mile backup. All lanes of I-5 near Denny should be open by Saturday morning.

Till, a Tacoma resident who was on the first bus, said he knew something was wrong when it started down the hill. As he talked on the phone with his mother, Patty Till, he grabbed his friend's knee.

Patty Till, who was going to meet him at the Greyhound station in Tacoma, panicked and raced to Seattle.

"I just heard a lot of chaos and crashing sounds," she said.

Passenger Rico Collins, 16, said the buses exited I-5 at Olive Way, taking a route westbound down East Thomas. The first bus hit the railing and the second apparently turned at the last moment striking it on the side instead of the rear.

"It almost pushed the first bus off," said Jessica Gilbertson, a 19-year-old from Burien who was on the second bus.

Students pulled emergency window latches and jumped out windows.

"I was just sitting in the back of the bus, and I didn't think anything like this would happen," said Collins, who was on the second bus.

Another passenger on the second bus, Alex Hammell, 16, of Bothell, said passengers were telling the driver, "Don't go down this hill." Windows shattered, and people were cut, he said.

Gilbertson was sitting in the middle section of the second bus' right side. She quickly spotted the first bus, which was stuck. "I saw the tail end of the (other) bus come right at my face," she said.

Jeremy Barker, who lives on East Thomas, did not see the accident but said the street, a steep cobblestone road covered by snow Friday, is a common route for buses headed to the Greyhound station.

Buses leave northbound I-5 at Olive Way, Barker said. The streets are configured so that those exiting the freeway can't turn left to go west on Denny Way.

Buses must make a left from Olive onto Bellevue Avenue East; from there, the next left they can make is onto East Thomas.

"I don't think the city knows that it (Thomas) is a bus route, it's a minor street or else I think the city would have closed it," Barker said.

Judi Milburn said she saw the accident as she was walking down Thomas.

Had the second bus not turned, it would have hit the first bus square-on from the rear and knocked it over the barrier, Milburn said.

The Columbia Basin Job Corps is a federal education and job-training program for students 16 to 24 years old, who live on residential campuses.

One student, Brittney Doyle, 18, of Enumclaw, who was on the first bus in a fourth row seat, said the bus began to slide as it descended the hill, hitting the curb.

"I started praying when we bumped the curb. I was like, 'Oh, my God, start praying now,' " she said.

As the bus gained momentum, Doyle said she looked across to the other side of the freeway and fixed her eyes on a sign. "I just saw the Evergreen Bank sign getting closer and closer and I thought, 'Oh, my God, we're not going to stop,' " she said. "When we were hit by the second bus everybody started panicking. They all scrambled out the (emergency) windows."

Passenger Cody Lamb, 22, was unhurt and made it to the Greyhound Bus station at Eighth Avenue and Stewart Street, where his mother, Evelyn Lamb, who knew about the accident, waited.

When she saw Cody arrive unhurt, she cried, "There he is ... I was wondering if he was hurt. I was scared to death."

She was just happy to have her son home safe.

"We don't have much for Christmas," she said. "It was just going to be us."

[HisDaughter]

Winter Weather Blasts Nation From Coast to Coast
Sunday, December 21, 2008


Dec. 20: A giant star on a Macy's store shines as heavy snow falls late at night in downtown Seattle.

 SEATTLE —  A fierce winter storm blew in from the Pacific with up to 2 feet of snow and icy wind, creating a nightmare for holiday travelers already stymied by winter's fury across the northern half of the country.

Snow, sleet and freezing rain caused treacherous driving conditions throughout the Pacific Northwest. Sections of two major highways — Interstate 84 in Oregon east of Portland, and Interstate 90 in Washington — were closed overnight into Sunday and authorities urged people not to drive unless it was an emergency.

"It is extremely dangerous to be on the roads at this time," said Multnomah County Deputy Paul McRedmond, sheriff's spokesman.

Centralia, about 25 miles south of Olympia, had already received 9 inches Saturday night. The Seattle area was predicted to get 4 to 8 inches, and early Sunday had a wind chill of 15, the national Weather Service said.

"It'll be nasty well into Sunday evening," said Jonathan Wolfe, a weather service meteorologist.

A blizzard warning was posted for parts of the Columbia River Gorge between the two states.

Winter Storms Grip the Nation Authorities closed a 45-mile stretch of Interstate 84 from the Portland suburb of Troutdale to East River, Ore., and Interstate 90 across Snoqualmie Pass in the Cascade Range, Washington's main east-west roadway. There was no indication how long the highways would be closed.

The storm striking the Northwest on the first official day of winter was the third major cold-weather system to punch the country in two days. Northeasterners, many still recovering from an ice storm earlier in the week, dug out Saturday from several inches of snow the night before, and Midwesterners coped with weekend blizzard conditions.

Blizzard warnings were in effect Sunday for parts of northern Illinois, Iowa and southern Minnesota, the weather service said.

Homeless people filled shelters in Chicago, where the Sunday morning low was 6 below zero, with a wind chill down to about 29 below. Jennifer Martinez of the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communication said social service workers went out to check on people living on the streets and the elderly who live alone.

Parts of Michigan had gotten 13 inches of snow from the latest storm.

As of Saturday, the December snowfall total in Bismarck, N.D., nearly equaled the 19.3-inch accumulation for of all last winter, said weather service meteorologist Joshua Scheck.

"The thing about North Dakota is that it's extreme," Scheck said. "For several years we haven't had an aggressive winter like this."

"If you get caught in this stuff, it really is life-threatening," said Dan Miller, science and operations officer at the weather service in Duluth, Minn.

Authorities warned that the latest storm could deliver a wallop as it moved eastward, potentially causing new power outages.

Gov. John Lynch of New Hampshire, where more than 20,000 homes and businesses were still in the dark Saturday, noted the long wait and the threat of further power failures, with a chance of up to 16 inches of snow forecast for the southern part of the state.

"I continue to hear frustration from the local communities regarding communication with the utilities, and I share their frustration," he said.