Alert Reader and Ruby Tuesday Connoisseur Tammy and I went to, ah, Ruby Tuesday tonight. We were standing in the entryway where people who are not being help stand, waiting patiently to be helped, when a man approached us. He made eye contact with Tammy and said:

"Are you being helped?"

He continued approaching us as he said this, and Tammy responded:

"No."

Still walking towards us (reminiscent of the "castle charging" scene by Sir Lancelot the Brave in Monty Python and the Holy Grail) he nodded a small nod of recognition as if to say "Sorry about that I'll seat you now" and then walked right past us and out of the restaurant.

* * *

I actually laughed out loud when the door shut behind him. It was partially from being bemused - because, really, who doesn't laugh when bemused? - and partially from the oddity of the whole thing. Who was this man? Did he work there? Or was he just a complete random stranger? Where was he headed?

While that entire situation was confusing it's not as confusing to me as something President Bush apparently said to the World Economic Forum. He told the Middle East that they were running out of oil, and that they (presumably the people in the Middle East with oil) had better get ready.

I really have no problem with that part. But keep in mind this comes on the heels of his Saudia Arabia trip wherein he asked the Saudis (wait for it) to pump more oil to ease prices.

So on the one hand they're running out of oil but please pump more and faster so that we'll have cheaper prices. Does that make any sense at all? If you've been reading here for any length of time you've probably surmised that my own politics lie right-of-center. But not even I can understand how this works, and I'm a political geek of the first order.

I'm entirely open to the possibility that there's some sort of Jedi Mind Trick at work here but I can't see it. It's like someone who asks you if you're being helped, and upon finding out that you're not promptly leaves the building.

Or as Sir Lancelot might explain:

Sir Lancelot: We were in the nick of time. You were in great peril.
Sir Galahad: I don't think I was.
Sir Lancelot: Yes, you were. You were in terrible peril.
Sir Galahad: Look, let me go back in there and face the peril.
Sir Lancelot: No, it's too perilous.

Posted by Carl at 9:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I know, you are probably wondering how I find this stuff. I obviously can't say as it's a trade secret.

The Sci-Fi channel has an "original movie" airing soon. Here's a screen capture from their site:

In case you missed that bit at the bottom which explains what this movie is about, it reads: "She's an ex-model. He's an elite commando. They're going to solve global warming - by stopping the aliens who are causing it!" There are a couple of take-aways here that you'll want to note:

1. Global warming is real. Never in the description is global warming in doubt.
2. Man is NOT causing global warming. This is a huge relief. We can all go back to our SUVs and air conditioning and flatulating cows now.
3. Aliens exist.
4. Aliens are causing global warming. I have no idea why they would do this but one can assume it's because aliens dislike us, our planet or our flatulating cows.
5. The aliens are no match for an ex-model and an elite commando.

I for one will be rushing out to get TIVO so that I can make sure I don't miss this new Sci-Fi channel documentary.

Posted by Carl at 11:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For some reason, I have never really paused to consider whether cows belch or not. In fact, I don't think I've stopped to consider whether or not any animals belch, with the possible exception of human beings, whom I think belch occasionally. But now a Swedish University is getting more than $500,000 to study the release of "greenhouse gases" when cows belch*.

How many cows can you study for $500k? About 20. Apparently when cows eat their food their digestive system releases methane. This methane can apparently travel up ("belch") or travel down ("unmentionable"). This study only looks at the up part. It is in no way funded by TUMS, as far as anyone knows.

Methane will be measured by a "collar device." The cows will be fed different diets, such as grass, cow food, Entenmann's Gluten Cookies, and beer. It's not clear what will happen to the cows after the study, or what will happen to cows globally if it's found that cows belch so much methane gas that the planet will be a seared desert in ten years.

Cow futures were unaffected at the time of this writing**.

*Belch = burp.
** Okay I didn't check that, but I did have cow for lunch.

Posted by Carl at 3:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It looks like I may have spoke too soon; this Model Spray shows that some of the models take Jerry dangerously close to Nanortalik, Greenland:

Nanortalik is the tenth biggest town in Greenland with 1564 people. I don't think they've had to deal with any Tropical Storms lately, and may be caught unawares. Please forward this blog post to all of your friends in Nanortalik so that they can board up their homes and bring the penguins inside.*

Random Map of Greenland

*Okay, I don't really think that they have penguins in Greenland but penguins are comic gold so I couldn't resist. In reality, they have to bring their polar bears inside. The polar bears have moved south due to Global Warming decreasing their food supply and Nanortalik is the closest town with an Arby's.

Posted by Carl at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NASA is predicting that global warming will cause more severe storms and tornadoes. Using a series of super-computers the size of 14 footballs fields* NASA has run climate models that show that as the Earth warms, severe storms and tornadoes are likely to become more common. Not only that, but the research also suggests that there may be more forest fires as a result of lightning, and that peanut crops are more likely to fail* and the Scandinavian Blue Warbler is probably on the verge of extinction.**

*Okay I made that up.
**I've just been informed that there is no such thing as the Scandinavian Blue Warbler to which I can only reply, "See, it's happening even faster than they thought."

Update: CNN and USA Today weigh in.

Posted by Carl at 10:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, I have to say that the hurricane season so far has surprised me. I think I predicted something like three hundred hurricanes, so unless we get busy here soon I'm probably (probably) going to fall short.

I did a model sweep and didn't see anything too interesting. The Canadian model does have a pretty nice storm crashing into Cape Cod:

But you'll note that's on day 5, which is an eternity away for a computer model. In any event, that would be Monday, so if you're in Cape Cod you've got that long to panic, run to Lowe's, buy wood, nail it to your house, panic, and then go down to the beach and greet Anderson Cooper. Or, you could stay tuned to Jesse's blog, where he'll no doubt post the latest and greatest.

(Model shot courtesy FSU Experimental Forecast Tropical Cyclone Genesis Potential Fields here.) (Say THAT ten times fast.)

UPDATE: Here's JB's thoughts on the Canadian Model:
"The Canadian is not the dangerous racer on the track with its crazy tropical solutions. For the 5th run in a row, it entrains the tropical energy and drives what looks to be a hurricane into New England. For kicks and giggles, it will be on the big dog this morning, but it is certainly not the model du jour when it comes to this and is rapidly becoming the old GFS hurricane somewhere on every run model, something that will kill its longer term operational runs. Speed kills, but so does heat, when it comes to models if its not handled right"

Posted by Carl at 3:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Did you know that you're hogging up all of the plants? A new "study" has concluded that mankind - human beings - people, no less - represent just one of the millions of species on Earth, yet mankind - people, even - use up 24% of the energy captured by plants. This would be energy from the sun, I suppose. An agriculture professor at the University of Melbourne, Snow Barlow, was quoted as saying:

Normally my acerbic wit wouldn't fail me in this sort of a situation, but I am honestly speechless. You can read the article here. The entire study should be published sometime today. Curious about Snow Barlow? You can read all about him here, or drop him an email.

Posted by Carl at 9:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This Reuters article, The world's refugees: " I feel humiliated," includes the following statement:

The article goes on to say absolutely nothing else about Global Warming. It doesn't expand on that thought, it doesn't explain where that comes from or how they arrived at that conclusion. Or, perhaps I missed it. If you read the article and see the part where it explains how Global Warming will displace one-sixth of the world's population in forty years, leave a note in the comments.

Posted by Carl at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sigh.

I came across this via a search for Global Warming news. I have my RSS reader set up to peruse various search engines, blogs, feeds, etc., for certain keywords and an article popped up from Business Week about the L that had this bit:

I had to laugh out-loud at that. Or, LOL. Although I won't say that because it would be weird and geeky.

Here's a photo of the Superleggera:

By now you probably want to know how much it will cost, because you're all set to contribute to the Blog Hero Needs A Cool Vehicle To Fight Crime Fund. You'll find that tidbit on page 2:

Base price: $240,000 (est.)

Ah well. I guess I'll keep fighting crime with my Saturn.

Posted by Carl at 9:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Alert Reader Jon gave me the idea for this graphic, which is a follow-up to my graphic with the sun and the earth:

This graphic shows how big the Earth is compared to people, people being human beings like you and me. According to a source that may or may not be Wikipedia, the radius of the earth is 3,963.18 miles, give or take (depending on how you define "Earth radius.") That's a diameter of about 42 million feet. The average human (depicted in silhouette fashion, above, casually fleeing from some global warming) is about 6 feet on a good day. I mean, if he was laying down not six feet in diameter.

Put another way, let's assume the average human is a pixel, like the little white dot in the upper left area of the graphic. The Earth would then be 6,975,212 pixels wide, or would require almost 7,000 monitors set to 1024 pixel resolution to display its width in entirety.

Now, go back to the handy Earth-Sun chart with all of this in mind and take another look at the dot of the Earth, and the Big Yellow Sun behind it. At this point you will either yawn or your brain will melt. Now I'm not trying to say that your light bulbs aren't causing a serious problem or anything, nor am I saying that the Sun is warming the Earth. (I just like drawing figures that involve circles and average humans.)

Posted by Carl at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Global Warming is now causing insects to move north. And everyone knows that insects carry three things in their bags with them: their toothbrushes, a supply of clean underwear and 3-5 diseases. One of their current favorites right now is Bluetongue. You can read all about it here, thanks to Reuters.

At first I thought it read, "The disease, transmitted by midgets, was first discovered in South Africa and has been spreading north since the late 1990s. Experts say that is due to global warming." That confused me, because it sounded like now midgets were being blamed instead of insects. But it turned out that it said "midges" which is completely different from "midgets" - the most obvious difference being that midges are even smaller. They also cling to Toyotas. (Midges that is, I hope I'm not losing you.)

So the next time you're in Scandinavia and your tongue goes blue, and you have no idea what's going on but you look around real quick and spy a midget turning a corner real fast like he's running away, we'll you'll know exactly what is to blame: Global Warming.

Posted by Carl at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In what can only be described as some sort of marketing brilliance, a Sydney Australia-based company is selling carbon credits that can be used to offset flatulence. That means passing gas. As in, the digestive sense. You can find out more about Easy Being Green here.

I believe this is how the program works (based on a cursory read):

1. You have an uncle. His name is Pete and he is very, very, stinky (and actually quite proud of it.)

2. You, being the environmentally-conscious person that you are, are quite concerned about Pete's effect on climate change. I mean, it happens after every meal! Ugh.

3. You decide to purchase a Flatulence Offsetting Gift Card in Uncle Pete's name.

4. Easy Being Green takes your money (gladly, I assume) and puts it towards installing more efficient, more "green" technology in homes. Or, they use the money to book a flight out to Pete's and plug him up. Or give him some Beano. You know, whatever it takes. Stop eating that Broccoli Pete you're killing the planet!

So I hope that clears that up. Now, you might be thinking that you can purchase this sort of thing as a joke. I'm sure that was not why it was invented, but there are few things as amusing as sending a Flatulence Offsetting Gift Card to your favorite meteorologist.

National Geographic has the scoop here.

Posted by Carl at 4:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some of you have asked, "How big IS the sun?" I assume you're asking this because you're curious about NASA's planned manned mission to the sun, or you think that the sun has something to do with the temperature on Earth.

Well I've prepared a handy chart to illustrate the size of the Earth and the Sun. You'll find this handy chart below:

Given that the Sun is about 900,000 miles across, and the Earth is about 8,000 miles across, the Sun is about 112.5 times bigger across than the Earth. (I got this from a Ph.D. mathematician I know. So if it's wrong it's, you know, all his fault.)

The circle above is the sun, and it's about 490 pixels across. That would mean the Earth would be about 4 pixels, and if you really squint your eyes and look hard you can see the pixels up there, right above "earth".

Feel free to clip and save this handy chart to show your friends, family, convenience store clerks, and any others who are easily excited. The sun is HUGE! I mean, really big. Whether or not it warms the Earth though - who can say?

Posted by Carl at 9:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Gas has soared 31 cents a gallon in the past month, according to this Reuters article written by some writer who doesn't live in State College, Pennsylvania, where gas has actually soared 40 cents a gallon in the past month. Of course while that's not fair to those of us in State College there's a perfectly rational explanation.

(Insert perfectly rational explanation here.)

Many of you are not aware that State College is actually a separate country. Our full name is the State College Autonomous Sovereign Dictatorship of Penn State, and as a autonomous sovereign dictatorship we apply steep tariffs on all imported fuel. This usually results in the cost of a gallon of gasoline being a full ten cents to four dollars above the national average.

But why such a steep tariff? Well, two words: Cows. If you know anything about the SCASDoPS, you know that our main export here is cows. Below is a country map showing our major exports:

It's pretty much cows. And a lot of cows means a lot of, well, cow-gas. And cow-gas tends to create global warming, which is also created by... yes, the sun. But in addition to the sun, global warming is created by cars. And cars run on gas. So, that's why we have the tariffs.

So the next time YOU think you have it bad at the pump, just remember us here in State College and...go eat a hamburger. With or without cheese.

Posted by Carl at 10:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This blog's favorite former Canadian Defense Minister, Paul Hellyer, demanded today that world governments release all of their alien technology (which they have been using in secret to inflate the price of toilets) to the public so that we can solve this global warming thing once and for all.

His reasoning is (of course) quite sound: since aliens have to travel millions and millions of miles to get here they clearly have developed some sort of technology that powers their UFOs without the use of fossil fuels. We know this because many, many aliens have visited and yet there isn't a global warming problem in space.

Since aliens have been in contact since Roswell, which happened way back in 1947, we've had this technology for quite some time. Applying it to automobiles would solve two of our biggest problems: 1. the burning of fossil fuels adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere causing the polar ice caps to melt and 2. the lack of flying cars, which now that it's 2007 is frankly unacceptable.

Article here.

Posted by Carl at 7:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Are cosmic rays (partially) to blame for global warming? Henrik Svensmark thinks so. You can find a description of his explanation at the UK Telegraph.

Cosmic rays really aren't known to have done much, other than to give the Fantastic Four their powers when they were on a space mission. You can read about cosmic rays* at Wikipedia, which is written by aliens so they should know a lot about the subject.

*When I first wrote this I typed "comic rays" which might be some sort of Freudian Slip, which you can also read about on Wikipedia. I mean, read about Freudian Slips, not comic rays. Oddly enough, there are no entries on comic rays, but I'm sure it's just a matter of time.

Posted by Carl at 12:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If California Assemblyman Lloyd Levine has his way, the incandescent lightbulb will hear it's last "How Many X Does it Take to Screw In A Lightbulb" joke by the year 2012. The Assemblyman wants to do away with the bulbs in an effort to reduce energy use and greenhouse gases, which are of course warming the earth and going to kill us all by 2011 and a half.

(I know I'm an unreasonable skeptic, but when one cosiders all that the planet earth has been through in its lifetime, from meteor impacts to volcanic activity, tectonic plate shifting to Paris Hilton, it's hard to imagine that we're going to doom life by using too many incandescent lightbulbs. On the other hand, in the interest of full disclosure, I've switched about 60% of our bulbs to the non-incandescent variety which, in case you were wondering, cost about $42 dollars each.)

I guess this means that in the near future you will probably not be able to spank your two-year-old with a lightbulb. Or something. (It must be hard to keep track of all of this stuff if you live in Cali-fornia.)

Article here from Reuters.

Posted by Carl at 9:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's not my intention to flog this horse for too long. When I start writing about certain current events I never know when to stop. The simple approach would be to stop when the story stops, and this one doesn't seem ready to stop. The other approach, which I normally take, is to stop when I get bored or get a headache, or both. Right now I'm getting a pretty good headache, so this might be the last update. Not only that, but several polar bears have called me to weigh in.

There's an interesting update, of sorts, to the global warming brouhaha found here: The Weather Channel Climate Expert Refuses to Retract Call for Decertification for Global Warming Skeptics. This site is associated with the Senate Environmental Public Works Committee, and specifically the minority chair, Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma). Sen. Inhofe is a big human-induced global warming skeptic, so keep that in mind when you read the article.

The point that I think is worth considering here is this: some have said that Ms. Cullen's blog statement, about decertifying those that don't tow the climate change line (my words), was taken out of context, or that she didn't mean it that way. However, Ms. Cullen in her responses today and that channel about weather have both refused to clarify her statements or suggest that they were taken out of context. This leaves one with the conclusion that she meant it just as it sounds, and that it's not being taken out of context.

Having been in the weather industry for 17 years you'll have to forgive me if I find all of this amusing. Hopefully things will calm down and those researching climate change can go back to scientific studies instead of arguing about who needs to believe what and how we can make them believe it.

For an impartial (IMO) look at both sides of the global warming debate visit AccuWeather.com's Global Warming Blog written by Laura Hannon. It sports a classy blog design by yours truly, you can leave comments and also check out the Headline: Earth™ video spots by Katie Fehlinger. I think they're doing a good job of making the debate more understandable without politically "clouding the issues." (Sorry, couldn't resist.)

Blogger's Note: The above comments do not reflect the views of AccuWeather, any particular AccuWeather Meteorologist, that channel about weather, polar bears, Senator Inhofe, anybody from Oklahoma which incidentally is a very nice place to visit if you're driving by I would really encourage you to stop in and say hello, or the Japanese Mafia. Thank you.

Posted by Carl at 4:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Dr. Heidi Cullen and that channel about weather have finally responded to the firestorm that was created with her December 21 blog post. You can find a video here, and her blog response here. Having just posted about language and how choices of words and phrases can say so much, I found the video fascinating.

In the video, Dr. Cullen makes the point that that channel about weather has not chosen a political side in the global warming debate, and that there isn't any sort of political agenda. But the video ends with an ad (which I've screen-captured at right) that states:

"Will Pres. Bush save the polar bears?"

Now, I love polar bears. Some of my best friends are polar bears. In fact, a polar bear pulled me out of burning wreckage when my plane was shot down over 'Nam*. I also love President Bush, who pulled me out of a burning polar bear when I was shot down over the San Diego Zoo back in '86**. But to me, the question "Will Pres. Bush save the polar bears?" is a political question. It speaks to the inherent tension in the global warming debate where policy decisions reflect (to some) priorities on the environment, global warming and polar bears. I haven't watched this particular episode and probably won't, but it's hard to believe there are no politics involved here.

Agree? Disagree? Bored? Want to hear what happened after the polar bears pulled me out of the burning wreckage and took me into their home? Leave a comment!

*Okay, maybe I made that up.

**Okay, not so much.

Blogger's Note: The above comments do not reflect the views of AccuWeather, any particular AccuWeather Meteorologist, that channel about weather, polar bears, aircraft manufacturers or the San Diego Zoo, which actually is a terribly nice place to visit although I wouldn't recommend getting shot down over it particularly over the polar bear exhibit as they're awfully testy about that sort of thing particularly right before feeding, or the Japanese Mafia. Thank you.

Interesting Side Note: Should Side Note be hyphenated? Like Side-Note. I don't think so (Susan?) but if so I apologize to all of the people in the audience who just cringed and sort of shook in an uncontrolled manner. Anyway, my side...note: This page mentions that Dr. Cullen first got a bachelor's degree in Near Eastern religions and history from Juniata College before going on to engineering and operations research and then climate variability. That's an interesting evolution, from Near Eastern religions to climate variability. (Sort of like "anything at all" to "blogger".)

Posted by Carl at 12:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's a bit of hay being made in meteorological circles since December 21, 2006 when Dr. Heidi Cullen of the Weather Channel posted this in her blog:

If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the AMS shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval.

You can read the post here - it might sound like it's taken out of context or something, but it really isn't. That appears to be her position. The comments are somewhat amusing too. I'm a bit surprised there are only 72, but I suppose they're moderating and only approving certain ones. (i.e. those that don't discuss Viagra or Ambien.)*

The biggest challenge I have with her sentiment is not whether humans are causing or contributing to global warming - my concern is that this sort of solution (withholding the AMS seal unless a certain climate change view is held) stifles scientific debate. Meteorology is a complicated discipline, and there are many, many factors involved. Scientists are trained (I thought) to have an open mind, to be skeptical, and to search for answers wherever they may lead. Once there was a scientific consensus that the sun revolved around the earth, and woe to anyone who dared to disagree. Hopefully we've come a long way since then. (We now know that the earth and sun revolve around each other, for example, and that the earth isn't flat - it's a disc on the backs of four elephants that stand on the back of a giant turtle walking through space.)

Blogger's Note: The above comments do not reflect the views of AccuWeather, any particular AccuWeather Meteorologist, Terry Pratchett, my accountant, my hair stylist, my personal masseuse, turtles, or the Japanese Mafia. Incidentally I don't have a personal masseuse but would like a really good, inexpensive one, particularly one that has his/her own masseuse table and those heated rocks and expertise in that fast chopping form of massage, that looks entertaining. Thank you.

*Update: Comments have jumped to 121 as I post this, so they must be going through the mail.

Posted by Carl at 10:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

...in January. Some cherry trees around Washington are blooming. Boy, won't THEY be in for a surprise just as soon as Henry and Jesse get rid of their snow blowers! What? Oh, yeah, I guess so.

Article here. An interesting thing to note about this article - as of this writing, the photo they have of the cherry trees is actually a photo taken by a different AP Photographer, and it's actually a photo from New York. I hate it when that happens.

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin (really!)

Posted by Carl at 11:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While that title could refer to my own inability to cook even after [age redacted] years, I'm instead referring to the mass extinctions predicted because of the global warming thing. Laura has a good post here about the coming (occurring?) extinctions. My question is - why don't we see any species evolving instead of just dying? If climate changes like the one we're apparently in are enough to kill off whole species, wouldn't you think that by now, after quintillions of years, that the Earth would be completely empty? I'm assuming that we're had climate switches (even more dramatic) than this one in the past. I'm just dying to see a frog develop built-in air conditioning, or heat vision, or what have you.

And, to make this post only slightly more controversial: How about that O.J.?

Posted by Carl at 9:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Female tuataras, that is. For the uninitiated, the tuatara is a gigantic lizard found in New Zealand which feeds on trees, automobiles and slow people. Okay, I made that up. They're actually about 20" long, although that makes this post much less exciting .

So why is Global Warming killing the females? Believe it or not, the warmer the temperature during incubation the more likely a male will hatch. So as global temperatures rise (from global warming, natch) more males will be hatched, and if it gets warm enough you'll eventually get 100% males. And, it doesn't take a great deal of imagination to figure out what would happen then. (The lizards would be forced to live on pot pies and microwavable Hungry Man™ dinners until the refrigerators are empty, at which point they would starve and die in front of the television.)

You can read all about the plight of the female tuatara here. So, the next time you walk past that room with the lights on that no one is in, think of the female tuatara and - please - turn those lights off.

Posted by Carl at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Someone wrote me today asking why I was AWOL from the blog. Actually, I'm paraphrasing but AWOL does stand for "Absent Without Official Leave" which describes not blogging perfecting. I'm not sure whom/where to petition to get Official Leave, but I imagine it's some sort of giant blogging committee located in Hoboken.

In any event, I've been blogged-out having recently designed and constructed a global warming blog, with the help of dedicated, talented brainy types too numerous to mention. (But hat tip to MT genius James Spears) Global Warming is a fascinating subject. I can blog all I want to about Global Warming here because this is my own, private, not-connected-to-any-weather-company, no-one-reads blog. In fact, I can even say "Global Warming, Schmarming" and I don't have to get that cleared by anyone anywhere, particularly Official Types in Hoboken.

But Laura is doing an admirable job on a very difficult topic, so stop by and say hello. Bonus points for using my name, although if she replies and says "Who?" don't, you know, put much stock in that she's just kidding. Really.

The pain of working on another blog has faded, some, and I think I might be able to get back to writing. I'm going to watch the stats, though, and if all of you have found something better to do, like scour the web for downloadable pdf coloring pages of elk and deer and print them out and color them in, well then I may retire. The only possible caveat is the winter; if we get a mild winter that doesn't make much of a difference, but if we were to have a severe apocalyptic winter it would be nice to blog about all of that snow. Normally I would say we have a snowball's you know in you know of having an actual winter. But this winter is different, because Alert Future Cashier Tammy may have to drive every weekend to Target which means snow over the entire northeast each Friday and Saturday.

Speaking of Target, Alert Applicant Tammy passed her drug test with flying colors. Orientation starts tomorrow, wherein she learn things like "How to take down an irate Christmas Shopper with only your bare hands and a DVD of Santa Clause 2 which coincidentally is on sale for $12.99 this week only."

Finally, I close with a Global Warming story that may not be featured on any weather blogs that you frequent. Via Drudge I see that the U.N. has created a booklet called "Tore and the Town on Thin Ice" which you can find as a PDF here. My favorite two-page spread would have to be this:

Personally, I'm looking forward to future titles in the series, such as "Tore and the Town of Skin Cancer Zombies Living Under the Ginormous Ozone Hole" and "Tore and the Meteorologist Who Lived Next Door with a Snow Blower." Scary stuff.

Posted by Carl at 4:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have proposed an interesting correlation between the amount of African dust swirling in the Atlantic Ocean and the development of hurricanes. Article here. I won't try to go into all of the details here because it's Very Technical, but suffice it to say that when there is a lot of dust blowing around hurricanes seem less likely to form. When there is less or no dust, hurricanes are more likely to form. This is, very obviously, linked to Global Warming. As the earth continues to warm from greenhouse gases, sand in Africa gets much heavier because it is absorbing extra heat. Then, when the wind comes along and tries to pick up the sand it can't because it's too fat. This allows more hurricanes to form.

I know some of this Global Warming stuff is complicated but that's what I'm here for. I'll now take questions.

Posted by Carl at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It was inevitable, really. Today's question of the day: If these cars are an issue, why does California allow them to be sold? I think California should sue itself.

Posted by Carl at 2:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

This interesting tree ring article comes from the National Geographic. Apparently researchers from the University of Tennessee in Knoxville have determined that rain from hurricanes contains a special type of oxygen isotope. You can read the article to better understand why that is; I tried to figure it out and all I came up with was that hurricanes spin so powerfully that they lose a lot of things, like their wallets, loose change, combs, and sometimes even their car keys. This relates to the whole oxygen thing in some way.

In any event, these special oxygen isotopes, code named "18" fall out of the storm early and get sucked up into Conifers. The Conifers use the 18 to create new cellulose, which makes them look really bad in that bathing suit.

So what's the net effect here? Researchers can now collect tree ring data and examine it for this special oxygen and determine how many hurricanes struck that area, going back 220 years. This is huge because our current technological hurricane record goes back 60 years, and a little more than that based on newspaper clippings, ship's logs and elves. Being able to collect more of this data may give us an idea of what hurricane intensity was like in the past, and from there we can draw conclusions about how global warming is in fact going to kill us all. Or something.

And finally, I would be remiss if I didn't point out the nominee for The Best Name of a NOAA Employee: Christopher Landsea.

Update: The Weather Guys do a great job of explaining this, although they don't mention elves.

Posted by Carl at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There's an interesting story here about the link between Global Warming and "the high rate of asthma among black children." I have read a number of articles about Global Warming, and have been somewhat skeptical about some of the information I've seen linking Global Warming to increase Hurricane ferocity, mild winters, harsh cold winters, torrid summers, mild summers, floods, droughts and excessive amounts of jellyfish in the Mediterranean.

But asthma among African-American children?

“I’m really hopeful that that won’t be too much of a leap for parents to see,” said Janet Johnson, a vice president with The Weather Channel.

If that wasn't enough to chew on - and leave comments about - there's this:

“Weather was seen as an act of God that you just can’t do anything about,” said Heidi Cullen, a climate expert with the Weather Channel. “That’s not true anymore.”

Posted by Carl at 3:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

A little bird told me that you could find all of the TIME Magazine covers on their site. You can also find article snippets and other goodies. Above are two covers of the magazine dealing with the weather. And here are the excerpts from the cover stories:

January 31, 1977 Why had the rain turned white? Startled millionaires wintering in their baronial mansions in West Palm Beach, Fla., peered closer last week at the miracle that was falling from the skies and discovered-could it be?-yes, the substance was snow, the first ever reported there. Since mid-November, pedestrians in Dallas, unaccustomed to such hazards, have been slipping on sleet-slicked sidewalks. Meanwhile, a series of blizzards has smothered Buffalo this winter with an astonishing 126.6 in. of snow. From the Dakotas and Minnesota, across the icy Great Lakes of the Middle West and down the...

April 3, 2006 Polar Ice Caps Are Melting Faster Than Ever... More And More Land Is Being Devastated By Drought... Rising Waters Are Drowning Low-Lying Communities... By Any Measure, Earth Is At ... The Tipping Point

Now I am NOT trying to say anything. Not at all. It's just when I woke up this morning I wanted to use the word "juxtaposition" and when this opportunity came up - well, I seized it. I think this is a cool juxtaposition. There, I can cross that off my list for today.

Posted by Carl at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Earth has finally struck back, launching its first attack in what will be a long, drawn out battle to solve the Global Warming Crisis once and for all.

Scary story here. (Note: Includes picture that is not for the faint of heart.)

Posted by Carl at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)