Wednesday, August 26, 2009

let's talk about the weather

Anyone who has lived in the Cleveland area for any length of time will tell you how we feel about summer. We yearn for it. We long for sunshine throughout the gray of spring and autumn and dream of warmth while the world is encased in winter's ice. By the time April comes, you can almost sense the excitement. People are ready, waiting for That Day when you can finally open the windows and put away the woolens, sure that the weather is only going to get better.

I'm still waiting.

Now, it's not exactly parka weather but for a month or so, I've been saying that I haven't felt I've had a summer at all. We've had weeks of cool and rainy weather and I can count the numbers of times we've turned on the A/C on one hand. My feeling of anticipation has yet to abate because summer really hasn't arrived this year. My tomatoes aren't ripening, I've had to wear sweaters in July and honestly I feel a bit cheated.

So when a local news site ran this story on how devastating global warming will be to the Cleveland area, I scoffed. Loudly. In the middle of the library. And then, of course, in typical librarian fashion, I had to research the temperature averages for this summer.


And July? Even worse with an average temperature of 69.1 °F.

So while these "environmental groups" are having hysterics about global warming, I guess we Clevelanders will be shivering and pulling on another pair of socks.

14 comments:

Weer'd Beard said...

We're well on our way to going the whole year without installing our Window Air Conditioners.

It's so late in the season even if we get a record heatwave it wouldn't be worth the effort to bring them out of storage.

In the end Global Warming (or whatever name they choose to call it) is religion, not science.

Anonymous said...

Pfffft, everyone knows that Global Warming causes Global Cooling.

Don't you remember the Ice Age warnings back in the 1970s?

As the weather shifts, so does the cause. However, the solution is always the same=>more government.

Shootin' Buddy

SpeakerTweaker said...

Down here around San Antonio, the temperatures have been at or over 100 degrees with nearly no rain at all for about 140 days.

Course, we don't call that "global warming." We call it a mild summer:)



tweaker

jdege said...

I don't care what anyone says, Minneapolis has the most beautiful weather in the world.

Bright blue sky, green grass, wisps of cloud, sunshine, sparkling lakes, warm with just enough breeze to keep you from feeling the heat.

We call it "Summer".

Last year, it happened on a Wednesday.

Phil said...

Just think about how cold it would have been without global warming :D

Ian Argent said...

Not that I'm blaming it on global warming; but Seattle area had seriously high temps (including some over 100 days) this summer; per a couple of weather maps I saw and NOAA:

•Several western locations recorded their all-time warmest July. Seattle-Tacoma Airport had an average July temperature of 69.5 degrees F, which was 4.2 degrees F above average. Seattle’s high temperature of 103 degrees F on July 29 is an all-time record. Alaska posted its second warmest July, Arizona had its third warmest, while New Mexico and Washington had their ninth warmest.

Also http://www.beautifulseattle.com/mthsum.asp

Myles said...

111 to 114 degrees tomorrow out here in Phoenix, depending on what news channel you watch. The grass isn't always greener on the other side. ;-)
I'd buy a carbon credit for just a single cloud. Someone pencil in Al Gore for a Phoenix Global Warming conference.

Unknown said...

I think "global warming" or the "greenhouse effect" or whatever you call it is now an accepted scientific theory. Are some of you guys under the impression that it's a lie cooked up by liberals like Al Gore?

In Rome Italy the weather has been extremely unpredictable. Winters used to be mild, summers hot. Now the extremes are sometimes hard to believe. This erratic aspect of weather conditions seems to be very wide spread, I hear of it from different parts of the world, and it seems to me to be the result of what they call "global warming."

Old Radar Tech said...

A theory it may be, Mikeb. Accepted truth it isn't. My big hangup is that the globalwarmers adapt the facts to fit their hypothesis rather than the other way 'round, which is a bit of a departure from accepted scientific method. They then scream loudly that "the debate is over" and call for the defenestration of non-believers. And there lies the rub;(anthropologic) global warming as the result of higher levels of CO2 is a belief. It doesn't fit the facts as we know them.
What it does fit (and ever so neatly) is the declared goal of halting economic growth of the US.
Adapting facts to fit a goal is something less than pure science. Add the behaviour of the global warming demagogues, follow the money trail, and it begins to look more like a popular cult cynically led for the political and financial goals of the cult leaders. It certainly tends to cast doubt on anything they say. As Grandpa used to say, a man that will lie to you will steal from you.

Mark (at sea)

Old Radar Tech said...

Whoops - anthropomorphic, sorry. And hey, "Physicians for Social Responsibility"?
I didn't realise that medical school was so comprehensive as to include meteorology. I'll be sure to ask the weatherman for advice on my failing eyesight.

hpcc19 said...

On the Climate Change threat, I've got a great idea for America...let's sit this one out.

After 60 years of leaking blood and treasure to first free, and then protect and feed the civilized world, we can have a rest.

Six billion humans
300 million Americans

Time for everyone else to pitch in and save humankind.

China, who we saved from being a slave state of Imperial Japan, use your stolen microprocessor technology and vast engine of production to manufacture enough photo voltaic panels to replace all of the world's coal fired power plants.

Western Europe, who we liberated from the Nazis and protected from the Soviets, use your keen engineering brilliance and money saved from not having to defend yourself to develop electric vehicles and transports with batteries that are suitable for the continental challenges of North America, Australia and Russo-China and not just for putt-putting around your little medieval storybook countries.

India, who can't control your population growth; you need to use your stable of engineers to develop alternatives to petrochemical fertilizers and pesticides so that we can continue to grow food for six billion on arable land that is only suitable to sustain two billion.

Africa, who we never had a hand in colonizing, but spent billions feeding and medicating, use your uranium reserves to fuel thousands of small coastal reactors that will extract hydrogen from seawater to power an unlimited number of fuel cells.

Russia, who we helped financially to defeat the Nazis, your job is to be the policeman in the middle east after they panic upon discovering that their oil reserves are now worthless.

American environmental activists; since we will stop producing greenhouse gases and stop mining coal, you can take a two decade vacation from filing injunctions and lawsuits and allow us to build high speed rail corridors roughly paralleling our interstate highway system.

South America...........I guess you can just continue to provide diversity in our cuisine and stoop labor for “jobs that Americans just won't do”.

As for the United States, our job will be to use the UN as a bully pulpit to castigate the rest of the world for not doing enough or not doing it fast enough.

Shoothouse B said...

I hear ya, sister. We've had shit weather in TX all summer, but of the opposite variety: average high temps of 103 all summer with no rain until this past week. I'll trade ya some rain for some hot summah days! Damn, if only it worked that way...

Wild Deuce said...

Breda, you are behind the times. They have adapted to maintain the charade a little longer. It's now called climate change ... not global warming.

As for the weather, I dislike hot, sticky weather. Give me an overcast day in the low seventies with a mild breeze and I'm happy. It's been a good summer.

bobn said...

Are some of you guys under the impression that it's a lie cooked up by liberals like Al Gore?

As a matter of fact, yes.

It is garbage science at best.

There are many scientists who disbelieve it - it is NOT at all a consensus.

One more thing Dems and MSM lie about.

Statisitcs needed" and links to many others.


They call this a consensus?

Global Warming Consensus? What Consensus?