Temperature Monitors Report Widescale Global Cooling

[HAL 9000 96]

Actually, here's a bit of elementary chemistry:

CO2 + H2O -> H2CO3 (carbonic acid)

Ocean acidity?

Ocean, fresh water, rain water...

Looking at Lake Michigan on a daily basis I can at least contemplate on one possible reason why the lake froze less than in winters past, even with more snow and much more brutal cold than in the past.

Tom Skilling of WGN looked up previous years like this and predicts a VERY hot summer up ahead.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Reinhard-

I too, shockingly, am considering an SUV-type car to avoid the potholes in Chicago. Lower cars are a pain in the neck when it comes to those. Maybe I can keep my fuel-friendly car for warm weather use and get a bigger setup for cold, nasty weather.

We kept the little Nissan which I bought new eight years ago. It really served us well and continues to run strong. I still drive it back and forth to work. The Santa Fe we recently bought (not really much of a gas guzzler anyways) is more of a recreational family vehicle for the weekends and for Nani to use if she needs to go somewhere during the weekdays. There isn't much mileage going onto that one. And again, it's pretty good on the gas for it's size; I kept an eye on it the first couple of tanks and it seems that we get somewhere between 20 and 25 miles to the gallon in the city. That's not too aweful.

[GaryC 7]

we just had a 90 year record high for February down here in Texas... as in it was this hot 90 years ago in 1919 when they didn't have cars

i kind of think about it like a huge cycle, so big that they haven't recorded all of it yet...

like the water cycle.. if it took a long time for water to condensate and precipitate, people would be freaking out because all of our water is evaporating and disappearing!! OMG!!

Yeah, I find that funny when people say "Warmest in 100 years!! Oh NO!!!". But when you stop and think about it that means that 100 years ago it was hot then also!! We were not having GW then were we?

[HAL 9000 96]

Hi Gary, synthesizing several threads into one:

I don't believe global warming is solely to be pinned on one particular greenhouse gas. There are other factors to consider like temperature homeostasis based on geographical weather patterning (think La Nina, El Nino, etc). When we undercut less than ten years of weather data by using real-time data such as a current drop in weather temperature and compare it to a patterned climate of temperature we're in effect comparing two different things.

Weather is by definition the conditions in effect or in force in a particular geographical area at a given time. Climate is the weather pattern over time in a given geographical area.

One cannot counteract a climatic pattern with an instantaneous weather shift unless one has proof the weather shift is permanent to the tune of it actually creating a shifted climate pattern. Global warming is a climate pattern, not a weather pattern, although we will feel the weather pattern in the future once we compare it to the weather pattern we once felt in the past.

Hope Luz is doing much better.

Reinhard-

I too, shockingly, am considering an SUV-type car to avoid the potholes in Chicago. Lower cars are a pain in the neck when it comes to those. Maybe I can keep my fuel-friendly car for warm weather use and get a bigger setup for cold, nasty weather.

To be sure I am not saying that this one year makes a "proof" for anything. I do however, say that the pattern since 1998 has been one of stable temps. After 10 years it does point at a pattern. I also would like to point out that if you overlay the temps for the last 100 years over graphs of CO2 and solar patterns the temps line up for the solar patterns much better.

And thank you, Luz is much better now. She is very excited about our move into our new house this weekend.

Very glad to hear that... I wanted to write in that thread but my scientific reasoning would have sounded more like everyone else's speculations

On this topic, lets remember the classical definitions of climate vs. weather. Weather is relative to short periods of time and 10-100-1000 years is extremely short compared to climate patterns that emerge over tens of thousands and bigger chunks of time.

Solar radiation exposure also depends on other factors like particular solar activity. And lest we forget the tilting pattern of the planet is not just a yearly phenomenon.

[HAL 9000 96]

Reinhard-

I too, shockingly, am considering an SUV-type car to avoid the potholes in Chicago. Lower cars are a pain in the neck when it comes to those. Maybe I can keep my fuel-friendly car for warm weather use and get a bigger setup for cold, nasty weather.

We kept the little Nissan which I bought new eight years ago. It really served us well and continues to run strong. I still drive it back and forth to work. The Santa Fe we recently bought (not really much of a gas guzzler anyways) is more of a recreational family vehicle for the weekends and for Nani to use if she needs to go somewhere during the weekdays. There isn't much mileage going onto that one. And again, it's pretty good on the gas for it's size; I kept an eye on it the first couple of tanks and it seems that we get somewhere between 20 and 25 miles to the gallon in the city. That's not too aweful.

That's actually not that bad. This reminds me of the dynamic nature of the auto industry. Gas guzzlers are obviously not cutting it anymore financially for all the obvious reasons. So... the industry adapts to make (or attempt) them more appealing to the consumer and the consumer's finances. This includes engineering engines that will represent profitability for the carmaker.

If I do purchase bigger, it will probably be at a set threshold of 38 highway and 32 city... so I'll continue to wait for the EPA to continue revising its fuel efficiency figures so that I don't end up in something less efficient than what is on the sticker.