Nice while it lasted...

[Whitespider]

... but the hot dry weather has returned.
Mid-90's today, and pushing all of 100 tomorrow... hot all through next week.
We're under a "fire weather advisory" because of the dry conditions, heat and wind.
Because many of the failed corn fields have been mowed off and tilled under, the exposed dirt will soon be filling the air if the winds keep blowin'... but the black fields do make a fine fire-break if'n a blaze does get started.
Even the left-overs from Isaac, by all the models, are supposed to track well south of where I'm sitting.

Ya' know? I haven't received a single mosquito or deer fly bite in 2012... not one single bite.
We had a few ticks show up real early (earlier than normal), but even they disappeared by mid-May.
No frogs, toads, snakes, lizards, or even mice in the wood stacks... no bugs, grubs or worms under dead logs and such.
I haven't heard a single tree frog this year... and only the rare locust.
It almost feels like I'm on an alien planet... like I don't belong here... weird, and scary at the same time.

 

[7sleeper]

Welcome to global warming. Similar over here on the other side of the pond.

7

 

[stihl023/5]

Yep hot here too but I'm not getting on the "GW" wagon!

 

[7sleeper]

There's still room.

7

 

[Chris-PA]

People of the future will be just as amazed that we once called that place the "nation's breadbasket" as folks of today are to learn of the "fertile crescent".

We still have rain here for the time being, but no telling what it will be in a few years. Our rain now comes in very strong, intense storms, often very small and localized, sometimes sweeping across the whole region. Several time this summer I've checked the radar map and seen nothing, only to be crushed by something that formed in place in very short order.

 

[Chris-PA]

There's still room.

7

Don't bother - generations from now descendants of the refugees from the abandoned cities in the growing deserts of the western US, as well as the flooded coast lines, will still be arguing about the cause. And it won't change a damned thing.

 

[Whitespider]

Naw, I ain't buying the global warming... errrr global climate change thing either.
It's just the natural cycle of things, like the severe Great Plains drought of the 1930's... it happens.

 

[Highbeam]

Everything is normal here in the pacific northwest. 66 and cloudy. I could use some of that global warming stuff.

 

[turnkey4099]

Everything is normal here in the pacific northwest. 66 and cloudy. I could use some of that global warming stuff.

No thanks, I'm happy with the cool almost normal seasonal temps for over here on the dry side. Just came in from picking up the last of the town tree. Had to noodle the rounds in half to get them down to liftable sizes. Got sweated up good as it is.

Harry K

 

[Hedgerow]

Naw, I ain't buying the global warming... errrr global climate change thing either.
It's just the natural cycle of things, like the severe Great Plains drought of the 1930's... it happens.

Yup... It still ain't as dry as 55/56 according to my neighbor. He's farmed through all of it... He says "These dry years can worry you to death, but the real wet one's can starve ya to death"... Enjoy a few things the dry spell has to offer... Then enjoy what the wet years bring...:msp_wink:

 

[Mac88]

Ya' know? I haven't received a single mosquito or deer fly bite in 2012... not one single bite.
We had a few ticks show up real early (earlier than normal), but even they disappeared by mid-May.
No frogs, toads, snakes, lizards, or even mice in the wood stacks... no bugs, grubs or worms under dead logs and such.
I haven't heard a single tree frog this year... and only the rare locust.
It almost feels like I'm on an alien planet... like I don't belong here... weird, and scary at the same time.

And I thought it was bad here. At least we've had a few of "all the above" around here, but not much. Quite a few birds, but we keep the bird baths and feeders full, so they tend to congregate here.

Naw, I ain't buying the global warming... errrr global climate change thing either.
It's just the natural cycle of things, like the severe Great Plains drought of the 1930's... it happens.

I don't begin to believe that harm hasn't been done to our environment. How many trees does it take to make the ties for a coast to coast rail line? Trees equal more oxygen, less carbon dioxide. But I'm not convinced that the end is near. "Recorded weather" is a relatively new concept in the history of the earth. Everything else is scientific study of core samples, archaeological digs, and what not. Those seem to indicate that earth's climate has gone through some pretty wild swings over time. Even the scientists can't agree on the cause of the current conditions. I guess we'll see in a few more thousand years.

 

[Coldfront]

Hot hot here as well 90f right now. Summer won't give up.

 

[stihl023/5]

Naw, I ain't buying the global warming... errrr global climate change thing either.
It's just the natural cycle of things, like the severe Great Plains drought of the 1930's... it happens.

Exactly watch when a local record is broke hot or cold 1890 1910 etc sure we dont help but a lot is cycles.

 

[stihl023/5]

And I thought it was bad here. At least we've had a few of "all the above" around here, but not much. Quite a few birds, but we keep the bird baths and feeders full, so they tend to congregate here.



I don't begin to believe that harm hasn't been done to our environment. How many trees does it take to make the ties for a coast to coast rail line? Trees equal more oxygen, less carbon dioxide. But I'm not convinced that the end is near. "Recorded weather" is a relatively new concept in the history of the earth. Everything else is scientific study of core samples, archaeological digs, and what not. Those seem to indicate that earth's climate has gone through some pretty wild swings over time. Even the scientists can't agree on the cause of the current conditions. I guess we'll see in a few more thousand years.

SO TRUE; When the earth wants to correct we will have a mini ice age. (NOT polar just colder like during midevil times) "got wood"opcorn:

 

[Coldfront]

Really I don't think the earth has anything to do with it, it's just along for the ride. The sun is what controls our climate, solar flares, sun spots, etc. We just get what she gives us.
There has been a lot of solar activity in recent years.

 

[blades]

Article a couple weeks back about Sun waking up, as it was put, Extreme rate of activity ( solar flares and what not) which are pounding on us as we type. Add to that the the extreme activity of volcanoes over the past few years and the earths crust shifting ( the last couple earth quakes and volcanic eruptions have actually caused some small shifts in the oceanic currents which in turn has an effect on the jet streams) and new weather patterns emerge. Heck back in the 60's the talking heads were yelping about the start of a new ice age , my how times have changed. Course in the mid to late fifties we all were going to perish due to a nuclear storm. Been hot and dry for most part here also, side effect very little skeeter activty, I ain't complaining about that one bit, although the ticks and chiggers are bit voracious this year.

 

[zogger]

Naw, I ain't buying the global warming... errrr global climate change thing either.
It's just the natural cycle of things, like the severe Great Plains drought of the 1930's... it happens.

--and they refuse to learn from great grandpappy, too. Cutting down all the fencerows and windbreaks that were built to help stop erosion and the dust bowl effect during the drought years. Gotta squeeze out another acre of ethanol corn..well,maybe not this year...We have cycles on top of cycles on top of cycles, and I am of the opinion there's something to AGW, but I really don't know how much, because it got contaminated with wall street carbon credits and the funding for scientists in the big schools. We very well could be well into a BIG cycle of fast change, but no way to tell now, still too early and no easy way to sift out the real science from the junk science. I personally don't support either extreme, that man is "too puny" to affect climate, I certainly think it is possible and happens, or that it is all "man made" either. Too much natural cycles solar and otherwise to ignore. Some of both someplace in the middle is more realistic to my way of thinking.

It's too bad we can't get real science, but the world revolves around that fiat credit debt note system, there's too much money and political power involved for it not to be corrupted. This issue or any number of other issues.

 

[Mac88]

We're 4 years into the current solar maximum cycle. We'll see how that plays out.

 

[Chris-PA]

Seasonal and regional variations mask long term changes. But when I was a kid we skated on local ponds, and I remember we got a pickup truck out on the 2' thick ice of a large local lake when I was a teenager. My kids never experienced that. The climate and the weather is quite different around here now, and I've seen it with my own eyes.

The thing is, it doesn't really matter much what people believe the cause is, because we're not going to change what we're doing and the changes are pretty much locked in for the next couple of hundred years.

I'll be interested to see how much wood I need this year, as last year was a major reduction. I kind of suspect this one will be the same, but you never know.

 

[CTYank]

--and they refuse to learn from great grandpappy, too. Cutting down all the fencerows and windbreaks that were built to help stop erosion and the dust bowl effect during the drought years. Gotta squeeze out another acre of ethanol corn..well,maybe not this year...We have cycles on top of cycles on top of cycles, and I am of the opinion there's something to AGW, but I really don't know how much, because it got contaminated with wall street carbon credits and the funding for scientists in the big schools. We very well could be well into a BIG cycle of fast change, but no way to tell now, still too early and no easy way to sift out the real science from the junk science. I personally don't support either extreme, that man is "too puny" to affect climate, I certainly think it is possible and happens, or that it is all "man made" either. Too much natural cycles solar and otherwise to ignore. Some of both someplace in the middle is more realistic to my way of thinking.

It's too bad we can't get real science, but the world revolves around that fiat credit debt note system, there's too much money and political power involved for it not to be corrupted. This issue or any number of other issues.

Yer comments about "real"/"junk" "science" sound like the stuff we heard during "W"'s administration, from his senior advisors. Like they'd recognize the difference. At least "W" finally saw some light there.

Climate is a concept that confuses most meteorologists. Way too many data points. Not to worry, though, folks like McConnell and Boehner will do their best to let it ride. The ostrich solution.

It should be noted that carbon dioxide has been accumulating in the atmosphere and the oceans (sayonara shellfish) for a few centuries, with a correlated effect in the global climate. Fairly straightforward result to massive computations.

Normally neglected is the effect of increasing water vapor in the atmosphere from the above, and the increasing release of methane from boreal bogs. Water vapor and methane are enormously more effective greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide per molecule. And there's lots of water vapor, especially from tropical seas. These transports occur on such a massive scale, that much research is ongoing and more will be required. Serious stability problem.

Meaning, we need any and all peer-reviewed research we can muster, and we should get serious about the future of the planet. Like, the faster we drill for oil and extract gas, the sooner the gauge reads empty. Hell, we may have to drop labor-saving for planet-saving.