Category Archives: Weather/Climate

Space Aliens May Have Caused The Cold Snap

Posted on January 8, 2014 | 5 comments

That makes about as much sense as the garbage purveyed by the usual news media suspects (NPR, cBS, etc.) that this latest example of extreme weather may be caused by global warming.

University of Washington meteorologist Cliff Mass succinctly puts their reporting where it belongs: among the fairy stories we heard as children. He does have a bit more concern about AGW than the other meteorologists I respect, but he shows that extreme weather is not, in fact, a trend:

“The media needs to stop pushing this unsupported argument.”

Happily, things already are warming up at the rancho, with highs in the 70s expected by the weekend. How sweet it will be. Of course we are pretty far south.

UPDATE:  Joe Bastardi at Weather Bell adds this funny: “The cause for the cold this winter so far was outlined long ago. Yet many media outlets are seriously taking the idea that AGW is causing this as something to consider. Its as if every single event that has happened before [’77 & ’85], doesnt count. How the heck did it get so cold before?”

MORE:  Wormtongue’s “science” adviser pushes the bogus extreme weather meme. But of course. Gotta grow those taxes.

5 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, Weather, Weather/Climate

Hard freeze impending

Posted on January 5, 2014 | 2 comments

“Stay safe in the central [U.S.]- the next few day[s] will be brutal.”

That’s Joe D’Aleo at Weatherbell, adding to the warnings of regional meteorologists forecasting fourteen hours of below freezing temps for us, starting sometime later this evening. Which we call a hard freeze because we don’t get many of them this far south.

Tonight’s low is forecast to be 23 degrees and Monday night’s just 19 degrees. Hopefully, the air will warm up in between those lows.

Goodbye to the elephant ears in the rancho’s front beds. But they’ll bounce back from the roots in the spring I expect. And as long as the power stays on, we’ll be fine. We could rely on the gas log in the fireplace, if necessary, but we’d rather not.

2 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Texana, Weather, Weather/Climate

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Where is the environmental benefit?

Posted on December 29, 2013 | 1 comment

So ask Native American groups angry at the White House’s continued push for more wind turbines which despoil natural beauty and kill millions of bats and birds.

“Wind farms must be located where the wind blows fairly constantly, and such locations are prime travel routes for migratory birds, including protected species such as bald eagles and golden eagles. Exacerbating the problem, wind farms act as both bait and executioner—rodents taking shelter at the base of turbines multiply with the protection from raptors, and their greater numbers then attract more raptors to the turbines.”

Meanwhile the turbines are a political shuck, providing only small amounts of intermittent electricity, generally at times when a utility doesn’t need it. Ah, but they fill the pockets of lobbyists, politicians, and wind turbine companies with subsidies, i.e. tax money. That’s the “environmental benefit” the White House really is interested in.

“Wind cannot satisfy the demand requirements of a utility unless it is backed up with fossil fuel plants and/or energy storage projects. This results in duplication of resources and additional costs, with little, if any, carbon mitigation. Further, the steep increases and declines in power delivery of wind put the reliability of the grid in question.”

All in the name of another, bigger shuck: stopping so-called man-made global warming, the warming which hasn’t been occurring for 17 years now. Except in federal press releases. Health insurance isn’t the only thing they lie about.

It’s lose-lose, all around, unless you’re one of Wormtongue’s cronies with your paw in the trough.

1 Comment

Posted in Blogosphere, Obamalot, Obsessions, Science/Engineering, Weather/Climate

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The Israel Longhorns Project

Posted on December 24, 2013 | 3 comments

Can’t think of a better Christmas present for Texas than this idea of breeding Longhorns in Israel.

Longhorn meat eats sweet, has less cholesterol and calories than chicken, the animals thrive in hot, dry places like the Negev Desert where other cattle don’t, are disease resistant and docile (despite those wicked horns) and so can be herded on foot.

They even like to eat cactus.

The only condition: You can’t have Bevo. He (and his harem) are busy.

Only problem I see is the project guy doesn’t update his blog often. Get on it!

3 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Global warming flops, again

Posted on December 22, 2013 | 6 comments

“Before NASA and NOAA start tampering with the data, 2013 is one of the ten coldest years  in the US since 1895, and has had the largest year over year decline on record.”

It has been real tiresome, these cold Novembers and Decembers these past few years. At least we haven’t had an ice storm yet. Maybe that’s next, eh?

Via Instapundit.

UPDATE: When the feds get around to proclaiming 2013 another “warmest year ever,” remember this: “NOAA will [be] reporting something very different, because they subtract up to 1.7 degrees from older temperatures. Essentially all reported US warming is due to a hockey stick of temperature adjustments, which makes the past appear to be much colder than what the thermometers measured at the time. (They of course do not mention this in their press releases.)”

6 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, Weather/Climate

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Scientific retractions, sometimes even fraud

Posted on December 14, 2013 | 3 comments

Scientists, particularly climate scientists on the global warming, uh, scratch that, climate change, bandwagon, like to smugly point out that their brilliant conclusions are peer-reviewed. Which is supposed to make their critics drop to their knees in awe, shut up and crawl away.

Luckily, there’s Retraction Watch, a blog by two US science writers that’s pulling back the curtain on “peer-review,” by demonstrating again and again that even the most prestigious scientific journals screw up repeatedly, missing honest mistakes and even plain old fraud.

When some of these journals do discover fraud (often from their scientist readers rather than their scientist reviewers), in the form of, say, plagiarism, they do verbal acrobatics to avoid calling it what it is.

When some scientists with multiple retractions recently tried to censor the blog, its software provider WordPress, filed two lawsuits for them seeking damages. Way to go, WordPress!

3 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Science/Engineering, Weather/Climate

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Big snow in J-lem

Posted on December 13, 2013 | 2 comments

Watched the snow pelting down in Jerusalem last night on the Kotel Cam, so wasn’t surprised today to read in the Jerusalem Post that the holy city is getting smothered in up to 20 inches, its biggest snow storm in fifty years.

Even the usually-reliable Kotel Cam is down today, presumably a wiring problem a technician can’t get there to fix. Or the power is out. My Israeli blog pal Mr. Goon says the snow hasn’t made it to his town, which isn’t that far away as the Hoopoe flies. It has been cold enough (41 degrees, he said) and rainy for his wife to insist that he fire up the oil heater.

Our arctic snap in Austin is easing, with daytime temps in the 50s and a promised gradual “warming” into the low 60s by late next week when forecasters are betting that another arctic blast is likely, this time even colder. So no joy.

2 Comments

Posted in Blogosphere, Israel, Rancho Roly Poly, Weather/Climate

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