For What It Is Worth: Global Warming

Glaciers are melting, shrinking,  and retreating in most places around the globe.  That is no hoax, it is simply a fact.  Why?  Now it gets a little complicated. Here are the possibilities.

Human activity is the cause.

A natural cycle is at work.

It is a conspiracy by liberals.

I think it is a combination of the first two.  We can discard the third. The reason I favor the combination idea, is firstly, because we have had very warm climactic periods, long before humans were burning anything.  Something happens all on its' own periodically, and it gets extremely warm.  Ask the dinosaurs.

But, I also blame human causes because the temperature rise is so rapid. We are consuming gigantic quantities of fuel every day.  All that CO2 has to go somewhere.  It is accumulating in the atmosphere.  And we know precisely, to within one part per million, how much CO2 is in our atmosphere, from measurements carefully made, since 1957.  Every year, without exception, the amount of CO2 is increasing. Why? There are several possibilities.

Human activity is the cause.

Natural processes, not well understood, are the cause.
The trees just can't keep up with it.

It is a conspiracy by Carrier Air Conditioners.

Once again, we can throw out the last one.  So, that leaves the first three possibilities. Which is it? We don't know for sure.  The only thing we know for sure, is that it has become dramatically warmer.  Yet, interestingly, in very recent years, the warming has slowed somewhat.  We don't know exactly why. Natural fluctuations are the best guess.

Most experts, who know much more than I do, strongly suspect that the "greenhouse effect" caused by humans, is the cause of it all.  I can't argue with them. On the other hand, other experts argue that it is too soon to tell if we are really in a long range climate warm up.  I can't argue with them either!

But, other experts point to a warm/cold cycle in the Pacific Ocean, that has caused the warming.  And now, the warm cycle, appears to be ending.  We can only wait and see what happens.  Drink Kool-Aid, is my best advice, in the meantime.

It was a hot summer, wasn't it?

We had lots of rain and now get ready for more.

NOAA graphic on the recent rainstorm.  More on the way Sunday night and Monday.

NOAA predicts plenty of rain, high winds and potential flooding.

A high wind warning is in effect today and tonight along with a flood watch.  Winds may gust to 60 mph with possible downed trees and powerlines.  Around 2 to 4 inches of rain is expected.

Weather service posts flood watch. Areas to the west are receiving the most rain.

NOAA graphic.  

Areas in North Carolina have received well over a foot of rain.

As of mid - morning, on Thursday, in Northern NJ, we have had about 1 inch of rain since midnight.

Areas in Pennsylvania have had about 2 inches of rain.

Lots of rain headed our way, we hope. Sunday night into Tuesday we should see a soaking rain.

Tropical trouble brewing in the Caribbean.

A hurricane will likely form and may hit the Gulf states or Florida in about a week.  A very active hurricane season continues.

Hurricane Igor as seen from the International Space Station.

NASA photo Sept. 14th.  Category 4 hurricane

3 hurricanes in the Atlantic today

Add captionNASA photo GOES East

Severe thunderstorm watch late this afternoon and evening.

Storms are now moving through Sussex county and may affect us locally in the next several hours.

AUTUMNAL WEATHER ALL WEEK.

No more heat waves on the horizon and we should be in the 70's all week.  With luck we will escape the two forming hurricanes as well.


Igor goes from a tropical storm to a category 4 hurricane in less than 24 hours.  Very warm ocean temperatures and low wind shear helped this to occur.  Don't take your sailboat to Bermuda this coming weekend!

Hurricane Earl poses some threat to the East Coast.

North Carolina and Eastern New England could be brushed by Earl.  The storm will be closest to NJ about Friday.  It should miss us.

Heavy downpours in parts of NJ. Tropics getting active.

Add caption

A Cape Verde type storm has begun forming East of Africa.

• There is a chance for a near miss from a hurricane in 10 to 15 days according to Dr. Jeff Masters at the Weatherunderground.  Bermuda may be in the path.  But it is way too early to get worried.  Lots of things can change.
• Most areas get 1 to 2 inches of rain with the most northern locations reporting 3 to 4 inches.

Good chance for rain today and later this week.

Right now, rain is headed for northern areas and, more rain may fall tonight.  When you are in a drought as we currently are, you have to keep your fingers crossed for rain.  Forecasts for rain tend to go bust when the drought hangs on stubbornly. 


 When droughts do break, it tends to happen in a big way.

Historic heat wave: is it Global Warming?....maybe.

The heat wave in Russia is greater than anything in the historic records available.  Unfortunately, written numerical records are available for only about 130 years.  In the USA, we are in the same situation, only 100 to 150 years of weather data.  Colonial accounts of brutal winters with great snows have no measurements, usually.  You can read about a winter when the horses could not move through the deep snow, yet, no one actually measured the depth.

The 1936 summer is the Grandaddy of all USA heat waves, with widespread temperatures of 100 degrees or better.  Some of those records still stand today.

In 2003, Europe had a brutal heatwave with as many as 25,000 to 50,000 deaths blamed on excessive heat.

People in France and England learned that air conditioning is not an unnecessary luxury, because they "never get" hot summers.

But, these are all weather events, not climate change indicators.  One hot summer does not mean Global Warming is here.  Nor does a cold, snowy winter such as we just had, mean that Global Warming is only a hoax.

If only we would stop thinking that current weather tells us how the climate will shape up for the next 30 to 50 years.  Responsible climatologists insist that while we have had plenty of warm weather, the last couple of decades, we just don't know if it is because of a climate change, that is already underway.

Climatologists think in periods of many decades, if not centuries.  So we just don't know for sure.  But current trends, if they continue, could change all that.

My own sense, is that we are being hit by a combination of natural cycles and warming caused by human activity.  The CO2 warming theory is sound, but how soon will it happen and how bad will it be? We don't really know.  By the time we do know, it will be too late to change anything.  And when you think about it, it is probably too late already.  Stop burning oil,gas,coal,wood etc.?  How do we do that?
Solar is too expensive, nuclear too dangerous (for some people )  and wind power too limited.

Hey, if it is hot in NYC, why don't we plant more trees and paint all the roofs white?  It might help.

Green energy sources are worth pursuing with or without Global Warming so, why not?  I don't like sending my dollars overseas every time that I fill up my gas tank.  Do you?

CSU still predicting active hurricane season.

Dr. Gray still expects about 18 storms this season and about half of those will become hurricanes.  Tropical depression Colin is very weak but may gain strength over the next several days well east of Florida.


We are only now just beginning to enter the time of most frequent storm development.  The probability of tropical storms increases quickly as August progresses.


July was a hot month with NYC metro temps about 5 degrees above normal.  Baltimore was even hotter.