Home » Open thread 12/20/22

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Open thread 12/20/22 — 48 Comments

  1. Yes a Mini Ice Age in the Middle Ages. But how is that possible without EV’s being around?
    This video should remind people just how good we have it now. And so much of what we enjoy is brought to you by Oil, NG and Coal.
    We should go Nuke Power, though Oil is still needed. And NG in homes.
    This big push now to de-NG homes is just the latest madness.
    Here in CO we are expecting temps down to maybe -20, and that is not in the mountains. So blankets, more sweaters and knit caps will be coming out.

  2. A few of these tips may come in useful in Europe this very winter. Plus, the push to eliminate petroleum products will mean no more polyester fleece; demand for wool will rise, and people like me will itch or freeze. And I have already seen warnings about a shortage of rice in 2023 because of monsoon failures in south Asia.

  3. It’s -42 at my house here in Fairbanks, AK and has been near that for a few days already. Won’t let up much til after Christmas it looks like.

    But I’ve seen 30 below Halloweens and it used to be that this time of year would have us at or below -40 for weeks in a row (with awful dives into -50 to -60). That it doesn’t really happen like that anymore suggests warming is happening but I’m not buying the man-made end-of-the-world(!) global warming thesis.

  4. The winter two years after Valley Forge was even colder.

    New York harbor froze solid in 1780. The British moved artillery in case Washington attacked across the ice. NY Harbor also froze over in 1720 and 1821.

    During the coldest century of the little Ice Age, Sweden attacked the Danes in 1658 by marching across the frozen Baltic Sea between islands in Denmark. The ice was thick enough to support cavalry and cannon.

    The temperature trend has been consistent since it turned around 1815 or so. (Napoleon didn’t pick a good time to attack Moscow. Although history says there is never a good time.) The easiest and most accurate climate model is to plot a 60 year sine wave around this trend line.

    It was hotter 10,000 years ago. It was hotter during the Roman period. After the cold of the dark ages, it was hotter during the medieval warm period. Then it got colder during the little ice age.

    Global warming crazies have no explanation for why the earth has been in an ice age for 90% of the time. Or what tips it into a warm phase. Or why it turned warmer, colder, warmer, colder, warmer, colder, warmer over the last few thousand years. Any sane person would simply laugh at anyone who claimed to be able to predict temperatures in the future without any understanding of why trends have changed in the past.

    A sane person would laugh at any “science” which never bothers to replicate or otherwise check the quality of groundbreaking studies.

    A sane person would ignore any science establishment which cancels and destroys anyone who disagrees with the narrative. We all know that quality science is impossible in such an atmosphere. Those who tolerate it are handmaidens of evil.

  5. Low 26, high 39 forecast for Jax on the 24th!

    The main reason I’m on facebook, and the main reason I stay on, is that it gives me contact with numerous high school and college friends who are far flung across the world. Especially with the high school friends, many of whom I’ve known since 3rd grade…OMG..over 60 years. We’ve tried other platforms but they never seem to work nearly as well. Anyway, during the last week or so my feed has been inundated with posts from very left pages. At first I went to those pages and put a block on them. Now FB has an “X” in the upper right corner to say I don’t want anymore of these. Every visit I end up X-ing about 5 of these posts. They are really testing to see what people will tolerate.

  6. stan– In my family the benchmark for cold is the winter of 1944 in Europe as well as the U.S. Northeast. My dad was in the 82nd Airborne, which was assigned to the northern shoulder of the Battle of the Bulge in a place called Elsenborn Ridge. This high ground is the westernmost ridge of the Ardennes, and it was the only sector of the U.S. front line where the Germans failed to advance. The battle for Elsenborn Ridge never got the attention that the sieges of St. Vith and Bastogne received from the American press, but it was a major success for the U.S. infantry just the same. As for the cold– my dad thought the weather was [insert Army expletive here] worse than the Germans. He used to say he would never complain about Pennsylvania winters (which were really cold and snowy when I was a kid) after his experience in the Ardennes.

    If you like to read or watch videos about the effects of weather on history, here is a video from The Weather Channel titled “When Weather Changed History–The Battle of the Bulge”:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcYLgwDsMcc&ab_channel=MHS0501

    As for the winter of 1944 along the East Coast, here is an account from the Finger Lakes Times about the harshness of that winter in upstate New York:

    https://www.fltimes.com/lifestyle/looking-back-the-cruelest-winter-1944-45/article_d19237ad-5638-5bea-bdca-21ea8f90ea9b.html

    Here in “sunny” New Haven, the temps are predicted to drop to 14F on Saturday– that’s a heat wave compared to the record low for December, -8F.

  7. stan, my guess for the cause of the various temperature cycles is the precession of the earth’s axis of rotation. There is speculation that this is what has caused the Ice Ages, it has been observed that there is some correlation between this precession and the Ice Age cycle.

    The declination of the earth’s axis, ie the deviation from perpendicular to its orbit around the sun (around 23.5 degrees), is the reason we have seasons in the first place. If there were no declination days would be exactly 12 hours long all year round and we would have no seasons. Think of the earth like a spinning top, not quite vertical, whose axis slowly goes around in a circle. There is a known cycle of I think about 20-40,000 years. That is what the earth does. My own speculation is that more minor variations in the declination may cause the minor temperature cycles (“little Ice Age”, medieval warming period etc).

    In any case I have never heard of a “global warming” theorist who has tried to take Ice Ages into account. We are now in an interglacial, ie warm, period in the cycle. At the next glaciation we will be begging for global warming. Furthermore the above about the earth’s precession is still speculation. We are still not certain what has caused the Ice Age cycles. So how can we possibly say “the science is settled” about global warming. There is nothing more unscientific than to say “the science is settled”.

  8. PA+Cat,

    My dad also fought in the Bulge, He was with Patton driving north and then the slugfest to close the bulge. He suffered severe cold injury to his feet. By the time he was in his late 70s the VA ruled he was 90% disabled due to the cold impact on his feet.

    I think the claim is that it was the coldest winter in Europe in 100 years.

  9. I always think podcasts like this one a bit odd, first because it breaks off the late Middle Ages (mixed with the Early Modern era), and second because what they say could have been as true of the time of Augustus or that of Washington, for most people. Though strictly it doesn’t say so, I think many might take away the impression that the Middle Ages were a particularly cold era. As several have already pointed out, the opposite was true.

    I also thought it odd that so much time was spent on the Vikings.

  10. My understanding is that yes, they do take ice ages into account. My recollection is that they differentiate those times from the recent warming by the speed of the changes, saying that what’s happening now is faster.

    Just a few seconds of a search and you can easily locate articles on it, such as this one.

  11. stan– Looks like we have an informal “class reunion” of offspring of Bulge veterans. My dad was lucky to escape without frostbitten feet, possibly because U.S. paratrooper boots were somewhat better insulated against cold than standard infantry boots. He said that the Germans actually had it worse in terms of frostbite because the standard German jackboot had a metal plate between the outer hobnailed sole and the leather insole, and the metal conducted heat away from the wearer’s foot rather than retaining heat.

    Yes, I’ve read in several sources that the winter of 1944 was the worst in Europe since the Napoleonic era.

  12. Blom, “Nature’s Mutiny” has a lot on the LIA. Figures for crops, imports, etc.
    Gets over his skis in discussing impact on thinking and theology and the horrifying ends of heretics you never heard of. Didn’t figure the Columbian Exchange.

    Greenies will insist that it was local since no other records elsewhere show it. At the time, there were few other records being kept, so the greenies are safe there.
    But there’s China.
    http://history.emory.edu/home/documents/endeavors/volume6/endeavors-vlm-vi-anderson.pdf

    As to speed of increase, I’ve seen the charts and the vertical axis is usually pretty small. A degree or two looks pretty dramatic.
    Not sure we have accurate proxies for the Minoan Warm Period getting going, nor the Roman Warm Period.

    When asked about correcting for urban heat island effect, the usual response is a blank look.
    Consider whether it’s coal or electricity or natural gas, immense amounts of energy are brought from elsewhere and emitted as heat in a small area. Plus, vegetation is replaced by pavement which, north of, say, the Ohio River, spends at least some time each year paved and ploughed when in earlier times it was reflecting solar radiation back into space. Now, it absorbs the radiation and re-emits it. Speaking of snow. Recent report had as many as 5% of NOAA’s sensors placed according to protocol to avoid the UHI.

  13. Pa+Cat, what Battalion of the 82nd? My Father in Law was also in the 82nd. I am not really sure if he was where you Father was. He did jump in several places. He joined up in ’42 at the age of 30, an Old Man.
    Several years ago my best friend and I were part of a tour to discuss the Battle of the Bulge. Our second time in Bastogne. The winter wasn’t near as bad as what happened in ’44 though.
    They still do the tour every Dec now.

  14. Neo, the claim re speed of temp change has been refuted. That’s why they change the temp records every three months.

  15. SHIREHOME–

    My dad was in the 307th Combat Engineer Battalion of the 82nd. You can read about his unit in more detail here:
    https://82ndabn307thaeb.webs.com/unithistory.htm

    My dad went to Fort Bragg for airborne training in 1942 after basic training at Fort Belvoir in Virginia. He was 29 when he left for basic training; had his 30th birthday in September 1942. I think there were a lot of “old men” in the 82nd, as my dad’s closest buddy, an Italian-American from the Scranton area, was two years older than he was. In 1942, Congress amended the Selective Service Act of 1940 by lowering the draft age to 18 (it was originally 21) and raising the upper limit to age 37. My dad and his buddy were both married men in 1942 but had no children (yet) and were below age 37, so off to war they went.

    I hope you enjoyed your tour of the Bastogne area– I wish I could do the same.

  16. stan:

    It may be refuted according to you and those who aren’t into AGW, but it certainly hasn’t been refuted in some definitive manner. People here were insinuating that the AGW folks were ignoring ice ages and periods of climate change in the past. My point is not who’s right or wrong about climate change. My point is that the AGW contingent of scientists is certainly not IGNORING the issue.

  17. As for CAGW, some interesting new posts at Watts Up With That.

    “Urban Night Lighting Observations Demonstrate The Land Surface Temperature Dataset is ‘not fit for purpose'”
    Shows how corrupted the land temperature records are by the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect.

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/12/18/urban-night-lighting-observations-challenge-interpretation-of-land-surface-temperature-observations/

    Then there’s this:
    “Data shows there’s no climate catastrophe looming – climatologist Dr J Christy debunks the narrative”

    A 49-minute video and well done.
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/12/18/data-shows-theres-no-climate-catastrophe-looming-climatologist-dr-j-christy-debunks-the-narrative/

    Then there’s this. Every day here on Earth we experience temperatures of as high as 100+ degrees F and as low as -60 degrees F. And people live in these places. (Many more people in the hotter areas, by the way.) How do they do m it? Adaptation. Humans have always been adapters and if not yoked to some foolish notion about getting rid of fossil fuels, we will adapt to whatever changes are coming.

  18. Here is the judge’s decision allowing two of Kari Lake’s complaints to go forward. Some of the text on the signature mismatch complaint, that was rejected:

    Plaintiff next argues that the signature validation methodology utilized by Maricopa County did not comply with the statute. Specifically, Plaintiff argues that the review of mail-in ballot signatures, conducted pursuant to the Maricopa County Election Manual was inadequate.
    ———–
    Considering first Plaintiff’s delay, Plaintiff makes much of a report by Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich – issued on April 6, 2022 – that reported that the “early ballot affidavit signature verification system in Arizona, and particularly when applied to Maricopa County, may be insufficient to guard against abuse.” Whatever the merits of that position, applied to these facts,
    Plaintiff was on notice by April (at the latest) of the procedural defects she now raises in her challenge and offers no explanation for the delay
    ————-
    As for prejudice, as another department of this Court indicated in dismissing another election claim, any procedural challenge post-election “ask[s] us to overturn the will of the people as expressed in the election.” Finchem v. Fontes, CV2022053927, at 5 (Maricopa Cnty. Super. Ct. Dec. 16, 2022) (quoting Sherman, 202 Ariz. at 342, ¶ 11). This is an exceedingly high degree of prejudice against both the parties and the public, which this Court is loath to excuse.
    Therefore, because Plaintiff was on notice (at a minimum) months before the election as to the nature of the ballot signature reconciliation process and chose not to challenge it then, her claim is barred by laches.

    https://www.clerkofcourt.maricopa.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/4469/638070743366470000

  19. And while VP Word Salad is going full Green Goddess…
    “Harris blames Republicans for border crisis: ‘Unwillingness to engage in any meaningful reform’ “—
    https://www.foxnews.com/media/harris-blames-republicans-border-crisis-unwillingness-engage-any-meaningful-reform
    …President Fentanyl knotches another policy success:
    “DEA says agency seized enough fentanyl to kill every American in 2022”—
    https://justthenews.com/nation/crime/dea-says-agency-seized-enough-fentanyl-kill-every-american-2022

    Fortunately, though, VP Word Salad has given us all a helpful hint as to why the Border is Broken (I mean “Secure” of course) and why the Republicans are to blame for it.
    Heeeere she goes!
    ‘…”The border is secure, but we also have a broken immigration system, in particular, over the last four years before we came in, and it needs to be fixed,” she told NBC’s Chuck Todd.
    ‘ Todd asked if she was confident that the border is secure as millions of people were set to cross into the country illegally for the first time ever.
    ‘ “We have a secure border in that that is a priority for any nation, including ours and our administration,” Harris replied. “But there are still a lot of problems that we are trying to fix given the deterioration that happened over the last four years. We also have to put into place a law and a plan for a pathway for citizenship for the millions of people who are here and are prepared to do what is legally required to gain citizenship.”….’ [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]

    And there you have it: Until the Republicans agree that ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE will be granted—or guaranteed??—a “pathway to citizenship” then that border is going to remain broken (I mean “secure”).

    THEREFORE, it is ALL the Republicans’ fault.

    IOW, “Give us the legislation we want..or else THAT BORDER remains broken (we mean, “SECURE”).

    I’m not sure a more beautiful example of “Extortion ‘R Us” could be found!

  20. Brian E:

    Things like that Kari Lake opinion are exactly why I continue to say that prevention is the only way to go. Courts will always look for a way to punt. They do NOT want to decide about elections if they can possibly help it, and they usually can help it. Laches, for example, or lack of standing, or mootness, or inability to prove that it made a difference in terms of who won. Usually it is impossible to prove it made a difference in who won because people cannot match envelopes with ballots once the ballots are removed.

  21. Except that if they control the secretary of state positions they determine the count

  22. Neo,

    Well, they also know they are lying their asses off. Read the Climategate emails. They KNOW it’s all fraud. Of course, they continue to lie and slander. It’s all they have. But don’t confuse their BS with a scientific argument.

    Smollet still stands by his fraud. Dan Rather still stands by his fraud. Fauci still stands by his fraud. Fraudsters usually do. But normal people don’t take them seriously.

  23. The Little Ice Age (LIA) extended from about 1300 to the mid-1800s or so, as the video states; roughly 500 years of “nice” weather.
    But immediately prior to the LIA, the Northern Hemisphere experienced the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) , which lasted for about 300 years; from about the year 950 to about the year 1300.

    So within about a 50 year period or so, the climate went from nice and pleasant to bitterly cold; and it would stay cold for about 500 years or so.

    Climate scientists have zero idea of what caused these dramatic shifts in climate, but more than likely, it was caused by the same mechanisms that ALWAYS cause changes in climate; e.g. the orbital mechanics of the earth, the sun’s activities and the influence of other celestial bodies upon the earth’s atmosphere.

  24. About the border problem. My Congresswoman, Susan DelBene, replied to an e-mail I sent asking why the Congress doesn’t force the administration to close the border. “They are primarily refugees that we should welcome into our country. There is no problem at the border.” That was the official line.

    Now, it’s the claim that our immigration system is broken, and the Republicans won’t help fix it. Which is code for: “We want an amnesty bill so these illegals can all become citizens. We’ll close the border only when the Republicans agree.” Once amnesty is assured, they’ll never close the border. It’s a huge con game and this was part of their plan when Biden was elected. It’s the Cloward-Piven strategy for illegals.

  25. This post by Warren Meyer at Climate Skeptic contains a comparison of two temperature graphs over a 51 year period. http://www.climate-skeptic.com/2010/03/oh-maybe-ocean-occilations-are-important.html

    One of those graphs supposedly shows unprecedented warming due to CO2 from industrialization. The other is natural. Obviously, the period with unprecedented warming should leap off the page. Try to figure out which is which. This type demonstration removes the issue from honest debate. The temps claimed to be unprecedented are not. Period. Evidence matters. Q.E.D.

    Note – eventually the quarterly revisions of the temperature past will change the shape of these graphs. The new graphs will be as honest as an election in Chicago or Philly.

  26. stan:

    Judith Curry is my go-to person on climate matters. I’ve spent many an hour reading people on both sides, and as far as I’m concerned she’s head and shoulders above anyone else, fair to everyone and very smart. If you’re interested in her opinion on Climategate, here’s here analysis from three years ago, with plenty of links to her earlier writings on the subject.

  27. John Tyler:

    You say that climate scientists have “zero” idea what caused those dramatic shifts. Actually, you may not like their ideas or agree with them, but they certainly have ideas about it. However, they don’t agree with each other, either.

    For example, see this for the Little Ice Age, and see this for the Medieval Warm Period.

  28. “They are primarily refugees that we should welcome into our country. There is no problem at the border.” That was the official line.

    She’s stupid or she’s a liar. The only mass refugee generators in the western hemisphere are Cuba and Venezuela, and refugees from these two places would not be arriving overland. Cuba’s an island and there have been no roads cut through the jungle which covers the borderland of Colombia and Panama.

  29. I have been reading Curry for over 15 years. Bless her heart. She still hasn’t fessed up to her knowing fraud. But she is certainly more honest than she was 20 years ago.

    I’ve spent, literally, thousands of hours of research on this. I’m familiar with a lot of people who are far smarter and far more insightful than Curry. You should broaden your research.

  30. Its been almost 20 years now since I retired from the Federal government research organization/think tank where I spent the majority of my professional career.

    For the 25 years prior to my retirement, I was doing research on a wide array of subjects, other than Medicine and Law, and I relied on Federal government sources for many of the statistics I used in my research.

    It was pretty obvious that the “official government statistics” that were being put out by other nations–the U.S.S.R., and China in particular–were unreliable, were manipulated/phony, but we knew (or at least we thought we knew, back then) that U.S. government statistics—the products of a dozen or more Federal organizations like the Bureau of Labor Statistics,* the Census Bureau, and the Center for Disease Control ** were not “monkeyed with,” were honest, correct, objective, as complete as possible, and reliable.

    Fast forward to today, where it appears as if some, perhaps many of these formerly reliable sources of Federal government statistics have been corrupted, and the statistics they are issuing (and how they are being portrayed) are being manipulated to fit Leftist/Democrat narratives and needs.

    And if you can’t trust Federal government statistics, what source can you trust, and how can you determine what the actual situation is in any number of areas/situations?

    * See, for example, https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/12/sorry-about-those-jobs.php

    ** See also https://www.foxnews.com/politics/cdc-removed-stats-defensive-gun-use-pressure-gun-control-activists-report

  31. BTW — have you read the emails and the Harry Read Me file comments? Not what someone else wants you to believe about them. Have YOU read them. You should. I have.

  32. Snow on Pine,

    Huge implications from the Democrats’ corruption of govt numbers and all academic research. There are lots of conservative number-crunchers who are emotionally unwilling to admit that the numbers they use are flawed. Because that makes their work worthless.

    We have no way to budget effectively. All the numbers are bogus.

    We have no way to make policy effectively. All the “truths” that science and the academy tell us aren’t real. And no one is interested in establishing any quality processes. They like the corruption.

    We can’t trust any institutions. Everything has been corrupted. The justice system, news media, education system, academia, big tech, big business, hollywood, publishing, Congress, the bureaucracies. Everything.

    It’s all turtles all the way down.

  33. stan:

    Here. Enjoy.

    Your condescending attitude is not the least bit impressive. And lots of people have spent “thousands of hours” on it, which doesn’t make them all wise.

  34. Bless stan that he is here to show us the truth and the light. Thank stan that our path is now straight and narrow.

    Or not.

  35. 1984 is a how to manual for them from the malabar front (glorious ukraine) to the chocolate rations, those that repeat the lies are promoted those who speak truth are ostracized metered deplatformed

  36. Neo,

    look in the mirror. Self-awareness is good. Try some. Your condescension is no more convincing than anyone else’s.

  37. stan:

    We are not worthy, it seems.

    Do you know what a mirror is and what it shows? Emporer and clothes?

    Self own, own goal, stan.

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