Harry Potter Fans With No Life

You have to think of the atmosphere as a fluid. (Think of the cool swirls when you slowly drop Kool-Aid crystals, or food coloring, into water.) With the oceans being warmer, the "air" over them swirls differently, and rises more. For quite a few centuries our atmosphere had settled into a fairly consistent west-to-east flow that roughly matched what humans call Latitudes... but with the warmer oceans pushing up (because heat rises) that displaces the Jet Stream a little bit, which knocks the swirl of "air" catty-whumpus, sending what used to leisurely circle north of 40 down over the land mass... on which we are standing, to get blasted with the colder "air" ... and places that used to get rained on to no longer get that moisture (it skips past there)... and places that used to retain the polar "air" get melty instead (which releases trapped/stored methane, which adds more to the warming) ... and wind speeds closer to the surface are faster (because the Jet Stream not only wobbles south, it also dips closer to the surface)... and causes more swirls of storms over the other ocean(s)... and... and.. and...

A lot of the life cycles become out of sync, so birds who nest too soon don't have the bugs they need to feed their young because the bugs hatch either too soon or too late depending on temperatures... and the plants and critters dependent on the birds die off because there aren't enough birds... and the more adaptable insects over-produce (or at least there aren't enough of their natural predators to eat the extra bugs, so too many of that type survive - for a little while, anyway), and destroy crops and trees... and... and... and...

But there's no such thing as climate change... and people are not the cause... and... and... and....


We need to get lost in Potter-ing.... reality sucks.


.

agree 100% ... people are not the cause of climate change/global warming.
it has been happening since the ice age - if it didn't we'd still be walking on top of miles of ice. And if so many dinosaurs roamed these lands, it must have been very warm here (many, many eons ago)

why so many 'experts' are wanting/willing to blame society, I will never know.

_________________

You really didn't need to share the temperatures (or, more accurately, the lack of such). It is colder than &%^@ here tonight, with a fairly nasty windchill. The wind was blowing hard enough that I wasn't sure the hatch-door was going to stay up while I put stuff into the back of the car.

Whose idea was this? Grrrrr.

I don't know, but it is headed our way! Tomorrow is going to be brutal!

_________________

**UPDATE** The storm & winds are upon us today ... temps start plummeting this afternoon and continue throughout tomorrow.
Is it Spring yet????? Already so very tired of our crappy weather!!!!

_________________

Friday morning was a hoot trying to get to work. Just enough snow to make the roads slick and major accidents all over the interstate. Folks don't drive for the conditions. As Mainers, you think they'd know by now.

Saw pretty blue flashing lights just after I got on the interstate; one truck off the interstate, still upright but facing the wrong direction. Further down saw nothing but break lights and no one moving so I got off the interstate; truck behind me noticed what I was doing and why...followed me up the off ramp. Roads weren't too bad but slick enough to have to slow down. Finally got to Bangor...police cars blocking all southbound onramps. Wound up 45 minutes late to work.

Don't know if anyone was seriously hurt, nothing on the news about any of the accidents. Then the cold moved in. Only plus...blue skies. At least we won't have any storms until next weekend and then it's looking like just rain. We'll see.

not that I want anyone to be injured, but so very glad you arrived to work safely Moo ... does not matter if you are late, as long as you arrive alive!!!

_________________

More snow this morning when I got up. Looks to be maybe 4 or 5 inches. At least I didn't have to drive in it today...on annual leave. Nice to be able to just watch it for a change.

we are having rather warm weather this week. very odd.

_________________

Well, cleaned off my car this morning...somewhere between 7 - 8 inches. Supposed to warm up to the 40s by the end of the week with up to 2" of rain Friday. I think this might classify as our January thaw a couple of weeks early. Scary thought...what are we going to get in January and February?