And we don't get that warm to begin with.
Posted on 07/18/2009 6:26:00 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
1816 was the "year without a summer." There were several causes of the abnormally cold weather that year, as this source recounts:
The year 1816 is still known to scientists and historians as "eighteen hundred and froze to death" or the "year without a summer." It was the locus of a period of natural ecological destruction not soon to be forgotten. During that year, the Northern Hemisphere was slammed with the effects of at least two abnormal but natural phenomena. These events were mysterious at the time, and even today they are not well understood.
First, 1816 marked the midpoint of one of the Sun's extended periods of low magnetic activity, called the Dalton Minimum. This particular minimum lasted from about 1795 to the 1820s. It resembled the earlier Maunder Minimum (about 1645-1715) that was responsible for at least 70 years of abnormally cold weather in the Northern Hemisphere. The Maunder Minimum interval is sandwiched within an even better known cool period known as the Little Ice Age, which lasted from about the 14th through 19th centuries.
But the event that most severely shaped 1816's cold phenomena was the cata-strophic eruption the previous year of Tambora on the island of Sumbawa, in modern-day Indonesia. The ash clouds and sulfur aerosols spewed by this volcano were widespread, chilling the climate of the Northern Hemisphere by blocking sunlight with gases and particles.
If this account is correct, the "year without a summer" played a role in the development of the American Midwest:
In 1816, it snowed in June in the United States and Europe. Crops failed, there was starvation, people lost their farms, and it touched off the wave of emigration that led to the settlement of what is now the American Midwest. In the meantime, hundreds of thousands more starved around the world.
New England and Europe were hit exceptionally hard. Snowfalls and frost occurred in June, July and August and all but the hardiest grains were destroyed. Destruction of the corn crop forced farmers to slaughter their animals. Soup kitchens were opened to feed the hungry. Sea ice migrated across Atlantic shipping lanes, and alpine glaciers advanced down mountain slopes to exceptionally low elevations.
I don't think things are quite so bad this year, but if something doesn't change pretty soon 2009 may go down in history, in some parts of the U.S. at least, as another year with barely any summer. Here in Minnesota and across the Midwest, temperatures are abnormally cold. I don't know whether the phenomenon is world-wide--data that will answer this question have probably not been assembled, and may not be honestly reported--but the current low level of solar activity suggests that the cooling trend could indeed be universal.
Here in Minneapolis, the temperature never reached 70 degrees today--rather astonishing for the middle of July, our hottest month. Most days recently, it hasn't been comfortable to be outdoors in the evening without a fire and a sweatshirt. It feels more like October than July. Thankfully, and unlike 1816, it hasn't snowed; the worst consequence we fear is not getting any ripe tomatoes.
Today, walking down the street in downtown Minneapolis at 5:30, en route from my office to my parking ramp, I saw something I've never seen before: a man wearing a winter coat in July. Well, maybe not quite a winter coat, but definitely a fall/winter semi-parka with an unzipped, faux-fur lined hood. He was carrying a briefcase and looked like a businessman who was tired of being cold every time he went outdoors. In the summer.
I personally don't think that we (all of humankind, let alone we Americans) can control the weather, but for those who do think we possess that Godlike power, here's a request: can we turn the thermostat up a little?
Here in St. Louis we’re asking, “This is July?” The last few days have been just beautiful with cool temperatures. Not much in the way of haze this summer and, for us, that’s not normal.
In high 90s here for the past week or more - 99 yesterday. Doesn’t seem like much to my Texas buddies but we’re a mile high here in ABQ.
Nature’s way of telling us Al Gore is full of fertilizer.
We’ve had a sort of odd summer thus far, here in North Carolina. I’ve had plenty of rain and below average temps, but areas less than fifty miles away are in drought. Locally, people are commenting on oddities with tomato plants. Very leggy, too much vegetation and not much on blooms or tomatoes.
This morning sure feels like late September, too. July is normally exceedingly hot and humid, not much below 80° at night and well into the nineties during the day.
99 F in ABQ is like 80 F in Houston - no humidity. Though I have to admit that it has been darn hot for the past 5 days following what had been a rather mild June and mild start to July.
LOL! Yes I know, “it’s not the heat it’s the humidity”. People in dry climates who have not experienced humidity have trouble with that concept.
We had a hot June in North Florida, a tad warmer than average, but July has been more like May should be. In June we had some 97-99 degree days and nights were mostly 80s. In July it often does not get out of the 80s in the daytime and has been back to the low 70s at night, very unusual.
High of 71 in Columbus, OH today.
And yet the babbling buffoons will keep blathering about “global warming.”
Seattle has had its hottest, driest stretch between May and July that anyone remembers (with more on the way).
El Nino Threat Blows Commodity Prices Higher
ENSO does have some positive benefits. The change in wind patterns means that hurricane formation is disrupted in the Atlantic, so the Gulf of Mexico is at a lower risk of suffering disruptions to oil production, lessening the chances of an oil-price spike. Also, the warm US winters caused by the phenomenon reduce energy consumption, lessening demand for heating oil. It also had indirect benefits. According to the NOAA study, department store sales were up by 5pc to 15pc during the abnormally warm winter in the Midwest during the 1997-998 event.
Here in Indy this am, I woke up to temps around 58. Right now my thermometer says it’s 60. For frickn July!
I might light a fire. Or close my windows. We have ‘t seen temps like these since the 1870’s, back then the high was like 75. I dot know if we’ll even make it that high today.
It hasn’t hit 90F (that’s 32C up here) in Toronto once this summer. It got to 86F (30C) on one day in May.
Environment Canada will find a way to call it one of the hottest summers on record, just as one of the coldest winters in decades was called one of the mildest.
The global warming crowd can do that because they know very few people actually follow annual temperature records.
That, m'dear, is an understatement :)
Houston is not the only place that has unbelievable humidity. We were in New Orleans a few years ago ,pre katrina, and the humidity was so high I felt like I was drowning. I could not seem to get a proper breath of oxygen.
On my front porch in North Louisiana I have been feeding hummingbirds for about 15 years, and usually have a flock of about 100 southward-migrating birds by mid-September, as judged by their sugar syrup consumption, but up till now I have never had many in July. This year there seem to be about as many as I have ever seen in the fall migration season. I wonder if this is due to the cold temperatures up North that are prompting them to head south much earlier than usual?
Believe me, I know. My husband lived in Houston for about 6 years (after a similar amount of time in Phoenix) before he moved back to DelMarVa in the mid '80s. I know things are bad around here when he comments that "this is even worse than Houston."
We have been rather lucky so far this year, we haven't had too many of those type days. In fact yesterday was about the worst. However a cold front moved in around 3pm and the temp went from 96 to 80 in about 45 minutes and then the rain came :)
Yeah, “but it’s a dry heat”. :-)
Actually, the huma-di-tee is a little higher than normal too.
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