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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 4, 2011 8:20:42 GMT -6
One other factor that points to just how much moisture this storm held, it was a relatively fast moving storm. It only took 3 days to cross the entire country, which means that the snow totals were not enhanced because the storm stalled and hung over one place for a long time.
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Post by Tex on Feb 4, 2011 8:35:31 GMT -6
We haven't had that much precip, mainly bone chilling cold.
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 4, 2011 8:50:03 GMT -6
In that case Tex, just talk to this guy here. BTW: Texas <> Whole World Damn those pictures make me glad I don't live in snow country. Spring will come sooner or later. Just to let you know 74 here today(should be mid 50's and wet), no rain in sight. We only had 3/4 of an inch of rain in January when we usually get 10 to 15. Things are getting dry out here. Joe
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Post by Chicago Jake on Feb 4, 2011 10:13:59 GMT -6
You forgot to highlight the "no rain in sight" portion. What happened to that moist air mass you are so fond of?
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Post by New Mama on Feb 4, 2011 10:37:35 GMT -6
Thanks for that explanation Gordon. It makes a bit of sense to me but gives rise to more questions too.
If warmer air holds more moisture; what about the cold air the warm air needs to turn into rain and snow? If we have global warming is the danger that we will run out of cold air on earth? What are the most accepted projections for a timetable to an earth without cold air?
Chicago’s recent blizzard was not a heavy wet snow but relatively dry and easy to move. We have been and are expected to be dry with current and forecasted temperatures about 30 degrees below normal. Our entire winter has experienced below ‘normal’ average temperatures with below average precipitation prior to the big blizzard this week. This seems to be counter to your admittedly logical critique on ‘warming’.
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 4, 2011 10:58:34 GMT -6
You forgot to highlight the "no rain in sight" portion. What happened to that moist air mass you are so fond of? GOOD GOD, this must be pure baiting, I know your are not that stupid Jake, remember that relative humidity thing... just because the air is warmer it doesnt NECESSARILY mean that it holds more moisture, but has the potential to hold more moisture.
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 4, 2011 11:37:04 GMT -6
Thanks for that explanation Gordon. It makes a bit of sense to me but gives rise to more questions too.
If warmer air holds more moisture; what about the cold air the warm air needs to turn into rain and snow? If we have global warming is the danger that we will run out of cold air on earth? What are the most accepted projections for a timetable to an earth without cold air?
WTF? Who ever said anything about running out of cold air? You HAVE to think globally in this because EVERY aspect of weather and climate is the attempt of physical processes to redistribute heat.
In the tropics there is more heat being put into the system that is being reradiated out into space. In the polar regions there is a lot more heat being radiated into space than is being put into the system. Hence the tropics are warmer the polar regions colder.
Warm air is less dense than cold air, hence warm air rises, cold air sinks, and that is what starts weather systems in motion. EVERYTHING involving weather and climate is basically the system attempting to even out the energy levels over the entire globe.
So really your question about when we will "run out of cold air" is nonsensical.
Chicago’s recent blizzard was not a heavy wet snow but relatively dry and easy to move. Thats a relative thing, I didnt check what the "water equivalent" of the snow you had was, very wet snow can be about 1" of water for 6" of snow (when the snow is melted), 1" water = 15" of snow is what most northern locations would call "normal", 1"=25" snow would be a dry snow in most places, around where I live, we frequently get 1" water =40" snow, when that happens, I can clear 8" of snow off my deck with with a broom We have been and are expected to be dry with current and forecasted temperatures about 30 degrees below normal.
Our entire winter has experienced below ‘normal’ average temperatures with below average precipitation prior to the big blizzard this week. This seems to be counter to your admittedly logical critique on ‘warming’.
Once again warm air has the potential to hold more moisture, is doesnt necessarily mean that it does, that is why there are both deserts like the Sahara and jungles like the Amazon, that are on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
And you basically reinforced what I said earlier with your statement... Chicago has until this storm been "cold and dry". The moisture that fed the storm this week was coming up from the south, warm and moist, and ran into the relatively cold air coming from the north, the cold air cant hold ad much moisture as the warm air, it snows like hell as the air mass gets colder then its cold and dry
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 4, 2011 11:50:38 GMT -6
Just checked on line, ORD had 1.50 inches of water in that 20 inches of snow which makes it moderately wet.
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Post by Tex on Feb 4, 2011 11:53:22 GMT -6
So the drouth was global warming and so is precipitation? What a handy theory!
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 4, 2011 12:05:53 GMT -6
Tex you are a real gem, you are the only one who is pointing to individual events and using the tag "global warming"
Edited: I have only been describing the basic atmospheric processes and how the relate to temperature and humidity and attempting to not put any further context into the discussion.
BTW- since you mention drought, most travelers are aware that in the summer there can be weight restricting place on airplane flights. That is because warm air is less dense than cold air, AND humid air is less dense than dry air. When you get hot humid air, its more difficult for planes to take off with full loads.
Droughts tend to perpetuate themselves because hot dry air is dense (heavy) and tends to not rise into cooler moister air above it. In hot moist air, the rising air tends to rise, cool, form clouds, and make the typical summer thunderstorms. Hot dry air cannot rise hence does not form clouds, and hence the dry conditions continue.
So you have to ask the question, where was the source of the air mass you were dealing with, a warm moist source, or a warm dry source (I assume that is WAS on the warm side during the drought). If there was no moisture in the air mass, of COURSE its going to be dry... DUH
You can have cold deserts too. Antarctica is in fact a VERY dry place, and by most definitions would be a desert, because almost no air from moister (warmer) regions reach very far inland. Its got all that ice because over millions of years most of what little moisture has fallen has never had the chance to melt.
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Post by innit Geezer on Feb 4, 2011 12:06:49 GMT -6
And by the way, that converts to an eighth of an inch of K-Y intimacy lube (any flavor).
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 4, 2011 12:07:44 GMT -6
Which is about 1/4" on the antiquated "Vaseline" scale
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Post by innit Geezer on Feb 4, 2011 12:23:49 GMT -6
Generally speaking, anything warm and wet I'm in favor of. Devils food cake, hot-tubs and virginia.
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Post by innit Geezer on Feb 4, 2011 12:31:25 GMT -6
Generally speaking, anything warm and wet I'm in favor of. Devils food cake, hot-tubs and virginia.
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 4, 2011 12:36:22 GMT -6
come on, come on, one more time
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Post by innit Geezer on Feb 4, 2011 12:39:07 GMT -6
Generally speaking, anything warm and wet I'm in favor of. Devils food cake, hot-tubs and virginia.
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Post by innit Geezer on Feb 4, 2011 12:40:42 GMT -6
it's the phone Gordon, I swear! If it refreshes the page it reposts.
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Post by New Mama on Feb 4, 2011 12:45:28 GMT -6
OK, again I thank you for explaining all this. I know you didn’t say anything about global warming…I did. WTF, should I have started a new thread? I’m trying to relate the process you so clearly described to the much reported problem of global warming. Do the two have nothing in common?
If the ‘globe’ is warming how will that event affect drought, rainfall and climates? What is it that so many are so worked up about?
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Post by Chicago Jake on Feb 4, 2011 12:54:11 GMT -6
We are ALL citing anecdotal and isolated events and trying to plot a trend. It can't be done. It's all OPINION. As my old control systems professor liked to say, you can't differentiate in real time.
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 4, 2011 13:12:08 GMT -6
No problem Anita, I didnt put it into "global warming" context because I wanted to keep it strictly to the physical processes involved. The basic physical processes I described above remain the same regardless where you are (even to what we have seen on other planets/moons in our solar system). Venus, Mars, Titan, all play by the same rules.
What is different between these other examples are the inputs to the system. More or less energy going into the system, more or less atmospheric compositions that promote or inhibit the energy leaving the system. As I said before, EVERYTHING ELSE is how the system deals with trying to balance the energy load to the system.
The real crux to the term "global warming" (and lets be honest, I dont know of anyone in the science community using that term anymore, "global climate ch-ch-change" is a much more accurate term) is whether the ch-ch-changes we are seeing are the result of the input side (more energy from the sun) being put into the system or certain gasses (commonly called "greenhouse gasses") inhibiting the reradiation of energy back out into space. Or a combination of the two.
All the conditions you describe is where things get really complicated. There are dozens of potential effects of ch-ch-changes in the inputs and output to the system and no simple answers. And it is even further complicated by our human tendency to look at relatively short periods of time and small areas around us that we experience.
Can I get back to you on this over the weekend. I really have to get some items completed here, and what you are asking will take time to lay out.
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Post by New Mama on Feb 4, 2011 14:07:11 GMT -6
Can I get back to you on this over the weekend. I really have to get some items completed here, and what you are asking will take time to lay out. You have actually done a good job explaining this already. As you can tell I have done little to no reading on this subject as I really don't think anyone has the answers. I know this is something you have studied and thought you could narrow down the issues of climate… global… whatever warming in unscientific terms for me.
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Post by nolaflacav on Feb 5, 2011 7:28:44 GMT -6
A spontaneous protest on global warming broke out on Friday afternoon. This should put Egypt on the back burner
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 5, 2011 16:50:57 GMT -6
Those arent illegal Mexican snowhombre's are they?
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Post by Chicago Jake on Feb 5, 2011 16:57:46 GMT -6
The proper term is "ice-backs."
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Post by ♥ COVID-19♥ on Feb 5, 2011 17:36:15 GMT -6
Although I've also heard them referred to as "Flakes".
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Post by nolaflacav on Feb 5, 2011 20:33:16 GMT -6
If this global warming theory holds true it is just a matter of time before they turn into wetbacks.
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Post by Ardbeg... innit on Feb 6, 2011 19:37:39 GMT -6
OK, again I thank you for explaining all this. I know you didn’t say anything about global warming…I did. WTF, should I have started a new thread? I’m trying to relate the process you so clearly described to the much reported problem of global warming. Do the two have nothing in common? If the ‘globe’ is warming how will that event affect drought, rainfall and climates? What is it that so many are so worked up about? Anita I have spent the past couple days thinking about how to deal with this and not end up looking like Im obfuscating, or putting myself up for a Golden Louie Award. One of the first things we need to do is get the terminology straight, weather versus climate. Weather is what is going on outside right now,what happened yesterday, what happened a month ago, and what happened on July 4, 1776. Climate is what happened in the 20th century, the 1990's, and in 2005. In general, a one year time span is about the lower limit when asking any sort of question about "climate". If you were to translate this into the world of personal finance, weather would be everything you spent your money on yesterday, climate would be everything you spent your money on in, say, 1998. Sticking with the personal finance analogy, every day you spend money, maybe a cup of coffee everyday in the morning, a bag lunch one day, fast food another, and maybe a sit down business lunch on another. Plus everything else that you spend money on every day. So when the qustion is asked "how could there be record cold" when there is global warming, its a lot like asking how come I spent so little money yesterday if Im making more money than ever. Climate is all about long term patterns of weather. Heat waves, cold wave, floods, droughts, snow storms, hurricanes will all continue to happen as climate ch-ch-changes, what ch-ch-changes is the FREQUENCY and SEVERITY of these events over long periods of time, like years or decades even. If you were to look back over your life, you periodically might buy a new car. That is spending a LOT of money on one particular day. An unusual event, but something that can be expected to happen every so often. So what would you say if you bought a new car after 4 years instead of 6 years. If it happens once, its probably not a big deal, maybe you got a bonus that year . But if we start seeing it happen repeatedly or a new car happening more often on 4 or 5 year intervals, rather the previous 6 year interval, and the new cars are more upscale than they used to be, maybe something significant has happened to your personal finances, like a significant raise. Climate ch-ch-change research involves looking at these long term ch-ch-changes and trying to make sense of what is being observed. The concerns that you ask about are really multifaceted. Some deal with ecological effects such as species extinction, both plant and animal. Other concerns are economic, especially food supply related. Most of this is done with very elaborate computer modeling. These models are developed based on long term observations of weather. The models are tested and retested and the results are compared to other observations using completely different data sets (and we are not talking weather data necessarily). This process is called "validation". The same process is used in economic models. Validation is not trying to predict the future, but using one aspect of the past to predict another aspect of the past. The more a model is successful at correctly predicting past events based on other past events, the more comfortable scientists are about using the model to predict the future. MANY (but honestly, not all) of the predictive models paint an uncomfortable future for many aspects of global and American economy. Much of that dealing with agricultural issues. Most move the prime grain growing areas north into Canada, leaving Kansas looking much more like Texas. Some even indicate that the US could become a food importing nation in our great-grandchildren's time. Water usage, especially in areas that are already dry may be problematic. Look how much the west already depends on the Colorado River. If drought in the Rockies becomes more frequent which is a frequent scenario, the cities and agriculture that depends on that source will experience more restrictions to economic growth, more frequent crop failures, and greater conflict over water use rights. I will leave it at this point for now. Comments and questions? G
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Post by ♥ COVID-19♥ on Feb 6, 2011 20:28:35 GMT -6
Should I take the bus or the plane?
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Post by ♥ COVID-19♥ on Feb 6, 2011 20:28:58 GMT -6
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Post by ♥ COVID-19♥ on Feb 6, 2011 20:29:30 GMT -6
Were there enough towels?
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