If Pelosi and Biden get one of the wars they seem to crave, we will see how well a “Woke” military fights. Pride flags and all. I wonder if that pride flag is still flying in Kabul?
@Mike K:
After decades of being run by Communist, you expect the Chinese Army to outperform the Russian? We are 30 years behind them in destroying the NCO corps. Note: I contend our officer corps, of which I was one, is inferior to most if not all, but our NCOs have been and still are the best in the world. Fortunately, the NCO still does most of the work in the US military. Though the woke lawyers are doing yeoman’s work to ruin them.
I know one CPO who retired as soon as he could to avoid the Woke nonsense. I suspect there are lots more. He was a Seebee and is doing very well in the private world. Worked with SEALS for years.
On the climate: lots of high temperature records being broke this summer in the northern hemisphere. I just came across this article on WUWT on how the Tonga explosion this past January increased the atmospheric water content by 10%!! That’s huge! Given that water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas by a large amount, maybe not surprising we are seeing a relative hot summer.
Fascinating about the water vapor.
Not sure I understand the mechanism by which more water vapor in the atmosphere acts to increase temperatures, unless the increased number of droplets in the atmosphere act like actual mini-greenhouses. (But this explanation sounds a bit fanciful even to me.)
In any event, if I understand this correctly, H2O is a bigger “enemy” of Gaia than CO2.
Is it time for the Pentagon (not to mention “Biden”, Greta and the WTF) to recalibrate?
– – – – – – – –
Related(?)
“Watch: Volcano Erupts In Southwest Iceland Near Capital”— https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/watch-volcano-erupts-southwest-iceland-near-capital
So, water vapor is a greenhouse gas? You mean, like clouds?
physicsguy:
Are you implying that the global climate change models don’t include impacts from volcanic eruptions? How predictable is that (that the global climate change models are sh*t)?
Yes water vapor is a greenhouse gas, but everyone knows that taxing clouds is about effective as shouting at them. So, look squirrel, nitrous oxide! Let’s kill agriculture!
Yes, it’s often asserted that water vapor is the bigger factor but it would be politically difficult to get people to “fight” water. Certainly CO2 is way outnumbered compared to water molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere.
So instead pro-global warming authorities claim complicated chemical pathways show that CO2 is busier in causing the atmospheric interactions than H2O
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/MYDAL2_M_SKY_WV
Water vapor is also the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Heat radiated from Earth’s surface is absorbed by water vapor molecules in the lower atmosphere. The water vapor molecules, in turn, radiate heat in all directions. Some of the heat returns to the Earth’s surface. Thus, water vapor is a second source of warmth (in addition to sunlight) at the Earth’s surface.
That settles it.
Lloyd Austin is going to have to revamp and redirect the US Army Special Operation Forces to engage in all manner of combat with…clouds.
Immediately.
New Force moniker: Cloud Busters. (Or the H2O Team?)
New march (replacing “Stars and Stripes Forever”): “Both Sides Now” https://www.google.com/search?q=judy+collins+both+sides+now
Not quite celebrating too early but nonetheless an epic baseball bobble: The October night in 1986 when Mookie Wilson’s grounder went through Bill Buckner’s legs to allow the Mets to win Game 6 of the 1986 WS:
Yes, the video is almost 7 minutes long– but– the announcer is Vin Scully, a much-loved sportscaster best known as the voice of the Dodgers, who died two days ago at the age of 94. (Buckner died in 2019 of Lewy body dementia, so I expect he and Scully are having a friendly reunion in St. Peter’s clubhouse).
I was in grad school in 1986, and there was a joke that made the rounds among the baseball fans in my department (and there were a lot of us). It went like this:
Q: What do Billy Graham and Bill Buckner have in common?
A: They’re the only two guys in the country who can get 60,000 people in a stadium leaping to their feet and yelling, “Jesus Christ!”
The water vapor issue is pretty evident. Anecdotal evidence, but quite noticeable to anyone paying attention. In Puget Sound (with a relative humidity above 50% most days) the heat from a hot day subsides slowly after the sun goes down. It may drop a few degrees by 9pm. In contrast, in Colorado, where the air is very dry, the temperatures drop quickly as soon as the sun gets low on the horizon. I noticed this when on a trip to Colorado last summer. It can be 95 at 4pm and by 7pm the temperatures will have dropped into the 70s. That doesn’t happen in more humid places.
The Warmers know this, but unlike CO2, the amount and location of water vapor changes rapidly. A well-mixed gas like CO2 is easier to model. So, they give water vapor a nod, but since water vapor is so variable, and not, for the most part, man-made, it doesn’t serve their purposes of heaving an issue which they can use to control society.
Barry, to put it in a nutshell, water has many strong absorption bands in the infrared and far infrared, CO2 has only one thus making water, by far, the dominant greenhouse gas. We should be grateful, as without water vapor the planet would be much colder. And as Jim said is CO2 is greatly outnumbered by H2O. Easy test of the greenhouse effect of water vapor: compare what happens to the temperature after sunset following a 90 degree day in Arizona vs Florida.
“So instead pro-global warming authorities claim complicated chemical pathways show that CO2 is busier in causing the atmospheric interactions than H2O”
Actually not really chemical interaction as more the models try to say that with more CO2 there will be more H2O via “feedback” loops. The models just tweak and twerk those feedbacks to get the answer the modelers want. Never has been any experimental evidence of such loops actually existing.
Alan,
clouds are interesting, and left out of the “models”. Top of the clouds reflect incoming solar radiation, and the bottom of the clouds can do the same with upwelling IR radiation. Now think of making a model where there are random clouds that move around and come and go and you can see why they ignore them. Just another reason those models are so bad.
But there is water vapor present without clouds, just in individual molecules rather than droplets, and still acts as the dominant greenhouse gas.
Here is a dynamite extensive interview by Tucker Carlson of Stanford Professor and Scientist Garry Nolan about the UFO phenomenon.
An interview in which Nolan verifies as true many of the things I have been writing here about this phenomenon.
…I bet the models do not take into account the effects of large scale man made irrigation systems. Consider a large city, lots of concrete and watered green lawns. Meanwhile, outside the city, the field grass is brown from summer drought. That bound to effect things .
So cloud seeding will soon become a crime punishable by…. (in “civilized” countries only….)?
Not all that big on Ozzyman, but this one is good on its own.
That last one, the slow mo — OWWWWW?
I felt that for him. He’s young, it might not be a break but a severe sprain, but either way, he was in a lot of pain that night.
}}} Q: What do Billy Graham and Bill Buckner have in common?
A: They’re the only two guys in the country who can get 60,000 people in a stadium leaping to their feet and yelling, “Jesus Christ!”
Not a sports buff, so no idea of what you’re talking about there (i understand what happened, just did not know about it).
That joke has me ROTFLMAO, though, because I can see it.
}}} On the climate: lots of high temperature records being broke this summer in the northern hemisphere.
Says who? The ones who want to sell AGW? Stopped trusting them to provide honest data over a decade ago.
I will not speak for everywhere, but
1 — everyone, everywhere, says it’s “Africa Hot” every summer. They really have no historical feel for what temperatures are or should be.
2 — This part of Florida (North Central) sure feels very hot, but, when I look at actual numbers, they’re consistently 95,96,97 degrees. For Florida in summer, that’s hardly unusual. If it isn’t getting above 100, it’s not particularly hot. And I’ve been a lot more sensitive to temperature, because right now my central AC is down, and it’s running well into the upper 80s in my house. I am looking to get a new AC, but trying to save about 25-40% so not in a huge rush… Bought a window AC for the time being because I spend most of my time in a single room anyway.
}}} Are you implying that the global climate change models don’t include impacts from volcanic eruptions?
Can’t speak for all of them, but no, many do not do so. Eruptions are covered by their “fudge factors”, not actual modeling.
Yeah, It’s as stupid to me as it sounds like. Yet another reason I don’t trust these fucks.
And I’m in IT, have done modelling (not specifically climate, granted) and have more math than many people with a Bachelor’s in Math (>64 credit hours at the calculus level and above — I started my first year in college with “calc IV”, and took at least one higher level class every single term — including 5000 level courses in my soph year and 6000 level courses my jr year. So I am capable of understanding at least some of what they are attempting to do.
OBH,
I’m in Florida also. Nothing out of ordinary here. But New England, Midwest, Texas , Colorado, and Europe have all had a hotter than average summer.
physicsguy, thanks for your clarifications and corrections!
“They” have been claiming CO2 as the cause of problems for decades. That theory is full of holes. Now they are re-engineering all of human society on that set of sloppy and incorrect assumptions.
What a nightmare.
Where were the forces of Truth all this time? Why could they not get traction?
In case anyone missed it, the U.S. Senate has voted 95-1 in favor of going to nuclear war to defend Finland and Sweden.
I don’t think it’s going too far out on a limb to suggest there’s a serious lack of thought and consideration behind that idea.
Mike
Yep Bunge has shown a serious lack of thought, again.
Don’t be a Bunge.
MBunge is maybe a little premature. It’s just a vote to approve membership in NATO. However, for those of the domino theory persuasion, YMMV.
At this point, my bingo card has about 1200 squares, and nuclear war between various actors is certainly on several of them.
The Senate voted 95 to 1 to approve the resolution, with every member of the Democratic caucus and most Republicans voting in support. It ratifies protocols of accession that NATO allies signed on July 5.
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who argued in a recent op-ed that the United States should focus on containing China instead of expanding NATO, was the only Republican to vote “no.” Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) voted “present” on the resolution.
“We cannot strengthen our deterrent posture in the Pacific if we’re sending more forces and resources to Europe to defend new allies. That’s the bottom line,” Hawley said on the floor before the vote.
Where were the forces of Truth all this time? Why could they not get traction?
JimNorCal:
Likewise.
My conclusion is that university admins and professors are more creatures of the current ethos than upholders of Western Civilization.
The current ethos is not pro-Western Civ.
In a day-to-day, go-along-to-get-along way I understand. I compromise with lots of some stuff because I’ve got other stuff I’d rather be focusing on.
The Senate on Wednesday defeated an amendment put forth by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to the resolution backing Finland’s and Sweden’s accession to NATO, which sought to emphasize that Article 5 of the military alliance’s treaty does not supersede Congress’ ability to declare war.
Senators defeated the amendment in a 10-87 vote, with only Republicans voting in favor of revision.
GOP Sens. Mike Braun (Ind.), Ted Cruz (Texas), Steve Daines (Mont.), Josh Hawley (Mo.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), James Lankford (Okla.), Mike Lee (Utah), Cynthia Lummis (Wyo.) and Roger Marshall (Kansas) joined Paul in supporting the amendment.
Paul sought to tack the amendment on to a resolution ratifying Finland’s and Sweden’s entrance into NATO. The House approved a symbolic resolution backing their accession in a bipartisan 394-18 vote last month.
“Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty does not supersede the constitutional requirement that Congress declare war before the United States engages in war,” the amendment reads.
In remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Paul said he was proposing the amendment “to ensure that this expansion will not come at the expense of losing our ability to determine where and when the United States goes to war.”
“There is no more serious question that we are entrusted to answer than whether to commit the women, the men and women of the armed services, to war,” he said.
“We cannot delegate that responsibility to the president, to the courts, to an international body or to our allies. This is our constitutional responsibility, one that we have freely taken and one that our constituents expect us to uphold,” he added.
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) spoke out against the amendment on the Senate floor Wednesday, warning that it may make the U.S.’s commitment to Article 5 appear “wobbly.”
He pointed to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as an example of why the U.S.’s dedication to NATO is particularly crucial at this moment.
…
The Utah Republican also argued that the amendment was unnecessary because the NATO treaty already states that provisions in the text should be carried out in accordance with the countries’ own constitutional processes.
“So adding the language of the Paul amendment would only add confusion and potentially communicate to the world that this body seeks something in addition to the adherence to the constitutional process that the treaty already requires,” he added.
The Senate on Wednesday adopted by voice vote a separate amendment proposed by Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) that says all NATO member countries should put at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product toward defense and use 20 percent of the funds set aside for defense on “major equipment, including research and development.”
Generally speaking, Romney is probably correct. However, IMO – based on observation, particularly in the last few decades – it never hurts to make Congressional responsibilities explicit.
Let’s see if the Democrats really push the members to ante up for their own defense, as Orange Man did.
After the spring semester ended, I wanted to keep up my momentum on calculus via the excellent online MIT 1801 course. I’ve been doing 2-3 hours of calculus daily and enjoying it.
Correspondingly, it’s sunk in for me how bizarre university education is. I don’t intend my criticism as condemnation. I have no idea what I would do if I were miraculously in charge.
For one thing I’m not sure what problem they are trying to solve other than being somehow competitive as one university among many.
I dropped out of college in 1974. It was complicated. Even now I don’t think I could have done better. In the meantime I had to make a living and my brain was my high card. I eventually ended up in computers — the right time, the right place.
However, no one punched my ticket as a computer programmer. I had to learn it all on my own, keep learning and prove it daily at work. And I did.
But the beauty of that was that when I learned something, I learned it. I flattened all the lumps in the carpet before I moved on and I kept an eye to check that things hadn’t changed.
It was slow but sure.
In my university courses the pace IMO is near-inhuman. You learn enough to pass the next homework, the next quiz, the next test, the next exam, but that’s it. God help you if you didn’t quite get how limits worked or revolving a function around an axis. You are studying something else this week.
Those who do well are freakishly talented or have already learned it.
I spoke to one professor and he said the goal is not to learn the subject, but to learn where to look things up afterward.
Which is Good Enuf, I suppose, but less than I would have expected.
huxley,
I’ve encountered a substantial amount of that sort of thing in my academic experiences. When I’ve seen it, this trite but often true notion pops into my head.
Daniel: I don’t know if I know enough karate.
Miyagi: Feeling correct.
Daniel: You sure know how to make a guy feel confident.
Miyagi: You trust the quality of what you know, not quantity.
Yeah, The Karate Kid.
In my atypical institution the almost laughable issue was Fourier analysis. There was a lot of interest in electro-optics and acoustics, and so some familiarity with Fourier transformations was very valuable.
What they should have done is carefully explain a Fourier series decomposition and drill down of the importance of what the time series is doing near the time limits. Once they have that, then they can talk about a Fourier transformation. Forget about FFT’s, just tell them it’s a math magic trick.
But no, they push all that s__t at them in 1/2 of a one hour lecture.
Later, Prof. B says, “But my students don’t understand Fourier analysis” and Prof. A says, “But I taught them all that!” Sure, in a half hour.
Instead of the professors learning, they repeat the previous failed process. It’s almost like they were congressmen or something.
Seems to me I ran into an hilarious blog post on how “Karate Kid” represented the Decline of Western Civ because Ralph Macchio learned a few moves in a few weeks from Mr. Miyagi, then took down his (admittedly nasty) opponent with years of karate training.
Can’t find it now. Sigh.
As it happens, FFT is one of my bucket list goals in math. I just about reached it from the linear algebra side, than had to switch back to calculus.
I’ll get there.
Yes its harder than it looks
A friend of mine went to the filming of the film when he was in los angeles we took some karate classes i remember the katas and how to count to ten in japanese but practical applications were limited the sensei was not as mean as martin kove but he was pretty severe.
Johnnys flaw was arrogance and daniel took advantage
In the series daniel is a bit of a jerk and johnny has learned a degree of humility
Kreese is given a backstory of having been a pow in vietnam hence his savage fighting style we were not taught that level of combat
Miguel C.,
I took a peek at the video. He does it in 20 minutes, whoo hoo. Since I’m in procrastination mode, I may watch the whole video.
huxley,
The decline of Western Civ.?
Actually, the great movie and it’s negative impacts that surprised me was “Stand and Deliver” with Edward James Olmos. In that film, in the pursuit of brevity and increased impact, the filmmakers eliminated all the effort put into the preparatory feeder courses and their teachers, before the students get to Olmos’ calculus classes. The critics said that a lot of real teachers thought that they could make their classes work just like the Hollywood shortcut. And it doesn’t work.
I do think that quality of understanding is important. I think it is in the TIMSS testing and studies that they have claimed that some other nations do a better job than the US in building a solid progressing foundation in math and science. One concept builds upon another, and so on.
Continuing my T.S. Eliot / “The Waste Land” obsession….
I wanted to understand “The Waste Land” in terms of the horrors of World War I — and that’s a valid component — but repeated encounters with the text and biographical info suggested “The Waste Land” was as much or more of a personal statement.
When Eliot wrote TWL he had taken three weeks off from his bank job to make clay pots in a Swiss sanatorium. Eliot was seriously depressed and his marriage with his mentally ill wife was no small part of that.
Which is why “The Waste Land” swerves off in the second part into male-female relationships as zero-sum games in which both sides eventually lose. I’m sure World War I didn’t help, but that wasn’t the whole issue.
Which I mention because today I ran into a remarkable blog post on antidepressants:
Essentially all those criticisms of SSRI antidepressants (Prozac-type drugs) as at best a point or two better than … placebos … were correct.
I was seriously depressed in the 1990s and my therapist was intent on getting me to a psychiatrist who would no doubt, on account of my genetic and personal history, keep me on antidepressants for the rest of my life.
But I had seen my mother crutched into suicide by psychiatrists with psych meds and I was determined not to go that way.
The SSRI story always sounded hinky to me. Maybe I was right for the wrong reasons. But I’m glad I didn’t go that way.
The people I knew taking SSRis in the 90s still are.
Depression is a bitch. I can see T.S. Eliot writing “The Waste Land” on that account alone.
Well too make it inspirational they took some short cuts, the results were uneven admittedly but now we have given up the pretense that students can learn
The constructivist base of nclb has a lot to apologize for
huxley,
The decline of Western Civ.?
TommyJay:
I myself wouldn’t go so far. But I take the point (which when I was younger and more radical seemed reasonable) that the Conventional Wisdom was usually wrong and with a few smart improvements could be turned right around.
Quite your point about feeder classes vs. shortcuts.
I have always liked “The Waste Land,” although I think I very slightly prefer “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” I read them both in high school and didn’t understand a lot of the Wasteland references, but I knew I liked it. What a great opening line: “April is the cruelest month.” I even wrote a paper on it in high school – not that I understood it, but I was trying.
As far as Eliot and his first wife go, it’s hard to say. There’s an argument to be made – and it’s made here – that it was Eliot who drove her crazy. There is certainly an argument to be made that he was pretty troubled himself. That article I just linked – even if it is in The New Yorker – is pretty interesting, by the way.
Miguel cervantes:
At first I thought you were referencing this Barry McGuire:
___________________________
The Eastern world, it is explodin’
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’?
And even the Jordan river has bodies floatin’
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
How you don’t believe
We’re on the eve of destruction
Miguel C.,
Nifty video, I like it. I’ve not seen an interpretation quite like it. In particular, the “center of mass” contrivance. (There may be a better word than contrivance. I don’t mean it to be a negative.)
neo:
I’m more fond of old T.S. these days, but I don’t take his side against Vivienne. I mostly assume they were both plenty screwed-up.
My point is, that as great a poem as “The Waste Land” is, Eliot’s personal issues were as much a factor as the Big Think stuff about WWI and the decline of Western Civ.
I recall liking the “Tom & Viv” film with no less than Willem Dafoe and the always remarkable Miranda Richardson as T.S. and Vivienne. (Did you?) I’ll be revisiting it this weekend.
I have a conflicted relationship with T.S. Eliot.
huxley:
I saw the film when it came out. Don’t remember it all that well but I don’t think I much cared for it.
As far as the poems go, to me the more personal parts are the best. They’re also the most “poetic,” in my opinion.
Yes, I didn’t recall the name Kreese, but it is a Karate Kid reference.
Back in the day, I had no idea who McGuinn and McGuire were.
neo:
Yes, I read that “New Yorker” article on Eliot and Vivienne. I keep track of my opponents. As well as this “New Yorker” commemoration by Cynthia Ozick.
___________________________
A CRITIC AT LARGE about the poet T.S. Eliot, who once was a commanding literary figure whose formulations were revered. It’s impossible nowadays to imagine such authority accruing to a poet. In his person, if not in his poetry, Eliot was false coinage. Born in St, Louis, he became indistinguishable from a proper British Tory. Such unalloyed self-alteration suggests a hatred of the original design. And certainly Eliot condemned the optimism of democratic American meliorism, he despised Unitarianism, centered less on personal salvation than on social good, & he had contempt for Jews as marginal, if not inimical to his concept of Christian community. In the 40s & 50s Eliot was absolute art: high art when art was its most serious & elitist. Eliot’s aristocratic ideas which some might call Eurocentric & obscurantist no longer interest most literary intellectuals. The biographies that have appeared in recent years have brought Eliot down to human scale. They’ve exposed the nightmare of Eliot’s first marriage & its devastating evolution. It is in the nature of fame to undergo revision: Eliot appears now to be similarly receding into the parochial, even the sectarian. His reach, once broad enough to incorporate the Upanishads, shrank to extend no farther than the neighborhood sacristy, & to a still smaller place the closet of the self. The chief elements of the Age of Eliot are no longer with us & may never return: the belief that poetry can be redemptive; the conviction that history underlies poetry.
Today it’s lost how much of an authoritative figure T.S. Eliot posed in his heyday. He was on the cover of “Time.” He was a god, Now he’s near-forgotten.
The other day a cafe friend who’s in the grad lit program at UNM asked me what I was up to. I told her I was immersing myself in “The Waste Land.” She hadn’t read it. She asked me why I was.
I said “The Waste Land” was on my bucket list. That’s the truth of it. It’s unfinished business with an old enemy, whom I now understand better as a kinda friend and certainly a flawed, kindred spirit.
huxley:
Grad lit program and hasn’t read “The Waste Land.” Very depressing fact, although probably not surprising.
neo:
Absolutely.
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Ozzy Man isn’t always (usually?) sfw, but he is really, really funny. The best was the Orca v. Otter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQTX0ED_U6k
Time to organize massive protests against the sun?
“Solar storm forecast to hit Earth on WEDNESDAY: ‘Hole’ in the sun is enhancing solar winds that could weaken power grids and bring stunning auroras to northern regions”—
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-11069673/Solar-storm-forecasted-hit-Earth-WEDNESDAY.html?ito=chromelessDM_0
From the ‘Awesome “Biden” Achievements’ File (with acrobatic, hagiographical cheerleading by Paul Krugman…in a full-body fuchsia leotard)
“Peter Schiff: This Recession Is Just Getting Started”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/peter-schiff-recession-just-getting-started
I was expecting this celebration backfire.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EaJMr26F5w
Tucker featured the CIA recruitment video below in his show. I won’t bother with his commentary as the video speaks for itself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHckeZoYx04
If Pelosi and Biden get one of the wars they seem to crave, we will see how well a “Woke” military fights. Pride flags and all. I wonder if that pride flag is still flying in Kabul?
@Mike K:
After decades of being run by Communist, you expect the Chinese Army to outperform the Russian? We are 30 years behind them in destroying the NCO corps. Note: I contend our officer corps, of which I was one, is inferior to most if not all, but our NCOs have been and still are the best in the world. Fortunately, the NCO still does most of the work in the US military. Though the woke lawyers are doing yeoman’s work to ruin them.
Local badgers
https://www.wisconsinrightnow.com/2022/08/02/scott-holes/
Kris,
I know one CPO who retired as soon as he could to avoid the Woke nonsense. I suspect there are lots more. He was a Seebee and is doing very well in the private world. Worked with SEALS for years.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2022/08/03/dont-tell-the-democrats-vote-for-next-prime-minister-delayed-over-election-hacking-fears/
Kris, fascinating comment.
Below link is fairly emotional. (For a guy lol). It IS astonishing to look at the world and wonder: do they not see it?
https://newsletter.martingeddes.com/p/what-i-saw-in-occams-mirror
What I saw in Occam’s Mirror
The waiting is painful for those awake, but there is agony ahead for those asleep
On the climate: lots of high temperature records being broke this summer in the northern hemisphere. I just came across this article on WUWT on how the Tonga explosion this past January increased the atmospheric water content by 10%!! That’s huge! Given that water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas by a large amount, maybe not surprising we are seeing a relative hot summer.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2022/08/02/tonga-eruption-blasted-unprecedented-amount-of-water-into-stratosphere/
Fascinating about the water vapor.
Not sure I understand the mechanism by which more water vapor in the atmosphere acts to increase temperatures, unless the increased number of droplets in the atmosphere act like actual mini-greenhouses. (But this explanation sounds a bit fanciful even to me.)
In any event, if I understand this correctly, H2O is a bigger “enemy” of Gaia than CO2.
Is it time for the Pentagon (not to mention “Biden”, Greta and the WTF) to recalibrate?
– – – – – – – –
Related(?)
“Watch: Volcano Erupts In Southwest Iceland Near Capital”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/weather/watch-volcano-erupts-southwest-iceland-near-capital
So, water vapor is a greenhouse gas? You mean, like clouds?
physicsguy:
Are you implying that the global climate change models don’t include impacts from volcanic eruptions? How predictable is that (that the global climate change models are sh*t)?
Yes water vapor is a greenhouse gas, but everyone knows that taxing clouds is about effective as shouting at them. So, look squirrel, nitrous oxide! Let’s kill agriculture!
Yes, it’s often asserted that water vapor is the bigger factor but it would be politically difficult to get people to “fight” water. Certainly CO2 is way outnumbered compared to water molecules in the Earth’s atmosphere.
So instead pro-global warming authorities claim complicated chemical pathways show that CO2 is busier in causing the atmospheric interactions than H2O
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/MYDAL2_M_SKY_WV
Water vapor is also the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. Heat radiated from Earth’s surface is absorbed by water vapor molecules in the lower atmosphere. The water vapor molecules, in turn, radiate heat in all directions. Some of the heat returns to the Earth’s surface. Thus, water vapor is a second source of warmth (in addition to sunlight) at the Earth’s surface.
That settles it.
Lloyd Austin is going to have to revamp and redirect the US Army Special Operation Forces to engage in all manner of combat with…clouds.
Immediately.
New Force moniker: Cloud Busters. (Or the H2O Team?)
New march (replacing “Stars and Stripes Forever”): “Both Sides Now”
https://www.google.com/search?q=judy+collins+both+sides+now
They certainly have their work cut out for them. The enemy is wily, cunning, vicious, endlessly innovative…and never sleeps…
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11074491/Terrifying-moment-massive-hail-storm-smashes-cars-window-Canada-people-duck-cover-inside.html
File under: A Few Good Men (with umbrellas)
Not quite celebrating too early but nonetheless an epic baseball bobble: The October night in 1986 when Mookie Wilson’s grounder went through Bill Buckner’s legs to allow the Mets to win Game 6 of the 1986 WS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ujwjqIldwU&ab_channel=MLB
Yes, the video is almost 7 minutes long– but– the announcer is Vin Scully, a much-loved sportscaster best known as the voice of the Dodgers, who died two days ago at the age of 94. (Buckner died in 2019 of Lewy body dementia, so I expect he and Scully are having a friendly reunion in St. Peter’s clubhouse).
I was in grad school in 1986, and there was a joke that made the rounds among the baseball fans in my department (and there were a lot of us). It went like this:
Q: What do Billy Graham and Bill Buckner have in common?
A: They’re the only two guys in the country who can get 60,000 people in a stadium leaping to their feet and yelling, “Jesus Christ!”
The water vapor issue is pretty evident. Anecdotal evidence, but quite noticeable to anyone paying attention. In Puget Sound (with a relative humidity above 50% most days) the heat from a hot day subsides slowly after the sun goes down. It may drop a few degrees by 9pm. In contrast, in Colorado, where the air is very dry, the temperatures drop quickly as soon as the sun gets low on the horizon. I noticed this when on a trip to Colorado last summer. It can be 95 at 4pm and by 7pm the temperatures will have dropped into the 70s. That doesn’t happen in more humid places.
The Warmers know this, but unlike CO2, the amount and location of water vapor changes rapidly. A well-mixed gas like CO2 is easier to model. So, they give water vapor a nod, but since water vapor is so variable, and not, for the most part, man-made, it doesn’t serve their purposes of heaving an issue which they can use to control society.
Barry, to put it in a nutshell, water has many strong absorption bands in the infrared and far infrared, CO2 has only one thus making water, by far, the dominant greenhouse gas. We should be grateful, as without water vapor the planet would be much colder. And as Jim said is CO2 is greatly outnumbered by H2O. Easy test of the greenhouse effect of water vapor: compare what happens to the temperature after sunset following a 90 degree day in Arizona vs Florida.
“So instead pro-global warming authorities claim complicated chemical pathways show that CO2 is busier in causing the atmospheric interactions than H2O”
Actually not really chemical interaction as more the models try to say that with more CO2 there will be more H2O via “feedback” loops. The models just tweak and twerk those feedbacks to get the answer the modelers want. Never has been any experimental evidence of such loops actually existing.
Alan,
clouds are interesting, and left out of the “models”. Top of the clouds reflect incoming solar radiation, and the bottom of the clouds can do the same with upwelling IR radiation. Now think of making a model where there are random clouds that move around and come and go and you can see why they ignore them. Just another reason those models are so bad.
But there is water vapor present without clouds, just in individual molecules rather than droplets, and still acts as the dominant greenhouse gas.
Here is a dynamite extensive interview by Tucker Carlson of Stanford Professor and Scientist Garry Nolan about the UFO phenomenon.
An interview in which Nolan verifies as true many of the things I have been writing here about this phenomenon.
See https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/wen9ra/dr_garry_nolan_on_tucker_carlson_full_interview/
…I bet the models do not take into account the effects of large scale man made irrigation systems. Consider a large city, lots of concrete and watered green lawns. Meanwhile, outside the city, the field grass is brown from summer drought. That bound to effect things .
So cloud seeding will soon become a crime punishable by…. (in “civilized” countries only….)?
Not all that big on Ozzyman, but this one is good on its own.
That last one, the slow mo — OWWWWW?
I felt that for him. He’s young, it might not be a break but a severe sprain, but either way, he was in a lot of pain that night.
}}} Q: What do Billy Graham and Bill Buckner have in common?
A: They’re the only two guys in the country who can get 60,000 people in a stadium leaping to their feet and yelling, “Jesus Christ!”
Not a sports buff, so no idea of what you’re talking about there (i understand what happened, just did not know about it).
That joke has me ROTFLMAO, though, because I can see it.
}}} On the climate: lots of high temperature records being broke this summer in the northern hemisphere.
Says who? The ones who want to sell AGW? Stopped trusting them to provide honest data over a decade ago.
I will not speak for everywhere, but
1 — everyone, everywhere, says it’s “Africa Hot” every summer. They really have no historical feel for what temperatures are or should be.
2 — This part of Florida (North Central) sure feels very hot, but, when I look at actual numbers, they’re consistently 95,96,97 degrees. For Florida in summer, that’s hardly unusual. If it isn’t getting above 100, it’s not particularly hot. And I’ve been a lot more sensitive to temperature, because right now my central AC is down, and it’s running well into the upper 80s in my house. I am looking to get a new AC, but trying to save about 25-40% so not in a huge rush… Bought a window AC for the time being because I spend most of my time in a single room anyway.
}}} Are you implying that the global climate change models don’t include impacts from volcanic eruptions?
Can’t speak for all of them, but no, many do not do so. Eruptions are covered by their “fudge factors”, not actual modeling.
Yeah, It’s as stupid to me as it sounds like. Yet another reason I don’t trust these fucks.
And I’m in IT, have done modelling (not specifically climate, granted) and have more math than many people with a Bachelor’s in Math (>64 credit hours at the calculus level and above — I started my first year in college with “calc IV”, and took at least one higher level class every single term — including 5000 level courses in my soph year and 6000 level courses my jr year. So I am capable of understanding at least some of what they are attempting to do.
OBH,
I’m in Florida also. Nothing out of ordinary here. But New England, Midwest, Texas , Colorado, and Europe have all had a hotter than average summer.
physicsguy, thanks for your clarifications and corrections!
“They” have been claiming CO2 as the cause of problems for decades. That theory is full of holes. Now they are re-engineering all of human society on that set of sloppy and incorrect assumptions.
What a nightmare.
Where were the forces of Truth all this time? Why could they not get traction?
In case anyone missed it, the U.S. Senate has voted 95-1 in favor of going to nuclear war to defend Finland and Sweden.
I don’t think it’s going too far out on a limb to suggest there’s a serious lack of thought and consideration behind that idea.
Mike
Yep Bunge has shown a serious lack of thought, again.
Don’t be a Bunge.
MBunge is maybe a little premature. It’s just a vote to approve membership in NATO. However, for those of the domino theory persuasion, YMMV.
At this point, my bingo card has about 1200 squares, and nuclear war between various actors is certainly on several of them.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3586658-senate-ratifies-accession-of-sweden-and-finland-to-nato/
Where were the forces of Truth all this time? Why could they not get traction?
JimNorCal:
Likewise.
My conclusion is that university admins and professors are more creatures of the current ethos than upholders of Western Civilization.
The current ethos is not pro-Western Civ.
In a day-to-day, go-along-to-get-along way I understand. I compromise with lots of some stuff because I’ve got other stuff I’d rather be focusing on.
I’m still disappointed.
More on the NATO vote.
https://thehill.com/policy/international/3587018-senate-defeats-rand-paul-amendment-to-nato-resolution-clarifying-war-powers/
Generally speaking, Romney is probably correct. However, IMO – based on observation, particularly in the last few decades – it never hurts to make Congressional responsibilities explicit.
Let’s see if the Democrats really push the members to ante up for their own defense, as Orange Man did.
After the spring semester ended, I wanted to keep up my momentum on calculus via the excellent online MIT 1801 course. I’ve been doing 2-3 hours of calculus daily and enjoying it.
Correspondingly, it’s sunk in for me how bizarre university education is. I don’t intend my criticism as condemnation. I have no idea what I would do if I were miraculously in charge.
For one thing I’m not sure what problem they are trying to solve other than being somehow competitive as one university among many.
I dropped out of college in 1974. It was complicated. Even now I don’t think I could have done better. In the meantime I had to make a living and my brain was my high card. I eventually ended up in computers — the right time, the right place.
However, no one punched my ticket as a computer programmer. I had to learn it all on my own, keep learning and prove it daily at work. And I did.
But the beauty of that was that when I learned something, I learned it. I flattened all the lumps in the carpet before I moved on and I kept an eye to check that things hadn’t changed.
It was slow but sure.
In my university courses the pace IMO is near-inhuman. You learn enough to pass the next homework, the next quiz, the next test, the next exam, but that’s it. God help you if you didn’t quite get how limits worked or revolving a function around an axis. You are studying something else this week.
Those who do well are freakishly talented or have already learned it.
I spoke to one professor and he said the goal is not to learn the subject, but to learn where to look things up afterward.
Which is Good Enuf, I suppose, but less than I would have expected.
huxley,
I’ve encountered a substantial amount of that sort of thing in my academic experiences. When I’ve seen it, this trite but often true notion pops into my head.
Yeah, The Karate Kid.
In my atypical institution the almost laughable issue was Fourier analysis. There was a lot of interest in electro-optics and acoustics, and so some familiarity with Fourier transformations was very valuable.
What they should have done is carefully explain a Fourier series decomposition and drill down of the importance of what the time series is doing near the time limits. Once they have that, then they can talk about a Fourier transformation. Forget about FFT’s, just tell them it’s a math magic trick.
But no, they push all that s__t at them in 1/2 of a one hour lecture.
Later, Prof. B says, “But my students don’t understand Fourier analysis” and Prof. A says, “But I taught them all that!” Sure, in a half hour.
Instead of the professors learning, they repeat the previous failed process. It’s almost like they were congressmen or something.
Whoa
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=spUNpyF58BY&vl=en
TommyJay:
Seems to me I ran into an hilarious blog post on how “Karate Kid” represented the Decline of Western Civ because Ralph Macchio learned a few moves in a few weeks from Mr. Miyagi, then took down his (admittedly nasty) opponent with years of karate training.
Can’t find it now. Sigh.
As it happens, FFT is one of my bucket list goals in math. I just about reached it from the linear algebra side, than had to switch back to calculus.
I’ll get there.
Yes its harder than it looks
A friend of mine went to the filming of the film when he was in los angeles we took some karate classes i remember the katas and how to count to ten in japanese but practical applications were limited the sensei was not as mean as martin kove but he was pretty severe.
Johnnys flaw was arrogance and daniel took advantage
In the series daniel is a bit of a jerk and johnny has learned a degree of humility
Kreese is given a backstory of having been a pow in vietnam hence his savage fighting style we were not taught that level of combat
Miguel C.,
I took a peek at the video. He does it in 20 minutes, whoo hoo. Since I’m in procrastination mode, I may watch the whole video.
huxley,
The decline of Western Civ.?
Actually, the great movie and it’s negative impacts that surprised me was “Stand and Deliver” with Edward James Olmos. In that film, in the pursuit of brevity and increased impact, the filmmakers eliminated all the effort put into the preparatory feeder courses and their teachers, before the students get to Olmos’ calculus classes. The critics said that a lot of real teachers thought that they could make their classes work just like the Hollywood shortcut. And it doesn’t work.
I do think that quality of understanding is important. I think it is in the TIMSS testing and studies that they have claimed that some other nations do a better job than the US in building a solid progressing foundation in math and science. One concept builds upon another, and so on.
Continuing my T.S. Eliot / “The Waste Land” obsession….
I wanted to understand “The Waste Land” in terms of the horrors of World War I — and that’s a valid component — but repeated encounters with the text and biographical info suggested “The Waste Land” was as much or more of a personal statement.
When Eliot wrote TWL he had taken three weeks off from his bank job to make clay pots in a Swiss sanatorium. Eliot was seriously depressed and his marriage with his mentally ill wife was no small part of that.
Which is why “The Waste Land” swerves off in the second part into male-female relationships as zero-sum games in which both sides eventually lose. I’m sure World War I didn’t help, but that wasn’t the whole issue.
Which I mention because today I ran into a remarkable blog post on antidepressants:
https://doctorbuzz.substack.com/p/was-tom-cruise-right-about-antidepressants
Essentially all those criticisms of SSRI antidepressants (Prozac-type drugs) as at best a point or two better than … placebos … were correct.
I was seriously depressed in the 1990s and my therapist was intent on getting me to a psychiatrist who would no doubt, on account of my genetic and personal history, keep me on antidepressants for the rest of my life.
But I had seen my mother crutched into suicide by psychiatrists with psych meds and I was determined not to go that way.
The SSRI story always sounded hinky to me. Maybe I was right for the wrong reasons. But I’m glad I didn’t go that way.
The people I knew taking SSRis in the 90s still are.
Depression is a bitch. I can see T.S. Eliot writing “The Waste Land” on that account alone.
Well too make it inspirational they took some short cuts, the results were uneven admittedly but now we have given up the pretense that students can learn
The constructivist base of nclb has a lot to apologize for
huxley,
The decline of Western Civ.?
TommyJay:
I myself wouldn’t go so far. But I take the point (which when I was younger and more radical seemed reasonable) that the Conventional Wisdom was usually wrong and with a few smart improvements could be turned right around.
Quite your point about feeder classes vs. shortcuts.
Thanks for the info.
Hum some barry Mcguire
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/20-percent-of-the-usafs-b-2-force-is-deployed-down-under
huxley:
I have always liked “The Waste Land,” although I think I very slightly prefer “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” I read them both in high school and didn’t understand a lot of the Wasteland references, but I knew I liked it. What a great opening line: “April is the cruelest month.” I even wrote a paper on it in high school – not that I understood it, but I was trying.
As far as Eliot and his first wife go, it’s hard to say. There’s an argument to be made – and it’s made here – that it was Eliot who drove her crazy. There is certainly an argument to be made that he was pretty troubled himself. That article I just linked – even if it is in The New Yorker – is pretty interesting, by the way.
Miguel cervantes:
At first I thought you were referencing this Barry McGuire:
___________________________
The Eastern world, it is explodin’
Violence flarin’, bullets loadin’
You’re old enough to kill but not for votin’
You don’t believe in war, but what’s that gun you’re totin’?
And even the Jordan river has bodies floatin’
But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
How you don’t believe
We’re on the eve of destruction
–“Barry McGuire – Eve Of Destruction” (1964)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfZVu0alU0I
___________________________
How far we haven’t come….
Maybe you had to have been there.
Miguel C.,
Nifty video, I like it. I’ve not seen an interpretation quite like it. In particular, the “center of mass” contrivance. (There may be a better word than contrivance. I don’t mean it to be a negative.)
neo:
I’m more fond of old T.S. these days, but I don’t take his side against Vivienne. I mostly assume they were both plenty screwed-up.
My point is, that as great a poem as “The Waste Land” is, Eliot’s personal issues were as much a factor as the Big Think stuff about WWI and the decline of Western Civ.
I recall liking the “Tom & Viv” film with no less than Willem Dafoe and the always remarkable Miranda Richardson as T.S. and Vivienne. (Did you?) I’ll be revisiting it this weekend.
I have a conflicted relationship with T.S. Eliot.
huxley:
I saw the film when it came out. Don’t remember it all that well but I don’t think I much cared for it.
As far as the poems go, to me the more personal parts are the best. They’re also the most “poetic,” in my opinion.
Yes, I didn’t recall the name Kreese, but it is a Karate Kid reference.
“McGuinn and McGuire couldn’t get no higher”
Which maybe explains one of my favorite old songs,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9cINH9yob4
The studio version which I always seem to prefer,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR0W_ySd_Do
Back in the day, I had no idea who McGuinn and McGuire were.
neo:
Yes, I read that “New Yorker” article on Eliot and Vivienne. I keep track of my opponents. As well as this “New Yorker” commemoration by Cynthia Ozick.
___________________________
A CRITIC AT LARGE about the poet T.S. Eliot, who once was a commanding literary figure whose formulations were revered. It’s impossible nowadays to imagine such authority accruing to a poet. In his person, if not in his poetry, Eliot was false coinage. Born in St, Louis, he became indistinguishable from a proper British Tory. Such unalloyed self-alteration suggests a hatred of the original design. And certainly Eliot condemned the optimism of democratic American meliorism, he despised Unitarianism, centered less on personal salvation than on social good, & he had contempt for Jews as marginal, if not inimical to his concept of Christian community. In the 40s & 50s Eliot was absolute art: high art when art was its most serious & elitist. Eliot’s aristocratic ideas which some might call Eurocentric & obscurantist no longer interest most literary intellectuals. The biographies that have appeared in recent years have brought Eliot down to human scale. They’ve exposed the nightmare of Eliot’s first marriage & its devastating evolution. It is in the nature of fame to undergo revision: Eliot appears now to be similarly receding into the parochial, even the sectarian. His reach, once broad enough to incorporate the Upanishads, shrank to extend no farther than the neighborhood sacristy, & to a still smaller place the closet of the self. The chief elements of the Age of Eliot are no longer with us & may never return: the belief that poetry can be redemptive; the conviction that history underlies poetry.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1989/11/20/t-s-eliot-at-101
___________________________
Today it’s lost how much of an authoritative figure T.S. Eliot posed in his heyday. He was on the cover of “Time.” He was a god, Now he’s near-forgotten.
The other day a cafe friend who’s in the grad lit program at UNM asked me what I was up to. I told her I was immersing myself in “The Waste Land.” She hadn’t read it. She asked me why I was.
I said “The Waste Land” was on my bucket list. That’s the truth of it. It’s unfinished business with an old enemy, whom I now understand better as a kinda friend and certainly a flawed, kindred spirit.
huxley:
Grad lit program and hasn’t read “The Waste Land.” Very depressing fact, although probably not surprising.
neo:
Absolutely.