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Global Warming: Where's My Present?
Rich Galen Monday December 27, 2004
Global warming took a big hit this weekend in the United States as wintry weather stranded travelers, knocked out electricity, and caused Christmas presents to be delayed.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer:
HEBRON, KY - An overburdened Comair Airlines computer system failed, grounding more than 1,100 flights Christmas Day, stranding tens of thousands of travelers and costing the airline potentially millions of dollars�
[The] computer system that manages flight assignments crashed Friday night after it was overwhelmed by cancellations and delays caused by the winter storm that socked the Ohio Valley.
From the Associated Press:
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- Freezing rain and snow coated parts of the Carolinas on Sunday, knocking out power to thousands of customers and making highways slippery for after-Christmas shoppers.
Another from the Associated Press:
Residents of Victoria, Texas, just off the Gulf Coast, were not dreaming yesterday when they woke up to a white Christmas - the first in 86 years - [after] almost a foot of snow fell overnight.
From Weather.com, Alexandria, Virginia weekend weather:
Friday, December 24: High 34� (11� below normal); Low 25� (5� below normal)
Saturday, December 25: High 33� (12� below normal); Low 24� (6� below normal)
Discover magazine is one of my favorite airplane periodicals because it gives me science in single syllables.
The special end-of-the-year issue "100 Top Science Stories of 2004" awarded the Number One story to: Global Warming.
"Evidence of global warming became so overwhelming in 2004 that now the question is: What can we do about it?"
Deep in the article Discover points out that Swiss researchers claim the summer of 2003 was "the hottest in Europe since 1500."
Wait. What? Since 1500? What was going on in 1500? Were oxen - the SUVs of the age - belching greenhouse gasses at an alarming rate? The Renaissance was in full bloom, but did Leonardo DaVinci code for global warming?
Maybe there's nothing we can - or need to - do. In the 42nd biggest science story of the year, the Discover Magazine editors, without any sense of irony, write that 620 million years ago "the global Marinoan glaciation - a great environmental calamity � entombed the planet in ice for several million years."
A major shift in weather which apparently occurred without the interference of human - or almost any other type of - beings.
The 77th biggest scientific scoop of the year was that the comet that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago caused a "nuclear winter" which allowed the land to begin warming after about five years but which kept deep ocean temperatures well below normal for "another two millennia."
If that is the case then NASA's recent announcement that an asteroid measuring a bit more than a quarter mile across might collide with the Earth on April 13, 2029, would repair whatever atmospheric damage the Mullmobile has been doing for the past five years.
Last one: The 95th most important science story of 2004, according to Discover Mag holds that 30,000 years ago humans arrived in North America over a land bridge from Siberia which existed "before glaciers closed off the route at the height of the last ice age."
No global warming 30,000 years ago, no casinos on Indian reservations in 2004.
See the pattern emerging here? Cold weather - bad. Warm weather - good.
One of the few things former Vice President Al Gore and I agreed upon was whether or not there is global warming. We parted company in that I think global warming is a good thing. I don't like cold weather. Most people don't like cold weather.
It's why they made Florida.
On the Secret Decoder Ring today: A listing of Discover Magazine's top 100 science stories of 2004; a revealing Mullfoto from the Presidential Inaugural Committee offices, and a mind jarring Catchy Caption of the Day.
--END --
Copyright © 2004 Richard A. Galen
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