EmbraceGrace – Stars Really Do Sing!

I blogged all about it over at EmbraceGrace.org.  Basically, God said in Job that the morning stars sing.  Sounds like either crazy talk or metaphor, right?  Wrong!  Scientists have discovered that not only is our own star musical, they have now recorded it!

Read all about it at EmbraceGrace.org

Under Pressure

Southeast Arizona is under pressure this week.  Strong high pressure is building and that may mean a new record high our two for the area Tuesday and Wednesday.  Here are some numbers I stole right out of the Tucson National Weather Service’s Forecast Discussion:

                        TUE NOVEMBER 3       WED NOVEMBER 4
                      FORECAST  RCD/YEAR   FORECAST  RCD/YEAR
 TUCSON INTL APT         92      91/1931      91      91/2001
 AJO                     94      95/1924      93      95/1915
 ORGAN PIPE CACTUS       93      92/1997      92      92/1999
 KITT PEAK               73      73/1999      72      72/1997
 ORACLE                  80      86/1916      79      88/1916
 PICACHO PEAK            92      91/2001      91      93/2001
 NOGALES 6N              85      87/2005      84      87/2001
 BISBEE-DOUGLAS APT      83      85/2001      82      84/2007
 SIERRA VISTA            81      86/1916      80      87/1916
 SAFFORD AG STATION      83      86/1952      82      89/2001
 FORT THOMAS             82      84/1962      81      87/2001

So why so hot?  Blame it on high pressure and the sinking air.  With high pressure, the atmosphere is actually “thicker.”  Not thinker in density, but thicker in height.  That’s why it’s called a “dome” of high pressure.  And that air is sinking.  As air sinks from higher elevations, it gets squeezed by the weight of the air above.  As the air gets compressed, it warms.  Also, the sinking air makes it harder for clouds to form so you have clear nights and sunny days.  This far south the Sun can still be pretty strong, even in November.

Sometimes high pressure can be really cold.  Arctic highs form where there is little, or no sunshine in the Winter.  So.  Clear nights and no Sun make the air mass colder and colder and colder.  Arctic highs are both thicker in height AND density.  Your barometer under a strong Arctic high may approach the red line!  When an Arctic high moves south, it brings the severe cold of the arctic with it, slowly “modifying” (warming up) over time in the southern Sun.  Southeast Arizona usually doesn’t have to worry about Arctic highs moving in (unfortunately)…

It’s COLD!

Not everywhere, of course.  Here in Tucson it’s been near normal with some days above and some below.  Today should be about 70 which is a good 6 or 7 degrees above normal.  However, it’s been cold and snowy enough so far this Winter that nearby Mt. Lemmon is having another good ski season!  With last weekends storm they say they now have enough snow at Ski Valley to last until Spring.

In other parts of the country it has been extreme snow.  So much snow that avalanches are causing problems for some ski areas and even some deaths.  Here is that story.

On the “Glabal Warming” front, it’s quite the opposite.  Alaska, known for it’s cold in the Winter is having an unusual bitter cold arctic outbreak.  Here’s an article from AP on Yahoo! News.

Alaskans are accustomed to subzero temperatures but the prolonged conditions have folks wondering what’s going on with winter less than a month old.

How cold is it?

Johnson lives in Stevens Village, where residents have endured close to two weeks of temperatures pushing 60 below zero.

In Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, residents are used to lows of about 10-degree temperatures in January — not 19 below zero, which is what folks awoke to Wednesday morning.

Temperatures finally settled to about 10 below at midday, but that was cold enough to cancel races in the U.S. Cross Country Ski Championships.

More evidence that its the Sun that causing all of this cooling.  As it continues to be less active, we on Earth continue to cool.  This article from the Daily Mail in England outlines how scientists are concerned about less solar wind.  The solar wind protects the inner solar system from Cosmic Rays.  Weaker solar wind means more danger for astronauts.  It also makes sense that a quieter Sun means less solar radiation.  It follows that that would cause the Earth to cool!

I’m still hoping that folks would see that light. I believe many of them are. We need to contact our representatives in Washington and stop the plans to tax CO2. What a waste of money, especially when the country is going broke! We really need to be developing our energy resources yesterday so that we can keep warm in the chilly decades to come!

Astronauts returning to the moon could be threatened by cosmic rays as a result of the sun becoming less active, scientists have said.

The sun’s ability to shield the solar system from harmful radiation could falter in the early 2020s, research from the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology claimed.

It’s cold in space and it’s getting colder down here too.

Who do you believe?

Global Warming.  Crazy.  If you’ve read my thoughts here for any amount of time you know where I land on the issue.  I strongly believe it’s SOLAR warming.  That the Sun has been heating the planet and the little bit of warming we’ve had in the 80′s and 90′s was Sun driven.

Now there is a scientist who says nay sayers to Global Warming should be tried for lying to folk.  Read the story here.

He says oil CEO’s have been planting doubt on his precious theory and he thinks heads should roll.  In Congress too.  Silly Scientist!

What does he say about this story?    Particularly this part.

Geophysicist Phil Chapman, the first Australian to become an astronaut with NASA, said pictures from the US Solar and Heliospheric Observatory also show that there are currently no spots on the sun. He also noted that the world cooled quickly between January last year and January this year, by about 0.7C.

“This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record, and it puts us back to where we were in 1930,” Dr Chapman noted in The Australian recently.

One good thing about high gas and oil prices is that the world is unlikely to tax energy even more on a theory that seems to be cooling off in popularity.

Extended Forecast – Colder!

Another scientist weighs in and he thinks the Global Warming nonsense will be proven that soon. I imagine folks are wondering this Winter as it seems to be much colder than normal in much of the country. This morning they had snow flurries in Central Florida! Not only that, but it was Ocean effect snow! Kinda crazy.

Anyway, this Russian scientist, Oleg Sorokhtin, basically is saying that human activity is minimal when it comes to climate. Sorokhtin says the Sun is the main driver and has very predictable cycles. Everyone knows about the Sun’s 11 year cycle. Sorokhtin also talks about a 200 year cycle. He says the peak warming is already finished and we are headed for much colder weather soon! Here’s an excerpt:

“The latest data, obtained by Habibullah Abdusamatov, head of the Pulkovo Observatory space research laboratory, say that Earth has passed the peak of its warmer period, and a fairly cold spell will set in quite soon, by 2012. Real cold will come when solar activity reaches its minimum, by 2041, and will last for 50-60 years or even longer.”

Read the whole article here. And stock up on warm coats and maybe some soup.