Scott R. Sullivan

February 26th, 2008 by Scott

Hmmm. Early this morning I posted about the cold climate trends we are seeing worldwide. Then I came across this link on The Drudge Report to an article on The Daily Tech. I think the author pretty much hits the nail on the head:

Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snowcover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile — the list goes on and on.

No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA’s GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

Meteorologist Anthony Watts compiled the results of all the sources. The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C — a value large enough to erase nearly all the global warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year time. For all sources, it’s the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down.

Scientists quoted in a past DailyTech article link the cooling to reduced solar activity which they claim is a much larger driver of climate change than man-made greenhouse gases. The dramatic cooling seen in just 12 months time seems to bear that out. While the data doesn’t itself disprove that carbon dioxide is acting to warm the planet, it does demonstrate clearly that more powerful factors are now cooling it.

Source: The Daily Tech, Feb 26, 2008

As I said, I think that pretty much wraps it up for this global warming thing.

February 26th, 2008 by Scott

The normal climate change / global warming crowd seems to be pretty quiet these days. I feel sorry for them. After all, they love a good marching protest. And they love to climb on top of planes (source).

However, recently, they must be too busy warming up their hot cocoa because, “baby its cold out there.” According to The National Post and the U.S. National Climatic Data Center, we’ve seen some interesting things this year.

North America, Europe, China and Siberia are seeing record snow cover (breaking records that date back to 1966). January was also 0.3 degrees F cooler than the average of the entire 20th century!

The melting Arctic Ice that was featured so prominently in so many photos on the covers of national magazines? Its back. With a vengance. Yup. According to the article the thickness of arctic ice is 10 to 20 centimeters ABOVE the same time last year.

The article then continues:

Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as “a drop in the bucket.” Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to “stock up on fur coats.”
He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.The National Post, Feb 25, 2008

Better stock up on that hot cocoa. Oh, and did I mention that I’m looking at buying a Diesel car later this year? And that’s not a joke! *grin*

February 25th, 2008 by Scott

According to The Financial Times article published today, anti-depressants are just as effective as, well, sugar cubes. They wrote today:

Almost 50 clinical trials were reviewed by psychologists from the University of Hull who found that new-generation anti-depressants worked no better than a placebo – a dummy pill – for mildly depressed patients.

Even the trials that suggested some clinical benefit for the most severely depressed patients did not produce convincing evidence. Professor Irving Kirsch from the university’s pyschology department said: “The difference in improvement between patients taking placebos and patients taking anti-depressants is not very great.

The Financial Times, February 25, 2008

Who’d a thought?

Depressed? Here’s a solution. Stop hiding in a cubicle or inside watching television and get out of the house. There’s something about being out in the sun and enjoying life.

Could it be the sun’s Beta-Carotene? Did you know that the sun actually helps prevent cancer when you grow up with normal sun exposure? That’s according to The New York Times health guide.

Could it be the fresh air? Its natures way of saying get out and have a life.

I have been telling people for ages that the answer to “depression” is the same as it has been for thousands of years. Stop complaining about your life and seeing the glass as half empty.

Go out and play.