A little taste of Oklahoma and the vortex.

February 16, 2021
By Ryan Novozinski

Stillwater’s temperature (click here) on Tuesday reached 9 degrees fahrenheit –– which is currently lower than Anchorage, Alaska and Moscow, Russia.

These frigid temperatures come during a record winter storm that blasted most of the United States this week.

Temperatures became so low that Oklahoma State University opted out of in-person classes this week and warned students of the dangers of hypothermia.

The cold also impacted the city’s energy. Stillwater Mayor Will Joyce warned residents on Twitter that there could be additional outages due to cold weather Tuesday night....

February 15, 2021
By Maddison Farris

Stillwater avoided a potential blackout (click here) earlier this afternoon, but an intentional power outage has been put into motion for tonight. Between the hours of 10 p.m. and 1 a.m., portions of the City of Stillwater will lose power for anywhere from 30-45 minutes.

It is unclear whether or not the OSU campus is included in this power outage, but students should be sure to have plenty of blankets and warm clothing.

This outage is necessary according to the Southwest Power Pool, as not enough energy is being generated to support the grid. These “rolling blackouts” will take place in multiple locations at staggered times to lighten the load of needed energy....

One more time.

February 19. 2021
By Hope McKinney

In Unalaska, it’s also been the rainiest start to February since 2004. So far, the island has recorded more than eight inches of rain this month, with more than a week left to go. The normal February precipitation for Unalaska is six and a half inches.

While much of Alaska (click here) has been bitterly cold this month, the Aleutian Islands and Alaska Peninsula have been extraordinarily mild.

It’s part of the recent warming pattern in the Bering Sea, and communities along the Aleutian Chain can expect a similar trend moving forward, says Rick Thoman, a climate specialist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

“Because the oceans are warming, and the climate of the Aleutians is so dominated by the oceans — unless the atmosphere does something particularly unusual, we’re aiming for a warmer than what used to be considered normal February,” Thoman said.

Much of Interior Alaska has been cooler than normal this month because of cold air coming out of Northwest Canada or down from the high Arctic, he said. But the lower Alaska Peninsula and Aleutians Islands haven’t seen a similar trend, and it’s shaping up to be one of the mildest Februaries on record for the region.

“There really hasn’t been a push of colder air from Siberia across the Bering Sea,” Thoman said. “That’s how the Aleutians can get their cold weather, and that just has been completely lacking so far in February.”...

For years I posted a daily reality of the warmer temperatures in Alaska. Doesn't it make sense yet?

November 18, 2021
By Kristin Hetterman

...What locals are noticing, (click here) scientists and satellites are reinforcing. Alaska’s sea ice had unprecedented melting this summer, with the National Weather Service reporting there was no sea ice left within 150 miles of Alaskan coastlines. Satellite measurements done by NASA show summer sea ice levels in the Arctic have dropped by approximately 40 percent since the late 1970s. Sea ice—frozen ocean water—forms, grows and melts in the ocean, as compared to icebergs, glaciers and ice shelves that float in the ocean but originate on land.

Loss of sea ice has serious implications for animals and indigenous practices, with native people relying on the sea ice to support their living ecosystem that is dependent on fish and wildlife. Food security has become a major instigator for the planet’s first official climate refugees, with a recent U.N. report estimating two billion people face moderate to severe food insecurity due largely to the warming planet with escalating extreme weather events and shifting weather patterns. Behavioral adaptations are key to survival, and the Inupiat in the far north are by necessity deep into navigating what those adaptations are going to look like....

...The Arctic summer of 2019 headlined well-above-average temperatures, warmer seas and a historic July heat wave going into the unprecedented 90’s. In terms of records, July was the hottest month ever recorded on planet Earth since 1880, when modern recordkeeping began. In 2017, Cook Inletkeeper published projections for nonglacial stream temperatures in different case scenarios for climate change in Alaska, projecting out to 2069. Shockingly, temperatures recorded in 2019 surpassed even the worst-case projections for 50 years in the future....

This melting isn't new.

27 September 2008

By Ed Pilkington

Newtok in Alaska, where global warming is forcing the entire community to relocate.

...It is here on Nelson Island (click here) that America's first global-warming refugee camp is being built. Three houses, neatly arranged on stilts in the style of Peter John's home back in Newtok, are already nearing completion. The villagers built them themselves, with the help of government grants, on land that is high enough up the hillside to be safe from the dangers of climate change - rising sea levels, flash flooding, erosion - for decades, if not centuries, to come. The first three homes have been assigned to village elders, including Stanley's father, Nick Tom. As Stanley shows us around the new houses, with their wood-burning stoves and mail-order catalogue kitchens, he talks of his huge relief that the move has begun. 'The elders are our advisers; they are our resources. We owe it to them to provide them with a life without trouble and worry. I can sleep at night now, knowing my father will be safe.'...

This is absolutely brutal cruelty. I take it the hospitals were incapacited as well?

In circumstances such as this that is what would be the normal course of care. He should have been taken to a hospital emergency room where oxygen should have been plentiful. 

February 18, 2021
By Nick Powell, Alejandro Serrano, and Brooke A. Lewis

Soon after Carrol Anderson (click here) lost power in his Crosby home earlier this week, his oxygen machine stopped working. He had asked his provider for more tanks the previous week but didn’t get any before harsh winter conditions set in. The 75-year old Vietnam War veteran turned to two small bottles of oxygen he had, but his supply quickly depleted.

With no firewood left and temperatures plummeting, Anderson turned to his last resort to breathe: A small portable oxygen tank he kept in his truck.

“He shouldn’t have had to die because he couldn’t breathe because we didn’t have power,” said Gloria Anderson, Carrol’s wife of 30 years, through tears in a telephone interview.

Anderson’s death was one of four deaths caused by hypothermia that Harris County authorities announced on Thursday. Two people, Jimmie Gloud and Mary Gee, died at their Houston homes. A man was also found dead early Thursday in a parking lot in the northern part of Harris County, a fatality also attributed to the cold weather.

As temperatures rose and the Houston region began to thaw after several days of sub-freezing temperatures, the number of reported local deaths related to cold weather doubled on Thursday, bringing the toll of the crisis into sharper focus....

This is what the polar vortex looked like on January 18, 2021.

There are five different divisions of arctic air. The ability of the vortex to remain stable appears to be impossible. That is not good. It should be more resilient to Rossby Waves than this. 

 

I appreciate the article from Politico and their recognition by President Biden on this issue.

February 21, 2021
By Eric Wolff, Debra Kahn, and Zack Colman

Texas and California (click here) may be worlds apart in their politics and climate policies, but they have something in common: Extreme weather crashed their power grids and left people stranded in the dark.

The two sprawling, politically potent states have devoted massive sums to their power networks over the past two decades — California to produce huge amounts of wind and solar energy, Texas to create an efficient, go-it-alone electricity market built on gas, coal, nuclear and wind. But neither could keep the lights on in the face of the type of brutal weather that scientists call a taste of a changing climate.

That presents both an opportunity and a challenge for President Joe Biden, potentially aiding his efforts to draw support from lawmakers and states for his multitrillion-dollar proposals to harden the nation's energy infrastructure to withstand climate change. But he’s already facing entrenched resistance to his pledges to shift the nation to renewable energy by 2035 — including from fossil fuel advocates who have sought to scapegoat wind and solar for the energy woes in both states....

The state of Texas has stated the utility companies cannot send out inflated bills to consumers and then turn off their service. Basically, the companies are not allowed to even mail bills with higher prices per kilowatt hour.

February 21, 2021

By Bill Hutchinson

Texas power providers (click here) Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and Entergy Corporation have been hit with a $100 million lawsuit accusing them of gross negligence in the death of a child whose family suspects he suffered hypothermia when they lost electricity and heat in their mobile home during a historic cold snap.

The mother of 11-year-old Cristian Pineda filed the wrongful death lawsuit in Jefferson County District Court, alleging the utility giants "put profits over the welfare of people" by ignoring previous recommendations to winterize its power grid, which sustained an epic failure last week and left more than 4 million customers without heat and electricity as temperatures in some parts of the state plunged to single digits....

This is out of Stanford.

What I am hoping to have readers understand about this entry is the fact polar vortexes splitting is less normal than a stable vortex system.

From 1989 to 1998, (click here) there were no split vortex events in midwinter. But in recent decades these events have been happening more frequently. This animation shows the polar vortex splitting in 2009.

The current membership of the IPCC (International Panel on Climate Change) is 195 (click here). They receive reports from thousands of other scientists and compile an international report from these sources. All in all, there are scientists in the tens of thousands attempting to cover the geophysics of Earth. They could use some attention to the specialty to attract more people into the specialty.

...AS: We don’t quite know why the polar vortex doesn’t affect the Pacific basin, but we have some initial hypotheses. We think it has something to do with the location of the jets in the two basins. In the Atlantic basin, the jet stream is located at higher latitudes. In the Pacific basin, it’s closer to the equator....

In order to recognize climate refugees the law of the USA must recognize the climate crisis for future administrations.

Testimony from the past and records of American scientists should be enough to validate for the rule of law, the climate crisis and it's impacts on Americans.

February 5, 2021

Among the flurry of executive orders (click here) marking the debut of the administration of US President Joe Biden was an order on February 4 to overhaul the United States refugee resettlement program and begin to grapple with growing climate-induced migration.

The order addresses flaws that have bedeviled the program for years and details what is needed to fix it, but it also demonstrates refreshing humanitarian purpose.

While acknowledging that refugee admissions are discretionary, the order directs officials not to discriminate based on race, religion, national origin, or other grounds, and instead identify refugees for resettlement “who are more vulnerable to persecution, including women, children, and other individuals who are at risk of persecution related to their gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation.” It calls for exploring avenues of humanitarian protection for vulnerable people who may not qualify as refugees....

...Biden also ordered a report on options for protecting and resettling people displaced directly or indirectly by the effects of climate change. Another order issued earlier in the week laid out a “root causes strategy” for addressing the drivers of migration from Central America, including corruption, crime, sexual and gender-based violence, and economic insecurity and inequality, while also expanding legal migration pathways for labor migrants as well as asylum seekers....

One more short video to bring an understanding of Rossby Waves.

Gravity waves can be found anywhere in space. On Earth they are called Rossby Waves.

Rossby waves (click here) naturally occur in rotating fluids. Within the Earth's ocean and atmosphere, these planetary waves play a significant role in shaping weather. This animation from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center shows both long and short atmospheric waves as indicated by the jet stream. The colors represent the speed of the wind ranging from slowest (light blue colors) to fastest (dark red).

Anti-gravity yoga

It is over 2 hours long, but, worth watching.

A Poem

 "Gravity" by John Fredrick Nims

Mildest of all the powers of earth: no lightnings

For her—maniacal in the clouds. No need for

Signs with their skull and crossbones, chain-link gates:

Danger! Keep Out! High Gravity! she’s friendlier.

Won’t nurse—unlike the magnetic powers—repugnance;

Would reconcile, draw close: her passion’s love.

No terrors lurking in her depths, like those                                                         

Bound in that buzzing strongbox of the atom,

Terrors that, lossened, turn the hills vesuvian,

Trace in cremation where the cities were.

No, she’s our quiet mother, sensible.

But therefore down-to-earth, not suffering

Fools who play fast and loose among the mountains,

Who fly in her face, or, drunken, clown on cornices.

She taught our ways of walking. Her affection

Adjusted the morning grass, the sands of summer

Until our soles fit snug in each, walk easy.

Holding her hand, we’re safe. Should that hand fail,

The atmosphere we breathe would turn hysterical,

Hiss with tornadoes, spinning us from earth

Into the cold unbreathable desolations.

Yet there—in fields of space—is where she shines,

Ring-mistress of the circus of the stars,

Their prancing carousels, their ferris wheels

Lit brilliant in celebration. Thanks to her

All’s gala in the galaxy.

                                   Down here she

Walks us just right, not like the jokey moon

Burlesquing our human stride to kangaroo hops;

Not like vast planets, whose unbearable mass

Would crush us in a bear hug to their surface

And into the surface, flattened. No: deals fairly.

Makes happy each with each: the willow bend

Just so, the acrobat land true, the keystone

Nestle in place for bridge and for cathedral.

Let us pick up—or mostly—what we need:

Rake, bucket, stone to build with, logs for warmth,

The fallen fruit, the fallen child . . . ourselves.

Instructs us too in honesty: our jointed

Limbs move awry and crisscross, gawky, thwart;

She’s all directness and makes that a grace,

All downright passion for the core of things,

For rectitude, the very ground of being:

Those eyes are leveled where the heart is set.

See, on the tennis court this August day:

How, beyond human error, she’s the one

Whose will the bright balls cherish and obey

—As if in love. She’s tireless in her courtesies

To even the klutz (knees, elbows all a-tangle),

Allowing his poky serve Euclidean whimsies,

The looniest lob its joy: serene parabolas.

A national climate emergency is needed.

So far the death toll in Texas from the climate emergency is 50. That exceeds the number of deaths from the California wildfires.

Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex...

 ...needs bottled water as soon as the roads are passable. What I have seen are people with buckets walking to their homes. A gallon of water weighs over 8 pounds. Water distribution in that manner will prohibit the elderly from obtaining it.

Any sort of door to door effort by authorities or volunteer group will accomplish many task including water delivery as well as turning off running water at the street. Every home and apartment with broken pipes will have to have there water turned off in order to build up pressure. Repairing the water main alone will not provide relief.

It is going to take time for homes to dry out and replace pipes. There will be a health concern in the long view of mold and fungus developing in walls. Saturated carpeting is probably not salvageable. Wood floors will warp and can be a health concern, too. This is an enormous housing problem and tents maybe an answer in the short term.

Concrete and brick foundations will need inspection regularly as hairline cracks can become foundation problems. This is more than flood damage, this is frozen water damage, too.

Open letter to President Macron of France.

Dear President Macron,

We have seen the worst of democracy when a traitor occupies the White House in the USA, namely Donald John Trump. Hopefully, by example, Europe will never face that assault from Russia which hides in extremist values. It was Russia after all that elected Trump in 2016 by stealing emails and submitting to The West’s computer technology and capacity to publish them. The presidential elections of 2016 was an act of war by Russia.

What is so concerning are the deadenders in the USA that seem to believe the violence, hate and insurrection of Trump should be permanent policy in the USA. Their loyalty to Trump may prove to be their folly if moderate Republicans actually become the next conservative power base. That all remains speculative, although anti-abortion platforms have seen Republican women elected to the US House.

I think it is time for the allies of the USA to assess their military power first as a single country and then as allies. 

There are former communist countries that found communism adverse to their people, hence, their economies. If communism was a benefit for these countries they would still be part of Russia, but, they aren't. Through great peril to the people and their leaders, they are now aligned with NATO. 

Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus, and Estonia have the greatest danger of an aggressive Russia that would plung NATO into war. On that same front is Finland which suffers the radiation pollution from Russia for it's many failed nuclear experiments and grossly unsafe nuclear power plants. Why are we waiting to face the real reality of Western prowess? In fear of a nuclear holocaust? It may come anyway allowing communist countries, including Cuba and Venezuela, more time to prepare. 

Russia has no real conventional force that could win a war with NATO. Even if joined by China, there are not enough assets of either country or expertise, to win a war against The West.

Why allow ourselves to think time will win out in peaceful achievements? Time is an ally to communists, not The West.

We have learned both from China and Russia pursuing peace and trusting it only gives them time to arm better and pose not just as a threat to peace, but, emerging as hostile nations no longer interested in peace.

The ability and expertise of NATO and USA allies from around the world in a conventional war would have Russia and China ended. The only real deterrent to war for Russia and China are nuclear weapons. I doubt Russia's nuclear weapons would deliver the fear that Putin believes he rightfully can claim.

I would be surprised if China decided the only path forward is assured mutual destruction. I am surprised even today that China calculates nuclear weapons as a deterrent to war. China has pursued sophisticated paths including space exploration in recent decades. Is China that invested in the idea of war to cause it's sacrifices to date to end in such destruction?

Some of China's accomplishments rival those of the USA, dare I say at least mimic them. Allowing nuclear weapons to cloud it's judgment of the future seems completely counterintuitive for China. Why build a sophisticated infrastructure of great accomplishments, great cities and seek out economic growth if all that is thrown away with a nuclear holocaust. So, I question China's loyalty to the Friendship Pact made with Russia in the year 2000. By now, two decades later, that alliance must seem lackluster to China. Quite possibly half-hearted enthusiasm for any involvement with war, too.

If in four years extremists manage to retake the USA in elections that would be a massive shift in power that would disadvantage The West and democracy. It would certainly end freedom in the USA.

I am forced to look at a Vladimir Putin who had a quick handshake for President Biden when the USA election outcome was obvious. I also see the Russian people and their unrest. Is it time for The West to take a stance with Russia it is most uncomfortable in pursuing? Are these next few years the real time provided by fate to secure the countries we love for the freedom and democracy that exists in them? Are the Russian people reaching for the same goals that would secure their democracy as well as ours? Are they longing to join Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus and Estonia? Is that what plagues Putin now?

I am forced to wonder if the future is safe for all our children from ruthless communist plans for us?

Best regards,

An American 

Love ballad to Vladimir Putin.

Two Russians walk into a Moscow nightclub.

One is Alexie Navalny and the other a business interest. The are sipping on vodka and talking about the news and sports. They like each other’s ideas and order several more snifters of vodka. 

The businessman says to Navalny, I challenge you to run against Putin for president and I will back you. 

Navalny says, “I thought we were going to begin a business together.”

Businessman says, “I think we just did.”

The rest is history.

Joe Manchin needs to stop the attitude...

 ...toward minority women. 

West Virginia is 93 percent Caucasian. Gender is divided about 50 to 50. 

First, Joe Manchin takes offense at Vice President Harris talking to West Virginians about the COVID relief bill and now Manchin is stating he is taking offense of Facebook posts by Neera Tanden. No

I think Joe Manchin needs to rethink his nonsense about minority women in government. Vice President Harris has a schedule she keeps. She has a right to her autonomy. She was attempting to help the party that is proving they can get the job done. What is Manchin’s problem?

Neera Tandan is highly qualified to do the job at OMB. She is a political activist as well. One has nothing to do with the other and Neera Tandan is perfectly capable of separating her politics from her job. I sincerely believe picking on minority women is a bad idea. 

To be clear Neera Tandan has worked on programs that have changed the face of this country. Most notably is the “Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act” which changed welfare forever. Why is she so talented within government? She is a Yale Law School graduate that loves people and is capable of handling the demands in Washington, DC.

Neera deserves the job. She has apologized for any internet posts that may have insulted Republicans. She means it. She feels bad about it. Thin skinned Republicans are no excuse for Joe Manchin to vote to keep her from serving in a job she will excel at and help bring good outcomes to the American people. It is time Senator Manchin get over himself and appreciate the expertise minority women are bringing to the work of government.

I think Democrats need to spend a little more time with the people of West Virginia. They are good folks, but, this is the 21st century where Americans care about each other regardless of their differences.