Sunday, February 15, 2015

Brutal Winter of 2015 - Not Over Yet

Subtitle: When will Congressional hearings occur to hold mis-leading scientists accountable?

The winter of 2015 is not yet over, not by a long shot.  The US east coast is having a record year for total snowfall, with one blast of cold air following another. Blizzards have brought major cities to a standstill, with public transportation not operating.  Roofs are collapsing on buildings.   Record cold temperature is reported in many areas (record lows, and in some cases, daily high temperatures that are lower then ever recorded).  (citations: too many to include, future visitors are encouraged to search the internet for Winter 2015)  However, here is one link to a NOAA pdf file that describes conditions on the east coast on February 14-15, 2015 see link.  

The conditions mentioned above are entirely consistent with what I wrote, and discussed in a speech in May of 2015, posted on SLB here, see link.  (note, this article is the second most-viewed post on SLB).   The speech title is "Warmists are Wrong, Cooling Is Coming."   A brief portion of the speech is below, from "Part III: Implications" --

Transportation and industrial output:  this will be huge.  We do not move barges over frozen rivers.  We know this.  When a river is frozen for many months out of the year, how can you get your materials moved?  What about trains or heavy ground transportation; will they work? Probably not. The train is going to cross the Rockies’ grades in the snow and ice?   Likely not.

Industrial output: how does one move materials around?  How do we get raw materials into the factories and the products out?  If we have seen big trucks trying to go up even a small incline during an ice storm, well, they don't.  We can not get trucks to go up or down the Grapevine incline here just north of Los Angeles when snow falls.  Multiply this 1000 times across the northern tier of the United States.


Communications and infrastructure: we know what happens when ice storms or big snowstorms occur.   The system fails.  Why does it fail?  It is due to ice on the lines or tree limbs falling on the lines.  Can you imagine this on the scale something like the Little Ice Age?  We’re going to need serious reconsideration of infrastructure.   

We have seen employers being unable to open their doors because their employees cannot get to work.  Mandatory curfews - stay indoors orders - have been issued.  Light rail transportation systems are stopped; the various parts will not function reliably in the deep snow and cold.  One example cited in Boston is rail switches that cannot be operated reliably.   

Power grids are failing due to high winds, with hurricane-level winds, ice on the lines, and limbs or entire trees smashing into the lines.    City budgets for ice and snow removal are already exhausted.   Simply finding a place to put the snow is a major problem. 

In an unprecedented move (to my knowledge), Boston officials allowed snow to be dumped directly into the Boston harbor - an area previously off-limits due to environmental regulations.  

The nuclear power plant at Plymouth, in Massachusetts, has shut down as a precaution in this storm (Feb. 14, 2015) - but was also shut down in an earlier storm a few days ago when the grid failed.   Plant operators assured everyone that they had plenty of fuel for the emergency generators and the plant was safe.   Well, one would expect them to have sufficient fuel for the diesel generators.

The storms are not finished, either.  Weather predictors show yet another blizzard with very cold air next weekend.  

At some point, currently unknown, the US Congress or Senate will hold hearings to inquire why the prominent climate scientists were so very, very wrong.   It won't be while Obama is president, because he has maintained (many times) that global warming is real and a serious threat.  That is entirely false.  Global warming stopped more than a decade ago and the global cooling has begun. 

Roger E. Sowell, Esq. 
Marina del Rey, California USA
copyright (c) 2015 by Roger Sowell 






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