Ones and Zeros

I don’t understand it, I just don’t understand it!

There’s been a lot of people who lost power around the Washington DC metro area this last week, I understand that.  But several times I’ve heard people quoted on TV or radio complaining that the stuff in their freezer and refrigerator would spoil.  I can’t understand that.

Right now the outside temperature is 27 degrees F (-2 degC).  That’s freezer temperatures.  The warmest it got outside this week was about 40 degrees F.  Most of the time it was in the low thirties or colder.

You don’t need a refridgerator or freezer.  Just a box (read ice chest) to even out the day/night temperatures and keep squirrels and birds out.

The short answer to the above question:  No.  Nor does a a single warm winter mean global warming is valid either.  The trend of average temperatures over time is much more informative and useful.  (Hint: That’s going up.)

The long answer is more interesting.  Climate change - a better term than global warming - is affected by the movement of heat and cold through the atmosphere.  When the planet averages warmer, not all areas are made equally warmer.  The areas with more sun - like the tropics - get warmer proportionally than the poles do. (Although the poles do also warm some.)

But there’s a flow of heat from warmer areas (tropics) to colder areas (poles) through areas in between the two (like temperate areas like Washington DC).  If there’s more heat to move, it has to move faster.  The way that that heat moves is through broad atmospheric masses of air swirling along.  A shorter term for that is “storms”.

So the higher the average temperature on earth, the more extreme the weather since the more extreme the storms.  There are wider swings of temperature and weather at any given point over time.  Washington DC area’s weather doesn’t mean that climate change is invalid. But basically, extreme weather IS climate change.

Senators DeMint and Inhofe as well as others either are being ignorant, stupid, or are being demagogues.  Nothing new there.

Today is the anniversary of Lincoln’s birthday.  And of Darwin’s birthday too.  The man who freed slaves in the US and set American democracy on the course of increasing freedom started his life today.  He also, at great cost, kept the country together.  He gave his life to his cause too.

Darwin also brought freedom.  But this time the freedom was in thought, to consider how life developed and grew to fill the planet as a natural process instead of one handed down by religious authorities.  He kept scientific though moving forward instead of dividing in a civil war of what can and can not be considered.

Neither man did the work by themselves, both relied on others to implement and fulfill their work and both stood on ideas prepared by others.  But both, for better or worse, have come to symbolize the battles that they were part of.  So here’s to both of them and here’s to our efforts at keeping their work alive and building on it.

Well, it’s over.  The recovery from the “February Fury” (as one TV network dubbed it) has begun.  The combined total of storms over the last week dropped 45 inches of snow (114.3 cm) here.  My local airport tried to bounce back during the week.  They were open for less than 24 hours before they closed again.

This is the most snow I’ve seen at once.  And the most I ever want to see.  Can’t wait for spring!

(Note: Next Monday is has snow predicted.  Again.)