Car question for you that are used to exreme cold

[irv]

Weren't we, like over 20yrs ago, supposed to be all burned up from Man Made Global warming?
Or is it because they used words like "could be" or "might be", they weren't really sure?

[oldgoldy97]

According to Joey and Brant Miller of the NBC 5 Storm Team, the culprit behind the recent bone-chilling temperatures is a phenomenon known as “sudden stratospheric warming,” which is occurring over the North Pole.

[irv]

Originally Posted by oldgoldy97

According to Joey and Brant Miller of the NBC 5 Storm Team, the culprit behind the recent bone-chilling temperatures is a phenomenon known as “sudden stratospheric warming,” which is occurring over the North Pole.

Who knew!

[oldgoldy97]

Probably fake news.

[TheHeel]

Don’t mess with Texas

[Saraste]

You should see the people down here in Central and South Florida. They get out their parkas and balaclavas when it gets down to 60 degrees. What's even worse is that some of them get out of cars with northeast plates. I wish we had a couple of months where temperatures did not get above 60 degrees. No I am not moving back north. I spent 20 years in Chicago. That's enough.

[irv]

I was really shocked when my gov't told me that Canada was warming up twice as fast as any other country on earth.
I honestly thought that the climate knew borders and wouldn't dare go past them but now that Texas and most of the southern states are also feeling the effects of this current cold snap, I know that isn't true.

Maybe it's just when it is summer and hotter out that that applies as I've read that the Russian ice isn't melting like our ice in the Arctic is.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/cana...port-1.4361044

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by Saraste

You should see the people down here in Central and South Florida. They get out their parkas and balaclavas when it gets down to 60 degrees. What's even worse is that some of them get out of cars with northeast plates. I wish we had a couple of months where temperatures did not get above 60 degrees. No I am not moving back north. I spent 20 years in Chicago. That's enough.

Last weekend it was in the 50s here I was out hitting a few yard sales and ran into a guy from Miami he was decked out like an eskimo and was still cold he was amazed most of us were walking around with no jackets or just very light ones on.

[oldgoldy97]

Originally Posted by TheHeel

Don’t mess with Texas

[ld8759]

Overnight tonight in Massachusetts is supposed to be a high of 8 degrees. Nothing new here. We have it good in New England compared to MN.

[hairysasquatch]

Oldmoldy having a bit too much fun. I think he's schaudenfrozen.

[shrevecity]

Originally Posted by hairysasquatch

Oldmoldy having a bit too much fun. I think he's schaudenfrozen.

Thing is he is telling the truth. It gets insane here. You should see my facebook feed on whats coming. All schools have already announced they are closing for the week. Our local PO has said that delivery and counter service will be affected to expect to have a couple of days of no service. The clerks told me yesterday most of them were told they may be off the entire week. My wifes job is likely going to be closed next week. Groceey stores have changed their hours. City offices are going to be closed til Wednesday at the earliest.

[hairysasquatch]

Originally Posted by shrevecity

Thing is he is telling the truth. It gets insane here. You should see my facebook feed on whats coming. All schools have already announced they are closing for the week. Our local PO has said that delivery and counter service will be affected to expect to have a couple of days of no service. The clerks told me yesterday most of them were told they may be off the entire week. My wifes job is likely going to be closed next week. Groceey stores have changed their hours. City offices are going to be closed til Wednesday at the earliest.

Extinction event if you believe the media.

[Stifle]

Originally Posted by deansayso

If you're worried can't you just use a straight antifreeze?

With wind chill a few years ago it was -45 one day, “Michigan”. Pretty much the same answer, a little water and mainly Antifreeze.

[oldgoldy97]

Two feet of snow does suck. Sucks worse when it stays around until April.

[Saraste]

Originally Posted by shrevecity

Thing is he is telling the truth. It gets insane here. You should see my facebook feed on whats coming. All schools have already announced they are closing for the week. Our local PO has said that delivery and counter service will be affected to expect to have a couple of days of no service. The clerks told me yesterday most of them were told they may be off the entire week. My wifes job is likely going to be closed next week. Grocery stores have changed their hours. City offices are going to be closed til Wednesday at the earliest.

I believe it entirely. If your area is not prepared for what is coming, salt trucks and such, then the best thing for everyone to do is to stay inside and stay safe. There is no reason for areas to have salt trucks for once in a decade events like this. Please keep us posted.

[mainerunr]

Originally Posted by Saraste

I believe it entirely. If your area is not prepared for what is coming, salt trucks and such, then the best thing for everyone to do is to stay inside and stay safe. There is no reason for areas to have salt trucks for once in a decade events like this. Please keep us posted.

I'd be out and about helping people who get stuck, never seen a storm here that has kept me from where I needed to be...but I've also been driving in snow for a long time.

Did not realize that the power company down there would implement rolling blackouts due to an inability to generate enough power (frozen turbine blades was cited as a reason). Not sure how many people down there have generators for hurricane season, guessing not many.

[jarrodsalas]

These northern guys poking fun at you Shreve...how long would they last down here August/September? 😂 I always find it amusing when “heat waves” up north make national news when it’s 90 for a few days. “But we don’t have AC units like you guys!!!!” I guess it works both ways.

[BGT Masters]

Originally Posted by jarrodsalas

These northern guys poking fun at you Shreve...how long would they last down here August/September? 😂 I always find it amusing when “heat waves” up north make national news when it’s 90 for a few days. “But we don’t have AC units like you guys!!!!” I guess it works both ways.

Can’t speak for anyone else but from personal experience of dealing with summers in Houston. I’d much rather deal with that than 6 months of winter. Most side roads up north aren’t touched for hours, if it’s a holiday and no school, forget about it.

[jarrodsalas]

Originally Posted by BGT Masters

Can’t speak for anyone else but from personal experience of dealing with summers in Houston. I’d much rather deal with that than 6 months of winter. Most side roads up north aren’t touched for hours, if it’s a holiday and no school, forget about it.

Houston doesn’t get above 100 for 50 days straight.

[ld8759]

Originally Posted by jarrodsalas

These northern guys poking fun at you Shreve...how long would they last down here August/September? 😂 I always find it amusing when “heat waves” up north make national news when it’s 90 for a few days. “But we don’t have AC units like you guys!!!!” I guess it works both ways.

I have to admit that I would never make it living in the southern US in the hot months, so you're right. It does work both ways. Shrevecity, I hope everything goes okay for you this week. Up here in New England, we are waiting on an ice storm tonight through tomorrow night. That means trees down and power outages. Not looking good.

[Cactuspies]

we have some co-workers down near mcallen and they lost power about 15 hours ago, with highs of 15! I saw photos of a few inches of snow in arlington I believe.

when I drove cross country in feb '04 the Pan Handle area was expecting ice storms and street icing and were out in full force with sand and salt and plows sparking up the road. that was pretty funny.

I'll take my 66 cold degrees today

[packman80]

Makes me wonder if place like TX had to go through a normal midwest winter how many people would act like they would be on step away from canablism.

[TheFrenzy]

Originally Posted by irv

Weren't we, like over 20yrs ago, supposed to be all burned up from Man Made Global warming?
Or is it because they used words like "could be" or "might be", they weren't really sure?

I work in environmental history and alongside a bunch of environmental scientists here at ASU. The apocalyptic narrative that the media and many activists have been promoting has done more harm than good. I can link to the relevant conference papers and publications if I need to, but here's how things breakdown.

Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, geologists began to get a good idea of the planet's climate history. It showed that the planet has alternated between glacial periods (ice ages) and interglacial periods (warmer times). The best evidence shows that there have been five major ice ages since the planet formed and in the 1970s the data showed that the planet should have been trending downwards towards a sixth major ice age:



That's why there was a brief period where people were talking about "global cooling" and the threat of an ice age. If the planet had continued along the climate trajectory that it was supposed to be on, today northern North America and Europe would be 3-4 degrees Celsius cooler and would have trouble maintaining agriculture.

But then, in the mid-1980s, they realized that the planet wasn't cooling. It was warming. That's what initially freaked people out. But here's the best way to explain the level-headed view of what scientists are seeing:

1. For the last 11,600 years, we've lived in what's called Holocene. And we now know that the climate during this period has been incredibly unnatural in how stable and mild it has been. Essentially, the rise of human agriculture, the use of fire and the clearing of forests, and the extinction of several species of large animals in the Americas introduced just enough CO2/Methane to counteract the planet's natural cooling cycle and produce thousands of years of very little variance. The "natural" world that humans have been used to was actually a climatic fluke. (Or for those who take a more religious view of things, the rocks might "show" a long history of violent climate shifts, but the few thousand years since humans were created do look almost divinely balanced to facilitate our species' flourishing and the rise of civilizations. I realize BO members have a wide range of views and I have no problem discussing any of them.)

2. This balance between the planet cooling and low-level human-caused warming factors shifted in favor of warming following the Industrial Revolution in the 1700s and then kicked into high gear after WWII as major nations like China and India started rapidly industrializing.

3. "Warming" doesn't mean "hotter" and it's a piss poor way to describe what's happening. We're not going to burn up. The Earth isn't going to transform into a Mad Max wasteland. No reputable, non-political scientist believes that. What "warmer" is meant to describe is the fact that more incoming solar energy is increasingly staying in the oceans and atmosphere rather than dissipating back into space. But just because there is more energy sticking around doesn't mean that the temperature everywhere automatically goes up—because the oceans and jetstream circulate that energy. And as more energy builds up in the system, the less evenly it circulates.

The best analogy that I've come up with is a ceiling fan. We've all had ceiling fans that worked and stayed balanced on the low settings but started to wobble and shake like crazy on the high setting. That's basically what's happening: the highs get higher, the lows get lower, and the shifts between them become more sudden because the climate gets "wobbly" when it gets set on "high."

None of which is good necessarily (though there is some truth to forests and crops growing faster due to increasing CO2 levels—nothing is ever 100% good or bad), but the planet and life on it have survived much higher temperatures. The "PETM" (Pleistocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum) was a period of time where the planet was 9 - 11 degrees Celsisu hotter than it is now and blows the fears of warming by 2 - 4 degrees Celsius out of the water. The PETM also wasn't marked by mass extinction.

(Personally I'm more concerned about the rapid loss of topsoil—which takes forever to replace—and the rapid loss of species—which makes it easier for catastrophic diseases to emerge that can wipe out crops, livestock, or human as there are fewer species to absorb mutated strands—than I am about "global warming" per se.)

[BGT Masters]

Originally Posted by jarrodsalas

Houston doesn’t get above 100 for 50 days straight.

I believe the record when I was down there was something like two weeks but you’re right. Most normal places in the US don’t go that long. Houston heat was muggy though. Pretty sure I remember northern TX getting snow on a normal basis?

My point being was more people in the north have to drive in the snow because most of the roads don’t get plowed quickly or at all. I am two small roads from a main road and it hasn’t been touched since the couple inches we got in the am. Down south I don’t remember a single place not having AC but I wouldn’t want to be a roofer down there that’s for sure.

First time we moved to Houston from NY we didn’t have AC in the car, drove straight through. That sucked. Second time my mother was 8 months pregnant and no AC in the middle of summer. Trip took forever because pregnant women have to pee a lot. I’ll take 100 heat or snowy roads over that ever again.