LibertyBell

2002-03 was even colder (and snowier) than 1993-94, an A+ winter that doesn't get mentioned much

it's going to be another dry spring and summer, time to pay the piper after all those wet years.

why can't we have a block in place that holds off storms to the west? we always talk about other kinds of blocks, why can't there be a block that holds storms off to the west coast and prevents them from moving east?

it was nice and sunny this morning with no clouds in sight :-)

about the IPCC predictions, they were a little too conservative, or, put another way, the likely outcome is going to be on the more aggressive side of their predictions....I've noticed the timeline has moved up with each new report.

https://www.theworldcounts.com/populations/world/10-billion-people People dont like to hear it, but either they change their way of life.... or else..... We are already over-exploiting the Earth biocapacity by 75 percent. Put differently, humanity uses the equivalent of 1.75 Earths to provide the natural resources for our consumption and absorb our waste. And the world population is growing by more than 200,000 people a day. 1.8005199599 Number of planet Earths we need To provide resources and absorb our waste How many people can the Earth sustain? 3.7 billion? Our current way of life caused humanity to hit the Earth’s limit already around 1970 when the world population was 3.7 billion - less than half the population of today. Since the 1970s, we have been living in so-called “ecological overshoot” with an annual demand on resources exceeding what Earth can regenerate each year. In other words, we are taking an ecological “loan” and asking future generations to pay it back. 7.7 billion? Is 7.7 billion people the sustainable limit? A meta-analysis of 70 studies estimates the sustainable limit to the world population to 7.7 billion people. World population as of 2020: 7.8 billion... 10 billion? Can Earth sustain 10 billion? According to an article in Live Science, many scientists think that Earth has a maximum capacity to sustain 9-10 billion people. One of these scientists is the Harvard sociobiologist Edward O. Wilson. He believes the Earth can sustain 10 billion - but it requires changes: "If everyone agreed to become vegetarian, leaving little or nothing for livestock, the present 1.4 billion hectares of arable land (3.5 billion acres) would support about 10 billion people" - Edward O. Wilson, Harvard sociobiologist. We need to change It’s clear that whatever the maximum number of the people the Earth can sustain, we need to change! If we continue our current consumption patterns we will slowly but steadily use up the planet’s resources. If nothing changes we will need two planets by 2030. 1970: 3.7 billion people = 1 planet Earth 2030: 8.5 billion people = 2 planet Earths 2057: 10 billion people = ??? planet Earths According to the global Footprint Network, in 2030 - when the global population has reached an estimated 8.5 billion people - we will need 2 planets to support the human population. Imagine how many we’ll need when we reach 10 billion people... But of course, change is possible! The UN paper: “How Many People? A Review of Earth’s Carrying Capacity” presents three different routes of change: The “bigger pie” scenarium: Technical evolutions in green energy and materials efficiency and reuse mean that we can get more out of the resources Earth has. The “fewer forks” scenarium: Meaning simply fewer people. The “better manners” scenarium: Humanity (as in every single one os us) reduces our impact on the planet and makes decisions based on the full impact on Earth and ecosystems (complete internalization of costs in economic terms). Examples are the use of renewable energy and reuse of materials instead of throwing them out. The paper concludes that a combination of all three will surely be needed.

It's more than that though, the population also has to stabilize.

I'm not sure this is going to work, at some point you come up against a ceiling of what is possible on a single planet in terms of population, amount of technology, and the resources available. I'm sure you are aware of Overshoot Day, it's the day every year we run out of the amount of resources the Earth can produce in that year. It's simple math really, unless we start offloading people off the planet, nature is going to do all of this for us. https://www.overshootday.org/ Earth's carrying capacity is 10 billion and if anyone thinks that any kind of technology will save us against the simple math of limited resources, a finite size and exponential population growth, they are just kidding themselves-- sometimes literarily!

April 1976 was matched by April 2002, I loved that dry heat, the sky was as blue as I've ever seen it. We also hit 90 in April 1977. 1977 had one of the top heatwaves on record (along with 1954 and 1993).

On the flip side, with its much shorter period of record, has JFK ever had a winter average below freezing? Also, with the warmest winters there, wasn't March 2016 colder than December 2015? So if included March in the rankings, would 2015-16 fall out of first in the rankings? Chris-- two of your temperature tables are missing location headers.

1917-1918 was a far superior winter to 1976-77 both in terms of extreme temps and snowfall, 1976-77 would have driven most of us crazy with dry and cold.

tornado in downtown LA and record low pressure in SF!

That's correct, but what I find fascinating in a horribly ironic way is....do the people in charge not realize how dire the situation is and that we are at end stage with this or do they not take it seriously enough-- their lackadaisacal approach is quite perplexing. Or are they convinced we'll find a new planet to populate (terraforming Mars perhaps?) What do they expect the final outcome to be? Also, and just as importantly, why don't scientists in this field, rather than just issuing reports, speak out more loudly, that human societies will collapse within our lifetimes if this is allowed to continue? Why dont they go on strike and force everything to a halt until this is truly addressed? I think at this point mass strikes by scientists are the only way we can stop this calamity now. You'd think that the pandemic would have taught humanity a lesson....but humanity shows itself to not be deserving of its "sapiens" name all the time.

wow thats amazing the top 5-6-7 list is very similar

Today is the actual first day of spring and it feels like it, the birds as well recognize it as the first day of spring as I've seen them doing their normal spring rituals for the first time this year.

1990 completed the flip today from scorching heat to freezing cold

He divided it into four categories....weak, moderate, strong and very strong (super)....so 1997-98 and 2015-16 fit into the very strong (super) category. The category between that and moderate seems to be very neglected lol, the last one that was between moderate and very strong/super was 1991-92.

wow we basically had a March average winter. do you have the average for MPO, Chris? Thanks! also, has JFK averaged 40.0 or higher? I think they did in 2015-16, which was a lot snowier than this winter. Was that their mildest winter?

what I'm fascinated by is that "strong" is a rare category.... how many "strongs" have we had since 2000? More than moderate and less than super. no strongs since 1991-92 wow

well thats why 1993-94 and 2009-11 were ideal.....think about it, we had 102 degrees in July 1993 and then -2 in January 1994! In 2009-11 we had 20 inch snowstorms and then 104 degree heat and then back to 20 inch snowstorms!

Just wait til you start tracking a historic heatwave! You'll love it! July 1993 got me hooked!

Easiest winter grade EVER F----------------------------------------------------------------------- that F could stand for a few other things too lol

2010-11 was a strong la nina and was one of our best winters ever, because it was a la nina after an el nino. as was 1995-96

Yes those are your favorites lol

2002-03 and 2009-10 were both borderline strong 1977-78 was weak but was functionally a moderate because it was a second year el nino note-- some of our best winters are la ninas that come after el ninos, they have the best combo of cold and moisture