Science Da-da Wednesdays...

Something's brewing. Hope you changed the filter.

Da-da was explaining to Nagurski, his youngest, about the weird weather this morning before dropping him off at school... and before he knew it, he'd drawn a crowd. Everyone wanted to know what was happening with the weather. Normally, Da-da would have only said a few words, but since half the group thought it was due to some outlandish event, Da-da had to put his science hat on and address the group.

We know from science done over the three days after 9/11/2001 (when no jets were flying and leaving contrails) that the earth has been naturally cooling for some time -- and we learned this a decade ago. There's precedent for this variation. Besides all the ice ages of the geologic past, the earth naturally cooled more recently (for a variety of reasons, perhaps), inducing colder temperatures and bad weather from the 13th Century all the way into the early 20th Century, in what's become know as, "the Little Ice Age." This came in the middle of an interglacial period, where the earth was unusually warm, and vikings were settling in Greenland, of all places (where Da-da is now). Sure, some glaciers have melted in the past 200 years, but a lot of them are growing again, either signaling the end of this interglacial period, or heralding a new Little Ice Age. Chances are good that this is due to the sun, which some scientists have finally admitted is a variable star (that means it changes), getting cooler then hotter then mamboing too much, then sleeping it off.

What industrial strip-mall burning man is doing is causing the planet to be unnaturally warm, pumping out heat and carbon dioxide like... well, like an industrial strip-mall burning man. Mix warm and cold on the playa and you get... WEATHER. In some cases of extreme hot and extreme cold, you get EXTREME WEATHER. Then came the kicker.

Fully half the group thought the weird weather was caused by the radiation leakage from Japan. Da-da laughed. This is patently ridiculous. Radiation doesn't make weather. All ("all") that can do is pollute -- a lot -- for something like a thousand years. Or longer. Which is bad. But it doesn't make tornadoes. If it did, you would all be so hosed.

If you still aren't convinced, try to remember all those bazillions of nuclear tests (actually, there were 2000 -- TWO THOUSAND, krikey -- the lion's share of which were done in the air) that "civilized" countries conducted between 1945 and 1992. "Nuclear tests" is a euphemism for gigantic freaking nuclear explosions. BOOM. Two thousand of them. Did any of those create horrible tornadoes or bizarre cold or rain when it's supposed to be sunny? Nope. And those were nuclear bombs. They blew up all over the place and threw radioactive debris over the entire earth well over fifteen hundred times (some of the later tests were underground), much worse than anything you could ever imagine, and some of you are worried about Japanese radiation carried on the wind? Indeed, the radiation is terrible, and will cause massive problems, and might be carried by the wind, but the majority of the damage will most likely be regionalized. The earth is big, and cleans itself pretty well. It just takes time. Chernobyl occurred back in 1986, caused 800,000 deaths and toppled the former Soviet Union (so you might wonder who was behind it, hmm?), and you still can't go anywhere near it. The only good news there is that it doesn't cause weird weather.

One person brought up HAARP. Alas, until someone on the inside cracks, we'll never know what they're doing with HAARP. Ascribing weird weather and earthquakes and volcanoes to HAARP is premature, and ignores all the other stuff that's been going on, most notably with the sun. That said, the U.S. Government should turn that thing off, posthaste, as they have no idea what it can do. Da-da so wishes Tesla burned his notebooks before he died.

Perhaps because Da-da's always had change in his life, he accepts it pretty quickly and adapts more readily than some, but a lot of people are having problems getting their minds around what's happening with the earth. Da-da calls, "Weather 2.0." Nothing ever stays the same here on Earth 2.0, which should really be called Earth 47000000.0. The catastrophes of the past make this little change you're experiencing such an inconsequential trifle as to be laughable. Anyone recall the Permian-Triassic (P-T) Extinction? All of what is now Siberia -- which is BIG -- erupted all the way around its tectonic plate, throwing what's lovingly called a "curtain lava" event... an event you don't wanna see. Ever. It was sorta like this...

Imagine this, a mile high, all the way around Siberia.

...but the curtains were a mile high. Around an entire continent. For a thousand years. Ow. The P-T event killed 96% of all marine life and 70% of all terrestrial life and shortened baseball season something fierce. And you can't blame Monsanto or HAARP or the U.S. Government for this one (even though they probably used a time machine to mess things up, the bastards.) No, the earth has been whacking civilizations back to nothing all by its lonesome for longer than you've had hot dinners. Welcome to Perspective! It's certainly nothing to be afraid of, though. That's as silly as sitting around waiting for the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy (all galaxies are accretion discs for black holes) to eat you. Needless to say, it's gonna be awhile, so relax.

Back to the weather. Weatherwise, there's a good chance that the weather will never be what it once was. You might like it. You might not. This is certainly the case with weather, but not with radiation. Some things can be avoided. 

AIIEE! Run, Timmy, RUN! The glacier's gonna get you!