California now appears drought-free from space and its water reservoirs are at levels higher than they have been in more than a decade

 

400k without power in California

 

 

... hurricane-force winds ...

 

The storms won’t be enough to officially end California’s ongoing drought but they have helped.

 

Trend for annual precipitation in Grand Rapids, Michigan 1903-2021

 

The mean annual has risen to 34.79 through 2021 from 31.45 through 1963 . . . an extra 3.34 inches annually, in keeping with a long term slightly cooling Oceanic Nino Index from 1951.

Through 2021 mean precipitation for the eight months Jan-Aug is 22.88, but for Jan-Aug 2022 we've got 27.61 inches.

Wet. Wet. Wet.

Meanwhile out West it's the reverse.

Dry. Dry. Dry.

 

 

 

I mean yeah, c'mon, doesn't the judge know there's a drought going on?

 Judge Accused of Calling Immigrants 'Wetbacks'...

Bi-partisan Senate infrastructure plan authorizing $550 billion in new spending passed the House late last night and goes to Biden for his signature

The bill was opposed in the House by almost all Republicans, and by six far-left Democrats who were outmaneuvered by thirteen moderate Republicans who threw their support to the plan, which 19 Republican US Senators had voted for earlier this summer. 

The House progressives had insisted that the infrastructure plan be voted on together with Biden's social spending plan in order to force moderate Democrats to go along with the latter. The House Republican votes for the Senate bill ended up thwarting that linkage, making it even more likely that the House version of the social spending plan will have to be much less ambitious.

A small group of House Democrats have insisted the Congressional Budget Office score the impact of the separate social spending plan, which would have been standard operating procedure under Republicans but which Democrats under Pelosi have been avoiding until now. They don't give a damn about the true costs. They've even claimed absurdly a $3.5 trillion social spending plan will cost NOTHING. Ha ha ha ha ha.

That ranks among the most shameless attempts to change reality through a talking point ever attempted.

Whatever comes out of the House on that will face the hard scrutiny of Democrat Senators Manchin and Sinema regardless. 

Roll Call:

The bipartisan bill would reauthorize surface transportation and water programs for five years, adding $550 billion in new spending. 

It includes $110 billion for roads, bridges and major projects; $39 billion for transit and $66 billion for rail; $65 billion for broadband; $65 billion for the electric grid; $55 billion to upgrade water infrastructure and $25 billion for airports.

WaPo:

The bill includes more than $110 billion to replace and repair roads, bridges and highways, and $66 billion to boost rail, making it the most substantial such investment in the country’s passenger and commercial network since the creation of Amtrak about half a century ago. Lawmakers provided $55 billion to improve the nation’s water supply and replace lead pipes, $60 billion to modernize the power grid and billions in additional sums to expand speedy Internet access nationwide.

Many of the investments aim to promote green energy and combat some of the country’s worst sources of pollution. At Biden’s behest, for example, lawmakers approved $7.5 billion to build out a national network of vehicle charging stations. Reflecting the deadly, costly consequences of global warming, the package also allocates another roughly $50 billion to respond to emergencies including droughts, wildfires and major storms.

This has to be the dumbest blackout story ever written: The crisis is entirely of their own making

Blackouts Threaten Entire U.S. West This Summer as Heat Awaits :

States shuttering coal and gas-fired power plants simply aren’t replacing them fast enough to keep pace with the vagaries of an unstable climate, and the region’s existing power infrastructure is woefully vulnerable to wildfires (which threaten transmission lines), drought (which saps once-abundant hydropower resources) and heat waves (which play havoc with demand).

 

Well don't shutter 'em then!

 

Bunch of idiots.

Climate Scientists Write To UN: There Is No Climate Emergency:

Professor Guus Berkhout
The Hague
guus.berkhout@clintel.org

23 September 2019

Sr. António Guterres, Secretary-General, United Nations,
United Nations Headquarters,
New York, NY 10017, United States of America.

Ms. Patricia Espinosa Cantellano, Executive Secretary,
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change,
UNFCCC Secretariat, UN Campus, Platz der Vereinten Nationen 1,
53113 Bonn, Germany

Your Excellencies,

There is no climate emergency.

A global network of more than 500 knowledgeable and experienced scientists and professionals in climate and related fields have the honor to address to Your Excellencies the attached European Climate Declaration, for which the signatories to this letter are the national ambassadors.

The general-circulation models of climate on which international policy is at present founded are unfit for their purpose. Therefore, it is cruel as well as imprudent to advocate the squandering of trillions on the basis of results from such immature models. Current climate policies pointlessly, grievously undermine the economic system, putting lives at risk in countries denied access to affordable, continuous electrical power.

We urge you to follow a climate policy based on sound science, realistic economics and genuine concern for those harmed by costly but unnecessary attempts at mitigation.

We ask you to place the Declaration on the agenda of your imminent New York session.

We also invite you to organize with us a constructive high-level meeting between world-class scientists on both sides of the climate debate early in 2020. The meeting will give effect to the sound and ancient principle no less of sound science than of natural justice that both sides should be fully and fairly heard. Audiatur et altera pars!

Please let us know your thoughts about such a joint meeting.

Yours sincerely, ambassadors of the European Climate Declaration,

Professor Guus Berkhout                               The Netherlands
Professor Richard Lindzen                             USA
Professor Reynald Du Berger                         French Canada
Professor Ingemar Nordin                              Sweden
Terry Dunleavy                                               New Zealand
Jim O’Brien                                                     Rep. of Ireland
Viv Forbes                                                       Australia
Professor Alberto Prestininzi                          Italy
Professor Jeffrey Foss                                     English Canada
Professor Benoît Rittaud                                 France
Morten Jødal                                                   Norway
Professor Fritz Vahrenholt                              Germany
Rob Lemeire                                                    Belgium
The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley            UK

There is no climate emergency
A global network of 500 scientists and professionals has prepared this urgent message. Climate science should be less political, while climate polities should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address the uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real benefits as well as the imagined costs of adaptation to global warming, and the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of mitigation.

Natural as well as anthropogenic factors cause warming
The geological archive reveals that Earth’s climate has varied as long as the planet has existed, with natural cold and warm phases. The Little Ice Age ended as recently as 1850. Therefore, it is no surprise that we now are experiencing a period of warming.

Warming is far slower than predicted
The world has warmed at less than half the originally-predicted rate, and at less than half the rate to be expected on the basis of net anthropogenic forcing and radiative imbalance. It tells us that we are far from understanding climate change.

Climate policy relies on inadequate models
Climate models have many shortcomings and are not remotely plausible as policy tools. Moreover, they most likely exaggerate the effect of greenhouse gases such as CO2. In addition, they ignore the fact that enriching the atmosphere with CO2 is beneficial.

CO2 is plant food, the basis of all life on Earth
CO2 is not a pollutant. It is essential to all life on Earth. Photosynthesis is a blessing. More CO2 is beneficial for nature, greening the Earth: additional CO2 in the air has promoted growth in global plant biomass. It is also good for agriculture, increasing the yields of crop worldwide.

Global warming has not increased natural disasters
There is no statistical evidence that global warming is intensifying hurricanes, floods, droughts and suchlike natural disasters, or making them more frequent. However, CO2-mitigation measures are as damaging as they are costly. For instance, wind turbines kill birds and bats, and palm-oil plantations destroy the biodiversity of the rainforests.

Policy must respect scientific and economic realities
There is no climate emergency. Therefore, there is no cause for panic and alarm. We strongly oppose the harmful and unrealistic net-zero CO2 policy proposed for 2050. If better approaches emerge, and they certainly will, we have ample time to reflect and adapt. The aim of international policy should be to provide reliable and affordable energy at all times, and throughout the world.

Read full story here…

Climate update for Grand Rapids, Michigan, July 2019

Climate update for Grand Rapids, Michigan, July 2019

Max temp 92  Mean Max 94

Min temp 54  Mean Min 49

Av temp 75.4  Mean Av 72.3

Precip 3.92  Mean 3.13

Precip ytd 26.85  Mean ytd 19.78 (36% wetter than normal)

[Snow Jan-Jun 2019 63.7  Mean Jan-Jun 43.5 (46% more than normal)]

[HDD Jan-Jun 2019 were utterly normal, not even 0.7% higher than the mean]

CDD 332  Mean 241

CDD ytd 449  Mean ytd 425 (5.6% warmer than normal)

The surfeit of moisture first from snow and then from rain in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 2019 year-to-date is characteristic of much of the continental United States, more than 80% of which isn't even abnormally dry at the height of summer at the end of the first week of August 2019. Drought is isolated to pockets making up less than 5% of the Lower 48, particularly near Seattle.

Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for June 2019

Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for June 2019:

Max temp 89, Mean Max 91

Min temp 40, Mean Min 43

Av temp 66.8, Mean 67.6 (the last week of June erased all but 0.8 degrees of the June deficit)

Precip 4.36, Mean 3.55

Precip to date 22.93 inches, Mean 16.65 inches (Annual Mean 34.60)

Snow season officially ended 81.3 inches, Mean 66.8 inches (26th snowiest on record)

Heating degree days season officially ended 6722, Mean 6705 (utterly normal)

Cooling degree days season to date 117, Mean to date 184 (36% cooler to date than normal)

Like much of the country, we've been soggy:

Just found out my neighbors raise funds to provide clean water in drought stricken Zimbabwe

You know the place, where Robert Mugabe spent 37 years turning it into a Maoist hell after white Rhodesians had turned it into a prosperous exporting nation.

We have terrible water problems right here in Michigan, like in Flint but also in many other places affected by PFOS, but my lunatic Christian home-schooling neighbors decided to help the lunatic fringe communists a continent away instead. They're even going there to run a marathon (!) in celebration of the project.

We are doomed.

Drought conditions return to the southwest US, this time to Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado

Mid-July 2017

Mid-July 2018

California has gone from exceptional drought in Feb. 2016 to mostly abnormally dry one year later

Calif. exceptional drought 2/16

Calif. abnormally dry 2/17

The current very strong El Nino now extends to 14 months, averaging 1.5 on the index

We now have three back to back periods of 1.9, 1.6 and 1.1 on the index, indicating the El Nino is winding down rapidly from its high point in November-December-January at 2.3.

Year over year, abnormally dry conditions and worse have been reduced by El Nino rains from 50.73% of the country at the end of May 2015 to 31.82% of the country now, an improvement of just over 37%. Central and southern California remains hard hit.

The back of the current very strong El Nino has been broken

After four consecutive measuring periods averaging 2.2 on the Oceanic Nino Index, the back of this current very strong El Nino (VSE) has been broken decisively by the last two measuring periods averaging 1.75.

The January-February-March period has been revised down from 2.0 to 1.9, followed by the initial reading for February-March-April coming in at 1.6.

To date this VSE has extended for thirteen periods still averaging 1.53, making it as long as the 1997-1998 episode but slightly weaker than its 1.56 average on the index.

If past experience is any guide, expect two or three more periods at 0.5 or above on the index before this VSE is finally over.

Currently about 34% of the nation is abnormally dry or worse. A year ago at this time almost 56% of the country was abnormally dry or worse. That's an almost 40% improvement in drought conditions thanks to El Nino rains.

Early May 2016

Early May 2015

Are full-time jobs up 427,000 or down 47,000 in December?

Not-seasonally-adjusted full-time is in red.

The latest Employment Situation Report for December 2014 shows full-time jobs either up 427,000 in the seasonally-adjusted measure, or down 47,000 in the not-seasonally-adjusted measure, both from the respective November levels.

Which to believe?

Since 1968 the not-seasonally-adjusted count of full-time jobs between November and December has gone down 33 times vs. 13 times going up, with one year flat (1992). This is consistent with the historical record of cyclicality in full-time vs. part-time.

Full-time typically peaks in the summers and troughs in the winters while part-time does the opposite. Full-time tends to peak in the summers with work related to seasonal and student employment, while part-time tends to peak in the winters with holiday additions to the workforce.  Therefore it is consistent with this pattern to expect part-time jobs to be peaking right now (they already did last month) and full-time to be near its lowest point in the current cycle, which usually happens in January, for which measure we will have to wait another month.

So full-time down 47,000 is obviously more in keeping with the generally expected pattern than the seasonally-adjusted figure.

It is noteworthy, however, how low that negative full-time figure is relative to the recent past and to the historical average.

The 30-year average of the subtractions to full-time between November and December (excluding the outlier years in 2007, 2008 and 2009 when employers panicked and fired 1.4 million on average, 1.7 million on average in 2008 and 2009 alone) is a subtraction of nearly 244,000 full-time jobs.  Add to that that we haven't had this low a subtraction since the year 2000 between November and December and you get the feeling that things are indeed improving.

Unfortunately what we don't see yet is the kind of addition to the full-time rolls which occurs rarely at this time of year and typically after recessions. The last time we saw this in the November-December data was in 2005, 2004 and 2003 when we had three back to back years of full-time gains averaging 290,000, well above the average gain for the 13 up years of 145,000.

What we'd like to see right now, but don't, is a similar strong recovery of full-time after a recession like we've seen in the past.

For example, after the recession of 1970, full-time recovered between November and December of both 1971 and 1972, adding an average of 105,000 full-time jobs for those two months. Similarly after the recession of 1974, full-time jobs recovered for three straight years, averaging an addition of 195,000 full-time jobs between November and December of 1975, 1976 and 1977. And of course after the recession of 2001 we've already pointed out the three years of November-December additions to full-time averaging 290,000, double the average.

Even the long drought of additions to full-time jobs at this time of year which began in 1978 and lasted through 1992 was broken for two back-to-back years in 1986 and 1987 when an average of 66,000 full-time jobs were added between November and December. This was the rather delayed recovery of full-time after the recession of 1982, which cast a long shadow over employment much like the most recent recession has done.

As things stand, the current brutal drought of full-time additions at this time of year now stands at a record nine years, one more than the previous record posted between 1978 and 1985. The average subtraction to full-time then between November and December was 202,000. Now it has soared to 586,000 on average, almost 3x worse.

That's the scale of the trouble we've been in, and so far there's been no sign of leadership out of this mess, except that the pain right now is well-below its average level for this time of the year.

The simple fact remains that full-time is still far below its 2007 peak, no matter how you measure it.

Presidents ranked by average jobs created Q1 to Q2 since the 1970s

From total nonfarm not seasonally adjusted, average percentage achieved:

1. Clinton +2.22%

2. Reagan +2.07%

3. Bush 1  +1.69% (four years, accepts Profiles in Courage Award for raising taxes)

4. Obama  +1.68% (six years, blames drought, winter weather, hurricanes, earthquakes)

5. Bush 2  +1.38%.

If "climate change" caused famine and brought down the Bronze Age, why did hungry conquerors DESTROY food?

It's a question which this classicist doesn't seem to have asked himself before writing here, in The New York Times:

The marauders are thought to have been the Sea Peoples, possibly from the western Mediterranean, who were probably fleeing their island homes because of the drought and famine and were moving across the Mediterranean as both refugees and conquerors.

One letter sent to Ugarit advised the king to “be on the lookout for the enemy and make yourself very strong!” The warning probably came too late, for another letter dating from the same time states: “When your messenger arrived, the army was humiliated and the city was sacked. Our food in the threshing floors was burned and the vineyards were also destroyed. Our city is sacked. May you know it! May you know it!” ...

We still do not know the specific details of the collapse at the end of the Late Bronze Age or how the cascade of events came to change society so drastically. But it is clear that climate change was one of the primary drivers, or stressors, leading to the societal breakdown.

---------------------------------

There's famine, and then, well, there's famine.

Temperature was quite a bit warmer 3000 years ago than it is today, but without the present day scale of supposed human-caused climate change. Why aren't people asking why? And somehow mankind survived to produce what we know as human history despite all that. It is sad to see academics who specialize in the ancient world jumping on this bandwagon of climate hysteria when their own area of expertise ought to tell them that there is something terribly wrong with the contemporary theory. It is more plausible that the much warmer conditions of the past simply produced more human flourishing than the food supply at that time could sustain. And those much warmer conditions of past human history ought at least give them pause. 

Food prices are up 9.52% in the last four years, average hourly earnings just 8.28%

And it's gotten worse in March as reported here:

U.S. producer prices recorded their largest increase in nine months in March as the cost of food and services rose, pointing to some pockets of inflation at the factory gate. ... Food prices jumped 1.1 percent, the largest increase since May, after rising 0.6 percent in February. ... Food prices have now risen for a third straight month, in part reflecting a drought in the West.

On top of that, average hourly earnings dropped a penny.

Your Food Costs More Because Of Obama's Stalinist EPA Ethanol Policy

Feed prices have skyrocketed as a result of drought and dedication of ever larger portions of corn harvests to fuel production instead of for feed, and it will get much much worse according to this in depth story in The Detroit News:

This year, the Renewable Fuel Standard requires the use of 13.2 billion gallons of corn ethanol, the production of which could require using more than half the country's corn crop, up from 5 billion gallons in 2007.

Next year, the standard increases to 13.9 billion gallons. By 2022, the U.S. must use 36 billion gallons of biofuels, though 21 billion gallons are supposed to be from advanced cellulosic ethanol.

Liberal Narrative Blames Drought For Poor GDP, As If 1.5 Percent Growth Were Good

GDP for Q2 is revised down today to 1.3 percent annual rate, from 1.7 percent a month ago, and liberals are blaming . . .  the weather.

They are blaming 0.2 points of the 0.4 point decline on declining farm inventories due to the drought, as if it makes a difference whether GDP is 1.3 or 1.5. Hell, GDP of 2.5 percent represents treading water. Anything less than that is an economy in real trouble. By their own admission, farming is 1 percent of the economy, but the article to the left is already blaming lousy Q3 GDP, which isn't out yet, on the drought, too. This is the lamest excuse we've heard yet, and that's saying a lot.

Last August it was the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, the Arab Spring, and financial turmoil in the European Union which were responsible for everything going wrong for Obama.

In 2010 it was his peeps' fault, whom he told to pull up their socks, get off the couch and go vote.

Before that everything was Bush's fault.

After November Obama gets to blame the American people for all his troubles, none of which are ever his responsibility.