Europe is freezing; so are China, Japan et al

[malaise]

and when this melts, expect serious flooding.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8440594.stm

[dipsydoodle]

1. It is indeed bit nippy here

Last time I recall it being this cold was about 12 years ago when I decided to go fishing at Xmas only to find that all of the lakes were frozen. I'm about 14 miles NW of central London and my central heating has been on 24/7 now for about 3 weeks.

Apparently the cold is due to last another 2 weeks or so. Keeping a 160 year old house warm ain't funny at times but at least I've still got the two 7kw fireplace gas fires and the three 3kw electric fan heaters to fall back on. :)

[mwb970]

3. A 160-year-old house! Precious few of those in the States.

Got a photo?

[cali]

11. every other house around here is that old.

or older.

[mwb970]

13. Wow, cool!

And, apparently, cold.

[dipsydoodle]

18. Yep

Was actually built 1843 as one house then apparently divided into two 10 years later when the church opposite was built. The original house is the left 2/3rds you can see. The other 1/3rd on the right I added to my half back in 2001 to match the original brickwork and slate roof etc. Entrance is at the right side out of sight. At the end of the garden, back yard to you , are the last two, of five , remaining workshops from when the local blacksmiths and forge where just the other side my property - they're in the local museum now

Front :



Back :



Another thing you have not got over your side is my 2.8 CRD diesel Wrangler Unlimited. :)

[mwb970]

20. Very interesting, thanks for posting.

The back view is especially appealing to me for some reason. Maybe because it looks like "home"!

[malaise]

26. That's lovely

Looks cozy. :D

[closeupready]

37. Why am I not seeing your photos?

I don't understand what is going on with this - I can't see photos when people post them any longer.

[dipsydoodle]

40. Can't answer that but here are the direct links for you

//i71.photobucket.com/albums/i126/EdwardLindy/MVC-001S-7.jpg

//i71.photobucket.com/albums/i126/EdwardLindy/Backviewofmyhousegarden.jpg

NB put http: before each one

:hi:

[closeupready]

41. Thank you!

:hi:

[Owl]

52. I have the same problem. What's up with that?

[closeupready]

58. I have no idea. Started happening in December, from what I remember.

So I don't think it's a firewall thing.

[DFW]

33. Where I live, there is a place in the neighborhood that is 700 years old

160 years old is considered a "recent construction."

[GreenPartyVoter]

46. My ancestors built my grandparents' home back during the revolutionary war. And lots of houses here

in the town where I moved to are also that old or older. Our school is also quite old and we have the oldest original still working post office too. :)

[amborin]

50. you're kidding, right?

[mwb970]

51. I wonder what percentage of homes currently in use in America were built before 1850.

What would be your guess? 10%? 5%? Any less than that could be considered a "precious few", no? Or are you kidding?

[amborin]

68. well

i'm sure you're right

was just thinking of many parts of new england

prolly other areas of the us as well, no?

but you're right, very small %

[mwb970]

69. The distribution is uneven.

Frankly, I hadn't realized how many places (mainly in New England and the South?) do have a significant concentration of these very old homes. At the same time, there are whole states that had no Americans in them at all in 1850. For example, Wikipedia says that the first "European" town in Colorado was founded in 1851, which would mean that every single house in Colorado is younger than 160 years. Other now-somewhat-populous Western states have similar histories.

My home town, Columbus, was founded in 1812 and chartered as a city in 1834 (pop. 3500). I'm sure that there were some fine homes built here in the years before 1850, but I suspect that most were in what is now "downtown", where there are no actual houses left now.

[malaise]

5. Now I know why I live in the Caribbean

http://www.wunderground.com/global/stations/78397.html

It's gorgeous in Kingston this morning.

[dipsydoodle]

19. You got good music there too !

:thumbsup:

[SidDithers]

29. And good coffee...

Blue Mountain coffee is just about the best I've ever had. But it is very, very expensive to buy in Canada.

Sid

[malaise]

30. It's expensive here as well

but you'd be surprised how much of it we get free from friends in the business. A friend of hubby's gave us three bags of beans for Christmas. :D

[SidDithers]

31. I just checked our Costco, and they list it for $99 for a 1kg bag of beans...

at that price, I should be sitting on a Jamaican beach while drinking it :hi:

Sid

[malaise]

32. We'll have to do something about that n/t

[dipsydoodle]

34. It's £70 / kg

in the UK :(

[malaise]

42. Damn!!!!!!!!!!

That's expensive.

[Ignis]

45. Jealous!

I can't wait to get back to the Caribbean again soon. :(

[malaise]

53. LOL

It's raining now. :D

[Ignis]

55. See? I jinxed it.

:P

I actually almost moved to Jamdown about a decade ago to manage IT for a financial institution's island office. Unfortunately, they low-balled me at the last minute and I turned them down, but I've often wondered how things would have turned out differently.

I'd certainly have more of a suntan than I get in San Francisco. :D

[malaise]

60. You'd have had a ball

Like most expats. :D

[Ignis]

61. I can't argue with that.

I've been to T&T and St. Lucia, but I still haven't been to Jamaica. Maybe this year. :D

[malaise]

62. T&T is great but St Lucia is way too dead for me

Jamaica is lively.

[Ignis]

63. Yeah, it was good for a low-key "ecotourism" trip.

But the whole island just shuts down at dark. :(

Still, it was gorgeous, and a full week wasn't enough time to explore all the great natural beauty of that island.

[roguevalley]

15. I'm in Alaska and its relatively warm for this time of year, in the

thirties and even forties during the day.

[malaise]

17. And we'd expect you to be freezing

My upstate New York sis told me they went skiing on New Year's Day. There's snow everywhere (except here). :D

[roguevalley]

65. I know. I shut down my climate denying uncle Veeern by telling him

about the balm here when he was freezing in Oregon at -5.

[truebrit71]

49. My folks live in a 300 year old farmhouse in SE England...

...they have a very nice fireplace I can tell you!

[dipsydoodle]

67. I had a friend

who lived in a farm cottage outside Gloucester and I guess that was about the same age. That had a huge inglenook fireplace too. Had a woodburner sat in it so it looked a bit like this only much bigger - there were sort of internal side seats so's you could sit inside if you could stand the heat.

[truebrit71]

70. Yep...that looks just like it...

...gives off alot of heat..

[a la izquierda]

2. It's been very, very cold in Oklahoma since November...

normally, we'll get a few bitter days, then a "warm up" to the 50s.
Not this winter. I'm happy as hell that I leave for the worst of it on Thursday.

[madokie]

8. Up here in the northeast part of ok

We've been cold now for over a month with no let up in sight. We upgraded our pellet stove to a new one this year and did this right before the cold hit so its been getting a good workout early on. about 10 last night the thermometer showed 7.4 degrees out there but overnight it warmed to 12.6 now. we still have some snow on the ground here from the day before christmas snow storm. very seldom is that ever the case that we have snow linger around this long.

[a la izquierda]

21. we still have some snow around too...

very odd. i've only lived here 5 years, but this is by far the coldest its been over any length of time. there have been colder temps, but like you know, they tend to not last.

oh well, in four months, we'll be complaining about how hot and humid it is.

[madokie]

39. This happens around here about once a decade seems like

I kinda knew something was up this past summer when we all of a sudden were over run with squirrels. The little buggers got all our pears and apples and were hauling off the black walnuts even. Never had any squirrels in our yard before this last year, now I have three nests in one tree. Oh well I guess I'll have pet squirrels now too. I have to tell you this one. One day this past summer we were in the back yard and my wife asked me if I had dug the flower out of the pot over there by one of our trees, I said no, so she stuck the plant back in the dirt and gave it no more thought. A few days later she ask me what is the deal something keeps digging my plants out of the flower pots, then it hit me, I bet it's the squirrels I said. Sure 'nuf in one pot we found a couple pears and in the other an apple and a pear, a couple walnuts in another. It was the squirrels hiding their this winters food.

Live is good

[a la izquierda]

47. That's too funny...

Norman has tons of squirrels, much to the dismay of my dogs, who want to hunt them. The squirrels here are simply fearless and like to mess with dogs and cats.
But, you know something, I just noticed one of my pumpkins dug up yesterday...I guess someone is hungry.

Well, probably one more icestorm type thing and I bet the crappy weather will be behind us.

[malaise]

54. LOL

We were returning from a trip to my cousins in the rural Jamaica on December 27th and I noticed that the pouis trees were in full bloom. I have never seen them blooming in December - not ever. I then went to an area in Kingston where there are loads of pouis and noticed that some of the urban ones were blooming and the others were about to bloom.

I'm trying to find out what it means, because the pouis normally blooms before the heavy rainy season in May/June.

[Scruffy1]

27. Minneapolis

It's a pleasant -8 with a nice coating of ice from our last storm. About the norm for January. We've all seen worse.

[malaise]

48. Better you than me

:D

[malaise]

10. You're leaving for how long?

Hopefully 'til the end of winter. :D

[a la izquierda]

22. Sadly, no...

only two days. Heading to San Diego for a conference. It's okay, for whatever reason, this year I'm dealing with the cold rather well. I think it's because I didn't have the shock to my system of leaving Mexico mid-winter like I did last year. That was rough.

[Solly Mack]

4. It's fucking cold here. Bitter cold.

My little nose is rudolph red.

[malaise]

6. Just for you

Jamaica's finest blue. :hi:

[Solly Mack]

12. Awww...Thanks! If only it were big enough to sit in :o)

Even my chinchillas are huddling with each other.

[malaise]

16. I'm on my third cup

and it's 24C here. We love coffee and blue mountain is the one only luxury we're not prepared to sacrifice.

[sclerite]

23. on Jamaica and cold

malaise - at least Jamaica keeps some of its good Blue Mountain. Puerto Ricans now export almost all their good Yauco coffee. You born and raised and live in Kingston? Enjoy the weather - from a Caribbean coral researcher!

Unseasonably weirdly log-term cold in Houston, too. But, to all, do not confuse climate change with local and regional unseasonably cold spells. Right now, the Antarctic where it should be freezing is unseasonably not cold enough, and the same in many parts of the world. Decadal droughts in Australia. Global warming is the total increasing global atmospheric and sea surface temperature and is part of larger climate change events that include extreme weather events including odd cold periods. Local and regional events such as "dang it's cold this month" are not indicators or arguments for or against the global warming component of climate change.

[malaise]

24. I accept the scientists' take on Climate Change.

You're doing important work - our coral reefs are a mess. We need a war against pollution and plastic in these islands.

[tabatha]

35. Yeah, I just had someone send me reports of the cold.

He is a global warming denier. So I sent him this:

"According to Paul R. Epstein, at the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School. Global Warming is what's making it colder in the winter in the US:
Normally, water circulates in the North Atlantic like this: Cold, salty water at the top sinks; that sinking water acts as a pump, pulling warm Gulf Stream water north and thus moderating winter weather. But now, fresh water from the thawing ice and heavier rain is accumulating near the ocean's surface; it's not sinking as quickly. (The tropics are faced with the opposite phenomenon.)

According to Dr. Ruth Curry and her colleagues at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the tropical Atlantic is becoming saltier; as warming increases, so does evaporation, which leaves behind salt.) The "freshening" in the North Atlantic may be contributing to a high-pressure system that is accelerating trans-Atlantic winds and deflecting the jet stream — changes that may be driving frigid fronts down the Eastern Seaboard. The ice-core records demonstrate that the North Atlantic can freshen to a point where the deep-water pump fails, warm water stops coming north, and the northern ocean suddenly freezes, as it did in the last Ice Age.

No one can say if that is what will happen next. But since the 1950's, the best documented deep-water pump, between Iceland and Scotland, has slowed 20 percent."

Greenland's melting glaciers have the power to change Britain's climate because of the way they can interfere with the Gulf Stream of the North Atlantic, which keeps winters relatively mild.

Scientists have found the first hard evidence to show that this actually happened 8,200 years ago, when the climate in parts of the northern hemisphere cooled dramatically after a period of global warming. Paradoxically, a warmer world could lead to harsher winters in Britain because of the way that melting freshwater from the Greenland ice cap can interfere with the saltwater engine that drives the Gulf Stream.

The scientists found that 8,200 years ago the North Atlantic current slowed down at a time when a freshwater lake, which had formed from the melting glaciers of the last Ice Age, flooded into the sea. They believe that the lake released so much freshwater it diluted the surface water of the sea and so slowed down the warm North Atlantic currents, which are generated by the sinking of cold, salty water. "The 8,200-year-old event is the most recent abrupt climate-change event and by far the most extreme cooling episode in the past 10,000 years," Mark Chapman, a palaeoclimatologist at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, said.

The study, published in the journal Science, involved drilling for a core of seabed sediments from the south of Iceland and analysing it for indications of both the speed of the ocean currents and the saltiness of the sea.

"Our records show a sequenced pattern of freshening and cooling of the North Atlantic sea surface and a change in the deep ocean circulation, all key factors... in controlling... northern hemisphere climate," Dr Chapman said. The core contained sediments representing the current "interglacial" warm period that began at the end of the last Ice Age about 10,000 years ago, Christopher Ellison of the University of East Anglia said. "The sediment includes... small animals called foraminifera that record surface water conditions in their shells when living," Mr Ellison said. "We also analysed the sediment grain size to gauge the speed of ocean currents and the strength of ocean circulation."

[malaise]

43. Thanks for that

:hi:

[Are_grits_groceries]

7. It's cold here too.

I hope it gets colder so DeMint's cloven hooves freeze to the sidewalk.

[malaise]

9. Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

:rofl:

[twitomy]

14. No doubt those floods will be blamed on....

not the spring thaw, but...


Global Warming!

To be followed by an appropriate poem by Al"Maya Angelou(sp)" Gore !:rofl:


(Sorry I couldnt help myself)

[daleo]

64. Read message 35 upthread

Disbelieve it if you like. Climate is complicated.

[Bluenorthwest]

25. It is unseasonably warm here in Oregon

for which I am thankful to El Nino.

[malaise]

28. Enjoy

Just spoke with my sister in Denmark - snow is pelting down outside her window. She's not expecting any of her students to appear today.

[Gold Metal Flake]

36. And SoCal is dry and the pine bark beetles have never been happier.

Oh, the fires to come will make the fires of 2009 look like a weekend cookout.

[L0oniX]

38. Florida Tampabay in the upper 30's

[malaise]

44. Wow that's freezing for Florida

I'm so glad I'm not there. :D

[dixiegrrrrl]

56. For a wide range perspective, here:

Highs today and below that, lows tonight.
The whole country is cold.


and

[malaise]

59. Wow!!

That's cold!

[madville]

57. It's supposed to be 15 here in North Florida on Sunday

Where in the hell is that global warming when you need it?

[malaise]

66. There goes the citrus crop

Damn!