It has been very cool and very rainy in Western Pennsylvania during the past few weeks, and the forecast calls for day-time high temperatures to remain in the seventies–with lows in the 50s–for the next week or so. It’s early July near the 40th parallel, and nearly all the windows are closed (and we are at an altitude of about 1,200 ft, not 12,000).
For nearly three months we’ve been thermally comfortable but have used neither the heat nor the air conditioning at world headquarters, which makes us a particularly green consulting firm.
We did heat the pool on one occasion in early June–anticipating that with a solar cover we would be able to maintain a comfortable temperature throughout the summer. Alas, we we’ve been sorely disappointed. The lack of sunlight and the cold rain have combined to decrease the pool temperature about ten degrees from our comfort zone ( in the high 80′s). Yes, we understand that such inconvenience is minor and is far to the left in the range of human suffering, but, regardless, the water is cold.
However, except for one factor that we mention below, we’re not really complaining about the weather. Instead, we find this summer–like last summer–to be one more season when we can say, “Thank God for global warming. Can you imagine how cold it would be without it.”
Yes, we’ve heard that global warming can make things colder so that now colder weather than “normal” provides more evidence of global warming, but as we’ve mentioned in the past, we’d like climatologists to understand the affects of both short-term and long-terms shifts (cycles) in the earth’s axis–in the range of 17 to 22 degrees–before they outlaw our Suburban and attempt to reduce our carbon buttprint. (Al Gore’s is much, much bigger than ours.)
Moreover, as we wrote last autumn in Global Warming and the Mortgage Crisis, there are no good models; so, individuals agree to use models already in use (as a validation for their choice). It’s like the old joke about the drunk looking for his keys under the street light. Did he lose them there? No, but it is the easiest place to search.
So, whether it’s silly climate “research” or silly asset-backed “research” or the inebriated impulses of a drunk, huge discrepancies are ignored when they don’t fit with well-known, (relatively-easily) calculable models. (That is the calculation without thought at which we sneer and attempt to avoid in our own life and engagements.) New visitors can search the archives for our many posts on that topic, particularly as it pertains to risk management.
We do find it amazing that for all of the increases in knowledge and technology throughout history, humans–especially the practitioners of such science–remain such a superstitious and insecure lot. But note, that’s not a complaint; it’s an opportunity to generate revenue.
Our only weather-related complaint is minor: when living here, it is usually difficult to determine the longest day of the year. The weeks around the summer solstice seem to coincide with the rainy season, and because of the near omnipresent cloud cover, it can often get dark an hour or so before the (technical) sunset. So, other than the chirping birds waking us in the very early morning, the height of summer seems no different than early May.
