Hurricane Wilma on the Fast Track to Florida

Hurricane Wilma is on a fast track now with speed of 12 mph (NE) and will probably go a little faster as the day wears on. Amy Kurz and her family, we're thinking of you. Batten down the hatches! Also, my mother and her husband live just 40 miles east of Fort Myers. They, too, have already put up the shutters on her windows. They have enough food and water, drinks to last a couple of weeks and expect the power to go out for a few days or so.

And, no, this isn't the result of "global warning," either. It's the same trend that we had 1950s and 1960s when we had a rash of hurricanes. Oh sure, we had more Cat. 5 hurricanes in one season in the past but the frequency of Class 3 or higher hurricanes is mimicking the trend back in the 1950s and 1960s. Must've been some serious global warming then. And then it got relatively "quiet" after that only to get cranked up again, from th e mid-1990s onward.

Oh, btw, Greenland's ice sheet has been thickening up (here and especially here) and if all of that ice melted, it would raise the sea water level about 15 to 20 feet. If we're in a "global warning" as so many chicken littles are saying, then why are the ice sheets of Greenland have been getting thicker every year?

*Since 1980, there has been an advance of more than 55% of the 625 mountain glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring group in Zurich. (From 1926 to 1960, some 70-95% of these glaciers were in retreat.)

• A comparison of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s 1965 and
1990 Plant Hardiness Zone Maps, shows a southward change of one zone, or 10°F, between 1965 and 1990.

• Careful measurements of the oxygen isotope ratios in German oaks, which are rigorously calibrated to temperature data, show a 1°C temperature decline from 1350 to 1800 (the lowpoint of the Little Ice Age). Temperature thereafter increased by 1°C from 1800 to 1930, and has been declining since then.

• From weather stations in the Alps, and in the Nordic countries, we find the temperature decline since 1930 is also 1°C.

• Satellite measurements have shown growth in the height and breadth of the huge Greenland ice sheet, the largest in the Northern Hemisphere.

Others (a great source of info!) have noted elsewhere that ice and snow are accumulating as well as changes in avg. temperature which in many places have gotten colder.

Go ahead and play the chicken little game while feigning ignorance my little chickadees.