Can’t find anything local at the moment, so as we prepare for temperatures in the high 90s - HIGH 90s!!!! ARGH!!!!! - let’s note this item: One of the world’s most notable scientific skeptics of fighting human-caused climate change (he wrote “The Skeptical Environmentalist,” which argued that the cost of fighting global warming wasn’t worth [...]

Cameron Wake, a glaciologist who has for years been the most prominent voice at UNH in regards to the reality of climate change, is one of three scientists featured in a new advertising campaign by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The ads depict scientists as kids talking about what things in the natural world made [...]

In a weird way it’s a consolation to know that I’m not alone in disliking the miserable weather: NOAA said the May-July quarter was the warmest on record for the Northeast, and the Souheast, dating back to 1895. (See this page)
Precipitation was below average but nowhere near low-record territory, even though it sure feels wicked [...]

One of the coolest sporting-ish event each year in New Hampshire is the Great Pumpkin Regatta in Goffstown. Folks buy giant pumpkins (roughly 800-1000 pounds each, about five feet across), scoop out the innards, glue on a sort of wooden collar that can hold an electric trolling motor (5 hp), then decorate it and wear [...]

http://www.physorg.com/news199362347.html
Last winter’s weather around the North America was unusual for the cold that rolled down the east coast, heavy snows in the midwest, little snow for the winter olympics and I saw actual snow in Florida. This article is a pretty good description of the oscillating patterns that come out of the Pacific.
Looking back is [...]

This map says it all: We were about 3C above the 40-year average, and many other places were even hotter. As far as I can tell, virtually all the blue dots, showing cooler than average, are over water. Map is from NOAA, here.

Strawberries were incredible this year, and way early; raspberries are a little early and equally fabulous; blackberries are already coming out (way early), and blueberries seem sensational, judging from the 4 quarts we just got at our local pick-your-own place (Zahn’s in Milford). If you haven’t picked berries yet this year, you deserve a dope [...]

Here’s a pretty funny lead: The eastern United States is broiling in a dangerous heat wave. Yet this week Earth is farther away from the sun than the planet will be at any other time during 2010. How can that be?
Fortunately, that beginning for this National Geographic article is tongue-in-cheek, and uses the heat wave [...]

The heat wave has brought temperature to everybody’s mind, which prodded some family discussion at dinner last night which eventually led to this question: Why isn’t there a coldness equivalent of fire - that is, a phenomenon which spreads on its own and lowers temperature, the way fire spreads on its own and raises temperature. [...]

Is it the recession or is New England starting to make a difference with energy efficiency and alternative energy? (I suspect it’s the former, but you never know.)
Whatever the reason, New England fell almost 4 percent short of its all-time electricity usage today even. (Story here.) 28,000 megawatt hours was the ISO-New England record on [...]

It was 80 degrees when I got up this morning - 80 degrees at 6 a.m.! That is not fit for human habitation.
The really depressing part is that when my kids are my age, this could be the summer norm for New Hampshire. Ugh. Is it too late to move to northern Laborador?

On the other [...]

NOAA says January-April 2010 was the warmest such period on record, averaged over the world. The analysis is from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, which is based on records going back to 1880.
The site (here) includes a funky map showing how much warmer or colder areas were in April, compared to the period 1971-2000. This [...]

I’m not sure what to make of this posting from Futility Closet, which claims that in 1934 a scientists digging snow on Mt. Washington saw the holes “promptly filled with deep blue light”. The posting adds says “no explanation was ever found, and no blue light has been reported since.”
Cool, except that this February [...]

LATER ADDENDUM: In this 8 p.m. story, an expert says the eruption doesn’t seem big enough to affect weather for us, but could cool off northern Europe. The fact that Iceland is so far north also limits the global effect, since less ash makes it to southern latitudes.

The erupting volcano in Iceland - I won’t [...]

I’m probably bringing down the wrath of the Fates by saying this - hubris and all that, you know - but I have hardly been bothered by pollen so far this year, despite the fact that I’ve read a bunch of stories about how this is a bad season because of the early warmth and [...]