THE ELEPHANT ANALOGY

In response to yesterday's half-assed missive from A. Huffington, kaymo explains all we know about global warming (which may not be that much.)

Global Warming is still a very tricky thing...the models for mapping it are still soooo crude. Analogies include: Imagine an elephant in a sealed off room. There is no video, no audio, no smell sensor, all we have to examine it with are some mechanical arms. We know that it's pretty big and it may be dangerous. The elephant is getting angry about something, but we don't know what, exactly. It may break out of the room and if it does we're in trouble, in fact it does seem to be getting restless. It may be upset by our bad breath, or it just may be going into Musth, in which case all bets are off and let's get the hell out of here.

Google: Greenland Pump.
The G-Pump is an area of the North Atlantic where water from warmer parts that has drifted across the Atlantic and way north, cools off enough to sink down through the fresher-- therefore lighter-- water already there. This water is "heavier" ie saltier, because it's been on the surface a long time and it started out in warmer climes where evaporation removed a certain amount of the water and left the salts behind. This "North Atlantic Drift" begins with the good ol' Gulf Stream and it basically keeps Europe from looking like Labrador though they're on the same Latitude. If you've flown from Europe to the US in a window seat you may have noticed just how stark the difference is. Once the heavier Drift water sinks it drops all the way to the bottom of the ocean and flows back south in a huge bottom current that after about 4,000 years or so surfaces again in the Indian Ocean. Now, it is estimated that the Greenland Pump has weakened by between 20 to 30% in the past fifteen years or so. Reasons for this weakening include a sharp increase in the fresher water melting off Greenland's ice cap. Should it stop functioning then the "pull" on the warm North Atlantic Drift water will be much reduced and the Drift will be reduced in turn. Which will mean a very chilly period for Europe's 500 million inhabitants. It's happened before-- during the Little Ice Age (1450-1650)the Thames regularly froze over and England's viniculture gave up the ghost. But, the effect will be (maybe already is) felt all around the Northern Hemisphere. The result could be a quite abrupt shift to a rather more extreme climate, with hot dry summers and colder winters. Needless to say this will be great for the British Air Conditioning and Central Heating industries, both of which have struggled to find customers in a land where the ambient temp tends to be in the mid 50s F. It may also be tough for the US corn and wheat belts, especially if the interior of North America experiences a strong drying trend. The potential losses to world food stocks of having the climate of Iowa-Ohio become more like that of Saskatchewan-Manitoba are huge. Winter wheat is great, but American fattens its meat animals on corn and the difference in productivity between a field of Manitoban wheat and one of Ohio Corn is pretty damn huge. This may be the answer to America's problem with waistlines. As to the big question-- are we causing this change? Answer: maybe. The fact that the warmest years on record are clustered in the post 1980 era does point that way. But we're working with pitifully frail data. The elephant may just be in a frisky mood, ready for a change, or it may be that our CO2 emissions have maddened it. Either way, when push comes to shove it's going to blow our house down, big time.

BUT OH THAT THE ELEPHANT WOULD SIT ON SIMON

The joke has always been that Simon Cowell would reject Bob Dylan out of hand if he was ever a contestant on American Idol (I think that’s Pop Idol to you UK homeboys). And now here is the loathsome abomination actually saying it for himself. (Culled from the current TV Guide)...
Bob Dylan? Too ugly, too boring, too whiny, and too serious.
Yeah, well Simon, you’re an idiot babe, it’s a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

AND A SHAGGY ORGAN STORY (but true)

From MSNBC
A drug suspect trying to pick up 119 pounds of marijuana at Buffalo Niagara International Airport instead got two boxes of human organs, one box containing a heart intended for a transplant. The Canadian woman was arrested 12 hours later when she attempted to exchange the organ boxes for the packages full of pot, which was wrapped in plastic and smeared with mustard. Her accomplice, a New York man, was also arrested. The heart was delivered to the transplant recipient in time for the emergency surgery. What is unclear is why it took the culprits so long to realize the airport's mistake -- the boxes were labeled "PLEASE RUSH, HUMAN TISSUE FOR TRANSPLANT."

CRYPTIQUE – Blood on your saddle.