32672 Isn't there some weird star out there which seems to show variations that haven't been explained by natural means?  I forget its name.... There are so many stars out there that there will also be some stars behaving in unusual ways. The universe is big and extremely rare events happen all the...

32657 I have already considered whether the decrease in the brightness of Betelgeuse could not have been caused by a kind of star-lifting. That sounds pretty ridiculous.  Even if you manage to focus the stellar mass quite a bit, it will still be a pretty thin soup to harvest.  Betelgeuse is practic...

Meteorite impact 2 billion years ago may have ended an ice age Well, perhaps.  I'm not too fond of such hypotheses.  A process that could take tens of million years, so no need for a catastrophic event that took place 2nd August 2,264,175 BCE, tea time, to explain it.  Also, there's no need for a s...

32605 I heard that snow has been making it down to sea level in Washington State! Whilst in Scandinavia there is hardly any snow at the sea level now.  You need to go north of the arctic circle for that.  Here in Oslo we had a decent amount of snow in November, but since Christmas the  NAO  has sen...

32604 By "amazing level of precision" I meant in a relative sense compared to how long ago we're talking about. Well, it's interesting data in the sense that climatic changes do get recorded.  But you can't really compare that with today's measured climate with much precision.  You get so...

32555 analyzing ice cores can reconstruct ancient climate data with an amazing level of precision.  we can even tell pretty accurately what gases comprised our atmosphere back then and their relative proportions. tree rings also work quite well (we can also tell when ancient volcanic eruptions occu...

32544 Sometimes the answers are "no" and that line of research hits a dead end, but surprisingly often and with a bit of ingenuity they can be "yes", which is what makes paleoclimate science possible. By "compulsive thinking" I mean that there seems to be an unrest and...

32537 What you presented is very interesting- do you have access to New York City climate data?  You can look up  Berkeley Earth's New York Data . Their data before 1890, certainly before 1850, is pretty worthless in my opinion, reflecting the compulsive thinking in climate science: "If obsver...

A sea ice montage of the situation around 3rd January for the past 12 years (2008 - 2020).  While this year (bottom right) certainly has the most ice in a long time, it remains to see if this continues into the 2020's.

I looked up the Berkeley data. 1911-1930 average: -12.6C.  No data before that.  Berkeley also has -9.9 for 1931-1960, but -13.3 for 1961-1990.  The warmest December on record was in 1938: -1.C.  The coldest in 1988: -22.4. Looking up the annual temperature trends for Svalbard on Berkeley Earth, I a...

32521 New Research: AMO, PDO Appear not to Exist If you want my immediate reaction, I think Mann has gone too far this time to erase natural variability.  Mann has been one of those who have previously identified a clear ~60 year semiperiodic signal in the North Atlantic, and now he argues that it'...

The 19C weather in Norway was caused by Föhn winds, obviously.  It's not uncommon for this particular place to reach 15C in winter.  It usually doesn't last long.  Today they've had heavy rain and snow and around 0C. This windy weather gives nice mother of pearl clouds on my side of the mountains, b...

New record high for January in Norway today: +19.0 C in Sunndalsøra.  Not bad at almost 63N in January!

You can live mostly under the radar, if you wish, but you will be unable to use mobile phones (unless you trust your provider), and you may be unable to drive a car (to avoid automated tolls and traffic cameras), and anonymous public transport may be limited.  You can still relatively safely use the...

It seems that the record for Betelgeuse is only 25 years, i.e. observations accurate enough to say confidently that Betelgeuse now is the dimmest reliably measured.  And 25 years is nothing in the lifespan of a star.  If Betelgeuse suddenly blows up now, it would be kind of disappointing, since what...