Florida ? Not Lately . . .

[s/v Geneve]

Global warming be damned.

I awoke this morning to the eleventh day in a row of below freezing temps here in Florida. While cold days are not unheard of, this hasn't happened since 1940. As I stepped through the companion way from the aft cabin I heard a terrible crunching noise coming from the hull which startled the hell out of me. I looked out of the port to see that the whole of Blue Water Bay was a sheet of ice, and the crunching was hull trying to free itself from it's icy embrace.

This is more of a rant than anything, I just wish that the sailing gods would once again allow the water to return to a state that will allow me to sail in it instead of walk on it. This is the reason I live in Florida after all...

[marc2012]

Send photos & comments to Al Gore.Remember he also said he invented the internet.nOT TOO PRETTY HERE EITHER.MARC

[GordMay]

Al Gore was falsely attributed with saying that he invented the internet - he didn't.

In a March 1999 interview with Wolf Blitzer, Gore said, "During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet."

See ➥ snopes.com: Al Gore Invented the Internet

According to Vincent Cerf, a senior vice president with MCI Worldcom who's been called the Father of the Internet, "The Internet would not be where it is in the United States without the strong support given to it and related research areas by the Vice President in his current role and in his earlier role as Senator."

The inventor of the Mosaic Browser, Marc Andreesen, credits Gore with making his work possible. He received a federal grant through Gore's High Performance Computing Act. The University of Pennsylvania's Dave Ferber says that without Gore the Internet "would not be where it is today."

Joseph E. Traub, a computer science professor at Columbia University, claims that Gore "was perhaps the first political leader to grasp the importance of networking the country. Could we perhaps see an end to cheap shots from politicians and pundits about inventing the Internet?"

An interesting paper on “truthiness” ➥ http://igs.berkeley.edu/programs/sem...rs/Gore412.pdf

[jkleins]

Thanks Gord. That is one jab that always ticks me off since what he said was basically true but because most people don't understand the role of the government in creating the network it sounds "preposterous".

Also, I think most people call it "Climate Change" now instead of "Global Warming". That might be more appropriate for what the pictures on this thread show.

Jim

[Vasco]

What did he invent? Global warming?? If he did, it's not working. Sorry but it's so damn cold here in Ft. Lauderdale, I've been sitting a week waiting for it to get a bit warmer so I can continue to Miami and Bahamas. By the way, it was only 50 degrees in Nassau the other day. It's so cold even the Canadians are staying off the beaches.

[anjou]

Global warming doesnt have to mean its warming where you are.
Last night was the hottest for over 100 hundred years in Melbourne Australia.

There is also a difference between climate and weather.
We are currently experiencing 'Weather'
Weather patterns fluctuate all the time. They were responsible for the decline of the Viking settlements on Greenland in the 1500s
They also caused the Great Frost Fair on the Thames in 1684 which was the start of the mini ice age.
There was the 'Year without Summer' in 1816
The 'Corn Laws' were enacted to prevent starvation in the UK due to successive poor harvests.
Remember the Irish potato famine?

If you want a good read,I have to recommend 'The Wrong Kind of Snow'

[FSMike]

It was 21 degrees on our front porch yesterday morning. Today it has warmed up to 26.
If anybody sees Florida tell her we miss her.

[BubbleHeadMd]

I refuse to participate in the "Climate Change" debate, but I will say that being from Florida, I'm amazed at these pictures.

Up here in Maryland, only a bubbler is keeping my boat from looking like the Endurance. My boat is sitting in a tiny circle of liquid water, surrounded by ice that is approaching 4-5" thick. I think I'd cause some serious hull damage if I tried to push out.

[David M]

I guess Hell has frozen over. Just kidding!

[anjou]

Its no so warm here either.

[David M]

Where is that anjou?

[anjou]

David, its the Brecon and Monmouthshire canal situated 8 miles northwest of Newport in south Wales UK.
Life is normally wet and wet in the Welsh valleys during winter but this year we have been plagued/blessed with some real winter weather.
Over the past 4 weeks the daytime temps which normally hover@ 8-14c have been sub zero and nights under clear skies have been averaging -4c.

One year in 5 we see some wet slushy snow which lasts half a day but this time its been on the ground since Christmas.
Although on average the national snow has only amounted to 5'', its th, e worst for a generation and therefore there are many drivers with no experience who havent a clue how to handle a car. Hospital casualty units are full of patients with broken and fractured wrists and tradically, seniors are dying in freezing homes and kids falling through icy ponds, despite all the warnings.

Truth is, we are Brits. Gawd knows how this once mighty nation gained its reputation cos we cant even walk to work or school and the government has had to sieze control of salt grit stocks because local agencies didnt prepare for the weather despite the warnings after similar fiascos last year.

[John A]

This current weather isn't climate change, I think it's an anomaly called El-Nino. A warming of the waters in the Pacific.

This is why there were few huricanes in the Alantic last year. Past occurances of El-Nino's have resulted in heatwaves in Australia resulting in huge brush fires, and massive spring run-offs in the US midwest several years ago causing flooding.

Has anyone noticed that all of the Sea Lions have left SF? They've all moved to mid way up the Oregon coast. Speculation is that their food source moved to cooler waters. But that begs the question of why didn't this occure during previous El-Ninos.

[CarlF]

Since it's pretty hard to go sailing today in a lot of the US and Europe, put on a sweater and consider the Internet as a government project of truly awesome scale that has benefited us sailors in many ways. A great story.

The earliest days of what would become the Internet (in which Al Gore most certainly did play his stated role) was probably the SAGE air defense system - much of it developed around MIT (there were many other contributors in the US and other countries). This was the first significant networked computer systems consisting of a couple of dozen computers connected to radar installations. Some of these radars were on offshore "Texas Towers" off New England. Tragically, 28 men were lost at sea when their tower collapsed in 85 knot winds and 30ft seas one 1961 night in a January gale. These computers were built by IBM and were jaw dropping in scale - from Wikipedia:

[I]"The AN/FSQ-7 is the largest computer ever built, and will likely hold that record for the future. Each machine used 55,000 vacuum tubes, about ½ acre (2,000 m²) of floor space, weighed 275 tons and used up to three megawatts of power."

I find it remarkable that most of us have a radar and chartplotter on board that's a direct descendent of this system. My chartplotter has more computing power than all of the SAGE computers put together and it doesn't require even 1 megawatt of power. (Of course, if my chartplotter was like a SAGE computer I'd be plenty warm.)

It's also amazing that this was only 50 years ago. Some of us sail boats as old as SAGE and I expect some members of the board worked on the project.

Was it worth the money and effort? Well, earth-destroying all-out nuclear war hasn't occurred and we got the Internet as a runner-up prize. There's no way to know if the same thing would have happened without SAGE. Personally, I look at an investment in clean energy, energy efficiency, and climate in the same way.

Carl

[forsailbyowner]

Whoo hooo. Going to be approaching the 80s finally this week in the keys. Time to get out and play, the trip to shore has been akin to whitewater rafting with all the "very rough" conditions of late.