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Workweek Causes Climate Changes
Shipud writes "An
article
in the
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
reports that daily temperature ranges are smaller on weekdays than on weekends. This phenomenon is strongest in the US, but also appears in China and Japan. The researchers attribute this to human activity, although the exact mechanism is unclear. The prime suspect is
aerosol / cloud interactions. Here is the more legible version from
Scientific American"
... and that definitely contributes to more pollution being in the air which will definitely have an effect on temperatures.. I don't know what's being "discovered" here..
Just when you make it idiotproof, some idiot builds a better idiot.
why it's nice and sunny all week and then rains every weekend?
... the make up of most teams. After all, with the amount of hot air and BS coming from your PHB and the more difficult members of your team, do you wonder why there is an impact on the climate after a 2 hour team meeting?
A mandatory 7 day work week! This will result in stability.
I know when I'm driving to work on weekdays I go through about 2 cans of aerosol spray. You know, just to pass the time. Maybe it's my fault, sorry guys.
Nah, this can't be right... The matrix would suffer from low power and the human's would start to see glitches. OMG! That's why I had to work weekends for the last year! Here I thought it was because we were hopelessly behind in our project! Maybe it is true!
Due to the unprecedented halt of all non-military air travel over the United States during the above period, scientists were able to perform research on the effects of jet contrails. During their research, it was found that a single jet contrail could be tracked by satellite across the U.S., growing from a narrow plume of vapor to substantial cloud cover as it traveled the country. Such detailed observation was not possible before, due to the thousands of flights a day crossing the U.S. I believe the study you are referencing is linked to this one.
y maille.com
The majority of flights across the U.S. are during the daytime hours on weekdays. Sounds like a high probability of a connection here, this deserves further investigation.
M.O.
http://www.madocowain.com
http://www.pla
No, the prime suspect is my co-worker Bob. Man, does that guy ever have B.O. Jeez.
In Soviet Rush, today's Tom Sawyer gets high on you.
Relevant quote:
"As a result, they (contrails) help reduce the daily range in daytime highs and nighttime lows. Contrails, by providing additional insulation, further reduce the variability."
"For every right, an equal responsibility..."
The effect that cities have (i.e. Microclimates) on the local tempatures in relation to the area around them has been known for some time and this seems to be a logical extention of the microclimate. As such it seems logical that the exaust from cars would tend to be greater on weekdays when people are going to and from work, and would decline on the weekends.
Many of the weather stations that record the data that these people used are simple mercury or alcohol thermometers that get read by humans.
I was one of these thermometer readers in grad school. During the work week, I was up for class or to go to the office, so I always read the thermometer at the same time, like I was supposed to. On weekends, it was hard to get the motivation to get out of bed early just to read a thermometer, so a lot of times I read it later than I was supposed to and guesstimated what the temp was a few hours earlier.
I worried about the researchers using data from my weather station, but not enough to drag my butt out of bed any earlier.
Did anyone test to see if the consumption of bean filled meals changed the environment? They blame global warming on bovine flatulence but it could it be the mass consumption of burritos?
I always wondered why it was so hot in Mexico... now I know! Wow, on Slashdot, you learn something new every day.
I already figured out why it's colder in Canada though... you see, people up here in Canada are more likely to wear insulated clothing, and that keeps body heat from escaping into the environment. This effect is most notable in the winter, when almost everyone wears several layers of insulated clothing when going out of their house, and this translates to even colder temperatures than usual. Of course, the interiors of houses still stay warm all year long, because people never wear bulky clothing indoors; that would be rather inconvenient, after all.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
Unemployment is the new environmentalism.
Unlike most of the "it's obvious" responses I read through the thread on this article (followed by a simplistic explanation of a single cause, etc.), these researchers (and the publishers) did a great job carefully explaining how they did the testing, what their conclusions were, and why the conclusion was the only one possible. They did not attempt to tie in a bunch of agendas to their research, they merely stated the clear and definite tie between our actions and the temperature difference.
/. can follow this example, and watch for this clarity in other "scientific studies" - if they aren't being this clear and precise, then they are pushing an agenda (and since that is such a simple conclusion, it's likely wrong (at least in some circumstances), but close enough...)
Now, if only we here at
Ahhhhh.... Here it is. It's a Chicago Tribune article.
-non sig- You're stuck with my non sig in your brain cells now. I guess you could drink it away.
If contrails get your conspiracy bones jittery, check out this piece our local weekly did on chemtrails and the people who love them.
You know what?
Because global warming doesn't act over a period of days
Global warming, no. Local effects, yes.
In case we've already forgotten, during the no-fly restriction after the WTC attack, daily temperature variations changed by up to two degrees Fahrenheit per day in areas normally having the highest levels of air traffic.
So yes, something as simple as increased particulate matter in the air leads to increased cloud formation, drastically affecting local weather, over the course of hours rather than years.
Such changes may have little to no long-term effects, but they do occur, and do have a simple enough explanation that your "average uneducated slashbot" can understand it. More particulates means more clouds, which means less temperature variation.
Large scale farting (involving sheep) is required for real change:
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/947129/posts
I heard that President Bush is planning a preemptive strike on New Zealand because of their weapons of mass flatulence (WMF). A division of scotsmen will be air dropped in to plug the holes.