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Science

Workweek Causes Climate Changes 203

Posted by CmdrTaco from the everyone-take-the-week-off dept.
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"
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Workweek Causes Climate Changes More

Workweek Causes Climate Changes

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  • Welp.. people drive more during the week... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by NivenHuH ( 579871 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @03:58PM (#7058369) Homepage
    ... 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..

    • Re:Welp.. people drive more during the week... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:06PM (#7058454) Homepage
      Lots of 'discoveries' should be read as 'confirmations'. You wouldn't want to build the foundation of science and technological progression on assumptions, would you?

      Mind you, of course that happens, but I always think this way when people say 'duh'. Remember, at some point, somebody would have said 'duh' had you concluded that the earth was the centre of the universe. ;)
      Garret
      • Remember, at some point, somebody would have said 'duh' had you concluded that the earth was the centre of the universe.

        Actually, many scientists believe that the earth is at the center of the universe. When you look at the cosmic background microwave radiation, it looks remarkably uniform in every direction. The deep-field pictures that the HST took further confirm that matter is evenly distributed in all directions. This would not be possible if the earth weren't right smack in the middle, since more li

      • > Lots of 'discoveries' should be read as 'confirmations'.

        But then what would the media use for sensationalist stories? After all, _somebody_ has probably figured it out already, the rest of us just haven't caught on yet.
      • Lots of 'discoveries' should be read as 'confirmations'. You wouldn't want to build the foundation of science and technological progression on assumptions, would you?

        Since it has already been reported that rainfall fluctuates with the day of week and that fluctuation was theorized to be due to pollutants from workday traffic, this discovery does seem to be mostly a confirmation. However, we wouldn't want to assume, would we? Therefore I propose that I be given a fat government grant to study whether humi

      • Re:Welp.. people drive more during the week... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Mooncaller ( 669824 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @06:22PM (#7059402)
        You wouldn't want to build the foundation of science and technological progression on assumptions, would you?

        Umm, math and science ARE built upon assumptions. They are called Axioms. Goedel: Any formal system must be based on theroms not provable by that system.

    • The prime suspect is aerosol / cloud interactions.

      No, actually I think it means that we just stink more on the weekend cause we don't use deodorant...

    • Re:Welp.. people drive more during the week... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      When it comes to global warming, everyone seems to assume it's pollutants.

      What about the heat that's released as a result of combustion? Also, remember that for cars in traffic, most of the energy that made your car go gets turned into heat when you hit the brakes....

    • Re:Welp.. people drive more during the week... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rrkap ( 634128 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:16PM (#7058550) Homepage

      ... 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..

      Then you're remarkably uncurious or ignorant. What's the mechanism? Why is it different in coastal cities than inland ones? This is an interesting and localized (both in time and in space) effect of human activity. I don't really have a good guess as to what is causing it. You can't just say air pollution without examing the mechanism. It could be something really off the wall like change in averge absorptivity of the ground because all the parking lots are full.

    • ... 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..

      This may seem obvious to many of us, although there are some people out there that absolutely refuse to believe that humans can have any noticeable effect on the environment. To see this, just read any of the literature out there claiming that global warming does not exist. (Note: I am not saying that this study shows that global wa

    • Twice as many air conditioners/heaters, lots of buildings using more power, lots of bosses filling whole auditoria with hot air--the heat has to go somewhere.
    • ... 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..

      Really? Because global warming doesn't act over a period of days, for God's sake. So the answer isn't nearly as simple as your average uneducated slashbot seems to believe. Science rarely is.

      • Re:Try publishing that theory (Score:5, Informative)

        by pla ( 258480 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @05:14PM (#7058986) Journal
        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.
        • 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.

          It does. How does that, however, explain the areas (like all of Japan) that have the opposite trend? This effect isn't as simple as some would like to believe. In fact, the authors don't even claim it as certainty, because it's not. The fact that the effect is positive in some areas a

    • Re:Welp.. people drive more during the week... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by ctr2sprt ( 574731 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:59PM (#7058913)
      It probably seems intuitive to you, and that's the problem. Lots of intuitive things just aren't true, because usually your guesses are based on incomplete or simply incorrect information. That's why it's important for scientists to prove their theories instead of just accepting them blindly.

      I, for one, find it encouraging that scientists are out there finding supporting evidence for the predominant theories. Contrary to what many Slashdot posters seem to think, our understanding of the global (and local!) environment is far from complete. It's even less of an exact science than psychiatry is. ("For some reason, doing this causes something to happen. We have no idea why, we're not entirely sure what happens, and sometimes something completely unexpected happens instead, but at least it gives us some measure of control.") That's why findings like this are important: it's predicted by an extremely shaky theory, so it's one more piece of evidence that our theory is right, and what we think is happening actually is.

      • Re:Welp.. people drive more during the week... (Score:4, Interesting)

        by glitch! ( 57276 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @10:35PM (#7060800)
        It probably seems intuitive to you, and that's the problem. Lots of intuitive things just aren't true, because usually your guesses are based on incomplete or simply incorrect information. That's why it's important for scientists to prove their theories instead of just accepting them blindly.

        That's a very good point. For instance, it is "obvious" that plastic cutting boards are better than wood, right? Well, actually no...
        [ucdavis.edu]
        Here is just one interesting comparison of cutting boards.

        Sometimes you just have to set aside your assumptions and find out.
    • That's not insightful; that's obvious, redundant, and unnecessary. When modding, think about why someone else would want to read a comment. If you can't think of a reason, don't mod it up.

      Hopefully this experiment means that the people feigning humility with their "humanity can't have that much effect on the world" crap will have to shut up now. Unlike years and months, weekdays are completely arbitrary, so either humans are effecting the environment, or it's a billion to one coincidence.

  • Does this explain (Score:5, Funny)

    by gnuke ( 708985 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @03:58PM (#7058370)
    why it's nice and sunny all week and then rains every weekend?
    • That is explained well enough by selective memory, I think. You'll remember the camping trip that got rained out much longer than you'll remember the times you just had to bring an umbrella to work.
    • I remember when I was in elementary school always thinking that the weather must be controlled by principals and teachers somehow. It seemed like it only ever snowed on the weekends. My parents thought I was losing my mind and I only thought it snowed more on the weekends because I wanted snow days.

      Come to find out, I was right. I can't remember the exact show, but I recall seeing a show on this. It turns out that scientists attribute it to the amount of pollution caused during the week because of traffic

      • Re:Does this explain (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Yes you were correct, this article confirms your belief that you prinicple and teachers have been controlling the weather for many years.

    • Re:Does this explain (Score:5, Informative)

      by waynemcdougall ( 631415 ) <slashdot@codeworks.gen.nz> on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:18PM (#7058573) Homepage
      Actually it does. As reported in Nature, August 1998.

      Popular press take on it [usatoday.com]

      Abstract: [nature.com]
      Direct human influences on climate have been detected at local scales, such as urban temperature increases and precipitation enhancement, and at global scales,. A possible indication of an anthropogenic effect on regional climate is by identification of equivalent weekly cycles in climate and pollution variables. Weekly cycles have been observed in both global surface temperature and local pollution data sets. Here we describe statistical analyses that reveal weekly cycles in three independent regional-scale coastal Atlantic data sets: lower-troposphere pollution, precipitation and tropical cyclones. Three atmospheric monitoring stations record minimum concentrations of ozone and carbon monoxide early in the week, while highest concentrations are observed later in the week. This air-pollution cycle corresponds to observed weekly variability in regional rainfall and tropical cyclones. Specifically, satellite-based precipitation estimates indicate that near-coastal ocean areas receive significantly more precipitation at weekends than on weekdays. Near-coastal tropical cyclones have, on average, significantly weaker surface winds, higher surface pressure and higher frequency at weekends. Although our statistical findings limit the identification of cause-effect relationships, we advance the hypothesis that the thermal influence of pollution-derived aerosols on storms may drive these weekly climate cycles.

    • Anybody else know that "The Way Things Really Work" book? I got it as a present a few years ago, I think. Making fun of "The Way Things Work" with these big overcomplicated flow-chart cartoons about the photo shop guys stealing all the pictures of your wife in her bathing suit. Alternately stupid and funny. The only one I really remember is the one explaining how airport P.A.s work. The guy eats a bunch of "garble lozenges" first and covers the microphone with a "mumble mitten" and whatever. I know he

      • Actually, it was train station announcement. Yes, the "Garble Lozenges", and the audio signal is run through a Van De Graaff generator!

        Or how about the guy who sits inside vending machines and pushes the snacks out when you press a button? Or how Chineese food is piped to all places in the country from a central location? Man, that book taught me everything I know...

  • Not a Surprise Considering... (Score:4, Funny)

    by DaRat ( 678130 ) * on Thursday September 25, 2003 @03:58PM (#7058377)
    ... 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?

  • The solution! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 25, 2003 @03:58PM (#7058379)
    A mandatory 7 day work week! This will result in stability.

  • Not Me! (Score:2, Funny)

    by airrage ( 514164 )
    I don't use aerosol, I use roll on...

  • Aerosol (Score:5, Funny)

    by NanoWit ( 668838 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:01PM (#7058407)
    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.

  • more legible version (Score:3, Funny)

    by somethingwicked ( 260651 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:01PM (#7058409)
    The prime suspect is aerosol / cloud interactions. Here is the more legible version from Scientific American"

    Because its the weekend at the Scientific American and they don't have the aerosol/cloud interactions making it hazy and unreadable. So their "legible version" is weekday free making it less blurry!

  • Could it be... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Weekdays are consistent. The roads are jam-packed with McDonald's eating slobs driving gas-guzzling SUVs in three hour long traffic jams every day. In and out. Add the heat due to stress from hustling and bustling in the rat race and you've got yourself a case of slightly affected climate.

    Case closed. I wish all scientific inquiry was this easy!
    • No, that can't be it, because on the weekends the roads are all jam-packed with McDonald's eating slobs driving gas-guzzling SUVs in three hour long traffic jams on their way to the cottage and back.
  • This is the butterfly in china can cause a hurricane in Florida, only its humans and temperature. Cool. I feel my paradigm changing.

  • This can't be right. (Score:5, Funny)

    by hcuar ( 706760 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:02PM (#7058416)
    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!

  • Or, more importantly, (Score:3, Funny)

    by Jailbrekr ( 73837 ) <jailbrekr@digitaladdiction.net> on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:03PM (#7058425) Homepage
    Can you quantify whether there is a change in temperature variations when SCO publishes yety another press release?

  • So does this mean if I ate beans for lunch, my fart will warm the atmosphere by .000000001 degree? And all along we were told it was "Global Warming". Now we know its "Global Warming caused by massive bean eatage".
    • He said, "Eating beans is a crime equal to eating the heads of one's parents."

      Who knew the old codger had global warming figured out back then!

    • Re:Does this mean? (Score:4, Funny)

      by Sponge Bath ( 413667 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @05:14PM (#7058989)
      ...if I ate beans for lunch, my fart will warm the atmosphere by .000000001 degree?

      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.

    • If Atmosperic methane correlates with the expansion of the Taco Bell franchise, can we just blame them?

      Of course we would be following the media lead in ignoring that silly correlation vs. causality thing, in doing this. But thats OK, because its for a good cause.

      On a serious note, there is some discusion regading the effects of dinofarts on the Jurasic weather.

  • If we don't stop working and be slackers at home, we might not have our beloved home which would have been a target of mother nature's wrath!

  • Sept. 11-13, 2001 Research Results (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:10PM (#7058483)
    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.

    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.play maille.com

    • Contrails / Chemtrails / Crackpots (Score:4, Interesting)

      by switcha ( 551514 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @05:03PM (#7058930)
      If contrails get your conspiracy bones jittery, check out this piece [wweek.com]our local weekly did on chemtrails and the people who love them.
      • If contrails get your conspiracy bones jittery, check out this piece our local weekly did on chemtrails and the people who love them.

        Okay. . .

        First off, this article was written by one of those AAN papers. --That is to say, a cookie-cutter pop-culture weekly owned by a family of millionaires. One brother is currently the mayer of Raleigh, N.C., and their father was the U.S. ambassador to Romania during the Ceausescu / Nixon years.

        I've spent enough time with diplomatic families to know a few things. .
    • >>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

      Guess which plane it was that the researchers tracked.

      Air Force One [google.com]. The only plane flying that day.

      Not exactly true. It was Air Force one and 2 escort fighters...so 3 planes.

      wbs.

  • The actual prime suspect (Score:5, Funny)

    by worst_name_ever ( 633374 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:11PM (#7058495)
    The prime suspect is aerosol / cloud interactions.

    No, the prime suspect is my co-worker Bob. Man, does that guy ever have B.O. Jeez.

  • Heard something that air conditioners working extra duty on the weekend causes more heat in the cities and this is why tornadoes rarely go through there.
    • Correction, tornadoes don't go thru cities because there are no trailer parks.
      • That's the funny theory. The actual theory I've seen is that the tall buildings disrupt the airflows that are necessary to feed a tornado. A long time ago I saw an article about this theory that plotted the paths of all tornadoes in the Chicago metropolitan area. The downtown area seemed to be magically spared from getting hit.

        • That's the funny theory. The actual theory I've seen is that the tall buildings disrupt the airflows that are necessary to feed a tornado. A long time ago I saw an article about this theory that plotted the paths of all tornadoes in the Chicago metropolitan area. The downtown area seemed to be magically spared from getting hit.

          That's interesting. A few years back, 4 huge tornadoes leveled downtown Fort Worth.

          • That was kind of strange. OTOH, Fort Worth looks like it only seems to have half a dozen [dallassky.com] tall buildings. It's not exactly another Chicago.

            • That was kind of strange. OTOH, Fort Worth looks like it only seems to have half a dozen tall buildings. It's not exactly another Chicago.

              Odd, I remember Fort Worth being huge, and Dallas even bigger, in the downtown areas when I lived in Austin. Now I live in Bellevue, in the Seattle metropolitan area, and looking at those pictures Fort Worth just looks like a minor opolis, or a minopolis. :)

  • Another possible reason is... (Score:5, Informative)

    by NewbieV ( 568310 ) * <victor DOT abrah ... AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:13PM (#7058522)
    Airline traffic. CNN reported on some research [cnn.com] conducted by the University of Wisconsin while US air traffic was grounded.

    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."

  • That's why it rains on weekends (Score:3, Interesting)

    by whereiswaldo ( 459052 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:14PM (#7058525) Journal
    I was trying to look for a report I read once that pointed to higher smog during weekdays as a major factor in rain occurring mostly on weekends.

    This report probably says some of the same things, though:

    Ozone Linked to Warmer Weekend Temperatures in Toronto [utoronto.ca]

  • Similar Effect to Microclimates (Score:3, Interesting)

    by darkstar949 ( 697933 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:16PM (#7058545)
    The effect that cities have (i.e. Microclimates [met-office.gov.uk]) 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.
  • Thats it, i'm staying home during the week and going to work on the weekends. Gotta counteract this "weekend effect somehow"...even if it means going to work 3 days less during the week. I'll be taking one for the team here.

  • A Possibility I was partially responsible for (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:16PM (#7058549)
    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.

    • I would hope weather stations use digital thermometers now-a-days and automatically sample hourly or even more often readings into a database someplace.

      I cant imagine where else data for graphs like this [wunderground.com] come from.

    • The stations used to collect data for these studies were specificaly set up to do this study, i.e. setup to insure that the error in data was independent of the week cycle. All meteroligist are well aware of the traditional unreliability of weekend/holiday data. This is one of the reasons for the data collection portion of these studies. Otherwise a lot of time and effort could have been saved by using already existing data.
  • I can guarantee TIME itself slows down on the work week, and speeds up during the weekend.

    Fact.

  • I read a book (Score:3, Funny)

    by anotherone ( 132088 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:20PM (#7058599)
    I saw a book a few years ago called "The Way Things Really Work", which proposed something very close to this theory. It was a humor book, however. It also suggested that we add a few more days to the week to solve the problem.
  • It's from all the goddamn hot-air spewing out from the self-important PHB's. I'd say huddling all the caffeinated, overweight engineers into a cramped meeting space for hours makes for a nice heat-sink.

  • I guess... (Score:5, Funny)

    by iomud ( 241310 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:29PM (#7058688) Homepage Journal
    Unemployment is the new environmentalism.
  • ...all the hot air spewing from the mouths of morons in middle management.
  • When 9/11 occurred, I remember seeing an article saying that during the 4 days that worldwide flights were grounded, there was a 3-5%(I think) decrease in cloud cover. I presume this is because of con trails and exhaust conglomeration in the sky. It led to a rise in temperature during the day, and less insulation so it was colder at night. Does anyone have any links? I couldn't find anything.

    I always used to fantasize that, "If I became king, I would outlaw all auto usage for one day a month at leas
    • Ahhhhh.... Here [chicagotribune.com] 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.
    • Only US flights (including international flights entering or leaving the US) were grounded. And the US was still doing some flying (military and government flights, including the one that took Osama Bin Laden's relatives back to Saudi Arabia). But yeah, US commercial traffic is a big chunk of total worldwide air traffic.
  • All those work machines with Athlon CPU's that are normally turned off during the weekend.

    To some extent this is serious though, I have noticed a definate increase in room temperature when lots of computers are on (hell, even 2-3 high-end machines at home make a difference on a hot day), any chance that this would affect the outside environment as well.

    How about invisible brainzap waves from cellphones, etc? Do those dissipate heat?
    • Computers don't really give off enough heat to cause climate changes -- one system is only the equivalent of a few 100-watt light bulbs, and there are many pieces of equipment that generate a lot more heat (air conditioners, cooking equipment, cars...) Moreover, those sources are all practically negligible compared with the amount of heat coming in from the sun.
  • It's gotta be from those butterflies in China. If we could control those butterflies in China, perhaps then, and only then, can we control the climate here in the US. =)

  • Good Science vs. Bad Science (Score:5, Insightful)

    by __aagmrb7289 ( 652113 ) on Thursday September 25, 2003 @04:51PM (#7058861) Journal
    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.

    Now, if only we here at /. 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...)
  • to the insanity created by the perversion of sleep cycles that the so-called work week creates.
    Sleep studies have shown that if people are allowed to follow their natural cycles, they'll still sleep about eight hours a night. But what they won't do is go to sleep and get up the same time every day. That's totally artificial and there is no evidence that it is healthy or normal behavior for humans.
    What happens is that people with unrestrained sleep cycles tend to go asleep an hour later every day. S
  • THere was some alleged statistical finding some years back (25 or so, IIRC) about there being more tornados on weekdays. This brought about some speculation that the tornados were assisted by the habit of driving on the right and turning right more than left and that this put a little extra angular momentum into the troposphere. The weather people puzzled over this for a while, said that there was way too much energy and angular momentum in a tornado for people to have much effect on them, decided that th
  • I remember hearing about this a few years ago. Then when I got to college (RPI [rpi.edu]), I noticed that the weather tends to be nicer earlier in the week.
  • If I recall correctly, air conditioners put out a large amount of exhaust heat, which can raise ambient outdoor temperatures by up to 5 degrees on average.

    During weekdays, most of these home air conditioners are at work. Since they don't really want to pay an extra $20-$30 in electric costs, they turn them off, which gives a two fold effect. Less pollution from power plants, and less "heat pollution" in the overall areas.

    In the winter, you get much the same effect (poorly insulated buildings dump heat int

  • Evidence of human activity impacting the weather are pretty old and commonplace.

    Which evidence, you ask? Look, each time -- each freakin' time -- I wash my car, it rains. Same for yours, right?

    The gummint obviously embeds a special weather transmogrifier in cars, which, triggered by a soapy water detector, prevents honest citizens from parading their shiny cars on country roads, so that these blasted civil servants can have them for themselves.

    "Cattle mutilations are up." -- Sneakers

  • I recall seeing an article about this on the ABC (Australian) about a year ago - the program was one in a series, I believe, called Wild World or Wild Planet which discussed various environmental things like the ocean jet streams and so on, concentrating on one aspect of the weather each week.

    The program hypothosised that the weekend weather phenomina was due primarily to exhaust fumes of the commuters. The emissions would build up in the atmosphere during the week, with increasing cloud formations, and 'o

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