When I was younger, I thought that Arizona was a desert. Not just an arid region, but a desert like the Sahara or the Gobi. As I grew older, and especially when I moved here, I realized that it isn’t. There’s green plants all around. There are a lot of Sahuaro cactus and other desert scrub which nicely green up the landscape.

The precipitation here comes in two seasons: summer and winter. We receive almost no rain during the spring or fall (autumn). The reason is that our winter rain comes from passing mid-latitude cyclones, and our summer rain comes from the monsoon. The AMS defines a monsoon as “A name for seasonal winds. It was first applied to the winds over the Arabian Sea, which blow for six months from northeast and for six months from southwest, but it has been extended to similar winds in other parts of the world.” During the summer months, the direction of the winds changes in the desert Southwest which brings us much-needed moisture.
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Just messing around with TRMM precipitation data. Below are total precipitation from -40 to 40 latitude.

1998:

1999:

I had no reason to post this, other that I was looking for it the other day so I decided to plot it up myself.

I’ve talked about the issue of teaching climate change in schools recently, and yesterday I came across a blog that illustrates my concern at The “More” Child.

The author of this blog post is a mother of two children who appear to be in 5th and 7th grade. The antecdote told in the post is about the elder child. It turns out, she has been exposed to a variety of sources of information that has led her to some unfortunate conclusions. The information presented paints the picture that the child is afraid that the world will change drastically by the time she is older.

For one thing, it is not too late. Dr. James Hansen has stated on many occasions, including in his recent op-ed in the Boston Globe, that action we take now can reverse the changes we have seen so far. However, even if we had experienced irreversible climate change, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do anything about it. And we aren’t; there are intelligent people working to solve the problem.
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10. People who think that anything Al Gore says is right. (Left-leaning loonies.)

9. People who think that anything Al Gore says is wrong. (Right-leaning loonies.)

8. People equating arctic sea ice loss with sea level rise. (An introductory course in physics might be in order.)

7. Think of the penguins / polar bears / seals / etc. (Always a favorite of the loony greenies.)

6. Think of the children. (Who can’t think of the children when we’re always being reminded? Those of us without children are off the hook then, right?)

5. When everything is blamed on global warming. (6 people died today in an automobile crash in heavy fog. Police are investigating whether global warming played a part in the accident.)

4. Celebrities telling people that they can stop global warming by using one piece of toilet paper. (Besides the fact that I don’t want by underwear turning brown, this would have an insignificant effect on anything.)

3. Every blogger that has ever posted a link to that silly “How it all ends” or “The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See” videos on youtube. (His thoughts are not original. But they may be original to the youtube crowd…)

2. Anyone who utters the phrase “emissions intensity”. (What an entirely useless metric.)

1. People being unable to distinguish between climate and weather. (There was an ice-storm over large portions of the United States today. How do Global Warming Alarmists explain that? Huh?)

What annoys you with respect to climate and weather? I’d love to add to the list.