01-02-2019, 08:05 PM
Because of the Great Lakes, the Lower Peninsula of Michigan has delayed seasons. May is already more summer-like than spring-like, which is reflects that the winds are usually coming from the south while the sun is high and up long. June through September are really summer (highs on clear days are at least in the high 70s), October and November are autumn, December has autumn-like and winter-like characteristics, and January through March (westerly and northwesterly winds are off icy Lake Michigan, and April is Mihcigan's short springtime. until southerly and southwesterly winds prevail. Last year, April was still wintry, and the transition from winter to summer took a couple of days. In 2012, we had some freakishly warm weather in March and a dry summer -- portent of global warming with southern Michigan getting a Mediterranean climate? Southern Michigan looked much like parts of California in having yelloo0wish grass in the summer due to heat and drought.
But before global warming became a commonplace explanation of warm spells in the winter, there have always been winter thaws, probably indicating a shift from lobe flows of air masses (north-south or vice-versa) and more westerly flows . Nobody ever condused a thaw with an early onset of spring. Around 2100, Michigan winters might no longer include march -- and might be much milder in January and February than they now are.
So much for the climate of southern Michigan and the potential for change from a Dfa (fire-and-ice with a nearly-even distribution of rainfall) to a Csa (hot-summer Mediterranean with a mild and rainy - and not snowy! -- winter winter but a hot, dry summer, as in Sacramento, California). Maybe the pattern of weather can change significantly in some places.
It is possible that the lengthening of human lifespans allows an elderly generation to maintain influence longer than it used to. The GI Generation was influential in American life long enough to see the 'torch' of the Civic type be passed from the youngest of the GI Generation to the oldest of the Millennial Generation. The GI Generation was the healthiest elder generation in American history because it stayed physically and intellectually active into elderhood. The Silent generation has followed their lead... and I see evidence that the Boom generation will do much the same.
The ferocity of most Crisis Eras typically results from the absence of an influential Adaptive generation. It is imaginable that either Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders could be the next President of the United States. The lengthening of lifespans may mitigate the worst tendencies in eras of the saeculum -- Unravelings being less destructive of the social fabric, Crises being conducted with less ferocity, Highs less conformist, and Awakenings less stormy.
In most of the middle latitudes, winters have the greatest variety of weather and thermal range.It is hard to determine whether a midwinter thaw is an aftertaste of autumn or a foretaste of spring. We are probably late in the current Crisis Era, as Silent have almost entirely passed into post-elderhood as the the youngest turn 77 this year, the youngest Boomers are clearly almost all in elderhood with the youngest reaching 59 this year, the youngest X turn 38 this year and are almost entirely in midlife, and the youngest Millennial people are at least in their late teens. We now have a generational constellation much closer to that of 1945 than to that of 1929.
So far we seem to have had a domestic Cold War between two ideologies almost as different as liberal humanism and perhaps post-Stalinist Communism. One side will collapse either of its absurdity or of not being ruthless enough -- and it is difficult to determine which will happen. Both sides are different enough that synthesis between the two is impossible.
But before global warming became a commonplace explanation of warm spells in the winter, there have always been winter thaws, probably indicating a shift from lobe flows of air masses (north-south or vice-versa) and more westerly flows . Nobody ever condused a thaw with an early onset of spring. Around 2100, Michigan winters might no longer include march -- and might be much milder in January and February than they now are.
So much for the climate of southern Michigan and the potential for change from a Dfa (fire-and-ice with a nearly-even distribution of rainfall) to a Csa (hot-summer Mediterranean with a mild and rainy - and not snowy! -- winter winter but a hot, dry summer, as in Sacramento, California). Maybe the pattern of weather can change significantly in some places.
It is possible that the lengthening of human lifespans allows an elderly generation to maintain influence longer than it used to. The GI Generation was influential in American life long enough to see the 'torch' of the Civic type be passed from the youngest of the GI Generation to the oldest of the Millennial Generation. The GI Generation was the healthiest elder generation in American history because it stayed physically and intellectually active into elderhood. The Silent generation has followed their lead... and I see evidence that the Boom generation will do much the same.
The ferocity of most Crisis Eras typically results from the absence of an influential Adaptive generation. It is imaginable that either Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders could be the next President of the United States. The lengthening of lifespans may mitigate the worst tendencies in eras of the saeculum -- Unravelings being less destructive of the social fabric, Crises being conducted with less ferocity, Highs less conformist, and Awakenings less stormy.
In most of the middle latitudes, winters have the greatest variety of weather and thermal range.It is hard to determine whether a midwinter thaw is an aftertaste of autumn or a foretaste of spring. We are probably late in the current Crisis Era, as Silent have almost entirely passed into post-elderhood as the the youngest turn 77 this year, the youngest Boomers are clearly almost all in elderhood with the youngest reaching 59 this year, the youngest X turn 38 this year and are almost entirely in midlife, and the youngest Millennial people are at least in their late teens. We now have a generational constellation much closer to that of 1945 than to that of 1929.
So far we seem to have had a domestic Cold War between two ideologies almost as different as liberal humanism and perhaps post-Stalinist Communism. One side will collapse either of its absurdity or of not being ruthless enough -- and it is difficult to determine which will happen. Both sides are different enough that synthesis between the two is impossible.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.