KDub

We are being told that the wildfires in Ontario are being driven / fueled by climate change. Specifically, more extreme heat and increased drought. So, unlike the journalists and most meteorologists regurgitating these talking points, I looked at the actual data since 1910. The average number of heatwave days (HWDs) in Canada (which are defined as ≥3 consecutive days with Tmax ≥90th percentile against the 1991–2020 mean per station) was 8.58% lower during the 60-year period 1965–2025 compared to 1911–1960, but the linear trend is not statistically significant at the 95% confidence level. The last eight years have exhibited an unusually high number of HWDs, but it's far too early to tell if that's a sign of things to come or simply an artifact of natural variability. I used 113 long-term (≥80 years of daily data) GHCNd stations to complete this analysis. The only way one can get a meaningful increase in HWDs is to cherry-pick the x-axis starting date and ignoring pre-1960 data. Looking at droughts, I examined the self-calibrating Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI) from CRU (data is available through 2024). I then calibrated that to the Drought Monitor over the same period that I analyzed HWDs. There isn't much of a trend there; in fact there is a significant decrease in the worst of the drought categories despite the spike in 2023–24. Very few people these days in this line of work build datasets from scratch. But I do it because if someone makes a claim, it's very easy to test said claims against observational data. In most cases, alarmist narratives crumble with scrutiny. While alarmists get the basics right about the physics of Global Warming Theory in an “all else being equal” hypothetical, the real-world is a far more complex and details are hairy.

The past is becoming a foreign language

The flyovers will continue until morale improves.

Yesterday, using multiple one-way attack surface drones, CENTCOM forces successfully struck a submarine and ship maintenance facility in Iran. Three Corsair unmanned surface vessels hit the port at Bandar Abbas Naval Base, marking the first time American forces have employed sea drones in combat operations. Last night’s strikes degraded Iran’s ability to continue attacking commercial shipping.

As a structural engineer, or as someone smart, how would you build a gigantic titanium statue designed to withstand a million years? It seems that the two main sources of metal fatigue would be wind and the daily thermal expansion caused by sunlight. The problem is that only the side of the statue facing the sun would heat up and expand, causing the entire structure to bend slightly throughout the day as the sun moves across the sky. Could the statue perform this strange daily dance hundreds of millions of times without eventually tearing itself apart? Would the best solution be an internal lattice tower supporting hundreds of independent titanium panels, with very narrow gaps between them, allowing every part of the outer surface to expand and contract freely without accumulating fatigue, century after century? The West has to win the competition for the tallest statue in history, and it has to be known in a million years! We have to find a way to build it! By the way, we are looking for a great structural engineer to join our team!

At 7:15 p.m. ET today, U.S. Central Command forces began launching the third round of strikes this week against Iran after Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces blatantly attacked M/V GFS Galaxy, a Cyprus-flagged container ship transiting the Strait of Hormuz. A civilian crew member is missing and the vessel is unable to continue the journey due to an onboard fire and significant engineroom damage. Iran was provided yet another opportunity to demonstrate adherence to the Memorandum of Understanding after being held accountable for earlier attacks on commercial vessels but has again failed. In response, the United States is imposing a heavy cost by continuing to degrade Iran’s ability to attack civilian mariners and commercial ships freely transiting the strait. The strikes are being carried out at the direction of the Commander in Chief.