Previous warm periods

The biggest scam by the UN IPCC was the total elimation of the Medieval Warm Period.  Just now, I'm beginning to see it mentioned on rebuttals in the Guardian, so I looked it up.

Reference

I'm supposing these guys might be the famous 3%.  It's an interesting read in light of recent warming super-hype, wanting to change 'global warming' to 'global heating'.

I was interested in the charts, which I haven't seen before.  The mwp was characterized by growing grapes in Greenland and Northern Scotland.  We never reached that point in this 20 year cycle.
Our wonderful heat since 1850 was the recovery from the little ice age.

So, the full wave of the longer cycle is 600 years.  That should fill us with joy that we aren't plunging into a major ice age.  Perhaps after this 20 year cold-cycle, we can once again grow grapes in Greenland.

Final Alaska Strong Ground Motion

The maximum ground motion was 0.8 g, and 40 cm/s.  Nearly all of the seismic energy of the quake was directed down, so this a very low ground motion for an M7.  As an example, look at the Kobe, Japan earthquake M7, where all the energy was directed up.

So, Anchorage dodged a bullet.  I just picked up this last ground motion, and I'll go into a long explanation for Penny.

The main damage from an earthquake is from shaking.  There can also be ground slips, and landslides.  Your frame house is quite secure up to 50 cm/s, but you'll lost your knick-knacks.  Use tacky mounting stuff to secure your valuables.  Those in Anchorage might think about using latches on the cupboards.  You can also strap down the hot water heater.

Once you get above 50 cm/s, the foundation cracks, and you get serious structural damage.  Still, the house shouldn't kill you until 100 cm/s.  Even then, it will be the chimney.  :)

I always use peak ground velocity (PGV) as an indicator of damage.  I've done the literature, and numerical analysis, and it perfectly scales with damage.  The more standard peak ground acceleration (PGA) is useless on soft ground and should be scrapped.  This is the Grand Stupidity in earthquake engineering.  It results in a lot of tilted buildings.

We haven't learned anything from this earthquake.  However, in couple of months (give or take decades) the big M8 should rip through the whole rift.  Then we'll learn something.

ps.  Anchorage should upgrade enough to shrug off 40 cm/s, and go on with normal business.  They seem to have achieved this (I would styrofoam the road ramps).  The next step is to not have anybody killed up to 100 cm/s.  That may need work.

Sludge Drizzle for Toronto

Nice wet snow on the dog walk.

We have some weak Pacific plumes coming over us, and this tends to suck up the Gulf warmth.

  Looking at the Pacific, we'll be hit by one of these every few days.

These plumes are generated very far west, where the only hot water huddles and tries not to be dissipated. 

Meanwhile in the UK, they shall enjoy a very white Christmas.