• Sunday-What'sUP April 23 - 05:19 pm

Easter Sunday fell on April 20th that year, and the weather in 1907 was quite a contrast to conditions we see 99 years later. O.F. Tyler clicked his shutter between these two buildings on Fifth Street in Calumet, where the little girl and her dog were descending the mountain formed by the roof-clearing crew. Looks like she had Peter Rabbit out for a ride, too.

The whole month of April that year is noted as a particularly snowy one. Harpers Magazine printed on the 27th even showed Town Hall in New York City under a blanket of white:

Morning everybody! Happy Sunday!

thanks, Marsha. Great picture!

I remember an Easter in the 50s where my mom had to put on my winter coat over my new Easter dress.

What is wrong with that picture....????..Do you suppose Global Warming could be a very good thing for the UP?.....it seems like it should be our turn to have warm spring days......I don't think we have winters like that anymore.........(shhhhh maybe I should whisper that.... I might have to eat my words)....

one vote against global warming?---Here we go---I have been known for instigating debate.

...Dan...... I think debate is a very good thing..... I heard someone on NPR yesterday say that there are some areas that would benifit from global warming...and other areas (coastlines) that would not.....??

Global warming? Heck ya! I don't like long, snowy, cold winters. The winters are nothing like they used to be and I'm glad of it. Let someplace else have it.

Yes!!!!! to Dan. I LOVE our winter snow. I love XC skiing in the woods. I love the white sparkle. I don't mind using my snowblower--it adds to the survival mentality of living here. What would we talk about if we didn't have it? I think the community buildings with outdoor thermometers should also register the total snowfall for the season as it progresses.

I was surprised to see my postcard above! I thought it looked familiar, and didn't notice until later that it was mine. The publisher's name threw me!

It's been rainy & chilly all day down here, but that's OK. It has to be rainy sometime.

By the way, for some reason the shot in my gallery is clearer. {https://pasty.com/pcam/albuu76/snowbank

Hmm... Global warming. A fascinating subject to discuss. Some things to think about in order to have an educated debate:
1. Climate is not a stable thing, like humans seem to want it to be. The average global temperature throughout most of earth’s history is ~22 degrees Celsius, today it is ~14 degrees Celsius.
2. Ice ages, like the one we are still in today, are very rare in earth’s history.
3. During the Paleocene/Eocene warm interval (before humans were around) the temperature was so warm that crocodiles lived on Ellesmere Island, Baffin Island, and around Minneapolis. Primitive lions did, too.
4. About 6000 to 8000 years ago was a time period called the climatic optimum. It was about 4 to 7 degrees Celsius warmer than today.
5. During the “Dark Ages,” approximately 450-900 A.D., it was much cooler (2 to 4 degrees Celsius) and wetter than it is today.
6. During the Medieval Warm Interval, approximately 900-1300 A.D. it was 2 to 4 degrees Celsius warmer than today. Greenland was actually a very nice place to live at this time, which is why the Vikings settled there.
7. The Little Ice Age occurred about 1300 to 1850. During this time it was as much as 9 degrees Celsius cooler than today. This is why it was so darn cold at Valley Forge during the American Revolution. Pennsylvania winters today aren’t so bitterly cold. This is also why the paintings of Washington crossing the Delaware show pieces of ice floating in the river. It isn’t just heroic romanticism, the Delaware actually did freeze then, unlike most years today.
8. From 1850 to about 1940, the climate warmed again.
9. From 1940 to about 1980, there was a cooling trend. In fact, climatologists were concerned at that time that we might be entering another ice age. See National Geographic November 1976.

Ice ages are not just long periods of time that are cold. They cold periods punctuated by many warm intervals called interglacials. So there are a few questions to ask:
1. Are we in an interglacial or is the most recent ice age completely ending?
2. How much influence do humans really have on the climate?
3. Could the warming we are seeing now actually lead to another glacial age?
4. Could warmer winters actually make Keweenaw winters even snowier?

Dr Nat.....it seems to be "Ying & Yang"..(not exactly a scientific term).....but reassuring that we may just be in a normal changing weather pattern with lovely warm days......thank you for the excellent response. Yooperdom appreciates the information.....just hope we have a nice spring..and no more blizzards for this year....

Dr. Nat: I also love all your input.

the suns energy output increases 10% every billion years there will be a hot time in the old town tonight can you say red giant i remain walter p

True Walter, the sun is getting more powerful with age. One of the big questions right now in geology is: if the sun has been getting brighter, what were conditions like in the Archean on Earth? If the sun was cooler then, earth's average temperature should have been 20+ degrees cooler than today and Archean oceans should have been frozen solid. However, we see fossil evidence that liquid water has existed since at least 3.8 GA, so the earth could not have been this cold. This conflict between calculation and observation is called the "Faint young sun paradox".

So if the sun 'was' less bright then, why don't we see evidence for frozen water? The answer lies in the fact that early in earth's history before the arrival of photosynthetic lifeforms the atmosphere was enriched in carbon dioxide, producing a greenhouse effect. This grennhouse effect would have increased the surface temperature of the earth enough to counter the effects of a 'faint young sun' and thus prevented the icing of liquid water.

Or so the theory goes........