Althouse: Mendota, today.

June 29, 2016

Mendota, today.

Lovely as ever.

22 comments:

Original Mike said...: The bottom of L. Mendota (underneath the glacial drift) is the Mt. Simon sandstone. It was deposited when the sea trangressed onto the ancient Precambrian peneplain about 500 million years ago (the Late Cambrian). Sand eroded off of the Precambrian continental craton to the north, washed into the sea, and accumulated to depths to 1,300 feet (in southern Wisconsin). It was subsequently buried by subsequent marine deposits. The Mt. Simon formation can be traced from Wisconsin to Tennessee and laterally through Iowa, Minnesota, and Michigan. It is related to the Potsdam Sandstone to the east.; 6/29/16, 4:53 PM
Original Mike said...: Picnic Point (at least the spine) is Tunnel City sandstone I think, though I haven't nailed that down for sure yet.; 6/29/16, 4:58 PM
Eric said...: Ice free by July!; 6/29/16, 5:53 PM
buck smith said...: water temp is 72F. I learned via google. Looks wonderful; 6/29/16, 5:56 PM
Etienne said...: Almost in the nick of time, as the world supply runs out as demand increases, a Helium cache has been found in Tanzania.

Helium is predicted to last until about 2020 unless new places are found. The researchers are targeting volcanoes, although like gold, it runs in seams or pockets.

The amount of Helium used in balloons and such is minuscule to that used in industry.

Just one more thing to worry about before the Apocalypse.; 6/29/16, 6:03 PM
Original Mike said...: I don't think we were running out of helium. Helium was in short supply because of poor management by the US government (I know, huh?)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Helium_Reserve

Leave it to the government to run a deficit selling a commodity in short supply.; 6/29/16, 6:16 PM
Jaq said...: Here is one of those stories you would think the liberals in the press would be all over:

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2016/06/law-enforcement-sources-gun-used-paris-terrorist-attacks-came-phoenix/

One of the guns used in the Paris attacks may have come from Phoenix, AZ. Good times! Roll that news out there! Oh, but wait, the gun dealer may have been linked to Fast and Furious! Shut up, they explained!; 6/29/16, 6:34 PM
Michael K said...: Althouse should be pleased at all the Hillary trolls appearing lately. It means somebody is impressed with the blog.; 6/29/16, 6:54 PM
james conrad said...: Pretty, every time you post that name, Mendota, i think of the cast iron bathtub mendota, made in Kohler Wisc. I never realized there was a lake Mendota.
Off thread but, is Loretta Lynch the dumbest AG in the history of the US? GEEZZZ, what was she thinking to "secretly" meet Bill Clinton in Phoenix and have a little chat. Trump is correct on one account, most of these people in Washington in positions of authority are basically stupid.; 6/29/16, 7:20 PM
Anonymous said...: How come Madison is not the best summer vacation place then? The lakes are close to campus and the city. Plenty of hotels. What is holding it back?; 6/29/16, 7:35 PM
Kit Carson said...: beautiful. a you see'em better than a museum. fair weather cumulus. 3 days of good weather expected.; 6/29/16, 8:03 PM
Hagar said...: Never fear. Bill O'Reilly's staff is on it and he promises to have the skinny on Billy Jeff's "visit" wth Loretta Lynch on her airplane in Phoenix tomorrow night.; 6/29/16, 8:07 PM
Michael K said...: "Loretta Lynch the dumbest AG in the history of the US? "

I don't think they care. Why would they with all the Dims pushing Hillary in spite of treason ad corruption that would send anyone else to the slammer for decades.

If I was that Israeli spy I would be pissed.; 6/29/16, 8:45 PM
Carol said...: Can you swim in that thing or are there snakes and things in it?; 6/29/16, 9:29 PM
chickelit said...: This map illustrates why the Madison lakes are so choked with weeds in the summer. The lakes are feed by surrounding creeks and rivers which flow through some of the best farmland in the Dairy State. I have long suggested that that Madison lake weeds be harvested for biofuel, incinerated to provide electricity, and the ash flue resold as fertilizer. Waste heat from heating plants could be used to dry the lake weed prior to combustion.; 6/30/16, 12:24 AM
Jaq said...: Can you swim in that thing or are there snakes and things in it? - Carol

Let me guess, southerner. No, maybe the odd snapping turtle, but you would be hard pressed to get close enough to one of them to get bit.; 6/30/16, 6:08 AM
Rusty said...: Carol said...
Can you swim in that thing or are there snakes and things in it?

Well. Fish Do fuck in it. Among other things. So there's that.

Hey! Great news! They traced one of Obamas "fast and furious" guns to the Paris night club massacre!
Good job , Barry!; 6/30/16, 6:38 AM
Jaq said...: Studies based on Earth’s historical energy budget have typically estimated lower values of TCR than climate models, suggesting that some models could overestimate future warming2. However, energy-budget estimates rely on historical temperature records that are geographically incomplete and blend air temperatures over land and sea ice with water temperatures over open oceans. We show that there is no evidence that climate models overestimate TCR when their output is processed in the same way as the HadCRUT4 observation-based temperature record. Models suggest that air-temperature warming is 24% greater than observed by HadCRUT4 over 1861–2009 because slower-warming regions are preferentially sampled and water warms less than air5. Correcting for these biases and accounting for wider uncertainties in radiative forcing based on recent evidence, we infer an observation-based best estimate for TCR of 1.66 °C, with a 5–95% range of 1.0–3.3 °C, consistent with the climate models considered in the IPCC 5th Assessment Report.

So basically, if you measure the temps from just a few locations, your results will be wrong, so you need to have a large sample set of data to get it right.... Once you do that, then you can see it's really bad. OK, sounds reasonable. Except... bad compared to what? The Hockey Stick, which sets the context for all of our current temperatures and defines our current warming as exceptional, uses a very small number of trees in the northern forest to measure temperature globally. Why don't we use those magic spots that Michael Mann discovered so we could easily and accurately measure global temps with a tiny data set?; 6/30/16, 7:01 AM
MadisonMan said...: @America's Politico: Because the lakes up north are so much prettier -- they're surrounded by pines.; 6/30/16, 7:31 AM
Original Mike said...: We swam in it all the time when we were kids (1960s).; 6/30/16, 7:39 AM
Original Mike said...: Come to think of it, I swam in L. Monona more often than L. Mendota. It was closer.; 6/30/16, 7:43 AM
Hagar said...: Loretta Lynch:

"What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No, not just for some but for everyone."; 6/30/16, 8:03 AM