Detroit

Oh, grow up. "California ticky-tack" has nothing on the horrible pics that he proudly posted. Those green chairs! That Holiday Inn art!

Well, as the National Lampoon used to say, "Good taste isn't everything."

JT starts sniping and then gets flustered when he gets out-sniped in return. And then both of you whine that I'm being bad and mean. Oh, grow up.

That's saying a lot about you, like you think the natural world exists for your entertainment.

Uh-huh, well you should be using air purifiers because it's not the best there.

That terrain is looking unnaturally bare of vegetation. Are they cutting trees and herbicide poisoning the area just to make way for ski trails, destroying all kinds of wildlife habitat in the process??? It's disgusting.

If you want some "beautiful", or at least well-maintained early American-style architecture...

...Jim Thompson

The wind is usually straight off the Pacific Ocean. The nearest major pollution source is Japan. We get a few days in late summer when the wind turns around, Santa Anna Winds equivalent, and then we get hot, dry, hazy air, maybe a little smoke from fires inland.

The rest of the Bay Area, downwind from us, isn't as cool or as clean. In the summertime, going north or east or south, the temperature gradient is about 1 degree F per mile.

We live on the rim of the Alamany Gap, a break in the Coast Range between the ocean and the bay. It's a sort of wind/fog tunnel. We get really cool fog rivers; we had a great one this morning.

That roofing is called terne:

West Virginia was one of the last places to keep manufacturing it until it was completely outlawed not too long ago. There's no comparison to the mode rn steel roofing, much greater variety of gauges for the various snow loads , painted or primed at the factory with some space age stuff that *never* n eeds repainting and *never fades*, virtually any color you want, maybe an o ccasional washing is required, much easier to work, and you can upload the roof dimensions to the factory from which they can pre-cut every living pie ce to laser accurate dimensions for seamless waste free install. Late 19th and early 20th century are not "early American' BTW.

You continue to ignore the complaint of destruction of wildlife habitat for purely recreational purposes. We can see the recently cut tree trunk to th e left in the ski country picture. Want to know why a lot of your forest is half dead wildfire tinder? Because you people have annihilated the bird po pulations that traditionally keep these insect infestations in check, bird populations that have been living in the area for millions of years, only t o be kicked out so someone can have a better view of the place.

You have to cut down some trees to make a ski run. Ski areas entertain a huge number of people per acre. And trees die after some years, and it's best to cut down the dead ones before they fall over and kill people.

No, it's mostly because people keep putting out fires. Before 1800, about 10% of the surface of California burned every year, small fires that cleaned things up. Now we put them out as soon as they start, and the fuel load accumulates. Those small fires probably cleaned up a lot of the tree-damaging insects, too.

The news in San Francisco in the last couple of years is coyotes. They are everywhere. I see them when I hike in Glen Canyon two blocks away. They are even showing up around Telegraph Hill, practically downtown.

But annihlated the bird population? Our neighborhood is swarming with jays, hawks, hummers, owls, ravens, gulls, warblers, sparrows, flocks of wild parrots, all sorts of flapping stuff. It can be deafening. I just a few minutes ago got into the middle of a territorial squabble between two hummingbirds.

for purely recreational purposes. We can see the recently cut tree trunk to the left in the ski country picture.

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use you people have annihilated the bird populations that traditionally kee p these insect infestations in check, bird populations that have been livin g in the area for millions of years, only to be kicked out so someone can h ave a better view of the place.

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from what I've read they do controlled burns because it turned out that some of types of trees were nearing extinction because they depend on the fires to spread their seeds and have room to grow

-Lasse

You can't go by your impression, almost every species is in major decline with population levels standing at 30% of what they were only 40 years ago:

That's nice in principle but a total disaster in a drought stricken area, which is everywhere and all the time now.

Several years ago, we went up to Telegraph hill. The fog was coming in from the Pacific over the Golden Gate. It looked like a waterfall over the bridge. The front wasn't moving at all, so it kept "pouring" over the bridge. Really amazing.

SF is a great place to visit, anyway.

In short, they fired Smoky the Bear for a good reason.

There is historical rainfall data for various regions of California, with data going back to the mid 1800s. There are periodicities and lots of annual variation, but no clear long-term trend.

This is typical:

"Climate change" may well be a combination of measurement error and too-close-up observation of noisy data. Long-term rainfall measurements are probably more reliable than temperature measurements.

With today's fuel load, and houses everywhere, letting things burn is tricky. A controlled burn can easily get out of control.

Yeah, there are places, like Noe Valley, where the fog pours down like a huge squirming waterfall. Backlit in the afternoon, it's really cool.

I grew up in New Orleans, basically flat mud. Until I went to a science fair in Baltimore, the highest I'd been was Monkey Hill, 12 feet above sea level. So hills and mountains fascinate me. The Brat, who grew up here, isn't impressed by

If you do visit, come by for lunch. I can point you at some really cool places that tourists don't usually find.

You are the final world authority on architectural beauty?

I doubt I'll be there anytime soon. At one time I was in SF or Silly valley every three months for a conference but I think the last time was ~97. With this job, I get to travel to Detroit. :-( Not a lot of time to go anywhere, anyway. It's just work.

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, which is everywhere and all the time now.

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OMG- I had no idea it is so dry there, how the heck does that happen with a ll that fog and overcast skies and storms rolling in off the ocean. We aver age 3x that amount on the mid-Atlantic, may even get 60" this year, and it' s sunny 90% of the time.

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There are such things as surrogate measures in the sciences, where you make measurements on objects more easily observed and which may be of more inte rest in determining the effect of a noisy causation, things like massive fo rest kills and huge pieces of ice breaking off at the poles.