But to me, as someone who lives less than an hour from the “Black Country”, I happen to know there is (or was) some dispute as to how it got it’s name. A number of local historians believe it was due to exposed coal seams which gave the area a ‘black’ appearance. Whatever the reason, the name seems to originate some time before the mid 19th century when it became an industrial powerhouse.

As a descendant of several generations of blacksmiths might I point out that wrought iron and sponge iron were black and that is why folks who worked iron were called blacksmiths and that maybe this is why an area dedicated to black metal making and blacksmithing might be called Black Country?

So me, it’s blindingly clearly obvious that the place up to it’s eyeballs in blacksmiths and smithies would be called Black Country. But then again, I’m biased…

The Climate In May: Cold!
Tuesday, 2 June 2009, 2:23 pm
Press Release: NIWA

NATIONAL CLIMATE CENTRE Tuesday 2 June 2009

National Climate Summary – May 2009: Early start to winter. Lowest May temperatures ever in many locations and double normal rainfall for most of South Island

• Temperature: Well below ave/rage over most of the country; many areas experiencing lowest recorded May temperatures.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0906/S00003.htm

I put the same chart in my economics blog this morning in an entry entitled “Martin Feldstein says Cap and Trade is all cost, no benefits.”

Howard Richman
http://www.tradeandtaxes.blogspot.com

http://www.blackcountryobservatory.co.uk/partners.asp

Notes

1. The CET region is broadly defined by a triangle with points Pt 1(Manchester), Pt 3 (London) and a point (not marked) near the Bristol Channel. The Bristol Channel in the narrow inlet which separates Cornwall/Devon (in the South) from Wales (to the north).
2. The Black country is represented by the orange speck and includes the towns/cities of Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall and, the one I forgot earlier, Sandwell.

John Finn please address a jones re: the uselessness of CET, on which your entire case rests.

Firstly, my case doesn’t entirely rest on the CET record. Armagh shows similar fluctuations to the CET record over the past ~200 years as does Uppsala. There is a paper by Butler & Johnsons in which the records are compared. This alone invalidates A.Jones’ criticism of the record.

However, the idea that the CET record is in some way contaminated by the industrial activity in the Black Country in the late ~1700s is fanciful to say the least. The CET might be a relatively small region, but the Black Country (reputed the birthplace of the industrial revolution) is a tiny pinprick by comparison. What’s more I can find no evidence that any recordings were done within 20 miles of the Black Country region (Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley).

Despite the increase in industrialisation in the late 18th century, the CET region was still largely rural (much of it still is). This included huge areas of Warwickshire and Worcestershire which are relatively close to the “Black Country”, as well as Oxfordshire, Herefordshire and down through the Cotswolds into Gloucesterhire and Somerset.

AJ was right about one thing 10 million tons of coal a year is puny, and it could not possibly have any sort of effect over an area the size of the CET. A few other points:

(i) The origins of it’s name are not clear. (ii) Industry in the Black Country was concentrated in the mid to late 19th century, i.e. well after the Dalton Minimum. (iii) Industrial activity did not “turn the country black” – just the immediate area. As I read AJ’s post I realise there’s no point in continuing there are so many issues with with it. AJ has completely failed to appreciate the comparative area sizes of the “Black Country” and the Central England region.

I would be interested to know if AJ lives in the UK. If so – perhaps he could explain how a small part of the (now) West Midlands region could possibly represent an area which is, roughly speaking, bounded by London in the south, Manchester in the North and Bristol in the South West.

I don’t need to I just need to show there were crop failures during other periods. The Irish potato famine in the 1840s, for example, which caused mass starvation and forced large scale migration. You’re surely not suggesting that food shortages only happenened during the 30 year period of the Dalton Minimum??

Ric – if the local guys believed the earlier forecast, they would know that this was going to be a warm winter. But they didn’t and we all have heaps of wood (just as well – the snow came as advertised). Now we have a new forecast and I think we know who is following the lead of whom.

Reap the whirlwind.

Our outstanding debt owned by investors stood, at the end of 2008, at $6.4 trillion. This year, one of deep recession, we will add $3.25 trillion, four times last years total and a good deal less than next year’s lump.

China began the year owning $2 trillion but now owns $800 billion, replacing its 30 year notes with 2 year notes, i.e., they expect inflation. Our Federal Reserve had planned to buy only $300 billion, having purchased $700 billion in troubled mortgage-backed securities.

The rising interest rates required will raise mortgage rates and soak up all the capital available frustrating business expansion. Oil is headed up another 15% or so, together killing any hope of recovery near term. Foreclosures and bankruptcies will follow unemployment further skyward.

Tax revenues have crashed, 40% off 2008. A Federal sales tax is now entertained.

The AMO has followed the PDO negative in near synchrony last seen in the late 1920′s which ushered in cornbelt drought. Just in time for the bailout of ethanol producers!

Now add national healthcare and hefty energy taxes to curb consumption.

We are in the very best of hands.

Purakanui:
Mike Pickett:

I have just this minute looked out of my window in Wellington, New Zealand, and it is snowing.

This is only the second time I have seen snow in Wellington (the last was about 15 years ago), and it does not settle. But seeing that it is not yet officially winter here, I would consider this to be a moderately significant event.

Better get a few more chords of wood cut, you guys …”

I lived in Wellington for 9 years, never saw snow as it was, and is, usually too windy and too near the coast. Saw frost in still areas up the Hutt valley, Wairarapa and snow on summit of the Rimutaka Hill road (At the top there was a wind genny supplying some power for the cafe there, had to be pulled down because…wait for it…it was TOO windy, which is fairly normal for that region).

Coldest winter in the UK in 30 years, heavy snow and record lows in Canada and the US, snow in China, Saudi Arabia and first snow in 100 years in Iran. And now, Australia and New Zealand bypassing autumn, not collecting $200, and going straight to winter (It’s winter, officially, June 1st) before winter starts. Hummm…..

(Robt waits for the melody and harmony of music from those falling chords of wood down south ….)

…

Just Want Truth:
“But the basic idea is there—there is evidence that shows it was warmer on earth during the Medieval Warming Period than now.”

If you look at even the most rapid AGW sites who are still trying to prop up the hockey graph, you will see that their “temperature graph” – particularly when it included many different sources – ALL come together (the error bars are shortened) during the MWP. They (typically) spread out the temperatures GREATLY across the period of the little ice age – then “average” their final temperature plot as “flat” by using only the highest of all extrapolated temperature proxies during the LIA.

But the extremist’s MWP is ALWAYS almost at, near, or only slightly above today’s temperatures with very, very little error margins and no differences between all the different proxies. Somehow, nobody – not even the most prejudiced observers – can find ANY evidence that the MWP did NOT occur by “finding” low temperatures ANYTIME during the period.