Interesting that it gets stuck. With those wide tires I'd have expected it to roll over the snow pretty well. Or does the cold effect the batteries too much?

Here the snow is periodically melting and freezing which makes cycling (my main mode of transport around town) unswept roads feel like wading through glue. But at least my bike runs fine at -10 °C! (as long as I keep stoking the ol' engine, that is ). With al the snow we've had so far this winter, I'm so glad I bought a trike.

I got the golf cart stuck last week. Not quite sure what I did, but I'm pretty sure I bottomed it out by running through too deep ruts when the centers were frozen solid. We'll see tomorrow when we poke at getting it out.

Oh, I should have added --- you're right that it does quite well on snow. Actually, when the truck wheels spin, the golf cart just glides on by.

So what your golf cart needs is some more ground clearance? Maybe get a lift kit or some bigger wheels and build yourself a monster golf cart?

The clear solution!

...or I could just refrain from bottoming out. Or put it on the list to fill in the ruts.

Sounds like the little ice age is still alive and well! Have you seen the ground without snow since I left?

We saw a lot of bare ground today, but the hills are still coated. I have high hopes it'll all be gone tomorrow.

I still can't get over the fact that your first frost date is like 30-60 days earlier than mine. I never really thought of that area having such different weather until I started reading your blog, and especially after seeing below zero temps there in person.

Elevation does amazing things to climate --- I was very surprised when I went to school 9 hours north that the weather was, if anything, a bit warmer.

That said, you visited during one of the coldest and snowiest Decembers anyone remembers! I was so impressed that you survived!

The current solar cycle is running as much as 50% behind on predictions. This means less sun spots, but also less solar irradiation. We could be heading for a new Dalton minimum, or even a new Maunder minimum.

It looks like we'll be having cooler summers and colder winters for a while, at least partially offsetting the effects of global warming.

The second link you gave really helped me understand the big picture --- I recommend it for anyone who wants to really understand what Roland is talking about. I hadn't heard anything about this, but am fascinated by the idea that we might be going into a Little Ice Age. Good thing we got our fancy wood stove...

Fortunately, the holocene doesn't seem to be ending just yet.

There are however many things that affect climate, both locally and globally. If a really big volcanic eruption were to occur in the time that the sun's activity remains low, we could be heading for a repeat of the year without summer. Although I think that the world would be much better equipped now to deal with it.

However, as Niels Bohr said; "predictions are difficult, especially about the future".

People around here call the cold spell in the 1950s or so the "Little Ice Age" --- I was figuring we might go back to conditions like that from your article? Not that it would change too much on our farm, probably. Fewer tomatoes and more swiss chard, I guess.

The term "Ice Age" is overused. See "last glacial maximum" for what a real ice age means, with e.g. the US covered by the Laurentide ice sheet.

There has been an ice age (I forget which) where the sea level was about 120 m (400 feet) lower than today because of how much water was locked in ice resting on land! Considering that about 3/4 of our planet is covered in water, the amount of water involved is beyond imagining.

I've read that in some places the land level is still rising, reacting to the thaw of several miles(!) worth of ice sheet since the start of the current interglacial.

Now, now. You've got to let people play with terms like that --- it's not like "ice age" is really a scientific term, and it's so enticing, of course we want to use it for everything.