I had a burst of tasks at the end of the workday, so I didn't get a chance to read all of these:
- Associate Justice Sam Alito (R) drafted such loony-right-wing opinions in two major cases this term that he lost crucial support from other Republican justices, reversing the Court's initial vote.
- Russia released journalist Evan Gershkovich and other hostages in exchange for a convicted KGB hit-man.
- Tom Nichols argues that, however good it is to get our hostages back from Russia, they were still hostages.
- Banker Rebecca Patterson argues that the XPOTUS's treasury policy proposals threaten the world's banking system.
- The Internet Engineering Task Force published a new standard (RFC-9557) for date and time formats back in April.
Not to mention, this week we've had some of the stickiest weather I can remember, with dewpoints above 20°C for the past several days. And this sort of thing will only get worse:
Climate change is accumulating humidity in the region — between 1895 and 2019, average precipitation in Illinois increased by 15%. A moist atmosphere ramps up heat indexes, meaning the weather feels worse to the human body than it would during drier conditions.
In Chicago, overall summer average temperatures have warmed by 1.5 degrees between 1970 and 2022, but that’s not the whole story: Average lows on summer nights have increased by 2.2 degrees in that same time.
Warmer nights occur when the atmosphere is waterlogged. Clouds form and reflect incoming heat from the sun back into space during the day, but after the sun sets, clouds absorb heat from the surface and emit it back toward the ground.
Just like greenhouse gases trap heat, moisture holds onto heat in the atmosphere for longer and into the night. Rising temperatures, in turn, lead to rising humidity: For every 1°C increase in temperature, the atmosphere can hold 7% more water. It’s a never-ending loop.
Yeah, even walking Cassie from day care (less than 1.6 km) sucks in this weather. At least I got home before the thunderstorms hit.