Da Weatherman Sez...

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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by bearphonium »

It is, for the moment, not raining in Western Oregon. Just in time for my marching band to kick off the "Bark in the Park" fundraiser for the local animal shelter. It would be good motorcycling, or yard working weather, except that I am gig heavy this weekend (a buddy plays in the pipe band--drums--and sings in a choir that are each having a gig today, and I'm the roady) so it looks like the steed will have to wait a week...in time for the next spring weather system.
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by scottw »

After ominous warnings all week about how soaked we were going to get playing a college commencement in Delaware today, the worst thing that happened was the fierce glare off my bell during the recessional! Not a drop of rain, just a glorious day--shows what weathermen are worth. 8)
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by The Jackson »

As my aphorism-plenty college science professor told us, meteorology is the only field of science in which you can be wrong 100% of the time and still keep your job.

:mrgreen: :tuba:
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by bearphonium »

My Dad (US Weather Bureau for 35 years) said the only way to accurately forcast the weather is to live in an area for a really long time, remember what weather usually happens at a particular time of year; compare that to whatever data is being delivered (his time spanned from radiosons to satelite "doppler" radar) and then go outside and look at what it is doing. Then, guess.

By the last 6-7 years he worked in Medford, OR, he was not permitted to play in any of the informal betting pools they would have for high/low temp, amount and type of precipitation or anything else (except football, but that is another story) because he was pretty freakin' good at forcasting...and accurate about 75% of the time.

Ally"who figures Pop is why she is a Weather Channel addict"House
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by SRanney »

bloke wrote:Just in case any enviro-kooks have been following this thread, here's a bit of curious info:

http://tinyurl.com/thousands-of-July-record-lows
Long term data sets (n>100) trump individual observations. Outliers are fairly common in most studies but no statistician or enviro-kook will base their conclusions of global climate change upon sample sizes of n=1 or n=2.

Steven

[Edited for clarity.]
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by eupher61 »

SRanney wrote: Long term data sets (n>100) trump individual observations. Outliers are fairly common in most studies but no statistician or enviro-kook will base their conclusions of global climate change upon sample sizes of n=1 or n=2.

Steven

[Edited for clarity.]
um....yeah. clarity. exactly.

:cry: :?:
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by SRanney »

schlepporello wrote:Oh look!
The King is wearing his new clothes!
So, to sum up:

1) Bloke implies that one month of temperature data from the United States is enough to refute the argument of global warming;
2) I suggest that long term data sets (with which an increasing temperature trend can and has been detected) contain more information than one month's worth of data, and indicate that outliers (e.g., temperature data from July 2009) and small sample sizes do not contain enough data from which to draw any long-term conclusions;
3) You imply that I've been "duped" into believing that anthropogenic climate change is a fact when in reality, I was only pointing out that no scientist or enivro-kook (or TubeNet user, hopefully) would base their conclusions of climate change on such a small sample size.
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by Tundratubast »

It snowed today, Its' STARTING to soon, UGH!!
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by THE TUBA »

I am an avid reader of works by the late author Michael Crichton. Crichton was never shy to stir up controversy, especially in this decade. Here are a couple of his speeches relevant to this subject that I found highly interesting. I don't necessarily agree with every assertion he makes, but I do think that these (and many of his other essays and speeches) raise important questions and make interesting connections about the interactions between science, society, and mass media.

The Case For Skepticism on Global Warming
Aliens Cause Global Warming
Why Speculate?

-Mike
[/post]
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SRanney
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by SRanney »

bloke wrote:If indeed "climatologists" can "take the earth's temperature" (including averaging in the back of my deep freezer and Rosie O'Donnell's armpit)...
See Kriging.
bloke wrote:...it is completely accepted that [the average temperature of the earth] has been dropping for the past several years
Again, short term data sets have nowhere near the same amount of information that long-term data sets have. I do not refute your suggestion that the mean temperature of the earth has been dropping for the past few years, but taken within the context of available long-term data sets, regression techniques indicate that the mean temperature of the earth's surface is increasing. Based upon the best available science, independent international research institutions (not all of whom are gubmint funded) have modeled the temperature of the earth for several decades into the future. Each of at least a dozen models--developed independently--predict that the mean temperature of the surface of the earth will increase by an average of 3.4 C. Granted, as in modeling most large-scale systems, the level of uncertainty will be large, but what's interesting is that none of the models predicted a long-term decrease in the temperature of the earth.

Is global warming real? Is it a construct of gubmints to tax corporate citizens? If you don't buy it, you don't buy. I doubt that there's anything that will convince you otherwise, Bloke. What you should recognize though is that within the context of long-term data sets, the date of ice-out in many northern lakes has been moving up in the calendar; migratory birds are moving south later in the summer/fall and returning north earlier and earlier; many species' native ranges are growing (or shifting) toward the poles. The upshot is that the timing and spatial distribution of many natural things has changed.

The majority of the scientific arguments suggest that these changes are the result of global climate change. No doubt the uncertainty of many of these climate change models give rise to skepticism, and it seems like most of the arguments against climate change (including the Michael Crichton lectures) focus on the uncertainty within the models, which are reasonable arguments. If you're not swayed by the available data, that's fine. Vote against those who wish to tax your carbon usage. But ultimately, what if global warming is real? What's it going to hurt to try and reduce anthropogenic sources of CO2 emissions? In the last hundred years or so, the fraction of CO2 in our atmosphere (which has always been a very small concentration, 0.03% or so) has increased by 50%. Knowing that CO2 absorbs infrared energy, isn't it reasonable to assume that increases in this gas may in turn increase the temperature of the planet? We're already confident that the pH of the oceans has been decreasing as a result of increases in atmospheric CO2, so why is it unreasonable to assume that CO2 is having an affect on temperature?
bloke wrote:bloke "who doesn't fall for the stupid-(_!_) pictures of polar bears floating out in the water on small sheets of ice, either"
If you did, I'd point and laugh at you for being gullible.
bloke wrote:The Scientific Method involves a "proof"...not a "consensus".
I and every one of my academic advisors and most scientists I know would disagree. I would argue that the scientific method requires a preponderance of evidence rather than proof. In practice, scientists rarely try to "prove" a hypothesis but only to find support for them. Some hypotheses are refuted as a result of other scientists finding more support for other ideas. Who is to say that scientists won't find a better explanation for the changes that are occurring on the earth's surface?

Steven "who thinks that the pork ribs and brisket he'll be smoking tomorrow on his propane-fired smoker in unseasonably cold 10 F weather will taste just as good as anything that Bloke can smoke up" Ranney
Last edited by SRanney on Sat Oct 10, 2009 5:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by Todd S. Malicoate »

SRanney wrote:Steven "who thinks that the pork ribs and brisket he'll be smoking tomorrow on his propane-fired smoker in unseasonably cold 10 F weather will taste just as good as anything that Bloke can smoke up" Ranney
Now them's some fightin' words!!!
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by SRanney »

bloke wrote:a textbook example of crap coming out of crap's crap-hole:
Why is it crap, Bloke? What is it about the dumbed-down, New York Times version of a paper from a top-tier, peer-reviewed scientific journal that makes it crap? Is it solely because you disagree with the conclusions reached by the authors of the original paper? Have you read the original paper?
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by Todd S. Malicoate »

[quote="the "Doctor" in the article from the University of Arizona"]With humans’ clear and growing ability to alter the climate, Dr. Overpeck said[/quote]
There's your crap. There's nothing clear about the human race's ability to alter the climate. At all.

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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by SRanney »

SRanney wrote:Is it solely because you disagree with the conclusions reached by the authors of the original paper?
the 'Doctor' in the article from the University of Arizona wrote:With humans’ clear and growing ability to alter the climate, Dr. Overpeck said...
Todd S. Malicoate wrote: There's your crap. There's nothing clear about the human race's ability to alter the climate. At all.
So your disagreement with the Dr.'s opinion makes the article, the accompanying peer-reviewed paper, and the entire argument of anthropogenic climate change worthless. In other words, in your opinion, the article is crap.

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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by Todd S. Malicoate »

SRanney wrote:So your disagreement with the Dr.'s opinion makes the article, the accompanying peer-reviewed paper, and the entire argument of anthropogenic climate change worthless. In other words, in your opinion, the article is crap.
You are drawing a conclusion where one was never offered. I never said the article was crap; in fact, I only pointed out one small piece of it that is...

[rant]and, in addition, I am growing very tired of people on message boards using the "in your opinion" card. When I say something is crap (or any other emphatic statement, for that matter), I would expect the reader to understand it's my opinion and not some irrefutable fact. I'm not going to write "in my opinion" or the even more ridiculous "IMHO" after every statement I make. I didn't notice the use of "in my opinion" when quotes of emphatic (doom-and-gloom) statements from "scientists" were used in the article, either.[/rant]

That said, yeah...the entire argument of anthropogenic climate change and Dr. Underdick's recommendation that we "act fast" to prevent disaster are, in my opinion, crap.
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by SRanney »

Fair 'nough.

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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by Nick Pierce »

SRanney wrote:What you should recognize though is that within the context of long-term data sets, the date of ice-out in many northern lakes has been moving up in the calendar; migratory birds are moving south later in the summer/fall and returning north earlier and earlier; many species' native ranges are growing (or shifting) toward the poles. The upshot is that the timing and spatial distribution of many natural things has changed.
Meanwhile, studies conducted from my apartment indicate that in this area at least, winter snowstorms and cold weather in general are arriving much earlier then they did last year, as well as several years previous, if memory serves.

Just saying (while fully realizing that one outlier in such a short time span proves little. I just find it humorous)
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by SRanney »

Paul Hudson from the BBC wrote:One thing is for sure. It seems the debate about what is causing global warming is far from over. Indeed some would say it is hotting up.
Also, the users of TubeNet are not likely to convince each other that climate change is induced anthropogenically or via natural means.
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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by SRanney »

bloke wrote:Mankind has always had a huge ego. Individually and collectively men have always believed that their current and lasting influence is much more than in reality.
To some extent, I agree with you Bloke. Is it not possible though that the impacts that man is having on our environment won't affect the planet? Trees will regrow of course, but I believe that continuing on as we are now will only make things worse.

You and I seem to disagree on this. I've no problems with that at all, and I'm not trying to convince you otherwise.
bloke wrote:I always love scientific "debates" where the one who questions the hypothesis (oops! sorry... "consensus" :roll: ) has his mic cut off:
I don't think Al Gore is in it for the science. You and I can agree on that.

Science is a strange animal indeed. When somebody questions the establishment, bad things can happen to that person. This isn't new:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galileo_affair

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Re: Da Weatherman Sez...

Post by SRanney »

Natural vs. unnatural. Without going into detail, atmospheric, terrestrial, oceanic, and geologic carbon "pools" were--historically speaking--always in balance with each other. If one emitted a higher than normal amount of carbon, the others could absorb that carbon with little impact. Increases in the amount of carbon fluxing into the atmosphere from the terrestrial pool are higher than can be absorbed by the others. The result? A net yearly increase in the amount of Carbon in the atmosphere. Of this there is no question; it is fact. Our disagreement lies with the results of that increase in carbon.

It boils down to this:

More and more carbon is being released into the atmosphere on a yearly basis. Many people (including myself) believe that increases in atmospheric carbon are having an affect on this planet's climate. You believe otherwise. As I said earlier, neither of us will convince the other of their beliefs.

If you feel the need to have the last post on this subject, you can have it. I've already spent more time than I should have arguing about global warming on an online discussion board.
bloke wrote:' last time I looked, humans and human activities are classified as "natural".
I would say this is arguing semantics.

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