Da Weatherman Sez...

[tbn.al]

THERE IS "STUFF THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE" OUT THERE, AND I CANNOT DO IN IN SWAMP CONDITIONS.

Are you trying to tell us that you cannot just WALK the fresh supply of paper to the outhouse? (And are you still using the Monkey Wards catalog or have you moved up to real TP now? Just curious… )

The thing I remember about the Monkey Ward catalog was that you couln't make a fast trip. It took about 30 minutes to wad and rewad enough of that slick paper to get it to do a tolerable job. I don't miss the splinters either.

[gwwilk]

5/15/09 RANT:

I AM TIRED OF IT RAINING NEARLY EVERY OTHER DAY FOR THE LAST FIVE MONTHS.

I AM TIRED OF NOT BEING ABOUT TO TAKE MY TRUCK, TRAILER, OR EVEN MY MOWER OR A 4-WHEELER OUT ON MY PROPERTY. THERE IS "STUFF THAT NEEDS TO BE DONE" OUT THERE, AND I CANNOT DO IN IN SWAMP CONDITIONS.

I WOULD LIKE TO PLANT MY GARDEN, BUT MY FEET WOULD SINK IN THE MUD UP TO MY KNEES.

...AT LEAST THE POND STAYS FULL...


animated gif only specifically meaningful on the date of this posting

This is a live gif, Bloke. At least as of my initial viewing this AM, it's current!

[Dan Schultz]

The weather map appears clear this morning but it's actually raining here in Southwestern Indiana now... just in time for my Dixie group of kick off the annual Newburgh Wine & Jazz Festival at 11am. Rain or shine... the show must go on!

EDIT...
The show DID go on but it started raining 30 minutes after we left the stage!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[SRanney]

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.]

[eupher61]

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.

[SRanney]

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.

[Tundratubast]

It snowed today, Its' STARTING to soon, UGH!!

[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

[SRanney]

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.

...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 "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.

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

[Todd S. Malicoate]

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!!!

[SRanney]

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?

[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.

Todd "nice and cool in my R12-refrigerated vehicle in the summer" S. Malicoate

[SRanney]

Is it solely because you disagree with the conclusions reached by the authors of the original paper?

With humans’ clear and growing ability to alter the climate, Dr. Overpeck said...

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.

Steven "who believes that opinions are like a$$holes: everybody has one and they all stink, including himself" Ranney

[Todd S. Malicoate]

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.

[SRanney]

Fair 'nough.

Take care.

[Nick Pierce]

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)