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"Chicken Little" - An AccuWeather Tale... - 11/27/2006 10:24:38 AM

Mercnbeth

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quote:

One in Six Americans Could be Directly Impacted by 2006 Hurricane Season
AccuWeather.com Hurricane Center Forecasts Potential Ripple Effect for All Americans

"There are few areas of the U.S. East Coast and Gulf of Mexico that will not be in the bull's eye at some point this season," said Ken Reeves, AccuWeather's Director of Forecast Operations. Ironically, though, the region that was hammered the hardest last year-the central and eastern Gulf Coast-has one of the lower probabilities of receiving another major hurricane strike in 2006." Source: http://wwwa.accuweather.com/promo-ad.asp?dir=aw&page=hurr2006

"One in six" were "impacted"; due to the mild 2006 season one of the six AccuWeather experts was laid off. I hear he is now studying the weather patterns of England during the Roman Empire when vineyards flourished in the UK and Greenland was named based upon its predominate trait.

Is there any better illustration of vanity than 'man'; who claims the unilateral power to change global climate? However, without a social or political objective having measurable quantitative goals, it is best to create a polarizing issue with qualitative "feel good"sentiment. Can there be a better one then the weather to advance a political agenda which by its very nature isn't absolute or predictable?

Of course with the first hurricane of 2007 and/or the first blizzard of this winter we'll hear the inventor of the INTERNET once again claim to tell the future based upon a instantaneous snapshot of the present. But until then, we can be amused by the doomsday predictions for the season just concluded. It's more current then reviewing the 1970's Time Magazine issue concerning the imminent Ice Age.

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RE: "Chicken Little" - An AccuWeather Tale... - 11/27/2006 11:14:51 AM

philosophy

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.......surely Merc you aren't trying to suggest that there is no man-made impact on the climate? The only scientists left arguing this have been exposed as being funded by oil companies.
Climate change is a natural phenomena, the mechanisms that produce this change are documented....but equally well documented are the ways in which humanity has accelerated these changes.

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RE: "Chicken Little" - An AccuWeather Tale... - 11/27/2006 11:17:41 AM

philosophy

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this link may illustrate things a bit for you.....
http://maps.grida.no/go/graphic/modeled_temperature_compared_to_observed_temperature_for_the_last_150_years

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RE: "Chicken Little" - An AccuWeather Tale... - 11/27/2006 11:22:35 AM

meatcleaver

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When I see the discrepancy explained between the global temperature rise and what it should be if human activity wasn't changing it, I might come round to thinking there is a hula-buloo about nothing but no one has explained the discrepency and every respected scientist seems to be confirming what the math predicts.

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RE: "Chicken Little" - An AccuWeather Tale... - 11/27/2006 11:55:22 AM

Mercnbeth

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philosophy,
My point is150 years of history is relatively no history. A thousand or two thousand years is not much better. Go back 5,000 years and there is evidence that the location of the Sphinx was in the middle of a rain forest. All these time periods are nanoseconds in context of world history or better yet, solar system history.

I don't find my answers, or base my position, upon prejudicial treatise from either side of the debate. Rather, reading about the Norse pre-European "discovery" of North America, I learned that the reason for their expansion was a rapid and dramatic rise in temperature causing a population growth, and milder living conditions. When I read Caesar's diaries of the conquest of northern England I wondered about his compliments regarding English wine. When I looked into the 'birth' of western culture formed during the Renaissance I noted that one of the causes was fewer people were dying due to milder weather causing a longer growing cycle. It's difficult to assign blame for the warming to oil companies or even the Republicans.

With the benefit of computer models we are now subject to "experts" providing predictions with absolute certainty. Who programmed to model? Using the terms "respectable" or "funded by oil companies" to describe the contrary position doesn't validate it for me anymore than the litany of contrary positions I can link to will validate it for you. Would it serve any purpose to point to the fact that many of these same, un-oil company affiliated, and respectable scientists were the same one predicting that 1970's ice age? Bottom line, both positions can only be proved in the negative.

The purpose of the OP was to point to the inaccuracy, at least for this past year, for the professed absolute certainty. I'm open to the possibility of being wrong. I've yet to see anyone from the global warming side allow for such a event. Sooner or later if Accuweather says the big storm will come next year - it will. Was there global warming in 1938 when the last big one, referenced in the article, hit the east coast? Similar to the earthquake "big one" coming to my neighborhood, when it happens there will be many able to say; "I told you so!" However I'm not going to plan my day, or my life, around it happening today.

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RE: "Chicken Little" - An AccuWeather Tale... - 11/27/2006 12:04:13 PM

philosophy

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...the thing is Merc, the historical climate changes you allude to are predictable by natural causes. Sunspot activity, volcanic activity....these explain such variations nicely. Tree rings are such a mine of information, as are deep ice cores. However, the graph i linked to shows something new......a man-made phenomena materially changing climate.
As to short term weather predictions, these are notoriously tricky. However, to take a failed such prediction and use it as 'evidence' that there is not a significent man-made factor in climate change is not a good use of science.

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