4 ms·

Why the US and much of Europe are shivering in the cold

18 points by kmod 17y ago

SamAtt 17y ago
Where I live (Los Angeles County) it's been in the upper 70s to lower 80s for the entire month of January. It's 74 degrees right now!
j_baker 17y ago
I live in Dallas where it's been below freezing most of the winter. Which is odd for Texas! I suppose this explains all the "temperatures are going down in the US, not up" pieces of "research".
fretlessjazz 17y ago
I wonder if Fox News got this memo.
- coffeemug 17y ago
  I have no opinion on global warming itself - I don't know enough about meteorology to form an opinion (and don't know enough to know whether an opinion can even be formed with any reasonable degree of confidence). However, every time I see far more explanations post factum than predictions, it raises a red flag in my mind. Anyone can make up explanations after the fact, and a good expert will make them sound so convincing they'll even fool themselves (a great expert will know better). Consider: if the chill didn't happen, they'd say we're witnessing global warming in action; now that it did happen, they're saying it's a perfectly natural consequence of global warming. Real science would be predicting the chill before it happened and explaining how it relates to global warming. We have yet to see this type of analysis. If climatologists can't predict weather for a laughably short period of one month, what gives you confidence they can predict it long term? After all, predictive power is one of the key pillars of science. Without it all we have is old wives' tales. EDIT: Sorry, I realize that "real science" is too strong a phrase, I actually edited it out in other places but missed this one. My main point, however, still stands.
  - fretlessjazz 17y ago
    If you don't know enough about meteorology to comment on the legitimacy of weather patterns, then why are you dismissing Norther Annular Mode analysis as not "real science"?
  - fretlessjazz 17y ago
    "Real science would be predicting the chill before it happened and explaining how it relates to global warming." I have a degree in Geology and tend to think that, even though I cannot predict an earthquake, I did learn a real science:)
    - coffeemug 17y ago
      Yes, but given the initial parameters of the earth quake you know nothing about you can predict various other parameters of the quake with pretty good accuracy. The same isn't true for meteorology: giving some initial state isn't sufficient to predict anything beyond a very short-term time period. EDIT: err, this argument is rather weak. I shouldn't have used the phrase "real science", that was a dumb mistake on my part.
  - trevelyan 17y ago
    Predictions of global warming go back to at least the early 1990s and clearly precede findings like this: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071213101419.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071213101419.ht...
    - coffeemug 17y ago
      Yes, but I haven't seen specific predictions of local chills, only post factum explanations. Consider an excerpt from the article you posted: "2007 started with record breaking temperature anomalies throughout the world. In parts of Europe, winter and spring ranked amongst the warmest ever recorded, with anomalies of more than 4°C above the long-term monthly averages for January and April." They're using a short term local warming as evidence for global warming here, however the original article clearly states you can't do that (and explains the chill away in this manner).

18 points by kmod 17y ago

Where I live (Los Angeles County) it's been in the upper 70s to lower 80s for the entire month of January. It's 74 degrees right now!

j_baker 17y ago

I live in Dallas where it's been below freezing most of the winter. Which is odd for Texas! I suppose this explains all the "temperatures are going down in the US, not up" pieces of "research".

fretlessjazz 17y ago

I wonder if Fox News got this memo.

coffeemug 17y ago
I have no opinion on global warming itself - I don't know enough about meteorology to form an opinion (and don't know enough to know whether an opinion can even be formed with any reasonable degree of confidence). However, every time I see far more explanations post factum than predictions, it raises a red flag in my mind. Anyone can make up explanations after the fact, and a good expert will make them sound so convincing they'll even fool themselves (a great expert will know better). Consider: if the chill didn't happen, they'd say we're witnessing global warming in action; now that it did happen, they're saying it's a perfectly natural consequence of global warming. Real science would be predicting the chill before it happened and explaining how it relates to global warming. We have yet to see this type of analysis. If climatologists can't predict weather for a laughably short period of one month, what gives you confidence they can predict it long term? After all, predictive power is one of the key pillars of science. Without it all we have is old wives' tales. EDIT: Sorry, I realize that "real science" is too strong a phrase, I actually edited it out in other places but missed this one. My main point, however, still stands.
- fretlessjazz 17y ago
  If you don't know enough about meteorology to comment on the legitimacy of weather patterns, then why are you dismissing Norther Annular Mode analysis as not "real science"?
- fretlessjazz 17y ago
  "Real science would be predicting the chill before it happened and explaining how it relates to global warming." I have a degree in Geology and tend to think that, even though I cannot predict an earthquake, I did learn a real science:)
  - coffeemug 17y ago
    Yes, but given the initial parameters of the earth quake you know nothing about you can predict various other parameters of the quake with pretty good accuracy. The same isn't true for meteorology: giving some initial state isn't sufficient to predict anything beyond a very short-term time period. EDIT: err, this argument is rather weak. I shouldn't have used the phrase "real science", that was a dumb mistake on my part.
- trevelyan 17y ago
  Predictions of global warming go back to at least the early 1990s and clearly precede findings like this: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071213101419.htm http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071213101419.ht...
  - coffeemug 17y ago
    Yes, but I haven't seen specific predictions of local chills, only post factum explanations. Consider an excerpt from the article you posted: "2007 started with record breaking temperature anomalies throughout the world. In parts of Europe, winter and spring ranked amongst the warmest ever recorded, with anomalies of more than 4°C above the long-term monthly averages for January and April." They're using a short term local warming as evidence for global warming here, however the original article clearly states you can't do that (and explains the chill away in this manner).