Wikipedia Zealots (The Global Warming Cult at work)

National Post ^ | 4/12/2008 | Lawrence Solomon

[discostu]

But all that just goes to show how little we really know about weather on the grand scale. Here we are in a condition that everything we know (or think we know) says they weather shouldn’t be like this. We’re supposed to be experiencing global warming, yet it’s cold and wet. We’re supposed to be experiencing La Nina yet the places La Nina warms and dries are cold and wet. So the weather right now is going against all the predictions, yet here you sit insisting that the predictions are right even though people can walk out the door right now and see for themselves that the predictions are wrong.

And no actually that headline doesn’t appeal to me. I hate cold weather, that’s why I live in the desert, I want WARM. That title reads to me as “Suckiest Lamest Winter Since 2001”, nothing appealing about it.

[Justa]

Oh, please, it's not global temperatures cooling off it's La Nina? Right, cold waters in the Pacific ocean caused the coldest winter in 100 years in China? Their weather comes from Asia, not the pacific. That's like saying an Atlantic hurricane causes snow storms in Colorado. Bullocks!

Yeah and it'll continue to be "La Nina" as the cold trend continues in coming years rather than a refutation of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Only problem is the Ninos are a Pacific phenomena, affecting climate in Australia and the Americas, not Asia. They'll have to come up with a new one, perhaps El Freo? And they're all caused by AGW too!

[cogitator]

This has a lot about La Nina global effects.

Review the Causes and Consequences of Cold Events: A La Nina Summit

Read the part about "La Nina Teleconnections". Note where this occurs:

"In general, tropical surface temperatures tend to be below normal, with robust signals even as far away from the tropical Pacific as Africa. The most pronounced extratropical temperature signals during La Niña are seen over North America, where there is a pronounced tendency for colder than normal conditions over Alaska, western Canada, and the central Plains of midwestern Canada and the northern United States, and warmer than normal tendencies over the southeastern United States."

So "interiors" is too ambiguous in your statement.

Funny that you’re little quote there says temps haven’t risen since 98 when El Nino warmed things up and yet we’ve supposedly had 3 El Ninos since then.

The period 2002-2004 is classified as a single event, an El Nino condition in the Pacific.

Multivariate ENSO Index (MEI)

Discussion: "How does the 2002-04 El Niño event compare against the seven previous biggest El Niño events since 1949? Aside from 2002-04, only strong events (with a peak value of at least +1.4 sigma) are included in this figure [Refers to a different figure on the linked page than the one above]. The 2002-03 El Niño event peaked below that threshold, with just over +1.2 sigma in early 2003. Overall, I would rank it just barely in the top 10 El Niño events of the last half century. In its evolution, it bears some resemblance to the 1965-67 event (highest temporal correlation), but shared with 1991-93 its reluctance to drop below the zero line once it had run its course. The most recent El Niño event of 2006-07 reached a similar peak as the 2002-03 event, but lacked 'staying power', and collapsed rather early in 2007."

So basically, the El Ninos so far this century have been weak (which is pretty obvious on the plot), but this current La Nina has peaked in the moderate-to-strong range. The 1999-2000 La Nina was considered strong, but this one has peaked stronger than that.

[cogitator]

As for your predictions, #1 is a useless self fulfilling prophecy, you’re basically saying that the next time the weather conditions are like 1998 the weather conditions are going to be like 1998.

If there was a cooling trend, how could I predict that the next El Nino year would set a new high temperature record?

Now your #2 is at least a real prediction, but like every other global warming prediction it is doomed to complete and total failure. GW people are 0fer, always have been and always will be.

I fully expect that this prediction will be right. I actually wish there was a decent chance I could be wrong.

[cogitator]

It's a simple phrase. "Weather is not climate. Climate is average weather."

My profile has a point about the differences between weather models and climate models.

[discostu]

There’s nothing vague about it, interior is the opposite of coastal, interior is the part between the two mountain ranges that are usually used to define the end of the coastal areas and the beginning of the interior. The concept is actually very simple: EL Ninos result in warmer dryer coastal area and cooler wetter interior areas, and La Nina runs the opposite.

Of course part of the fun of all this is everybody’s definition is a little different. On Wiki they say the Midwest is in the area that’s supposed to get wetter during Ninos and dryer during Ninas, and your quote doesn’t really mention the midwest at all. Me I go by here, here in Tucson we like El Nino summers (not a lot of over 100 temps, nice rainy monsoon) and love La Nina winters (lots of highs in the 80s, pool weather for Christmas). And yet this winter has sucked, this winter has been colder and wetter than last year’s El Nino winter, our La Nina is more El Nino than the most recent El Nino. So much for the predictions.

Once again we have the constant of inconstant definitions. According to the Wiki crowd 02-03 and 04-05 are two different El Ninos. Which is all part of the problem, even the people that agree don’t agree. Nobody really knows what weather we had recently, nobody has any useful predictions on what the weather is going to be like after this week, and yet you want us to believe you when you say things are going to be a disaster 50 years from now. Give me good and useful predictions about next year and I’ll start to believe you about 5 years from now. Give me good and useful predictions about 5 years from now and I’ll start to believe you about 20 years out. Get 20 years right and I’ll listen about 50. But as long as you keep blowing tomorrow I’d be an idiot to believe you about 50 years from now.

[discostu]

You didn’t say the next El Nino year would set a new high temperature. You said the next “normal to above normal El Nino”. You qualified your El Nino to be one like 98, so as long as we have only “weak” El Nino you’re OK.

Of course you expect your prediction to come true. But the empirical evidence on GW predictions says it’s going to be wrong. I’m just playing the odds, and GW predictions are 0-fer.

[discostu]

It’s a simple concept: if you’re predicting temperatures and the temperatures don’t do what you predicted you were wrong. And right now the temperatures aren’t matching either the long haul GW predictions or the short term La Nina predictions. And yet you want us to believe your predictions. Call it “climate”, call it “weather”, call it “bob from accounting”, it’s still predictions that are wrong.

[cogitator]

You said the next “normal to above normal El Nino”. You qualified your El Nino to be one like 98, so as long as we have only “weak” El Nino you’re OK.

Prediction: The next year with an El Nino MEI positive departure equal to or greater than 1.5 will set a new annual global temperature maximum record. (1998 was just under 3, 1983 actually exceeded 3.)

While I won't predict it, it's possible that any year of the ensuing years with a positive MEI could feature a new global annual temperature maximum record, because it almost happened in 2005. GISS put 2005 ahead of 1998, but NOAA and the Hadley Centre put it just barely second.

[discostu]

Still going for the qualifiers, still 100% doomed to be wrong. GW predictions are ALWAYS wrong. If a GW believer says the sun is going to rise in the east tomorrow take the bet because the sun reversing its spin before the next dawn is more likely than a GW believer ever getting any prediction even remotely right. It’s a false religion.

[Old Professer]

If I remember correctly it was on the Phillipines that two volcanologists became quite dead as they leaned over and peered down the throat of a “threatening” volcano.

Anyway, people living in the path of a certain killer flow of gases, ash and lava should already be moving into less dangerous territory; you must know that much of the current push to close the debate on the merits is being made to get in place those projects that the social engineers envision before the next crisis eclipses it.

[cogitator]

Still going for the qualifiers, still 100% doomed to be wrong.

It appeared that you wanted quantification of the prediction. So I gave it to you.

If you want to match unsupportable assertion for unsupportable assertion, I'm 100% certain that this prediction will be correct.

So now we just have to wait and see, don't we? So why don't why just abandon the bluster?

You might like to read what I just posted in Extended News.

[cogitator]

A few years ago Galeras (Colombia) erupted very unexpectedly and killed a few geologists examining it on a field trip.

Anyway, people living in the path of a certain killer flow of gases, ash and lava should already be moving into less dangerous territory;

One thing I would always say is that if informed scientists are consistently predicting a persistent dangerous condition with potential for catastrophe (though that potential could be unquantifiable), it makes sense to initiate measures which would reduce the human impact of the ongoing dangerous condition. Doing so would also reduce the impact of a catastrophic occurrence, if it happened, but it likely would not eliminate all deleterious consequences. That's the downside of taking risks.

[discostu]

I didn’t want anything from your prediction other than to point out that it wasn’t the prediction you later said you made. Your original prediction was for a specific level of El Nino, then you said you said it was just plain the “next” El Nino. I pointed out that that’s not what you said.

You go right ahead and be 100% certain. Just remember that the empirical evidence points to 100% failure, no GW prediction has ever come close to being correct.

There’s no bluster to abandon. GW predictors are always wrong, multiple decades now of rending garments and all you guys have to show for your efforts is a big pile of rent garments. If there’s any bluster here it’s from the GW believers who keep thinking we should pay attention to their already proven false predictions.

[Old Professer]

You are awfully good at saying doing something is better than doing nothing while the only thing we now do is to offer taxes and bogus credits; why should the debate be over?

We are just now getting something for our $5 billion research; should we ignore it and plow ahead on a path sure to strip-mine the economy?

[cogitator]

You are awfully good at saying doing something is better than doing nothing while the only thing we now do is to offer taxes and bogus credits; why should the debate be over?

I didn't mean to imply the debate should be over. I believe that given the potential for catastrophe and the "consistent reporting of a persistent dangerous condition" (I have to remember writing that), that the focus should be on risk assessment, risk reduction, and impacts mitigation. Waiting for the volcano to blow as a justification for making decisions just doesn't make sense.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

“is there another useful alternative to wikipedia on the web?”

It is not “useful.” It is a big lie...It is misinformation from beginning to end.

Learn to do real research.

Wikipedia is the lazyman’s “research” who does not care about facts. I can tell when someone has done honest research or used lying Wikipedia. And I don’t have to go to Wikipedia to check.

[muawiyah]

Just try putting the latest information regarding research into Sa'ami languages on Wiki and the Suomi (Finns) will be in there dive bombing it even before the Germans.

And what would that info be? Well, that more than one German grammatical construct appears to have been inserted into German from Sa'ami, and not the other way around. Another tidbit is that beyond the common modern vocabulary, Sa'ami languages have more in common with ancient Sumerian and the Dravidian languages in South Asia than with any Central Asian dialects.

Just makes those Germans and Finns madder than wet hens Fur Shur. Something about their biological imperative to "be on top".

[freedom_forge]

Evidence against man-made global warming:
http://www.discovery.org/v/30