Columnist.
It is frustrating to be out in front of the hurricane threat on the U.S. Coast, and then have people who either have not looked, or have, and are simply ignoring the facts, come in after the fact and make their claims. I have referred to these people as weather "voyeurs." They only look when it suits their purpose. In the private sector, our fight is every day, and the knowledge of the past and the reasons for the weather and climate are the foundations for any success in the future. A good meteorologist *has to know his weather and climate history* or he will fall prey to the whims of the computer models. Perhaps you saw some of that with Hurricane Sandy. Until the middle of the week before the storm, the U.S. generated model was taking the storm out to sea and there was denial in some circles that Sandy was going to come back and hit the coast.
As you prepare to vote this election season, if it's the disasters from CO2 induced global warming -- I mean climate change... oops, climate disruption (all of the above) -- that are of most concern, some things to consider...
but NOT because of "climate change"
Facts paint a different picture
9/11 and the Kennedy Assassination -- the two events on U.S. soil in my life where weather changed history
With climate change a huge issue this election season, we should review the latest facts on the matter. In the In this chart, CO2 continues its rise. The global temperatures, however, have not only leveled off, they have begun to fall. This result is in line with natural climate cycle theory. If the admission to the school of your choice -- be it Cornell, or lets say Columbia or Harvard -- depended on you answering this question: "Given the facts presented in the chart above, is CO2 driving the Earth's temperature?" How would you answer it?
Hurricanes have become a focal point in the climate change debate. The assertion that every problematic storm is a sign of global warming is absurd. However, the counter argument that storms are less than what they actually are is incorrect as well. While it seems to be a knee jerk reaction to the falsehoods generated by AGW propagandists, it is not helpful in the AGW debate. Hurricane Irene was a case in point. The left used the storm as a pin-up for global warming, but they are most likely unaware of what occurred in the 1950's. The pattern of the 1950's, with a cold Pacific and warm Atlantic, has been a mainstay of my overall pattern ideas since 2007. Eight MAJOR hurricanes struck the East Coast in the 1950's from the Carolinas North.
The wall I refer to is one of either ignorance or deception that is surrounding you on the issue of AGW. Given the facts, we can draw no other conclusion. Either the people around you are ignorant of the facts, or they know them and are being deceptive. Since this issue is a huge reason for why our nations freedoms and security are in jeopardy, you are not immune from the blame. There is no better example of this than your blaming last year's Texas drought on global warming. The drought was forecasted by myself and others as soon as the Pacific changed to its colder cycle in 2007. On national TV and in blog after blog, references to the 1950s were used to describe what was about to occur. Yet the wall of ignorance or deception resulted in a completely non-factual statement, and in doing so, you degraded the governor of Texas to score cheap political points.
July hottest ever?
An objective test is needed in the Climate Change debate, and we now have a way to do that. By watching the global temperature via satellite in the next 20-30 years, as we have since 1978, we will have a good idea of what is truly driving the climate. Our nation has always been about confronting challenges for the common good, so this fits right in. But we need the freedom to search for the correct answer, not an agenda driven pre conceived notion. Because of the makeup of the planet, the earths climate system is never in balance, but it is always in search of balance. Most of the land is in the northern hemisphere, most of the ocean is in the southern hemisphere. This creates an imbalance in the earths reaction to the incoming radiation from the sun, which is the source of energy to heat the planet. Combined with changing seasons, the reaction produces large and varied swings in the climate. It is intuitive to see how these can, and in fact should, become quite volatile at times.
