I introduced something on “The O'Reilly Factor” several years ago called The Triple Crown of Cooling. I called it that because back in 2007 I thought a period of cooling lasting 20 to 30 years would start, resulting in global temperatures returning to 1978 levels by 2030. I also introduced the concept that this cooling may cause a “time of climatic hardship” — in other words, the natural process of cooling after a process of natural warming could produce an uptick in extreme events. The increase is not clear, though one can argue it is occurring off the East Coast. The Atlantic remains in its warm cycle and will continue to be for several more years, so the coastal water is warm. It is the reason I am very worried about the East Coast with hurricanes similar in magnitude to the storms of the 1950s, though it has not yet occurred. That’s right – Irene, Sandy and Arthur can’t hold a candle to eight major hurricane hits in seven years. None of the storms was major.

The fact is, winters have been getting colder in the U.S., as data compiled by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center shows. And it’s this onslaught of colder temperatures that is likely the cause for any uptick in snowfall near the East Coast. Once the Western Atlantic cools again, the snows will go back toward normal.

Therefore, one should look for natural clashes near the East Coast – the key word here being naturally – as one can also see that the NCEP CFSR data against satellite era temperatures have started falling over the past 10 years.

The point is that all this was introduced years ago during a time when the missive was that winters won’t be cold and snowy and the ice cap is melting away. Now I will make another forecast in a five-year increment: At least three of the next five winters will be warmer than average across the eastern U.S. The Great Plains will oscillate, and the core of the coldest winters will be in the western U.S. Let’s see how I do.

Even though severe cold and enhanced storminess will rule the roost over the next couple of weeks – and we think spring is going to be very late this year for much of the country – spring training for baseball is around the corner, so I decided to rename my “climate for ‘dummies’ idea” The Grand Slam of Climate.

Let’s ask these questions:

1.) Does the sun have a far greater effect on the climate than CO₂?

2.) Do the cycles in the ocean, with the vast amount of the earth’s heat stored in them, have a far greater effect on the climate than CO₂?

3.) Do stochastic events (ex-volcanoes, etc.) have a far greater effect on the climate than CO₂?

And now I have added the fourth leg, the Grand Slam:

4.) Does the very design of the system have a far greater effect on the climate than CO₂?

Quantifying CO₂‘s effect, with its increase of only one molecule out of every 10,000 molecules of air over a 100-year period, against The Grand Slam of Climate, especially in light of the earth having had ice ages at 7,000 ppm and warmer times at 250 ppm, is grasping at straws at best. Then again, desperate people zealous about another issue would do that too if they felt this would help them get their way.

Just ask yourself the questions above and see what you come up with. It’s not that you’re dumb, it’s just that alarmists think you are. So let’s humor them a bit.

By the way, here’s a fun thing to think about: Mars has an atmosphere with the same percentage of CO₂ as Venus, but it’s much less dense. So why is Mars so much colder than Venus? And just why do those Martian icecaps shrink for years only to expand again? These questions are out of this world; the ones in The Grand Slam of Climate are not.

Joe Bastardi is chief forecaster at WeatherBELL Analytics, a meteorological consulting firm.