What is behind the recent strange weather

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

Forecaster: Two phenomena responsible for world's bizarre weather – This Just In - CNN.com Blogs

[tonyg Goomba & Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close tonyg]

Anything but global warming----right ?

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

Anything but global warming----right ?

Well, define global warming. The globe has certainly been considerably warmer (and considerably colder) in the past, so it could be getting warmer.

When I was younger they were predicting another Ice Age - and the "solutions" to that were pretty much the same as the solutions to global warming (less human interference, population control, more passive technologies...). While I delight in the proliferation of windmills across the country, I also tend to agree with the "One-Minute Astronomer" that "healthy and open skepticism... is appropriate" whenever you're talking weather predictions. They can't even get tomorrow's weather prediction right (we just had snow that broke all records here - not predicted - then didn't get the follow-up snow that was predicted), so why should I trust them to guess accurately about the next fifty to one hundred years?

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Anything but global warming----right ?

Actually, the strange weather is due to all the hot air coming out of liberal democrats regarding climate change.

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

Hey, this is CNN and they lay it squarely on two natural processes that have been going on for ages.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

We really can't say what is "normal" weather when we have no basis to know what "normal" weather is.

We have, for a few selected locales, maybe a bit over one hundred years of weather record keeping. In comparison the last ice age ended a bit over 10,000 years ago.

So, let's tighten up the question a bit and ask what is "normal" weather since the end of the last ice age. And answering that question with the data that we have is like taking one specific day out of the baseball season and saying that the game results from that day are what is "normal" outcome.

So we really have no idea of what is normal. We can talk about what is normal, but that really is "normal" only in relation to the last 100 or so years of record. We don't really have a very good handle on whether our last 100 years of weather are "normal" in the grander scheme of things.

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On that latter point there are records from the Middle East that indicate that 3000 to 4000 years ago there were recurring periods of drought in that part of the world that lasted for years. According to the records on occasion, there were times when essentially no precipitation occurred at all for periods of two or three years in a row, with virtually all streams drying up except for major rivers.

If such extreme events - of a severity at least the equal of what we are seeing now - occurred periodically in those times, perhaps what seems "abnormal" to us really isn't that abnormal. The weather we perceive as "normal" could easily be the result of limiting ourselves to observations made during relatively benign period in the earths weather.

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A final comment is that observations of extreme weather events is closely linked to how many places at which you make observations. The more places at which you collect and record weather data, the more likely it is that you will detect extreme events even if there is no change in frequency.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

We really can't say what is "normal" weather when we have no basis to know what "normal" weather is.

We have, for a few selected locales, maybe a bit over one hundred years of weather record keeping. In comparison the last ice age ended a bit over 10,000 years ago.

So, let's tighten up the question a bit and ask what is "normal" weather since the end of the last ice age. And answering that question with the data that we have is like taking one specific day out of the baseball season and saying that the game results from that day are what is "normal" outcome.

So we really have no idea of what is normal. We can talk about what is normal, but that really is "normal" only in relation to the last 100 or so years of record. We don't really have a very good handle on whether our last 100 years of weather are "normal" in the grander scheme of things.

++++++++

On that latter point there are records from the Middle East that indicate that 3000 to 4000 years ago there were recurring periods of drought in that part of the world that lasted for years. According to the records on occasion, there were times when essentially no precipitation occurred at all for periods of two or three years in a row, with virtually all streams drying up except for major rivers.

If such extreme events - of a severity at least the equal of what we are seeing now - occurred periodically in those times, perhaps what seems "abnormal" to us really isn't that abnormal. The weather we perceive as "normal" could easily be the result of limiting ourselves to observations made during relatively benign period in the earths weather.

++++++

A final comment is that observations of extreme weather events is closely linked to how many places at which you make observations. The more places at which you collect and record weather data, the more likely it is that you will detect extreme events even if there is no change in frequency.

Yeah, but Nostra Damas predicted that it would be George W. Bush's fault. ND was a liberal.

[1950bing Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close 1950bing]

It's a sign !!!!!
It's a sign !!!!!