Hi Jeff and WeatherCat climate watchers,
When it comes to the weather, nothing is guaranteed. It all about the averages but with global warming might be bygone statistics with little current relevance.
You point is well taken. Alas, I think the political correctness police have made another linguistic coup with the renaming of
"global warming" to
"climate change". Alas, I really have the feeling that our
"rocket science caliber" climate change scientists - are a little short where the ruler would insist they should be. I've already ranted too much about my frustrations that climate computer models aren't helping us predict things like the current drought situation in the west. However, science has always been bidirectional. You can go from theory to predict data. You can also look at your empirical observations to come up with better theories.
At least in my area the climate has noticeably changed in a matter that is now stable year to year. The most dramatic change is the radical reduction in the amount of foggy days that once was a landmark of the San Francisco Bay area. Scientists should be able to provide explanations for this and use that to bootstrap better forecasting. Yet, it seems really clear that they are at least as baffled as we are. Any authority in climate change should have spend 5-10 years getting a PhD and then have all the experience of their working careers. You mean to tell me that will that understanding of how the climate work they don't have much more insight into the situation than us amateur weather watchers?
There are times when I wonder if the only thing worse then being forced out of academia would be to to succeed and discover out horribly mediocre it has become.
Edouard
