Weather is fearsome outside. Pounding rains, dark skies, and winds as high as 35 mph. Tornadoes are rare on Long Island but not unprecedented. I’m watching the skies.
PAD
Weather is fearsome outside. Pounding rains, dark skies, and winds as high as 35 mph. Tornadoes are rare on Long Island but not unprecedented. I’m watching the skies.
PAD
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Sounds like you’re getting the full brunt of the weather front that edged us a day ago. Whether or not it’s the same front though, hope it blows over quickly. We were still so saturated from the melting snow that we had flash floods here and there. Not fun to work in all night.
Looks like we’re just getting the dull edge of that weather system down here by DC. That tends to happen in this part of the country; we get the watered-down version of whatever is attacking somewhere else.
Out here on Staten Island, and our house is actually swaying slightly.
Down here in North Georgia, it’s the first day in a week or two that we have no weather alerts – we’ve been through snow, ice, wind, fire danger, rain, wind, more Red Flag fire warnings…
Being clobbered by that same storm here is Mass. The high winds killed my plans to go out. Even Worse, it’s a Nor’easter. It won’t be gone until Monday night.
here in Northeast PA, the winds sound like something out of a horror movie.
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Yeah, we have the bottom edge of the same front hitting us in Virginia. If you want to see something pretty wild, go to weather.com, put in the zip code for your areas, pick their weather in motion map and pull back so that you can see the entire East Coast. This thing looks like a tropical storm, but it’s covering more than half of the Eastern Seaboard right now and it’s reaching as far as Detroit.
I’m in LA. It was 70, sunny, with a light, warm breeze. All-in-all, a fine day. The weather’s supposed to be lovely all week.
The sad part is, I miss those vicious semi-hurricanes LI is prone to. Your note reminds me of home.
AD
Just had my first day of work in my new city of residence, Wichita. Cold today, but not too bad. Of course, when the weather gets warmer and those cold and warm air fronts collide …
Not that this is anything new to me. The state where I’ve lived most of my life, Indiana, had it’s share of tornadoes, too. The Great Lakes area’s twisters aren’t as big as here in the plains. But the GL can lay claim to the two biggest outbreaks, Palm Sunday 1965 and the tornadoes of April 3, 1974. I think those still stand as the biggest. If they don’t, I’m sure I’ll hear about it and soon.
I’m just a couple of hours south of you in Oklahoma. The biggest tornado in history (with the fastest winds ever measured on Earth) occured about a decade ago a short distance from here. It went through Oklahoma City to Stroud, and I’m not sure what other towns were hit.
Really? What about the Tri-State Tornado of 1925? Or does it not count because no one could really measure the wind speeds for that strong a storm back then?
That’s quite possible. I don’t know how that tornado officially compares. I just know that they made a big deal here in Oklahoma about having the fastest winds ever measured. I’m sure that if you go farther back in history, there have been even worse ones, but they’re not counted because there’s simply no way to estimate how strong they were.
Actually, there’s been a question ever since it happened if the Tri-State Tornado was one tornado or several. If anyone is interested, here’s the Wikipedia entry. (I know, Wikipedia is not the most reliable of sources. But this entry correlates to most of what I know.): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-State_Tornado
I’m right outside Atlantic City, and I think it’s time we find a few whales in case the alien probe wants to make contact.
LOL
As for me, I was in Salt Lake and the rain turned to snow and now it’s winter-looking again
Hope you guys bear it out all right. Stay safe.
Here in Nassau County, Long Island, it wasn’t too bad (at least in East Williston/Mineola/Williston Park). Lots of wind and rain last night (a medium-sized tree fell down outside my job), but we didn’t lose power (or Internet connection, or DirecTV signal) or get any property damage. So we were pretty lucky. I hope you & yours fared just as well, PAD.
Apparently it was caused by Global Warming: http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles/2010/20100316061540.aspx
It’s difficult to attribute a single storm of any nature to any phenomenon beyond its own event, however the consistent bombardment of the East coast with precipitation this year, like the several category five hurricanes of the past few years and the tornadoes on Orange County last year are all signs of increasing turbulence in the atmosphere consistent with higher precipitation levels caused by an increase in global temperatures. Or, as Al Gore might say, “Global Warming.” This is how it works. It gets colder in some places, warmer in others. Deserts get bigger (cf: Australia) and places get wetter (cf: Greenland). Storms go off the rails with more frequency (enjoy some Weather Channel surfing for many examples), and eventually the water level rises a bit, drowning New York City — but that’s probably 100 years from now.
Should we move to renewable energy? Yeah, but climate change isn’t the only (or even the best) impetus to do that. It makes more sense to use renewable energy than finite resources over any length of time. We know oil’s going to run out, so switching makes sense for any number of global, social, and economic reasons that don’t include not drowning SoHo, though that’s an added benefit as I’d like my kid to not have to swim to Chinatown.
Is Al Gore (and, sadly, I just type-od “Bore” and thought it oddly appropriate, though I truly admire the man and his rhetoric) being an opportunist? Maybe, but not so much because he’s wrong about the pattern as that it’s incredibly difficult to pin an event as causally within the pattern without more correlative data.
So, remain skeptical if you must. And mock if you will. But buy some solar panels and go electric, and when the geo-thermal generator goes up for a vote in your incorporated village, vote yes.
AD
I’m all for alternative energy. Frankly, I wish as much time and effort was spent on that as has been done on the health care bill. Solve the problem of energy availability and you usher in a new age for humanity and there will be money enough for healthcare and lollypops for all.
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BUT…it’s 7 kinds of retarded how people on both sides of the global warming debate like to use local weather to bolster their arguments. I have to blame the global warming alarmists a bit more though, because they brought this on themselves. When you claim that increased CO2 will lead to monster hurricanes the size of the national debt, you have to take your lumps when the next few years show an actual decrease in activity. tell folks that snow will just be a childhood memory and you have to expect snickers when people are shoveling 2 feet of memory off their driveway.
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I thought the global warming people were dumb to say “See?” when we had a hot summer a few years back. I thought the anti-global warming people were dumb to say “See?” when we had a few snowdays this year. And I think Al Gore is dumb to say “See?” when we get some wind and rain this week.
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But this has becoem almost a religion, a matter of faith. It’s like arguing creationism. Any weather–ANY weather–will be seen as proof to those who believe. Global warming could make it hotter. Or colder. Or wetter. or drier. I guess the only thing that would “disprove” it in the eyes of the true believers would be if the weather stayed exactly the same for a few decades. Which, ironically, if when I would panic, because that is the only outcome that would seem to me to be completely unnatural and in direct opposition to recorded history!
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But the worst thing about the global warming fanatics is that, in my opinion, they took a genuine problem, something that we should have worked hard to correct, and through stupidity, arrogance, and greed, turned it into a joke that increasing numbers of people no longer take seriously. Future generations may well pay a heavy price for that mistake. In the short term, they have given their equally fanatical opponents the upper hand.
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the lesson is this–Scientists, when politicians come a calling, run. Learn the lessons of 1950s sci-fi movies–the politicians and military will somehow Screw Things Up and it will be up to you to invent the Solution. Don’t get sucked into their world, you’ll just end up with a share of the blame.
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(Yes, yes, I am aware that occasionally it is the scientist who causes, in some small way, the problem…making giant tarantulas, meddling in Things Best Left Alone, giving directions to Earth to Aliens, using poor quality control on transporter devices, resurrecting the dead as cannibalistic ghouls (admittedly, of questionable scientific value)…look, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, that’s all I’m saying.)
@ Bill Mulligan
You wrote: “But this has becoem [sic] almost a religion, a matter of faith. It’s like arguing creationism.”
I don’t think that’s really fair. It might be for the people who deny the human contribution to the use and abuse of natural resources (some of which is renewable, the argument here is really about what is not) and the effects it has on the environment. They point to snow in the winter and say, “What happened to your global warming!?” Their faith that manmade contributions to climate change is nonexistent can be supported by incidental evidence.
My point is simply that the article you linked appoints a specific rhetorical fallacy (rush to judgment) to obfuscate the defense of an actual fact-based argument (climate change, largely caused by incremental increases in global temperature, is accelerated by inconsiderate human activity), making (of course) an ad hominem fallacy. Mr. Gore, and many even more radical environmentalists, do tend to press the panic button when a Nor’easter hits earlier than the usual season. They panic when there’s a building series of Cat5 Hurricanes. They go into overdrive when snow melts on Mount Kilimanjaro. None of these, individually, mean more than the local weather changed.
However, the pattern — over time, tracked with credible scientific criteria, and overwhelmingly supported by experts in the field — is pretty-well undeniable. In this sense, it is a lot like talking to those pesky “evolutionists.” All the evidence points in one direction, with one or two outliers in a cyclical pattern, and people call it a “controversy” because it’s a “theory” (or “pattern”).
Misunderstanding of science drives me batty, and to get snarky (as the article did) about a rhetorical approach as if that would deny scientific evidence is simply goofy.
And that was my point. Global warming-çûm-climate change may or may not be the direct cause of the weather this year in the Northeast, but any impetus to get off fossil fuels (and other non-renewable resources) is a worthwhile time to remind the world it’s past time to get moving.
Lastly, I’m not sure about the lollipops for everyone, but as long as they use real sugar and processed by solar-electric ovens, I’m okay with that.
However, here’s a nice Catch-22. “Green jobs” (talk about a ridiculous marketing term) really need affordable healthcare options, and to do that, you need to reform healthcare. However, if the “green job” market does actually rejuvenate the manufacturing market in America, then healthcare (at moderate inflation) becomes affordable again through our corporate bean counters. Fun, huh?
AD…thinking, “Mmm…cannibalistic ghouls…”
Basically I think you either have to A-not point to every weather event as evidence of your position on global warming or B- do it but be prepared to have this (lousy) argument tossed right back at you.
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And I think that snow melts on Mount Kilimanjaro that are radically above the norm is something entirely different from a thunderstorm. (for one thing there is good evidence that what’s happening on Kilimanjaro is entirely human caused–deforestation may be the culprit. This does not mean the earth is not getting warmer but it does illustrate the need to pick examples carefully.)
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When i saythat global warming activists sometimes sound like creationsists to me it’s from my long and fruitless experience arguing with creationists. One aspect of them was that it finally became clear to me that they had a conclusion and any evidence was simply corralled into that conclusion.
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And so it is with some (some) of the global warming crowd. There seems to be no weather that does NOT support their view. If we have a hot winter–global warming. Cold winter–global warming. If the average temp goes up a degree–global warming, obviously. If it goes down a degree–that’s an insignificant blip, duh. Ask them if there is any way to falsify their belief and they will tell you no. It’s settled. The time for discussion is over.
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That ain’t how science works.
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Now in my own opinion, having looked at as much as I care to– I think the Earth is getting warmer. I think it is probably a combination of natural and man-caused reasons. I can think of no good reason to NOT try to get off of a limited energy supply like oil and, if it helps diminish whatever our contribution is, all the better.
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I also think that a lot of what has been proposed to fight this problem has been ill thought out or, more likely, geared more toward making some money in the name of ecology (ethanol production, for example). And I have little respect for those who talk a good game about the sacrifices the little people need to make while they jet around the world leaving carbon footprints few of us could ever aspire to. I think there needs to be a very hard thought realistic appraisal of what we should be doing but unfortunately that will probably not happen. The real damage from this will take centuries to show its full face and people, feeling scammed by dire predictions of only having a decade to “save the world”, will probably disregard the problem when Armageddon misses its deadline.
Generally, I think we’re on the same page. My only remaining point is to reiterate that the link elided a rhetorical error with scientific inaccuracy.
While Al Gore, Glen Beck, and others who take it upon themselves to find examples to support their rhetoric (though generally I’ll give Gore more credit for accuracy than Beck), it’s really an issue of timing.
If it turns out that (a) global climate change caused by (b) a warming trend that is (c) accelerated by human activity is the proximate cause for the East Coast getting slammed with far more precipitation than average (more snow, more rain, more clouds (thus more storms like tornadoes and hurricanes)), then the example is justified. If the trend is an anomaly, then it isn’t. Time, I think, is a factor here, which is why it’s a rhetorical error (logical fallacy) rather than a point against scientific evidence (verifiable points of data that form a trend).
Realizing, of course, that we must use language to express points of any sort, scientific or otherwise, for most people to understand what’s being said, logical fallacies occur. In this case, I think it’s fair to say that both the speaker and the reviewer committed logical errors in their approaches. I’d like to see the conversation be considerably more careful, if only to avoid confusing the issue.
As for alternate solutions, I too have seen few that — under any scrutiny — hold up as actual improvements. I suspect the problem should be approached systemically, with multiple avenues of research. Until we perfect the improbability drive. Then, maybe oil will, against all probability, become the best possible fuel we can use.
AD