Re: More fraudulent IPCC models.

I would find this somewhat analogous to predicting what percentage of the time the main switching transistor in a buck converter is on or off as a function of changed load or power source conditions, vs. which state it will be in a minute or a week into the future.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

Huh? I don't understand and I'm not sure I want to understand.

Anyway, long range weather predictions don't require a computah or government grants. The Old Farmer's Almanac has been doing it for 200 years (and is still selling well):

I have read those Old Farmer's Almanacs enough.

They predict enough major snowstorms to specific weeks prone to having them, enough cold snaps to specific weeks having them, enough January thaws since few winters lack those...

I remember how there had been historically a "January Thaw" from about the 14th to the 26th of January or so. Usually from the 15th to the 22nd or so. Also called the "Midwinter Thaw".

My experience near Philadelphia PA is that this phenomenon faded in the past decade, notably with an exception in 1998 when my region had a great thaw early in January.

In the decade before that, I found peak January temperature mainly within a few days of the 25th, followed by "The 2nd Half of Winter". Before then, I did notice a brief uptick in January temperature often being the high for the whole month usually close to the 19th.

But nowadays in the post-1998 era, I have noticed increase in seasonal lag in ice cover on the southern half of Hudson Bay, making winters in the NE portion of USA generally a few days later in both beginning and end. Autumns appear to me to be warming while the first half of spring so far appears to me to be resisting warming from one decade to the next.

- Don Klipstein ( snipped-for-privacy@misty.com)

I've only read perhaps 2 of them. I liked the concept of a mysterious and undisclosed formula involving sunspots. As you note, it makes the valid assumption that this years weather will be quite similar to last years weather. Were I to predict the weather in this manner, my guess(tm) is that I would have at least 70% accuracy. It's a fair assumption, even with global warming and occasional catastrophes and good enough for the small farm.

Good, but are you able to extrapolate from that a warming trend and use it to predict future NE weather? Or perhaps these are normal historical variations? Dunno.

Just how accurate is the weather predictions? See:

Plug in your zip code and compare the various reports. For my area:

the 1 to 3 day temperature forecast was perhaps 80% accurate to within

That begs the question, what's the difference between a climatologist and a weather forecaster? Easy. A climatologist is a former weather forecaster who extends their predictions far into the future. Other than that, there's not much difference between them. They both use the same computer models, the same assumptions, and the same historical data. Oh, there is another difference. They derive their income from different sources. Weather forecasters usually work for government, military, or commercial organizations. Climatologists tend to hang around universities, research organizations, and institutions supported by government and corporate grants.

Hmmm... this just appeared on the bottom of the above forecast URL: "On average, NWS Digital Forecast's low temperature forecasts for Freedom were off by 2.70 degrees last year."

Like all good jokes, my original comments about the inability of climatologist to produce an accurate weather report for the next century has more than a small grain of truth buried in it. My previous attempt to predict local rainfall based on historical data can be tweaked into a rising or falling trend based on nothing more than the order of the polynomial series used to average the data.

For fun, I just change the trend line from 2 or 3 order polynomial average over a 25 year period to 6th and 5th order. Instant dog leg (also known as hockey stick). I just uploaded a revised version. The graph:

and the Excel spreadsheet used to generate it:

Excel won't do polynomial trends beyond 6th order, so this is the worst case. I'll need a statistics program to produce a genuine hockey stick.

There's also the problem of where forecasters and climatologists get their money. Forecasters are usually salaried positions, where one slaves away for 40 years and retires knowing that their predictions are perhaps 5% better than the Old Farmers Almanac. Climatologists are funded by research grants, government programs, universities, and any company with an agenda involving global warming. It's really difficult to find a climatologist that doesn't have an agenda. The university and government flavor are constantly trying to justify their research, usually by making outlandish claims, which immediately promote additional research funding. If the researcher spends the money and finds nothing, they're not going to get any more funding. So, every single climate research report has discovered something of note. Seen any reports that claim the source data is garbage and that using it to predict the future is no better than casting dice? Probably not. Whether the resultant reports are useful, correct, or worthwhile, is subject to debate. Those funded by industry tend to favor the goals of their supporters. Oil money is not going to fund anyone that takes global warming effects seriously. I'm not suggesting that this is all bad. It's just that lacking a better way to fund research, we have to live with the current methodology and live with its consequences.

How about cosmic rays are linked to global warming?

As always, more research is necessary. There are also links to global warming from sunspots, bovine flatulence, waste management, rotting vegetation behind dams, and volcanism.

The whole mess kinda reminds of the Y2K debacle. Those that predicted that the effects of data arithmetic failure would be minor were generally ignored as apologists. Alarmists, survivalists, and futurists, received top billing and media attention as they predicted the demise of civilization as we know it. While there are considerable differences between Y2K and global warming, there are some interesting similarities. Both were trying to predict the future based upon comparatively little data. Both relied heavily on media attention for promoting various agendas (including the sales of replacement Y2K compatible computahs). Both had their lunatic fringe, with amazingly similar slogans such as "it's the risks, not the odds".

Anyway, enough ranting for now. Accuweather says it should be 52F degrees outside. My thermometer says 51F. If the trend continues at the rate of 1 degree per day, we'll be in another ice age by the end of July.