Posted on 10/14/2007 11:00:23 PM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Meteorologist: Gore climate theory 'ridiculous'
By Steve Lyttle · The Charlotte Observer
Updated 10/13/07 - 12:32 AM | Comment on this story
CHARLOTTE -- One of the world's foremost meteorologists on Friday called the theory that helped Al Gore win a share of the Nobel prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works."
Dr. William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, spoke to a packed lecture hall at UNC Charlotte and said humans are not responsible for the warming of the earth.
His visit, arranged through the meteorology program at UNCC, came on the same day that Gore was honored for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.
"We're brainwashing our children," said Gray, 78, a longtime professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie ("An Inconvenient Truth") and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."
Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicized, said instead that a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures -- related to the amount of salt in ocean water -- is responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.
However, he said, that same cycle means a period of global cooling will begin soon and last for several years.
"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realize how foolish it was," Gray said.
During his speech to a crowd of about 300 that included meteorology students from several Carolinas universities and a host of professional meteorologists, Gray also said those who have linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years are in error.
He cited statistics, showing there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006, when the earth warmed.
"The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," Gray said.
He said his beliefs have made him an outsider in popular science.
"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."
Will Gore return his trophy and will the committee accept it?
We’d better back this guy. He’s liable to be blacklisted as a “Global Warming Denier”.
It’s interesting that the people who complain stridently about McCarthyism are actually its practitioners. Smears, blacklisting, forcing people out of their professions.
Weather is a (relatively) local phenomenon and very chaotic, while climate is a much larger scale phenomenon and less chaotic. Well, that’s the assumption of the climatologists, anyway, and they have models based on this assumption that prove it! ;)
I’ve sometimes wondered whether weather forecasts are any more accurate than a random selection from actual observed weather on the same date in previous years would be. They do usually get reasonably close on temperatures, but for cloud cover and precipitation they’re often far off.
“We’ll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realize how foolish it was,” Gray said.
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Heck, I don’t have to wait 10 or 15 years — I already know this is foolishness.
These people never apologize. They just move on to the next scam.
Bingo!
...but the government departments and programs, as well as their tax burden, will last forever.
Someone stop the madness!
I suspect you'd be better off in most places just playing a recording of what the weather was yesterday. I figure you'd come up considerably better than chance.
They run in cycles. They will be exactly right for a while and then wrong for a while. One year 30% chance of snow means no snow. Next year 30% chance of snow means three inches count on it.
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