Hurricane forecaster's dispute with school focuses on global warming debate

Houston Chronicle ^ | 4-28-08 | ERIC BERGER

[Gondring]

These people can't forcast tomorrow's weather accurately. These are the same people that forcasted a heavier than normal hurricane for Florida last year. We had practically none.

I guess their crystal balls need re-calibrating.

From William Gray's (Global-Warming denier) forecast for the season:

"We are now calling for a very active hurricane season. Landfall probabilities for the 2007 hurricane season are well above their long-period averages."

Hmmm...looks like you're right...we can't trust William Gray's predictions.

And, of course, since casinos can't forcast tomorrow's roll of the dice, there's no possible way they can predict the overall probabilities. </sarc>

[Gondring]

Academic blackmail is alive and well at Colorado State.

Yes, it is.

Dr. Gray should, however, spend more focus on responding to critiques of his work, and less on the ad hominem questioning of critics' motives. Once he's effectively demonstrated that his critics are wrong, then he is free to question what motivated them, but without the former, the latter rings a little hollow and evasive.

[Gondring]

The link of global temperature to sun spot activity is ignored because it does not promote socialism. Look at Kyoto and the other GW scams and what you have underneath is socialism on a global scale.

It's not ignored! There have been many critiques of the hypothesis, shooting it down. I personally believe that it deserves another look, but I have yet to see a very well constructed argument published against the existing work claiming minor effects.

My belief is that the sunspot/insolation-variation effect is greater than estimated by the IPCC, but that there is also a lower-magnitude, long-term warming trend from anthropogenic causes (as well as longer- or shorter-term effects such as Milankovich cycles, volcanic events, etc.). But it's also my belief that we can't know that for sure.

That radiative forcing from CO2 is such an important term, yet I'm not convinced we know it yet.

[Gondring]

Time to give CSU a call?

Yes. Ask them to pressure Dr. Gray to give the long-awaited responses to the criticisms of his previous claims. Even if he's right, he hasn't demonstrated it, and the name-calling is hollow without it.

[palmer]

we can't trust William Gray's predictions.

True, and ironically Gray has more in common with the global warmers than this article admits, using SST as one of his main inputs. The problem is that hurricane formation and strengthening is a highly chaotic and unpredicatable process, not very sensitive to inputs like SST. Weather forecasting has the same problem, the fact that the world has warmed a bit has zero influence on the forecast, the current negative NAO is all that really matters until it unpredictably dissolves into a new pattern.

[qam1]

(Ward Churchill : Fake Indian, Fake Scholarship, and Fake Art)

Speaking of which, isn't this the same school that employed (still employees?) Ward Churchill?

So let me get this straight, They don't want to handle the media questions about professor Grey (which since the media ignores skeptics, it's probably minimal) but when the same applied to Ward Churchill they stood up and claimed they were standing up for his 1st Amendment rights.

Suurre

[george76]

The conclusion one must draw from such examples isn’t that every institution has its bad apples but rather that, at least in the liberal arts in America, moral turpitude and political hucksterism pervades higher education.

Radical criminals with questionable academic credentials flourish in a milieu that bristles with hostility toward real scholars who don’t toe the party line—witness the case of former Harvard President Lawrence Summers.

Individuals with prison records or FBI rap sheets don’t get into major educational institutions because they fudge their resumes.

They get in because they share the political dogmas of those who hire them—and they flourish for the same reason.

http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=9944

Ward is still getting taxpayer money / salary and benefits, but no classes.

[george76]

Earth Day is Lenin’s birthday.

Coincidence or Communism?

[Gondring]

Weather forecasting has the same problem, the fact that the world has warmed a bit has zero influence on the forecast, the current negative NAO is all that really matters until it unpredictably dissolves into a new pattern.

OF course, it's possible that the warming has led to the NAO pattern. Note that the view that the NAO gradient influences weather is looking at only one direction...it's possible that the insolation or greenhouse retention differences have led to the NAO distribution, for example. I think that we have to always be prepared for these systems to be in quasiequilibrium, with forcings possible in either direction.

[palmer]

OF course, it's possible that the warming has led to the NAO pattern. Note that the view that the NAO gradient influences weather is looking at only one direction

Quite true, and that's one of the toughest problems in modeling climate. The relationship of weather to large scale pattern changes is highly nonlinear and chaotic. So as the climate changes, the patterns will change as well. For example more water vapor might cause a dampening of the jet stream (and consequent rainfall changes and overall warming).