Our Dilemma with Weather
We explained in other posts on this site how the global warming movement invented the expression Climate Change to cover up the failure of Global Warming. Using the word “warming” proved costly for them because it implied measurable heating. It became hard for them to keep nagging about global warming while the globe was not really heating up. Then came the Climate Change slogan, a convenient way to blame any weather changes on Carbon Dioxide. We covered the madness of this false argument before. Physics say if the atmosphere is really heating up, then it is impossible for the weather to get colder. This is a fundamental law of physics.
Voodoo Dance – Paradox of Proving a Negative
I often hear people say “I may not believe everything they say about global warming but the weather is just not the same anymore. We must be doing something bad”. To me, this is the worst thing an enlightened person can say, because it lends a perception of credibility to the greatest scientific hoax in human history. How is that? Because by saying so, one would be suggesting that if YOU do not believe in man-made climate change then YOU must prove there is no man-made climate change. This is a demand to prove a negative. Rightfully, the onus must be on the man-made climate change advocates to submit verifiable, laws-of-physics math quantifying the relationship between human activity and climate change. Something they have never been able to do.
The paradox of proving a negative has helped the cause of climate change junk science immensely. When a fierce hurricane strikes and the “experts” say it is climate change, how can you prove it is not?
If a voodoo priest performs a rain dance to bring rain; and then it rains, how on earth can anyone prove the dance did not bring the rain? We all know it cannot be true yet are unable to prove it. Such is the paradox of trying to prove a negative. Please think of that next time the announcer on CNN says the hurricane or flooding was due to climate change.
Our History With Weather
A distinguishing characteristic of humans is our persistent bewilderment by randomness and unpredictability in the environment around us; and by the randomness of life in general. Our species can comprehend patterns of change in our surroundings. This sets us apart from other mammals. Yet we do not know how most of those patterns develop; or if they were in fact true patterns in the first place. A convenient answer to the question of unpredictability in our lives, through most of human history, had been the Pagan “Gods” idea. People who lived thousands of miles apart and never communicated with each other settled on the same concept. In ancient Greece, Poseidon the God of the Seas controlled the conditions of the seas and fate of sailors and coastal settlements. In Ancient Egypt, Osiris the God Of The Underworld controlled death and resurrection. Every pocket of population invented its own set of gods.
Priesthood of Junk Science
Throughout history and across the world, supreme powers were held by those who claimed to have a communication channel with the aforementioned Pagan Gods. Medicine men, gurus and pagan priests held much power and authority. So much so that it was unforgivable and very dangerous to reject or disagree with their doctrines. In spite of all of its downsides and utterly false pretenses, the Pagan Gods solution survived for millennia, unchallenged for the most part.
When science began to displace the pagan “wrath of gods” explanation of certain events, it still could not fully resolve our struggle with the randomness in our environment. Till this day, we can never tell whether there will be enough rain for the crops next year. Neither can we tell whether the volcanic activity in Hawaii will intensify next month. No one can forecast the temperature at your hometown two weeks from now within 3 or 4 degrees C. Yet, there is no shortage of those who claim, with stunning self-assertiveness, that earth’s temperature will be ½ a degree higher 10 years from now. Where is the science?! Is this a new creed for a new breed of medicine men? Think about that!
The response of the average person is sadly, but not surprisingly, the same as in the dark ages. Mostly, it is complete apathy, intensified by fear of harm coming from the modern-day gurus and “climate” medicine men. The common form of harm is ridicule (the label climate change denier comes to mind).
What is Climate?
Climate is nothing but a string of weather conditions assimilated over the long range. And weather conditions are the result of extremely random phenomena extending far beyond the physical boundaries of earth’s atmosphere. Practically, every calorie of energy the earth’s atmosphere receives comes from the sun! The unassailable truth is, weather and climate are the consequences of complex thermal and aerodynamic events triggered by the sun’s radiation and accentuated by earth’s movement. The largest heat sink on earth by far is the water in the oceans. It holds so much of the sun’s heat for so long that its effect on climate is paramount.
The mysterious ocean currents El Niño and La Niña create major chain reactions in weather in many parts of the world, including droughts. We can neither fully understand their origins nor forecast their occurrence. The best we can tell is that they are an effect of change in trade winds’ strength. What causes the change in trade winds? No one knows. Even the Climate Scientists who produce those incredibly precise numbers about earth’s warming don’t have a clue.
Here is a summary of what the best climate researchers in the world can tell us about El Niño for example. Keep in mind that humans and all their scientific institutions have known about El Niño since the early 1600’s!
El Niño is a change in the surface temperature of the pacific ocean caused by slowing trade winds.
There is one underway this year, 2024.
It can happen again in 2026 or 2027 or 2028 or 2029 or 2030 or 2031…..
This is the extent of what a climate scientist with Ph. D. can tell you today about when to expect another El Niño. The same scientist wouldn’t hesitate to tell you earth’s atmosphere is going to be 1/2 a degree C warmer in the year 2028. Please think of that when you hear something as ridiculous as that on the news.
What Makes Weather be like Weather
Climate variations are as random as their root cause, which is the randomness in sun’s radiation hitting our planet. The process of energy production within the sun is extremely violent and random in a way that boggles the mind. Imagine billions of hydrogen bombs exploding every second and each explosion triggering more explosions. I dare say that no one can, or ever will be able to, predict how much energy earth will receive from the sun one day in advance. Yet a blip of less than 0.1% in that energy makes a large difference in earth’s climate for days on end. Since the sun’s energy generation is inherently random, climate ought to be random. It is a fact that enlightened people must learn to live with.
The best we can do when it comes to weather “forecast” is to observe and track. The example I sighted above about when to expect another El Niño is based on what humans observed. It happens every 2 to 7 years. Just an observation! It is not a calculation or a prediction by scientific analysis.
Weather forecast specialists watch satellite and radar images in real time then attempt to predict a path for the weather systems and come up with a best-guess scenario of what could happen in the following few days. The forecast is usually reasonably accurate for the next 24 hours, but the accuracy drops dramatically for the days after. How often do you read that the forecast high for the day after tomorrow is 22 degrees C and sunny; then when the day comes the actual high turns out to be 20 or 25 with rain? Weather forecast is without a doubt a respectable skill utilizing refined observational technology, but it is not an accurate mathematical model with definitive and fixed results.
What would be an accurate mathematical model of weather/climate forecast?
Let us say someone takes measurements of, for example, temperature, wind direction and speed at certain points in the Atlantic Ocean and enters them into a set of equations (mathematical model) to predict an outcome. Then the results show that there will be a category 3 hurricane two months from now, originating at a certain location, and a category 3 hurricane actually forms on the exact day at the exact location; that would be a correct model. You say this is silly, no one can do that? That is precisely the point. No one can do that. And there is nothing wrong or unacceptable about it because it is both too complex and too random. However, some so called “climate scientists” either do not get it or are purposely trying to manipulate their way to fame. While they do not, indeed cannot ever, possess the correct and accurate tools to mathematically model the complex and random behavior of earth’s climate with any certainty, they continue to make outrageous claims about man-made climate crisis. They seem to feed off each others’ unproven conjecture, masquerading as science, and churn out orchestrated doom and gloom predictions to a population who seem to have an insatiable appetite for it. In the meantime, all the sane folks are faced with the dilemma of trying to prove that whatever happens to earth’s climate has nothing to do with human activity. We are back to the paradox of trying to prove a negative, which we discussed earlier in this Part.
Change – It Is The Nature of Climate.
Earth’s climate has been changing wildly for the entire life of earth (over 4 billion years so far) and will continue to do so regardless of who inhabits earth. History is rich with stories of floods and droughts and famines, some of which destroyed civilizations. Those were short range but brutal climate variations. Glaciation cycles are another example of the severity and randomness of earth’s climate. Every 10 to 20 thousand years, earth’s atmosphere gradually cools off. Water bodies freeze and glaciation engulfs large areas of the planet, creating a layer of ice over many parts of the globe. For example, most of North America would be covered by a layer of ice 20 to 50 feet thick. This “glaciation” continues for hundreds, or even thousands, of years. Then, earth’s atmosphere begins to gradually warm up again and the ice starts to slowly melt. Once again, rivers flow and forests flourish where ice was. We know two things about this: a) the heat/cool cycle of earth’s atmosphere must have something to do with sun’s energy; and b) it is a cyclic phenomenon which has been repeated regularly through the history of our planet. That is how our star, the sun, toys with us.
There are fossils of palm trees in Alaska and fossils of gigantic trees and aquatic organisms in the heart of the Sahara Desert in Africa. What transformed Alaska from warm to cold; and the Sahara Desert from temperate and wet to hot and arid? Answer: naturally-occurring cyclic climate changes on earth! Plain and simple. It is not carbon dioxide or cow gas or coal plants or automobiles.
In 1934, the climate in the mid-western states in USA began to change. Rain stopped almost entirely. Weather became exceedingly hot and dry, month after month. Crops failed. Farmers waited for the next year. The same thing happened. No rain; and the dry, hot weather continued. High winds stripped the top soil, creating dust clouds across 5 states (the dust bowl region). The severe drought and erosive hot winds lasted for the good part of SEVEN years. It wasn’t until 1941 that “normal” rainfall and temperatures returned. In those days, the phenomenon was called by its correct name: Bad Weather. Can you imagine if this were to happen now? Would any reasonable person be able to say it is just bad weather? Of course not. It would be all blamed on man-made carbon emissions, with no shortage of “climate scientists” on every media venue, taking credit for having “predicted” it.
Next time someone says to you earth is getting hotter or colder or the coral reef is dying or the sharks are endangered because of man-made global warming, please do not be perturbed. It has nothing to do with greenhouse gases produced by humans, or cows for that matter. We provided the physics and math to prove that in other parts of this series. Blaming natural events like hurricanes, forest fires, droughts, erosion of coral reefs, cold weather or hot weather, on carbon dioxide generated by human activities is scientifically false and morally scandalous.
One more thing: those receding glaciers. Many comparisons are often made between recent pictures and some taken 50 or a 100 years ago. The pictures evoke a sense of loss indeed. And of course, provide another opportunity for blaming CO2 generated by human activities. The fact is, those glaciers began receding about 10,000 years ago when earth’s climate entered the warming part of its regular cycle of cooling (glaciation) and warming (deglaciation). Glaciers, and all large ice bodies on earth, will continue to recede with or without humans because earth’s climate is still going through its natural warming trend. We demonstrated in Part 2 of this series that, even by the most pessimistic estimates, human activities generate about 10 ounces of CO2 in every 10,000 pounds of atmosphere. The laws of physics dictate such an extremely small proportion cannot, under any circumstances, affect the temperature of earth’s atmosphere.
When ice reaches the melting temperature (zero C or 32 F) it remains solid for a while longer until it acquires a certain amount of heat known as the Latent Heat. In a large field of ice, it can take years for the field to gain the required amount of latent heat. But once this happens, the ice transforms from solid state to liquid state (still at 0 C /32 F) and appears to melt rapidly. This is the correct scientific principle that makes the glaciers appear to be diminishing faster towards the end of their lives. In Alberta, Canada, the receding Colombia ice fields were once part of a thick layer of ice that extended into the state of Colorado and parts of Nevada. They are destined to melt away because we happen to be in the warming portion of the glaciation/deglaciation cycle. We DO NOT know what triggers the severe cooling and resulting glaciation in ice ages and what causes the subsequent re-heating of the atmosphere hundreds or thousands of years later. But we do know, with absolute scientific certainty, that these cycles are not caused by human activity.
The ice in the Colombia ice fields started to recede long before humans knew how to light a fire. There were no cities, towns or villages. Perhaps only scattered groups of cavemen, wielding femurs of buffalo, wondering and arguing over why the Ice God was making the ice melt. At least they had the sense not to blame it on Buffalo gas, or did they?
