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Yes, our weird weather could be due to climate change, meteorologist says

On the whole, meteorologists just hate to link any specific weather pattern over a short period to climate change. But Pete Bouchard says it's time to face facts: While may be impossible to say the specific wet weather we've been seeing over the past few weeks is due to climate change, the fact that we're seeing more and more unusual weather patterns that last long periods of time is:

Relentless rain, sunless days and chilly temps can easily be explained as a slow start to spring. But how many times have we been here? A lot. And is this becoming the norm? Maybe.

You know where I’m going with this, so I’ll show my cards now. It’s likely a result of global warming. More specifically, global warming hijacking our jet stream. We have to use caution here, since it’s easy to be lured to the dark side of climate change by tying short-term weather to long-term changes.

However, the science here isn’t a reach. ...

Without going into the finer points, it’s the reason we may get stuck in what seems like the most dreaded type of weather. More alarming, we’re likely to see more of these in the future. In fact, The National Climate Assessment shows direct ties between many of our recent spats of persistent weather and a warming planet.

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On the whole, meteorologists just hate to link any specific weather pattern over a short period to climate change.

Adam, is this your own personal opinion, or is it a proven fact that meteorologists “on a whole” do not believe in climate change? I have never heard of this or tried to pick through underlying subliminal messages from meteorologists.

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Spend much time talking about climate change.

But that's not the same as saying they're climate-change deniers, and I apologize if it sounds like that's what I was saying.

Local weather people have a relatively specific job - tell us how to dress tomorrow and whether we should buy supplies for a weekend picnic - and that isn't something that really needs a discussion of climate change to do. And it's virtually impossible to say that any one day's weather is due to changes in global climate, in any case.

So that having been said, I thought Bouchard's essay was interesting, because rather than just saying "gosh, it sure has been raining a lot recently," he did take the time to consider whether the pattern we have been seeing might have some greater cause.

There actually was one local weatherman who was very much a climate-change denier, but he no longer works in this market.

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So you demand meteorologists claim climate change is the reason they are reporting on the weather? That is not their job and by no means do we need weather forecasters being political. Does everything need to be political to you?

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Seeing the world only in black and white like you do - all sharp edges, never anything soft and shaded and nuanced. Are there pills for that or are you just forced to try to go to sleep with a throbbing headache from a full day of your black-and-white high-contrast life?

No, I'm not saying somebody pointing at a green screen to show what tomorrow's weather will be like has to constantly bring up climate change - we've already been through how one day's forecast can't be tied to it, anyway.

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Pete Bouchard IS a meteorologist.

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LIBS OWNED!!!!!

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at an all-time high. you will soon be kayaking through back bay if you want to go anywhere. except not really, because once it floods the buildings built on mud will become unstable and you won't be allowed to pass through. crowd the streets with your murderous gas guzzling rust buckets while ye may!

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May here can be rainy and cool. It can also be spectacular; dry, clear, mid upper 60s-low 70s. It's a crap shoot.

What is different now is the 24/7/365 'news' cycle and our so-called information revolution. When anything, even things not unusual, trivial things, happen, anywhere in the world, we hear about it instantly. And that news is more often than not slanted, biased in one direction or another. More opinion and editorial than straight news. Edward Bernays would be proud to see how advanced propaganda and marketing techniques have become.

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I talked to a guy who surveyed Route 2 in western MA after Tropical Storm Irene (which did extensive damage out there, including a 6 mile stretch of Route 2 that was destroyed). He disagreed with what you're saying. "May here can be rainy and cool", but it's been rainier than what the land is adapted to, and that means the hills of New England are becoming slip-prone.

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What are you talking about? Look at the data! The right side of the time series is more often above the average

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/statewide/time-series/19/pcp/12/4/1895-201...

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it seems to me that over the past few years, summer/fall is lasting longer (warmer into Nov/Dec) and winter/spring is hanging on later. Shifting seasons?

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Summer may come around the same time it always did, but it extends into September and then fall takes longer to come and longer to leave. With a few polar vortex excursions (also climate change) we generally get dry moderate weather through December now.

Spring seems to be the least affected season. Although some years - like 2012 - we don't even get a winter.

This spring was one of the warmest on record, but it was the higher lows that made it that way.

What is scariest about the whole thing: as the polar regions warm more quickly than temperate latitudes, our air jets and currents are getting fucked up - running slower and weakening because of the reduced temperature difference. That's leading to all sorts of mayhem.

The prognosis: Warmer, Wetter, and Weirder.

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We're soaking wet: climate change!
We're dry as a bone: climate change!

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Extreme weather is one of the effects of climate change and global warming.

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Weather extremes are not new.

I may come across as a global warming doubter. I'm not. The data is there. That every spike in the weather- warmer, colder, drier, wetter- is tied to the temperature going up is something that I will continue to scoff at. I trust the farmers to explain the effects, since it affect them and their customers (i.e. all of us) more.

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I'd say the distinction is that people who point to weird weather in general and blame global warming are definitely jumping the gun a bit, (and certainly there are laymen who make arguments like that and it annoys me) but if like Pete Bouchard you're linking it to a specific mechanism which has a clear connection with global warming and empirically observed climate trends, then that's much more sound. His blog post isn't exactly a rigorous climatological paper or anything, but it's making a more specific argument than just "weird weather = climate change??"

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Theres also data out there that "proves" their are millennia old monuments on Mars and that Lizard People were once discovered while digging the LA subway.

Forgive me, Waquiot if I side with the consensus of the scientific community on this one.

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The cult of climate change is strong.

Of course, you could have seen that I readily admitted that "the data is there" that proves that the earth is warming, but alas, that's not enough. 100% adherence is required, no?

And people wonder why I've started sounding like a skeptic.

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i really just wanted to shoehorn a lizard people from LA mention i to that.

I actually think were in agreement. ;-)

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I trust scientists, not farmers or politicians.

With every other science, people are fine trusting experts. If a doctor told you they found signs of a tumor, would you wait and see how your butcher reacts? If a structural engineer told you your house was at risk of collapsing, would you run out to the farmers market for confirmation?

BTW, farmers ARE adjusting. The big AG companies are working to develop new varieties which are more resistive to extreme weather, temperature changes, etc. Most big corporations aren't waiting for the government to act either.

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But farmers have to deal with the effects more than the average person does.

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...will tell you that things are all fucked up.

You don't know any farmers, do you? At all?

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Which, again, is why I trust a farmer’s view of climate more than, say, a politician, celebrity, or meteorologist. They are the most impacted.

I mean, others here wouldn’t trust what a farmer, whose livelihood is predicated on the climate of a region, but that’s on them.

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You don't trust scientists who tell you that climate change is a thing.
You trust farmers.
Farmers tell you that climate change is a thing.
You try to leverage that into somehow blaming others who trust science.

In your ceaseless quest to be perverse and throw shade, it's like you completely missed the point that farmers and scientists are saying the same thing. They're just basing it on different (but overlapping) data. Maybe you should work on your communication (generously assuming that you do have a point and aren't just being againsty).

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I checked and checked and checked, but I miss where I wrote that I don't trust scientists. I did write that I don't trust meteorologists when it comes to climate, mainly because I don't. I trust them to present me with a prognostication of what the atmospheric conditions will be in the near future. The discipline is very different. In general, I don't trust people who search for things to link to global warming, no matter how tenuous. The missus went to see Neil deGrasse Tyson speak a few years back. A lot of people like his approach to science overall, but apparently people were aghast when he mentioned that the active hurricane season that had just passed was not evidence of global warming in of itself, mainly because those in the know (not Dr. Tyson, but people who he trusts) refused to claim a link minus the data to support the link.

There are scientists that dedicate themselves to studying the climate. They present dispassionate findings of the data. Then there are people who spin the findings. Its the spinners who get me. A farmer has nothing to spin. He wants to get his crops in the ground and grown so he can make a living. A guy in a television studio has an interest in spinning what's going on with the weather.

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They are getting extremely concerned.

Climate adaptation folk don't even have to say the magic words - even if those farmers don't want to say the magic words, they know they are in trouble and they are asking for help adapting.

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The frequency of extremes is new.

The power behind the storms is new.

I strongly suggest that you read up on what is happening to the jet stream, the polar jet, and the major currents (gulf stream) if you really want to understand why. The poles are warming faster than the rest of the planet - and the reduced temp difference is what brings us weakened polar jets and polar vortices - among other things.

The slowing of the gulf stream (again due to this reduced temp differential) means that it stays warmer at higher latitudes. Any storms riding it will fuel up and hang around.

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while fun for some to mock scientists about actually disrupt trees, flowers, and migration patterns creating a ripple effect. Were losing bees, monarchs, and birds at an alarming rate.

Id explain more but ive probably already lost you...

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aL gOrE BoUghT A HoUse!

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Climate isn't weather but let's hear from the weatherman on the topic. Ha! Let's get the five day forecast right before delving into areas beyond expertise.

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IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/GG8ulWW.jpg)

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If you don't know the difference between a meteorologist and a weatherman, I think we've discovered your problem.

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I don't want to know, I just want to believe!

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I am sure fishy is so stuck in 1955.. he calls a Flight Attendant, a stewardess still.

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I tried googling that, but got no clear answer. Others may have better search skills. I got the feeling that many are not meteorologists, since it isn't a job requirement.

A Navy vet I worked with long ago insisted that not only were they all meteorologists, but they'd all been in the Navy and stationed at some awful place above the Arctic Circle. He was trying to convince me not to be so critical of their accuracy. He failed then, but I'm not so critical now. Weather forecasting is far better now than it was then.

I do believe that TV weathermen get almost all of their information from the National Weather Service (who are meteorologists), and spend a lot of effort fluffing up that information so it will fill up a third of the newscast. I find this fluffed-up product mind-numbing, and sometimes can't remember what the temperature is supposed to be "during the overnight hours tonight."

I liked the weather forecast they used to have on Channel 2, which was a couple of lines of type, containing all the useful information, and held on the screen for less than a minute. Now I go to the source.

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I think all of our channels in Boston have at least one meteorologist on staff.

While many of them probably solely use the NWS output, and all of them probably use it to some degree, Matt Noyes and NBC actually built their own model of the weather (again, probably uses NWS as input to their model as well). I find his approach above par.

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...who among us will start complaining about the heat, wishing that summer would end soon?

(Full disclosure: I'd be one of them, right at/near the head of the line.)

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I'd trample my grandma for some sun and heat, and it can stay until October, please.

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be it warm, cold, wet, dry, calm, windy, seasonable, unseasonable...is evidence of climate change.

Gotcha.

And they call us science deniers.

Then they tell us the world will end in 12 years, propose a 90+ trillion dollar "world war II style mobilization" to "fix" it, and call us history deniers and economic illiterates when we point out the obvious fact that unicorn farts are not a viable alternative to petroleum-derived transportation fuels.

You guys really are Jonestown. And you're just so deep in it you can't tell.

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Here's a challenge for you, Roman. Show me a link to a single peer-reviewed scientific study that isn't funded by the fossil fuel industry which concludes that climate change isn't a reality. I'll wait.

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is that it's morphed into a religion with articles of faith and commandments of its own, and that it's always attracted socialists (like you!) looking for yet another excuse to guilt people out of their hard-earned wealth.

You want to cut carbon dioxide emissions? Build some fucking nuclear power plants instead of jetting off to Davos to preen about how green you are.

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I'm still waiting (on my jet to Davos).

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you can even choose:

Do you want the third bolt from the left aeleron or the eighth pin from the 25-pin connector on for the cable that plugs the weather radar to the cockpit display?

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LOL now you're divying up the plane that you imagined? Jesus, man, do you realize how far up your own ass you are?

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so I will put my religion with the myriad of climate change information given to us from those who are experts in their field, unlike you, Roman, or myself. You know em, they are really trying to bore into bone heads like yours that there really is a problem.

I'm fascinated how you combine socialism and somehow connect that with laying a guilt trip on wealthy people (you do know, Ro, that most wealth is pass downed from the original crimi, ah "hard workers" to their kids, right? No hard working there, my friend. But keep living the dream).

Actually, fun fact, one does not need to build some "fucking nuclear power plants" to curb carbon dioxide emissions. You can build as many "fucking" things you wish but that will be a small dent in the current state of carbon dioxide omissions.

Another fun fact. Did you know the objective of the Paris climate agreement? (Heck, do you even know what that is?) Well, the objective was to keep global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius. However, the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change says that by 2030, CO2 emissions must drop some 45 percent from 2010 levels to meet that goal. But they are not declining, Ro, and you know why.....?

Well, for one, El Trumpo decided in his genius to cancel existing climate reforms such as the fuel-efficiency standard and limits on emissions from new coal-fired power plants (you like breathing coal, Ro?), and he pledged to pull the U.S. out of that Agreement. Now, do you think this really has anything to do with those "fucking nuclear power plants?"

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55 mpg cars by 2020 was always a fantasy, and a forced lowering CO2 emissions by 45 pct was and is a recipe for civil war.

The problem the greenies have can be neatly divided into two categories.

The first deficiency in thinking is the assumption that we a totally do live in a post-scarcity Star Trek future and that it's only a cabal of powerful Special Interests (tm) that's keeping all the free stuff and pixie dust under wraps.

The second deficiency in thinking, derived in many ways from the first, but still worthy of it's own category, is the inability or unwillingness to assign value to individual freedom and initiative in the calculation of societal goals. Yeah it would be nice if the human contribution to global warming could be kept at under 2C per century, but if the cost of that is an erosion of the conditions that made our material prosperity possible through the capitalist system of individual freedom and risk taking, then the magic number may need to be revised upward.

The dogmatic insistence that its 2C or bust is foolish. The Earth has been warmer before. Life will continue. A number computed by technocrats from countries without a tradition of freedom cannot be trusted as gospel. Crooks are everywhere. So are useful idiots.

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They need to be eliminated/phased out.

BTW - electric cars get 100+mpg energy equivalent.

My 2012 Jetta Wagon got over 55mpg highway, but she was cheating.

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Electric cars are not suitable for a large (larger than half) portion of the population. We've been over why: very few people live within 3 sigma of their average vehicle usage year-round for the lifetime of a typical vehicle (12 years and counting for the 30 mpg highway Chevy). And people won't buy for the average, they'll buy for the worst-case.

Corporations with large fleets with predictable routes will have a better handle on their averages and 99th percentile cases and will buy EVs to boost their greenie brownie points and pass on the cost difference to consumers. So no more free delivery for your cruelty-free organic iphone covers. But also more expensive groceries for people who are less able to absorb increases in the costs of necessities like food.

Cars can't be efficient, Dr MIT. If you want to be able to haul yourself plus 2.5 children and have more than 0 cubic inches of cargo space left, you're not going to be getting much north of 25-30 mpg without cheating.

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Yes. Cars can be made fuel efficient.
But fewer trips and and a designed cityscape that promotes fewer trips by low-occupancy internal-combustion motorised vehicles saves far more energy.

Get off your ass and move, Roman.
But no. You'd rather bitch and pretend that you can maintain the status quo via denial.

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But I have this pesky instinct of self-preservation that prevents me from hopping on a unicycle with the rest of the family balanced on my head when I make the trip from home to the store or to work in the middle of winter.

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...those who are experts in their field, unlike you, Roman...

Roman IS an expert in his field, which is trolling UHub. He has advanced skills for posting endless piles of aggravating nonsense that provokes other members to respond, while not annoying Adam enough to be banned. He's really good at it. I can't help myself from taking his bait sometimes.

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kitty got claws

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You were close to the accepted scientific facts and proposed resolutions to our current predicament except for everything you said.

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Then they tell us the world will end in 12 years, propose a 90+ trillion dollar "world war II style mobilization" to "fix" it, and call us history deniers and economic illiterates when we point out the obvious fact that unicorn farts are not a viable alternative to petroleum-derived transportation fuels.

The use of absurdity here is telling and I suspect you know it. Let's look at how a good faith version of this sentence would read:

...when we point out the obvious fact that hybrid, fully electric, and other alternative fuels may not be a viable alternative to petroleum-derived transportation fuels today, but the technology is improving at a rapid pace.

That doesn't suit your argument though, so you obscure reality with ridiculously trite nonsense.

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No my friend. Technology is not advancing at a rapid pace. Not in the way you would like to think it is, at least.

Snakeoil salesmen who want you to buy a 50k electric car with a 10k taxpayer subsidy want you to believe that utopia is just around the corner, all you have to do is buy now now now!

Those of us with actual technical training, on the other hand, who do not have a vested interest in snakeoil futures, can see through it. But that means we're stuck with gasoline. And that doesn't suit the narrative of "we're already in the star trek future etc" and it doesn't move product, so we get called all sorts of names.

Borderline retards like Ed Markey and AOC putting on their sandwich boards and telling us the end is nigh does not add to the quality of the public discussion, but people like that will always be there, and they need to be addressed in language they understand. So unicorn farts it is.

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Pete Bouchard forecasted a few storms that never hit us this past winter. Why would i believe him?

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It is about understanding.

Imprecise forecasts due to complex moving massive things are not the same as being wrong about a slower moving, well studied thing.

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implies imprecision in the long term.

"But...but...quantum imprecision yet macroscopic determinism!" you might scream in frustration.

Yeah...it's all a question of scale isn't it? Keplerian orbits don't really work out so predictably in real life on the scale of tens of millions of years. Same thing here. If you can only predict the average number of cloudy days but not the actual number of cloudy days, you're off in nowhere land in terms of being able to predict the actual surface temperature next August 15th.

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This is like saying if I can’t tell you how many goals the Bruins will score tomorrow, then I have no chance at telling you how likely they are to win the Stanley Cup this year.

You think you’re smart. But you’re not.

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