Friday, December 31, 2010

Then and Now

I don't have a degree in any natural science. But in my limited scientific studies I vividly remember my instructors telling me that for a hypothesis to move up to a theory in the scientific word, the hypothesis had to have predictive qualities.

Meaning that you could predict some future event based on the nature of your hypothesis.

So how does that apply to global warming?

Let take the time machine back ten years ago and see...........

Then......................

Within a few years "children just aren't going to know what snow is." Snowfall will be "a very rare and exciting event." Dr. David Viner, senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, interviewed by the UK Independent, March 20, 2000.

Ten years later, in December 2009, London was hit by the heaviest snowfall seen in 20 years. And just last week, a snowstorm forced Heathrow airport to shut down, stranding thousands of Christmas travelers.

A spokesman for the government-funded British Council, where Viner now works as the lead climate change expert, told FoxNews.com that climate science had improved since the prediction was made.


Now.................


THE earth continues to get warmer, yet it’s feeling a lot colder outside. Over the past few weeks, subzero temperatures in Poland claimed 66 lives; snow arrived in Seattle well before the winter solstice, and fell heavily enough in Minneapolis to make the roof of the Metrodome collapse; and last week blizzards closed Europe’s busiest airports in London and Frankfurt for days, stranding holiday travelers. The snow and record cold have invaded the Eastern United States, with more bad weather predicted.

All of this cold was met with perfect comic timing by the release of a World Meteorological Organization report showing that 2010 will probably be among the three warmest years on record, and 2001 through 2010 the warmest decade on record.

How can we reconcile this? The not-so-obvious short answer is that the overall warming of the atmosphere is actually creating cold-weather extremes.

Here's a piece noting other predictions that haven't borne fruit.

And these Branch Gorvidians wonder why there are skeptics?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I heard a very interesting point the other day by a scientist who made a very interesting point about science.

He noted that a hypothesis cannot be scientifically proven if criteria cannot be specified for disproof of that same hypothesis. He was referring to global warming science and saying that the global warming scientists have never laid out criteria that need to be met to disprove that A) global warming is happening and B) if it is, that it is man made.

He said that by skirting this important component of the scientific process, the movement does not have to be concerned with disproving criteria ever occurring. It frees up the movement to claim that everything that happens, including falling temperatures, being caused by global warming.