The computer TEOTWAWKI seems to have been avoided, for the meantime. But what about this new TEOTWAWKI that is literally taking the World by storm... the changing weather patterns? They aren't just changing, they always do that... the puzzling thing about this newest dilemma now confronting us is that the WAY they change is changing. In other words, the patterns of change are changing, so dramatically that even our newest $35 million supercomputer failed to predict the storm which recently hit the East coast, not to mention other recent disasters in Venezuela and Europe. The computer models cannot predict this kind of weather because they don't have the data... these types of patterns have never been seen before, at least not since we've been recording them. 20 inches of snow from 1 inch of rain???

Y2K was a good practice drill for TEOTWAWKI, but this time there is no stopping it, and it is going to change our World for many years to come. We may have to upgrade our preps to include protection from severe weather extremes, and perhaps a lot more food and fuel for heat. Hang on, I think this ride is about to get a lot wilder. :-)

When good forecast models go bad

WASHINGTON, Jan. 26  The worlds best computer weather models, located in Bowie, had digested reams of data from weather balloons, ocean buoys, observation posts, satellites and ships. Supported by a new IBM supercomputer firing up enhanced software for the first time, the models calculated the highs and lows, the ridges and troughs, the moisture and motion of the atmosphere.

ON MONDAY at 3:30 p.m., based on the results, the National Weather Service issued this prediction for the Washington area yesterday: A 40 percent chance of light snow. ... Total accumulation less than one inch. In the cold and snowy light of yesterday morning, with the aid of 20-20 hindsight, Dewey Walston, a meteorologist with the Weather Service, had something to get off his chest about those computer models. He typed up a post-mortem addressed to other forecasters. Wow, Walston wrote. Eating a lot of humble pie this morning. ... Too bad the [models] cant answer all the phone calls. Walston went on to observe that the Monday morning computer weather assessment, predicting conditions for yesterdays rush hour, were the most horrible I have seen in my 10 [years] in the NWS. The models, he added, did a pitiful job. The models are run several times a day, and data from a new computer run became available in the early evening, predicting the storm much more accurately. After analyzing the results, federal forecasters issued the first weather alert for Washington before 10 p.m. More alerts quickly followed for cities up the Eastern Seabord. Far from less than 1 inch, this was the worst snowstorm since 1996, a bomb  to use a weather term. It was the sort of winter northeaster that has dumped snow over such a large area only 28 times in the last half-century. In a day of meteorological hand-wringing and second-guessing, federal forecasters admitted they and their computers had been late in calling it right. But they denied that they had been anything less than thorough in tracking the storm. I wouldnt characterize it as catching us off guard, said Louis Uccellini, director of the National Centers for Environmental Prediction, a branch of the Weather Service. He noted that the medium-range forecast pointed to the possibility of a significant East Coast storm by Wednesday. We were watching this thing like a hawk. TRUSTING COMPUTERS

But Patrick Michaels, the state climatologist for Virginia, suggested that a subtle bit of human psychology had foiled the forecasters. He said that one of the computer models, called Eta (sounds like ate-a) after the Greek letter, is so good (it nailed the storm of January 1996 by more than a day), that forecasters are loath to contradict it. So they didnt, even though they could see radar evidence Monday of heavy late-afternoon snow in Raleigh, N.C., and other contrary data.

Here we have the best model we know of insisting that the main precipitation shield is to the south and east of Washington, Michaels said. And here we have our eyeballs looking at the precipitation shield advancing north and west. The forecasters  including Michaels  didnt believe their eyeballs. The moral of this snowstorm, Michaels suggested, should be: The computer Etaed my forecast. Uccellini, whom Michaels praised as knowing more about East Coast snowstorms than any living human being, pointed out that the Weather Service issued the more accurate forecast hours before people had to get up and face the day. The only alterations through the night were to add a few inches to the total predicted accumulation. But the Weather Services revision of the analysis still came too late to make the early evening broadcast news, the last time many people tune in to the weather. The bad news came later. Sue Palka, weathercaster at WTTG-TV (Channel 5), went on the air for Mondays 10 p.m. news predicting eight inches and then spent yesterday doing live updates every half-hour. Its been insane today. My back is killing me, she said late yesterday. I just realized an hour ago that I hadnt eaten all day. Sometimes the computer models disagree with one another. Thats when a meteorologist proves his or her mettle, sorting out the conflicting data, said Andy Woodcock, a meteorologist with the Weather Service. But on Monday, forecasters had three key models in essential agreement, all predicting the storm would pass far to the east of the major East Coast cities. To reject a unanimous chorus of computer models is the kind of stuff that gets you awards if youre right, Woodcock said. Youre a gutsy dude if you do it. Advertisement

No gutsy dudes were on the case Monday. So why didnt the models catch this earlier? Id love to have two or three years to do a research project on that, Uccellini told a group of reporters during a telephone news conference. The models had predicted that a weather system over the Great Lakes would help push the East Coast storm out to sea, but that did not happen. Chris Davis, a meteorologist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a consortium of universities and other institutions, said he suspects that the raw data going into the computer models from balloons, aircraft and satellites may have been insufficient. Surprisingly strong snow in Raleigh and other evidence independent of the computers raised some concern among the Weather Services forecasters in Sterling as well as meteorologists at AccuWeather, the private service based in State College, Pa., that supplies many Washington clients, including the D.C. government. Uccellini said the new supercomputer, recently unveiled with fanfare, helped matters. Its first run of enhanced software happened to be Monday morning. The supercomputer detected some possible problems with the original forecast, he said, and by evening, its superior number-crunching ability helped pull together the revised forecast more quickly. Another problem in the prediction was that the standard ratio of water to snowflakes did not apply. Usually, when forecasters know how much water is coming down, they use a ratio of 1 inch of water for 10 inches of snow to predict how much snow will fall. But this storm was more intense, 1 to 20. Its what makes snow forecasting so much fun, Uccellini said. This storm was a northeaster, with winds that were strong but not blizzard-strength, except for brief gusts. It is also sometimes called a bomb, Uccellini said. That signifies the explosive development of a storm off the coast accompanied by a quick drop in central pressure. Such storms that dump snow on all the major cities of the East Coast tend to be episodic, Uccellini said. They come in groups, he said. You can go without them for four or five years, and then you can have two or three happen in one or two years.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 26, 2000

Answers

Amen! - You said it brother.

-- Barbara (ba3_4him1@yahoo.com), January 26, 2000.

Hawk, I am going to get blasted for this opinion. Well I was Toast when I arrived here, guess more burned, isn't going to matter, where ever I go. I had a one sided conversation with My Lord, last summer, with all the wild fires we have had in the South, and I looked at the beauty of the forests around me, and I asked Jesus, will you destroy your works, again? The Scripture, leap out at me, about the Rainbow. Then, somewhere else, in my rambling reading of the Bible, I read that God brings other sorts of things, to reach his people, to bring them back to him. Weather, present fuel crisis? He is, no respector, of persons. He seeks to bring us, to his doorstep. He brings this weather, so those who are freezing/burning will invoke his name, and ask for deliverance.

-- Got No Hotline (toHe@ven.com), January 26, 2000.

Hawk,

Very likely true.

Do you have good URL for short term/intermediate weather patterns.

I believe there is some correlation with solar activity. With solar max estimated for 2nd qtr 2000, might we expect weather patterns similar to previous solar max cycles. I recall inthe winter of 1977- 78 that industry use of natural gas was curtailed, offices were closed for a few days, and lights were turned down - all to save available nat gas for domestic use.

Now, with increased building construction, I suspect peak nat gas demand is higher now than 77-78. So I wonder what is the probability of seeing any .gov mandated conservation measures in next few weeks???

-- BillP (porterwn@one.net), January 26, 2000.

Got No,

You'll get no flaming from me this time. I agree that the weather is just one of the ways God works. In fact, we deserve this type of weather because God gave us the free will to either live in harmony with Mother Earth, or to eat away at her like a cancer. It isn't that God does not respect persons, but rather that He respects all of His creation equally. Earth has every right to reject us, and it wouldn't be fair for God to allow us to kill her. We'll get exactly what we deserve, as determined by the path we have chosen to take.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 26, 2000.

BillP,

I have been wondering about the possibility of effects from the solar cycle, but haven't yet seen any information on that. I'll look into it. I have heard some reports of certain ocean current and temperature changes, which of course has more influence on our weather patterns than anything else. It is my understanding that those types of changes are very unususal, and probably not something that happens during a relatively brief period of high solar activity, but more likely a longer term condition of overall global temperature change, which IMO is being accelerated by greenhouse gasses.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 26, 2000.

Maybe them boys up in Alaska strummed that HAARP just a little too hard, maybe it's La Nina come calling, maybe the four horsemen are getting ready to ride! We do live in interesting times for sure. Time to spread the Good news to as many as we can before that trumpet sounds.

-- dozerdoctor (dozerdoc@yahoo.com), January 26, 2000.

right on hawk

-- sandy (rstyree@overland.net), January 26, 2000.

Hawk,

Sometimes it's hard to remember that while we're all native sons, dear old Mother Nature considers us just visitors. Over 4+ billion years She's seen a few. Bummed me to learn that water temps in the Pacific indicate the start of a 20 or so year cycle.

-- Carlos (riffraff1@cybertime.net), January 26, 2000.

Great post Hawk,

Here's some more pertinant "weather info":

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Ice core samples from Antarctica suggest that the warming trend that ended an ice age 12,500 years ago may have overtaken the Earth in only a few decades -- raising concerns that the current warming trend may bring equally dramatic changes.

A University of Colorado team led by climatologist James White will publish their findings in the journal Science on Friday.

Previous research had shown a simultaneous but even greater increase in Arctic temperatures. Ice cores from Greenland, near the Arctic Circle, show a temperature increase of almost 59 degrees within a 50- year-period.

And White's team said the Antarctica ice cores show a temperature increase of about 20 degrees F within a few decades.

"What we see in Antarctica looks very, very similar to what we see in Greenland," said White. "We used to suspect that some of these big changes that occurred naturally in the past were only local. Since we see the same thing at opposite ends of the Earth, it does imply that the warming was a global phenomena." He said the findings "throw a monkey wrench into paleo-climate research and rearrange our thinking about climate change at that time."

White said researchers need to look more closely at how the Earth's climate slipped from an ice age that ended about 12,500 years ago and shifted into the current, more temperate climate.

The findings, he said, also increases the urgency for researchers to understand climate shifts because it appears they could be abrupt and happen all over the Earth at roughly the same time.

The 15 warmest years on record have occurred since 1980, with 1998 on track for the highest average temperatures since record-keeping began twelve decades ago.

================================== ET A 2-mile-long ice core laboriously drilled out of an Antarctic ice sheet shows that levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases are higher now than at any time in the past 420,000 years.

As the longest ice core record of Earth's weather history obtained to date, the core also shows that those gases - carbon dioxide and methane - play a big role in warming the planet when ice ages end. But how this icy record will influence current theories about global warming blamed on human activity isn't clear, the researchers said. ``The ice core gives us the past, not the future. But it adds to our thinking about the future, about the future of our climate,'' said Jean-Robert Petit, director of research at the National Centre for Scientific Research in Grenoble, France.

``It's clear that greenhouse gas levels are unprecedented compared with the previous 400,000 years.''

The core was extracted from 1992-98 by a U.S.-Russian-French team at Russia's Vostok research station, the coldest spot on Earth.

Each cylinder-like chunk of ice drilled out of the ice sheet contains a record of snowfall, atmospheric chemicals, dust and bubbles of air. Those clues, trapped in icy layers like tree rings, enable scientists to reconstruct past climates. The lengthy Vostok ice core is particularly significant because previous cores taken from Antarctica and Greenland dated back only about 150,000 years and showed just two ice age cycles.

The multinational team reported its findings in the June 3 issue of the journal Nature. Petit and colleagues found carbon dioxide levels rose from about 180 parts per million during each ice age's height to 280-300 ppm in the subsequent warm periods - far below the current CO2 levels of 360 ppm. Methane levels, meanwhile, rose from 320-350 parts per billion during the icy interludes to 650-770 ppb during the warm spells. Current methane levels are 1,700 ppb.

The levels of both greenhouse gases are expected to continue their rise in the next century due to continued burning of fossil fuels such as coal and other human activities.

Jonathan Overpeck, head of the paleoclimatology program at the National Geophysical Data Center in Boulder, Colo. said ``What this says is we're going well beyond the bounds of natural variation.''

The core also appears to call into question previous research suggesting a 500- to 1,000-year lag time between the post-ice age temperature increase and the CO2 increase. Instead, the core suggests temperatures rose in step with rising C02 levels.

``This core is telling us to get busy and understand the climate system because it really could change,'' said Richard Alley, a professor of geosciences at Pennsylvania State University.

(excerpts from Global Strategies Project database: http://www.bashar.com/GSP click on "Warning" nav button.

For those interested: OT but related thread (*long*): (i.e. how use of Industrial Hemp could reduce rate of CO2 & Methane atmospheric loading/Global warming:

http://hv.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=002PYl

1) goto thread

2) enter "EPA" into "Edit/FIND on this page/text search"

3) That will take you into the information/content sections; the prior, though interesting, is peppered with petty ego wars, Trolldom, Spindoctors, etc.

If you take the time to read this 'information rich' thread; you will understand the implications for reducing CO2 & Methane -> which directly affects global warming -> which directly affects the increased intensity of 'weather'.

steve

steve

-- steve (WhoCares@nymoreRight?.com), January 26, 2000.

Thanks everyone, and thanks to Steve for the excellent article, it's a great one! (I'll have to spend some time on that other thread, it's a long one)

We may have already sealed our fate, but I don't think it is ever too late to do the right thing. Even if it becomes too hostile for humans to survive, we still owe the rest of Earth's life a fighting chance.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 26, 2000.

I have the newspaper (the Daily Oklahoman) with the forecast for today: Cloudy with a chance of light snow. Actual result? 8" & counting. Until late last night, noone predicted heavy snow until late tonight, the 26th. Sure looks nice, but we ain't goin' anywhere...

-- Okie Dan (brendan@theshop.net), January 26, 2000.

Oklahoma!!??? Yes, that must be pretty rare in that area! Enjoy your days off. :-)

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 27, 2000.

Hawk said above: "We may have already sealed our fate, but I don't think it is ever too late to do the right thing. Even if it becomes too hostile for humans to survive, we still owe the rest of Earth's life a fighting chance."

Whoa...!! u ARE flyin "high" up there - good call. yeah, comprehensive "overview", not just starring at individual trees, but gettin the drift of the Forest & Lay-of-the-Land as well.

Got 'dem razor sharp "Eagle Eyes"....huh? keep soaring dude.

steve

-- steve (WhoCares@nymoreRight?.con), January 27, 2000.

Perhaps you should all move to Southern California. The weather is always perfect here. (Hope I'm not jinx-ing us)

-- cin (cinlooo@aol.com), January 27, 2000.

For any of you with a mind that may remain open to another perspective, may I suggest http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/el-nino-story.html and related NOAA pages on the cyclical nature of the Southern Oscillation, (e.g. El Nino or the Trade Winds,) and how this phenomenon affects weather.

As for forest fires, my region had extensive fires last summer. It was not a punishment from God. It is what happens when a century of fire suppression, halting of logging and closure of roads creates massive dead forest fuels waiting for a catasrophic burn.

My region normally receives hundreds upon hundreds of lightning strikes in the summer. The natural pattern is for light burns that clear out underbrush but are not hot enough to kill all the older trees. What this does is create a mosaic pattern of open meadow and forest, which accounts for great biological diversity. Over the past century, all fires were extinguished. Logging emulated some of the same mosaic pattern in patch and selective cuts. Burning of slash cleared underbrush.

Now we no longer log. Roads are closed so we can't get into the fires. A "let it burn" policy is in place, without consideration of the unnatural fuel load. The fires burn so hot that they sterilize the soil and kill everything in their paths. The soil erosion afterwards is massive.

Interesting that some of our largest area fires were started by federal agencies doing "controlled burns" to clean out forest fuels. The winds whipped up and the fires got away from them, burning tens of thousands of acres. Anyone who flew over far Northern CA last summer could see the heavy smoke for miles.

There are other perspectives from Mr. Hawk's

-- marsh (siskfarm@snowcrest.net), January 27, 2000.

cinloooo must be trolling again, the weather is far from "perfect" in California. Don't even bother to debate me on that one, you'll lose.

In a somewhat related context, Marsh brings up the subject of El-Nino (i.e. California floods), which is not "another perspective", but is in fact just a PART of the much bigger overall picture.

Sure, NOAA does a good job of explaining El-Nino, of which I am already very familiar, but did you ever stop to think a little farther BEYOND that Marsh?? Like perhaps, what is CAUSING El-Nino, or why El-Nino events seem to be increasing in frequency and severity? Huh?

I never claimed to have the ONLY "perspective" on this subject Marsh, in fact I welcome reasonable explanations. Can you please share with us now what is YOUR explanation for the El-Nino phenomena, and why they are getting more frequent??

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 27, 2000.

Another good page on the Southern Oscillation is http://www.pmel.noaa.gov/toga-tao/el-nino-report.html#part13 It explains that tracking of the phenomenon cycles just began in the 1920s. Although some anectdotal evidence, tree ring and corral studies provide information that predates the 20th century, reliable statistical records exist for no longer than the past 100 years. This is not a great deal of time in establishing cycles.

I believe that this is still a very new predictive science. I don't think one can really say that we are seeing more frequent occurence of the phenomenon in recent times. There does not appear to be a sufficient sampling of data to support that assumption.

-- marsh (siskfarm@snowcrest.net), January 27, 2000.

Marsh and Hawk,

I have come to believe from my reading on the subject of global warming that we are in a natural warming trend that always occurs between glacial periods.

My concern is that the man-made pollution will speed up this process and instead of a natural occuring ice age thousands of years from now we may face one in decades.

Any thoughts on this?

-- Chief (bmc@sealret.com), January 27, 2000.

I agree completely Chief. I won't argue with anyone who says that the Earth has been in a normal warming cycle since the last ice age, but we can't use that as an explanation for the results of human activities.

The key here is that human activity is ADDING to the warming trend, accelerating it, and causing an amount of warming activity that might normally have taken place over thousands of years, to happen instead within hundreds of years.

That is just my opinion, but I also believe it to be impossible that our actions could NOT be having ANY effect, as some would lead us to believe.

-- Hawk (flyin@high.again), January 27, 2000.

Hawk, I've been lurking here, rarely posting for about 2 years. Certainly not a polly but not a doomer either. I think from reading some of your post we are pretty far apart on politics. If the climate is undergoing rapid change related to man made pollution as you and I both think is likely, that difference becomes inconsequential.

Time for the rack, 73

-- Chief (bmc@sealret.com), January 27, 2000.

hey Got No, i agree with you but don't you also think that the bible shows nature as almost having a will too? when it talks about nature groaning in travail or waiting for its redemption ( i can't remember the exact verses but there are a number). one thing i do know is that the concept of "exponential" comes into play with everything toward the end of time....exponential increase in knowledge, sin, wars, natural events....just like the building of labor pains. if we think the weather is bad now just wait a little longer. :-)

-- tt (cuddluppy@aol.com), January 27, 2000.

Good Morning All, just wanted to pass on a little infor from the Great Lakes. This past summer and fall the lakes water level has been down 2 to 3 feet in areas. I remember reading an article that said for the last 30 years we have had an abnormally high water level, a cycle we sometimes go through. The low water level we have now is actually the normal level and will stay this way. Hope their wrong, as I've all but lost the creek behind my house. It was about 60 feet across, maybe 5 feet deep, now it's 15 feet across and 2 feet deep. So much for my waterfront property.

-- Trish (adler2@webtv.net), January 27, 2000.

When Clintn took office, natural disasters for this country increased to 1000X national average historically.

-- Hokie (Hokie_@hotmail.com), January 27, 2000.

Back in the early 70s I read a report from NOAA that said that at the end of the century that there would be a big change in the weather. That we would also have more earth quakes, volcanos, hurricanes, tornados, fires, etc. The reason being that this century, 1900s, has been an UNUSUALLY stable period and that this is NOT NORMAL. That great variety, extremes and chaos is normal. But the 1900s is what is in everyone's memory bank thus all our comparisons are based on this abnormal period. I carried that report for years and eventually lost it. HOWEVER, I AM ALMOST POSITIVE I HAD GOTTEN IT OUT OF GARY NORTH'S REMENANT REVIEW of which I was a subscriber at that time. Perhaps if someone would give me GN's email, I could write and ask him if he recalls that article and if he has it archived somewhere. And as I lived in the area of Mt St Helens when it went off, I was convinced that the article was right!!

Taz

-- Taz (Tassi123@aol.com), January 27, 2000.

Does anyone recall a Nightline report years ago where university researchers took a sampling of the air from caskets sealed in lead from the colonial period? They were going to compare it with current times as a pre-industrial baseline. Does anyone know what the results were?

I know in this particular area, (and there are no Redwoods here,) newspaper reports from the 19th century indicate that every summer the forests burned and the air was thick with smoke. Some were caused by lightning and some by native Americans who renewed meadows, harvested grasshoppers and sugar through fire. (Fire control was a reason why there was impetus to have the forests nationalized here.) Anyway, air quality may actually have been worse, here, in the 19th century.

Cycles for weather may span centuries. I know that lines drawn for 20 and 50 year flood plains have been expanded here due to the '97 flood. A decade of drought also changed the averages substantially. All I am saying is that this may be the case for weather and El Nino.

Taz, our Mt. Shasta seems to have an erruption cycle of about 6-700 years. We are due. Mt Helens, no doubt, effected weather and air quality.

I am not saying that man has not had an impact, but with pollution control of the past 30 years, that impact has been substantially reduced in areas. We no longer have coal burning soot covered cities of the Victorian era. Of course, I don't live in the LA Basin area (and wouldn't.) To hear people talk, they have just about killed and poisoned everything natural in the area. Certainly not the case here.

Perhaps we are looking at different parts of the elephant. Hope we can realize that when we make laws that are appropriate in one place, but not another.

-- marsh (siskfarm@snowcrest.net), January 27, 2000.

My two cents.

Ionized particles from the solar wind act as nucleating agents for water droplets. During solar max, more particles, therefore increased precipitation or cloud cover.

Fire supression is coming back to haunt us as those fires that do start, as mentioned above, sterilize the soil. We need select cutting to catch up.

The events needed to trigger global warming have already occured. Now we must adapt and wait for the planet to re-equilibrate. There is 2x more carbon locked up in methane hydrates than all of the carbon sources of the world combined. This methane is about to be released.

As poster above mentioned, there was more pollution in metropolitan areas 80 years ago than now. Total volume was much lower. We have particulates and oxides under control, but total CO2 output is rampant now.

The ice cores from the Antartic provide a history far superior than anything else found. It provides the particulates, pollen and atmospheric gas profile needed to draw a global baseline. The quality of the results suggest events that cannot be ignored. I'm speculating, but it was when these results were made public, Ford and Chrysler switched tunes on global warming.

We are past the interglacial mid-point and were supposed to be heading towards glaciation (cooler climate). This track has been altered by the global warming.

-- Surrounded (hiding@thefirststate.com), January 27, 2000.

Surrounded, Accellerated warming speeds up the time frame to the next ice age. It does not delay it. The climate warms over thousands of years but snaps into cold. This is why the danger is so great.

Marsh, The fact that we are making progress is very true. Other parts of the world, specifically developing countries are on a global scale undoing the tremendous progress this country has made.

-- Chief (bmc@sealret.com), January 28, 2000.

Chief:

Though the event is rare, occasional oceanic "burps" of methane have caused rapid (2-10 years) rises in global temps. These variations in the global trend were overcome by whatever the dominant trend was. Agreed, historically it is the cold spells that occur quickly. It is just that the present events are unique in that the artifical elevations of greenhouse gasses will cause a massive release of methane due to the rapid melting of the methane hydrates in the ocean. After the warming, yes rapid cooling, but this time the warming trend will take less than 20 years.

-- Surrounded (hiding@thefirststate.com), January 28, 2000.