Discussion about Weather Prediction In These Times

[Guest2013b]

I have been keenly interested in climate change since I first became aware of it. So intense is my interest that I have studied as much as is available to me and have decided to venture to the North Pole - mostly to gain a platform by which to disseminate what I have learned.


One of the things I have learned, is that weather prediction is becoming incredibly difficult. The fact is, the Arctic ocean is now a part of our global climate engine. Oceans, significantly more than air, drive our weather patterns. And our weather circulates because our planet spins on its axis of course. But the Arctic ocean sits atop the globe, the only ocean on the planet that circulates on itself (the Antartic does, but to a lesser extent and does not have a center of rotation that is in the sea.)

As oceans drive the weather, and as currents are the most significant factor in development of weather; we have a significant problem here on this little planet of ours, that directly affects each of us here - sailors.

The problem is, we haven't got a clue as to what effects our "new ocean" will have on our weather. We are starting to learn; but we weren't even good at predicting the weather before the Arctic ocean started to become a driver of weather.

My experiences here south of Point Arena on the California Coast are directly related to the opening up of the Arctic ocean and its new participation in global climate. Yesterday, we had another small craft advisory, and today it was smooth as glass. And these advisories are routinely worse - often far worse, than predicted. Last weekend, a 27' sailboat came in under Force 8 conditions; when only Force 6 was predicted - and the sailors had actually sat down with a NOAA forecaster!



I wanted to start a discussion then, about people's real experiences with weather conditions being different than predicted; to see if there is a real trend out there that we - especially myself as a new sailor - need to be aware of.

I know for myself, I will not be relying on NOAA or any other body for weather predictions. I am learning more about meteorology and weather prediction - I want to understand all there is to understand about weather - from a scientific perspective - so that I can make my own predictions rather than relying on scientists whose data and analyses have become quite questionable in the face of changing conditions brought on by "global warming" (which is actually a symptom of a much more dire problem of Carbon pollution).


My goal here in this thread is not to debate the merits of "global warming." I want to deal with true experiences only.

So please, if you have any weather experiences wherein the weather was heavier or vastly different than predicted, please relate your experiences here. Let's keep this thread only about weather predictions gone awry and the consequences. The merits of global warming science is beyond the scope of this discussion. We are only concerned with what we know, and how it affects us. My dicsussion serves only as a baseline, and offers my hypothesis for why we might be experiencing conditions different from predictions.

[duckwheat]

Subject: Darn scary article on global warming

The Washington Post AP Story

"The Arctic ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot, according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from Consulafft, at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard-of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes.

Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm. Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared.

Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds.

Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coastal cities uninhabitable."

You do not understand how comforting it is, to know you are on this subject matter. The selfless sacrifice, to go to the north pole on a fact finding mission, OMG. We all are in your debt, and humbled to be in your presence, if only electronically. I am not sure a thread on a low use sailing blog is really an adequate forum for the lofty goals you have set. In reality, you are not just talking about saving someone's bacon out for a day sail, but the salvation of mankind.

The Washington Post article above is an actual story from 1922. I am at the moment, bobbing around at approx. 72 degrees north. I will send your regards to the icebergs, polar bears, and walrus. When you get out of sunny southern California, bring a jacket. It is cold as HELL!

Your first few post are absolutely priceless. I cannot recall anyone since I have been here to even come close to you in the past. You make me chuckle, and that is not easy to do. Thank you. Thank you, and please keep more of this keen insight coming, don't stop.

DW, in the frozen north aka New Ocean.

[Guest2013b]

Duckwheat:

First and foremost, please diminish the accolades a bit. While I am sincerely on a mission to save humanity - it is a humble mission, because it is my responsibility as a human being and especially with my possession of understanding of such matters as is not held by the greater scientific community or society at-large. If anyone else had this knowledge, they would do the same. I am therefore only doing my duty and require no more than due respect that any individual deserves.


I am quite glad to hear from someone in the Arctic. I long to be there. I long to make my mission come true this summer, as it was supposed to have happened last summer. My damn brain doesn't work right and it makes planning - assessing my ability to meet those plans - quite impossible for me. It doesn't help that I also assumed I would have help with my mission long, long ago.


I almost thought you might be teasing me, being ironic for the sake of some inside joke. That speaks to my experiences dealing with these matters here in California and America at-large. People have been made to believe that they are powerless to alter their world for the better, or for the worse (global warming can't possibly be man-made, right?)

The fact is, we can ALL change the world for the better. Each of us has that power. We only fail to exercise it because we have let ourselves be convinced of our impotence. We have forgotten what the circumstances were which underly every single scientific and other human achievement. It wasn't some corporation who discovered radiation and its beneficial uses. It wasn't some corporation who discovered germs and gave us sterility. It wasn't some corporation that discovered that our universe is finite. And it wasn't Boeing or some other corporation that gave us flight.

These, and indeed ALL significant, beneficial discoveries were made by individuals, people working not for profit, but for the benefit of all humanity.

I am not a great person, I am just aligned with humanity as I should be, as we each should be. That I am attempting to go to the North Pole is not because I am a noble or great person; it is because I am alone in being concerned for my fellow man. I am no hero. I am not braver or smarter or more capable than any of you - I am far less physically and mentally capable actually, due to my disabilities. What I am instead is duty-bound, aware of my place in this system, this society, this universe which affects me even as I affect it.



So yeah, bottom line, I'm not special. I just want to get people's attention to fact, that is all. And that fact is that we are addicted to fossil fuel use. We are so blind in our denial of this addiction that we boldly declare (well, some of us) that global warming could not possibly be the result of human activity; despite the very real fact that what we are doing, while 'spending' solar energy at a rate of about 2,500,000,000 times the natural rate of solar influx, is restoring the atmosphere to the state it was before all of that Carbon, Nitrogen, and Hydrogen were sequestered safely deep under the oceans and lands where it could not harm us and prevent mammals and other life from existing, as it did before it became oil.


Sorry if I'm a bit wordy...I feel it is better to say too much than to say too little and be misunderstood as a result.


Conditions are such that someone could theoretically make it to the pole. I assume however; that weather is dicy at best, with a cyclone of significant magntitude quite likely. The temperature has also begun cooling, as it started early this year due to the updraft of one of the pacific currents which began about a month ago.



I have just been looking at weather up there, if you are in or near the Bering sea that is. It looks as though you have a major cyclone building and heading your way. Keep a sharp eye, there are weather warnings already.


Best of luck up there. I wish I were up there, but I'm going to have a take another year to get there, and if this Pacific current upheaval continues I may have to scrap my plans for another year. That is the biggest message I had hoped to get across, that our weather is now beyond our ability to predict.