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Re: [at-l] Is this El Ninio?

kahlena wrote:
[clip]
> Is this El Ninio?  And what will happen this  summer?

No, and no one can tell you what the weather will be like this summer. No one.
Anyone who tries to is simply spouting fantasy. Pure fantasy. We try to
foretell the weather, and all in all we do a fair job with short term
forecasts. It's probably 60% accurate to watch a satellite picture of a storm
moving across the upper midwest and predict rain in Chicago - but only 60%.

El Nino is being blamed for everything from Clinton's infidelity to the
shrinking of the hole in the ozone layer - by the way, did you know the hole
is down 30% since last year? Did you know that we've only been measuring it
for about 10 years and we have only anecdotal evidence - bubbles in the
Antarctic ice - that says how big it should even be? The scientists who tell
us that CFCs are what's causing the ozone hole to grow also tell us that it
will take 20-50 years for us to reverse the effect if we stop using CFCs
today. Why is the ozone hole shrinking? We don't know. Will it grow bigger
again next summer? Probably. Why? Because it has every year since we've been
measuring it.

Remember that El Nino is a regular occurrence and in fact this one is smaller
than the one that occurred in 1984. The simple fact of the matter is that
understanding the weather is not a science, it's an art - and we have very few
artists. No one knows why the trade winds sometimes blow less consistently in
some years, but we do believe an El Nino is the result. I'm sure someone will
blame the trade wind behavior on burning wood for fuel in Buenos Aires or something...

Last year "Global Warming" was blamed on the extra-warm fall we had in New
England- then we had the coldest winter on record (records only go back about
100 years - no time at all geologically).  When the same meteorologist who
screamed global warming was asked about why it was so cold now, he tried to
cover by saying that the jet stream had pulled itself way out of kilter and
arctic air that normally would have hit the midwest was coming straight into
Maine.  This he cited as a "once in a lifetime" anomaly and assured us that we
would not likely see this again. Yeah right.

There was a mini-ice age in Europe in recorded history. It was impossible to
grow wine grapes north of central France. There was no wine industry in
Germany at all.  Temperatures in England were on average 8 degrees colder than
they are now.  Why did it come? Why did it go? Is it coming back? Who knows?

It's the weather. The only thing predictable about it is that it will change tomorrow.

-Tim
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