Journeyman Pictures has created a little 10-minute documentary that describes the perceived disconnect between the beliefs of on-air meteorologists and climatologists. Of specific note are the comments of MIT professor Dr. Kerry Emanuel who sets up the premise of the question (and the documentary as a whole) and swings away (just after 5-minute mark):
PROFESSOR KERRY EMANUEL, CLIMATE SCIENTIST: Why would anybody ask weather forecasters about their opinion on climate? I think it is because there is a hope that I don’t think is justified that ordinary people will confuse weather forecasters with climate scientists.
Narrator: Professor Kerry Emanuel is disparaging about what he perceives to be a lack of knowledge amongst many meteorologists.
PROFESSOR KERRY EMANUEL: Weather forecasters are in a unique position. I mean if they actually did study the problem, if they actually took the time to really understand it rather than just go to the blogosphere to get their favourite views and rebroadcast them, then I think they could do a lot of good in the world and I think there are some who are doing that to be fair.
Also featured is wrestler and full-time Accuweather soothsayer and forecaster Joe Bastardi who is a noted climate change skeptic. Regardless, if you are reading this, you are not doing yourself or the world any good coming to the blogosphere and learning about climate. Move along.
Embedding disabled by the makers of the documentary (only 302 views through midnight 08/24). Here’s the Youtube link.
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A Climatologist is someone who always wanted to be a Meteorologist but was too lazy to take the courses and graduated with a degree in something else, couldn’t do that very well, and started talking and writing about what he thought the global weather was going to be like in a hundred years. The real money maker Climatologists only write articles, give opinions and speeches and TV interviews, and have their very own Blog in support of the World’s Greatest Nobel Prize Winning Climatologist Fat Albert Gore, Former ‘Vice’ Precident of the Unitied Stats of Amerika and the Inventor of the Internot, who recently got a divorce from Tipper and started getting Hotel Massages while giving speeches around the world for the New World Order that is intent on eradicating CO2.
PS: Recently “TV Climatologists” have been heard repeating this talking point: “The Sky Is Falling!!!”
Maybe they could set up some sort of intensive training camps for meteorologists where they could go and begin to “truly understand” the problem with our climate, and where we are headed unless man changes his ways, particularly with regard to his fossil fuel use.
They could then come back with their new “knowledge” and impart that to the ignorant masses. Access to computers would of course have to be limited, so that only the “right kind” of knowledge would be gained. It would be sort of a boot camp, with “drill sergeants” barking out climate questions, and the trainees had best give the “right” answers if they know what’s good for them.
Knowledge is truly a wonderful thing, as long as it’s the “correct” knowledge.
Don’t the MET Office use the same code from its short term weather predictions for their long term climate projections? (I could be quite wrong with this). If so, neither can be that great since over longer periods they become less accurate?
The big difference between a meteorologist and a climatologist is that the meteorologist is reminded daily (and often very rudely) about the failures of atmospheric models. While forecast models are not exactly the same as climate models, the thing that makes both of them fail is exactly the same: incomplete and inaccurate knowledge (and data) used to make a calculation whose product is then fed back into the equations to make more calculations time and time again + chaos!
Once one understands the limitations of the models, he or she is forced to look elsewhere for confirmation of a theory. Meteorologists look to the real world to see if the AGW theory is holding up. It isn’t.
Climatologists, who still have an inordinate amount of faith in the models, seem to look at the real world as a bit of a nuisance, seeing only those aspects of reality that confirm the models, while ignoring the vast amount of data that conflicts.
There is no doubt in my mind that meteorologists and statisticians are far more qualified to judge the work of climatologists than climatologists are qualified to judge themselves.
Every time I hear one of the blowhards go on like this, I’m reminded of the scene in A Beautiful Mind where John Nash (Russell Crowe) is playing Go (i think it’s Go). He’s being very arrogant and some guy with clearly an inferior mind plays him and beats him. And John Nash is incredulous how he could have possibly lost. His arrogance doesn’t even allow him to think that it’s even possible for him to be wrong.
I don’t think is justified that ordinary people will confuse climate scientists with real scientists.
I’m sure they feel the same way about you Dr. Kerry Emanuel.
Joe has been spot on with his predictions in his field.
You guys have not hit the mark yet.
Now who would you believe? Probably Dr. Master of Doom at WU?
“..we’ll figure out how to take carbon out of fossil fuels”
Was that a joke? Seriously. I know nothing about chemistry, but I thought that carbon was what made fossil fuels, fuel. Some sort of carbon bonding is what is “burned” in engines? Living things use sunlight to create carbon based molecules, which we then “burn”?
Climatologists should be spending 99% of their time trying to ensure “their predictions are right”.
Instead, they are spending 99% of their time trying to ensure “people agree with their predictions”.
It is their number 1 concern – to have everyone agree with them rather than to have the climate agree with the theory. It is sociology/psychology focussed on “people” versus science focussed on the “climate”.
This 10 minute clip is just another example.
Jim Clarke says:
August 24, 2010 at 6:51 am
“The big difference between a meteorologist and a climatologist is that the meteorologist is reminded daily (and often very rudely) about the failures of atmospheric models. While forecast models are not exactly the same as climate models, the thing that makes both of them fail is exactly the same: incomplete and inaccurate knowledge (and data) used to make a calculation whose product is then fed back into the equations to make more calculations time and time again + chaos!”
Having been a professional forecaster (not of weather or climate – for a telephone company) at one time in my career, I know exactly of what you speak! And therein is the biggest problem with AGW!!
Since it is impossible to develop and execute a true experiment on the earth’s climatic system, the only way to prove any hypothesis about what effect any event (human caused or not) has on the earth’s climate is to develop models which produce predictions which can be compared to actual results. Now, as long as the actual results can be measured accurately (without “adjustments”), one MAY be able to verify their hypothesis. The problem is, as so aptly stated by Jim Clarke, “the thing that makes both of them [models] fail is exactly the same: incomplete and inaccurate knowledge (and data)…”
Hence the reason why the AGW hypothesis will never be anything more than the equivalency of the hypothesis of an “afterlife”.
Dr. Emanuel is moving to yet a higher floor of his Ivory Tower, while reality is eating away at the foundations. He’s only making the fall longer.
Why should the public put thier trust in those whose forecasts are not known for dependability?
They don’t. Climate Change Forecasters don’t do it for most.
Weather Change Forecasters get it right far more often than not, because they know thier limits.
Known as meteorologists, it’s easy to build trust when they are open & honest about thier abilities.
Not so with Climate Change Forecasters whose brand is damaged.
Wow!, This is just to discredit that “nasty competition”. However, truth, as always, never is to be found among official science circles, because by definition, official science can not harm its current and so dear “status quo”.
As the Bible says: “It is easier for a camel could to go thorugh the eye of a needle than a rich go through it”; they being the supposed “rich ones” in nanny knowledge.
In the next few years, beginning from today, we shall see all the current science paradigms to fall down as wrong.
This is climate not weather… is the excuse usual supporters of global warming, rebranded climate change to fit all sizes… And they have a good reason for chosing this lame excuse: It is the lack of meteorological knowledge that makes the warmists “climate” prediction a mockery and specifically where they can be debunked one after another.
Hence the need for Emmanuel and his cohorts to stigmatize one group after another: it used to be the real geographer cliamatologists who pointed the BS in the Hockey Stick and other new climate artefacts and now it is the meteorologists. Typical.
This is why the persistence of antiquated notions such as the polar front, the Ferrell circulation model, the Rossby waves despite clear observationnal evidences to the contrary is encouraged by the “new climatology”: the more confused meteorology is, the better for the alarmists.
Emmanuel and his Carnot engine for Hurricane should better worry about his own field because his supremacy is being contested by young bright minds:
Makarieva A.M., Gorshkov V.G., Li B.-L., Nobre A.D. (2010) A critique of some modern applications of the Carnot heat engine concept: the dissipative heat engine cannot exist. Proceedings of the Royal Society Series A Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, 466, 1893-1902
The editing wasn’t fair. The documentary was more of the usual bias toward global warming. They could have been fairer to Joe Bastardi. She emphasizes he was a wrestler and body builder making it seem he couldn’t be as smart as another meteorologists who has been in meteorology for “30 years”.
They show the man who took the survey walking among shelves of books then running his finger down the page of a book from the shelves giving the appearance that he must be smart since he is around books. Actually he sounded condescending.
And they could have had another professor from ‘MIT’ in it, Richard Lindzen.
The ILLUMINATI counterattack!, however those “illuminati” (enlightened ones) are groping in the dark!, but don’t fool yourself believing they are seeking for the truth, by groping in the dark, No!, they are just looking for money and self-indulgement, motivated by profound feelings carefully implanted in their beings by their mommies and daddies, as self pride and self conceit. Oh, how intelligent little K is!
RichieP: August 24, 2010 at 4:01 am
Um, it’s not a Brit accent mate, it’s very Ozzie.
Well, my Kiwi bud says it’s Ozzie, and my Ozzie bud says, “Not Oz. Not one ‘buggah’ in ten minutes.” Pitcairn Island, maybe?
I think you have the same kind of trouble as we have distinguishing between US and Canadian accents!
I almost tubed my French Honors class in ’66 because my Sorbonne-edjimacated prof declared my accent “abominably Québécois“…
Embedding disabled? Sharing via the open Internet disabled? That’s par for the course isn’t it? If the religious believers in global warming really loved science, they would want to share their thoughts with as many people as possible and receive as many comments as possible. People that love science love finding the correct answers and love debating the questions. Religious believers in global warming operate in an anti science mode where sharing is not encouraged and group speak is demanded among the faithful flock. It’s actually sad to see a whole generation of “scientists” throw their reputations on the scrap heap of history. Very sad.
It’s very funny to watch you all get upset about qualifications when we have the example right here of Anthony Watts who, admittedly, is no climate science but is happy to pontificate as if knew as much or more than the majority of actual climate scientists.
The disparaging political attacks on Emanuel are indicative of how deeply in denial those denying AGW have gone. You can’t refute the science, but you think anyone who agrees with you actually has all the qualifications needed to have equal time.
The sad fact is that the subject has nothing to do with actual climate science but with politics. Watts knows this. So do climate change deniers. You can test this yourself by actually looking at Emanuel’s 30+ years work as a scientist at http://wind.mit.edu/~emanuel/cvweb/cvweb.html. Then come back and tell us that your meteorologists with whom you agree have the same qualifications. Then ask yourselves what you think you are really accomplishing.
TomRude says:
August 24, 2010 at 7:43 am
From the authors you refer to (google translation from russian):
Makarieva AM, Gorshkov VG (2010) The potential energy of atmospheric water vapor and air movement caused by the condensation of water vapor at different spatial scales. arXiv: 1003.5466v1 [physics.ao-ph]. PDF (0.9 MB). The Russian text is fully consistent with the English. The quality of images in the English text above.
Abstract
The basic physical principles responsible for the emergence of dynamic flow of air in the condensation of water vapor, the partial pressure of which represents a reserve of potential energy in the Earth’s atmosphere. The quantitative characteristics of such flows for various spatial scales. It is shown that the maximum velocity induced condensation occurring in the most compact circulations such as tornadoes and reach 160 m / sec.
Notes:
Readers interested in the physics of the biotic pump, will find in this article new results on the development of the theory of the condensation of atmospheric circulation. In particular, by considering the continuity equation derived horizontal pressure gradients, formed by the condensation of water vapor in the adiabatic ascent of moist air. (Briefly same result was previously described by two lines in Phys. Lett. A., see equation 4.) considered in detail the energy budget of the rotation of the eye the hurricane. We also show that without the Earth’s atmosphere condensed components, condensing circulation would not be as adiabatic gradient of pure water vapor coincides with the hydrostatic equilibrium. A dependence of the maximum wind speed, which is developed in the hurricane, the size of the persistent angular momentum and temperature. In the pole approximation described by a tornado. In general, winter 2009-2010 was not in vain.
This is trascendental, as the energy from the Sun, it is not ALL directly received as heat.
This means, for example, that plants transform VISIBLE LIGHT (500nm) , CO2 and WATER, into GLUCOSE. Well, then it comes around Al Baby and eats a lot of candies, and those candies BURN in his body, thanks to ATP, back to CO2, provoking the UHI effect=LWR=IR=HEAT .
So, Professor “S” is right, TSI, though politically adjusted, can be the same, but the more junk food we eat the more heat we will produce.
Then: It was not the SUV’s…it was HIM!
“rather than just go to the blogosphere to get their favourite views and rebroadcast them,”
The professor’s problem is that prior to the “blogosphere” these professors could pick and choose who’s feedback they listened to. They could surround themselves with their “peers”, pat each other on the back, tell each other how great they are.
Now the “blogosphere” can call them out on their stupidity at light speed.
They don’t like that. They can’t get away with the BS like they used to do.
Emmanuel is clueless. He is in a library and surrounded by books. The climate is outdoors. His double chin shows he is sitting in a chair a lot.
I was raised on a farm and raced yachts from the early 70’s. I have taken videos from my boat of people being killed in storms. I learned to read weather changes.
Studying reality is helpfull. He needs to get out more. Bastardi is sharp and a threat to the bookworms. The only shortcoming i see with Bastardi is I don’t think he would be great at writing and publishing books.
Makarieva AM, Gorshkov VG (2010)
http://www.bioticregulation.ru/pubs/abs.php?na=49
Then click on the PDF link. (neraz-en1.pdf)
jthomas says:
August 24, 2010 at 8:10 am
===========================
There are people that read and post to this blog that make his “qualifications” look like pre-school.
You should not assume that “actual climate scientists” do not review and post here.
You just made the same fatal mistake that you are accusing others of doing.
And the same snotty elitist mistake that Dr. Emanuel made.
People that disagree with you are not necessarily stupid uneducated and not qualified to disagree with you……….
jthomas, meteorology is more than the quick forecast you see on the news. Educate yourself for a change. “Dynamic Analysis of Weather and Climate” Springer 2010 2ed.