On Thu, 10 Mar 2016 16:21:19 +0000
N_Cook wrote:

On 10/03/2016 15:31, Graham P Davis wrote:
On Thu, 10 Mar 2016 14:55:02 +0000
Norman Lynagh wrote:

The March issue of 'Physics Today' contains a review article titled
'Is the Melting Arctic Changing Mid-Latitude Weather?'. The
conclusion is that the jury is still out.


There was a similar discussion over sixty years ago. In 1950 , an
article in Weather by CEP Brooks explained why the argument that a
pre-war, fast-warming Arctic should have decreased upper winds had
been proven to be incorrect. In fact, the upper winds increased.
This led to large slow-moving or stationary waves in the upper
atmosphere. It's perhaps significant that the period of Arctic
warming ended with a series of severe winters in Europe.

The current re-hash of the same pre-war(?) idea that a slowing of
the jet-stream will result from differential warming between the
Arctic and the Tropics may be wrong again. Those scientists who
ignore history are doomed to repeat it. However, their ignorance of
atmospheric dynamics may again save their forecasting bacon as far
as the weather is concerned. Perhaps two wrongs will again make a
right as they did during the first half of the twentieth century..


While its still available on catchup. Sunday, BBC News channel half
hour piece in slot This Week, next week.
A Prof Mark Macklin of Aber Uni on the welsh equivalent of the EA ,
not using historical references for river/rain flood levels and so
erroneous return period calculations.
Very similar in the Solent area for marine flooding preventative
measuures. The EA and related agencies will not use properly
researched historic records. So they end up with "computer
calculated" return flood heights for 500 year period, that do not
reach the level the Solent got to in 1924, let alone the great
Channel storms of 1703 and 1824, all within 500 years. Scientists or
astrologers?

Yes, there's plenty of examples of scientists re-inventing or
re-discovering the wheel. What makes it worse is when they come up with
a square wheel instead of a circular one.

Last year, scientists came up with the perfect way to cut toenails to
avoid ingrowing ones. Trouble is, you have to cut them to a perfect
parabola; who the hell can do that?! Why didn't their mothers or
grandmothers tell them how to do it properly, i.e. by cutting the nail
straight across?

Also last year there was a big fuss about a discovery that people who
drank plenty of milk suffered fewer heart problems. Why were the
scientists shocked by the result? I've heard of a couple of other
surveys over the past twenty years that came up with the same answer.

Then there's the cases where the existence of the wheel has been
forgotten. H H Lamb's work on the use of SST anomalies in long-range
forecasting has been forgotten by so-called experts.

Another forgotten piece of knowledge seems, according an edition of New
Scientist a few months ago, to be the cause of hiccups. Sixty years
ago, the Radio Doctor explained the cause but now the medical
profession apparently don't know. Fat chance them finding a cure if
they've forgotten the cause. Luckily for me, thirty years ago, I
remembered the cause and worked out a cure. What surprised was not just
that it worked but that it has prevented me having attacks since that
discovery.

I might think they're just plain lazy and so don't bother with
research but I've had trouble finding the original evidence, like in
the cases of discovery over fifty years ago of NAD shutdowns and, at
the same time, a theory as to why ice is slippery, yet another wheel
that was re-invented a few weeks ago.

--
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks. [Retd meteorologist/programmer]
http://www.scarlet-jade.com/
I wear the cheese. It does not wear me.
Posted with Claws: http://www.claws-mail.org/