The oil lobby, the current administration in the White House, and any other monkey out there with a remote interest in keeping the status quo, i.e. keeping their products in our cars, furnaces, and driveways will PAY to make sure that conflicting reports are generated and they DO, on a regular basis. How unfortunate to try and sound so confident about information that has been orchestrated just to make you feel that way. I won’t cuss the naysayers, but I am shaking my head as I water my flower garden that has stayed in full bloom all winter now. It is 80 degrees in Orlando right now. Houston is buried under ice, California’s citrus crops, for the 2nd time in less than 10 years, has been eradicated but it is water-skiing time down here.

We are setting PLANET records every year for heat, the normal heating and cooling cycles of the past are gone and we are seeing warmth and patterns that have never before been seen in the planet’s history. There is NO precedent for what we have dumped into our climate, get it? A snow storm here, a freeze there: a freeze frame is not the movie dude. Someone is right: we will be a different society with a different mindset in 50 years. It kills me that this BS is what we are giving my kids, too. All over some effing good old boys who wanted to make money off the oil, or gas hog cars, or become Mr. President. Greed has shit all over our planet, folks.

Comment by heinz blumenthal — January 6, 2007 @ 10:09 am

Because a minor temperature variation of, oh, I don’t know, one degree can mean the difference between ice melting at the poles or staying frozen. Which can affect the temperature of ocean water worldwide. Which can affect weather patterns worldwide. But apparently you are to ignorant to see where this line of thinking is heading.

Idiot.

Do Woolly Worms Know Something That We Don’t?
Can woolly worms forecast winter weather? Folklore has it that woolly worms are really miniature weather forecasters. Careful observation of these short, fuzzy caterpillars in the fall supposedly can tell you what kind of weather the coming winter will hold.
…
http://web.extension.uiuc.edu/greenline/i1343_384.html

http://www.cnn.com/NATURE/9904/15/el.nino.warming/

“One factor hampering efforts to clear up the confusion is the inadequacy of the computer simulations that scientists use to study El Niño and global warming. For one thing, the models used to predict the potential consequences of global warming are not set up to predict changes that occur on the relatively small scales of time and space on which El Niño operates. Nor do the models do an adequate job of simulating certain key aspects of climate, such as the effects of cloud cooling and the feedbacks between the oceans and atmosphere. So, for the moment, the theorized connection between El Niño and global warming is still in the realm of speculation.”

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/savageseas/weather-side-elnino.html

“Global warming is a concern, but i wouldn’t attribute this particular episode to purely global warming. The major part is El Nino, but it doesn’t not rule out that it could be the end effect of global warming,” he says.
–
Global warming is PART OF IT. Quit falling into the either or fallacy. Learn.

Well, that part about some people being scared is certainly true. “S” and my fan are practically wetting themselves they are so frightened that this warm spell means it is the end of time….They really should listen to the experts who are telling them that this current warm spell is the result of naturally occuring normal weather patterns, such as El Nino and the jet stream position.

That 70s Show: Record Warmth Blankets NYC
With Temperatures Above Normal For 28th Straight Day, Many Ski Resorts Remain Closed
Click here For The Latest Forecast From WCBSTV.Com
Think The Weather Is Weird? 2006 Was Full Of Oddities. Check them out in the 2006 Around The Watercooler Slideshow.

(CBS) NEW YORK Don’t be alarmed, New Yorkers, your thermometers aren’t broken. It’s 70 degrees. In January.

Record warm temperatures in New York City have capped off a strange week that’s seen cherry blossoms bloom in Brooklyn and Washington, D.C., multiple blizzards pummel Denver and other parts of the Midwest, and ski resorts in the northeast close their doors due to lack of snow and customers.

The National Weather Service reported the temperature in Central Park at 12:51 p.m. was 70 degrees, shattering the previous record of 63 degrees set back in 1950. Now the question remains, will it get even warmer?

“The stretch of unseasonably warm weather is unprecedented and will be above normal for almost 30 days in a row now. Our normal is 38,” CBS 2 Meteorologist John Bolaris said.

The rain dissipated and the sun began to creep out as the afternoon hours approached, and already Central Park was bustling with joggers, bikers, or anyone else who simply wanted to take advantage of the wacky weather that’s been above normal for 28 straight days.

But it hasn’t been fun for everyone, especially ski resorts and lodges who count on the cold to bring them customers during winter. On Plattekill Mountain, located about 2.5 hours north of New York City in Roxbury, ski trails remained closed on Saturday and officials hoped to reopen them on Sunday, though that still remained unlikely. The mountain’s website urges ski-goers to “think snow!”

Robert Konefal owns the Pine Mill Arms Hotel in the Catskills and vented his frustrations about a winter unlike any other he’s ever seen.

“I’ve been here for 32 years and this is the worst winter I’ve ever seen,” he told WCBSTV.com. “I had three-day packages for New Year’s Eve and in my main building every single room canceled.”

Konefal estimates a 65 percent decrease in customers this season up to this point, and believes that number will jump even higher come the weekend of Martin Luther King’s birthday — one of their three busiest weekends of the year.

“I’m always booked, I was booked, it’s the first time I’ve ever had anyone in the main building cancel and these people booked in October. It’s really frustrating because I just put a new website up which cost me about $2,000. I just repackaged everything over from last year, changed all my packages around and I was really excited for the winter,” he said. “I brought two student employees in from Chile and the only thing I’ve got for them to do is clean out the cellar.”

Bolaris says the warm weather will also take its toll on those who have bad allergies. “I think it may be harsh for allergy sufferers believe it or not because the mold spores haven’t been killed off and microcosms are still breeding, so it could mean a harsh allergy season come this spring.”

The main force behind the record warmth is mostly related to El Nino, a weather phenomenon that occurs every several years and usually creates milder winter for the northeast. El Nino occurs when waters off the Peruvian coast continue to warm late in the year.

The phenomenon was first mentioned over 110 years ago by Peruvian fishermen who were perplexed by the strange weather, but even more baffled by a surplus of dead fish in the water. It was actually the warming of the water that killed the fish, and when the ocean warms like that, it has a global effect. “Normally, the stronger the El Nino, the more mild winter and less in the way of snow for the northern tier, northeast and mid-Atlantic. However in an El Nino year you can still have a superstorm either with snow or rain,” Bolaris says.

El Nino, Spanish for “the child,” was said to have received its name from the Peruvian fishermen because it occurs around Christmas time. The phenomenon typically lasts for several weeks, but can continue for months at a time. When that happens, the fishing industry can suffer serious damage, similar to what the fishermen experienced many moons ago.

And though many believe global warming is the cause of the craziness, Bolaris downplays that idea, but says it does play a part.

“Global warming is a concern, but i wouldn’t attribute this particular episode to purely global warming. The major part is El Nino, but it doesn’t not rule out that it could be the end effect of global warming,” he says.

Forecasters expect temperatures to fall back to earth sometime next week, with the chance for the first snowflakes of the season to fall via a flurry on Tuesday, but even that remains an uncertainty at this point. Still, Bolaris believes the strange pattern won’t last, and New Yorkers will still have plenty of cold and at least some snow to look forward to.

“This is exciting because it’s unique and different and you try to figure it out. Most people are looking at it like it’s either scary because it means global warming, or it’s warm weather and they’re not complaining because they’re into it,” Bolaris says. “Weather is cyclical and it will go back the other way. This is not the end of our winter — there will be plenty of winter to come.”

But for ski lodges, when it does come it may be too late. Konefal doesn’t believe he’ll be able to salvage the large amount of money he’s already lost this winter.

“Once you lose Christmas week or Martin Luther King week, it’s gone. We could be filled on Washington’s birthday week, they’re the three big ones, but you can’t really make it up at this point,” Konefal says. “Ski centers have been doing everything they possibly can and they just can’t do it. You just gotta suck it up.”

In the meantime, Central Park will be the real hot spot in New York, with people enjoying what should be the warmest and last bit of El Nino — for at least the week — before temperatures drop by the beginning of next week.

“Sometime in February and March when you’re shoveling snow in your driveway, this will all be a distant, warm memory,” Bolaris says.

(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

It’s all going to be rather anti-climactic, as our population dwindles and fizzles over the next century or so…..

The billionaires and political leader sociopaths will enjoy the luxury of dying out even more slowly in space, and I kinda like the ring that has to it – their vanity and arrogance slowly suffocating the life from them in a can in orbit somewhere…..looking back at Earth, devoid of human life, and crying that it’s all so unfair…….