Media is fostering a belief in pagan sky gods rather than science.

Acting as cheerleaders for fickle winds, the media now tell us that global warming, as in the California drought, is brought to us by "natural" changes in wind patterns rather than human contribution. Extrapolating leads us to capricious winds and the whimsy of sky gods.

Ocean Winds Responsible For Climate Change In the Northwest, Study Says

Here is a particularly odious quote from the article likening global warming to a symphony (no...I'm not making this stuff up!)

Wind patterns certainly deserve a place at the table in conversations about climate change at the regional level, as do other natural variations, like Pacific Decadal Oscillation, El Nino/La Nina, solar variability and volcanic forcing. One might think of warming temperatures as a symphony, says John Abatzoglou, associate professor of geography at the University of Idaho.

He says it’s helpful to think of different instruments – volcanic forcing is your oboe, Pacific decadal oscillation your flute, wind patterns your French horns.

And the study, itself, (otherwise known as the "French horns") which seems to imply sentient winds:

Atmospheric controls on northeast Pacific temperature variability and change, 1900-2012

This study uses several independent data sources to demonstrate that century-long warming around the northeast Pacific margins, like multidecadal variability, can be primarily attributed to changes in atmospheric circulation

So this regional warming can be attributed to wind gods. And, we must exit the Anthropocene and enter, instead, a retro belief in sky beings while likening them to "natural" forces.

I'm not good with this. Because, warming, in and of itself, changes wind patterns - not the other way around.

But, weather is cyclical.

We have only been recording temperatures for the last 150 years.

How could we possibly know anything about what is normal ?

It's about time someone blamed weather changes on natural occurrences.

Everyone seems to forget about the "ice age". And how, you know, the earth warmed up afterwards. Think about it. The earth warmed up thousands of years ago.

Last time I checked, people weren't hunting down mammoths in their SUV's.

It looks okay to me. Nature is what nature does, and we know quite well what it can do. No need to evoke any Gods to the table.

a reply to: luxordelphi

Why can't the rational mind see both sides?

Weather patterns, mixed with quakes, sinkholes, eruption, mass dying of animals who appear to be lost or off course.

Too many things are happening to assume that what we are seeing is 100% man related.

But can we also be contributing to what is happening? Yes.

So the weather is most likely changing for natural AND man made reasons.

When you can see that this is what is most likely, the fear subsidies. We can't keep polluting our home, but our home has gone through many changes in weather patterns and will continue to do so, with or without an impact from man.

originally posted by: whyamIhere
But, weather is cyclical.

We have only been recording temperatures for the last 150 years.

How could we possibly know anything about what is normal ?

Yes, climate change/global warming appear to be cyclical. The question is not whether or not they are cyclical: the question is - are we at the mercy of capricious sentient winds or is there a scientific explanation for cyclical events. I.E.: what started it? Was it the whim of a sky god or was it something more quantifiable? And, most important, how do we aggravate or ameliorate the situation through anthropogenic contribution.

a reply to: sacgamer25

But... but.... you have to pick one side or the other. You just have to! Isn't that written in the rules somewhere?

a reply to: luxordelphi

So you now disbelieve in the jet stream and cyclical fluctuations in the pattern of the same because someone used slightly poetic language to describe it and it doesn't fit your preferred narrative as to what is happening to earth's climate?

Does that mean that you don't believe in the sun because so many of the poets of old alluded to it as Apollo?

a reply to: ketsuko

So you now disbelieve in the jet stream and cyclical fluctuations in the pattern of the same because someone used slightly poetic language to describe it and it doesn't fit your preferred narrative as to what is happening to earth's climate?

What cyclical jet stream fluctuations? When cycles were previously mentioned, I assumed that persons were referring to Milankovitch cycles.

Astronomical Theory of Climate Change

The earth's "tilt" is what causes seasons, and changes in the tilt of the earth change the strength of the seasons. The seasons can also be accentuated or modified by the eccentricity (degree of roundness) of the orbital path around the sun, and the precession effect, the position of the solstices in the annual orbit.

The earth's orbit around the sun is not quite circular, which means that the earth is slightly closer to the sun at some times of the year than others. The closest approach of the earth to the sun is called perihelion, and it now occurs in January, making northern hemisphere winters slightly milder. This change in timing of perihelion is known as the precession of the equinoxes, and occurs on a period of 22,000 years. 11,000 years ago, perihelion occurred in July, making the seasons more severe than today. The "roundness", or eccentricity, of the earth's orbit varies on cycles of 100,000 and 400,000 years, and this affects how important the timing of perihelion is to the strength of the seasons. The combination of the 41,000 year tilt cycle and the 22,000 year precession cycles, plus the smaller eccentricity signal, affect the relative severity of summer and winter, and are thought to control the growth and retreat of ice sheets.

Does that mean that you don't believe in the sun because so many of the poets of old alluded to it as Apollo?

I was looking for a scientific explanation for regional circulation pattern changes. Sky gods and French horns are rubbish in answer to the question: why are circulation patterns changing. This article, describing another recent study, is more like it; ascribing, as it does, changes in circulation, to anthropogenic sources which create stagnant conditions.

Causes of California drought linked to climate change, Stanford scientists say

The atmospheric conditions associated with the unprecedented drought currently afflicting California are "very likely" linked to human-caused climate change, Stanford scientists write in a new research paper.

originally posted by: sacgamer25
a reply to: luxordelphi

Why can't the rational mind see both sides?

Weather patterns, mixed with quakes, sinkholes, eruption, mass dying of animals who appear to be lost or off course.

Too many things are happening to assume that what we are seeing is 100% man related.

But can we also be contributing to what is happening? Yes.

So the weather is most likely changing for natural AND man made reasons.

When you can see that this is what is most likely, the fear subsidies. We can't keep polluting our home, but our home has gone through many changes in weather patterns and will continue to do so, with or without an impact from man.

Well said! Our bad if we use the excuse of natural cycles to pollute unreasonably and aggravate a survivable situation to the point of no return.

originally posted by: whyamIhere
But, weather is cyclical.

We have only been recording temperatures for the last 150 years.

How could we possibly know anything about what is normal ?

Yes, it is cyclical. And maybe right now we are at the part of the cycle where EVERYTHING DIIIIEEES!!!

Yeah, maybe that's what's "normal" right now...

originally posted by: luxordelphi

originally posted by: whyamIhere
But, weather is cyclical.

We have only been recording temperatures for the last 150 years.

How could we possibly know anything about what is normal ?

Yes, climate change/global warming appear to be cyclical. The question is not whether or not they are cyclical: the question is - are we at the mercy of capricious sentient winds or is there a scientific explanation for cyclical events. I.E.: what started it?

You realize that in a coupled chaotic system like weather and climate, the question of "what started it", is not interesting or useful to answer as compared to "did slow changes in parameters change the likelihood of certain fast time-scale behaviors".

To more directly address the question of whether climate change played a role in the probability of the 2013 event, the team collaborated with Bala Rajaratnam, an assistant professor of statistics and of environmental Earth system science and an affiliated faculty member of the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. Rajaratnam and his graduate students Michael Tsiang and Matz Haugen applied advanced statistical techniques to a large suite of climate model simulations.

Using the Triple R as a benchmark, the group compared geopotential heights – an atmospheric property related to pressure – between two sets of climate model experiments. One set mirrored the present climate, in which the atmosphere is growing increasingly warm due to human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. In the other set of experiments, greenhouse gases were kept at a level similar to those that existed just prior to the Industrial Revolution.

The interdisciplinary research team found that the extreme geopotential heights associated with the Triple R in 2013 were at least three times as likely to occur in the present climate as in the preindustrial climate. They also found that such extreme values are consistently tied to unusually low precipitation in California and the formation of atmospheric ridges over the northeastern Pacific.

"We've demonstrated with high statistical confidence that the large-scale atmospheric conditions, similar to those associated with the Triple R, are far more likely to occur now than in the climate before we emitted large amounts of greenhouse gases," Rajaratnam said.

"In using these advanced statistical techniques to combine climate observations with model simulations, we've been able to better understand the ongoing drought in California," Diffenbaugh added. "This isn't a projection of 100 years in the future. This is an event that is more extreme than any in the observed record, and our research suggests that global warming is playing a role right now."

Some insult that as "pagan sky gods", other people call it science. I know what side I'm on.

Winds are as sentient as the laws of physics which explain them.

a reply to: mbkennel

Pretty interesting...your post. Just to clarify - the article about the wind gods is this one:

Ocean Winds Responsible For Climate Change In The Northwest, Study says

The article you quoted:

Causes of California drought linked to climate change, Stanford scientists say

actually gives an explanation other than sky gods. An explanation that makes sense and doesn't seem to have to rely on:

"did slow changes in parameters change the likelihood of certain fast time-scale behaviors".

Winds are as sentient as the laws of physics which explain them.

And that's an interesting statement and it would have made a lot of sense pre-nano. We don't really know what's in our skies anymore and we sure don't know much about how that stuff is going to behave.

Nanoparticles Explain Weird Moon Soil

Zbik said nano particles behaved according to the laws of quantum physics which were completely different from so called ‘normal’ physics’ laws. Because of this, materials containing nano particles behave strangely according to our current understanding.