"Researchers also stated of Corbyn's predictions that:[12] "It is unusual for most of the detail to be completely correct, but equally it is rare for nearly everything to be wrong ... Some forecasts are clearly very good, and a few are very poor, but the majority fall in the gray area in between, where an optimistic assessor would find merit, but a critical assessor would find fault." Don't give too much credit to what businesses spend money on, after all, they are still paying a lot for Meyers-Briggs seminars.
What researchers? Who are you quoting? I'm not an expert on Corbyn, but I do know one of his clients who says that his "major event" agricultural forecasts issued months in advance have been 60% correct for the past two and half years.
My quote is from wikipedia. Not sure if it's fair or not, but there are 29 references at the end of the article you could examine. I'm partial to this quote (from elsewhere): "A different argument points to the near certainty of some stocks, funds, or analysts [read traders] doing well over an extended period merely by chance. Of 1000 stocks (or funds or analysts), for example, roughly 500 might be expected to outperform the market next year simply by chance, say by the flipping of a coin. Of these 500, roughly 250 might be expected to do well for a second year. And of the 250, roughly 125 might be expected to continue the pattern, doing well three years in a row simply by chance. Iterating in this way, we might reasonably expect there to be a stock (or fund or analyst) among the thousand that does well for ten consecutive years by chance alone. Once again, some in the business media are likely to go gaga over the performance." - John Allen Paulos, "A Mathematician Plays The Stock Market" Substitute weather analyst in for trader... Thank you for introducing Corbyn, I had not heard of him.
As I said, gullible if you think that the United States is the whole planet. We see here the global average temperature as compiled by each of the major research groups plotted individually. The UAH satellite record is maintained by AGW skeptic Dr Roy Spencer. He does not argue that the planet is not warming as that would be well .... just silly. And all those records combined, and smoothed with a 2nd order polynomial fit: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Ten-temperature-records-in-a-single-graphic.html
IPCC Before and After Alterations Chart http://www.iceagenow.com/Burt_Rutan_calls_AGW_a_Fraud_files/image004.gif http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/epic-fail-temperature-fail.jpg?w=500&h=375
this is pretty funny.. in the past I argued with surf that his friend neiderhoffer denied the existence of trends because neiderhoffer faded them. (until he blew up). So now, I get to argue with you about the definition of trend. If we go back 10,000 years are more, we in the middle or low side of average temperature. You could easily argue we have had a spike up in a down trend. See the chart I linked to early. However if we believe in cycles we could say it looks like we hit the cycle low and are rallying higher. If we look at ice core data, we can say that temperature rise precedes the accumulation of C02 by 800 years on average and after that we do not know whether there is a cause and effect between C02 and temperature. In the 70s were told we are heading for an ice age. And have a few email frauds our C02 emissions must be causing global warming because the messaged the data. ----- So in short, we may be warming We do not know if man is causing it And we do not know if warming is bad. I for one would like to wears Sandals year round.
Fair enough. But I don't think it's "we may" be warming, we are, I've been alive along enough to see it with my own eyes. Maybe Man, maybe no, but I don't think we should be dumping CO2 into the air like we are, I think prudence is in order. Afaik the levels are unprecendented in any meaningful time frame (for humans). Warming is bad, because our population is too high, imho, and we can ill afford to subtract from the world's arable land, which warming is doing. Sandals all year, ummm.... yeah, I can dig it. I'm heading out in 10 days for my first holiday of 2011, Caribbean, w00t!
Of course, global warming involves a lot of cooling.. And further, anyone that doesn't understand that is irrational too!! Scientists are ALWAYS right until somebody puts their theories to the test. When they can model the weather accurately I'd say they have taken the first step towards modeling the climate, how long it would take them to model the climate accurately after that, well it could be thousands of years, they have a whole 120 years of data to work with so far!! Maybe you would like to backtest some trading models with 120 samples, LOL.
Here is the problem. We have been warming ever since the Maunder Minimum ended in the 18th century. During that period we have also experienced cooling periods such as occurred in the 70's when scientists called for a new ice age. Then we had a little spurt of warming until 1998. Now we are starting to cool again. Longer term, we have been warming for the last 12,000 years when the last ice age ended. Also, longer term we are cyclically around the end of this current warm period and another ice age will be here soon. Maybe the warming has topped out or maybe we have another 1000 years. Ice ages last about 10 times longer than warm periods. If we get warmer we can still grow crops and eat. If the seas rise we can move a little away from the coast. But if it just gets a little colder, like it was a few hundred years ago in the Maunder Minimum, a large part of the Human population will starve to death. So, what causes these temperature variations over hundreds and thousands of years? Two things. Volcanic activity and solar activity. We don't have any massive volcanic activity now but we are seeing fluctuations in solar activity. It looks like we may be on course for another Maunder Minimum when sunspot activity decreases and the planet cools. This would be catastrophic for most of the Human race. Does the Sun play a roll in the long term ice ages? No one knows. We don't have any solar information beyond records going back beyond Galileo's time. It makes sense that the Sun is the one variable that can heat and cool the planet over long periods. Also, when the Sun weakens the magnetic field of the Sun also weakens. A weakened Solar magnetic field allows more cosmic rays to get to the Earth. It is also known that cosmic rays can cause more cloud cover which also cools the earth. With all these cycles and events beyond our control, doesn't it make sense not to get excited about a little amount of CO2 which is at TRACE gas in our atmosphere. And, there is no proof that CO2 in the amounts we are talking can warm the planet at all. We do know that moisture in the air has a very high warming effect and the amount of moisture in the air can and does warm and cool the planet. I could go on but I think you get the point. Global warming may be an inconvenience but that is all. MAN MADE global warming is a myth created to enrich a few, transfer wealth from wealthy nations to poor nations and provide research grants to others. Data has been manipulated and temperature sensors have been put in places to distort the data in support of man made global warming. Our real threat is if the Earth starts to cool. There are so many people on the planet now that hundreds of millions will die from starvation with just a little cooling of the planet. Today we are just one bad crop season away from world famine. So, pray we still have some more global warming to go.
The planet is NOT cooling. All observational evidence points to the planet rapidly warming. All temperature records show the planet warming. Loss of ice sheet mass, retreat of the glaciers, phenological changes all show the planet is warming. Furthermore the rate of warming is accelerating. The current rate of warming is ~ 0.2C per decade. The rate of warming is far too rapid to be accounted for by Milankovitch Cycles. At 0.2C per decade, the planet would have warmed 20C in 1000 years which is an absurd rate of warming compared to that due to past Milankovitch Cycles. Milankovitch Cycles cannot account for the current warming. More information on Milankovitch Cycles: http://web.archive.org/web/20080501124634/tamino.wordpress.com/2007/11/19/wobbles-part-1/ http://web.archive.org/web/20080419120634/tamino.wordpress.com/2007/12/02/wobbles-part-2/ The majority of scientific research in the 60s-70s predicted global warming. A fairly small percentage predicted cooling: http://www.skepticalscience.com/ice-age-predictions-in-1970s.htm Increased concentrations of greenhouse gases are what is causing the warming