Old Farmer's Almanac vs. NOAA

I have an ongoing debate with a co-worker regarding what started out as man -made “Global Warming” until they had to change it to “Global Climate Change” once actual (lack of rising) temps did not match the predictions.  He has been very stern in telling me that the science is “Settled” regarding the debate and that I need to read the scientific publications to get the facts instead of the “Rhetoric from the Right” and that the media has mislead us all…

Unfortunately for my friend he has not been able to explain how just back in the 1970’s they were predicting a coming “Ice age” then just 40 years later the scare was the opposite with all of our Ice bergs melting.  But he claims that with the use of 10,000 year old Ice-cores they can tell me what the temperature change has been and with his scientific publications where we are headed.

I can’t wait to show him these tidbits that appeared in the Investors business piece today. The "Old Farmer's Almanac vs. NOAA

Last fall, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) predicted above-normal temperatures from November through January across much of the continental U.S. The Farmers' Almanac, first published in 1818, predicted a bitterly cold, snowy winter.

The Maine-based Farmers' Almanac's still-secret methodology includes variables such as planetary positions, sunspots, lunar cycles and tidal action. It claims an 80% accuracy rate, surely better than those who obsess over fossil fuels and CO2.

The winter has stayed cold in 2014, and snowfall and snow cover are way above average. USA Today reported on Feb. 14 that there was snow on the ground in part of every state except Florida. That includes Hawaii.

As Bloomberg notes, the CPC underestimated the "mammoth December cold wave, which brought snow to Dallas and chilled partiers in Times Square on New Year's Eve." The Almanac didn't, though Caleb Weatherbee, its prognosticator, apologized for being a few days off on two of the season's biggest storms.

The CPC seems to have completely missed the "polar vortex" that swept down and caused every state except Florida to experience snowfall and brought about 4,406 record low temperatures across the U.S. in January, along with 1,073 record snowfalls.

As John Christy, professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, has noted, global temperatures collected in five official databases confirm that there's been no statistically significant global warming for the past 17 years — contradicting the predictions made by 73 computer models cited in the United Nations' latest (wrong) global warming report...

Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/022114-690857-farmers-almanac-more-accurate-than-climate-models.htm#ixzz2uIRebHtK