Today’s links to interesting news and analysis. If you find this useful, pass it to a friend or colleague.
- The elephant was powerful, but preferred to be blind: “National Insecurity“, Philip Giraldi, 29 January 2010 — About the CIA’s lost intelligence capabilities. Note Giraldi’s bio.
- Gentle implication that the General lies: “The Afghan Credibility Gap“, Michael Cohen, Democracy Arsenal, 4 February 2010
- Too bad we let the Constitution rot away: “Take the Money and Run“, Radley Balko, Slate, 4 February 2010 — “The crazy perversities of civil asset forfeiture.”
- An Army of Davids: “The global warming guerrillas“, Matt Ridley, 6 February 2010 — “Matt Ridley salutes the bloggers who changed the climate debate. While most of Fleet Street kowtowed to the green lobby, online amateurs uncovered the spin and deception that finally cracked the consensus.”
- The Army of Davids marchs ahead, with the news media far to the rear: “House of Peers“, Mark Steyn, National Review Online, 6 February 2010
- “Governor plans emergency address on Nevada budget“, AP, 7 February 2010 — “Nevada’s budget is so far out of balance that by one account the state could lay off every worker paid from the general fund and still be $300 million in the red.”
Note that the global warming debate is one of — perhaps the — most powerful examples of an Army of Davids. The phrase became famous from Glenn Reynold’s book “An Army of Davids: How Markets and Technology Empower Ordinary People to Beat Big Media, Big Government, and Other Goliaths (2006). However I don’t see that he has applied this phrase to the David’s who have successfully challanged the global warming crusade.
Today’s features:
(A) A new paper looks at accuracy of weather predictions, and what this means for long-term climate forecasts
(B) Today’s website recommendation, since perspective is the key to good intel more often than data.
(A) A new paper looks at accuracy of weather predictions, and what this means for long-term climate forecasts
“A multiple model assessment of seasonal climate forecast skill for applications, D. L. Lavers, L. Luo, and E. F. Wood, Geophysical Research Letters, 36, 2009 — From Roger Pielke Sr’s website. Excerpt:
“Given the actual skill demonstrated by operational seasonal climate forecasting models, it appears that only through significant model improvements can useful long-lead forecasts be provided that would be useful for decision makers – a quest that may prove to be elusive.”
Abstract:
Skilful seasonal climate forecasts have potential to affect decision making in agriculture, health and water management. Organizations such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are currently planning to move towards a climate services paradigm, which will rest heavily on skilful forecasts at seasonal (1 to 9 months) timescales from coupled atmosphere-land-ocean models. We present a careful analysis of the predictive skill of temperature and precipitation from eight seasonal climate forecast models with the joint distribution of observations and forecasts. Using the correlation coefficient, a shift in the conditional distribution of the observations given a forecast can be detected, which determines the usefulness of the forecast for applications. Results suggest there is a deficiency of skill in the forecasts beyond month-1, with precipitation having a more pronounced drop in skill than temperature. At long lead times only the equatorial Pacific Ocean exhibits significant skill. This could have an influence on the planned use of seasonal forecasts in climate services and these results may also be seen as a benchmark of current climate prediction capability using (dynamic) couple models.
(B) Today’s website recommendation, since perspective is the key to good intel more often than data.
Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest. There are now nearly 700 maps. Maps 1-366 are also available as PDF posters. Use the menu above to find a map of interest.
Afterword
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