Paul’s Perilous Prognostications

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Okay, I know TV weather guys are infatuated with their super dooper Doppler X thousand radar, but why do they feel compelled to not only show the local radar when there is absolutely no precipitation for hundreds of miles, but they also feel it is important to show the animated version with the little computer generated sweep going around of nothingness. Tonight was one of those rare instances (very rare) where I happened to be in the same room when the local news was on, and it was the weather segment. So being as there is nothing of note in our forecast that the current radar can see I think the closest weather coming our way is in the neighborhood of Iowa, but this guy felt compelled to point out that there was nothing on the radar over each and every county in the area, when a quick hey look its clear and nothing to worry about until Saturday night, back to you Jane would have sufficed, or at least going to a national map to discuss the potential for Saturday night. It was one of those instances that he was trying real hard to make something of nothing…
So what I am wondering is… Are the viewers that cynical, that they have to be shown not only nothing, but animated nothingness, or do the TV stations have to justify the cost of the “radar” so they feel compelled to use it… 
PS Have you ever noticed that when the local NWS radar goes down, many TV stations radars also have problems….

Apologies to the few TV meteorologists that actually know what they are talking about…

As this years record breaking tropical storm season comes to an end, and as remnants of Tropical Depression 27 have regenerated and been upgraded to Tropical Storm Gamma, all the media whores in an effort to pump up their ratings start jumping on the global warming band wagon it is good to find some good common sense science. Dr William Gray in a statement to the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works brought to light that this activity is cyclical, not a result of global warming. 
The basic problem is that no one looks at the big picture, we have only been able to observe the weather and climate on a global scale since 1960, with the launch of the first weather satellite (TIROS 1), and it wasn’t until the 1970’s that the brought the GOES satellites online, and the ability to gather and process weather and climate information on a consistent basis 24 hours a day. So what was the method of gathering information prior to age of space based observation, it was land and ship based observation, and how much of the globe could be observed on a daily, weekly or monthly basis? Then there was the issue of putting all that data together, which was a daunting task in itself. 
So now we are in the age of instant information, with the ability observe all the earth’s phenomena with a few clicks of a mouse, and because most of us weren’t around during the last phase of high tropical activity and we have this cool term “global warming” to blame things on, because as we all know global warming is the fault of greedy corporate America, we instantly believe what the talking heads on TV tell us. For example El NiÒo, how much of the world’s woes are now blamed on El NiÒo?

Here are the plain and simple facts:
Global Warming happens on a regular basis, and has happened for a very long time, tree rings will tell you that.
There wasn’t a hole in the ozone, until somebody looked.
El NiÒo happens about every 7 years.
Tropical Storms are a natural phenomena, not manufactured by a subsidiary of Halliburton.

Does a tree falling alone in the forest, make any sound?