Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Quieting William Gray
Noted hurricane forecaster William Gray says that Colorado State University cut its support for the publicity of Gray's forecasts because of his famous skepticism about anthropogenic global warming dogma. CSU denies the charge, and says the problem is that the media relations around Gray's forecasts have become so demanding that it does not have the resources to promote them any more.
Rank speculation based on watching university bureaucracies muddle through over the years: The truth is somewhere in the middle. Reading between the lines of the story, it looks like it might be a gambit to keep Gray's younger colleague and partner from jumping ship to another university.
In any case, I do know that insurance companies, who put their money on the line, still put a lot of stock in Gray's hurricane forecasts. Just last week I heard a pitch from a top corporate insurance broker and her analyst team. They pointedly quoted Gray's forecasts to explain the pricing of property insurance for hurricane damage. So, unlike most climate models, Gray's is tested in the market by people with actual money to lose this year. That gives Gray's AGW skepticism a credibility that must be extremely irritating to activists and pundits who believe that denying AGW is akin to denying the Holocaust. Whether they are working to pull the rug out from under Gray is anybody's guess.
12 Comments:
By 
Georg Felis, at
Tue Apr 29, 08:23:00 AM:
Politicians and Business both want forecasts. Business wants accurate forecasts to maximize profit, and Politicians want forecasts to maximize votes.
Notice the difference?
By 
, at
Tue Apr 29, 09:23:00 AM:
Lately, they've discovered that if they maximize the profits of their corporate donors, they maximize their campaign war chest, and this maximizes votes.
By David M, at
Tue Apr 29, 12:30:00 PM:
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 04/29/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.
By , at
Tue Apr 29, 02:07:00 PM:
McCain’s rigorous (perhaps intentionally) mind numbing ethnographic collage of disjointed people, places, ideas, and excuses disguised as discoveries, collectively encompass humanity’s innate desire for escapism, commutation, and euphoria, as it is ironically rumored he secretly prays for and yearns for damnation, an implicitly tragic reunion with the checkered demons of his lost humanity, who led him internally most of his inutile adult life in a fog of substance abuse and denial (he still won’t cop to the anal rape incident in prison).
It affords him nowhere to hide existentially, so the pathetic buggerer hides beneath his wife’s skirt. The question is how low is he willing to go for “victory” or, for that matter, can he go lower? Will he end up a pasty Reagan-like figure, hopelessly trying to gain some semblance of integrity and significance selling spoiled meat in cans, or will he obssess creep-like on pseudo-projections of female pudenda as it relates to overgrown “bush” in some backwater pisshole in Texas, no longer concerned nor troubling himself with how far he has fallen, like the current dickless moron presently residing in the dank and primordial swamp.
By , at
Tue Apr 29, 04:26:00 PM:
5 will get you 10 Carl Gordon never wrote so negatively about Osama bin Laden.
By , at
Tue Apr 29, 04:53:00 PM:
Tyree, funny you should mention it!
John McCain’s/Osama'a milieu: opportunism, moral bankruptcy, short lived idolatry as a bored “public servant”, he intentionally and deceptively re-invents himself as a youth attuned, hip-gyrating political pop star in order to gain a pathetic and almost paranoiac/compulsive Narcissistic driven crusade for public exposure and build a constituency base for his political ministry and sad, pitiable self-loathing, self-losing mind game. Reforming himself as a champion of the downtrodden, his decision to run as a presidential candidate under the un-substantive, but universally pinhead appealing platform of personal empowerment and eternal life through stolen wealth, and in the process, attracting an ever-widening circle of fanatical followers - serves as a patently bizarre, deliriously kitschy, and idiosyncratically disjointed portrait of spiritual desolation, existential vacuity, and monomania as the once seemingly grounded McCain becomes estranged from his family and faith under the intoxicating, corrupting delusion of power.
By , at
Tue Apr 29, 05:59:00 PM:
What the heck did Carl Gordon just say? I gathered that he does not want McCain to win, but the rest of it was just a string of $2.00 words with no obvious argument.
Carl: Rhetoric is more than just raiding your thesaurus.
What exactly does that rambling post have to do with global warming? Did you post that in error?
By , at
Tue Apr 29, 06:04:00 PM:
Somebody's been taking a community college writing course in his spare time.
I'd suggest stamp collecting instead.
By , at
Tue Apr 29, 06:29:00 PM:
So know we know we can ignore Carl, for he is another hate filled leftist who doesn't know how to debate.
Tigerhawk brings up a great point, that others so often miss, when he says,
"I do know that insurance companies, who put their money on the line, still put a lot of stock in Gray's hurricane forecasts."
To little attention is paid to the mountains of hard research and data produced by insurance companies. As Tigerhawk points out, their money is on the line, so they are less apt to spout off about something just because it makes them feel good or causes movie stars to swoon. For example, we will know that using a cell phone while driving is a statistically significant source of automobile accidents when insurance companies lower their rates for phoneless drivers.
By , at
Tue Apr 29, 06:34:00 PM:
I've noticed the Carl phenomenon on other blogs. I think some lefty has written a program to spout off worthless drivel to "speak truth to power" or some such nonsense. Note how "he" ignores the point of the article entirely.
We will read about their great bit of sabotage on the leftist blogs in a few weeks. I could be wrong, perhaps he just thinks worthless drivel is great debate.
By , at
Tue Apr 29, 07:49:00 PM:
By , at
Tue Apr 29, 09:14:00 PM:
>So, unlike most climate models, Gray's is tested in the market by people with actual money to lose this year.
>
>
Eh, no. Even if your anecdote really says anything about the level of respect Gray's forecasts currently receive, and not just an expression of respect for a longtime leader in the field; Hurricane forecasts are not the same thing as a global climate model.
- mattt
