A recent letter in the local newspaper included a remark which is practically an article of faith for climate change deniers. I believe it is also a problem for many believers. The writer stated that because “weather forecasters today can’t predict the weather accurately for the next two weeks,” computer models attempting to follow climate change are also inaccurate. Such models may well be inaccurate, but not because of any connection between the two disciplines; meteorology and climatology are completely unrelated studies. According to Wikipedia, meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere, while climatology is the study of weather conditions averaged over a period of time. Meteorologists work with the degrees and interactions of variables that exist in the atmosphere – such things as temperature, air pressure, water vapor, etc. Their range of inquiry is restricted to the short term: days or weeks. Their tools consist of sensors of all
My alarm clock goes off every morning at eight, except for the few times when I have a breakfast date. Usually I wake up about an hour before that, or at least I partly wake up. It is important that I remain in a “not quite awake but not quite asleep” state, because I consider that time as the germination period for whatever seeds happen to have blown into my head.