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Showing posts from January, 2016

A Hypothetical Situation

     Suppose there were a large group of U.S. citizens who followed a certain major religion. All of these followers appear to be good citizens. However, a very tiny minority have been performing egregious atrocities which have received worldwide condemnation. What would be your feelings toward this group as a whole? Here are a few scenarios from which to choose:      1)    Do not allow any more followers of this religion to enter the United States. Normally we have not put up barriers to followers of a particular religion, but there is precedent for it. In 1939 the ship Saint Louis , carrying 937 Jewish passengers attempting to escape from Hitler’s Germany, was turned away. The ship returned to Europe, and 254 of the passengers became victims of Hitler’s final solution to “the Jewish problem.” The rest were allowed refuge by other European countries.      2)    Sequester those followers who are already here into relocation camps, as was done to American citizens of Japanese a

Meteorologists and Climatologists

Recent letters to the editor indicate a common misunderstanding of the difference between meteorologists and climatologists. Without going into the argument for or against human-caused climate change, I should like to clarify this difference. Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere using traditional tools: the thermometer, barometer, anemometer, and hygrometer, along with modern tools such as radar, earth-observing satellites and computer modeling. Because of their effect on weather forecasting, the study of certain specific conditions, such as El Niño, the North Atlantic Oscillation, etc., is also important. The focus is on short term weather phenomena and forecasting, normally several days or weeks. Climatology is the study of climate, scientifically defined as weather conditions averaged over a period of time. Its tools are ice cores and tree rings, along with meteorological data accumulated over many years: rainfall, temperature, atmosphe