State Of The Union Address: The Climate Change Part

It is a huge relief to hear a USA president give the State of the Union Address and not lie: I had thought the era of honesty would persist forever.

Anybody want to ax why low pressure systems are killed on the US west coast?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZJA39cm15U

Maybe if .gov stopped altering the jetstream, weather would normalize, hmmm?

I think the question that is more important to "ax" is why there are so many (even the lower bound of 1 is too many) stupid people who believe the crap in that video.

Ron @ #2 you're on the wrong site. Alex Jones' site is over at infowars dot com

Judiths conspiracy theory:

"Naive scientist that I am, it didn’t occur to me until last night that a narrative the NASA/NOAA press releaseof ‘warmest year’ was needed to provide the President with a sound bite to motivate his climate agenda. A scientifically sound press release like that issued by Berkeley Earth just wouldn’t fit the bill. (JC note: I am deleting the following text ‘the timing of the NASA/NOAA press release on warmest year was motivated by the timing of the President’s SOTU address’)"

“Criticising Obama for identifying climate change rather than Islamic State terrorists as the country’s most serious threat in his State of the Union address last week, Huckabee said: 'Mr President, I would think that a beheading is a far greater threat to an American than a sunburn'.”
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/25/heavyweight-republicans-…

HotWhopper has a good article on Curry's latest descent into denialism:
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/01/freed-of-any-values-judith-curry.html

Aww, ron #2; It's because of AGW, don'tcha know?:

In a new study, a team led by Stanford climate scientist Noah Diffenbaugh used a novel** combination of computer simulations and statistical techniques to show that a persistent region of high atmospheric pressure hovering over the Pacific Ocean that diverted storms away from California was much more likely to form in the presence of modern greenhouse gas concentrations.

http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/september/drought-climate-change-092…

It seems a little amplified, but spit jets and Rex blocks are not that uncommon; I seem to remember first hearing of them during brutal cold here ~1985-86. So far, it is not that extreme as I remember then -- I had done a C4 R&R on a day when the high was something like 2 below in the southeast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ridiculously_Resilient_Ridge

http://wasatchweatherweenies.blogspot.com/2015/01/snow-warmth-monsoon-s…

**fantastically 'fudged', I'm guessing. I'm probably wrong, but I assumed a warmer, kinder, gentler planet would not have such large amplitudes or speeds in upper level winds due to less difference in temperature between the poles/equator. But, oh noes! My idea of Eden might halt the thermohaline conveyor causing sharks to eat the Brody family.

The Dust Bowl drought of 1934 was a similar 'Rex block' and in a similar location:

a high-pressure system in winter sat over the west coast of the United States and turned away wet weather.

http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/geophysics/science-1934-drought-d…