Reality Based Forecasts

The decided lack of rain yesterday made for two consecutive blown precipitation forecasts. A hundredth of an inch fell in Central Park, which was not exactly what we had in mind. Ah, well, Gothamist will give it another go today. Today's forecast is easy: Cooler, a few clouds this afternoon, but the air below those clouds is so dry there won't be any rain. Tonight: Clear and cool, low in the lower 50s. Tomorrow is even easier: Sunny and cool, high around 70. Warmer weather will return when the high pressure system moves out to sea. The weekend is currently looking warmer, but rainy.

Did anybody catch Al Gore's speech at NYU on Monday? In the talk Gore laid out a plan (transcript) for addressing the problem of global warming. His plan is kind of strange, in the sense that it proposes an array of non-ideological, workable policies, such as encouraging hybrid vehicles, discouraging SUVs and replacing the payroll tax with a pollution tax, to address a real-world problem. Weird.

While we're on the subject of reality-based reality, the director of Columbia's Earth Institute, economist Jeffrey Sachs, has challenged the Wall Street Journal's editorial board to meet with climate experts. Reporters at the WSJ write accurate articles about climate change, but the editorial board remains notoriously, and willingly, ignorant on the subject. Their global warming editorials are often based on information that is not only flawed, but proven to be wrong. Who would listen to an argument made by someone who deliberately keeps their head in the sand? Sachs is proposing that the Journal editorial board meet with the world's leading climate scientists in the interests of furthering the WSJ's own interest in "open-minded search for scientific knowledge."

Mostly sunny satellite image from the Naval Research Laboratory.