Warmal Colding
Northeast, due to get whacked this winter. Bloomberg:
Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Northeast may have the coldest winter in a decade because of a weak El Nino, a warming current in the Pacific Ocean, according to Matt Rogers, a forecaster at Commodity Weather Group.
“Weak El Ninos are notorious for cold and snowy weather on the Eastern seaboard,” Rogers said in a Bloomberg Television interview from Washington. “About 70 percent to 75 percent of the time a weak El Nino will deliver the goods in terms of above-normal heating demand and cold weather. It’s pretty good odds.”
…
Hedge-fund managers and other large speculators increased their net-long positions, or bets prices will rise, in New York heating oil futures in the week ended Sep. 22, according to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data Sept. 25.
“It could be one of the coldest winters, or the coldest, winter of the decade,” Rogers said.
I guess I’d better swap out axe handles, oil up the Husqvarna and commence operations on that pile of cherry and oak out back. Sounds like the hedge-fund managers and large speculators are getting ready to commence operations on my utility rates.
Great news for them. The good news for the rest of us is, the more of all that stuff we burn … oil, gas, coal and firewood … the warmer it should get. That’s what they keep saying, anyway.
I’m confused about this bit, though. El Nino is a periodic warming in the eastern Pacific. The article doesn’t explain why it isn’t warming as much as it usually does, which is odd. I thought everything is getting warmer. El Nino is a somewhat mysterious and poorly understood phenomenon, like much of the often subtle underpinnings of weather. In fact, the article, focused mainly on what great news a cold winter is for energy traders, doesn’t mention the bigger “warming” picture at all.
Global warming, that is, which this Nobel Laureate in Economics … speaking of poorly understood, mystery-shrouded, in fact notoriously inexact sciences … insists is beyond questioning.
Related, senators John Kerry and Barbara Boxer are getting ready to lead the charge on the big climate change bill in the Senate. NYT. I take this as good news. Rank partisans in charge of a rank partisan bill, in the wake of the rankly partisan health-care debacle, should go nowhere. Correction: Inept rank partisans …
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Topics: warmalism
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:33 pm on Monday, September 28, 2009
3 Responses to “Warmal Colding”
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September 29th, 2009 at 3:44 pm
No doubt Hugo will come through with some go-juice. I mean, since the world likes us better and all.
September 30th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
A discussion on the subject at Watts Up With That.
October 7th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
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