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Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Bill Nye The Stepped In It Guy

This is probably not news to you, but Bill Nye "The Science Guy" who makes a living doing basic science instruction for school-aged kids, is not a scientist.  He's a mechanical engineer.  Non-engineers probably aren't aware that most places with a large complement of both electrical and mechanical engineers usually have good-natured running dialog of jabs going between the two types of engineers.  I'll forgo that sort of joke aimed at Bill.

Mostly because Nye has made a joke of himself.

Yesterday, Nye linked the fact that a wimpy tropical storm (coincidentally also named Bill) was going ashore in Texas and there are some wildfires in Alaska to global warming.
Bill Nye   Bill floods Texas. Alaska is on fire. Just a little global warming & climate change. Nothing to worry about… pic.twitter.com/l2qAaiytE6
<Blink, blink... Checks watch.>  Bill, old man, it's June.  That means it's hurricane season.  A tropical storm in June is about as rare and noteworthy as a rush hour traffic jam in New York City.  To be honest, a tropical storm in the Gulf in May or December wouldn't really draw many raised eyebrows, either. 

What might be a little more surprising than a doctrinaire warmist like Nye making the stupid mistake of blaming entirely normal weather on climate change is that a group of people who really know what they're talking about took him to task for that.  Joe Bastardi is well-known meteorologist, Chief Forecaster at WeatherBell Analytics, and also forecasts for Accuweather
Joe Bastardi Are you crazy. Linkage to 50s and MJO textbook! Do you have any clue about what you are saying? pic.twitter.com/Jv2qjc6N4O  

@BigJoeBastardi  @BillNye Have you even looked that the objective analysis of SST parallels to 1950s. Have you read Vitart on the MJO and TC development?
A researcher I've been following since becoming aware of his work while he was still a Ph.D. student at FSU:
Ryan Maue @RyanMaue
Bill Nye the bloviating, low information "climate guy" ... not taken seriously by any meteorologist.
This young man, who's Twitter pages says he's Meteorology student at Penn State University, gets the big picture right.
Ryan Breton @RyanBretonWX
@BillNye you stand for everything that is wrong in the world of climate/atmospheric science
For those keeping track, the US hasn't had a major hurricane (defined as category 3 and above) since Hurricane Wilma in October, 2005.  Those who study hurricanes for a living (like Dr. Maue) say there is no correlation between "climate change" and hurricanes. 
From Bill Nye's Twitter feed.


3 comments:

  1. Bill Nye ceased to be relevant to anything when he started his "Climate Change" song-and-dance.

    Unfortunately, some people believe him.....

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  2. Oh come on, let's hear some ME jokes already! Can't believe you let him off the hook! My own son is going to school for an ME degree and I won't be taking it easy on him :) (BSE(EE) '87)

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  3. The earth has for the last 150 plus years had a remarkably beniegn climate, or more accurately an incredibly good climate for humans and most other living things. This is not a result of SUVs being invented 150 plus years ago it is simply a confluence of the natural facots that control our climate being in synch to create this situation. It won't last and predictably when it changes it will change for the worse, much worse. Enjoy it you may...

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