Ken Ring

Danno · 13-11-2009 1:37am

octo wrote: »

Ken - A number of points.
I'm a meteorological officer, not a meteorologist. We work at synoptic weather stations, collecting data - we don't produce forecasts. I represent only myself in this discussion.

Remember, you are employed by the state, paid by the taxpayer. You have NO ownership of data collected. Anybody is entitled to use the data.

I've looked at about 5 of your forecasts - every one of them was a simple recycling of 18yrs 10days climatalogical data, including your golfing forecast for the winter ahead. A child could do it. Even astrologers should be insulted.

He has already stated most other methods he uses, why are you still not satisfied?

Relax. I withdraw my threat to compete with your publication and threaten your healthy livelihood.

Good idea, only the lawyers would win anyway.

As to natural selection - 3 million years of evolution and there's still a sucker born every minute.

Why the personal insult again? This man has done nothing to insult you. Please apologise to him.

Gene Derm · 13-11-2009 3:57am

Danno
Looking at general trends, weather patterns are somewhat dependant on the position of the jetstreams, which are moving air masses between fronts. These winds tend to bring colder weather in the form of depressions, especially when brought to a focus by lunar perigees and by the declination of Mercury. Warmer air mass centers and colder air mass centers dictate where the jet stream positions itself. In a push and pull situation cold air down north seems to push the jet toward the equator and warmer air in enough amounts pushes it toward the poles. Because the air is joined at the hip to the sea, air mass temperatures rely on sea surface temperatures, which are cooler than normal at present around the equator. With the polar river of air riding slightly lower down, Ireland and England has found itself catching colder air pulled down from the North Pole, which is why it has been a wet summer and why there may be colder than expected periods which will produce snow. I expect them around full moons and when new moon combines with perigee.
The next midpoint of the nodal cycle is June 2011. At least until the end of 2010 we in NZ can expect cooler monthly mimimum temperature averages across the country, with a turnabout happening in the last part of the winter of 2011. Heat in the seas requires a heat source, which brings in the solar sunspot cycle, in which we have been in minimum mode for nearly two years, the stage which brings less radiation (sun’s heat) reaching earth. The new Sunspot Cycle #24 is poised to begin, and astronomers are watching with baited breath after occasional spates this year of renewal but which have so far been false starts. The year after a solar minimum has passed down here we usually get an El Nino, and the year after that is normally a tropical cyclone year. This means although there will be media hype and warnings when storms gather strength over the season, mainly around full and new moon times, cyclones will develop but fizz out quickly during the rest of this year and most of next. However, 2011 should again be a danger year for their destructive power.
Ken Ring
www.predictweather.com

Gene Derm · 13-11-2009 4:16am

Welcome back MT
I call astrology that which gave rise to our modern word astronomy. For anyone to state they don't believe in astrology is to say they don't believe in the fact that stars are out there. Modern astrology has been denigrated to a party and coffee table game, and is not the science that many astrologers, especially nonwestern, study. The advent of the sidereal system vs the tropical is unfortunate, as it is incorrect because the 'values' of the orginal signs are ascribed to new positions on the energy grid that is the constellation system, which esentially is still the road map of energies around a month(for the moon) and the year(for the sun) with respect to earth. Astrology will lose contact with its orginal form if people only study it from a sidereal viewpoint.
As to the SOI, your finding on Jupiter is worth investigating, because I do see a correlation to lunar declination. SOI occurs about every 4.5 years, and is a sloshing of waters back and forth as if in a big dish, to restore sealevels. And that is the rate of change in ocean currents, mainly the one that creeps up the W S American coastline and feeds the Gulf Stream - this seems to come to a standstill at lunar declination midpoints.
I wrote an article about it a year or so ago
http://www.predictweather.co.nz/assets/articles/article_resources.php?id=133
Would welcome your further thoughts.
regards
Ken Ring
www.predictweather.com

octo · 13-11-2009 9:08am

Hi Danno

Danno wrote: »

Remember, you are employed by the state, paid by the taxpayer. You have NO ownership of data collected. Anybody is entitled to use the data.

Yes.

Danno wrote: »

He has already stated most other methods he uses, why are you still not satisfied?

Because his rhetoric is as follows: Here is this enigmatic, mindnumbingly-complex, unifying grand planetary and meteorological theory, that only Ken really knows and understands. But sadly, contemporary physics and meteorology, blinded by it's own greed and stupidity, has unjustly ignored this great work. Meanwhile back on planet reality, a commercial forecast (€89 p.a. !!) from his website is dressed-up unacknowledged recycled MET climate data. No Danno, it's not what it says on the tin.

Danno wrote: »

Good idea, only the lawyers would win anyway.

Saros-recycling isn't proprietry or coprighted. If it was, Ken'd be suing this guy.

Danno wrote: »

"As to natural selection - 3 million years of evolution and there's still a sucker born every minute." - Why the personal insult again? This man has done nothing to insult you. Please apologise to him.

Sorry Danno. I'm afraid Ken's not the sucker.

Deep Easterly · 13-11-2009 1:28pm

Gene Derm wrote: »

Welcome back MT
I call astrology that which gave rise to our modern word astronomy. For anyone to state they don't believe in astrology is to say they don't believe in the fact that stars are out there. Modern astrology has been denigrated to a party and coffee table game, and is not the science that many astrologers, especially nonwestern, study.

I have to admit when I see the word "astrology" used in relation to weather forecasting I become confused. Ken, is there any chance you could simplify your methodology for those of use who don't have a high degree of scientific understanding? I just find your explanations go over my head a little. Not your fault at all, but mine, as I am a little bit slow on the uptake.

nacho libre · 13-11-2009 2:18pm

Deep Easterly wrote: »

I have to admit when I see the word "astrology" used in relation to weather forecasting I become confused. Ken, is there any chance you could simplify your methodology for those of use who don't have a high degree of scientific understanding? I just find your explanations go over my head a little. Not your fault at all, but mine, as I am a little bit slow on the uptake.

i'm sure you are not the only one viewing this thread having that difficulty. the difference is your humble enough to admit it publicly. So, yes a dumbing down would be appreciated by the layman - afterall isn't that part of the remit of this forum - to convey knowledge to the layman weather enthusiast.

r3nu4l · 13-11-2009 4:19pm

Okay guys, as your mods aren't around at the mo, I'm stepping in with the Category Moderator hat on.

Some of you need to take some deep breaths and weather the storm (hee hee) in here because this discussion is getting heated.

Cool it with the insults and pseudo-insults. If you can't debate scientifically don't debate.

/
Gene Derm (Ken), please don't take this stuff to heart, as I'm sure you are aware anyone who does things slightly outside the 'norm' is always in for a lot of questions and sometimes ridicule. Hopefully, you can ignore the ridicule and answer the questions from those who are interested.

Weather mods, over to you.

Min · 13-11-2009 6:13pm

Octo, are you Evelyn Cusack?

I just remember that debate on the radio with Ken and a guy from Kerry and it got rather heated.

I don't think anything should be discounted out of hand, found Ken to be quite accurate but I also appreciate the work of Met Eireann.

Danno · 13-11-2009 8:41pm

octo wrote: »

Hi Danno
Yes.

Thankfully we agree!!!

Because his rhetoric is as follows: Here is this enigmatic, mindnumbingly-complex, unifying grand planetary and meteorological theory, that only Ken really knows and understands. But sadly, contemporary physics and meteorology, blinded by it's own greed and stupidity, has unjustly ignored this great work. Meanwhile back on planet reality, a commercial forecast (€89 p.a. !!) from his website is dressed-up unacknowledged recycled MET climate data. No Danno, it's not what it says on the tin.

We have a choice, pay the €89 or not. Unfortunately we have to pay tax which is compulsary and thankfully for you, keeps you in a job. If you disagree with his methods and products, don't buy them. Hit him in his pocket, not with insults!!!

Saros-recycling isn't proprietry or coprighted. If it was, Ken'd be suing this guy.

Good stuff!

Sorry Danno. I'm afraid Ken's not the sucker.

I guess I picked up on this wrongly! The tone of the whole post left a feeling that the comment was targeted at Ken.

Can we have some constructive criticism from you instead? Can you point out where his methods are seriously flawed?

M.T. Cranium · 13-11-2009 9:38pm

Since I have been doing similar research for about thirty years, I think some of the following may help de-mystify the situation and also defuse the unnecessary undertone of hostility.

First of all, as to the processes of the Moon's interaction with the atmosphere. I'm going to guess that all readers basically understand the general concept of oceanic tides, how they are composed of both solar and lunar gravitational pull on the oceans, maximizing when the sun or moon are both overhead and at the opposite point due to rotation of the earth, on a daily cycle. The Moon's slow westward motion against the fixed star background results in a longer daily cycle of about 24h 50 min and the highest ocean tides occur at new moon and full moon, even more so when the moon is at perigee (at which point it is about 12% closer than average to the earth and exerting a tidal pull about 20% stronger.)

Now, the fact that the oceans have shallow borders and coast lines means that these tidal forces, moving in a generally westward direction, splash up against a barrier so that tidal ranges are greater where the water has to compress into smaller volumes available, as in the Bay of Fundy in eastern Canada where they have a 10 metre tidal range.

The fact that the atmosphere has no such boundaries means that daily tidal forces are dissipated throughout the atmosphere and any research ever done to find evidence of daily atmospheric tides usually points to rather small if not negligible tides of 0.1 mbs or so. In my research, and I gather Ken has similar concepts in mind, the atmosphere processes these tidal forces in a different way altogether, some kind of interference pattern, standing waves that somehow get linked to the magnetosphere of the earth. I have identified "timing lines" which are diagonal rather than north-south lines that form expected clusters of low pressure events at specified lunar event times. Full and new moon are two of the stronger ones, but both Ken and I have identified declination maxima as strong events as well. To explain that in simple terms, think of the winter sky.

On a clear night looking south around midnight in December or January, you will see the constellation Orion, and above it, the Milky Way heading in a generally lower left to upper right direction (you need fairly dark skies to see the Milky Way, but it's there, and it's the main axis of our local galaxy). You happen to be looking out away from the centre of the galaxy here, but there are some fairly impressive clusters of stars in that direction. Now, if the Moon or any planets are visible in that part of the sky, they will be following the "ecliptic" or close to it (because they all vary up and down by a few degrees in their orbits). So the winter full moon is seen quite high in the sky above Orion, and this is its northern "declination" maximum. Declination is the difference between latitude of a celestial object and the equatorial plane extending out into the sky. Unlike all other solar system satellites, our Moon follows the ecliptic plane -- the others go around their planet's equators. This winter, there are no bright planets in that part of the sky, but in any case, the winter full moon sits where the summer sun sits, plus or minus five degrees depending on where the moon happens to be in an 18.6 year cycle of declination. Right now, this cycle is about 3 years past its greatest range (where the Moon was travelling very high across the winter sky in 2006). By 2011, the Moon will be crossing the ecliptic at this "northern max point" and heading south of it until it reaches the "southern max" position. This cycle continues on because the "node" where the lunar orbit crosses the ecliptic keeps moving east along the path (towards Taurus from Gemini, etc etc, if you like that orientation).

Okay, so this brings about two more energy peaks that may relate to gravitational interactions between the Moon and the galactic centre, which I have called northern and southern max. Now, these occur simultaneously with winter and summer full or new moons the closer these are to 21 Dec and 21 June. The differences in these cycles are 2.2 days a month. Basically, the late December full moon is simultaneous with northern max, then these northern max events fall 2,4,7,9,12 days earlier than full moon in the first five months of the year until you reach June when they overlap with the new moon. And if there were to be a total eclipse of the Sun on 21 June around 1 pm local time, you would see a darkened Sun sitting where the 21 December full moon sits at 1 am local time.

Other lunar events may occur as the Moon passes other gravitational sources such as Jupiter, Saturn and Mars. Venus would always be fairly near the new moon position due to its inner orbit, and Mercury even more so.

Our research may have proceeded differently, but the basic concept in mine is simply this -- these gravitational waves appear to be focused on the timing lines (which are apparently nine in total, and therefore more or less 40 deg apart in longitude) at lunar event times. There are plenty of complexities in this, such as different latitudes of storm tracks in different weather patterns, a tendency for the system of timing lines to oscillate like a slow-moving (set of) pendulums, and energy from non-lunar sources getting involved in the mixture.

A strong indication that this system may be valid is that the average eastward progression of low pressure systems should be on the order of 13 degrees a day if we assume that it takes 28 days for the energy to move once around the earth. Another strong indication is that I have derived temperature, precipitation, wind and pressure signals for the main lunar events near timing line one (in eastern North America) and now under a challenge from a forum reader here, I have shown a large pressure oscillation in mid-winter at Malin head near timing line 3, in sync with the full and new moons.

I hope this above explanation helps to give some visualization of what we are talking about in general terms. The energy process at work here may be partly gravitational (interference waves), it may be partly stimulated by gravitational waves as well as conventional gravitation, and it may well be augmented by geomagnetic processes at work in the upper atmosphere.

In my case, the research is complicated by the existence of a second paradigm that is independent of the Moon. Visualize that the solar system has a large, complex magnetic field that aligns into rotating sectors. These sectors are rather subtle in terms of energy outflow differences, but some sectors may contain some 0.1 to 1.0 per cent differentials of solar wind total energy. You can imagine how our path around the Sun through these slowly rotating sectors would set up variations in atmospheric energy levels, as well as cycles of different lengths if some of the sectors remained intact for long periods. My theory so far is that stronger (warmer) sectors produce ridging near timing line one where the magnetic field is stronger. That ridge development induces troughs in predictable upstream and downstream locations. When the earth is approaching a warm field sector, the ridge shows up to the west, and drifts towards the east. When the earth is approaching a faster-moving sector being flung out of the inner solar system by Mercury or Venus moving through this complex set-up, then the effects are retrograde, the ridge tends to develop to the east of timing line one (over the Atlantic or western Europe) and then it moves west, and often northwest because in the winter months, either Mercury or Venus would be rising in latitude when they approach the passing point known as "inferior conjunction."

Very interesting detail -- these lunar and planetary orbital dynamics change gradually over various cycles due to precession of our orbit, and precession of their orbits too (for the planets).

This may have implications for very long-range climate analysis (back in time) or forecasting (forward in time) although I am certainly a believer in the general validity of the Milankovitch cycles in terms of guiding very long-term changes related to glacial periods etc. But it's interesting to me that the high-latitude retrograde blocking we now see would switch to low-latitude retrograde blocking at another point of the 26,000 year precession cycle. Imagine if those strong Greenland blocks set up more like Newfoundland on a regular basis.

Indeed, many past researchers have noted that shifting positions of the magnetic poles could be associated with long-term climate change. Right now, the north magnetic pole is about as far north as we've ever recorded it (including less reliable historical projections). It is located well north of Canada's arctic islands now, after drifting northwest through them for about a century. Nowadays it is located near 84N 110W, and it's heading rather quickly westward as well as showing a weakening tendency.

In 1840, the NMP was discovered on the Canadian mainland of the Boothia Peninsula at about 67 deg N (!!) -- it has been steadily migrating in a NNW then NW and eventually WNW curve since then. And the climate has been steadily warming since about 1890 in North America. These may not be coincidences. It seems that the arctic vortex is pulled away from its most favoured location on a historical basis by the NMP. It doesn't migrate totally in sync with it, it's more like a child tugging on an adult's arm sort of a thing, pulling the mean position of the vortex in the same direction as the larger movements of the NMP. Imagine if we had a strong magnetic field with poles near 60-65 N located in a place like northern Quebec, west of Hudson Bay, or northern Sweden. Such possible locations might easily be able to generate much stronger and more persistent arctic vortex formations that would establish a different storm track, jet stream, and snowfall pattern. This would in turn promote rapid continental glaciation. I would note also that this process fits the different energy cycles of the Milankovitch effects, so separating out the causes would be a challenge.

Okay, that's probably long enough for one post -- if people have any questions about these concepts, fire away.

Danno · 13-11-2009 10:51pm

Excellent post MTC... I wonder what would happen our weather if the NMP migrated to say the Faroe Islands?

M.T. Cranium · 13-11-2009 11:00pm

You would need a harpoon, a snowmobile, and a couple of extra wives to keep warm in your igloo.

13-11-2009 11:59pm

lol

Gene Derm · 14-11-2009 6:21am

Yes, good post. Mercury is always close to the new moon because it never strays too far from the Sun. Many places seem to get temperature swings over the two days whenever Mercury's declination matches that of the Sun, and down here the New moon is reknowned amongst farmers for bringing strong westerlies, of great interest to me when I first heard of it as an observation because of the old astrological adage of windy Mercury. Also, the proximity of Venus to the Sun, never straying distant more than a couple of signs, visible either side of around New moon time also probably gave rise to Venus being considered a sign of wet weather.
As to the 26,000 year cycle of polar precession, it means that 12,500 years ago January/February would have been the northern hemisphere summer.
Ken Ring

M.T. Cranium · 14-11-2009 7:06am

The question of which month is linked to which season over long intervals of time is complicated by how we define our calendar year.

The switch from Julian (365.25 days per year) to Gregorian (365.2425 days per year) calendar has been made so that winter will always fall in the months of December, January and February (northern hemisphere).

Extending the Julian calendar back from Roman times to pre-history, the convention of historians, tends to link seasons to different months the further back in time we go. Here's why -- using this convention, after two thousand years (assuming the Julian calendar was just like the Gregorian of today in the first century AD) there would be 15 extra leap year days, which would mean that what should have been January 1, 2000 BC, would actually be recorded as January 16th. Go back to 8000 BC and the first of January would be recorded as about the first of March. Etc etc ... so this would place winter in those times in calendar March, April and May. But only on the astronomy program, otherwise this means nothing. Just in case you really want to get into this using skyglobe or some other program, it's worth noting that some astronomy programs (like skyglobe) skip the year "0 AD" that appears in other programs. In other words, 1 B.C. is followed by 1 A.D. -- this means that leap years in the B.C. era fall in 1 B.C., 5 B.C., etc, at four year intervals. If there's a year zero in the program, it's a leap year, and so are 4 B.C. etc. The thing is, whichever way they handle "year zero" there are leap years every four years back to the beginning of the program. That makes each year a little too "long" on average, which is why after a few dozen centuries of back travel in time, you are only at 1 January when in fact it is 1 November. So if you want to be at 1 January in Gregorian time, you need to stop the count at 1 March in 8001 BC.

The only place this matters is when you use an astronomy program and look at the sky on "January 1st, 8001 BC" or something similar -- what you're looking at would have been 1 November, 8002 BC if by some chance a civil authority using the Gregorian calendar had always been running the world. So, as I look at my skyglobe program for 1 March 8001 BC, I am looking at what would have been 1 January 8001 BC in that Gregorian calendar world. The sun is at its low declination that we see nowadays. What changes is that on this date, the sun is not between Sagitarrius and Capricorn as nowadays, but in Taurus -- sitting below the Pleiades. Had the sun been eclipsed, most of Orion would be below the southern horizon (unlike today where a solar eclipse in May would see Orion sitting where we see it in the winter sky).

One thing that we inherited in modern "astrology" is this precession motion -- the year is divided into the twelve "signs" that the Sun was passing through in Roman times. Nowadays, the sun is not leaving Gemini for Cancer on 21 June, it is one sign behind that, leaving Taurus for Gemini. (The actual constellation boundaries are not as evenly spaced as astrology implies, but generally speaking they were in Roman times where the range of dates in astrology would lead you to believe they are now.) Another 2,000 years or so, and the 21 June sun will be leaving Aries for Taurus. I wonder how many (if any) modern astrologers making their horoscopes even know that.

So the general principles are these -- the ecliptic rotates around so that northern max is one "sign" earlier about every 2,000 years (26,000 divided by 12 actually, which is more like 2,167 years). Since we now fix the calendar so that the Sun's passage through northern max once a year will always fall on or about 21 June, we can say that every 2,167 years, the Sun will be one more "sign" behind than it is already -- by 4,300 AD (approx) when the astrologer says that you're born in Gemini, in fact you would be born in Aries going by where the Sun actually was. This discrepancy will continue to mount until astrologers have some sort of update like the calendar change from Julian to Gregorian, or perhaps forever, then one day, the Sun will return to the signs that it is supposed to be in, according to Roman-era astrology.

As it stands, most calendars actually in use before Roman times were lunar-based and most of those societies figured out that they had to add seven extra lunar months every nineteen years to keep the years aligned with the Sun. Most years would have 12 lunar months, some would have an extra thirteenth month.

The concept that the year should begin near the winter solstice is relatively modern. Most lunar calendars had new years in either the spring or autumn, connected to the growing season.

Now, it's not only a question of which calendar you apply to back time. There are real structural changes in the relation of Moon, sun and planets to the sky due to precession. If you could go back to the first century AD, you would find that the ecliptic peaked in declination more towards Gemini than near the Milky Way (boundary of Gemini and Taurus) as today. Go back further in time, and ignoring the problem of the straying Julian calendar, the real change would be to see the northern max slipping ever westward as you went back, until you would see it against the part of the Milky Way that we see at night in northern summer. Thus the point I was making earlier, if Mercury's orbit remained constant, it would be as far below the ecliptic as it overtook the earth in northern hemisphere winter, as it is above the ecliptic nowadays.

However, Mercury's perihelion and other orbital variables are not fixed in today's set-up, so it becomes more complicated over many thousands of years.

Many other details change slowly over time -- the Moon's declination range has changed slightly, and this at first threw off investigators of the stone rings in the British isles, until it was realized that the alignments were not "a little bit off" as first believed, but exactly where they should have been for the sky conditions of 3,000 BC.

This thing about the calendar is hard to grasp at first, because we are so used to imposing it on back time as well as present and future time. But there was nobody alive on earth before the Roman era who had any concept of twelve secular months named for emperors and Roman numbers and gods. They thought of the year as having 12 and sometimes 13 lunar months, and in the case of the Jews for instance, a year that began with the spring planting season.

However, as long as western civilization persists, it is likely that the earth will have a Gregorian calendar with occasional new wrinkles that keep the shortest days in late December (n.h.) and the longest days in June (n.h.) -- we will change the calendar to keep this constant, even if the earth slows its rotation, or some other changes take place. At present, the Gregorian changes made to the former Julian regularity (every fourth year was a leap year, now we drop years ending in 00 if not divisible by 400) will probably keep the year regularized for many centuries to come. Had we not made the switch, today would be 1 November, not 14 November, 2009. You'll see that over time, this would make winter come earlier and earlier in the "year" as we continued to accumulate extra days and slowed the timing of the ending of civil years. Another background sign of this -- you may have heard the term "October Revolution" applied to the Russian Revolution of what we know as 7 November, 1917. To the Russians who were still using the Julian calendar, the date was 25 October.

Deep Easterly · 14-11-2009 8:54am

M.T. Cranium wrote: »

One thing that we inherited in modern "astrology" is this precession motion -- the year is divided into the twelve "signs" that the Sun was passing through in Roman times. Nowadays, the sun is not leaving Gemini for Cancer on 21 June, it is one sign behind that, leaving Taurus for Gemini. (The actual constellation boundaries are not as evenly spaced as astrology implies, but generally speaking they were in Roman times where the range of dates in astrology would lead you to believe they are now.) Another 2,000 years or so, and the 21 June sun will be leaving Aries for Taurus. I wonder how many (if any) modern astrologers making their horoscopes even know that.

Hi MT. I am an Aries. I am not exactly sure what phase of the moon I was born under or where Jupiter was placed in relation to Pluto when I was physically and spiritually forced upon this earth , but is there any chance of a personal horoscope reading?

By the way Ken, thanks for answering my question. Much appreciated.

Gene Derm · 14-11-2009 9:36am

Deep Easterly and Nacho Libre
The astrology as I understand it is the Tropical system whereby the 360° of sky that the earth rotates beneath each day which of course is the same 360° the moon moves through each month around the earth was arbitrarily divided into 12 areas and given names. They are as you know Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces. In the Northern Hemisphere the sun is the highest in the sky during Cancer, which occurs around June, and the moon is also the highest in the sky during Cancer and this can be most seen as the winter full moon. The names may change in real life as the constellation moves gradually out of kilter compared to where it was 2000 years ago, as MTC has described, and new constellations added as they are discovered, but no one is discovering more degrees to the circle. So we can take the basic 12 divisions as a fixed energy grid guide.
When the moon is in the sky the weather tends to be more settled, because then, more of the atmosphere is gathered under the moon by virtue of gravitational pull, and it is the atmosphere that acts as a buffer to the two factors that generate unsettled weather, these being greater than usual heat from the sun and greater than usual amounts off colder air being able to come closer to the ground. The air prevents these nasties and wherever the moon goes, a bulge of air follows underneath it causing an airtide, just as a bulge of water follows beneath it that we call the ocean tide.
So on one hand it is important to know what phase the moon is in and what is its declination, which means whether or not in the month it is in the south or north part of the sky or crossing the equator, during both day and night bearing in mind it moves around the 360° of sky during the month by only about 13° per day. On the other hand it is important to know the characteristics of each portion of the declination route it passes beneath, which is the constellation and which is divided into 12.
For instance right now the moon is coming up to new moon phase which is next to the sun. In two weeks time it will be opposite the sun and in full moon phase. Then it will come around again. Because the sun is in the south, over the southern hemisphere, the moon is also in the south, as viewed from space. The sun will stay in the southern hemisphere until the next equinox but the moon will keep changing hemispheres every two weeks.
The moon acts as a planet and has different weather characteristics ascribed to it according to which "sign" it moves through. At the moment the moon is in Libra which is described as a time, potentially, for cool winds. The moon changes signs every 2-3 days and tomorrow will be in Scorpio. The characteristics of moon in Scorpio are an abundance of rain. Each of the 12 signs has, for the moon, an interpretation describing potential weather. The planets, too, traverse these 12 signs as they orbit the Earth, the inner planets orbiting more quickly - for example Mercury takes a week to change signs, Venus 2 1/2 weeks, Mars nearly 2 months, Jupiter nearly a year, Saturn 2 1/2 years, Uranus seven years, Neptune 13-14 years and Pluto 20 years. Of these, the inner planets are of most importance because they move more quickly. As the planets pass through the signs, they also have weather characteristics as described in old texts. For example at the moment Venus is in Scorpio and is said to bring south winds and gentle moisture. Mars is in Leo which is dry with not much rain. Mercury is in Scorpio and brings cold fronts and blustery weather. Whether or not these characteristics come to fruition depends on what is called "applying" or "separation". Usually only those aspects that are within a few degrees of applying are given any weight.
I use this astrological approach when writing reports in my almanacs for any locations, because they speak of the potentials for that location and there are any number of computer programs, some free shareware such as Astra log, that can be used for any latitude and longitude and for any minute or second of any day of any year so that you can determine exactly where the planets are at any time. The skill is then in the interpretation, and each location will take the potentials that are happening above it and transform it into a weather pattern. For that, local knowledge is fairly important. For instance a north-facing elevated location in the north of Ireland will be more expectant of snow if that is the potential, than a south-facing beach at the bottom of the country.
You can see that this astrology is quite different to the type that says you will meet a tall dark stranger and that this is a bad time for romance. But I believe the astrology that I am describing gave rise to planting calendars, fishing timetables, and told travelers when it was safest to depart, especially on the oceans. It also played a part in determining the timing of particular battles. It was quite well known that stormy weather brought out the best in warriors. Equally, there have been studies that suggest that students do better when the weather is inclement or if exams are held during lunar perigee. This may or may not be true, but biodynamic gardeners all over the world find that these principles do apply to planting and harvesting just as they did many thousands of years ago.
For more about my specific methods, there are bits and pieces in the many articles on my website and especially in the ezine archives which date back to 2002.
Ken Ring
www.predictweather.com

octo · 14-11-2009 9:42am

Danno wrote: »

Unfortunately we have to pay tax which is compulsary and thankfully for you, keeps you in a job.

Public service-bashing should probably be in the political or economic forum.

Danno wrote: »

Can we have some constructive criticism from you instead? Can you point out where his methods are seriously flawed?

His method is unscientific - there are no equations - no quantifiable theory - there is no measurable or falsifiable hypothesis on which to assess his 'forecasts', and requests for same are met with accusations of 'bullying'.
His forecasts wrongly give the impression of having been derived from a model, when in fact they are re-cycled data.
Nowhere does he say on his site that he recycles data.
Astrology??
If it were this simple, don't you think everyone would be doing it by now?
His forecast are no better than random guesses. We always get dry spells, we always get wet spells. You fellas here with weather stations know that well. Give your forecasts a wide enough margin of error - and you'll never be wrong!

There's an pdf article attached below from the New Zealand Geographic in 2006 that analyses his use of old weather maps and puts it all in a historical context. I have more - if anyone's interested.

Min wrote: »

Octo, are you Evelyn Cusack?

No!! As I said in an earlier post - I'm a meteorological officer. I represent only myself in this discussion - I'm not here on behalf of any meteorological organisation and I'm writing here in my own (unpaid, Danno) time.

Gene Derm · 14-11-2009 12:10pm

Why are not the flaws of meteorologists referred to by the one that seeks to shove me off the planet for unreliability? That they all, to a man, got the Irish summer so badly incorrect should be cause for soul-searching, not attack of someone who did better than them in this instance. The whole reason I am the subject of so much discussion is that the metservice meteorologists all performed so abominably. Perhaps it is because their preoccupation seems to be criticising others, from Evelyn Cusack to the anonymous meterologist on this forum. How, when they cannot go beyond a day ahead can they call themselves forecasters, when in reality the method of snapping photographs from satellites of current conditions, assuming these will stay the same tomorrow, is actually nowcasting. Further, the practice of reacting to the weather, which is all that is really achieved by this method, puts these so-called state-paid meteorologists into the role of journalists. Journalism is not a science. So why label what I do as unscientific?
Ken Ring

Deep Easterly · 14-11-2009 5:07pm

Gene Derm wrote: »

When the moon is in the sky the weather tends to be more settled, because then, more of the atmosphere is gathered under the moon by virtue of gravitational pull, and it is the atmosphere that acts as a buffer to the two factors that generate unsettled weather, these being greater than usual heat from the sun and greater than usual amounts off colder air being able to come closer to the ground. The air prevents these nasties and wherever the moon goes, a bulge of air follows underneath it causing an airtide, just as a bulge of water follows beneath it that we call the ocean tide.
So on one hand it is important to know what phase the moon is in and what is its declination, which means whether or not in the month it is in the south or north part of the sky or crossing the equator, during both day and night bearing in mind it moves around the 360° of sky during the month by only about 13° per day. On the other hand it is important to know the characteristics of each portion of the declination route it passes beneath, which is the constellation and which is divided into 12.
For instance right now the moon is coming up to new moon phase which is next to the sun. In two weeks time it will be opposite the sun and in full moon phase. Then it will come around again. Because the sun is in the south, over the southern hemisphere, the moon is also in the south, as viewed from space. The sun will stay in the southern hemisphere until the next equinox but the moon will keep changing hemispheres every two weeks.

www.predictweather.com

Thanks Ken.

I get the impression (maybe wrongly

) that you consider various conditions on the ground to be only a minor factor in role of a particular weather set up. If I have this impression wrong, then I apologize.

Is it possible, even if this was not the case, that a particularly astrological influence on the weather may be over-ridden, neutralized, or even reversed by an unprecedented stronger factor within the earth's atmosphere in the short-term, which, in effect, could trigger a domino effect and jar these planetary influences out of all proportion? or "sync" over a longer period of time?

Even away from that, is there room for a possible lag effect in these astrological influences on the earth's volatile atmospheric conditions, given the colossal hugeness and slumbersomeness (for want of a better word

) of interplanetary communication?

Sorry if that seems like a bit of a quiz, but personally I have always tended to see a particular weather event as being the sole result of atmospheric conditioning at a particular point in time.

M.T. Cranium · 14-11-2009 6:11pm

DeepEasterly, I realize you are probably kidding but of course I don't follow that kind of astrology at all, when I did look into it briefly many years ago, I quickly realized that various people born "under a certain sign" would not for any rational reason have a similar kind of day, or life, etc. It was only recently that I came to understand that the system of the 12 signs of the zodiac has gone "off" by the extent of one full sign already due to precession.

Same goes for all other details of the behavioural mumbo-jumbo of moon in this sign, Pluto at right angles from Uranus, etc etc. ... It would be only if by some physical process all of this affected the environment, and then the environment affected human behaviour, that there could be anything to it, but to give specific forecasts for people "born under a sign" is more or less ludicrous. For example, I believe my daughter shares a birthday with Al Gore.

I rest my case.

Gene Derm · 14-11-2009 10:55pm

The idea that something on the ground can affect weather is even believed by some skeptics of global warming, and that the use of fossil fuels affecting the atmosphere is indeed a believable scenario. I would like to suggest that commonsense dictates that this cannot be so and the impossibility of it is observable.
The weather is generated at about the level a Boeing flies, which is about 8 miles up. There is no way that any gaseous emissions either from factories or from vehicle exhausts, nor even from the backsides or mouths of cows and sheep can make it up that far from the ground. Even if they did, the quantities are far too minute to affect the huge quantity of air that comprises the atmosphere.
In fact, CO2 itself is only 3.8 parts in 10,000 in terms of air composition. That means that if in the area in front of and the size of your face there 100,000 molecules, only 38 of them would be CO2. Add to that the fact that when these controversial gases leave the ground level they are lukewarm, yet 8 miles up the temperature is -50°C as far as the eye can see in all directions. There is no way .03% can seize control and warm an area that is -50°C. Even the projected estimate by the IPCC of 2° over the cost of a century would scarcely dent -50°. Add to that that at the level planes fly there is still half the atmosphere still above you.
Another glaringly obvious misconception is that something in the air can change weather. Let us remember that as soon as steam comes out of a chimney, whatever weather is present arrived well beforehand, and will simply deal to the smoke. In other words if there are winds about then those winds will blow the steam away. If there are no gusts of wind then the smoke will hang there until the next gust of wind arrives. It is not the case that weather is some kind of vacuum of nothingness waiting to see what will be put into the air before it transforms itself into a weather system.
Nothing put into the air will ever change weather in the same way that nothing that can be poured into the sea will ever change the tide. Even when tankers run aground and burst open releasing massive amounts of oil from their holds, the oil does not change the tide but is merely brought in by it to the nearest beach. Like Tokyo trains the tides run on time, and tide tables can be purchased commercially. There are millions of impurities added to the sea every day through rivers and runoffs yet tide tables remain true. The atmosphere is very similar. The day will never come when a cloudless day will be changed by the act of getting in a car and going for a drive.
Let us also remember the scale. A weather system can be as large as to engulf the whole of Europe. Such a weather system, as we see each night on the TV news, may have come across the N Atlantic, where there are no cars, belching animals or factories. How then can any of man's emissions or for that matter any behaviour, affect our weather? It is like saying that menstruating women can regulate full moons or influence sunspots. Yet there is a backlogged religious momentum in western countries that dictates that the behaviour of man can affect the deity's wrath so much that eventually some wider punishment will arrive from the environment and threaten his very survival.
I wonder if the ants and cockroaches and bears and worms have that belief also. I imagine they have more sense and just get on with the at times difficult process of living, rather than ordering each other about.
Ken Ring

M.T. Cranium · 15-11-2009 1:41am

I agree in general that we tend to over-value surface conditions and undervalue the importance of external drivers in meteorology and climatology (the official versions at least).

The official science probably undervalues these external drivers by a huge margin, making some of them appear marginal when they are very strong, but I am confident that sooner or later the evidence will change that way of thinking, as it did in other sciences that underwent paradigm shifts, like continental drift for example.

The carbon dioxide debate has at least become well publicized both within the official science and within the larger community of interested parties including non-professionals. Basically, the debate is this -- can an artificial increase in greenhouse gas production force up the overall temperature of the atmosphere by a significant amount, or is this based on a flawed assumption since past cases of naturally released greenhouse gases were in fact caused by naturally warming climates.

I find it a puzzling question and not easy to answer at all, but I suspect that our human contributions are only forcing a small part of recently observed warmings; that otherwise these warmings would have taken place anyway, but perhaps what we are doing is to create slightly different atmospheric stability parameters and other subtle effects that may be working their way into the complexity of the whole system.

If this warming has been over-estimated, then its impact on storm track and jet stream positions has definitely been over-estimated, but even if not, the theory of external forcing would argue that warming of the surface layers might not extend very far into the realm of storm track or jet stream location, and that basically all we have is the same old circulation but with all component parts slightly altered.

There is also the complication of the seas acquiring different mixing parameters through absorption of greenhouse gases.

However, if we really wanted to change the climate (and prove our theory) the way to do that would be to haul some fair sized asteroid in from the belt and place it in a near-earth orbit about 30% of the way to the Moon. This could have very sizeable effects on our atmosphere and lead to much more complex patterns.

One day in the distant future, there might be some form of weather modification using smaller, more subtle effects from 50-100 km sized asteroids in designed orbits.

Surface does play a role -- for example, snow cover can radically alter temperature profiles in the lower layers of an air mass forced to travel across snow-covered land. In southern Ontario, it would be pretty rare for a clear winter night to see temperatures much below -18 C with bare ground; add 5 cms to that bare ground, and the -18 would easily turn to -30. That sort of difference is not going to dissipate in the climate system as soon as the high pressure area (presumably) drifts away into the Atlantic -- it will retain an imprint of this deep-layer cooling for many days and will cool the SST regime of the ocean as it passes over it. Eventually one would lose all evidence of the modification given enough time and distance, but surface changes on the earth would be expected to have significant impacts on the atmosphere.

However, I still believe that the science generally underestimates how powerful the external drivers are (aside from the Sun's heat which is of course an obvious major factor).

Gene Derm · 15-11-2009 2:38pm

Yes, I believe surface would play a role, but only to modulate what was arriving already, and not to create new systems. Valleys retain cooler temperatures and mists, and cities retain heat, and the latter are manmade. But their effects are very local and have nothing to do with weather systems and climate, unless you call climate that which befalls a tiny area and not a country land mass. And any contribution by man to what we usually refer to as a geographic region and to the total weather received by the planet would be as negligible as that provided by an ant. What rules science is research funding rather than quest for further knowledge. The money trail is dictating the climate change debate. The notions of both ozone depletion (Rowlands) and global warming were at first laughed out of court by the scientific community - until research funding suddenly became available. As the word 'climate' means latitude, there can be no climate change unless countries alter their distance from the equator, and this does happen over thousands of years as the poles shift. 20,000 years ago the S Pole was near Perth and western Australia was snow-covered. The North Pole was then over Chicago, the Illinoisian Ice Sheet. The seas were lower in the N hemisphere but higher in the S hemisphere as a result. Rebound after glaciations changes sealevels which is why the south of England is going slightly under the sea but the north of Scotland is still emerging from it. But Man cannot achieve these effects just by recycling aluminium cans, paying 10c for a plastic bag or cycling to work.
Ken Ring

M.T. Cranium · 15-11-2009 8:12pm

Ken, do you mean the terrestrial poles were in those positions 20,000 years ago, or the magnetic poles?

I would not be surprised if the NMP was well south of its recent historical positions in the height of the Wisconsin glaciation, and if the SMP were well to the north. From my research, positions near northern Manitoba (Canada) and let's say Heard Island southwest of Australia would be sufficient to bring on severe glaciation. Chicago sounds a bit extreme.

However, if you mean terrestrial poles, then this is not supported anywhere in the literature, the terrestrial poles are generally thought to be wandering much, much slower than that -- essentially, throughout the past million years and the four major glacial periods that came about, the terrestrial poles were probably within five miles of where they are today. Geography may have changed substantially with rising and falling sea levels, but the larger-scale geology has not changed more than incrementally. For example, the Rockies, a relatively new major landform, were created over a hundred million years ago.

So I would like to hear a bit more about those statements before making further replies -- are we talking terrestrial poles, magnetic poles, or "meteorological poles" which would be mean centres of arctic and antarctic vortex circulations?

Gene Derm · 15-11-2009 10:14pm

Hi MT
I do mean terrestrial. Just Google Illinoisan Ice Age. Here's one link: http://www.amnh.org/science/biodiversity/extinction/Intro/Iceage.html
Extract: the small ice cap centered over Greenland at present is the last remnant of several coalesced caps that covered all of Canada and much of the northern tier of the U.S. at the height of the (Wisconsinan) glaciation 20,000 years ago.

http://books.google.co.nz/books?id=-AGm3Ny_NsgC&pg=PA82&lpg=PA82&dq=illinosian+ice+age&source=bl&ots=04JQNd7AUX&sig=InKfd71zHq57DVMow6rOUOz4e-o&hl=en&ei=G2kAS72nAY_WtgPzwuGHCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CA8Q6AEwAzgU#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Extract: This ice age appears to have ended about 12,000 years ago.

Or read The Path of the Poles, by Charles Hapgood.

I have a book called Maps of the Ancient Seakings, available from Amazon, showing mariners' maps made many thousands of years ago, including one showing Antarctica as two islands with no snow and ice, which, according to NASA is how the area would have looked 10,000 years ago.

I think there is much suppression of new research for political reasons. It is easier to suppress than to rewrite textbooks. But polar shift is perhaps more rapid than is realised. The Asian earthquake tsunami event shifted the North Pole an inch. The recent Te Anau earthquake in NZ shifted the South Island another inch. Every major tremor has the ability to infold the floating crust and thereby move either pole slightly. Add the annual extreme events and multiply by the years and there is considerable scope for polar terrestrial relocation. If there are 300 such jolts in more active years at an inch per time, even that would represent a relocation of 100 miles. There are something like 135,000 known volcanoes, most underwater. It is not difficult for me to imagine them all contributing to this process, nor to suggest that there may have been be many more fissures, emissions and outgaseous episodes that could have lead to crust movement that have been thus far been detected or recorded.
Ken Ring

M.T. Cranium · 16-11-2009 1:31am

Okay, I will have to look into some of that in more detail, I am already very familiar with the detailed history of the ice ages and in particular the last one, which of course is very evident in Canada here, but this idea of the poles being that far away from their present position is not something that I had ever heard discussed before this exchange, and as I have no particular reason to believe it or not believe it, I'm just not prepared to react to it at all.

You could have an extensive glaciation due to the factors discussed in the Milankovitch theory (such as diminished insolation at high latitudes, higher obliquity meaning the earth tilted more away from the Sun in winter) without needing to shift the poles at all. Once you lay down a permanent reflecting surface cover in northern mainland Canada (and Scandinavia) the high latitude ensures that summers will fail to melt the snow, within a century or two the accumulations will turn to ice and then you have a sort of runaway reinforcing glaciation at higher latitudes (down to 55-60 N) that will eventually spread under its own inertial momentum further south until it reaches a point where the mean annual temperature cannot sustain ice cover even under these new albedo conditions.

The climate of the Hudson Bay region in general is very "fragile" in that only small shifts in the arctic vortex nearby could plunge that region into perpetual winter quite easily. We saw how close we still were to this possibility in 1816 when (probably due to the dust veil from Tamboro, 1815) summer came very late and very weak to eastern N America, and lakes in central Quebec that normally thaw in late May or early June stayed frozen almost all summer; snow came and went all season near James Bay (not usually seen from mid-June to early September) and had this continued for several more years, one could have imagined a regional snow pack developing. As it happened, the climate gradually warmed back to more normal values over 3-5 years.

It must be remarkable for people in Ireland to consider that in their latitudes in central Canada, the mean January temperature is -20 C or lower in some places, that snow is often on the ground from October to April or early May, and that lakes routinely freeze for six months or more each year. The summers are at least as warm as in Ireland, in some places 2-3 C deg warmer, except that east of Hudson Bay, the summers are actually 3-5 C deg cooler than in Ireland. This large body of very cold water has a profound impact on regional climate. If it got just a bit colder and remained frozen year round, it could be the catalyst for glaciation too, although this would require complex feedback processes to kick in, because you would lose some snow cover as a result. You would need a much more depressed jet stream bringing in snow bearing systems year round to over-compensate, then a runaway glaciation could begin.

nilhg · 16-11-2009 2:50pm

Since we're discussing ice ages this might be of interest, it suggests that ice age conditions could switch on in the space of a few months "It would be like taking Ireland today and moving it up to Svalbard". They believe that the trigger was the slowing or stopping of the gulf stream, which would contradict Ken's belief that events on the ground can't affect the weather.

M.T. Cranium · 16-11-2009 9:22pm

Such a development might not contradict Ken's assertion as much as it might first appear -- it would depend on why the Gulf Stream or North Atlantic Drift weakened and dropped southeast towards Iberia instead.

If it was because of a widespread atmospheric circulation change, that would be more towards Ken's point of view.

If it was because of feedback from dissolved carbon dioxide that would be a different matter.

Almost certainly in the late stages of the Wisconsin glaciation, cold spells like the Dryas events were caused by large amounts of fresh meltwater pouring out of North America into the North Atlantic. That would not be a factor in starting up a glacial period however.

Gene Derm · 16-11-2009 10:20pm

My comments about surface factors not affecting weather were more in reference to human activities like producing emissions that could change the composition of the air in a very tiny local way only, and not natural forces like a slowing of the Gulf Stream. One has to ask why such a current would be slowed. My belief is that as soon as the ocean is brought into a discussion then moon and sun angles are somehow involved. The Gulf Stream does slow down when the currents up the western side of South America are canceled out by counter currents, and this seems to be a regularity that is a function of the SOI which in turn relates back to lunar declination. There is no doubt that nature can operate quickly at times, within days as the growth of tropical cyclones and hurricanes can attest. But I think that Ice Age formation is in the realm of geology and has more to do with the ordering of the crust, tectonic activity, and magnetic alignments than weather. Interplanetary forces are no doubt in the background.

Ken Ring

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