Chris-
Your considerations are much the same as mine. Bob Sent from Windows Mail From: Chris Zell Sent: Monday, August 25, 2014 7:23 AM To: vortex-l@eskimo.com To me, all of the expertise, all of the Ph.D's, all of the tenure and all of the opinions of climatologists are simply worthless in relation to the world at large - except for their ability to make accurate predictions. Really, of what general value would climatology be without an established record of prediction? It would come painfully close to being a pseudo-science. This doesn't mean that they need to be able to forecast tomorrow's lottery numbers ( in effect) but we should expect that they can create predictive graphs that follow emerging reality with a reasonable fit - and frankly, that's where the problem seems to be.