Prophecy And Ken Ring

I got an interesting E-Mail from Christchurch, NZ:

This is VERY interesting:

Note that these guys have predicted the earthquakes in Chch within a few days accuracy based on gravitational forces. What do you think?

What is this forecast? (dated 2/14):

Solar activity is picking up in pace right now, with coronal holes appearing close to where they appeared before the 4 September earthquake in Christchurch. ... It means ths area of the sun that corresponds to NZ is again seeing some activation. The window of 15-25 February should be potent for all types of tidal action, not only kingtides but cyclone development and ground movement. The 18th may be especially prone. The possible earthquake risk areas are N/S faults until after 16 February, then E/W faults until 23rd. The moon will be full on the 18th and in perigee on the 19th. This perigee will be the fifth closest for the year. The 15th will be nodal for the moon. On the 20th the moon crosses the equator heading south. Strong winds and swells may arrive around 22nd to NZ shorelines.

A brilliant forecast! Right on the money, and for all the wrong reasons!

Unfortunately, I suspect a confidence man here: a con man who happened to get lucky.

Ken Ring seems to have created a weather-and earthquake-forecasting consultancy based on records of solar flares, and phases of the moon, among other factors.

Most meteorologists discount the effect of solar flares on weather, since there is no obvious way that solar flares couple with the weather. Solar flares interact primarily with the ionosphere and the tenuous reaches of the upper atmosphere, not deeper in the atmosphere, where weather happens. The stratified nature of the stratosphere is very effective at keeping these two realms distinct and separate.

While the moon's gravitational force causes tides, which flex the crust, and might trigger earthquakes already primed to happen, the moon's influence dwarf's in significance with the primary factors, like continental drift.

While the Christchurch earthquake seemed to correspond to the full moon, similar recent earthquakes, like the Jan. 2nd Chilean 7.1M earthquake, occurred at new moon.

Despite Ring's calculations, I suspect no easy conclusion is possible about the effect of the moon on earthquakes.

I also think it's interesting how Ring appears to disparage the science of long-range weather forecasting, yet may quietly be using these same forecasts. Ring states:

The concept of longrange forecasting may seem unfamiliar and less than possible at first hearing, but that could be because there has been a lack of longrange capability of western metservices since the 1850s. Despite claims to the contrary with regard to climate scientists preaching about imminent climate change, the science of classical meteorology has not progressed in 150 years, and whilst same-day predictions may be excellent and well-supported by state-of-art satellite technology, predictions more than 1 or 2 days ahead by forecasters cannot be relied on. For the longer outlook, one can liken our work in longrange weather projection to local tidetables which cover a year ahead or longer and have long been purchaseable in advance from institutions supporting maritime activity. Our longrange weather reports are simply tidetables of the atmosphere.

Actually, the science of classical meteorology has proceeded in leaps and bounds in the last 150 years. One of meteorology's major discoveries - an unfortunate discovery, but a discovery nonetheless, attributed to Edward Lorenz, and often called the Butterfly Effect - is that classical, short-range weather forecasting is not possible past a few days. Nevertheless, certain statistical properties of the atmosphere often endure, allowing predictions of a sort to be made for a week, and sometimes a month, or a season in advance. Thus, weather segues into climate....

High pressure systems can be especially-enduring. For example, long wavelength Rossby waves can be nearly-static, and can last a month. Here in Sacramento, California, we got lots of rain in December, 2010, but I could see that one of these big ridges had locked into place at the start of January, 2011, and I knew deep in my heart that the entire month of January would be almost rain-free. Indeed, that was the case! Even in the rainiest winters here, we often experience weeks with no rain whatsoever. That's the advantage of experience. It's knowing how the atmosphere typically behaves that allows this kind of wizardry.

Why do I think Ring may be surreptitiously using long range weather forecasts available on the Web? For example, Ring's 2/14 forecast called for swells in the seas near northern NZ around 2/22. This was a reasonable forecast, since weather-forecast modeling likely already-available by 2/14 suggested the approach of a tropical cyclone (later named Tropical Cyclone Atu) to the North Island around that time. Even as early as 2/14, swells would have been a safe forecast for the North Island.

My documentation isn't good here, though. The hardest thing to find on the World Wide Web are two-week-old weather forecasts. As soon as weather happens, the old, embarrassingly-wrong weather forecasts immediately get dumped into the memory hole, so it's hard to recreate the long-range weather-forecast landscape that forecasters were looking at just two weeks ago. Even archives of the actual weather are sometimes hard to find (one useful archive is here).

Nevertheless, I'm certain that some forecasts foresaw the development of Tropical Cyclone Atu, and also foresaw its movement towards New Zealand. I remember looking at these forecasts just two weeks ago (even if I didn't remark upon them in print).

In any event, it's tropical cyclone season, and even if you knew nothing else about the weather, forecasting swells along North Island shores is a pretty-safe forecast in February.

Commingling forecasts (e.g., earthquake and weather, like Ring seems to like to do) is a hallmark of the prophet trade. As a teenager, I used to read the forecasts of psychic Jeanne Dixon, but soon realized she was commingling forecasts, so that failure on one front might be offset by successes on two other fronts. The successes would be remembered, and the failures forgotten.

Any intelligent person, poring over reports of rising grain prices last year, might have been able to offer a prediction of events like Mubarak's recent overthrow. That was Dixon's method: she carefully read her hometown newspaper (the Washington Post), looking out for neglected trends, before stepping forward with her commingled forecasts. The well-informed person seems to be more psychic than anyone else, simply because they know more.

This Ring fellow is very sophisticated! Perhaps I should do something along the same line....

Which reminds me, Gabe sent me a note indicating The Rapture will occur on May 11, 2011. So mark your calendars now!

But I offer no predictions, because, as always, I've fallen behind on my reading, and am too-poorly-informed to offer much in the way of prophecy.

[UPDATE: Apparently others are less-than-convinced about Ken Ring's abilities.]