Psychosocial unease and cognitive weather

Correlating a Requisite Diversity of Metaphorical Patterns (Part #4)

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The concern for many is the weather they experience -- especially when it is unusual and extreme. The focus of global debate on climate may well be an unrecognized device for avoiding attention to the personal experience of what it may imply. Failure to attend to this dimension in a period of increasing psychosocial unease could be seen in the light of Krugman's own concern in relation to the recent global financial crisis (How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? The New York Times, 2 September 2009).

With respect to psychosocial unease there is a curious sense of preoccupation with one's own "cognitive weather" -- and with how better to engage with it. A term of concern is being "under the weather". Evident changes to the "psychosocial climate" -- as a theme of social commentary -- furnish parallels readily described through weather metaphors.

Climate change is readily characterized as exposure to increasingly unseasonal weather -- to abnormal weather conditions. An equivalent change is evident in psychosocial terms, then characterized by extremes of cognitive weather -- termed social unrest.

It is somewhat ironic that the "dishpan" dynamic of Fultz's experiment (as mentioned above) reflects the complexity of cognitive weather -- at least to some degree. Ironically everybody is then appropriately to be considered as a dishpan in cognitive terms.

Weather classification? Given the focus on climate change, it might be expected that there is universal clarity with regard to the distinction of varieties of weather. However it would appear that any exploration of "varieties of weather", as might be experienced by an individual, is confused with "varieties of climate". As noted by Wikipedia, "climate" is indeed understood to be distinct from "weather", in that weather only describes the short-term conditions of variables in a given region. Individual experience is strangely entrapped in the short-term with the relation to the longer-term constituting a somewhat complex challenge: anticipation, memory, fear, and the like.

A region's climate is generated by the climate system, which has five components: atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere, and biosphere. The difference between climate and weather is usefully summarized by the popular phrase: Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get. This could be fruitfully understood as a valuable qualification on consideration of global climate in contrast with the weather as individually experienced. It is also a reflection on the value of meteorological forecasting and the distinctions it makes. A corresponding phrase might take the form of: Remedial action is what you expect from global strategic plans, unforeseen problems are what you get.

There is a curious disconnect between the various ways of classifying climate into similar regimes and the distinctions made which are meaningful to individual experience -- especially when exposed to severe weather phenomena, or to extreme weather (usefully distinguished by Wikipedia). The Bergeron classification is the most widely accepted form of air mass classification and uses a combination of three letters. In the Spatial Synoptic Classification system (ssC) there are six categories. In discussion of it, six weather types are proposed by Scott C. Sheridan (The Redevelopment of a Weather-Type Classification Scheme for North America. International Journal of Climatology, 2002): dry polar (DP); dry moderate (DM); dry tropical (DT); moist polar (MP); moist moderate (MM); moist tropical (MT). These could be considered seriously unrelated to weather as experienced.

The most widespread system used to classify the climates of places is the Köppen Climate Classification System. This is an empirical system based on observable features. The first level recognizes from 5 to 9 major climatic types with each group being designated by a capital letter. Numbers vary due to modifications and extensions to the system in the light of new proposals and recognition of deficiencies

Köppen-Geiger climate classification

Other systems are either "genetic" classification systems (based on the causes of the climate like solar radiation, air masses, pressure systems, etc) or "applied" classification systems created for, or as an outgrowth of, a particular climate-associated problem. (e.g., Trewartha climate classification based on potential evapotranspiration).

A recognized shortcoming of these classification schemes is that they produce distinct boundaries between the zones they define, rather than the gradual transition of climate properties more common in nature. The local experience of weather is indeed especially sensitive to such transitions. Of some relevance is reference to "subjective" in the analysis of so-called "Lamb Weather Types" by Hubert Lamb (Phil Jones, The Development of Lamb Weather Types: from subjective analysis of weather charts to objective approaches using reanalyses, 2013)

Such classification initiatives recall the early stages in the emergence of the tabular periodic classification of chemical elements, especially issues regarding the number of groups and distinctions within groups.

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