Further Update:
Turns out I was hoping for too much. Brad Johnson found at least three scientists eager to be quoted in his follow up article: Kevin Trenberth, Michael Mann, and Gavin Schmidt. The quotes from these top scientists are worth going over there and reading. No additional comments are warranted.
Top Climate Scientist On The Monster Tornadoes: ‘It Is Irresponsible Not To Mention Climate Change’
Update by Ryan Maue:
Under the title of “Tornado and global warming“, Brad Johnson disgustingly uses quotes by Dr. Kevin Trenberth, and grotesquely blames the recent tornado outbreak on (GOP) congressional delegations in states that opposed climate legislation. I hope no scientist wants anything like this said on their behalf.
Update by Anthony:
4:45PM PST I have an updated article on this issue here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/29/the-folly-of-linking-tornado-outbreaks-to-climate-change/
9:30AM PST:
I was writing simultaneously with Ryan Maue and I couldn’t even come up with a title I was so disgusted. So I made the title “No title”. I’ve combined the articles. This is what I wrote:
This post has no title because the closest title I can think of is of the caliber of [expletive deleted]. The Center for American Progress and NCAR’s Dr. Keneth Trenbert invoke the thought of famous line from Joseph N. Welch “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”
I wonder how long they had to search for this particular (uncredited) photograph, choosing the juxapostion of the Chevron sign with the tornado. For all I know, it may even be photoshopped. (update: After about 30 minutes of searching, I found the original here http://yfrog.com/h232uwjij )
To say I’m disgusted, simply does not do justice to the feelings I have about this. The real test will be to see if CAP paid disinformer Joe Romm reposts this article from Brad Johnson on Climate Progress.
Here’s the proof that refutes the issue, and pigeonholes these clowns for what they are, which is nothing about science, but about hateful political cheapshots.
From the National Climatic Data center. Tornadoes of the intensity seen in Alabama this week (F3-F5) on the Fujita scale:
Source: National Climatic Data Center http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/tornado/tornadotrend.jpg
They New York Times got into the act too. CCM Mike Smith of Meteorological Musings writes:
Leave it to the NY Times to Write an Inaccurate and Insensitive Article
I had planned on moving on to other topics today. There is little more to say about the tornadoes of the last three weeks until the investigations are completed. As I was going through my email this morning, a reader sent me a link to this article inThe New York Times:
Predicting Tornadoes: It’s Still Guessing Game
Compared to the slime job by the Center for American Progress, it’s tame.
I urge readers to read this article below from Physorg and to use it and the graph above to refute comments in online forums.
“…it would be a mistake to blame climate change for a seeming increase in tornadoes”
Update: The graph that Joe Romm and Brad Johnson don’t want you to see: tornado deaths per million over the last century
Source: NOAA’s US Severe Weather Blog, SPC, Norman Oklahoma
http://www.norman.noaa.gov/2009/03/us-annual-tornado-death-tolls-1875-present/
CYNICAL IDIOTS
I was surprised that Trenberth was familiar with the term “null hypothesis.” I guess his next step is learning what it means.
Stay classy, ThinkProgress
“Climate Pollution Deniers” now is it? Jeez. I wonder if Johnson denies the fact that there has been no increase in extreme weather events in the industrial era. Actually, I don’t wonder at all.
Climate pollution, all right. They have turned climate into a meaningless concept; an essential gas into a toxic substance, and fired-up a whole parade of cut-and-paste apes to spread the word. Lies. Blatant, unabashed, unashamed, lies.
“Never hesitate to make political capital out of human suffering.”
John W.,
Trenberth is familiar with the climate null hypothesis, he just doesn’t like the fact that it falsifies the CAGW story he’s trying to sell. So now Trenberth wants to replace the null hypothesis with his own cherry-picked version. WUWT covered it here.
[And speaking of a crisis, oil was $33 a barrel, and gasoline was $1.87 a gallon when Obama took office.]
Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), also dismissed Thursday climate change as a factor in the deadly tornadoes: “Actually what we’re seeing is springtime,” he said.
“Many people think of Oklahoma as ‘Tornado Alley’ and forget that the southeast United States actually has a history of longer and more powerful tornadoes that stay on the ground longer.”
This is disgusting propaganda. They should be ashamed.
Who will be the first politician to call them out?
BTW Dr. Kenneth Trenbert. I think you put the Dr in by mistake as well.
Is there no depth to which these people won’t go? Disgusting is the only word.
Even more disgusting than the article itself are the gleeful schadenfreude comments about Southerners getting their come-uppance for being AGW heretics and religious nuts, and how these scoffers will now have to beg the same government they despise for aid. Truly surreal. Perhaps a few screen shots are in order in case these “disappear.”
Smokey says:
April 29, 2011 at 10:01 am
[And speaking of a crisis, oil was $33 a barrel, and gasoline was $1.87 a gallon when Obama took office.]
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Happen to go to the market this AM, and a small can of the market’s brand of coffee was $3.49. Last week it was $2.99, a year ago it was $1.99 !
You increase energy prices, and you get rampant inflation soon enough.
We need action, and we need it soon. I feel very sorry for people on a fixed income.
“Tornado deaths blamed on lawmakers opposed to
climate legislationTrenberth’s taxpayer-funded gravy train.”There, fixed.
I have to ask,
The chart for Tornados ends at 2007. Where is the data for 2008, 2009, 2010, and to date 2011?
REPLY: NCDC has not updated the graph, of course now that we have a big year for tornadoes, they likely will – Anthony
The Marxist propagandists at stinkregress think that the prols will swallow their agitprop and they are correct. But only someone who is cognitively dysfunctional would buy such nonsense. So I guess the Marxist are counting on their subjects being cognitively dysfunctional.
When Topeka, Kansas was being founded, the settlers asked the local Indians where would be the best place to build a town. The Indians indicated an East-West Ridge which tornadoes approached from the North but would not cross. A town South of the ridge would be safe.
Safe was the case until, in 1966, when a F5 tornado formed ON the ridge and then dropped down and right through town. If you drive today up to the ridge top, it is easy to see the swath of new buildings extending through the city’s middle.
Here’s the actual warning from scientists…
AFP – “US meteorologists warned Thursday it would be a mistake to blame climate change for a seeming increase in tornadoes in the wake of deadly storms that have ripped through the US south.”
http://www.france24.com/en/20110428-tornadoes-whipped-wind-not-climate-officials
The warmist camp is now comprised of nothing more than sub-intellectual ideological bigots. Just remember folks, when they make comments like this it is for all the other sub-intellectual ideological bigots, not the literate.
REPLY: We covered that story here long before it made it to France, scroll down the main page. – Anthony
Typical of the contemptable garbage that the Center for American Progress spews . Let’s hope that their rubbish gets exposed as the loathsome mendacity it is .
How powerful these “deniers” of climate change are, they were able to conjur up these horriffic storms at a whim. sarc/
Gavin Schmidt of NASA has also calculated that Mother Nature is punishing Roy Spencer by a nearby tornado for his denialism, see
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/04/review-of-spencers-great-global-warming-blunder/#comment-205854
By the way, NASA has delayed today’s space shuttle launch because the GISS has told them that the heaters of power unit 1 could contribute to global warming – because they’re heaters, after all.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2011/04/29/shuttle_endeavour_ready_for_historic_last_launch/?rss_id=Top+Stories
NBC’s Brian Williams:
Let’s be candid here. When you and I go home, you see friends and family, you get e-mail from people you know. People ask the same question: What’s going on here? Is this something we have done?
Yeah. You probably filed your income tax too late.
I scare you with BS comments using bad science about a natural disaster.
You get scared, wring hands, and “say what can I do?”
I say, “this is really important, it needs to be studied further – I must have bigger grants, more staff and more status.”
You say, “that sounds reasonable, I want to help – let’s tell our political leaders, they have to do something – and do it now!”
I live very well indeed – after all, I am now very important and flushed with funding. You are worse off, because my BS has resulted in politicians following goofy, uneconomic energy policies.
If I feel your interest is waning, I invent new BS scare story, utilising bad science as before. I become even more important and more flushed with funding.
It’s a great system – please don’t knock it.
Sarc
“The congressional delegations of these states__Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky__ overwhelmingly voted to reject the science…” of AGW.
The ugly voice of regional prejudice from the self-elected elite. Disgusting! Journalism at its most bigoted!
The warmists will say things like that because they are bigots of the worst kind. They belong in the 16th century persecuting “witches”.
I have seen the pictures on UK TV of the devastation these tornadoes caused and I feel so sorry for the victims. To make moronic statements by these people implying that the victims deserved their fate makes me think that maybe they are reincarnations of members of the Spanish Inquisition.
The energy fix (and not from the “gubmint”) is on its way: http://freeenergytruth.blogspot.com/2011/04/97-e-cats-in-operation-right-now.html
Let’s just hope they can ramp it up ASAP! (But even so, don’t expect the number or severity of tornadoes to decline, even if we completely eliminate CO2 emissions some time in the future.)