The tornadic outbreak in Dallas is barely over and already there’s a rush to scare the public over non-existent links between tornadoes and climate.
The Daily Caller reports:
On the Tuesday broadcast of “CNN Newsroom,” CNN meteorologist Alexandra Steele declared that tornadoes plowing through the Dallas-Fort Worth area were brought on by climate change.
Steele, formerly of The Weather Channel, also predicted that more extreme weather is on its way.
“It really is [such a strange spring],” Steele said. “That’s kind of the climate change we are seeing. You know, extremes are kind of ruling the roost and really what we are seeing, more become the norm.”
“CNN Newsroom” host Carol Costello said it made her “afraid” about what is in store for next spring.
“It might be unnaturally cold,” said Costello. Steele agreed that future weather would be less predictable.
“This global warming is really kind of a misnomer,” Steele said. “It’s global climate change. So the colds are colder and warms are warmer and severe is more severe.”
Source – The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/03/cnn-meteorologist-todays-tornadoes-are-climate-change-we-are-seeing
Time to invoke Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.’s handy button:
With this post I am creating a handy bullshit button on this subject (pictured above). Anytime that you read claims that invoke disasters loss trends as an indication of human-caused climate change, including the currently popular “billion dollar disasters” meme, you can simply call “bullshit” and point to the IPCC SREX report.
A few quotable quotes from the report (from Chapter 4):
- “There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change”
- “The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados”
- “The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses”
The report even takes care of tying up a loose end that has allowed some commentators to avoid the scientific literature:
“Some authors suggest that a (natural or anthropogenic) climate change signal can be found in the records of disaster losses (e.g., Mills, 2005; Höppe and Grimm, 2009), but their work is in the nature of reviews and commentary rather than empirical research.”
A few Notes:
La Ninas are often far more costly than El Ninos (PDF)
La Nina of 2010 2nd strongest (PDF)
During El Niño the jet stream is oriented from west to east across the southern portion of the United States. Thus, this region becomes more susceptible to severe weather outbreaks. During La Niña the jet stream and severe weather is likely to be farther north.
Note the collision zone in the US southeast during La Niña patterns. 1974 was a La Niña year too.
And of course there’s this from The folly of linking tornado outbreaks to “climate change”:
Historically, there have been many tornado outbreaks that occurred well before climate change was on anyone’s radar. Here’s a few:
1908 Southeast tornado outbreak 324 fatalities, ≥1,720 injuries
1920 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak ≥380 fatalities, ≥1215 injuries
1925 Tri-State tornado ≥747 fatalities, ≥2298 injuries
1932 Deep South tornado outbreak ≥330 fatalities, 2145 injuries
1952 Arkansas-Tennessee tornado outbreak 208 fatalities
1965 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak 256 fatalities
April 3-4 1974 Super Outbreak 315 fatalities
All of these occurred before “climate change” was even on the political radar. What caused those if “global warming” is to blame? The real cause is La Niña, and as NOAAwatch.gov indicates on their page with the helpful meter, we are in a La Niña cycle of ocean temperature in the Pacific.
I recommend reading my essay: Why it seems that severe weather is “getting worse” when the data shows otherwise – a historical perspective.
I also recommend: 2011 US Tornado Year Analyzed – no trend indication, still below 1974 for strong to violent tornadoes
Related articles
- Another blow to warmist hysteria over weather is not climate unless we say it is: “2011 damage is qualitatively indistinguishable from 1974″ (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Tornadoes tear through Dallas-Forth Worth area (fox13now.com)
- Forecastthefacts.org – Political Activists Gagging Our TV Meteorologists on Climate Issues (wattsupwiththat.com)
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If there is a relationship between ENSO and tornado outbreaks, its not apparent.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/csi/events/2011/tornadoes/enso.html
In the 9 outbreaks 1925-1965, none were la Nina. In the 9 outbreaks 1974-2011, 8 were la Nina or neutral.
Did she bring up the shark attacks down in Ausland and blame them on climate change as well?
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
Well, the DFW area did get hit good today.
I predict that there is also quieter weather on it’s way. Wanted to be first to state the obvious.
Video here from Bonnie View Road at Interstate 20 exit 472 in Dallas.
http://www.fox11online.com/dpp/weather/texas-tornado-damages-schneider-national-trucks
A lie repeated often enough eventually becomes truth!
Can you imagine what is was like here before Columbus. Only Natives with a population density of one person per 20 square miles? I bet the tornadoes were wiping the tribes out until hardly none were left. Wrecking teepees or hogans or long houses. Higher population density means more destruction in some areas. Kinda like having a picturesque view of the river when your in the 5 year flood plain. Better have good insurance.
Why does anybody know about this? I didn’t think anybody still watched CNN.
To all news agencies:
Please, no more weather bimbos.
How is this linked to “climate change” in any way? Dallas is on the southern end of Tornado Alley. March through May is the peak time for tornadoes in that area in any year. As you say, La Nina seems to contribute to an increased frequency. No man-made climate change needed.
This kind of fear-mongering over “climate change” needs to be loudly refuted in every media venue. This garbage has got to stop.
The writing has been sighted on the wall here in Australia by our Socialist govrnment. The Department of Climate Change is to shed one third of its staff.
NO! Don’t let them out of the corner they painted themselves into. It’s global warming, not climate change or extremes. So what does that nasty ol’ CO2 do then if it isn’t warming? And if warming isn’t the problem then what role does CO2 have? How does it do its thing to make weather extremes? And if CO2 isn’t the cause of these extremes, then what is the excuse for controlling CO2 output?
It isn’t logic, it’s passion. It’s how much you apparently care, not what is real.
And that makes me wonder about the wisdom of the 19th amendment. Boy am I in trouble now. But somebody needs to ask about whether voting based on emotion rather than reason has a dangerous destabilizing effect on the country. It doesn’t matter how things should be, I’m concerned about how things really are. Am I wrong?
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/02/us-usa-campaign-poll-idUSBRE8310MT20120402
CNN is like little children with a fancy toy. Slathered in glitzy graphics and fades, and chant-like in its news cycle frequency, A bunch of literally dumb reporters pretend to seek information from around their world (it’s not our world). Floppy-shouldered ditzes on the femme side, and the likes of weird-breathing-cadence Wolf Blitzer on the homme side, combine to gob us with drama…with literally no information of real value to the watcher. Kings of the droning meme.
Ever hear of the book
Driving Amongst Idiots
Well, now we have a sequel: Forecasting Amongst Idiots
It is worth noting that during most La Nina years (at least four out of five) the occurrence of storms and precipitation in Texas is generally below-average. See the 2007-2009 and 2010-2011 droughts across most of Texas, both of which were largely influenced by La Nina conditions in the tropical Pacific Ocean. However, Texas has seen normal to slightly above-normal precipitation this winter and early spring across most of the state (with exception of west Texas) despite another La Nina phase. Dr. Nielsen-Gammon recently wrote a blog about this, and outlined, among a number of other factors, the change in the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) from negative to positive as one of the reasons for the abnormal La Nina (in terms of average impacts on Texas). Anyways, main point is that just as the CNN meteorologists are flawed in trying to attribute this outbreak of storms to anthropogenic global warming, you too are flawed in solely attributing it to a SST phase in the Pacific that generally has the opposite effect of these storms today.
Picture of four tornadoes hitting at once in DFW.
pic.twitter.com/R1uBdPM6
Looks like the 3rd and 4th are actually just forming but pretty unusual to see 4 forming at one time.
No, its not due to global weirding broadcasts but an amazingly powerful storm to say the least.
When you’re pointing to random bad weather events as an “effect” of AGW you’re on your last legs. The public’s BS meters go off the scale.
Of course she’s right. They “know” what they are talking about and the rest of us are just too dumb to know any better. How dare you presume to understand climate and weather and melting ice and CO2 back radiation and tree ring proxies and… /sarc
“Bright early, becoming dark later”. If you ever hear anything else from a TV weather auto-cutie, ask for a peer review and IPCC sponsorship.
“Global warming was a specific threat that failed to materialise, so they moved the threat to something much more vague. Don’t let them get away with it. Every time they try to frame the debate around those words, shift it right back to global warming. When you post or talk with people, use the words global warming rather than climate change.”
http://thepointman.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/so-which-is-it-global-warming-climate-disruption-or-climate-change/
Pointman
Tornados in Texas in April! Unprecedented! Unbelievable!
To some extent this is just part of the East Coast’s overwhelming abysmal abject bigotry and ignorance about everything west of the Hudson and south of the Battery. When anything at all happens in the Great Plains, CNN / Fox / MSNBC will reliably say something fantastically idiotic about it.
And of course, so far, zero fatalities. Lots of property damage, but no one has died.
How much does CNN GROSSLY overpay Alexandra Steele? Her comments are unbelievable.
My cat ate a lizard this morning. Now THAT’S unprecedented. Obviously she was psychologically depressed about global warming/cooling/change/sustainability and took out her frustrations on that poor lizard. Probably one of those protected critters to. 😉