I cringe every time I see stories like the one being pushed in the Associated Press today by AP science writer Seth Borenstein.
My Way News – This US summer is ‘what global warming looks like’ http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120703/D9VP9J681.html
Even Drudge picked it up.
The amount of unsupported speculation trying to be passed off as science is nothing more than the classic appeal to authority. In this case, the “authority” is NCAR’s Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a man with so much hatred for alternate viewpoints that he refused to remove the holocaust word “denier” from his keynote address to the American Meteorological Society.
This reminds me of the Russian heat wave of 2010.
The same people made essentially the same comments, then months later the peer reviewed literature (published by NOAA researchers no less) said that it was caused by natural variation…a blocking high pressure pattern. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/09/noaa-findsclimate-change-blameless-in-2010-russian-heat-wave/
That was followed up by another paper saying the same thing: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/29/another-paper-shows-that-the-russian-heatwave-of-2010-was-due-to-natural-variability/
We have essentially the same thing happening here, a persistent quasi-stationary weather pattern, part of the normal natural variation.
As for the derecho, it is hardly new. The word was first used in the American Meteorological Journal in 1888 by Gustavus Detlef Hinrichs in a paper describing the phenomenon and based on a significant derecho event that crossed Iowa on 31 July 1877. Further, NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center has catalogued them through the years. According to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center, climatology, the Washington DC area gets a derecho about once every four years:
As I said in my essay, The idea that the recent derecho is linked to global warming is pure folly spun by people that wish to exploit any remotely plausible situation for political purposes. It happens on a regular basis, for example when they try to link tornado outbreaks to global warming: The folly of linking tornado outbreaks to “climate change”.
Or how about the disparity in “weather is not climate except when we say it is” blame game: New York Times Blames 2009’s Record Cold on Natural Factors — But Blamed Record Warmth in 2000 on Man-Made Global Warming!
Given how badly global warming is faring in the minds of the public according to the last Washington Post/Stanford poll:
Global warming no longer Americans’ top environmental concern, poll finds
…it is clear they are desperate to sell any connection because the public will probably not hear about the science studies that will follow.
It is another shameful attempt to do just that by Dr. Kevin Trenberth aided by Seth Borenstein’s media bully pulpit. I will give Borenstein at least one credit though, he asked Dr. John Christy what he thought about it and printed it:
‘…history is full of such extremes, said John Christy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He’s a global warming skeptic who says, “The guilty party in my view is Mother Nature.”‘
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I think that the sheer numbers of local record high temperatures, rather than any one event make the better case for global warming. The ratio of high to low records is a useful statistic. In any case the drought in the midwest and fires in the west make this a really bad year for climate and weather. Taxpayers are going to be paying a lot of crop insurance fees to farmers in the midwest corn and soybean belts.
The propagandists and opportunists are out in full force. NPR, in particular— as usual, continues to serve as a willing broadcast platform engaged in full-blown indocrination.
The thrust of the story doesn’t matter one bit. Headlines sell newspapers. Period
And we are told when its a cold winter that ‘weather is not climate ‘ funny how that changes when a weather event can be used to support ‘the cause ‘ and yes we been here before with Russia
As for Trenberth any scientists that wishes to reverse the hull hypotheses because their case is so weak it cannot stand review , can be regarded ass a joke but not the funny kind.
Trenberth, as some will recall, is wont to speculate on things outside his expertise, case in point his Hurricane chapter in the last Climate Bible, where he forges ahead despite the literature that torpedoes most of that chapter’s content. Kommandant Rajendra made sure, of course, that he offered as much support to Old Kev as was needed. Thus armed, and certain he can do no wrong, he leaps derecho into the line of fire once again, running smack dab into the blocking high that would impede a mere mortal’s intellectual progress. But Sir Kevahad is vastly superior, and immortal.
Geniculate liberally, for thou art the Mainstream. Dareth not question the Druid, for the climate, in changing, drags literally everything in its wake vortex.
Borenstein is a hack, and Trenberth is an idiot. I can’t think of a better combination to represent the kitchen physics version of science than those two. Remember, Trenberth is the dummy that wanted to destroy science by reversing the null hypothesis.
Bureau Of Land Management and some media outlets now claim, based on police reports, that some fires were sparked by target shooters. Not sure how that would work, since, well, modern guns don’t really work like that, but it fits into the narrative.
The two fundamental drivers in a reimagined notion of human thinking for the new economics of Green Growth are to ground it thoroughly in emotion and feelings and to make it visual. I may be writing that this is coming but elements are already here and have been coming in through education for about 20 years. I may have figured this out methodically but the typical marketing exec knows just how much education has changed the filtering mindset they are marketing to. They know it has changed the habits of viewers when they do tune into the news. They know how important the behavioral sciences are to their business. We taxpayers and parents are the ones with the missing details.
I have been watching the network evening news for just that reason. The visuals are so manipulative on what is usually the lead set of stories you almost have to be watching from a meat locker freezer not to break into a sweat from the stories shown.
With all these media stories that are based on bad science notice how much visualization and emotional imagery dominate. And think of the impact on the typical fact free viewer. Who just KNOWS that ALL the glaciers are melting. Isn’t that what causes the calving seen on the cruise? And remembers the poor Polar Bear on the ice floe.
Play to the misinformed beliefs deliberately cultivated with “just enough content knowledge.”
Of the all-time high temperature records for each US state, only 3 have been set since 1998. Of the other 47 record highs, more than half (24) were set in the 1930’s. How is this year “what global warming looks like”?
Do climate scientists and their journalistic sycophants actually take a class in Texas Sharpshooting?
BillD says:
July 3, 2012 at 9:21 am
During a time of generally rising temperatures (say for example the last three centuries or so), the ratio of high to low records is a useless statistic without some serious calculations to back out the effect of the rising temperature.
But somehow, people never seem to get around to making those calculations … must be a coincidence …
w.
I keep wanting to yell at the TV every time someone says that their bowline storm was so rare or unheard of. We get them all the time out here in the Midwest on the plains. There’s always a bowline echo on the radar somewhere during a severe storm outbreak. They just got unlucky that it was pointed their way instead of over lots of open farmland.
John H-the 1930’s were worse than the current period. Dust bowl? The Tillamook Burn.
“Grapes of Wrath?” Gone unoticed is the cold, wet spring here in the Pac NW, England, parts of
Europe, and the Southern Winter..
The fires are due to very bad mangement of the forest and fire fighting resources..
But it is nice to blame somethng else…
I came across this cool website about what may have happened at the end of ice age. Sounds bad compared to what is being promoted by by Trenberth, et al.
http://www.earthfiles.com/news.php?ID=1986&category=Science
Fascinating.
Trouble with all this BS its still ain’t warming *Global mean temperatures
see AMSU satellite temperatures
So these fires and Derechos are due to?
Meanwhile large parts of the country are suffering from power outages, which will lead to more deaths than without A/C. But the policies supported by CAGW folks will result in less electricity and more power outages, which will also cause more deaths in both summer and winter.
Then some of them have the nerve to say that CEO’s of power/oil companies should be put on trial. I really hope that those that advocate policies that cause deaths have to pay the piper some day and are held accountable for the deaths that they cause. Maybe a civil suit to take back some of their millions in speaking fees they get for peddling scare stories.
BillD says: “The ratio of high to low records is a useful statistic.”
“Useful” is an excellent description-it’s a tactic which has a certain goal in mind: get a signal and then totally obscure what is actually going on. When you see a ratio change, it gives no indication of whether the denominator changed, the numerator, or both, nor does it tell you, if both, which one contributed more to the ratio change. Moreover, if the denominator drops toward zero, it inevitably causes the ratio to skyrocket toward infinity. Big changes can appear alright! Even if the numerator stays constant…
Useful is a good word, or euphemism, indeed.
@Edohiguma
Mythbusters had a bit where they shot full gas tanks with a collection of weapon and ammo types including tracer rounds from an M16. They were unable to get a fire or any explosions. On the one hand, that is not sience, on the other hand they took the time to test instead of relying in the theory that “bullet going through metal creastes spark that ignites tank”.
I’ve hit the posts at the target range enough to know you get a splattered wad of copper, but no sparks. I agree: “does not work that way”
That a fascilitator of state sponsored propaganda would call his enemy the deniers is so WW2ish. GW fought about as hard as any president ever has to save the country from authoritarians like Trenberth.
“Edohiguma says:
July 3, 2012 at 9:31 am
Bureau Of Land Management and some media outlets now claim, based on police reports, that some fires were sparked by target shooters. Not sure how that would work, since, well, modern guns don’t really work like that, but it fits into the narrative.”
There is a pyrotechnic round called Dragon’s Breath which absolutely could start a fire (money shot is around 4:40 of the video).
http://youtu.be/RP4FjODPDFA
An Arizona fire is being blamed on it.
http://ktar.com/22/1557026/Bachelor-party-allegedly-sparked-Sunflower-Fire
If it is said on the PBS NewsHour, it must be so.
(AIR DATE: July 2, 2012 What’s Causing Unusually Hot Temperatures in U.S.? http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/weather/july-dec12/climate_07-02.html )
KEVIN TRENBERTH: ” … there is no parallel to this. We’re now breaking records….
JUDY WOODRUFF: And when you say — you used the term no parallel. You literally meant that?
KEVIN TRENBERTH: I don’t think there has been anything quite like this before. … The odds are changing for these to occur with climate change, with the global warming from the human influences on climate.
aharris says:
July 3, 2012 at 9:54 am
You describe an outflow boundary. They can create their own weather.
During the “Little Ice Age” climate scientists would have had ample “data” to predict with utmost reliability that earth was entering a new ice age similar to those earth had previously experienced and that, say, within 50 years at the onset of “no summers” massive ice sheets would once again cover much of the Northern Hemisphere (and Southern Hemisphere?).
Of course, they would have been totally wrong. Yea it was damn cold, but there was no ice age.
You CANNOT extrapolate 10 or 50 or 100 or even 200 years of data and make the claim that “sufficient evidence exists” that shows………whatever it is you claim.
Statistical studies of climate are NOT PREDICTIVE OF FUTURE CLIMATE because you cannot predict the behavior of all the variables (extra-terrestrial + earth-generated), that affect and control the climate. And these variable are not predictive because they still do not understand how they interact nor what affects the variables that, in turn, control climate.
Climatic statistical models, as with those produced by economists to “predict” economic activity, are inherently flawed because they all assume that the future will unfold as the past (as in coin flipping or tossing dice).
Well guess what, it does not.
If it did, we would today know the weather 4 weeks hence and yea, economists can tell us what the interest rates and GDP will be 1 year from now.
Yea right.
Today’s LA Times has an even more ridiculous editorial in which they imply the UHI effect in the LA basin is due to AGW:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-adv-global-warming-20120702,0,4512793.story
Give these people enough rope, . . .
Give the lack of energy when people are in need of it in particular places you can refine the headline a little to make mischief: This is what global warming policy looks like.
@KevinM
The article I saw said the shooters were using so called “flamethrower” shotgun rounds.
From Wikipedia Dragon’s Breath;
“A dragon’s breath usually refers to a zirconium-based pyrotechnic shotgun round. When the round is fired, sparks and flames shoot out to about 15 m (48 feet) away from the gun.[1]
While its tactical uses are very limited, the visual effect it produces is impressive, similar to that of a short-ranged flamethrower. The rounds are often used as a distress signal, similar to an emergency flare gun. They can also be used as means of intimidation to the opposing forces. The pyrotechnic shell is expensive compared to other shells, costing around 5 US dollars per shell. There is little to no record of its use in actual combat. Because it is a very low-power round, it cannot be used in an automatic shotgun; it does not produce enough recoil energy to cycle the next shot, causing the mechanism to jam. An additional reason for use only in a manually operated firearm is the fact that the round shoots at least a little flame for 3–5 seconds. This would cause a hazard if a shell still emitting flame were to be ejected from an automatic shotgun.”
These would definitely have the potential to start a fire in dry conditions.