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.”‘
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.
I guess the “Dust Bowl” never happened. Anyway, maybe we could get Gore to jet around the center of the country to promote AGW.
I don’t understand what climate change has to do with the holocaust. Al Gore and his buddies can use the word denier if they want to use it. This has nothing to do with the holocaust or denial of the holocaust. Very few people in this country deny the holocaust. Those who are fixated on the holocaust use any and every excuse to talk about the holocaust. Something that they always seem to forget about is the 55 million people who were killed in WWII who were not Jews. The Jews make up only about 10% of those who were killed in WWII. We never hear about the other 90%. Is this a denial that non Jews were killed ? Or is it simply an affirmation that to some people have very little regard for anyone other than a fellow Jew ?
[REPLY: Two points, “Jimbo”. This appears to be your first posting here. The screen name “Jimbo” is already being used by a long-time poster here. If you would be kind enough to change to a different, unique screen name, it would be appreciated.
Second: The Jews were not among the majority of those killed in WWII, but their experience was unique. One does not have to be a Jew to recognize that. People who minimize The Holocaust are not welcome here. -REP]
I think this will be difficult for many of your readers to accept but the USA weather isn’t the global weather. In the UK the period April to June has been the wettest and coldest on record. Is this part of Dr Trenberth’s apocalyptic scenario
That fellow Seth Borenstein is really not very smart.
Ian,
Regarding the U.K. weather. It is indeed art of their apocalyptic scenario. Too much rain, too little rain, too much wind, too little wind, too hot, too cold. It’s all caused by Global Warming, don’t you know that?
“I think that the sheer numbers of local record high temperatures, rather than any one event make the better case for global warming.”
Pardon me, but the numbers of local record highs is a function of how many stations readings are taken in a given area. It is meaningless. I have to agree with Wills. One might consider quantitatively equalizing the data on the number of stations per square mile.
Then there is airport temperatures that are not representing anything other than what is happening very locally.
Example of heat islands: Nellis AFB, temp: 124 F. Temp on the flightline: 145 F
Additionally, there is little attention to exceptional cold areas globally. It’s just the weather, no significant change in climate.
Re “pyrotechnic round called Dragon’s Breath ”
Yeah, that sure could make a fire. Would you call that target shooting?
“This US summer is ‘what global warming looks like”
…Did summer end already I just didn’t know it. I though we were only in the second week of summer!? I am curious to see what the majority of this US summer WILL look like. Next 5 days are encouraging for Colorado.
HPC 5 day precipitation forecast.
http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/p120i12.gif
“global warming skeptic” Borenstein left out the “man made” part. As I have pointed out many times before, the public has been brainwashed to associate “global warming” with “man made”.
Just had a look at the Borenstein article and the Trenberth interview. Fascinating. These guys party like there’s no tomorrow.
We cannot use local cold spurts to disprove global warming; however, we must use local storms, heat waves, and anything else possible to prove AGW! I think I finally get it!!
Someone call Ringling…. they are obviously missing clowns Borenstein and Trenberth.
Just four months ago here in the upper Midwest morons were talking about “1000 year droughts!”…and then the floods came.
Same ol’, same ol’.
You would not expect Trenberth as a New Zealander doing such things and be a central piece of the Hockey Team. New Zealand is such a small country and people have trust in each other and talk to each other – well, except for the Greens, of course.
Anthony, the weather is always going to be influenced by natural variability or natural forces. To say that a heat wave isn’t influenced by GW because it was shown to be due to a natural factor is silly.. Exactly how are you expecting GW heat to show itself? Through some new weather pattern never before seen? Heat spells are always going to be caused by the same patterns they are today.. Blocking pressure, variability in jets, etc… GW Is only going to add to the pattern additional heat.. Right… In other words the el niño will just be a bit hotter but you can’t day it’s not due to GW because enso is just natural pattern….
REPLY: Well, I’m sorry but I call B.S. on your comment. Here’s some historical perspective from a time when CO2 was much lower. – Anthony
Yes indeed. Cherry picking season is here!
Is a denier someone who does not blame global warming on Jews?
Feel free to comment on Borenstein’s propaganda piece at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=156172098
The holocaust references are always designed to make it socially illegitimate to challenge their assertions. Trust me, these are people who know how to use the herd instinct to create demand for what they want.
By invoking the Holocaust they push up the models so people will confuse modelling with documented facts. So they win all the way around. At least until the very equivalence becomes the issue and it taints those pushing the point.
@ Babsy, No the outflow boundary is different. It’s a weak-looking little thing on the radar where the radar picks up the gusts of wind coming out of the storm (our local meteorologists sometimes call it a gust front), and it can spark another line of storms ahead of the main one.
The bow echo is where the storm itself shapes into a bow-shaped echo, hence the name. They usually blow in and out pretty quickly with strong, straight-line winds. It looks like a great big backwards “C” shaped wall of red on the radar. It can also be called a squall line. This event was a bad bowecho event, not an outflow boundary.
Isn’t taking a specific that is unrepresentative of the whole and using that specific to promote an hypothesis called ‘cherry-picking’?
BillD said (July 3, 2012 at 9:21 am)
“…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…”
Statistics are a wonderful thing. Useful is another matter.
Let’s say that you are the first to put up a thermometer in a city, and proceed to keep a record (the first records ever kept in that city). For an entire year, you faithfully record the day’s highs and lows.
Since yours was the first thermometer ever in that city, and the first records ever kept in that city, you could truthfully say that all 730 entries are new daily records for that city (365 new record highs, 365 new record lows). Would that year of record highs and lows in that city (and a ratio of 1:1) mean anything there?
Let’s say for the second year, only 5 days set a new high record, and not a single day sets a low record (5:0). Reverse it. No high records, and five low records (0:5). Useful metric?
Now to today.
Every little town, village and airport has a thermometer. Every single one has been keeping records of their OWN readings. Large numbers of thermometers and local records have been kept. Readings fairly close to each other can and do vary quite a bit. Different records show different record highs for the same day.
So let’s try something. Let’s say that of three individual readings, two show new high records for that day, and one does not. One of the three shows a new low for that day, and the other two don’t. You’re saying that the two-to-one ratio of new high/new low temps has to be a sign of CAGW.
It’s possible that one thermometer is faulty. It’s possible that one is improperly placed. It’s possible that the person reading one thermometer transposed a number. It’s possible that one thermometer didn’t record either a new high or a new low. It’s possible that one thermometer is the one you placed there last year, while the other two have been around for decades.
How does that two-to-one ratio prove anything?
It really will be a disaster if it ever becomes politically incorrect to challenge AGW liberal fascist dogma.
Even Fox is in on this. I swear you would think that the USA has never had a hot summer.
A popular shooting target in BLM country is the exploding target made of Tannerite. Despite the manufacturer claims to the contrary, it appears it can start a fire.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQkULwGLTyc&w=420&h=315%5D
The amount of unsupported speculation trying to be passed off as science …
Makes me think of a certain website I know …
[REPLY: I think it would behoove us to be a lot more charitable to Real Climate, Skeptical Science and Open Mind. They are trying their best. All commenters should take notice. -REP]
I would love for someone to publish a report about about our ‘coldwave’ that is ruining our ‘summer’ , in England our summers are very precious and the prolonged ( getting on three months ) coldwave is gobbling up the time we have left of getting half decent warmth , this is the fifth consequetive below normal summer and they are getting much worse …
REPLY: I think it would behoove us to be a lot more charitable to Real Climate, Skeptical Science and Open Mind. They are trying their best. All commenters should take notice. -REP
I would enjoy reading how you define “unsupported speculation” and “science.”
[REPLY: Actually, you probably wouldn’t. I don’t have the time to educate you and you probably can’t afford the tuition. -REP]
Jimbo, there were indeed millions killed during that conflict, most of them civilians. Millions more were killed by Stalin and the USSR in the years immediately following the war, too.
However, the Holocaust was an attempt to exterminate the Jews and there is a rabid-brand of antisemites who claim it never happened — the “Holocaust deniers.” One of the reasons the Nuremberg trials were carried out publicly was so that the truth could be documented.
You would also be correct if you pointed out that the Nazi extermination camps killed millions and the majority of them were not Jews. But I’m not aware that Hitler was trying to exterminate any other entire group of people like he was attempting with the Jews.
Ian says:
July 3, 2012 at 11:00 am
In the UK the period April to June has been the wettest and coldest on record. …..
============================================================================
There have been several incidents of serious flooding in the UK over the past few years, including over the above 3 very rainy months. A few nights ago the UK Govt Environment Minister appeared on the gogglebox telling us that THIS is what we should expect more of, because of climate change.
Knowing of the 60 year cycle in climate, which may be linked to ocean oscillations, I looked up the situation 60-65 years ago. Sure enough, I found serious floods every year from 1947 to 1953 when I stopped looking. These can’t have been anything to do with CO2.
One of the areas where alarmists are successful in the climate change debate is in ensuring the public remain ignorant of historical context.
Follow the money, either book or grant or speaker fee
I have a post up on this also at Climate Etc
http://judithcurry.com/2012/07/03/what-global-warming-looks-like/
I was interviewed by Seth Borenstein, he did not use any of my quotes in the article; my response to SB’s questions are included in the Climate Etc. post
curryja says:
July 3, 2012 at 1:20 pm
I was interviewed by Seth Borenstein, he did not use any of my quotes in the article; my response to SB’s questions are included in the Climate Etc. post
Blast. I am glad to hear he interviewed you, but dismayed (though not surprised!) he “edited out” your views and your information from the broader picture he choose to paint for his audience and his superiors and and his (government-paid CAGW) present and future funding sources. From each similar editing decision, each sentence not printed and not shown on videotape or in a National Geographic presentation, each viewpoint deliberately removed from the public knowledge base, creates the “consensus” so desperately needed by the CAGW community.
Editing – like selectively picking data and trends and trees to avoid “bad data” – is a deliberate action. Not a “scientific” or “physics-based” real-world decision.
Geoff says:
July 3, 2012 at 10:27 am
“Edohiguma says:
July 3, 2012 at 9:31 am
I have seen several brush fires caused by incendiary shotgun shells. Airports use ‘bird-scarer’ cartridges which are usually 12 bore phosphorus shells that explode after around 200ft of travel. (Don’t use them in a shotgun with a choke !)
anthony holmes says on July 3, 2012 at 12:50 pm:
I would love for someone to publish a report about about our ‘coldwave’ that is ruining our ‘summer’ , in England our summers are very precious and the prolonged ( getting on three months ) coldwave is gobbling up the time we have left of getting half decent warmth , this is the fifth consequetive below normal summer and they are getting much worse …
Here in Metro Vancouver, we have had the coldest and rainest spring and early summer in over 30 years, Since the PDO went into a cool phase in 2000, it is only going to colder and stay cold for about next 20 years.
I can’t wait to see how Andy Weaver at UVic is going to explain this away.
Those of us that have been reading WUWT and other blogs for some time may remember the heated (sic 😉 ) debate over whether 1934 or 1998 were the ‘hottest year on record’.
This was against NASA (Hansen) claims that 1998 was the hottest year. When a mathematical error was discovered that made 1934 hotter this was waved off by the AGW proponents as not really an issue as it was only the USA that was warmer.
This has even been documented in Wikipedia:
Temperature records
According to journalist Christopher Booker, in 2007 WUWT readers, along with Stephen McIntyre, found that selected temperature records published by the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) based on data from United States Historical Climate Network were in error, causing GISS to mistakenly label 1998 as the hottest year on record for the United States.[7] In August 2007, McIntyre alerted GISS to the problematic numbers, which GISS acknowledged and corrected. As a result, the hottest year on record for the United States was changed to 1934, rather than the 1998 it had been earlier.[8] In response, GISS stated that the temperature differences were slight and of little significance globally as the United States represents only a small fraction of the Earth’s surface.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watts_Up_With_That%3F
Note the final sentence I have emphasized!
So the response to Kevin Trenberth should be “the temperature differences were slight and of little significance globally as the United States represents only a small fraction of the Earth’s surface.”
These people want it both ways
The target shooting fire-starting theory looks good on a paper but on further analysis doesn’t hold up. I’ve taken the data from these fires, chucked out most of it, adjusted the rest, threw in a few tree rings and ice cores for flavor, and ran it through my Moldeltron 6000. The results are astonishing. There appears to be a direct correlation between the increase in the number of these fires and the increased number of wind and solar farms.
My analysis (Sigma 7 BTW) suggests that birds are flying into these windmills, falling onto solar panels and bursting into flames — igniting the surrounding brush. I might add that June 9, 2012 broke the all time record for birds flying into windmills and starting fires on this date in this state.
Kevin Trenberth is as blatant a liar as Juia Gillard. He claimed his mate Phil Jones did not say that from 1995 to the present there has been no statistically-significant global warming. Phil’s BBC interview proves Trenberth to be lying.
Direct quote from today’s robot broadcast from KHB60, Puget Sound Weather Radio (Washington State):
“… Snow accumulations of up to two inches above six thousand feet.”
JC said” you were interviewed”
You were used for propaganda,he used what he wanted and left out your answers that did not meet his expectations,Borenstein is no more a journalist, than i am a climate scientist, but at least i listen and read what a climate scientist is trying to tell me.The best you can call Borenstein is a science (FICTION) writer.
That JIMBO and the Holocaust comment is not me. It is another Jimbo, Mods please note.
[REPLY: Noted. That “other” “Jimbo” has been requested to adopt a different screen name. Uhh, there was another admontion as well…. -REP]
Why doesn’t someone in the media ask Kevin what happened to Al Gore’s, Hurricanes?
Fires can be started by bullets if they are tracer rounds. They have a blob of phosphorous in their tail and if the rounds ricochet away from the target they will ignite dry grass, gorse etc. I was Bn shooting team captain and have seen this happen on many occasions, in North Scotland and at Bisley. But probably not a problem this year…
Trenberth is a serial liar, a scoundrel, and incompetent scientist. Climategate and his actions (as per the above post) make this clear. It pisses me off that my tax dollars pay for his employment at NCAR.
You guys need to think outside the box on the target shooter – fire thing. Had that happen about 1/2 mile from the house just a couple of days ago (confirmed, as far as I know). Burned a couple hundred acres; about out now. True, lead on paper isn’t going to do anything, but if your muzzle is in the grass or you are shooting at things that can rub together and cause sparks (think fridges and other crap) it can easily cause a fire. In addition, I worked fires on a military installation for several years — about 400 starts per year, not all caused by incendiaries or other fun stuff like that. Target shooting fires can and do happen under the right conditions — seen it. …and conditions are very right in the West right now.
I will chime in to the chorus commenting on Bill D’s useful statistics of temperature records. Here in Kansas, most high temperature records were set in the 1930s; 1934 and 1936 to be precise. None, count them, none, have been set this spring and summer. We did however, set a low temperature record the last week in June. Lowest by 3-4 degrees if I recall correctly. I think we may have set one high temp record back in January or so. I think looking at those statistics can be useful–not conclusive of anything, but useful.
Can you export some of this American heat & dryness, it’s cold & wet here in the UK!
All the talk by Trenberth about the ratio of hot to cold records are meaningless apples-to-oranges comparisons, compounded by the data base of historical information being used in the comparisons.
Every station [ASOS and COOP] in NCAR’s database has a period of record that is site-specific, and not necessarily the same as the time that temperatures and precipitation has been measured for the site. In particular, there appears to be a dearth of sites with PORs that extend back to include the 1930s. Those of you keeping track of warming and cooling trends recognize the 30s as a period that formerly was considered the warmest period of the last 100-150 years… at least until Hansen’s spatial and temporal “corrections” normalized the data. Still, the temperature extremes that were recorded then lived on in the databases, so long as the POR of a station extended back that far.
Consider, for example, Pittsburgh PA, where “official” temperature data has been recorded, at one location or another, going back to 1871. Yet when you examine the latest Local Climatological Data Annual Summary [for 2011], the POR for this site for extreme maximum and minimum daily temperatures is only 59 years, or since 1952. The all-time maximum daily temperatures in the LCD as reported for July, Aug, and Sept are 103, 100, and 97 degrees, respectively, from 1988, 1988, and 1954. However, if you go to the Pittsburgh NWS website, you will find that the three day stretch of August 4-6, 1918 reported maxima of 101, 103, and 101 degrees, respectively. Temperature in excess of 97 degrees occurred five times in September, prior to the 1954 “record”, and reached 102 in 1881. In fact, only two of the current LCD reported extreme highs, for November and December, were not exceeded in prior years in Pittsburgh.
Furthermore, the “official” database now includes data from hundreds of Cooperative observer sites, many of which have relatively short periods of record. Stations that were not in operation during the hot, dry Dust Bowl years of the 1930s are not going to have the high temperature extremes of that era, but they will most likely have the cold, dry winters of the 70s establishing the norm for minimum temperature records. In exact opposite results to the hot records, all but two months of the extreme lows, for February and April, are the observed minima for the entire 140 year POR in Pittsburgh.
When the comparison extremes are more likely to appear in the period of record for cold temperatures, but not for warm extremes, normal climatic variability will produce more new warm records than cold records. When the POR of the stations are shortened by NOAA in making these comparisons, it makes the hot vs cold ratio meaningless, both as observed and as forecast from the flawed climate models used by the warmists.
Jimbo says:
July 3, 2012 at 10:51 am
Something that they always seem to forget about is the 55 million people who were killed in WWII who were not Jews. The Jews make up only about 10% of those who were killed in WWII. We never hear about the other 90%.
=======================================================
The problem is that 6 million Jews were not just killed, they were murdered simply because they were Jews, that makes the difference.
To paraphrase one of the greatest lines ever: “Facts, we don’t need no stinkin’ facts.”
Check out the dates for these individual state record high temperatures.
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001416.html
Yet it was still hotter on earth 1000 years ago than it is now.
Kevin Tenberth: Still desperately seeking missing heat! 😉
So I thought I’d have a look at Hadcrut3 data to see what that looks like when the weather in the US looks like global warming.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/#datdow
I fear their thermometers must have melted as the data has not been updated since March data but then it didn’t look unusual. So instead i’ve looked out of the window and it’s still raining here in the UK, which I guess is also what global warming looks like.
By SETH BORENSTEIN
(AP) A tree sitting atop a vehicle offers free firewood in Falls Church, Va., Monday, July, 2, 2012, as…
WASHINGTON (AP) – If you want a glimpse of some of the worst of global warming, scientists suggest taking a look at U.S. weather in recent weeks.
Horrendous wildfires. Oppressive heat waves. Devastating droughts. Flooding from giant deluges. And a powerful freak wind storm called a derecho.
These are the kinds of extremes climate scientists have predicted will come with climate change,
Like this tree sitting on top of a vehicle, its all happened before.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8008/7497309986_88811a5d92_m.jpg
And there is this,
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_02.html
In reference to the Trenberth/Borenstein comments.
@Adam Gallon,
Here in the upper midwest of the US we would be more than happy to trade weather with the UK. However, you must arrange for transportation.
Stanley, records have only been taken at Pittsburgh International Airport since 1952. So I don’t know what records your talking about. The airport wasn’t even in existence in the 1930s.
The official Pittsburgh temperature records go back further than 1952 using monitoring at the Allegheny County Airport, the Bettis Airfield, and various office building in the City. The period of record for hot and cold temperature extremes in the official Pittsburgh temperatures do not coincide with the record keeping at Greater Pittsburgh Airport alone [which went into operation on September 15, 1952. Some parameters have a POR of 64 years, which goes back to 1947. That means the Allegheny County AP data was used prior to PIT data, going back to March 18, 1932.] There is no reason given by the NWA for the POR of 59 yrs or 64 yrs. By excluding the warm periods of the 30s, but including the cold 70s and early 80s, comparison of today’s readings with the truncated data series makes it easier to establish “new” hot extremes, which is my point.
The NWS office at Pittsburgh issued this statement based on the June 30th high T:
————————————————————–
000
SXUS71 KPBZ 300639
RERPIT
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PITTSBURGH PA
0214 AM EDT SAT JUN 30 2012
…RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT PITTSBURGH PA…
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS REPORTED A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE
OF 97 DEGREES WAS SET AT PITTSBURGH PA YESTERDAY. THIS BREAKS THE
OLD RECORD OF 96 SET IN 1934.
————————————————————-
Note that the NWS office references “the old record of 96 set in 1934”, which would have been recorded at the Allegheny County AP. The NOAA data don’t recognize the 96 of 1934 as being the old record, as their POR for extreme temperatures only goes back to 1952, and June 1952 data was from the Allegheny County AP.
The Mann-Trenberth pattern is clear: CAGW all the way, ignore the doubters, hold the line, accept the grants (not just for themselves but the entire discipline). If regulations, taxes and punishment weren’t part of the CAGW drive, I’d shrug and let them give passion and meaning to the eco-green guilt-trippers.
Until we get a solid year of global temperature decline, with a cold US contiguous mainland, this kneejerk foolishness is what we will see. Just as the media portrays American capitalism and democracy as the only ways the world should be going/wants to go, the media portrays American weather as the universal weather.
On a related note: We haven’t heard anything from Phil Jones for a while. What with the wet and the cold, when the Met said it would be dry and warm, is he perhaps less bullish on CAGW than he was?
Isn’t the definition of global warming a rise in the global average temperature? Isn’t that a deterministic measure? Why is Trenberth talking about record ratios? He says: “breaking far more high temperature records than low temperature records is most certainly a sign that the climate is changing”. Well, the recent high records are not independent of each other. In fact, most, if not all, are measuring one event. Trenberth says the record ratio is 10 to 1 to prove his point. Well, suppose Charlotte, NC, had 1,000,000 sensors, all measuring record highs, then Trenberth could have made a even stronger (i.e. outrageous) argument. By the way, Trenberth’s 10 to 1 ration is easy prove/disprove in a way every reporter can understand. Trenberth should prove this before given a public voice.
“KnR , can be regarded ass a joke”
Freudian slip there? Made me laugh because their science is so bass ackwards
Central Canada is also experiencing a warm spell. We had a similar summer in 1949 which was also near the end of the peak of the last 60 year climate cycle where there were 35 days during the summer [ June to August ]where Toronto[ airport] had temperatures of 30 degrees C or over and rising to as high as 36.1 C [97 degrees F]. June had 15 days , July had 12 and August had 8. The winter that followed had 215 cm of snow . These “sky is again falling” climate scientists seem to ignore the past records because that would void their doom and gloom science .
I guess I am not a fan of Kevin Trenberth’s “Global Energy Budget ” cartoon. Maybe soon, I can announce that I am five sigmas sure of that position. Other than that, I really have no opinion of him, not knowing much else about him (and verse vicea).
So what about his “Global Energy Budget” ; seeing as how he has a PhD (I think) and I do not. Dr Laura has a PhD; she doesn’t know anything about climate, or Physics.
Well when I went to school, and studied “science” including elements of Physics from (and before) 1948, and at least 13 formal years after that, Energy was measured in ergs or Joules.
Watts were not; and never had been units of Energy. They were in fact units of POWER, which is a RATE of doing work, using/collecting/delivering/wasting/whatever, ENERGY. Moreover, Watts per m^2 is also NOT a unit of ENERGY, but is a unit of “areal power density”.
So Watts per square metre, is not a good unit to be using for energy budgetting.
That is about as sensible as calling a government mandated purchase of merchandise or service, a TAX.
So Dr Trenberth is committing a sin, to be using Watt’s per square metre in his ENERGY budget.
Then he compounds the felony, by arbitrarily dividing the TSI by a factor of four, asserting essentially that now the sun shines at 1/4 of its actual rate, but now it shines 24/7/365, everywhere on earth, including the polar winter midnight.
Let me put it this way; Suppose we dropped a one megaton bomb on some worthless place; maybe a desert island devoid of people, and no leatherback turtles either. Now we don’t do this too often; say once every ten years would be sufficient.
Do you think I could claim, that on average, the damage to the island will not be too severe. Even if I said the bang lasted for about an hour; averaged over once per decade, the noise would not be so bad, and it wouldn’t be too dusty or windy on average; wouldn’t even get very hot on average.
So that’s what Dr Trenberth is claiming. The fact that the sun is dropping 1362 W/m^2 bombs on the daylit side of the earth, is no more damaging in his view, that hosing down the whole surface at once with a 341.5 W/m^2 hose.There wouldn’t even be anything much happening, because with no difference from place to place, basically absolutely nothing would happen, in the way of weather, because without Temperature differences, there would be no weather.
A 4-H lesson in science would suffice to make that clear to anybody; the PhD is quite superfluous.
Energy you can integrate to get a total, but a one KiloWatt ghetto blaster in your car, is not the same thing as a Japanese Transistor Radio, even if you only play it for 20 minutes on the way to work.
The TSI is 1362 W.m^2. That is THE areal RATE at which the sun provides energy to the places on earth where it does provide energy; it is NOT 341.5 W/m^2
The Texas drought is over, we have been having regular rain here and the wildflowers are blooming again! North East Texas (above Dallas). The rain has been keeping things a little cooler than normal for this time of year also. It’s just weather.
Trenberth’s been all-in with nine-high for more than a few years now.
In the private sector, he would have had his coat handed to him, and the exit door opened years ago.
Part of the reason for the bow front storms Derechos is due to solar wind inductions into the earths magnetic field, and corresponding ion charge potentials between the poles and the equator due to homopolar generator effects. The more energetic the interactions between the suns production in spots and CMEs, (that put out short term surges in magnetic and ion flux,) the more is the effected storm strength and production. When the sun is active the shifts in polarity of the solar wind keep the storms active and spread out, when the magnetic field strength of the earth weakens and becomes stable for periods of time longer than about two weeks, then the polar to equatorial air mass interaction slows down giving rise to larger mid-latitude bands of clean dry air with low ion count. Blocking highs that occur in these areas produce droughts due to there is little precipitable water vapor, and no flux of ions into or out of the area to cause rainfall.
These spots develop low concentrations of ions due to the neutralizing effects of passing fronts, Further poleward you will find Negative ions abound (accounting for the acidic Ph of rain), and closer to the equator positive ions driven off of the ocean surface by wave action nebulization.
When the magnetic fields of the sun and the earth weaken the areas of neutral charged air masses increase in the mid-latitudes, forming into cutoff blocking highs, when surges of ions arrive from the CMEs and solar flares they produce a cascade of free electrons which sweep down on top of the existing Mobile Polar Highs, and show up as intense events due to the ion induced wind power added to the normal temperature gradient across fronts, by these huge surges in free electrons push into the mid-latitudes.
http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/cgi-bin/magnetometer/gak-mag.cgi (graphs of electromagnetic activity of the interactions of the sunspots and CME’s upon the earths atmosphere) you can clearly see the shock impulses these past three days of CME arrival, at the same time the Drecheos were running across the charge boundary as the free electrons came cascading down from the North pole, as long as the graphs show rapid intense fluctuation the higher rate of precipitation results.
So the reason we are having summer droughts, and a lingering dry area in the Texas to South East of USA (for the past couple of years) is due to the decreasing strength of solar magnetic fields, resultant solar wind speed stability, and the probable weakening of the earths “permanent” fields. Thus lowering the ion content in the mid-latitudes allowing these events to occur. Drought until solar induced disruptions cause rapid discharges producing the Derechos along the periphery of the ion null, low aerosol content, zone of dry air in the blocking high pattern.
The maps shown on my site are for the normal average lunar declinational cyclic patterns and surges in ion inductions from solar activity show up as “out of the usual” or I totally miss their presence in my “forecasts for this cycle and I learn what is solar caused and what is not, how the interaction comes down. I learn more about how the electromagnetic interactions between the sun and the planets actually works quantitatively, as well as the length of timing durations to expect.
I built the web site as a learning tool to understand the entire system and its interactions. When I can derive algorithms to adjust the lunar declinational patterns by the expected solar activity, then I will be able to build an active weather forecasting method or model that works much better.
“Scientifically linking individual weather events to climate change takes intensive study, complicated mathematics, computer models and lots of time (AND A HUGE PILE OF GREEN STUFF CALLED TAX PAYERS MONEY). Sometimes it isn’t caused by global warming. Weather is always variable; freak things happen.”
Edit the copy: Note the money thing was left out. Typical!
Used the HA**P site link for informational purposes auto tanked into the trash.
REPLY: and there’s a good reason for that. -Anthony
Part of the reason for the bow front storms Derechos is due to solar wind inductions into the earths magnetic field, and corresponding ion charge potentials between the poles and the equator due to homopolar generator effects. The more energetic the interactions between the suns production in spots and CMEs, (that put out short term surges in magnetic and ion flux,) the more is the effected storm strength and production. When the sun is active the shifts in polarity of the solar wind keep the storms active and spread out, when the magnetic field strength of the earth weakens and becomes stable for periods of time longer than about two weeks, then the polar to equatorial air mass interaction slows down giving rise to larger mid-latitude bands of clean dry air with low ion count. Blocking highs that occur in these areas produce droughts due to there is little precipitable water vapor, and no flux of ions into or out of the area to cause rainfall.
These spots develop low concentrations of ions due to the neutralizing effects of passing fronts, Further poleward you will find Negative ions abound (accounting for the acidic Ph of rain), and closer to the equator positive ions driven off of the ocean surface by wave action nebulization.
When the magnetic fields of the sun and the earth weaken the areas of neutral charged air masses increase in the mid-latitudes, forming into cutoff blocking highs, when surges of ions arrive from the CMEs and solar flares they produce a cascade of free electrons which sweep down on top of the existing Mobile Polar Highs, and show up as intense events due to the ion induced wind power added to the normal temperature gradient across fronts, by these huge surges in free electrons push into the mid-latitudes.
alaska.edu/cgi-bin/magnetometer/gak-mag.cgi (graphs of electromagnetic activity of the interactions of the sunspots and CME\’s upon the earths atmosphere) you can clearly see the shock impulses these past three days of CME arrival, at the same time the Drecheos were running across the charge boundary as the free electrons came cascading down from the North pole, as long as the graphs show rapid intense fluctuation the higher rate of precipitation results.
So the reason we are having summer droughts, and a lingering dry area in the Texas to South East of USA (for the past couple of years) is due to the decreasing strength of solar magnetic fields, resultant solar wind speed stability, and the probable weakening of the earths \”permanent\” fields. Thus lowering the ion content in the mid-latitudes allowing these events to occur. Drought until solar induced disruptions cause rapid discharges producing the Derechos along the periphery of the ion null, low aerosol content, zone of dry air in the blocking high pattern.
The maps shown on my site are for the normal average lunar declinational cyclic patterns and surges in ion inductions from solar activity show up as \”out of the usual\” or I totally miss their presence in my \”forecasts for this cycle and I learn what is solar caused and what is not, how the interaction comes down. I learn more about how the electromagnetic interactions between the sun and the planets actually works quantitatively, as well as the length of timing durations to expect.
I built the web site as a learning tool to understand the entire system and its interactions. When I can derive algorithms to adjust the lunar declinational patterns by the expected solar activity, then I will be able to build an active weather forecasting method or model that works much better.
pat says (July 3, 2012 at 11:03 am): “That fellow Seth Borenstein is really not very smart.”
I would argue that he is indeed smart, in the sense that a successful snake oil salesman is smart.
Regarding this part of Anthony’s earliet reply:
“Lebanon, Missouri is ground zero for the 2012 heatwave. They have seen five days over 100F this year. By contrast, during 1936 they had forty-one days over 100F. During the past decade, they have had 31 days over 100F, compared to 152 days during the 1930s. Extremely hot days were five times more common during the 1930s.”
I had the good fortune of meeting a gruff Kansas farmer, (Raymond “Charlie” B., in case others had the pleasure,) who was a small child in the 1930’s, and he described a Kansas unlike anything we have seen. When the world “became green” at the end of the Dust Bowl, it was something he had never seen before. The world he grew up in was brutal.
The people who grew up in that gritty world are getting old now. If you know such a person, get them to tell you what it was like. There is no “adjustment” that can erase what they saw with their own eyes.
“Charlie” also spoke of a mini-Dust-Bowl in the 1950’s that you don’t hear much about.
This particular heat wave exaggeration issue is just like the whole global warming proposition.
It is internally-generated self-talk with one after another inflating the statements of the previous speaker until 3 days of warm temperatures and a plow wind completely prove global warming in their eyes.
And they are extremely dedicated and revel in keeping this up. I don’t know what kind of normal climate or weather will cause them to rethink it. It is going to be with us for several decades to come no matter what. Hopefully it does not turn into a state-sanctioned-enforced right-think law but that is not guaranteed.
On an a more positive note regarding the alarmism from the MSM, an article appeared on CNN quoting a recent study from a U of Berkely researcher that was published just before the wild fires started, and which predicted more wild fires and bigger wild fires. They of course rushed to interview him and of course the question of GW as cause came up. I was pleasantly surprised by the answer and that they published it:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/03/us/western-wildfires-why/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
*********************
While weather is a key contributor, there’s debate over whether Western states are victims of climate change.
Moritz said the record temperatures and lack of humidity are characteristics of climate change — hallmarks of what weather models predict we should expect under climate change.
“But to say it is climate change? I think most of us are cautious about saying that,” he said.
**********************
Well Kudos to Max Moritz! Let’s get him onto WUWT!
I saw this essay and it’s a reminder that if we are going to turn this around we are going to have to see this in terms of individual liberty. And what happens when a bureaucracy takes over any function.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/peripatetics-global-warming-and-the-layman/
RE: Robuk says:
July 3, 2012 at 3:36 pm.
That link:
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_02.html
is wonderful.
A single eye-witness can undo tons of falsified dara.
I read about all the record temperatures coming from UHI area’s. What about the temperature sites that have been identified as providing good data not corrupted by the UHI effect? Are they showing record temperatures?
son of mulder says:
July 3, 2012 at 3:35 pm
I fear their thermometers must have melted as the data has not been updated since March data but then it didn’t look unusual.
It is hard to believe how slow they are! There is a different way that you can access the Hadcrut3 data as well as the Hadsst2 data. For some reason, explorer works for me but not firefox. To get the latest Hadcrut3, data, see:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly
To get the latest Hadsst2, data, see:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst2/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly
The April and May values for Hadcrut3 are 0.481 and 0.474 and the April value for Hadsst2 is 0.292. The May value is not up yet. Unfortunately, in this form, these values are not accessible to WoodForTrees.
To put the above numbers into perspective:
With the Hadcrut3 anomaly for May at 0.474, the average for the first five months of the year is (0.217 + 0.194 + 0.305 + 0.482 + 0.474)/5 = 0.3344. This is about the same as the anomaly in 2011 which was at 0.34 to rank it 12th for that year. 1998 was the warmest at 0.548. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in February of 1998 when it reached 0.756. If the May anomaly continued for the rest of the year, 2012 would end up 9th, but 2011 would become 13th.
With the sea surface anomaly for April at 0.292, the average for the first four months of the year is (0.203 + 0.230 + 0.242 + 0.292)/4 = 0.242. If the average stayed this way for the rest of the year, its ranking would be 14th. This compares with the anomaly in 2011 at 0.273 to rank it 12th for that year. 1998 was the warmest at 0.451. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in August of 1998 when it reached 0.555. If the April anomaly continued for the rest of the year, 2012 would end up 12th, but 2011 would become 13th.
I mean “data,” not “dara.”
(Although some data produced by adjustment filtered through computers is a word that begins with “dara.”) (And ending with “rear,” which is where it belongs.)
Why wouldn’t a warmer world have increased numbers of and severity of heat waves? The contention in this post and in the comments that heat wave severity has decreased as the world has warmed is counter-intuitive. What process would cause this?
Some scientists are considered just too big to fail.
Unfortunate, but true.
pseudo-Jimbo,
The Nazi holocaust killed about 2/3 of Europe’s Jewish population, which was more than 1/3 of the Jewish population of the entire world. Think about that.
No one is denying that other people died in WWII. However, no other group of people was targeted for extermination and in fact suffered such high losses as the Jews.
In fact, certain anti-Jewish groups would like to stage a repeat, which is why various Jewish groups make it a point to make sure we all remember the holocaust and determine never to allow it to happen again.
Answer your question?
Yes, yes, Anthony — SUPERSTITION — that is a great rebranding word! Man made global warming? Rebrand it global warming superstition! Man made climate change? Rebrand it climate change superstition! Words have power and superstition is a true power word. You have really hit on something. You may have just shortened the PR battle by a couple years.
Superstition — 1) Belief that events can be influenced by certain acts or circumstances that have no demonstraable connection with them. An idea or practice based on this. 2)A belief that is held by a number of people but without foundation.
And the rebranding, besides having memorable impact, is absolutely true! What a word choice! Absolutely brilliant!
Eugene WR Gallun
According to Mr. Borenstein, “Scientifically linking individual weather events to climate change takes intensive study, complicated mathematics, computer models and lots of time”. Is there a process by which weather events can be scientifically linked to climate change? If so, Mr. Borenstein, what is this process?
I drove right through the heart of the derecho on my way home from work. Seemed like your typical angry thunderstorm. Not pleasant, by any stretch, but I have seen worse.
I have been in several derechos. Back when I lived in MO one of the yearly camping trips I did was to a part of SW Missouri, and if you look at the map you can see that is where these basically centralize during the Summer months. Last Summer that trip resulted in a quite bad down-burst as its called and I don’t know if they called it a derecho or not, but the damage was over 3-4 counties.
Camping in that was just a mess. Ill leave it like that except to say that most tents were flattened and in some cases people in a tent by themselves were actually awakened to no tent and several of the tents were never found.
Downbursts are not fun, especially while camping. The fact that these storms which Missourians are used to are something terrible is just laughable. You are bound to get 1-2 bad downbursts a year across the state (maybe microbursts, but effect is basically the same).
Wind damage, check. Heavy rain, check. And lots of lightning. Check. Tornadoes? Never heard of one in those storms but guess it says they are possible?
But yes, this is the new normal. You point your fingers and hand wave at some event, and tell people, “see this disaster proves that X is causing bad things to happen. If you don’t mend your evil ways, it will happen more often.”
Or its the new normal.
Or “If we don’t stop sinning against Gaia, then Gaia will strike down with furious anger with derechos and heat waves.”
That is kind of how I always picture Trenberth as some nutjob when he goes off the rails like this. He does it to himself. And I tell everyone I see about how the “best Government scientists” are nutjobs and really are nothing but bums walking around the streets of the world chanting “the end is near, repent.” It does wonders to people’s impressions of NASA, NOAA etc whenever I point these things out. They do it to themselves!!
THE THESIS: The article “This US summer is ‘what global warming looks like’ is “fact free folly” that is merely “unsupported speculation being passed off as science”.
<bThe supporting arguments
I cringe every time I see stories like the one…
Personal feelings, …
“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”
A classical ad hominem attack …
This reminds me of the Russian heat wave of 2010.
Going off on a tangent unrelated to the article at hand …
We have essentially the same thing happening here, a persistent quasi-stationary weather pattern, part of the normal natural variation”
Speculation about what might be determined at some future date regarding this particular heat wave. It might turn out to be true, but it is currently unsubstantiated.
As for the derecho, it is hardly new.
There was no claim that this was “new”, only that it was an example of “a powerful freak wind storm”.
Alan Mackintosh says:
July 3, 2012 at 2:27 pm
Fires can be started by bullets if they are tracer rounds. They have a blob of phosphorous in their tail and if the rounds ricochet away from the target they will ignite dry grass, gorse etc.
True, but you usually have to send a lot of them downrange to get a fire going. Military ranges usually shut down when fire conditions are right, but when a fire starts, most posts will let the central impact area burn — the fire cooks off dud artillery and mortar rounds, and the explosions add an extra hazard to firefighting.
This UK summer is ‘what Global Cooling looks like” ??
I mentioned that to an ex-pat American, and she said, “Serves ’em right!” (lightly-sardonically). Not sure what it meant, and asking would have been pointless. 😉
If you want an excellent read/demo of the phenomenon, check out Skinner’s original article on operant conditioning called, “Superstition and the Pigeon”, in which pigeons were induced to concoct elaborate “dance” rituals by random food pellet deliveries (‘rewards’ for whatever they happened to be doing at the time, they ‘thought’.)
Thanks, Anthony. Off-topic request, if I may? Regarding the “consensus” of Ph.D’s et al. allegedly believing in AGW or CC or (now) “climate disruption ” what is the status of the petitions and surveys to identify/enumerate skeptics? Apparently (per Wiki) there was an Oregon Petition Project back in about 1997 and maybe a supplement since then. But if I want to tell a friend that not “all scientists” buy the AGW story, what can I use? Thanks.
Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a man with so much hatred for alternate viewpoints that he refused to remove the holocaust word “denier”
A classical ad hominem attack …
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The use of the word “d*nier” in the manner meant by Dr Trenberth is a slur far more egregious than any ad hominem attack could ever be, and calling the man out for it hardly constitutes same. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but the smear intended by the use of that word is a slur of the type that millions die for. Shame on you for defending it.
Tim Folkerts;
I cringe every time I see stories like the one…
Personal feelings, …
>>>>>>>>>>>
I cringe also when I see a political agenda dressed up as science by a man who admits he cannot balance the earth’s energy budget yet adamantly advocates for a theory that his own science does not support whilst labelling his detractors with an emotionally charged word intended to dehumanize them.
Tim Folkerts;
This reminds me of the Russian heat wave of 2010.
Going off on a tangent unrelated to the article at hand …
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The point being made was that the blame was laid then without any substantiating data, and the same is being done now. It isn’t a tangent, it is the core issue. Conclusions flung around at will with no factual data behind them, and pointing out that those who do so are repeat offenders on this matter is simply drawing attention to reality.
Tim Folkerts;
Speculation about what might be determined at some future date regarding this particular heat wave. It might turn out to be true, but it is currently unsubstantiated.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The speculation that is has anything to do with global warmin is even more unsubstantiated. It is hotter than usual in one part of the world, and colder than usual in many other parts. Neither is a sign that the earth is warming or that the earth is cooling, and fixating on a tiny portion of the earth for a tiny portion of time as evidence of anything on a global basis is speculation beyond common sense.
Tim Folkerts;
“Given how badly global warming is faring in the minds of the public … “
Interesting, but unrelated to the article at hand…
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Completely relevant. The public has grown weary of continued alarmism based on the flimsiest of evidence. The alarmists are grasping at straws, and this one is a perfect example. It is an isolated event, and the global temperature record continues to be in decline, as is has been for the last 15 years.
Tim Folkerts;
But since at least 1988, climate scientists have warned that climate change would bring, in general, increased heat waves, more droughts, more sudden downpours, more widespread wildfires and worsening storms.
Is this wrong? Is this not what climate scientists have claimed?
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Yes it is, but they claimed it on a global basis. On a global basis, temperatures are in decline. On a global basis, total extreme weather as measured by Total Cyclone Energy is falling and has been for decades.
Tim Folkerts;
“This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level,” said Jonathan Overpeck, professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona.
Are these sorts of events not what global warming would look like?
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Global trends are GLOBAL. Regional trends are REGIONAL. One can no more conclude that the heat in some parts of the USA is indicative of global warming than one can conclude that increasing ice in the Antarctic is indicative of an impending ice age as I am certain both you and Jonathan Overpeck are well aware, as is anyone who stops to think about it for a few moments.
Tim Folkerts;
It is late … I should probably edit this a bit more, but I am tired and heading to bed. Additions == or rebuttals — supported by references and/or quotes would be welcome, although I don’t know if/when I will be back to continue the discussion.
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You probably should have edited it a considerable amount. It reads rather sadly as it now stands. If you want to come back and continue the discussion, at least provide something that is a challenge to rebutt.
No, no! My</bI Way News – This UK summer is ‘what global warming looks like’ …grey ‘n’ wet, no summer yet.
BillD says:
July 3, 2012 at 9:21 am
“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.”
That’s complete nonsense. The only useful statistics comes from the trend. Temperature records, whether high or low, are almost completely meaningless, because they result from very short term fluctuations that have nothing to do with longer term climate trends.
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We have experienced global warming for about 150 years, since the end of the Little Ice Age. The warming stopped between ten and fifteen years ago. Since then there has been no significant cooling, so we’re still right at the top. Therefore short term high temperature records can easily be broken. By the same token it is very difficult to set low temperature records, precisely because we’re still near the top.
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I would have thought this is pretty obvious. The claim that high temperature records prove that global temperatures are still rising is not science, it’s propaganda.
Chris
Climate science is to mainstream science as Ramen noodles are to a 5 star buffet. It’s processed crap packaged for mass consumption and marketed to look like it contains real substance. Impressive claims are trumpeted but only and always with weasel wording disclaimers.
Seth Borenstein’s article is a prime example: “Horrendous wildfires. Oppressive heat waves. Devastating droughts. Flooding from giant deluges. And a powerful freak wind storm called a derecho.”
“This is what global warming looks like at the regional or personal level,” said Jonathan Overpeck, professor of geosciences and atmospheric sciences at the University of Arizona. “The extra heat increases the odds of worse heat waves, droughts, storms and wildfire. This is certainly what I and many other climate scientists have been warning about.”
Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in fire-charred Colorado, said these are the very record-breaking conditions he has said would happen, but many people wouldn’t listen. So it’s I told-you-so time, he said.
“What we’re seeing really is a window into what global warming really looks like,” said Princeton University geosciences and international affairs professor Michael Oppenheimer. “It looks like heat. It looks like fires. It looks like this kind of environmental disasters.”
Then the weasel wording disclaimer: “These are the kinds of extremes climate scientists have predicted will come with climate change, although it’s far too early to say that is the cause. Nor will they say global warming is the reason 3,215 daily high temperature records were set in the month of June.”
This is regurgitated on the Guardian website. It also links to a video of Suzanne Goldenberg and Jeff Masters (director of Meteorology at Weather Underground) discussing wildfires and climate change on Democracy Now!
It must be real.
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Tim Folkerts says:
July 3, 2012 at 11:13 pm
As for the derecho, it is hardly new.
There was no claim that this was “new”, only that it was an example of “a powerful freak wind storm”.
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Hahahahahahaha. That’s hilarious…..
When the severe thunderstorm from last week was called a derecho by the mass media the day after, I knew beyond any doubt that it would be tied into global warming hysteria within a day or two. Telling the public that a severe thunderstorm complex is an effect of global warming is not as alarming as telling them that derechos are an effect. It would be fascinating to learn precisely where the term entered the mass media after last week’s storm. I suspect the ultimate source knew exactly how the term would be latched onto.
No, it’s a rebuttal of the implicit claim that Trenberth is a proper authority by pointing out that he’s biased. Here’s what T. Edward Damer’s Attacking Faulty Reasoning, 6th ed., says (p. 103) on this matter:
And here’s what a textbook on critical thinking, Good Reasoning Matters! by Groarke & Tindale (4th ed.), says about ad hominems (pp. 378-80):
Our local paper ran this story under the headline, “Mother Nature or Climate Change”.
Could someone please explain the difference to me?
The one thing I never understand in this debate is why we all can’t agree that it is a good thing (not a bad thing) to consider and work toward alternatives whether or not the climate changes or mother nature is in control. The answer to which is correct should be a resounding, Who cares?” However, just as they say to act as though there is a god because then you at least cover your ass, the same should be true about doing something to lower carbon emissions, conserve water, and clean air, etc. Why are the deniers not on the same page as the believers when it comes to action? They were the ones who first imagined “cap and trade” and if that’s become a bad idea for them now, what should we be doing? I cannot believe how much time is wasted by the deniers. Let’s all agree that something must be done. This just seems elementary.
Jane Thomas~ As soon as they stop denying that this is mostly Natural climate change, we realists will get right on it.
Jane Thomas— In other words, be reasonable. do it your way. And in answer to your question “what should we be doing?” The answer is nothing.