Another glitch on the NCDC State of the Climate report

“IF NOT, THE PRESS AND PUBLIC WILL CERTAINLY GET THE WRONG IDEA”
I’m trying to decide if this is Bob Tisdale being ironic?

Well if you live on a sand spit eventually it’s going to get expensive….

Tom in Indy raises a point I have often wondered about, but never seen any commentary on. In fact, it’s worse than inflation. Even taking inflation into account, the capital value of what has been destroyed keep rising, as we pour more and more investment into the US, and the world. Until those issues are factored in, destruction and insurance claims are just a meaningless number.

Inflation will be a real problem for this index.
As Obama tanks the US dollar to Zimbabwe equivalents, it will only take 1 tornado to cause Gazzillions of dollars damage.

I’m not sure if this is a satirical comedy or a “soap opera” masquerading as melodrama. All this cost emphasis is little more then the insurance industry attempting to justify higher rates to more quickly recover their costs. Heaven forbid they might keep sufficient assets in reserve. I’ve seen how these guys add stuff up, maybe we need some interdependent source for the normalized dollars they are using. It simply makes no difference one way or other. First, second, or what ever; done, gone and pass on. The true measure is how well had we prepared for what we know will eventually happen. Lets see that index.

The below has been entered in the other post as well. I thought I would give it here as well because although it does not deal with the specific topic in this post, it does seem to suggest another case of Misleading the Public Is there a trend here?
Graham W says:
January 10, 2013 at 1:11 pm
Here you go, a more useful link!
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/seasonal-to-decadal/long-range/decadal-fc
According to Figure 1, the data is from “the Hadley Centre, GISS and NCDC”. So…pretty vague.
Thank you very much! Unless someone can convince me otherwise, I am becoming increasingly convinced someone is trying to hide something. They say:
“The warmest year in the 160-year Met Office Hadley Centre global temperature record in 1998, with a temperature of 0.40°C above long-term average.”
So that means they are talking about Hadcrut3 and not Hadcrut4. I am aware of three different versions of Hadcrut3. They are listed below along with the 1998 anomaly for each. The range is from 0.52 to 0.548. All of these are above 0.40. Can someone please tell me what I am missing?
This version has 1998 at 0.529 and 2010 at 0.470.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3vgl.txt
This version has 1998 at 0.548 and 2010 at 0.478.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
This version has 1998 at 0.52 and 2010 at 0.50.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/archive/2012/hadcrut-updates
By the way, Hadsst2 for 1998 was 0.451.

I’m having a very hard time reading the graphs and understanding what you and NOAA are saying.
“Figure 1 is the NOAA Climate Extremes Index graph for landfalling tropical “systems”. 2012 was extremely low, far below average.”
“If we plot the NOAA Climate Extremes Index for 2012 with landfalling tropical cyclones, Figure 2, 2012 does in fact rank number 2 behind 1998. This confirms NOAA’s statement in their summary.”
“But if we exclude landfalling tropical cyclones from the Climate Extremes Index, Figure 3, 2012 rises to a ranking of number 1.”
It sounds like you are saying that if you take out tropoical cyclones, which were low, you get more extereme weather. I’m sure I just don’t undetrstand how to read the darn things–it seems that if they included the cyclones–it would make it more extreme, not rank number one by excluding them.
Am I the only one whose head is exploding becasue I don’t understand what the graphs and Mr. Tisdale are actually saying?

The CEI index says they base it in part on high and low temp. readings. I wonder if they normalize for an increasing # of weather stations over time or if we simply get a higher count of these “extreme” because we have more “counting stations”.

Tom Jones says:
January 10, 2013 at 3:29 pm
Until those issues are factored in, destruction and insurance claims are just a meaningless number.
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How about damage as a percent of GDP? That would actually have meaning, as it measures the ability of the nation to deal with damages. 1 billion dollars is a lot of damage if your GDP is 1 billion dollars. If your GDP is $100 trillion, then if ranks with the cost of a speeding ticket, or a night out on the town for the average person.

@Tom in Indy
>I hope the dollar values are adjusted for inflation. That would be a huge ‘oops’ if they are not.
Of course they aren’t. That’s the whole point. More development means more at risk and it is inevitable that the $ value of destruction will rise. Surely the occurrence of any category of disaster has to be weighted in some way? How was that done?

u.k.(us) says:
January 10, 2013 at 8:22 pm
Day By Day says:
January 10, 2013 at 5:52 pm
“Am I the only one whose head is exploding becasue I don’t understand what the graphs and Mr. Tisdale are actually saying?”
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I knew there was a point, but had to read it twice myself.
It seems Bob is tired of explaining every last thing 🙂
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I used to have trouble following what Bob was saying until I saw his videos:
Video 1: http://www.youtube.com/user/BobTisdale1
Video 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bugpqVan5Q
Website: https://bobtisdale.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/video-drought-hurricanes-and-heat-waves-2012-in-perspective/
The problem with a complicated topic is either you make the assumption people are up to speed and you lose them because they do not understand or you go into the details leading up to your present conclusion, become to wordy and lose them.
Bob ‘solved’ the problem by making videos and writing a book. Me? I am just too wordy.

Is their inclusion of tropical cyclones an attempt to include the non-hurricane Sandy as extreme weather, legitimizing the hype about how terrible it was.
If you live on the shore and do not adequately insure, it’s all your problem. There is no reason to believe that a storm will never hit your part of the coast and also that the rest of the country has to pay for your house or the infrastructure of your town. Adequate funds should have been put aside for such contingencies.

O/T but VERY important indeed for the sake of humanity.
According to Dr. James Hansen president Obama has just one week left to save the planet.

Sunday 18 January 2009 – Guardian
“We have to get on a new path within this new administration. We have only four years left for Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take the lead.”
Hansen said current carbon levels in the atmosphere were already too high to prevent runaway greenhouse warming. Yet the levels are still rising despite all the efforts of politicians and scientists.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jan/18/jim-hansen-obama

H/t Marc Morano

I suspect that inflation has (possibly deliberately) NOT been allowed for – the article certainly doesn’t mention it.
So – apart from all the other factors, such as:
Population increase in the affected areas
Building in stupid flood zones (we get this a lot in the UK – regular houses being built on ‘flood plains’)
– factors which affect the figure:
Everyone has more ‘stuff’
The ‘stuff’ they have is more expensive to replace
More people have insurance.
So – its not difficult to meet the magical $1bn figure….
:

Theo Barker says:
January 10, 2013 at 5:14 pm
Anthony, Roy, and Goddard made the Fox News web site headlines questioning NOAA’s over-the-top BS SOTC:
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/01/10/hottest-year-ever-skeptics-question-revisions-to-climate-data/
I like the use of the word ‘revisions’ with respect to climate data rather than ‘adjustments’; it has such a nice ring to it , don’t you think?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_revisionism_(negationism)

Thank you Mr.Teasdale–that really did help. I, like most of America, had a very different interpretation of “Extreme Climate.” My biggest problem and that of most of America is that regular folk describe “Extreme Weather” or “Extreme Climate” as more tornados, floods, hurricanes, and drought–they do not consider it days of “much below noraml and much above normal” of anything. I had this dicussion with my Mom and brohter, both who believe the AGW meme–and they were shocked that tornadoes were low, no major huricanes making land fall in 7 years, floods average gobally–we looked up the data together and I literally shocked them with the facts. My Mom asked, “why do they keep saying it was so extreme?”
So the answer to the question posed in your article is, “Whether they intend to mislead or not–it is terribly misleading becasue most people think it is the floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and such…
And what is “much below normal?” That’s about as unscientific as one can get. What kind of data is that?
Frank K. says: I really don’t understand the concept of a “Climate Extreme”. What does that mean? The weather events over a year’s time is NOT climate! Remember the warmist’s meme of “Weather != Climate”? If there was a period of thirty years where tornadoes, hurricanes, drought, floods etc. were abnormal, then we can call that period a “Climate Extreme”
Yes! thanks for that–my point exactly.
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Silver Ralph says: And building wooden shacks instead of houses. I have said it before, but even the Three Little Pigs realised that houses should be made of brick or concrete. Come on, USA, if the rest of the world can afford ‘stone’ housing, why are you still using sticks?
You obviously don’t understand earthquakes–only wood stands and earthquake proof steel. My Mom had 4 houses in the great Landers earthquake–epicenter just a few hundred yards from her place–the trailers and wood stood and the block and rock came falling down!
Thanks Gail–I only have dial up now, but that should change in the next few months…I’ll catch Mr.Teasdale’s videos when I get the bandwith.

Strange.
When performed regionally, only Ohio Valley and Southwest finished first for 2012.
Northeast = 6th or 7th
UpperMidwest = 4th
Southeast = 11th
South = 2nd
Northern Rockies and Plains = 3rd
West = 15th
Northwest = 24th