While watching her handwaving argument on the webcast with Senator Vitter, I was easily able to find data contradictory to her statement in Dr. Roger Roger Pielke Jr. submitted testimony.
What the data says:
5. Floods have not increased in the US in frequency or intensity since at least 1950.
Figure 5. One measure of flood frequency from the USGS, percent of US streamguages above “bankfull streamflow.” The USGS explains: “The bankfull streamflow is defined as the highest daily mean streamflow value expected to occur, on average, once in every 2.3 years.”
Xiaodong Jian, David M. Wolock, Harry F. Lins, and Steve Brady, Streamflow of 2012—Water Year Summary, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia, May 2013.
Live video here: Live Webcast – Flash
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
If anything it would look like the overall amount has dropped the last 20 years
@Forrest: congratulations, you have discovered a new signature of global warming!
What did she mean by a “heavy downpour?” My understanding of a heavy downpour is that the amount of rain in a few minutes, or even perhaps an hour or day, is large. Perhaps 520 mm in 24 hours as we had a few years ago, I would class as a heavy downpour, or 100 mm in two hours, or 10 mm in 2 minutes. The first created a minor flood, but certainly did not notably raise the river level above its banks, as it took far longer for the water to get to the river/sea from the drain. The others would not create a flood, unless the topography was particularly suitable for this.
One could define a “heavy downpour” as one that forces motorists to stop as they can’t see where they are going, even with windscreen wipers going full tilt. Visibility reduced to 20 yards or less.
If she means floods – as you have interpreted it – why didn’t she say “Floods”?
There has been an ever increasing increase in infrastructure that diverted water to streams that typically would have been absorbed into the local landscape. Urban growth covers the landscape, water is diverted to whatever streams are left and other storm drainage is built.
The steamgage chart above is tracking the Multivariate ENSO index.
funny that the 70’s seem to be higher as those were drought years in much of the U.S.
It’s definitely dropped since 1997.
Try that again, but start at plotting ay 2000 and leave off the current year. Then what does it look like!
Drought!!! Dooooom!
Here we go again. A microdatum is cited. There is no meteorological or statistical definition of a ‘down pour’. Does she mean ‘heavy rain” or “violent rain”? How does she know there is an increase? There are no recurring statistics kept, merely precipitation records and in some very few places river depth gauges..
So it is virtually impossible to refute her claim without exact preparation. This is a pattern with The Climateers, and points to politics instead of science.
Seems to me the true believers have been listening to too much Naughty Boy lyrics:
Hush, don’t speak
When you spit your venom, keep it shut I hate it
When you hiss and preach
About your new messiah ’cause your theories catch fire
I can’t find those silver linings
I don’t mean to judge
But when you read your speech it’s tiring ,
Enough is enough
I’m covering my ears like a kid
When your words mean nothing, I go la la la
I’m turning off the volume when you speak
Cause if my heart can’t stop it, I find a way to block it I go
La la, la la la…
I find a way to block it I go
La la, la la la…
NAUGHTY BOY – THE “LA LA LA” SONG
73 percent of what?
In what time period?
73 % of all statistics are made up on the spot.
Clearly, Mann needs to get in there and start cherry-picking streamgauges.
KevinM says:
July 18, 2013 at 9:31 am
Why should we do that?
See the pdf of her presentation here:
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Testimony&Hearing_ID=cfe32378-96a4-81ed-9d0e-2618e6ddff46&Witness_ID=58ce8a69-e444-40fd-b877-b72eab23f7ce
If you look carefully at the data she shows in most of the figures, the actual data seems to prove many of her statements wrong. The data she used for increase in heavy downpour shown in her Fig 7 is obscure (Kenneth Kunkel) and about 20 years of it precedes any possibility of satellite data collection. I am not sure what her point of catastrophic rainfall is when here in the desert SW of New Mexico we are in a severe drought with CO2 at “record” levels of 400 ppm.
Some of her points that show trends use data that begins in 1970. Since PDO and AMO cycles tend to be 60 year cycles, I would rather see data promoting these trends that are perhaps 80 years or more in length. Present sea level height increase data does not support her speculative “projections” in Figure 10. Definitely a lot of hand waving here.
Bernie
http://news.ca.msn.com/canada/video.aspx?cp-documentid=cbcc2013-1807-0939-0014-239732735900
Just seen this on MSN. EEEEkkkkk. This is what global warming/climate change/weather wierding looks like.. It is real and happening now…. everywhere. Except this video reminds me of a summer storm in Northern Ontario in the mid 70’s. We were at the beach when it rolled in. We were in the car and in our driveway in minutes and by that time it was at full fury. We were stuck in the car,the deep ditches were quickly filled and the roof of our school blew off. I remember thinking why such an awesome event as the roof blowing off couldn’t have happened at a more convenient time. Like the day before school started. Have not seen a downpour like that since. Maybe if I had a little more of that green Kool-Aid like this woman Heidi is drinking I could forget all that and be a stupid zombie like her. Nah!
And in the real world, it hasn’t rained in eastern Nebraska for over two weeks now. The corn crop is starting to show stress. The WOWT ENSO meter is again leaning back toward indications of hot and dry for the Great Plains.
Oh, yeah. We did have a big flood in the Missouri Valley a couple of years ago.
Still. Nothing beyond the range of the record books.
@ur momisuglyhighflight56433
Agreed. The plot of stream gauges doesn’t mean much without knowledge of the work that has been done to improve stream and drainage flows, flood control, and improvements in storm drainage and flood retention.
The chart is interesting. But it can also be read as, “the Corp of Engineers” are only managing to just stay ahead of increased rainfall and urbanization.
Here is the other problem I have with the chart: 55% of ALL Stream Gauges were out of bank in 2011 and 2012??? How many are we talking about and where are they? What does it take to be overbank on each of them?
There are an awful lot of stream gauges on this map of Houston.
http://www.harriscountyfws.org/
On this site, you can see the historical stream gauges, one by one, chart by chart.
For instance, here is D100 Brays Bayou @ur momisugly Rice Avenue. The heaviest rainfall was Late April 2013 and at this gauge it was 22 ft above base of channel and about 1 ft below top. The next highest was 9 feet lower.
http://www.harriscountyfws.org/GageDetail/Index/490?R=1
Anthony, shame on you. I come here because it’s fun and entertaining, but you persist in bringing up fools like Heidi Cullen. I have high blood pressure,. I don’t need this. You keep tempting me to make comments that will get me banned. Well, here goes. Heidi Cullen is a self snip, self snip, self snip, and a self snip. There, I feel better. Of course, what I really want to do is meet Heidi in person and tell he face to face what I think of her.
Why is it always extreme weather tomorrow? Why not now? I’m sick and tired of waiting for our promised calamity.
Isn’t lying to a Senate committee frowned upon?
flash back….Cullen says droughts and heat waves to get worse
Slight correction to 10:22 am above:
D100 Brays Bayou @ur momisugly Rice Avenue (in houston) is page 440.
http://www.harriscountyfws.org/GageDetail/Index/440?R=1
You can also get rainfall, but the time resolution is dependent upon the time window:
2 day window is rainfall by hour
7 day window is rainfall by 1/2 day
Month window is by day
Year window is by month.
Finally, these gauges can be in error. Consider D100 at July 2011: There are three spikes 35 feet above Top of Channel — which isn’t possible. It is simply instrument error.
The clear blue sky’s and sunshine that we’re having today must be man-made too /sarc