A guest post by Mike Smith, CCM and AMS Fellow.
The Midwest floods were rolling downstream last week, setting river stage records in Iowa, bursting levees on the Mississippi, and causing thousands to be displayed from their homes. Billions have been lost in damaged and destroyed property and 24 lives lost.
In the midst of this tragedy, the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) tried to capitalize on heightened public interest with an attempt to gain headlines by tying these tragic events to “global warming.”
The EDF proclaimed: Did Humans Cause the Midwest Flooding? In the piece, EDF’s James Wang writes, “Another element [of the Midwest floods] may be global warming, which increases the probability of extreme weather events like torrential rain.” NCDC, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, headlined, Extreme Weather to Become More Common. The respective headlines can be found at http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/climate411/ and www.noaa.gov/ .
This is fear mongering, not the advancement of science. And, it detracts from NOAA as a whole because its National Weather Service performed heroically – with its field staff working long hours coping with the floods and accompanying tornadoes and severe thunderstorms.
It is unseemly to work to score public relations points when people are losing their homes, their crops, and their lives.
And, it leaves us to ponder a key question: Does the science justify tying the Midwest floods to Global Warming? My answer? An emphatic “no.”
In explaining its contention EDF says, “Global warming intensifies the ‘hydrological cycle’ – the process in which water evaporates into the air, forms clouds, and then rains back down on the Earth.” While that contention that global warming intensifies the hydrologic cycle is itself speculative (for reasons outside the scope of this posting), the fact is a given tornado or rainstorm responds to weather, not climate, conditions.
EDF author James Wang goes on to say, “Global warming doesn’t fully explain the catastrophe in the Midwest, but it likely [emphasis mine] plays a role.” The contention that “warming” is linked to catastrophic Midwest floods is relatively easy to test. Here’s how: What were the temperatures during this and similar floods in the region?
When the atmosphere creates weather it is responding to the conditions that exist in the lower atmosphere at the time of the event – temperatures, pressures, humidity, etc. From a weather perspective, what is the trend of global temperatures in the lower atmosphere when the intense rainstorms were created? Anthony Watts provides this graph of satellite-measured lower tropopsphere temperatures:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/rss_may_081.png
As these figures demonstrate, lower tropospheric temperatures (the part of the atmosphere where weather is generated) have reverted to the levels of 11 years ago after a period of rapid cooling over the last year and a half. In addition to RSS, the other three measures of world temperatures reveal the same cooling pattern: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997/to:2009/offset:-0.146/plot/gistemp/from:1997/to:2009/offset:-0.238/plot/uah/from:1997/to:2009/plot/rss/from:1997/to:2009 . As Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. has previously discussed, the oceans (the more important indicator of global temperature change) have not been warming in recent years and have actually cooled slightly. The “warming” conditions explict in the EDF claim and implicit in the NOAA release do not exist.
As a clue as to what temperature temperature pattern, if any, might really be associated this year’s floods, compare the temperature drop depicted on the RSS graph from January, 2007 to May, 2008 with the drop during months 150 to 170. This cooling is widely attributed to the June, 1991, (month 149 on the graph) eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. That explosive volcanic eruption spread particulates into the stratopshere, shading the earth and cooling the lower atmosphere. A period of extremely heavy rains began in the Plains and Midwest in months 169 and 170 (depending on location) that lasted well into summer resulting in the Great Flood of 1993 in many of the same areas that were in flood last week. In both cases, temperatures were far lower than in the peak year of 1998.
Why might Midwest flooding be linked to rapid cooling? Here is some “educated speculation”: Oceans lose heat more slowly than land. The Gulf of Mexico is the primary source of the low-level moisture that feeds weather and storms in the Midwest. A warm Gulf can provide large amounts of moisture. However, over North America, temperatures have been unusually cool (c.f., Anchorage sets record for latest ‘first 70° temperature’ of the year, story from June 20, 2008, http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/anchorage-sets-new-record-for-latest-high-temp-day/ ) and, from June 6, 2008 NCDC provides further evidence in its “U.S. Has 36th Coolest Spring on Record” (www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080606_ncdcspring.html ). The accompanying map reveals the Midwest was colder than normal. By contrast, the Gulf Coast states were considerably warmer. Texas was warmer than normal with “normal” temperatures in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. These states’ temperatures were strongly influenced by the warm Gulf air flowing over on them its way north to the Midwest.
Basic meteorological principles indicate that persistent cold air to the west and north and warm, moist air to the south and east is a recipe for frequent intense thunderstorms. This pattern was certainly in evidence during spring 2008. The map accompanying NOAA press release shows this pattern in more detail: www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/images/03-05Statewidetrank_pg_final.gif . Higher numbers equal warmer temperatures. Note how it was warm in Louisiana (70th) and progressively cooler with each state to the north: Arkansas (31), Missouri (26), Iowa (24), and Minnesota (23). The Northwest was extremely cold with Oregon reporting the 15th coldest spring since records began. This is an ideal pattern for frequent thunderstorms with heavy rains.
If last week’s Iowa flooding and world temperatures are linked in the way the EDF contends (i.e., higher world temperatures result in more Iowa flooding), there would have been record flooding in Iowa in 1998. While June, 1998 was wet in southern and eastern Iowa (www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/regional_monitoring/palmer/1998/06-20-1998.gif ) major flooding approaching the scale of 1993 or 2008 did not occur.
The record Midwest floods of 1993 and 2008 occurred after periods of rapid cooling. The warmest year, 1998, did not have Midwest floods anywhere near the magnitude of those in 1993 and 2008. It is my judgment the attempt to link the 2008 floods to Global “Warming” is completely unjustified.
Mike Smith is a certified consulting meteorologist and a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and the opinions stated above represent his personal point-of-view. He is CEO of WeatherData Services, Inc., an AccuWeather Company, based in Wichita. AccuWeather’s global warming blog can be viewed at: http://global-warming.accuweather.com/ .
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Snake Oil Executives. Both private and public including educational systems.
Perpetual replacement of public infrastructure-private property guarantees is the billboard for foolish low IQ (not to be confused with todays Diploma Intelligence) planning. Both governmental and the citizen. This Uncle is called FEMA. Out of Control.
A decade ago a local flood (central CA) victim was interviewed for TV. Victim was standing near his wet/flooded house. He said “No One Told Me That I Lived In a Flood Area” (my interpretation is HE wanted to get even with someone). I watched this spectacle of stupidity , including the TV crew, over the victims right shoulder 1/4 mi to his rear was what looked like a levee. I knew this Farm land that had been converted to a large subdivision. The off side of this levee is a significant river.
California Guaranteed to burn houses down every year. Houses built in terrain-fuel that will kill firefighters (no way out) and a “politician” declares an Emergency, FEMA says OK here is the check. Over and over this has happened.
In our own defense, this was a 500+ year flood. Building on a 500 year flood plain, is not that dumb of an idea. Having a 0.2% chance per year of getting flooded out is the kind of thing flood insurance is supposed to take care of. The houses and businesses that were totally wiped out, were down on the 100 year flood plain.
If you want to claim that building on a flood plain is “stupid”, which flood plain are you talking about? 100 year? 500 year? 1000 year? Higher? Lower? Which?
“The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise…”
– Mark Twain in Eruption
Smart man. I’m sure he would have had plenty to say about the whole AGW folly, and those espousing it; none of it flattering.
Heh. Good one, Evan.
The notion that it’s all lies is a good way to discourage people from giving the data a critical look, and helps polarize them, further disempowering them. The current administration has raised lying and misinformation to a high art, with the complicity and aid of the main streem media. Consider the sources, folks — doesn’t Hansen’s chain of command end at the White House?
and, pofarmer, the occasional bad flood deposits lots of good silt that’s great for growing crops in. I expect yields to increase in the coming years. Well, they’ll have to, until we get off corn ethanol and use something else to make ethanol.
I feel that the climate theories are just not explanatory enough. Global warming was such a discovery that we stopped looking for wider and different explanations for the extremities of the weather conditions.
Before anyone goes off all this levee/flood plain stuff I’d like to make a few comments.
First, the levees mean higher flood idea is a very dubious one. It’s quit a bit more complicated than the one villain assumption (sound familiar?). These things are not just plopped down randomly, there is some design involved. In general a levee will only slightly change the water surface elevation and not substantially modify the hydrograph.
Second, a levee is designed for a maximum flood with a certain probability of occurring. In general, for economic reasons, non-federal or agricultural levees are designed for much lower floods. You pay your money and you take your chances. The media seems to be incapable of distinguishing between the two types.
As for flood insurance, it’s not free. You have to buy it. The federal program was initiated because no insurance company will and to my knowledge ever has insured for water damage from a source external to the structure. If your external drainage pattern changes and you get water in your finished basement, you’re SOL as far as your homeowner’s insurance is concerned.
Finally, it seems to me that for some time now a lot of this hype has been coming from the same people that support the AGW idea. Buyer beware.
Evan: “First someone will have to bale them out.”
As in “stuff them into a hay baler” ?
I’m all for that.
We have just the opposite occurring here in NE Oregon. People from out of the area have bought mountain side property and built wonderful modern log homes overlooking beautiful vistas. This winter, they saw nothing but snow and shoveled nothing but snow day in and day out. Many summer cabins further up were completely buried in snow. You could not tell there was anything but forest under that snow. All signs of human presence had vanished. These cabins are slowly being exposed, not as pristine as before, as the melting snow takes its time and toll. Another out-of-towner bought a little farm near the entrance to the Minam canyon area and erected a huge steel building with a cloth roof in front of the property. The cloth roof blew off when the occasional canyon-wind-sourced gigantic air hose did its thing. These people are now packing up and leaving, planting “for sale” signs on the leftover remnants of their once glorious dream homes.
I guess the fact that the claims that this adminstration lied have been investigated three or four times, and found to be utterly groundless are completely lost on some. Including the most recent Rockefellor report. (Which by the way, was written without any Republican input, because the chairman refused to permit the Republicans to participate in the writting of the report.)
If you read the guts of the report, as opposed to the summary and press reports, you will find the pharse “substantially confirmed by intelligence data” repeated over and over and over again. The fact that public statements by most European intelligence agencies also came to the same conclusion is also apparently irrelevant.
One of the reason’s why no company offers flood insurance is because it’s mighty hard to compete with a product that subsidized by the taxpayers. Not to mention the feds allow you to wait till the flood waters are practically at your door before buying it also makes a difference.
It’s due to La Nina and Negative PDO – aka cooling.
Don’t build in flood zones, don’t build in the mountains, don’t build in earthquake zones, don’t build in tsunami zones, don’t build in tornado zones, don’t build anywhere there might be a hurricane, a snowstorm, rainstorm, a windstorm, a hailstorm, or a drought. That eliminates most of the planet!
Maybe we can all move to a glass bubble on the moon. Oops, that’s a depleted oxygen zone! Come on, people, get a life. Global Climate Change — it’s not a new thing. The weather’s been changing for billions of years, and somehow we’ve managed to survive. Quit running scared from the weather and learn to live with it. It’s here, it’s going to continue happenning, and there ain’t a thing we can do to change that. Personally, I’ll risk living out in the weather rather than living in a concrete bunker with it’s own smog cloud and piped in traffic noises.
People build in bad places, I agree, but before you throw everyone under the bus on this one, some of the flooding that happened this year had never been seen in recorded history. This is especially the case for Cedar Rapids, IA, where the USGS/NWS had to install a temporary river gage just to measure the stage because it was so far beyond anything expected. Mostly people have been talking about 500 year or 0.2% probability events. However, places that got flooded in 1993 (100+ year plain depending on the watershed) where new buildings were erected on is certainly within the boundaries of “stupid”.
I bet we could go around the country and name quite a few cities that have a 0.2% probability in any given year of far greater destruction, to name a few: all of the CA cities near the San Andreas for sure… Seattle (Mt. Rainier is maybe <0.2%)… all of the Gulf and Southern Atlantic cities… we might even put places like Memphis on the list due to the seismic hazard.
Actually in the Iowa press there has been seemingly very little discussion of AGW except for the passing comment that we might see more of these in the future, but certainly not much of the AGW caused this destruction at the local level. I don’t know about what the national U.S. and British rags are saying, but Iowans like myself are usually pretty skeptical that international news sources could even locate the affected places on a map after being given one, let alone get any news reporting right.
That said, the big push in the opinion pages this weekend was about the contribution of increasingly intense farming practices as a contributor to the severity of the flooding. This makes sense because the vast majority of the contributing drainage areas is farmland used to grow commodity corn and soybeans, and newer ethanol incentives have given more incentive to remove conservation practices that slow down water.
Unbelievable! One of the top military people involved with the flooding said that the exceptionally cold and long winter kept the levees from properly drying out, and that they were soft from the cold and wet! Obviously, no one had bothered to give him the right spin to dish out. Score 1 for Global Cooling! :]
Now that sure how smart some in the miltiatry are, like shipping nukes to Tawian without knowing it. Wouldn’t it amke a little more sense to say it caused them to frezze and crack and then when they thawed out they were weaker?
Here in Iowa, freezing during winter is normal. Here in Cedar Rapids we typically have a week or more where temperatures don’t rise above single digits F.
If you prevent flooding, you stop that cycle, the soil nutrients are eventually used up, and then have to be replaced with artificial fertilizers – at which point you might as well be farming anywhere.
and this
and, pofarmer, the occasional bad flood deposits lots of good silt that’s great for growing crops in.
I take it you guys have never farmed in a river bottom? Ever seen them with a 6 foot tall plow turning under tons of sand? Ever seen the sinkholes left? Over a hundred year time period what you say is true. In the shorter term, you can’d do anything with FEET of silt. In the days of the Egyptians maybe the yearly deposits were neccessary, today we can take advantage of the unique advantages of these soils without the disadvantages of having them constantly flooded. Modern agriculture depends on modern production methods and dealing with semi annual floods isn’t helpful.
it was pretty obvious there would be flooding back in March, given the winter and spring that occured. It’s pretty darn stupid to blame AGW.
Now that sure how smart some in the miltiatry are, like shipping nukes to Tawian without knowing it.
Well, in this case the guy is probably correct. Those levies are mainly sand with a clay core, and they can get waterlogged.
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Good points and good read
You can all bury your heads in the sand if you want to. But weather on earth will continue to get more severe and the sea levels will rise. Have you even acknowledged that carbon dioxide levels have gone from 280 ppm in 1957 to 380 ppm today? Have you acknowledged that carbon dioxide levels are rising at the alarming rate of 2 ppm per YEAR! And do you acknowledge that carbon dioxide works to trap heat at the surface of the planet? If not my friends, then you are sadly mistaken. Get off your right wing agendas and WAKE UP!
REPLY: Hello Steve, thank you for your comment. Just a suggestion, why not read up a little bit at some of the other things we have posted here before making unwarranted blanket accusations?
We have several post on Carbon Dioxide, we also have several posts on the supposed increases in severe weather, which amazingly, show the opposite of what you profess. Hurricane frequency has decreased, the link with AGW broken. The number of F2-F5 tornados has not followed predictions of increases either, though we have better reporting.
See http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/hurricanes-to-global-warming-link-blown-away/
and
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/08/increasing-tornadoes-or-better-information-gathering/
Sorry but I just can’t consider your comment seriously as posted. It’s mostly a rant using stereotypical information. Read up.
Also I think you’ll find some libs and dems that read and participate in this blog also.
If you look at the long-term trends in our weather. I’m talking about 4 decades or more, then I think you will find that severe storms have been on the increase globally. You can’t ignore the fact that the hottest years on record have all been in the last decade or so either. Short term trends mean nothing. The sad truth is that human activity is pouring greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And that those gases work to increase the temperature at the surface of the earth. This blog is devoted to ignoring those facts. I don’t know for what purpose. I suspect that people who derive their living from producing greenhouse gases would love this sort of propaganda.