One of the most vocal criticisms I get is when I write about weather events around the globe. For example one commenter, “beaker” recently wrote this criticism to my story about Denver setting two new record low maximum temperatures on consecutive days, breaking one record that stood for 118 years:
“Why is this site so obsessed with short term extrema? All this will do is reinforce crackpot opinions on long term climate change on the basis of irrelevant weather noise.”
In a nutshell he’s saying “weather is not climate”. We all understand that. I always make sure that I tag such entries as “weather” and not “climate change”. It’s not the first nor will it be the last time I get criticized for talking about weather events on a blog that focuses mostly on climate change. As I pointed out though, weather is in fact my career, so I reserve the right to talk about it.
To his credit, “Beaker” was gracious in acknowledging that he was not specifically referring to me as a “crackpot”. It is true that any single weather event can’t be linked to climate change, and even in periods of a year, linking even a collection of weather events to long term climate change is problematic. And yes, as “Beaker” points out, can be fodder for “crackpots”. Tim Flannery and Al Gore come to mind as people that use specific weather events to point out “climate change”.
Take for example Hurricane Katrina, long the poster child for climate change, yet several studies have shown that there is no trend linking global warming to increased hurricane activity. Thus naming specific storms as linked to climate change is just not supportable. Senator (and former presidential candidate) John Kerry recently said that a tornado outbreak in the USA was attributable to “global warming”, when in fact it is related to the La Nina pattern in the Pacific.
There seems to be no dearth of prominent people willing to connect weather events with climate change. But these are often politicians, celebrities, and book pushers. They stand to gain from attention, even if the words they say are not based in fact, so it is not surprising.
Along those lines, this is a bit more troubling. I’d like to share this graphic, which is titled on the published page: “Figure 1.1 Geographical distribution of notable climate anomalies and events occurring around the planet in 2007“.
Click for a larger image
I apologize for the quality of even the large image, as it was scanned from paper.
Here are some of the “climate anomaly” events listed on the graphic:
- Northeast U.S.A/Southeast Canada – Major winter storm (Feb) Around 300,000 people affected
- Hurricane Felix (Sep) Max winds 270 km/hr – Second major hurricane in the 2007 season
- Uganda (Jun) Heaviest rainfall in 35 years
- China – heaviest snowfall in 56 years (Mar)
And the source for this graphic listing those “climate anomalies”?
This “Special Supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 89, Number 7, July 2008, page S14”:
Click for a larger image
I find it odd that I get criticism when I talk about weather events and the oft repeated maxim “weather is not climate” yet here we have the premiere meteorological organization doing exactly the same thing – pointing out extreme weather events. Yet, they don’t even mention the word “weather” in the context of the graphic, preferring the more worrisome but less accurate label of “climate anomalies”.
At least I have the good sense to tag the sort of entires I make on this blog about record events, significant storms etc. as “weather”. Sadly AMS just wraps it up in a supplemental journal boldly titled as “State of the Climate in 2007 “. If I did such a thing, noting all the weather events I’d posted on during the year and titled it “State of the Climate in 2007” I’d be villified in comments for doing so:
“Anthony – what are you thinking? Weather is not climate!”
But in this case, it’s the AMS, so that makes it all OK I guess.
“Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get” – Robert Heinlein
Ireland, normally green from summer rains, has had a bit too much this year. Nearly a month’s rain fell in just a few hours on Saturday afternoon causing rivers to burst their banks in counties Antrim, Down and Londonderry. Belfast’s new motorway underpass was under 20 ft of water. There is no ‘dry spell’ in sight.
Pictures and news story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7567374.stm
Video report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7566433.stm
Weather isn’t climate, but climate is weather, over time. Short term matters when added all up to create a long term trend. So why any fuss in either direction? There’s no catastrophe happening either way.
It’s like a restaurant with only a couple of tables occupied. At first you can understand what your tablemates are saying, but as the place fills up everybody raises his voice to be heard above the din. With the ‘climate’ discussion’ everyone now is yelling to be heard. Content is lost; volume is everything.
Weather and Climate differ in time frame. We can’t predict weather more than a few days in advance (a few hours in Colorado) but that doesn’t mean we cannot predict climate in the furure. The problem with long term predictions is in using short term inputs. Enough input (correctly measured) and you might get reasonable results.
As Anthony has demonstrated with the surfacestations project, we don’t have really good data, the models are hopelessly inadequate, with a huge number of variables that are poorly understood. Admitting that doesn’t make good press.
“If it doesn’t sell newspapers, we won’t print it.”
Looking at the diagram, it does indicate anomalies that are contrary to the AWS catastrophism promulgated by the Bali Conference. For example, there is the reduced incidence in tropical cyclone activity noted in the southern hemisphere. So perhaps, the weather doesn’t support Al Gore …
Anthony,
[Apologies for being off-topic – I can’t seem to find your contact info.]
A recent commenter on ClimateAudit posted a link to an article about the guy who has been recording official temperatures in Ashland, VA, since 1955. One comment he made is this: “Most of the weather stations throughout the country have switched to remote sensoring,” said Newell. “They are not as accurate and tend to inflate the high temperatures.” … “The remote sensors will give you a reading of 98 degrees when in fact it is only 92. This happened just the other day.”
Link
I was more than a little surprised – what is your take on this?
REPLY: While I agree that the electronic sensors deployed by NWS/NOAA have resulted in a positive bias overall, I’m also skeptical of the magnitude of bias he expresses, because he apparently doesn’t have an MMTS electronic unit. Here is the NCDC equipment record for his station:
Begin Date End Date Equip Type Equipment
Mode Priority Equipment Name Phenomenon Elevation Serial
Number Data
[ 1990-06-01 ] 9999-12-31 PRCP SRG PRIMARY STANDARD RAIN GAGE PRECIPITATION — — COOP SOD
TEMP MXMN MAX-MIN THERMOMETERS TEMPERATURE
[ 0001-01-01 ] 1990-06-01 PRCP UNKNOWN PRIMARY UNKNOWN PRECIPITATION — COOP SOD
TEMP TEMPERATURE
I think I’ll contact him to get a look.
This is a bit off topic but here is another researcher who thinks we’re in for another little ice age. http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A//www.milenio.com/mexico/milenio/nota.asp?id=651680&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=es&tl=en
This is a computer generated translation from Spanish so its a little tough to read.
No explanation is needed when the site looks at weather v. climate. And whatever period, be it a day, decade, or century, a writer chooses to discuss is up to the writer.
And varied topics are fine. It is your site and your life. Have you have signed some covenant with the AGW Society to speak only as they approve? Perhaps the IPCC sent you a rule book?
As long as the writing and arguments are clearly and honestly expressed there is no harm is making interesting excursions off the official big science path.
When you started with Stevenson Screen experiments a year or so ago the same objections were made. Critics said that your observations were meaningless and improper. They weren’t academic or government science. The bureaus knew their data was collected properly. And besides they knew exactly how to adjust it anyway.
This is available at:
BAMS-89-7-StateoftheClimate
Anthony, there is the old latin saying: quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi.
‘What is allowed to Jupiter ( number one god of ancient Rome), is not allowed to any crackpot (actually bullock)’.
It is the American Meteorological Society doing this. Apparently now meteorology is not weather.
Weather makes climate, but are we too obsessed with both now? Are extreme weather events more frequent or just more frequently reported (and linked to climate change one way or other)?
Good post. It’s hard to inform the public when outlets like the AMS can’t even get it right.
Anthony,
I wasn’t sure where to put this, but an article has popped up on Drudge quoting Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera from the National Autonomous University in Mexico who is predicting that in ten years, the earth will enter a little ice age, lasting 60 to 80 years. He states that this cooling will be caused by decreased solar radiation.
Here’s the URL, and I apologize in advance for it’s length.
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.milenio.com%2Fmexico%2Fmilenio%2Fnota.asp%3Fid%3D651680&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=es&tl=en
Anthony,
Without context, it is hard for me to draw much of a conclusion about this graphic. However, note that it says “climate anomalies and events”, not just “anomalies”. And, it shows things like “Global tropical cyclone activity: Below average activity”. So, it seems to be just a general summary of the climate in 2007…I don’t see any specific attempt to blame everyting on global warming.
[One confusion is also that the word “climate” is used in lots of different ways; the “climate prediction center” of NOAA does forecasts that range from 6-10 days out to maybe a year. However, this is often a different context in which climate is talked about in terms of global climate change, when one is looking at changes over decades…and not so much interested in fluctuations on shorter timescales.]
One hallmark of AGW promoters is the prediction that any unusual weather phenomena is caused by AGW. So, too much precipitation, too little, too hot, too stormy, all are signs and portents of AGW. Yes, a single weather event does not a climate make, but it’s fun to see events that tweak the pomposity of pseudo-intellectuals like Gore, since they insist on using other weather events as “proof” of their dogma. Besides, I think a lot of people who follow this blog would agree, weather is interesting.
“. . .irrelevant weather noise.” I spy a disconnect here. Weather events or anomolies are what make long term climate trends. To view weather events as simply “noise” ignores the large, white elephant in the room. One weather event does not make a trend, but many over time do. We get it, Anthony.
The warmers play up every single warm climate anomaly so if the public is going to receive a balanced view of “weather and climate reality”, we should be playing up the extreme cold events as well.
If fact, someone, should be recording record highs and record lows across the planet so we know if there are real trends developing or not.
It’s merely an AMS publishing anomaly.
They forgot to include the Packers-Giants NFC Championship game as a climate anomaly.
On second thought, I’d just as soon forget that game. Never mind.
Joel Shore,
The first paragraph of the abstract begins:
The combined land and ocean surface temperature in 2007 fell within the 10 highest on record, …
and the second paragraph begins:
The globally averaged concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) continued to increase in 2007, having risen to 382.7 ppm …
I see a specific attempt to link the state of the climate to global warming.
Off topic but I saw where accuweather.com global warming site showed july as being the fifth warmest since 1880 .Thanks to Anhony at wattsupwiththat for showing about missing data at many stations throughout the U.S. for many years how can we trust anything that AGW people say.
OT but it is an interesting paper. They put in their AGW disclaimer though.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080819092017.htm
This is off topic but may be of interest to some. Read the exchange in the comment section on the value of climate models.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/08/17/monckton-debates-global-warming-desmogs-littlemore
Here’s a link to all (well maybe not all) events which are attributed to CO2 Drives the Climate Theory”.
http://www.numberwateh.co.uk/warmlist.htm
I got 109,000 hit when I did a search for ‘events blamed on CO2 induced global warming’.
All based on a theory that doesn’t match reality.
I’m still looking for that HOT SPOT. Meanwhile the oceans have cooled, co2 still lags, temperature has been flat and water vapor not doing their positive feedback thing.
Just blame it on co2 induced global warming.
The issue here is “Turf”. You are being accused of using the AGW proponents tricks.
They came up with the “Look at this cherry I just picked, ignore the mountain of apples behind me and look at the damn cherry”. “I’m right because I have a basket of cherries that all agree with my position, don’t think for yourself and ignore the man behind the screen”.
You are using their tactics and they have the copyright.
To be truthfull, you are simply presenting the data without saying “Aha! look here is proof”. The data is presented in a scientific manner, noone is saying that AGW is impossible, just very unlikely to be a significant factor in the many factors driving the climate.
I believe humans are adding heat to the lower troposphere, we just don’t have enough data to weed through the torrent of forcing factors to measure a few drops of rain contributed by Humans.
On the other hand, if someone puts up a good argument supported by real data and shows their work by going through the peer review process, I would change my mind.
I’m not about to take someone’s word that refuses to publish their methods, raw data, and calculations.
Anthony, as a member of the AMS, can’t you guys dump the board in favor of a objective representatives? I know others in the AMS are very concerned about the board’s shenanigans as opposed to the thoughts of the actual membership. Chicago’s Tom Skilling as well as former Chicagoan John Coleman come to mind in this area.
Jack Koenig, Editor
The Mysterious Climate Project
http://www.climateclinic.com
Some time back a tornado outbreak had John Kerry nattering about climate change and there wasn’t much criticism from the AGW side. What little there was could be summed up as “he’s right to say this because extreme events are what we’re up against and it’s best to get the word out.” For the most part there wasn’t much that was critical.
But — let a skeptic post something non-hysterical about weather extrema, and AGW supporters will literally crawl from the woodwork to condemn it.
***
Joel Shore — the use of anomaly and/or event are synonymous in graphics like these, which are intended to paint a particular picture. Trying to differentiate these is specious dissembling. Certainly the graph maker didn’t intend that.
This debate is heating up like a weather kiln in the oil fields of a texan dude ranch. Can’t we see that locally annual precipitation via subtropic/tropic cloud generation is all but tightroping on a potential watershed moment? Of course its related to larger geothermal and radiant heat indexing that over time will more or less be compensated through heatsink. On the other hand, I would hazard the guess that by 2050 or sooner, steppe and savana will be most affected.
I think, that definition of Hansen is:
Weather = a thermometer = 14.5ºC +/- 0.1 ºC.
Climate = the same thermometer + U$ 30 billion = 14.5ºC ++/- 0,001°C.
many Brahmas
Bill I.
“…we should be playing up the extreme cold events as well.”
That might not work for us. Some warmers also claim Greenland ice melt is going to halt the Gulf Stream and bring on another Ice Age.
Global Warming may also lead to Global Cooling! They have it covered one way or the other.
The Warmongers don’t like being tarred with their own brush. Their kettle and your pot are both black, but they think only they can cherry pick for political benefit.
Fair’s fair.
My prediction, based on his track record, is that when Al Gore arrives in Denver, they’ll be hit with a freak summer blizzard.
One eco freak begats one one eco freaky event.
From Moran & Morgan’s college textbook ” METEOROLOGY – The Atmosphere and the Science of Weather” (5th edition) ..”Climate is often defined as weather conditions at some locality averaged over a specified time period, but climate encompasses more than this. Departures from long term averages and extremes in weather are also important aspects of climate. For example, farmers are interested in knowing not only the average rainfall for July, but the frequency of extremely wet or dry Julys. Climate is the ultimate environmental control in that it governs, for example, what crops can be cultivated, the fresh water supply, and the average heating and cooling requirements of homes. Climatology is the study of the climate, it’s controls, and variability.”
Based on this, I would say that Anthony shouldn’t be faulted for reporting “weather events” because weather isn’t climate…actually it is. Departures from long term averages and extreme weather events form the envelope that completely characterise a location’s climate, not just long term averages.
2008 is definitely cooler than 2006 or 2007.
Look at this heat potential for the Carib.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/dataphod1/work/HHP/NEW/2008231ca.jpg
Adjust the url for 2007 and 2006.
Ditto for the world.
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/phod/dataphod1/work/HHP/NEW/2008231.png
That is A LOT of heat difference. Its really quite impressive. North America and the EU are kept warm by air blowing off the Oceans in the winter. IMHO this winter will be a lot colder than that of 2007.
Anthony
OT but we are now at day 31 of spotless days in a row
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpdir/latest/DSD.txt
This outs us at Rank 31 – a run of spotless days to 20 October 2008 will be a record
http://users.telenet.be/j.janssens/Spotless/Spotless.html#Period
The 10cm solar flux is constant and at very low levels – this is getting interesting
ftp://lynx.drao.nrc.ca/pub/solar/FLUX_DATA/fluxtablerolling.text
Meanwhile we are experiencing record cold weather anomlies, particularly in the Australia
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/australias-coldest-warmest-driest-and-wettest-in-decades/9713
Flannery is keen to point to Hot weather anomolies as signs of AGW but is also quick to point out extreme cooling anomolies are part of everyday weather – I have an audio link of him saying this somewhere and if I can find will post.
Here’s a link to the map of events in the post, Anthony. You can read this one when you zoom it. LOL
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/2007/ann/significant-extremes2007.gif
David G.
That puts a whole new spin on things. I think that should be in “Resources”.
Climate has a broader definition now.
Apologies for off topic, Ferdinand Engelbeen please email me to discuss what portion of the oceans is in near equlibrium with the atmosphere with respect to CO2. My email address is david.archibald@westnet.com.au
REPLY: I’ll email him for you – Anthony
quote from Benjamin Franklin, ‘Some people are weatherwise, and the rest are otherwise’.
Having downloaded the AMS document, it seems to be built on the premise that AGW is solid and further builds on this premise by highlighting the weather extremes that happened last year.
Seems that leaders 0f numerous organization have embraced AGW, despite the questioning approach of the rank and file. Everyone that’s jumping onto the AGW/’Green’ bandwagon will get quite a shock when their bandwagon crashes into the cold hard wall of reality.
Meanwhile, reading about weather events that don’t necessarily fit the AGW paradigm is a refreshing break. Certainly such tales aren’t readily found in the MSM, which seem bent only on airing stories about extreme weather events that support their accepted viewpoint. While the chilly Great Lakes summer neither proves nor disproves AGW, you wouldn’t hear about it on the nightly news — only here on Anthony’s blog where we can all engage in one of mankind’s great pasttimes – talking about the weather.
I apologize for the quality of even the large image, as it was scanned from paper.
When scanning paper that has text on the other side of the sheet, place a piece of black paper behind it.
I have been wacked by AGW proponents across various forums many a time over this especially in regards to Canadian weather events. When I predicted the full + recovery of Arctic Ice back in August 2007, then the extent recovered and I proceeded to gloat I got the standard, one year recovery is not a trend! (keep in mind this was in Feb 08 before the Great ’08 melt [ i think that it is being called that] occurred)
Yet the same people will use a typhoon in Myanmar to point at and claim “see,see, told you so! Climate Change, Cliiimaate Chaaange right there, ha you see it! now do you believe?”
Keep reporting the record weather events!
This August’s temperature anomaly for the Southern Hemisphere will be a shock number (on the cooling side). It will be interesting to see if it penetrates the media’s AGW wall.
New Zealand has record snow accumulation and winter is barely half over.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/2008/08/20/12436e25acd8
Such is the way of things. When those who oppose the notion of global warming in its scientific and political senses see evidence that our opposition is correct – such as the short-term cooling WHEN, I might remind Beaker, we are absolutely SUPPOSED to be in the midst of a warming trend due to human industrial activity, of course we are going to say something about it. And we are at times probably guilty of assuming things will go on like this or get worse without variation when that is not yet substantiated. I will say, as Anthony notes, that those who favor the global warming hypothesis both scientifically and politically are far worse about citing specific weather events as evidence of climate change and are far worse about honestly evaluating the science of climate change, whether natural or man-made, than we who oppose the hypothesis. In addition they are far worse at criticizing their own chief spokespeople, such as Al Gore and James Hansen, when those do err in such methodology. I have never seen one liberal blogger, one liberal news commentator, one liberal politician say that Al Gore was wrong. The only person who was bold enough to do so on record and who had any kind of weight in the world was a British judge! How sad is that.
Some notable temperature anomolies:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Continent.jpg
Proof positive of a warm earth.
Mike, those temperatures are RAW data. They haven’t been adjusted yet.
Off topic: for those who are posting long URL’s, you can shorten them by copying the URL and going to tinyurl.com to to create a short URL. For instance the map that Anthony scanned is available at
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/fullMaps_Wd.nsf/luFullMap/DB762E9558DF4791852573BF0056A3C1/$File/noaa_WT_wrl071130.pdf?OpenElement
which is shortened to http://tinyurl.com/5zq6gf
I was listening to the radio today and the station uses CNN for it’s “news.” They were having updates on “tropical storm flo” or whatever it is in Florida. My gosh, it’s dumped 3 INCHES of rain and has winds in excess of 35 MILES PER HOUR. And when it gets into the warm waters of the gulf it will probably INTENSIFY.
c’mon people, we have Thunderstorms bigger than that. I had to smile, but it was just so STUPID.
O.K. I’m getting really distrustful of all this AVG temperature stuff. Is there anywhere that the data for both highs and lows is sorted out?
All I can say is:
Thanks for the collection of select anecdotes. But they by themselves are meaningless. Time and resources are being wasted.
“beaker” is correct. The unscientific random and select use of anecdotes is just bad science. As easily as we can find cooling anecdotes, so can others also find warming anecdotes.
I think beaker’s advice ought to be seriously heeded. Focus on assembling related data points to establish a trend, rather than cherry picking isolated incidences from a chaotic system.
Of the entries on the map for Australia:
“Sixth year of drought in Murray-Darling Basin. Characterized as the worst in nation’s history”:
http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200311/r12086_28912.jpg
Murray River in 1914:
http://www.jennifermarohasy.com/blog/archives/Dry Murray 1914 blog.JPG
As already noted on this thread, the hottest temperature recorded in Australia was at Cloncurry, Queensland in 1889.
I’ll try this link:
http://i213.photobucket.com/albums/cc290/wobblywombat_1/drymurray.jpg
“As easily as we can find cooling anecdotes, so can others also find warming anecdotes.”
That heat has to go somewhere, right? I have a theory of conservation of weather: if it is unusually warm in one place, you can bet it is unusually cool someplace else…
“rather than cherry picking isolated incidences from a chaotic system.”
Well, *they* do it. All the time, too….
Climate is like “every person in the world has an average 1 testicle”. Weather is sometimes you have none, sometimes you have 2. (like weather some more enjoyable than the other). In fact “climate” does not exist in reality. It is only an expression of the average conditions ie the extremes are real, the average a mathematical artefact.
“It had actually been concern about ‘the sudden variations in the behaviour of the seasons’ to which the climate seemed ‘more and more subject’, and about possible effects on agricultural production and human health, that had led to the setting up of some of the first nation-wide networks of meteorological observations from 1775 onwards.”
page 11 of Climate History and the Modern World by Lamb.
Talking about extreme weather events, I was recently leafing through the most recent edition of computer mag PC Advisor here in the UK, and found an article entitled Green Computing. The authors write: “We know… cataclysmic climatic events – such as Hurricane Katrina, Burma’s Cyclone Nargis, and the recent floods in China – are increasing in frequency.”
Except… they’re not. But that meme still seems to be replicating happily, in odd corners of the media.
I don’t believe “climate anomaly” is an accurate term. Hurricanes, heat waves, snow, cold waves, rain and drought all seem to be part of the “climate.” We may have weather that is above or below average, but an “average” means that there are periods above and below that magic number.
AGWers point to “weather anomalies” all the time as so-called proof of “climate change” (put in quotes because they always conveniently leave out the man-made aspect which is always assumed as fact). Their much hoped for ice-free NP doesn’t appear to be happening, but if it were, just imagine the doom-mongering and hysteria we’d be hearing from the AGW crowd. The big difference that tends to get overlooked is that when the AGWers say the planet is heating up (which they’re wrong about now), it’s always catastrophic, and unprecedented, PLUS it’s man’s fault, and we must spend trillions of dollars “mitigating climate change”, passing laws, and of course, keeping the anti-science AGW gravy train rolling along.
I am liberal as in a believer in gay marriage, Bible as metaphor, public education, separation of church and state, taking better care of our homeless, old, and disabled, and I am quite possibly over-educated. The list goes on. But I also don’t trust political statements any more than I trust religious statements. And I also believe that related observations that can be experimentally repeated should be the basis for theoretical advancement. The CO2 models were designed to eventually be used as predictors of future climate based on past events. That is an experimental design used to advance the theory of AGW. The experiment has not proven the theory, therefore we need to look for another cause of long term trends in weather, IE climate.
There. A liberal blogger has disagreed with AGW.
Well, the map is bogus. No mention of the snowfall in Baghdad. 🙂
Pierre,
I believe that the anecdotes presented here are important. Anecdotes are useful to counter the use of opposite anecdotes in the political debate that is raging quite apart from the serious scientific debate. There is infinitely more at stake than meets the eye when observing the current debates.
To illustrate how important the political debate over AGW is, I would point out some of the political debates from the past.
Hole in the Ozone.
Recent science has shown that the hole is not the result of chlorofluorocarbons. Yet tens of millions perhaps billions of dollars were wasted shifting to new refrigerants.
The spotted owl.
It turns out that it was not logging that threatened the extinction of the spotted owl, but competition from a larger, more aggressive owl. Some 150,000 jobs were lost in communities that had no alternate sources of income. (There were small communities that depended on logging for their existence.) People lost their homes, families were destroyed: a humanitarian disaster on the scope of Hurricane Katrina caused by a cruel, uncaring, and callous bureaucracy. When a whole group of people are crushed by their government, it’s no wonder they cling to their bibles and their guns.
DDT
First discovered about 1939, the inventor got a Nobel Prize in 1949 (?) for saving an estimated 500 million lives. It is the most effective weapon against malaria. DDT was banned by EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus without a scientific debate and the ban became more or less world wide. Malaria kills about one million people in Africa a year and perhaps another two million elsewhere. Most of the people that have died were poor and because of the way malaria kills, they were mostly women and children. An anti-malaria program sponsored by the Bush Administration in Tanzania has proven that the judicious use of mosquito nets and DDT (Not wide spread spraying- just on the inside and outside walls of houses.) will reduce the infection rate by 90%. Some 40 to 120 million people died painfully and needlessly because DDT was banned. Hitler and the Nazis “only” killed 12.5 million (common number) to 25 million.
In the great scheme of things, the political debate is as important, or even more important than the scientific debate.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack
WEATHER, n. The climate of the hour. A permanent topic of conversation among persons whom it does not interest, but who have inherited the tendency to chatter about it from naked arboreal ancestors whom it keenly concerned.
– Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914),
US author, humorist – The Devils Dictionary.
sed -f Pam s/liberal/libertarian/ > newpam
this has been on my coffee table for a week—I guess I should read it.
I don’t recall last years being so explicit.
If they had one of the complete lists of “weather anomolies” going back about 300 years, as accurate as the one for this year, or even for a century, it would be quite an interesting document, but this? It is nothing more than propaganda. The underlying assumption is that we had the climate of “Camelot”, where winter “exits March the second on the dot, and Summer always lingers through September…” before we screwed it up, just like Adam and Eve, so anything that seems unusual, is, by definition.
Ok, I’ve skimmed through it. It’s a good assessment of the weather from last year but I didn’t see too much in terms of “this weather event was caused by human caused climate change.”
At least not explicitly stated, other than in the first couple pages where it talks about CO2 concentration and the graphic Anthony has provided for us.
interestingly enough there’s a lot in here for skeptics, lukewarmers, and other rational (i.e. not nuts!) believers/non-believers to use if they so choose. If someone tells you wildfires in the US are increasing due to AGW, well, on page S118 there’s a nice graph that shows they’re really not.
my suggestion: completely skip the first 10-15 pages or so. the rest of the document is pretty ok.
I hope I’m not being too cynical on this, but there seems to be a semantic rewriting of terms going on here.
It seems to me that, much in the same way as one immediately gets labelled “non-scientist” if one has any doubts about the AGM argument as currently expressed through politicians and the mass media, “weather” has become anything which is surplus to requirements on that front too.
New AGM-approved definitions:
SCIENTIST.
Old definition: someone with a science background
New definition: anyone who agrees with me
WEATHER.
Old definition: interesting observable and measurable atmospheric phenomena
New definition: any event which doesn’t support my argument