Guest Post by Steven Goddard
Steve McIntyre points out that NOAA’s Susan Solomon saw fit to exclude a statement of measurements from IPCC WG1. With such certainty then, it’s no wonder she’s certain that our current situation is “irreversible”. Well then, let’s not worry about it if one of NOAA’s lead scientists says the effects are well nigh irreversible. What she’s serving up is pure alarmism.
NOAA has issued a warning to the occupants of (some) planet :
Global warming has reached the point of no return, a study published in the Tuesday edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by a joint team of the U.S., French and Swiss researchers concludes. Even if the world reduces emissions of CO2 to the level before the industrial revolution, it will take at least 1,000 years to reverse the climate change effect that have already taken hold, AP on Sunday quoted the team as saying. Dr. Susan Solomon of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Earth System Research laboratory led the study. “People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide the climate would go back to normal in 100 years, 200 years; that’s not true,” she said, adding the effects are well nigh irreversible.
That got me wondering what she meant by “back to normal.” Perhaps it means sea ice at normal levels? No that can’t be it, because sea ice area has already recovered to “normal.”
http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi1_ice_area.png
Perhaps she means violent weather, like strong tornadoes? Longing for a return to the 1970s, when there were lots more of them?
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/tornado/tornadotrend.jpg
In 1908, a hurricane formed on March 6, the earliest on record. Ah, for the good old days of early spring hurricanes…..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1908_Atlantic_hurricane_season_map.png
In 1954, Hurricane Alice formed on December 30, the latest on record. Nothing like a New Year’s hurricane to brighten up the holidays.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1954_Atlantic_hurricane_season_map.png
In 1961, Hurricane Carla made landfall in Texas. It was the most intense hurricane to ever hit the US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Carla
In 1900, a hurricane killed 8.000 people in Galveston, Texas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galveston_Hurricane
In 1780, a hurricane killed more than 27,500 people in the Carribean.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hurricane_of_1780
In 1960, 60% of the farmland in China received no rain. Somewhere between 20 and 43 million people died due to extreme weather and mismanagement by the socialist government.
In the 1930s, the US suffered extreme heat and drought, resulting in the dust bowl. It was the warmest decade on record in the US (at least before USHCN cleverly adjusted it downwards.)
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/hansen_07/fig1x.gif
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_bowl
You mean I’m too late? Crap, because I really was going to get right on that Global Warming thing this weekend after I cleaned out the garage and raked out the flower beds. Oh well, I guess I just fire up the smoker and do a brisket. That’ll cheer me up.
PS Hi-larious pic. It replaces my fave Donald Sutherland’s Body Snatcher photo)
Well, if it’s irreversible then there’s little point in wasting any more time or money on it, yes? “Irreversible” seems a good thing.
Hawaiians have thrown thousands of people into volcanoes to keep them from erupting, but apparently it never helped very much. Pele was just unappreciative of their sacrifice.
Steve Goddard (11:57:44) :
“I remember when I was a kid there were tens of millions of people starving in China and India.”
Exactly! The “2 billions starving” is not 2 billions anymore.
If the socialists of the West stops giving aid to their socialist friends in Africa, for the sustainability of socialism (in Africa),
and instead helps Africa to
-introduce a proper justice system
-introduce free markeds
-introduce democracy
Then the poor in Africa will disappear too. Automatically.
No need to fight poverty anymore. Gone.Finished. Poof.
Ben Kellett (11:41:01) :
“Steven! Let’s clear this one up once & for all. Has sea ice really “returned to normal”? Just because it has recently touched the 1979 -2000 average, does that mean it’s back to normal?”
Ben: “Normal” Arctic sea ice levels have ranged back and forth from NO ICE to land locked SOLID ICE for as long as Earth has had water.
RockyRoad (12:17:24) :…and, as history shows, takers complain, after the wars they provoked, about how ill they were treated!
If they were intelligent they would concentrate all their armageddonian forecasts on high VEI volcanic eruptions and higher than 8 richter earthquakes, as they use to happen during solar minima.
It’s deja vu all over again…
I literally burst out laughing at this.
In 1970, I lived in Cleveland, which is on the banks of Lake Erie. In the run-up to the Clean Air & Water Act, there were numerous headlines in the local newspapers (the Internet of its day, BTW), claiming things such as
This is something I read over and over and over again in the news of the day. Evidently the alarmism of the day worked. The Clean Air & Water Act passed, and we have cleaner air and water now because of it. It was – and IS – a good piece of legislation. The U.S.’ air quality at the time was god awful, and the rivers and streams had previously had no laws with teeth protecting them.
But this comment is not about the law. This comment is about the claims of the environmentalists.
After the law was passed, but it did NOT mandate 100% reduction in pollution entering Lake Erie. Incoming pollutants dropped by only 75%.
In 1980, I saw a report that Lake Erie had cleaned itself up about 90%.
The lake was 90% cleaner in ten years, after pollution had dropped by only 75%.
This versus the environmentalist claims that even a 100% drop would take 10,000 years.
That was the day I began not trusting the environmentalists, because I learned that they would claim ANYTHING, if it suited their purposes. If lying were prosecutable in the courts, and I were a prosecutor, they’d be at the top of my list.
I have one more true story as well, but won’t go into it here.
As to her final line, for her to claim that it is irreversible after 12 years of decline is simply Bizzaro World.
For Steve Goddard (12:04:05):
Steve, I see what you have posted there, but it seems to conflict with the information in the Wikepedia link Hurricane Carla. That link stated this:
“Hurricane Carla was one of two Category 5 tropical cyclones during the 1961 Atlantic hurricane season. It struck the Texas coast as a Category 4 hurricane, becoming one of the most powerful storms to ever strike the United States. Hurricane Carla was the second most intense storm to ever strike the Texas coast.[1]”
Then, when you to to that footnote 1, you get a PDF for a NOAA Technical Memoranum, of which Chris Landsea is a co-author. That PDF lists, in Table 4, the most intense storms to hit the US; here is the heading for Table 4:
Table 4. The most intense mainland United States hurricanes ranked by pressure, 1851-2006 (includes only major hurricanes at their most intense landfall).
In this Table, Carla is ranked tied for ninth.
There seem to be two different ways to rank intensity, or two different sources, or both. The source you provided is a Hurricane Severity Index.
Perhaps you are more expert than I am on this subject. Why do you think that there are these differences between the NOAA Technical Memorandum (from 2007) and the Hurricane Severity Index, with regard to Carla’s intensity rank?
FYI, it doesn’t change your overall point to note that (as in the NOAA Technical Memorandum) that the 1935 hurricane that hit the Florida Keys was the most intense ever.
tarpon (12:22:24) :
Climate Scientists need mandatory courses in history, covering at least as far back as the Roman Empire if not further
Why so far back? Following J.H.aka.”coal trains” advice it will be enough back to WWII.
If it is irreversible, then there is no point in anti-growth cap and trade measures, and our focus should then be on consequence management and not prevention.
Since it appears that we have a long lead time to prepare for sea rise and most of the other gazillion malevolent things that have been predicted, then my recommendation is to adopt pro-growth policies to ensure we have the capability to deal with the next 1000 years.
I’m sure Solomon meant to scare as all into action, but if she’s saying we can’t undo the damage that’s already been done, is she unintentionally implying it’s too late?
Maybe we shouldn’t worry about carbon emissions, then?
Does any one know her? Could we reach her and ask her to take the liberty to define “normal”
To me it seems normal to find hurricanes hit land along the gulf coast. snow in the prarie and mountains and variation of temps over short distances.
Is she a normal person?
Pachauri was right! there is much Vodoo Science around.
Me Lud my learned friend has not grasped the point. Its now some 800 years AFTER the Warm Medieval Period. I rest my case.
Your approach is mine in discussions with the wartmistas:
“Clearly you think it is too hot. How cold do you want it?
A great argument to use in Canada. There’s no point in trying to have a rational debate with them, they are in a hysterical denial of their own decline.
With the continual revving up of the hysteria, the “it’s too late” phase had to arrive. Good that it now has: if it’s too late, then let’s stop wasting energy trying.
What is the normal temperature in Utopia? And the normal windspeed and rainfall?
I’ve heard this “it’s irreversible sorry before two years ago, how can it be a new study?
These people are cracked.
You mean this storm in a teacup is irreversible?
I went through both Carla and Camille. Carla was a huge width storm with 155 mph winds and no rogue wave heights while Camille was small width storm with 205 mph winds and at least one rouge wave that took the wave staff of an offshore platform at 85 feet. So one has to use some sort of energy index to determine which was the most intense. There can be multiple answers but I vote with Steve Goddard on this issue.
that should be “story”.
from Coalition of Really, Really Concerned People, where “the end justifies any means”(tm)
My favorite: “Oh No! The planet is spinning out of control”
John (12:36:38) :
Look further down the Carla Wikipedia page. They show the hurricane intensity chart with Carla at #1.
Uh…sea ice always comes back to normal in winter. That doesn’t mean anything. If you understand the system you will realize that ice forms in winter and melts in summer. And when scientists talk about the Arctic ice disappearing, they are talking about the summer ice cover, not the winter ice cover. Temperatures will be cold enough in winter for a LONG time to come for the ice to form in winter. What scientists are concerned about is the loss of the summer ice, which as far as I know, is still on the decline (ignoring small year-to-year variability).
And, the study you are talking about was published 2 years ago. This is not new news. So why all this talk about it now?