Guest post by Indur M. Goklany
1. Krugman in Gradual Changes and Extreme Events forgets that there is a threshold on the left hand side, below which cold kills. In fact, in the moderate to higher latitudes more people die daily during the cold months than in the rest of the year. See Winter kills: Excess Deaths in the Winter Months.
2. How does Krugman know that the distribution does not become narrower due to warming?
3. Where is the data that shows extremes have become more intense or more frequent, after one corrects for better detection, increased population, and better communications? It certainly doesn’t hold for cyclones, as Ryan Maue’s ACE graph shows. Events more extreme than any we have witnessed over the past 30 years (or whatever) have occurred before and will, no doubt, occur again, even absent any anthropogenic climate change.
4. Empirical data show that even if extremes are more frequent and intense, lives lost have declined. As noted in the A Primer on the Global Death Toll from Extreme Weather Events — Context and Long Term (1900–2008) Trends, long term (1900–2008) data show that average annual deaths and death rates from all such events declined by 93% and 98%, respectively, since cresting in the 1920s (see Figure). These declines occurred despite a vast increase in the populations at risk and more complete coverage of extreme weather events.
Source: Goklany, IM. 2009. Deaths and Death Rates from Extreme Weather Events: 1900-2008. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 14 (4): 102-09 (2009). Available at http://www.jpands.org/vol14no4/goklany.pdf.
5. Similarly, empirical data also do not show any significant upward trend for property losses once increases in population and assets-at-risk are accounted for. See (a) Pielke, Jr’s weblog on Normalized Disaster Losses in Australia, (b) Bouwer, L.M. (2010), “Have disaster losses increased due to anthropogenic climate change?” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, doi:10.1175/2010BAMS3092.1, (c) Neumayer, E., and Barthel, F. (2010), “Normalizing economic loss from natural disasters:A global analysis, ” Global Environmental Change http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2010.10.004.
Spot on, all 4 of my grandparents died in very cold English winters (1946/47-1962/63), like almost all of their 250 forebears that I have traced so far.
While I appreciate the rebuttal to Krugman, I am a bit perplexed on why people even take the time to do so. Krugman has shown himself to be a self agrandizing nincompoop. Some point to his Nobel prize as some sort of validation that what he says is to be taken with some type of authority, but he has ventured far afield from his expertise and we all know about Nobel prizes and political agendas. That and 5 bucks will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
Having failed miserably at his chosen field, and at any advice given and taken by the real world of economics, Krugman now tries to assert his expertise in fields he has no clue in. Pointing out his mistakes, misconceptions and just plain faulty logic is akin to shooting fish in a barrell.
I like the title, “Extreme nonsense by Krugman”, very appropriate for the arguments of Indur. I also wrote my share of castigating Krugman’s climate idiocy, “When Krugman becomes climate paranoid”, http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2011/02/when-krugman-becomes-climate-paranoid.html
What is exactly the threshold value? 20°C? 30°C?
If warmer is more extreme, where goes recent US blizzard, which occurred at low temperature? Is it still a warm-related extreme?
If we have extremely cold weather, it is not an extreme? Then cold-related extremes should diminish on the graph, when shifting to the right.
If these guys are as good in economics as in climatology, run to the hills.
Excellent post. In addition, how does Krugman where to draw the “threshold” line. Is it actually a “hard line” above which is disaster and below is no disaster? I doubt it. It would be a gradual transition from one state to the other. A sigmoidal curve would be more appropriate. How many standard deviations above and below the mean would you place this sigmoidal threshold?
I would expect far more from a Nobel Prize winning genius. Like Al Gore for example.
@ur momisugly Phil Jordan “While I appreciate the rebuttal to Krugman, I am a bit perplexed on why people even take the time to do so. ”
I understand your puzzlement, but there are still many people who approach Krugman uncritically. That, to me, is the real mystery; how can any moderately bright person not see the enormous disconnect between Krugman’s views and what actually happens in the real world? I know intelligent people who are big fans of his — well, maybe I should say “well credentialed” instead of “intelligent” — who are impervious to seeing his flaws, even when they are plainly pointed out to them. Their constant reply? “But, but, he has a NOBEL PRIZE!”
Sigh…
This is very similar to a sales pitch made by Kevin Trenberth in his AMS presentation a couple of weeks ago. Krugman = Trenberth? Interesting.
Sadly you are quite correct. Place a title or letters by a name, and many otherwise intelligent people swoon in total faith and blind obedience to the holder of those letters. Krugman got his title, but for work that was sadly fatally flawed, in a field he no longer pontificates on (since his work is virtually useless and void). Yet the title will make others heed his words as if he was the second coming of the messiah.
On Nobel prize, Al Gore, IPCC (c/o Pachauri), Krugman, Stiglitz, many others, they have 2 things in common: they were Nobel awardees and they were all climate alarmists. So if one wants to win a future Nobel award, he/she shd follow the alarmist-lunatic line 🙂
Even if a higher probability of extreme weather is a fact (which it is not), you still have to show that there has been extreme weather in Egypt where the riots occured. Mega storms in the US or heat waves in Russia have littlte effect in Egypt. The causal link is broken when looking at actual events.
Krugman is not going to permit reality to disrupt the pleasure he takes from living in his intricately constructed fantasy world.
The New York Times doesn’t have a comics page or the “Funnies” on Sunday. But they do have Krugman.
“While I appreciate the rebuttal to Krugman, I am a bit perplexed on why people even take the time to do so.”
Merely brushing off anyone as “not worthy of a response” invites the return attack of ad hominem. There are not enough hours in the day, but if anyone, even a track record fool, is high profile to others, then it may be worth the effort to contest their views.
From Wikipedia;
Krugman has praised Gordon Brown, the former British Prime Minister, who he described as “more impressive than any US politician” after a three-hour conversation with him. Krugman asserted that Brown “defined the character of the worldwide [financial] rescue effort” and urged British voters not to support the opposition Conservative Party in the 2010 General Election, arguing their Party Leader David Cameron “has had little to offer other than to raise the red flag of fiscal panic”
Clearly his idiocy and lack of judgement knows no bounds
If Krugman had done the actual spade work here and put some figures on that graph (for each year where data is available) I might give it more consideration. At least we might get some indication of whether the distribution curve is changing shape – or not.
Then we could start arguing about the threshold. Without giving some real world parameters this is just a meaningless sketch based on pure conjecture.
Not good enough.
David says:
Mega storms in the US or heat waves in Russia have littlte effect in Egypt.
Didn’t you read Krugman’s other piece of tripe that was recently published in which he asserted that the happenings in Egypt are the direct result of food shortages, which are the direct result of the Russian heat wave, which is the direct result of CAGW? Anthony posted a link to a pretty convincing beatdown of Krugman’s crackpottery yesterday:
http://bigpictureagriculture.blogspot.com/2011/02/debunking-krugman-nyts-soaring-food.html
It’s easy to be right all the time when you define your own reality…
I read somewhere — by someone trying to explain away the many logical and mathematical fallacies found in Krugman’s columns in the New York Times — that “everyone knows” they are mostly written by his wife with Krugman then signing the result and sending it in …
I find it interesting that, reading all 13 comments that are available to me (at the time of this writing), ten are ad hominem attacks in one form or the other. This is supposed to be a science blog.
Indur, you’ve raised some valid points. Have you posted them at Krugman’s blog, and asked for him to respond? I feel pretty confident that he’d be willing to take them on. (More likely, some of his readers there will respond to you with scientific arguments.) In fact, having been a reader of Krugman’s work for many years, it’s my personal belief that he and they are likely to accept much of what you write.
REPLY: People are angry about this, so they are expressing it. If you want to see ad homs in a science blog, visit RealClimate or Climate Progress. – Anthony
This “Extreme Weather” meme that the Marxist Intelligensia is now spouting off is totally, and completely, unsupported by any facts. It is simply there new talking point to be presented to the ignorant masses as established science.
Fact is you cannot compare extreme events, especially such local events as tornados, snow totals (which vary dramatically from point to point in the same storm), high and low tempratures. Even hurricanes could have passed unnoticed before trans ocean shipping was a common, and even then it is quite possible a hurricane could easily be misidentified. If a hurricane forms and dies in the middle of the Atlantic and no one reports it, it didn’t happen as far as human kind is concerned. We know nothing of the weather in say the NE US, especially inland, before 1800 or so, other than you can be sure it was as totally unpredicatable as it is today. Even with sattelite and doppler trying to predict even generalities about thunderstorms is almost hopeless.
You can go into the historical record for droughts, floods, severe weather over an entire season or several years, but to claim the specifics can be measured to a single degree, an inch of rain, or x% of crop production is utter folly, and these people know it.
Seems like the warmista is the clan to join if you hope to increase your chances of becoming a Nobel laureate. I will become an AGW alarmist if I ever get enough recognition from my reseach to be considered eligible. Sorry gang, but I might have to ditch you for that prize, and party with the likes of Gore, Krugman, and… on second thought, I might stand my ground and accept that I am not (yet?) convinced that the modelers have the climate system figured out.
I must end this by stating that the vast majority of Nobel laureates are impressive thinkers. It is then a shame that (especially with Gore, and omg Obama who didn’t even like receiving the damn thing) the prize has been handed out with such blatantly obvious political motives. Let’s hope they can keep the Nobel prize as an institution of meritocracy. If even they can’t, then WTF is the point of aspiring for brilliant achievement anymore? If anyone from “the Team” ever were to win the price, I’d get very sick. The most provocative element of climate science is the damage it has done to scientific virtues such as: curiosity, uncertainty, openness, willingness to be subjected to rigorous review, free from the tyranny of politics and as Weber made clear: Science must be free of “values” (not quite sure how the quote is in English).
Krugman’s got to be as thick as two short planks if he thinks it’s as simple as that.
3. Where is the data that shows extremes have become more intense or more frequent…
It doesn’t exist. I’ve been downloading daily temperature data from around the world. Summer TMax in Canada has been dropping since 1900. Number of heat wave days has also been dropping here. In the rest of the world, there is no evidence that heat waves have increased at all.
http://cdnsurfacetemps.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/more-heat-waves-expected/
Every once in a while, I read a comment and light bulb goes off. This one flipped that switch. I can see why Krugman is using AGW (or whatever the latest nomenclature is) to explain all the world’s ills. It is because of his incompetence as an Economist and his fervid faith in Obamanomics that makes him blind to see how they are ruining not only our own economy, but negatively impacting economies around the world. If Krugman was honest, he would place the blame squarely where it belongs. As he is not, and is just a whore to a political ideology, he has to find scapegoats.
The feebleness of his arguments against the scapegoats is magnified by his lack of belief in what he writes.
VEEEERY OT: I just had an idea, and I wanted to share it with WUWT and especially Anthony. It has nothing to do with Krugman.
I was wondering if you could have permanent link to “the bore hole” from realclimate.org on this site. If you make it a URL on this site and just copy/paste from RC, then I could read great critical review on climate science without paying the realclimate.org site a visit. Not sure if this is possible, but I feel bad giving RC many hits when I so strongly disagree with their censorship policy.
Could this be done?
David L says:
February 9, 2011 at 4:37 am
Excellent post. In addition, how does Krugman where to draw the “threshold” line.
Since we’re dealing with cold here it should have been on the other side of the hump, for starters….