Further Update:
Turns out I was hoping for too much. Brad Johnson found at least three scientists eager to be quoted in his follow up article: Kevin Trenberth, Michael Mann, and Gavin Schmidt. The quotes from these top scientists are worth going over there and reading. No additional comments are warranted.
Top Climate Scientist On The Monster Tornadoes: ‘It Is Irresponsible Not To Mention Climate Change’
Update by Ryan Maue:
Under the title of “Tornado and global warming“, Brad Johnson disgustingly uses quotes by Dr. Kevin Trenberth, and grotesquely blames the recent tornado outbreak on (GOP) congressional delegations in states that opposed climate legislation. I hope no scientist wants anything like this said on their behalf.
Update by Anthony:
4:45PM PST I have an updated article on this issue here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/29/the-folly-of-linking-tornado-outbreaks-to-climate-change/
9:30AM PST:
I was writing simultaneously with Ryan Maue and I couldn’t even come up with a title I was so disgusted. So I made the title “No title”. I’ve combined the articles. This is what I wrote:
This post has no title because the closest title I can think of is of the caliber of [expletive deleted]. The Center for American Progress and NCAR’s Dr. Keneth Trenbert invoke the thought of famous line from Joseph N. Welch “Have you no sense of decency, sir?”
I wonder how long they had to search for this particular (uncredited) photograph, choosing the juxapostion of the Chevron sign with the tornado. For all I know, it may even be photoshopped. (update: After about 30 minutes of searching, I found the original here http://yfrog.com/h232uwjij )
To say I’m disgusted, simply does not do justice to the feelings I have about this. The real test will be to see if CAP paid disinformer Joe Romm reposts this article from Brad Johnson on Climate Progress.
Here’s the proof that refutes the issue, and pigeonholes these clowns for what they are, which is nothing about science, but about hateful political cheapshots.
From the National Climatic Data center. Tornadoes of the intensity seen in Alabama this week (F3-F5) on the Fujita scale:
Source: National Climatic Data Center http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/tornado/tornadotrend.jpg
They New York Times got into the act too. CCM Mike Smith of Meteorological Musings writes:
Leave it to the NY Times to Write an Inaccurate and Insensitive Article
I had planned on moving on to other topics today. There is little more to say about the tornadoes of the last three weeks until the investigations are completed. As I was going through my email this morning, a reader sent me a link to this article inThe New York Times:
Predicting Tornadoes: It’s Still Guessing Game
Compared to the slime job by the Center for American Progress, it’s tame.
I urge readers to read this article below from Physorg and to use it and the graph above to refute comments in online forums.
“…it would be a mistake to blame climate change for a seeming increase in tornadoes”
Update: The graph that Joe Romm and Brad Johnson don’t want you to see: tornado deaths per million over the last century
Source: NOAA’s US Severe Weather Blog, SPC, Norman Oklahoma
http://www.norman.noaa.gov/2009/03/us-annual-tornado-death-tolls-1875-present/
CYNICAL IDIOTS
I was surprised that Trenberth was familiar with the term “null hypothesis.” I guess his next step is learning what it means.
Stay classy, ThinkProgress
“Climate Pollution Deniers” now is it? Jeez. I wonder if Johnson denies the fact that there has been no increase in extreme weather events in the industrial era. Actually, I don’t wonder at all.
Climate pollution, all right. They have turned climate into a meaningless concept; an essential gas into a toxic substance, and fired-up a whole parade of cut-and-paste apes to spread the word. Lies. Blatant, unabashed, unashamed, lies.
“Never hesitate to make political capital out of human suffering.”
John W.,
Trenberth is familiar with the climate null hypothesis, he just doesn’t like the fact that it falsifies the CAGW story he’s trying to sell. So now Trenberth wants to replace the null hypothesis with his own cherry-picked version. WUWT covered it here.
[And speaking of a crisis, oil was $33 a barrel, and gasoline was $1.87 a gallon when Obama took office.]
Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), also dismissed Thursday climate change as a factor in the deadly tornadoes: “Actually what we’re seeing is springtime,” he said.
“Many people think of Oklahoma as ‘Tornado Alley’ and forget that the southeast United States actually has a history of longer and more powerful tornadoes that stay on the ground longer.”
This is disgusting propaganda. They should be ashamed.
Who will be the first politician to call them out?
BTW Dr. Kenneth Trenbert. I think you put the Dr in by mistake as well.
Is there no depth to which these people won’t go? Disgusting is the only word.
Even more disgusting than the article itself are the gleeful schadenfreude comments about Southerners getting their come-uppance for being AGW heretics and religious nuts, and how these scoffers will now have to beg the same government they despise for aid. Truly surreal. Perhaps a few screen shots are in order in case these “disappear.”
Smokey says:
April 29, 2011 at 10:01 am
[And speaking of a crisis, oil was $33 a barrel, and gasoline was $1.87 a gallon when Obama took office.]
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Happen to go to the market this AM, and a small can of the market’s brand of coffee was $3.49. Last week it was $2.99, a year ago it was $1.99 !
You increase energy prices, and you get rampant inflation soon enough.
We need action, and we need it soon. I feel very sorry for people on a fixed income.
“Tornado deaths blamed on lawmakers opposed to
climate legislationTrenberth’s taxpayer-funded gravy train.”There, fixed.
I have to ask,
The chart for Tornados ends at 2007. Where is the data for 2008, 2009, 2010, and to date 2011?
REPLY: NCDC has not updated the graph, of course now that we have a big year for tornadoes, they likely will – Anthony
The Marxist propagandists at stinkregress think that the prols will swallow their agitprop and they are correct. But only someone who is cognitively dysfunctional would buy such nonsense. So I guess the Marxist are counting on their subjects being cognitively dysfunctional.
When Topeka, Kansas was being founded, the settlers asked the local Indians where would be the best place to build a town. The Indians indicated an East-West Ridge which tornadoes approached from the North but would not cross. A town South of the ridge would be safe.
Safe was the case until, in 1966, when a F5 tornado formed ON the ridge and then dropped down and right through town. If you drive today up to the ridge top, it is easy to see the swath of new buildings extending through the city’s middle.
Here’s the actual warning from scientists…
AFP – “US meteorologists warned Thursday it would be a mistake to blame climate change for a seeming increase in tornadoes in the wake of deadly storms that have ripped through the US south.”
http://www.france24.com/en/20110428-tornadoes-whipped-wind-not-climate-officials
The warmist camp is now comprised of nothing more than sub-intellectual ideological bigots. Just remember folks, when they make comments like this it is for all the other sub-intellectual ideological bigots, not the literate.
REPLY: We covered that story here long before it made it to France, scroll down the main page. – Anthony
Typical of the contemptable garbage that the Center for American Progress spews . Let’s hope that their rubbish gets exposed as the loathsome mendacity it is .
How powerful these “deniers” of climate change are, they were able to conjur up these horriffic storms at a whim. sarc/
Gavin Schmidt of NASA has also calculated that Mother Nature is punishing Roy Spencer by a nearby tornado for his denialism, see
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/04/review-of-spencers-great-global-warming-blunder/#comment-205854
By the way, NASA has delayed today’s space shuttle launch because the GISS has told them that the heaters of power unit 1 could contribute to global warming – because they’re heaters, after all.
http://www.boston.com/news/science/articles/2011/04/29/shuttle_endeavour_ready_for_historic_last_launch/?rss_id=Top+Stories
NBC’s Brian Williams:
Let’s be candid here. When you and I go home, you see friends and family, you get e-mail from people you know. People ask the same question: What’s going on here? Is this something we have done?
Yeah. You probably filed your income tax too late.
I scare you with BS comments using bad science about a natural disaster.
You get scared, wring hands, and “say what can I do?”
I say, “this is really important, it needs to be studied further – I must have bigger grants, more staff and more status.”
You say, “that sounds reasonable, I want to help – let’s tell our political leaders, they have to do something – and do it now!”
I live very well indeed – after all, I am now very important and flushed with funding. You are worse off, because my BS has resulted in politicians following goofy, uneconomic energy policies.
If I feel your interest is waning, I invent new BS scare story, utilising bad science as before. I become even more important and more flushed with funding.
It’s a great system – please don’t knock it.
Sarc
“The congressional delegations of these states__Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, Georgia, Virginia, and Kentucky__ overwhelmingly voted to reject the science…” of AGW.
The ugly voice of regional prejudice from the self-elected elite. Disgusting! Journalism at its most bigoted!
The warmists will say things like that because they are bigots of the worst kind. They belong in the 16th century persecuting “witches”.
I have seen the pictures on UK TV of the devastation these tornadoes caused and I feel so sorry for the victims. To make moronic statements by these people implying that the victims deserved their fate makes me think that maybe they are reincarnations of members of the Spanish Inquisition.
The energy fix (and not from the “gubmint”) is on its way: http://freeenergytruth.blogspot.com/2011/04/97-e-cats-in-operation-right-now.html
Let’s just hope they can ramp it up ASAP! (But even so, don’t expect the number or severity of tornadoes to decline, even if we completely eliminate CO2 emissions some time in the future.)
Lifted from IOWA48
“Njörd, the Norse god of the wind, is actually to blame for these storms, and since Mr. Trenberth and Mr. Johnson are obviously religious Mythologists, it is blatantly blasphemous for them to attribute the cause to anyone or anything other than Njörd. You have to keep in mind that Anthropogenic Global Warming is a relatively new religion (actually a sub-sect of Mythology). While it is probably the most reliant upon blind faith of all the religions, you can expect some confusion among its followers as to which particular god is in charge of any given phenomenon, due to its newness and the lack of any discipline within this religion. It is somewhat ironic that adherents of the antithesis of this particular religion, Scientific Method-ists, are condemned to Hell by AGW believers. In Norse mythology (AGWists overriding true belief) hell was called Niflheim oe Hel, it was “world of the ice and that of the dead, which is also know as Hel.”
If the denier-haters were truly interested in saving lives lost due to disasters resulting from climate change, then their focus logically should be on adaptation vs pollution mitigation. Immediate results can be gained from adaptation (as advocated by Pielke, Sr.), whereas the CO2 train left the station well before anything could effectively be done about it. And consider that it will take great many years for carbon sinks to make a difference even if humanity ceases CO2 production altogether. So, the primary focus by denier-haters on mitigation diverts attention away from life-saving, adaptive actions that nearly everyone can agree on.
Also:
Neo says:
April 29, 2011 at 10:03 am
(snip – quoting Fugate)
“Many people think of Oklahoma as ‘Tornado Alley’ and forget that the southeast United States actually has a history of longer and more powerful tornadoes that stay on the ground longer.”
That’s an interesting point since in the area of the southeast I live in, only houses built on a slope can have basements due (I believe) to the clay content of the soil. I wonder if anyone has done a study to link numbers of deaths by region, while looking at availability of cellars/basements to hide in.
ew-3, you have it backwards. First comes the inflation (devaluation of the currency), then comes the price increases. Oil, which is denomenated in dollars merely is tracking the flood of currency this Administration (through the Federal Reserve system) has created. Same thing happened with Nixon in 1971-73. The politicians never learn. And the people naively blame the producers rather than the real culprits.
It seems a large number of people in the USA are awake to the serious effect on their economy of the futile efforts to control the climate. In the UK we are still running headlong for the cliff edge!
How exactly does one go about ‘polluting the climate”?? For that matter how do you go about ‘polluting the weather’?? And these characters are intimating that the skeptics are anti-science?
Speaking of Joe Romm, one of his headlines today reads “2010 extreme weather cost lives, health, economy”. So I left a comment, it’s awaiting moderation. What are the odds?
Beefeater says:
Your comment is awaiting moderation.
April 29, 2011 at 1:42 pm
1932 extreme weather cost lives, health, economy
1965 extreme weather cost lives, health, economy
1974 extreme weather cost lives, health, economy
And so on and so forth. You could do a peer reviewed study. (That means you could look it up)
Is the global temp. anomaly even positive right now?
“Given that global warming is unequivocal,” climate scientist Kevin Trenberth cautioned the American Meteorological Society in January of this year, “the null hypothesis should be that all weather events are affected by global warming rather than the inane statements along the lines of ‘of course we cannot attribute any particular weather event to global warming.’”
Just to add a little bit more to the debate. The last two winters in the UK have been dire, especially the last one. As I understand it, this was due to a weak jetstream allowing cold air from the Arctic to move south. It is also my understanding that heat=energy which means that the jetstream should be stronger due to “global warming” therefore we should not have had these cold winters. The warmists did say in the 1990’s that snow would be very rare in the UK at the beginning of this century.
The mushroom policy is alive and well (kept in the dark and fed on s**t).
That these are people who should know better is what makes this really disgusting. In the area of Ohio I live in, people remember the ’78 outbreak very well. And look at how low the number for ’78 is. And we have much more rigorous detection technology and defining criteria for what is a tornado in our days. Shame on those who would use the deaths of other human beings as leverage in a pissing match.
No, it’s been negative since it fell at the end of Dec.
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Mar_2011.gif
I guess it matters not to these people that the actual average temperature right now is about what it was in 1980?
Blaming the victims for acts of God (his wrath of course) is a well established premise in religious history, including recently, various well known American TV preachers. Now we seem to have entered the age of scientists as hatchet-men of the Gods. Be afraid; be very afraid – you have sinned and the God of Climate has come to mete out his punishment. God help us all.
So what would you call people like Trenbeth? “Evangelical scientists” is an insult to many well-meaning Christians.
Sorry, my point in the above post is that, despite improved detection capabilities, we do not have an uptick. And it is clear that a devastating tornado doesn’t have to happen in a ‘busy’ year.
Never forget that “Think Progress” and “Climate Progress” are organized and financed by the same people and are essentially the same organization.
Looking through those comments at thinkprogress, it seems like a good 70% of them are anonymous. I’m a little confused what kind of progress they are thinking about when their comment behavior reads like an echo chamber that Maximilien Robespierre would be proud to oversee. They express glee in death and destruction to those they do not agree with. That’s about as American as nazism, and no I don’t consider that hyperbole. These thinkprogress comments mock and laugh about how these “religious people” in the south are getting what they deserve for their “sin” against earth while completely missing the point that their comments confirm themselves as believers of an unproven apocalyptic religious cult complete with full definitions of sin and salvation. Worse yet this religion of theirs gets federal funding to continue to spout the nonsense of future calamity and the requirement that all people change their lives and remove their definition of “sin” from the earth. This is literally religion versus religion, only one side is mistakenly convinced they’re secular and have reason on their side.
Thinkprogress??? I think not. That domain should be stripped from them and replaced with TAXPAYERFUNDEDDOGMA.COM
I have been noting in past comments on cold, snow, floods, wildfires, etc. that most often an article will note that it is the worst whatever in 30 -40 years. Here is another one. My point in this and others is it would appear to be the first stages of a cooling period – not warming. We may see a return of stronger cyclone activity (like that of 40 years ago or so?) and other weather extremes. I think rebuttals should always look back at these cycles to show that we are cooling, not warming.
And yes, this is outrageously low behavior to be blaming victims of these storms for causing them. The Chevron sign is in color in a black and white photo (I know it gets dark in such a storm but you would see some color on the close up objects).
In all honesty, 99% of scientists that advocate even the most draconian climate mitigation measures, do not give any credibility to Brad Johnson’s comments. It is clear that he is drawing a parallel (though he does not wish to write it down), between cataclysms purported to be related to certain lifestyle choices by famous televangelists — and the tornado outbreak.
There is room in the debate for pointing out double standards and hypocrisy, but this is beyond the pale. I give credit to Obama for flying into Alabama: it is something he should have done right away in Nashville last year with their floods. Instead of castigating blame upon victims of tragedy and scoring political points (just like Paul Krugman and the left after the Gabbie Giffords shooting), we should offer prayers. And, it all comes full circle as Gifford’s husband blasts into space — signaling the end of the current shuttle program. It’s a sad day for a multitude of reasons.
Think Progress is the leftist equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church.
What’s funny the Warmists want to tie this outbreak to an increase in a global average, even though the region of the globe the outbreak occurred in has been in a long term cooling trend according to NCDC:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=tmp&month=12&year=2010&filter=12&state=104&div=0
Here’s the image for March tornadoes from 1950 to date: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/tornado/2011/mar/mar2011_tornactivity.png
What do you expect from the same bunch of lefties that immediately blames the GOP for trying to kill old folks and children when Ryan tries to cut ONE THIRD of just the INCREASE in the budget the democrats have created for the US in the last year? The communist strategy has always been to tell a lie enough until it becomes the truth and with a cooperative media it works well. Green on the outside is red on the inside.
I hate it when people use something like this to further their agenda. I live 1/4 mile for massive destruction from one of these, which follow the almost exact same tract in 1994.
“Gary Pearse says:
April 29, 2011 at 11:06 am
I have been noting in past comments on cold, snow, floods, wildfires, etc. that most often an article will note that it is the worst whatever in 30 -40 years. Here is another one. My point in this and others is it would appear to be the first stages of a cooling period – not warming. We may see a return of stronger cyclone activity (like that of 40 years ago or so?) and other weather extremes. I think rebuttals should always look back at these cycles to show that we are cooling, not warming. ”
Exactly. We are heading into a cold period and the warmist predictors who call this
“Gaia’s ” Wrath, are going to look like fools..
Woke up to 1/2 in of snow on the yard this AM April 29th. we have had snow at least 20 days this month in La Grande Oregon, according to one local, whom I trust with his
weather expertise.-Ex USMC Weather/Recon guy…
He also thinks that we are in a Dalton, not Maunder type minimum…
Smokey wrote: “And speaking of a crisis, oil was $33 a barrel, and gasoline was $1.87 a gallon when Obama took office.”
I stubled over your assertion because I KNOW that I haven’t seen gas under $2 a gallon for better than 5 years, I think it has been north of $60/bbl since at least 2005. It was around $2.70/gal here in VT in Nov 2008. This page seems to back up my memory bank:
http://flowingdata.com/2008/08/08/watch-the-rise-of-gasoline-retails-prices-1993-2008/
I admire the focus on honesty way too much to let ANY misinformation go unchallenged.
Thanks, and I’m sure it was an honest mistake.
Here’s a lede for you
“No Lie to Great for Global Warming Believers”
Silver at 49$ is killing the solar panel industry…
Never let a good religion go to waste…………………………
If you look at COLA temps on a daily basis, you will note that most of North America has been well below anomaly temps for the past 8 months (yes 8 months). It’s the COLDER air from the north that meets the STANDARD WARM AIR (not warmer!) from the gulf that causes a GREATER DIFFERENCE in temps and shear at meeting point ect that produces more severe storms. In fact history shows that cold is more related to wild weather than warm mostly occurring in the mid latitudes where these two air masses meet. Current UHA anomalies are BELOW so there is no relationship between global mean temps and tornadoes in the USA (except above description).
To be honest, I think that graph of tornado deaths simply shows that we are getting better at predicting tornados and tornado communication and warnings are getting better.
If I was you, I would let Trenberth rant on. This sort of stuff is exactly what skeptics want to hear. He is doing them an immense favor. I would encourage him, not ask him to desist! The public is of course noticing.
I can only repeat what I have said elsewhere, this is psychological warfare being waged against our society by the terrorist organisations Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Earth First, WWF and the rest. The IPCC and those who write the trash they call ‘science’ need to be recognised for what they are, terrorists, terrorist promoters and opportunists chasing the big money for their “research.”
The statements quoted here are disgusting, stupid and I run out of suitable epithets and adjectives at that point …
As the cycle goes, we’re only back into replaying the 60’s now. It’s gonna get colder and stormier as we head into the 70’s.
Peter Kovachev says:
April 29, 2011 at 10:11 am
Even more disgusting than the article itself are the gleeful schadenfreude comments about Southerners getting their come-uppance for being AGW heretics and religious nuts, and how these scoffers will now have to beg the same government they despise for aid. Truly surreal. Perhaps a few screen shots are in order in case these “disappear.”
Not all Southerners are religious. I’m not and I reside in MS. But we do like our guns, and we know how to use them. 😉 We also like our freedoms, and we know how to use those also.
Gary says at 10:42 am:
“Oil, which is denomenated in dollars merely is tracking the flood of currency this Administration (through the Federal Reserve system) has created.”
Gary, you are exactly correct about this and I’m really surprised that very few commentators have been talking about it. The rise in gas and commodity (grocery store) prices is the long-awaited, direct inflationary effect of 2008, TARP, the Fed, mortgage bailouts, and other predicted inflationary mechanisms. Something that Obama, Bush, McCain, and their cronies all supported.
Think of today’s high prices at the gas pump and grocery store as the hidden tax of US dollar inflation. In 2008/2009 the US dollar was immediately devalued on global currency markets and in many markets is remains at 75% of 2008 valuations.
So it would stand to reason that gas prices would eventually escalate 25%, just as they have recently. There is absolutely no mystery here, we are now paying the tax (through gas and food inflation) on the 2008 mortgage meltdown and all of the bailouts.
Whenever you pay for a $75 fill-up at the gas station, just remember that you’re helping to keep a Goldman Sachs banker natted-up in Johnston & Murphy loafers and a Hermes tie.
Latitude says:
April 29, 2011 at 12:00 pm
Correction: Never let a good cult go to waste…………………………
On March 18, 1925, 9 tornadoes killed 747 people in a much less densely populated country. A single tornado in that group killed 695 and injured 2027. Its path was 219 miles long and its width was 1200 yards. The greatest tornado swarm was on April 3, 1974 with 148 tornadoes resulting in 315 deaths, Source: “Extreme Weather”, Christopher Burt.
Do note the months that these occurred amid all the talk of this year’s earliness. I agree that punks, who should know better, when they jump on a tragedy like this to promote their lies need to be strongly chastised.
Bennett:
Smokey stated “When Obama took office”.
Obama took office on January 20th, 2009 so your link to a graph that ended on a date of Aug 8, 2008 is worthless.
Also your contention that Oil has not been below $60/bbl since 2005 is wrong. On Dec 23rd, 2008 oil was at $30.28.
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/thanks-to-obama-gas-jumps-in-a-flash/
As to what the price of a gallon of gas in VT was does not necessarily counter Smokey’s claim of what a gallon of gas cost on Jan 20, 2009. You see if Smokey was going by the national average or where he lives, what the price of gas was in VT does not make what he stated incorrect.
According to the Department of Energy the National Average Price for a gallon of Gas on 20 Feb, 2009 (1 Month into Obama’s Presidency) was less then $2 at about $1.90 (eyballing the graph)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_home_page.html
When you look at the graph the Price had been at a low of $1.60 a gallon just after Dec 20, 2008. So between those two dates given and their prices it looks like Smokey gave the accurate information and you in your admiration for the focus on honesty gave the misinformation.
Also I’m sure it was an honest mistake.
I just posted this article and a few of my personal comments on my Facebook page. Lets’ see how long it stays there before being reported!
Ryan/Anthony, how about putting Spencer’s satellite temp anomaly graph on the on the severe storm graph?
@Bennett
Smokey is rarely wrong. I suspect he’ll be back on here shortly putting egg on your face.
I don’t remember the year, but I do remember gas falling to below $2/gallon after the peak $140 – $150 per barrel, $4 per gallon period a few years ago. That was after the 2008 travel softball season when gas prices about broke me. Oil prices didn’t stay that low long because the democrats had taken over the house and were busy putting the kibosh on drilling ANWR. It was serious momentum for drilling ANWR from the Bush administration that had led Opec to lower oil prices. All through the 80’s and early 90’s, every time we started talking about expanding drilling in AK, oil prices would tail off. Once Clinton took office, Opec knew any such talk was BS, so the effect wore off. The next time we got to seriously considering it, Opec drastically curtailed prices. Anybody see a pattern here?
It’s ThinkProgress. What on Earth did you expect?
That’s funny…these kinds of storms were once blamed on Global Cooling…
Like in this TIME article from 1974
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds — the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world. Indeed it is the widening of this cap of cold air that is the immediate cause of Africa’s drought. By blocking moisture-bearing equatorial winds and preventing them from bringing rainfall to the parched sub-Sahara region, as well as other drought-ridden areas stretching all the way from Central America to the Middle East and India, the polar winds have in effect caused the Sahara and other deserts to reach farther to the south. Paradoxically, the same vortex has created quite different weather quirks in the U.S. and other temperate zones. As the winds swirl around the globe, their southerly portions undulate like the bottom of a skirt. Cold air is pulled down across the Western U.S. and warm air is swept up to the Northeast. The collision of air masses of widely differing temperatures and humidity can create violent storms—the Midwest’s recent rash of disastrous tornadoes, for example.
Paul Chaxelle says “On March 18, 1925 […] on April 3, 1974 […]”
Does anyone know if this extreme weather is related to a strong La Nina?
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/la-nina-weather-pattern-as-strong-as-the-1974-version/story-e6frg6xf-1225985877914
Or is it totally arbitrary?
The link describes the massive flooding in Brisbane in 1974.
Dear Anthony,
You let Realclimate off the hook easy on this one. I noticed something else that was funny about their post on Dr Spencer’s book, but a while later, appeared the last post before they closed down the thread. It displays the same vengefulness and spite that is on display on this Brad Johnson post.
Sometimes it takes storms
To lash the beast and show its
Hate underbelly.
==============
What kind of a science is this cagw ? Blaming others for acts of god ? This is happening because you have rejected the so-called cagw -science ? The rat-smell is so disgusting here that the eco-fascists are even surpassing the spanish inquisition in finding arguments to enslave other peace-loving co-citizens .
Anthony, I hope you hang on to Brad Johnson’s article. It will be good ammunition for you and others for a long, long time.
I swear they must have meetings to talk about this stuff. And I’m sure they must ask each other, “What’s the stupidest thing we could even think about doing?”
And then they do it.
#
Geeyore says:
April 29, 2011 at 12:16 pm
Gary says at 10:42 am:
“Oil, which is denomenated in dollars merely is tracking the flood of currency this Administration (through the Federal Reserve system) has created.”
Gary, you are exactly correct about this and I’m really surprised that very few commentators have been talking about it.
###
I have tried to explain this to people only to be confronted with blank stares. Just like they do when I tell them that if electric vehicles become the norm, the price of power is going to sky rocket. Why do people have such problem seeing the obvious?
I tried to read some of the comments from the article, but I just couldn’t stomach it anymore. So much human garbage on that website.
Bennett wrote “I stubled over your assertion because I KNOW that I haven’t seen gas under $2 a gallon for better than 5 years, I think it has been north of $60/bbl since at least 2005”.
Actually the price of light, sweet crude was $33.20 a barrel on 1/15/09
http://i81.photobucket.com/albums/j201/bobbyj0708/Oil.png
Anthony says: “This post has no title because the closest title I can think of is of the caliber of [expletive deleted]. ”
There should be a standard notation that caliber. I propose CRnAPm, where n is the number of mentions of “global warming” in the article and m the number of scientific mistakes.
Geeyor, while the US seems to have become irrelevant in oil prices, other than our ability to cause inflation in other countries, I don’t think we are incapable of affecting prices we pay here. Improving our infrastructure and output would reduce US oil costs by transportation cost: http://www.econbrowser.com/archives/2011/04/keystone_gulf_c.html
There are other ways we can reduce the price the US pays:
Commodities will come down when we have the prospect of a good solid recovery. That will happen when the US has a solid, aggressive energy policy.
We need to stop tilting at windmills (they are not economical and only profitable for manufacturer/sellers).
We need to drill the Gulf, the coasts, ANWAR, and the Arctic. And, build some fracking distribution infrastructure.
Concerns about the arctic are silly. Likely, there is more natural gas than oil there. Horizon like spill worries will soon prove to be unfounded. The oil may be heavier and the temps reduce evaporation, but the gulf spill proved dispersants. The bacteria that process oil are most efficient in cool waters and high pressures. Even if the temps are too low for the gulf bacteria, certainly the arctic has its own share of seepage. It must have bacteria suited for its environment, otherwise there’d be a bunch of oil just below the ice.
The argument that we shouldn’t drill because we don’t have enough oil to reduce prices is a pitiful strawman. So what? That’s a good thing. Every barrel we produce increases GDP by the price, it also increases GDP a second time by reducing imports by the price. This is all before even considering multiplier effects.
In the meantime, while we are waiting for US production to come online, we should institute a carbon tax in the form of a tax on long positions in Oil. A tax rate which increases with the purchase price, and ends in 2-3 years (when US production begins coming online). There is a natural bias against the short side of commodity futures. A small tax would help balance things out. We need more down-side speculation. Of course, all the revenue should go to transportation or energy distribution infrastructure.
Also, don’t underestimate the signaling power of an aggressive US energy policy. When we hoard, how can we expect less of other producers. If we stop hoarding and announce that we must take advantage of our resources before alternatives collapse the price, the rise in other producers’ capacity and efficiency may well be fantastic.
Anthony & Ryan – thanks for calling these knuckleheads out on this! I know exactly where that photo was taken from and it’s authentic. It is disgusting that they’re taking advantage of this, but I knew it was only a matter of time before I saw the “warming connection” invoked.
I was, fortunately, spared damage at my home, but I have many friends who have lost literally everything in that very tornado. To take advantage in such a way is like a cheap sucker punch. But I suppose there are slimeballs like this everywhere.
Keep up the good work!!
While the loss of 250 lives is tragic, and my heart and prayers go out to people who have lost loved ones and property, the loss pales in comparison to the millions who will die of starvation and disease as a result of policy that futilely attempts to combat climate change.
Oh brother … Think Progress taking us back to the Dark Ages …
.
Tom Fuller – So true . Unfortunately they continue to get away with it .
I cannot say with certainty since I do not have the link to the video handy, but that looks like a still from the video of the tornado yesterday where a secondary vortex descended from the left and joined the main vortex. You can see the parts of it from the main cloud and the main vortex in the process of either forming or breaking up on the left side. While it is possible that I missed it, I do not remember any bright signs of any sort in that video much less a Chevron sign. The chances of this being a photoshop are very, very high. If somebody can pull up the video we can settle the issue. I would also remark that since power was almost certainly out in the area, an illuminated sign is unlikely although there appear to be some other less brightly illuminated signs in the picture, although the buildings are without lights that you would expect if the power were available.
Does anyone else see a pattern? When you look at the “Number of Strong to Violent Tornadoes” graph, it peaked in 1974 and then started to decrease. That would have been shortly before the Pacific Decadal Oscillation entered its positive phase. From 1950 to 1974, the graph shows a steady increase in tornadoes. That coincides with the negative phase of the PDO. We entered into another negative PDO a few years ago. Why would we not expect an increase in tornadoes over the next 25 to 30 years?
Keep Smiling 🙂
Jeff
Hmmm. Just anticipating the next fake linkage…
Breaking News! Alabama Pika Population Entirely Wiped Out By Tornadoes!
The EPA has announced massive emergency funding to find any survivors and restore the population, with ongoing monitoring until the sea levels flood things completely.
Look at them [insert cute pika photo]. Don’t you care?
The best part of the article:
“Johnson’s justification is that climate scientist Kevin Trenberth warned the American Meteorological Society in January that “Given that global warming is unequivocal, the null hypothesis should be that all weather events are affected by global warming rather than the inane statements along the lines of ‘of course we cannot attribute any particular weather event to global warming.’”
Isn’t that how you prove the existence of God…??
Surely this is all further evidence that even the AGWers realise that the facts don’t seem to be supporting the science. They thus have to resort to ridiculous politicisation and polemic to try and drum up support,
Your leftists seem to be just as stupid as our leftists.
@Mike g At the bottom of the financial meltdown, the price of oil went down to about $35/bbl in the futures market. Some of that was forced selling and margin calls some of it was outright fear of a depression. http://www.inflationdata.com/inflation/inflation_rate/historical_oil_prices_table.asp has a monthly crude price at the bottom for 2009 to the present. The low price was $31/bbl in feb 2009.
The most dangerous place to be standing after a freak weather event is between a grant-seeking climate scientist and a microphone.
Apart from his incredibly ignorant argument Brad Johnson’s web- site is about the worst presented site I’ve seen. It’s barely legible which I suppose matches his intellect. But all that is trumped by the pathetic statements and sentiment expressed in the comment section. ‘Burning witch’ mentality is still with us in spades. I guess that is one measure of human progress in our so called civilisation.
Douglas
So Mother Nature is punishing those who don’t believe in global warming by unleashing tornadoes? Doesn’t sound too different than when Pat Robertson said Hurricane Katrina was God’s wrath on New Orleans. Media Matters was all over criticizing Robertson for that idiotic statement: http://mediamatters.org/research/201001130044 – will they do the same here?
Of course I know they won’t – but it’s always good to point out hypocrisy.
Anthony, i see you don’t list Joe Romm in your blog roll anymore. Shouldn’t he be under “Tools”? 😉
Climate Pollution….?
The only climate that’s getting polluted is the political climate. I smell the odiferous, scent of sleazy, unscrupulous, politicians stumping in public.
This can be a good thing though. It’s nice to be able to sniff out the belly crawlers, web spinners, and other assorted vermin, before it’s time to go to the polls.
Brad Johnson has another article up about the “link” between AGW and the tornadoes;
quotes Trenberth, Michael Mann, Gavin Schmidt.
http://www.webcitation.org/5yJLBOgTq
This could become a great clusterf*ck for the lot of them… I mean, let them pat each other on the back as we watch the SST cool (see UniSys SST on the ENSO page!) … they are talking themselves into a tight spot…
Think(sic) Progress(sic) is well known for publishing this sort of drivel.
DirkH says:
April 29, 2011 at 1:57 pm
“Brad Johnson has another article up about the “link” between AGW and the tornadoes;”
Sorry, wrong link; their strange website with this webcite thing somehow fudges it all up. I mean this one:
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/29/climate-science-tornadoes/
I am disgusted by the fact that this disaster has been politicised to such a degree before the people who have been killed by these horrendous storms have been buried.
I would have expected a certain lag in attempting to ascribe either blame or causation for these events in order to permit the bereaved to re-arrange their lives.
Not to do so, whilst invoking the political leanings of the Representatives of the afflicted areas as a causative factor, is, to my mind, an act of crass stupidity and insensitivity.
One could expect nothing more from those who wish to profit from this tragedy.
How sad.
@Bennett says:
You can find the price of oil on 19 Jan 2009 here: http://www.prices-oil.org/daily-oil-prices/daily-crude-oil-prices-19th-january-2009/ in about .2 seconds if you don’t “stuble” while typing. FWIW Obama was inaugurated the next day.
@ Bennett, Smokey and the rest re. price of gasoline and oil.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_home_page.html
I’m not saying the govt. is always correct, but they’re pretty authoritative in this regard…… that said, there are always regional fluctuations.
Another fairly authoritative source, the NYSE in regards to the price of crude…………
http://www.nyse.tv/crude-oil-price-history.htm
Looks like Smokey pretty much nailed it.
Well, now – you good ‘ol boys down there had better get behind the science pretty darn quick if y’all ain’t gonna get some more of them TORNADOES…
Hanged if the Miss-hippy ain’t gonna rise up and DROWN all you non-believers real soon…
Al Gored says:
April 29, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Hmmm. Just anticipating the next fake linkage…
Breaking News! Alabama Pika Population Entirely Wiped Out By Tornadoes!
===========================================
That and brown recluse spiders – might, maybe, could – move further north into territories where they have historically been for ages………….
Curiousgeorge says: “Not all Southerners are religious. I’m not and I reside in MS. But we do like our guns, and we know how to use them. 😉 We also like our freedoms, and we know how to use those also.” (April 29, 2011 at 12:10 pm )
Goodness, I hope you don’t think that I buy into that; it’s what many of the commenters on the Think Progress appear to assume automatically. Odd, how the lefties, who always claim the moral high ground on everything there is, repeatedly reveal themselves as angry, spiteful, prejudiced and violent. I sure hope they don’t ever get comfortable with guns and ammo, because I’ll doubt they’ll use them in defense of freedoms.
Truly shocking and upsetting.
The ‘Kiwi’s’ must be very proud of him.
hmm, the CenteR for American Progress?
As you have recently reported a reduction in CO2 emissions in the USA how can it be the driver?…. and since your temps have been through a very cold period there cannot be warming driving this.
What is more I understand storms come from a meeting of cold fronts with warm fronts, so more heat means less cold fronts, means less storms.
Therefore would somebody out there please commit Trenberth to a lunatic asylum….preferably one with Jack Nicholson in residence complete with axe!
If you are a follower of the church of AGW then the concept of divine retribution will come naturally to you. It has been meted out to the unbelievers in those unfortunate states.
there is no other way to describe such behaviour but disgusting – still, give ’em enough rope and they will hopefully hang themselves – but even that’s too good for them IMHO.
Holden Magroin says:
April 29, 2011 at 12:29 pm
That’s funny…these kinds of storms were once blamed on Global Cooling…
Like in this TIME article from 1974
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
Scientists have found other indications of global cooling. For one thing there has been a noticeable expansion of the great belt of dry, high-altitude polar winds — the so-called circumpolar vortex—that sweep from west to east around the top and bottom of the world. etc
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/extreme/gfs/current/nhdt.html
it looks like that another storm is underway
You want to see a hockey stick
http://www.bullionvault.com/gold-price-chart.do
PS I should have made it clear that my post was sarcastic.
Don’t mess with Mother Nature. Gaia has been monitoring CSPAN very closely and is making a list and checking it twice of all legislators who have been naughty or nice… Yes, Climate Change is a religion and Earth Day is the new Christmas.
This is my translation of Dr. Trenberth’s comments: “Given that global warming is unequivocal” and the science is settled, we already know all the answers. Therefore there’s no reason to do any more climate studies. But the funding will dry up if we stop doing them. So we will continue doing half-hearted climate research, cherry-picking data, and using incomplete models just to make sure the gravy train continues.
To sort of paraphrase Val Kilmer (Doc Holliday) in Tombstone:
His hypocrisy knows no bounds.
I find it interesting that xkcd had a cartoon on the null hypothesis today.
http://xkcd.com/892/
Those of us who try to use statistics and numerical thinking to make informed decisions, and who try to spread such thinking, are being undermined by those who look at data as material for creating a predetermined spin. Sometimes I fear for Western Civilization.
For the La Niña connection, see
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2011/04/are-eastern-us-tornadoes-and-our-cold.html
So by Trenberth’s logic, global warming affected the UK for the last 3 weeks so we have had a good spring weather event, as opposed to the series of hurricanes weather event we could have had.
From what I have read so far over 300 people have been killed so far. Here is a selection from the past. It’s worse that we thought – fewer people back in the day.
TORNADO DEATHS:
[Nashua Daily Telegraph – May 29, 1896]
“Over Three Hundred Dead Bodies in St. Louis and East St. Louis.”
[The Atlanta Constitution – Apr 26, 1908]
“Nearly, 400 lives lost,…”
[Herald-Journal – Mar 19, 1925]
“…the total dead at 957…”
[New York Times – March 24, 1932]
“TORNADO DEAD 329”
[Los Angeles Times – Apr 8, 1936]
“TORNADOES’ DEATH TOLL PASSES 400”
Intellectual pollution, I’d say.
You have sinned, oh sinners, against the might of the Great and Glorious Gaia, for which you have been punished! Now repent, ‘fore you are punished further!
/sarc
Feeling a tad ill, just thinking of people like that.
Over on Huffpo they have a story – 2011 Tornadoes: Is Climate Change To Blame For The Devastating Weather? where it mentions –
(emphasis mine)
I can’t figure out where in the report they are painting that positive correlation but if the research was preliminary in 2008 then why isn’t there something more current for them to report three years later? Perhaps their claim of correlation in 2008 was found to be premature?
Dr T G Watkins says:
April 29, 2011 at 2:11 pm
Truly shocking and upsetting.
The ‘Kiwi’s’ must be very proud of him.
——————————————————
Wash your mouth out! And it was my city too!!!
Douglas
How cool. Gaia follows Alabama politics. Who Knew?
I do recall quite clearly that a gallon was around $2 min here in Southern California just before Obama was elected. California gasoline is *always* higher than the rest of the nation due to extra taxes thrown on, and special blends depending on season required by our great unelected CARB people. So yes, I would agree with all who are saying that Gas was indeed ~$2 a gallon within the last 5 years.
What has happened since then? Oh, our great federal government started printing money to make up for Fannie and Freddie. I doubt we’ll see $2 again unless the Feds start a massive buyback of their own outrageous debt.
James Sexton,
I was going by memory regarding gasoline prices when Obama took office. I paid $1.87/gal that day. Thanks for the chart. I see that the lowest price was around his inaguration.
All Obama has to do to drive gas prices back down to that level again is to lift the drilling moratorium he imposed upon being sworn in as president.
But Obama can’t do that, because he is a wholly owned subsidiary of the enviro-lobby. So everyone suffers, and the poorest suffer the most.
@ Smokey, boballab, mike g, bobbyj0708, ShrNfr, DonS, James Sexton, Jeremy…
I stand corrected, but I have to say that if it ever dropped to below $2.50/gal in northern VT I missed it. I remember the price going to over $3/gal and then dropping back slightly for about 6 months, but since then it has been either static or gradually increasing. Granted, we are a long way from the refineries.
Thanks for the civil corrections. My comment wasn’t based on ideology, just what I remember about the price at the pump.
What took so long for them to jump on this? That ain’t like these loons. Love the Chevron sign in the shot though – priceless…
Looks like he thinks he’s on a roll – Brad Johnson pulls in Michael Mann and Gavin Schmidt quotes to support the storms being related to climate change (and not a return to 1974 conditions).
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/29/climate-science-tornadoes/
Kevin Trenberth: “It is irresponsible not to mention climate change. … The environment in which all of these storms and the tornadoes are occurring has changed from human influences.
Michael Mann: “Climate change is present in every single meteorological event.”
Gavin Schmidt: “this latest outbreak must in some sense have been affected, but attribution is hard.”
Peter Kovachev says:
April 29, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Curiousgeorge says: “Not all Southerners are religious. I’m not and I reside in MS. But we do like our guns, and we know how to use them. 😉 We also like our freedoms, and we know how to use those also.” (April 29, 2011 at 12:10 pm )
Goodness, I hope you don’t think that I buy into that; it’s what many of the commenters on the Think Progress appear to assume automatically. Odd, how the lefties, who always claim the moral high ground on everything there is, repeatedly reveal themselves as angry, spiteful, prejudiced and violent. I sure hope they don’t ever get comfortable with guns and ammo, because I’ll doubt they’ll use them in defense of freedoms.
Not at all. I understood what you said and agree with you. 🙂 I apologize for any confusion.
Is it a benefit of climate change as well, that there have been no tornados in the other 45 states ?
Smokey says:
April 29, 2011 at 3:37 pm
James Sexton,
I was going by memory regarding gasoline prices when Obama took office. I paid $1.87/gal that day. Thanks for the chart. I see that the lowest price was at his inaguration.
All Obama has to do to drive gas prices back down to that level again is to lift the drilling moratorium he imposed upon being sworn in as president.
But Obama can’t do that, because he is a wholly owned subsidiary of the enviro-lobby. So everyone suffers, and the poorest suffer the most.
===================================================
Agreed, but, as you probably know, its getting worse. I don’t know how far down he’s going to let this nation’s economy slip. And mind you, while I agree that he could do some very simple things to help, he’s not the only responsible party to this mess we’re in.
For anyone that hasn’t figured this tricky economics thingy out yet, in order to right the ship, we need, cheap energy, cheap fuel, and less interfering regulations, and we need to start making things in the U.S. again. Something of intrinsic value.
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/75000-Applied-for-2000-Available-McJobs–120952429.html?dr
Admin, I submitted a good comment relative to the oil discussion. It was a bit link heavy and is probably stuck in the spam filter.
REPLY: Don’t see it – could be a posting failure – Anthony
From the Southeast Missourian:
Well… not if they insist on ignoring new theories, such as a new one on water vapors influence in relation to tornadoes, hurricanes and the overall global pressure system such as one by Dr. Anastasia Marakieva et al.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/11/02/new-atmospheric-model-says-tail-wags-dog/
Take it from a sailplane pilot, get up there and play with those cute little cumulus clouds that sometimes become monsters. You will recognize the her idea, you will have felt it in the moisture.
It is not merely the heat that causes those events, heat has it’s role, but it is H2O vapor. Tornadoes are implosions, not explosions of heat and it is water vapor that drives them to fury.
Let’s see if I can paint it… the warm air rising is what creates the mild and slow ascent of air. That is the ‘engines’ of a sailplane. Also you have the relative humidity rising as you get carried higher and higher toward the cloud base. At the cloud base you hit 100% relative and condensation starts to occur and that causes conversion of 1000 units of water vapor to 1 unit of water in tiny droplet form intensifying the rise, and your variometer (measures rate of ascent/descent) clearly shows that as it pegs upward. Latent heat is being created but the drop in pressure (very local) is compensating this volume decrease.
Now, take a tornado. The same scenario is occurring as you stand on the ground looking upward at the wall cloud. The slight lowering of the wall cloud is that 100% relative humidity level. But thinks get out of control just ABOVE the wall cloud. You will see a very distinct violent mixing of the frigid upper layer aid being stirred in with the warm totally saturated air just below. This is where the violent implosion occurs and it is that 1) violent mixing of temperatures with the 2) total saturation that causes the violence right there.
A 1 volume of cold air and 1 volume of hot air when suddenly mixed will have a volume of 2. BUT, a 1 volume of cold air and a 1 volume of 100% saturated warm air suddenly and thoroughly mixed volumes will have a much lower volume as the condensation occurs immediately. BAM! The sudden implosion.
That is why very frigid upper air is dangerous if lots of moisture is around. That is here paper with the equations.
As long as enough warm to hot already near saturated air can flow into this event from below this mixing and volume implosion will continue. Walla, a tornado. On a bigger scale, a hurricane. On an ever bigger scale (but here slow and mild) ocean/continental systems. Some may be heat only but it doesn’t then make sense to me anyway.
Can not anyone see that?
I didn’t know that some Alarmists were “on a mission from God”.
Now have the Church of GAIA due to the implication that States that have -denier- lawmakers are being punished for thier eco-sins.
To that implication I say: The rain falls on the just and the unjust alike.
I have an updated article on this issue here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/29/the-folly-of-linking-tornado-outbreaks-to-climate-change/
Dennis Cox,
Submitted to Urban Dictionary this morning:
climate pollution– The number of references to global warming, climate change, or greenhouse gases made on the internet or in other media.
e.g., During the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, the increase in climate pollution was at an all time high.
tags: climate noise, noise pollution, disinformation, signal-to-noise ratio, propaganda
Re-submission:
Commodities will come down when we have the prospect of a good solid recovery. That will happen when the US has a solid, aggressive energy policy.
We need to stop tilting at windmills (they are not economical and only profitable for manufacturer/sellers).
We need to drill the Gulf, the coasts, ANWAR, and the Arctic. And, build some fracking distribution infrastructure.
Concerns about the arctic are silly. Likely, there is more natural gas than oil there. Horizon like spill worries will soon prove to be unfounded. The oil may be heavier and the temps reduce evaporation, but the gulf spill proved dispersants. The bacteria that process oil are most efficient in cool waters and high pressures. Even if the temps are too low for the gulf bacteria, certainly the arctic has its own share of seepage. It must have bacteria suited for its environment, otherwise there’d be a bunch of oil just below the ice.
The argument that we shouldn’t drill because we don’t have enough oil to reduce prices is a pitiful strawman. So what? That’s a good thing. Every barrel we produce increases GDP by the price, it also increases GDP a second time by reducing imports by the price. This is all before even considering multiplier effects.
In the meantime, while we are waiting for US production to come online, we should institute a carbon tax in the form of a tax on long positions in Oil. A tax rate which increases with the purchase price, and ends in 2-3 years (when US production begins coming online). There is a natural bias against the short side of commodity futures. A small tax would help balance things out. We need more down-side speculation. Of course, all the revenue should go to transportation or energy distribution infrastructure.
Also, don’t underestimate the signaling power of an aggressive US energy policy.
When we hoard, how can we expect less of other producers. If we stop hoarding and announce that we must take advantage of our resources before alternatives collapse the price, the rise in other producers’ capacity and efficiency may well be fantastic.
All I can say, besides expressing my sympathies to the families who lost love ones and property – everything – to a natural disaster, is that NOTHING surprises me any more about the climate elites. The utter disdain and contempt they show for their fellow citizens by trying to link a natural disaster to climate change is beyond my comprehension…they can’t even wait until the people who suffered horribly have had time to grieve…
Given the historical record, and given that we know that CO2 causes everything, obviously CO2 reduces deaths from tornados. Look at the evidence!
Best,
Frank
Luboš, Gavin said no such thing. You should really apologize for your statement.
James Sexton says:
April 29, 2011 at 4:29 pm
Smokey says:
April 29, 2011 at 3:37 pm
James Sexton,
I was going by memory regarding gasoline prices when Obama took office. I paid $1.87/gal that day. Thanks for the chart. I see that the lowest price was at his inaguration.
All Obama has to do to drive gas prices back down to that level again is to lift the drilling moratorium he imposed upon being sworn in as president.
But Obama can’t do that, because he is a wholly owned subsidiary of the enviro-lobby. So everyone suffers, and the poorest suffer the most.
===================================================
“Agreed, but, as you probably know, its getting worse. I don’t know how far down he’s going to let this nation’s economy slip. And mind you, while I agree that he could do some very simple things to help, he’s not the only responsible party to this mess we’re in.
For anyone that hasn’t figured this tricky economics thingy out yet, in order to right the ship, we need, cheap energy, cheap fuel, and less interfering regulations, and we need to start making things in the U.S. again. Something of intrinsic value.”
You’re right, Obama is not the only responsible party. There are others involved. But if they were to do the things you recommend they would be sabotaging their own agenda. Which is, as Obama eloquently described during the campaign, to “fundamentally change” America. Why would they wish to sabotage their own plan, when it is working so well for them? Disruption, confusion, economic hardship, civil unrest, etc. all work to their advantage.
One thing that always bugged me was: why do oil companies have to increase the price of gas when the oil price goes up? It’s not as if they have to pay more for it. It comes out of the ground basically for free.
Wow. Just when you think the alarmists have hit bottom, someone grabs a shovel.
Sorry, Sir, but your figures seem to end five years ago. Am I wrong?
From Ryan Maue on April 29, 2011 at 11:07 am:
He had some extra time in his schedule. I saw on the news earlier that the Obama’s had flown down to watch the space shuttle Endeavor’s launch, which was scrubbed. (Story.) It wasn’t a total loss as he got some camera time in with both commander Mark Kelly and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
With the launch scrubbed three hours before lift-off, Obama was able to get in almost two hours on the ground, driving around with his carbon pollution-spewing motorcade. Later he actually did some walking around on foot. (Story.)
No mention if he stopped off for some more fundraising during the jaunt, as he’s prone to do. Wouldn’t surprise me one bit. Wouldn’t surprise me if he was doing the fundraising in Alabama, while discussing building up his re-election campaign with the politicians he was meeting with to discuss the damage. Not one bit.
How long now before the acolytes of the Great and Powerful Goracle call for the only way to appease the Mother Gaia and calm her wrath, the ultimate sacrifice, on a platform high on a pyramid of stone, with an obsidian knife poised, ready to rip open the young chest, still the beating heart, and rid the world of the sinner’s vile CO2?
Don’t laugh. Are we that far away from the minds of our ancestors?
/Mr Lynn
I was just wondering–how does one “pollute a climate”?
Jimmy Haigh says:
April 29, 2011 at 6:53 pm
Well, Jimmy, if your premise that it’s all free, you should be able to go out in your back yard and just scoop up a tankful and pour it in your car. But let me give you a little perspective: I don’t know of a single drilling rig (land or sea-based) that can be leased for $0; I don’t know of a single redneck on a drilling rig that will work for free, either, and I don’t know of a single landowner (whether private or government) that doesn’t charge a significant royalty on oil extracted from their land. Add to that the simple fact that it isn’t the oil companies that set the price–like siver, gold, or any other commodity, it is generally traded on the open market, meaning there has to be a willing buyer and a willing seller, and in this situation multiple buyers are vying for the same oil, so the seller just sits there and watches the price go up in a bidding war. Why? Supply isn’t meeting demand. It’s that simple.
But to also answer your question about price coupling, if crude prices go up, the products derived from that crude also have to go up, otherwise there isn’t any margin to pay for the exploration, development, production, refining, transportation, and so forth so you have the gas (albeit rather expensive) to get to work. Or do you work for free or not at all?
I think I finally realize that “Galt” is my middle name.
François Marchand says:
April 29, 2011 at 7:04 pm
Sorry, Sir, but your figures seem to end five years ago. Am I wrong?
Seems like two to me, but would you personally call the “National Climatic Data Center” (NCDC) and ask them to update their graphics. The more that call, the better the chance they might release up-to-date data that has already been paid for by the United States citizens. Thank you, that sure would help, their multi-year lags irritate me too.
kadaka at 7:13 pm
Actually, he toured Alabama before the Shuttle launch was scrubbed. Then flew down to meet with the STS-134 crew afterward. He was scheduled to watch the launch.
He is a total fuck-up in my book EXCEPT for his FY2011 NASA Budget proposal. You know what they say about stopped clocks? On this he was right. Commercial Crew and Fuel Depots, using existing ELVs instead of building a huge new NASA rocket.
I may not know much about climate science, but HSF is my schtick.
Visit http://www.spacepolitics.com/
Jeff Foust is the Anthony Watts of Space Stuff…
Gasoline princes I paid at a few points:
2008 Dec 1: $1.699
2008 Dec 30: $1.529
2009 Jan 18: $1.699
2009 Feb 2: $1.819
2009 Mar 4: $1.719
2009 Apr 1: $1.939
2009 May 1: $1.979
2009 Jun 1: $2.459
2009 Jul 2: $2.529
2010 Jan 1: $2.599
I haven’t transcribed the receipts for this year yet. The last tankful was $3.839, but an attendant was changing the signage to $3.879 while I was getting the gas.
RockyRoad says:
April 29, 2011 at 7:36 pm
I am a geologist working in the oil industry.
Once a field comes on production, after a certain time paying for the costs of exploration etc., it’s all profit.
I base things on the cost of oil per barrel. My day rate now is about 10 barrels per day. When I started as a wellsite geologist, 8 years ago, my day rate was 30 barrels per day.
Ric, This has been bugging me, so I tried to reconcile my memory with what you, and Smokey and others have been saying. I did a search and here is a chart of average prices for the State of Vermont:
http://66.70.86.64/ChartServer/ch.gaschart?Country=Canada&Crude=f&Period=60&Areas=Vermont,,&Unit=US%20$/G
I don’t remember the 6 month period (my son was 2 1/2 and learning to walk and talk…) when prices dropped below $2.50/gal, but that’s what the graph says they did. Oh well, my apologies to all. Just goes to show how things can slip past you when you have kids.
This is interesting to review…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_F5_and_EF5_tornadoes
The only one of these monsters I witnessed was the supercell for the Plainfield, IL F5 tornado, from about 100 miles south. I turned to my chum and said “Whoever is underneath that thing is getting hammered!” Little did I know…
As Wichita falls, so falls Wichita Falls.
These guys are desperate. They have been running a scam that is several orders of magnitude larger than Maddoff’s. They will now say anything to buy some time. They are becoming a joke. Just for fun look at the comments on climate articles on Huff Post. The skeptics are now laughing at the alarmists. The alarmists are getting really nasty, which elicits more joking from the skeptics. You know you are in real trouble when people are laughing at you. Nothing hurts more than that.
The wheels are coming off this bus.
Jeff Alberts:
“Gavin said no such thing.”
He didn’t use the same words I did but he wrote the same content, or at least he wanted the reader to make exactly this conclusion and many fanatical AGW readers will do nothing else. That’s the only reason why he wrote a message about tornadoes in the thread.
There is clearly no link between tornadoes and the topic of climate change discussed in the main article of RealClimate.ORG – unless one claims that tornadoes are encouraged by climate change – which is the first part of Gavin’s statement. And there’s absolutely no reason to discuss the relative position of Roy Spencer and the tornadoes. About 1/50 of the Americans live in Alabama and Spencer is among them. Richard Lindzen and most others are not.
So Schmidt also implicitly claims by his observation of the “coincidence” that Spencer’s location has some relevance for the topic of climate change.
Cheers
LM
And of course we should listen very carefully to Kevin (Can’t find the missing heat) Trenberth because he has the most accurate models and is better places to make such claims about Global Warming causing these tornadoes.
Perhaps he should go and find the missing heat and make comments only after he has found it.
As a long term critic of the way the BBC have reported these kinds of events as “yet further proof of global warming”, I have to say that the complete absence of any mention of climate change clearly marks a complete change in BBC reporting.
Obviously, like the boy who cried wolf, it will take an awful long time before we can trust the BBC on climate, but at least it is making the long journey back to impartiality in this area.
One thing to remember. When the world cools down, these bad weather patterns will accelerate enormously. It is, after all heat differentials that create bad weather. So there will be much more of this nonsense.
I think the public would see through the alarmist stuff in this case. Disgusting, I agree, because it seems these folks are happy there’s a big death toll just to prove (in their minds) a point. But it is nothing to be worried about – ultimately truth comes out. Don’t let yourself slip to their level. By once again responding with some useful information you’re showing you are not answering cheap shot with cheap shot.
Gerard Harbison says:
April 29, 2011 at 11:07 am
Think Progress is the leftist equivalent of the Westboro Baptist Church.
I know I’m late to this game, but a minor correction. They supported Al Gore and Fred Phelps ran as a Democrat for governor and the senate.
The Westboro Baptists *are* the left’s equivalent of the Westboro Baptists.
Dear Southern Storm Victims, you’re dead because you didn’t believe in Global Warming.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/04/dear_southern_storm_victims_yo.html
I’ve seen a wonderful picture of Al Gore and Fred Phelps laughing it up. It was a while ago, but still.
==========
Yep, at flickr.com, #4 on the Google list for ‘Fred Phelps and Al Gore’.
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Bennett says @April 29, 2011 at 8:30 pm [ … ],
Memories play tricks on us, Bennett. [Just wait ’till you’re in your ’60’s!]
Good on you for being a stand-up guy and apologizing. When I made my original comment I was going by memory; a risky proposition. But I recalled that on inauguration day I was listening to the radio while waiting to fill my tank, and thinking that gas prices at $1.87 were finally getting back to normal.
Only five days later Obama imposed an onerous new drilling moratorium on the country, and the chart you posted shows the result: the futures market pushed prices up to current levels, knowing that future supplies would be restricted.
Curiousgeorge and James Sexton are right, this is not entirely Obama’s fault – he’s just the puppet of the eco-lobby. But Obama could singlehandedly reverse the price rise by doing exactly what George Bush did: announce that he was lifting his new drilling moratorium and encouraging oil production from everywhere, including Alaska’s north slope. The results would be immediate, and the great weight of high gas prices would be lifted off the backs of Americans [prices in the the EU countries are more a function of taxes, but they would also see immediate relief].
But Obama is a captive of the eco-zealots. He may take the minimal action required to insure his own political survival, but he wasn’t kidding when he said that prices will necesarily rise. His whole administration consists of people pushing to raise the price of energy to Euro levels [IIRC, in some European cities the dollar equivalent is around $12 a gallon].
The entire basis for this heavy burden, and the concomitant craziness of heavily subsidized alternative energy windmills, is the false belief that CO2 [“carbon”] is dangerous. It is not. It is a tiny trace gas essential to life, comprising only 0.00039 of the air. It is completely harmless and beneficial at both current and projected levels.
Your son is going to grow up in a world of shortages and rationing, of very expensive food and energy, and arbitrary rule by nameless, faceless bureaucrats – unless we can derail the slow motion “carbon” train wreck. It is the biggest scam in history; it is based on anti-science, and it will take all of our effort to force a change in course.
Cheap energy is achievable. The only real obstacle is bad government policy.
If the climate morons want to whine about mankinds release of greenhouse gases causing the atmosphere to warm up and do….well, something, why is that the three largest tornado outbreaks in the last 60 years in the month of April have come during cooling trends? April 1965, 1974, and 2011, all periods during cooling. Remember, they were all sorts of worried about a coming ice age during the mid-1970’s.
Smokey says:
April 30, 2011 at 5:39 am
……………………………….
While this thread is primarily focused on weather/climate/energy, the issue I mentioned in connection with this is far more comprehensive. Those are only a subset of a larger agenda – a tactic if you will rather than a grand strategy. Think about what is included in the phrase “Fundamental Transformation” . What are the fundamentals of American culture and society? What process and end result is implied by transformation of those fundamentals? Do not allow yourself to be distracted by the little things.
Proof positive that global warming is more a cult than it is science.
Smokey says: April 30, 2011 at 5:39 am
Thank you for your kind response. My original comment didn’t come off as I intended, and then to be so wrong to boot was shameful. I’m 52 and already see how double checking fact versus memory is mandatory. It’s not that the memory is bad, it’s that we have a lot of memories to sort through.
High regards,
Bennett
Jimmy Haigh says:
April 29, 2011 at 8:20 pm
And for 20 years I was a geologist and mining engineer working in the coal/precious metals/dimension stone sectors of the industry. What must be considered is the total ROI and NPV of a project, then collectively as a company comprised of many projects.
But your point about “it’s all profit” is simply not true–you still have royalties, processing and production costs (or do you work for free?), profit for those “greedy investors”, and taxes on the profit–more so when you convert the raw crude to salable product.
Then expand your scope to include all the activities your company undertakes to survive, and there’s a constant expenditure to find new reserves (one of the companies I worked for spent $10 million every year on exploration alone), the fact that oil wells are a finite resource and eventually quit producing, and on top of that the fact that oil reserves worldwide are shrinking–and while some of your costs may be completely amortized, nothing is pure profit. Indeed, if you don’t have a significant payback period on most of the production, your company will no longer have a future; it will end up going out of business.
It is sad for science that one of its most outspoken members, Michael Mann, resorts to kindergarden intelligence, splicing two different graphs to concoct his famous Hockey Stick. This Frankengraph is discredited by simply looking at the 10,000 year GISP2 temperature record. We are getting colder and colder Dr. Mann, and you know it! You should be ashamed of yourself for continuing this charade.
I realize this post is getting old, but Pielke Jr. has an interesting post up:
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/05/revkin-on-tornadoes-vulnerability-and.html
Revkin has another lucid moment. I wonder if he hasn’t been trolling WUWT comments for ideas:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/29/never-let-a-good-crisis-go-to-waste-tornado-deaths-blamed-on-lawmakers-opposed-to-climate-legislation/#comment-650620
Of course, global warming alarmists could argue this point the other way. Since the 100-year trend in temperatures in the South (0.00 deg F./decade) and Southeast (-.05 deg F./decade) has been neutral or declining (see NCDC’s “Climate at a Glance” website), not rising, the graphs showing a decline in violent tornadoes and a decline in the number of deaths from tornadoes are completely consistent with being alarmed about the dangerous effects of global warming!