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/
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