Post by Ryan Maue
It’s a wonder why the media continue to trot out the likes of Bill Nye and Michio Kaku to speak about climate change and the weather when they already have folks like Al Roker and Sam Champion on the payroll.
For some unknown reason, Bill Nye showed up on Fox News Saturday afternoon to chat with Uma Pemmaraju about tornadoes Video Link. The meandering answers by Nye led to many quizzical looks by Uma, who got out of the way, and let Nye demonstrate his meteorological expertise. One should ask, as Amy Ridenour does in her off-base, satirical videos, is Bill Nye smarter than a 5th grader when it comes to understanding the weather?
And a NPR blogger wonders what motivates Climate Change Deniers?
Jeff Poor, over at the Daily Caller (where Anthony is a contributor), has the transcript:
“Well, it is very difficult to connect tornado to climate change,” Nye said. “They are small even relative to the other big picture. But i will tell you this – last 11 years are the warmest 11 years on record, since the 1800s. And there is 4 percent more water vapor in the atmosphere than has been in the past. Four percent doesn’t sound like a lot but it is a huge amount. And if you think of the Earth as a disk in space just receiving sunlight, and there are on the other of one and half billion BTU [British thermal unit]-worth of heat than there used to be. When you get that much extra heat and water vapor in the air, you are going to have more storms.”
“Notice that the floods that are probably connected to the tornadoes,” he said. “These floods – there is no Katrina or Rita, it just rain rained. When water vapor changed from a liquid to a vapor it gives up heat high in the atmosphere, or medium height in the atmosphere. And that heat up there makes it churn up more and that leads to more storms. Now, people have talked about this for years and everybody, this is serious business. The tornado is very difficult to mathematically connect to climate change. But the rains and extra warmth in the atmosphere, the extra water in the atmosphere, those are the facts. That’s the real deal.”
“You know, we are patriots, we are from the U.S. – I am,” he said. “And you would like the U.S. to be the leader in addressing this problem. We would like to be out in front in trying to deal with whatever it is that is holding in the heat and creating all of the extra water vapor in the atmosphere. Tornadoes are almost certainly a consequence.”
“Well, there is not that many other countries that have the configuration of North America to make the tornadoes,” Nye said. “And the word hurricane is a word coined in the Caribbean. This is a unique area in that regard. We have the Gulf of Mexico and we have this access of cold air from Canada or from the Arctic. And these two things conspire to move the jet stream, and then that helps to carry the extra water vapor over the heart of North America. So, it is unique place. You don’t have tornado in Norway. The weather is set up differently. But here in the U.S., it is a serious problem.”
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Bill Nye should just admit he knows nothing about the weather or climate change and let the professionals like Al Roker, Sam Champion, and Michio Kaku explain it to the rest of us.
Climate expert Michio Kaku: “El Niña” or global warming causing snowstorms, or something
Al Roker believes climate change is moving tornadoes into urban areas
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That Nye guy looks like Pee-wee Herman.
And has the brains to match.
Nye was distracted by concern that Dr. Lindzen was waiting in the wings to pwn him again, …. I was kinda hoping, too, ….
I disagree with Bill Nye on his climate change stance…but I’d give him a pass on this whole idea of tornadoes being more a US problem. The US does have a disproportionately large number of tornadoes.
…of course, TECHNICALLY global warming should weaken the temperature gradients that help form such massive storm systems, so linking it to global warming is probably just plain wrong.
Bill Nye is talking out of his AUSTRAL end.
Ewwww. TMI….I know….TMI….but heck, it is the truth.
Sorry for all the mates down under. I don’t mean the metaphor to carry that far.
Just a figure of speech. 🙂
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
P.S. Not sure why anybody would or should listen to him. He (Nye) has absoultely nothing to say. He is an NPR-propped automaton.
Hey Bill! Go back to mechanical engineering. At least there are some REAL equations there. Maybe you could be of some help.
You are of NO help, however, as the “science guy.”
EASY Dr. Maue; it isn’t ‘conservatives’ that have a lock on so-called ‘think tanks’. Don’t start something you find yourself ill-equipped to defend.
(I’ve encountered more than my share of nit-wit PhDs out here in the field and in labs.)
.
Bill Nye is included in the “97% of scientists agree with climate change theory” figure, right?
Ryan Maue says:
May 28, 2011 at 5:07 pm
“At least with this post, I’m not being pilloried by “conservatives” who subscribed to the “Think-Tank” reasoning. ”
Jeez Louise, Ryan! You really don’t take criticism well, do you? We all take shots and occasional spoofing from opposing views, in our professional careers. That’s part of the usual ‘back and forth’. It can be unsettling (if you let it) and often gets worse, if you do not respond directly to requests to show your data, correlations, and proposed cause and effect relationships. In my job as an engineer, I am expected to ‘stand and deliver’ the hard data and analyses every day, to justify the assertions I make. The data and analyses are reviewed and critiqued by knowledgeable peers, before my company proceeds with financial and strategic decisions that may be based on my work. That is standard procedure in private industry… and should be the same within the taxpayer funded government agencies as well.
I had not read the other post that you referred to, until I saw your puckish comment on this one. After reading all of the post, related links, and comments, I noted that a number of the folks on that post asked you repeatedly to provide your supporting data. You did not. Why not? Failing to do so opens you to more criticism, and rightfully so.
As for your comment above, immediately below the link to the video you strenuously objected to was this note “The video isn’t being released to question the professionalism or dedication of NOAA experts,…..”. The ‘think tank’ was not pillorying you personally, as their caveat stated.
Perhaps this is not about ‘think tank reasoning’ or ‘conservative pillorying’. You were asked to ‘stand and deliver’ your data and analyses… and you did not. Until you do, criticism is warranted and your analyses are degraded. The ad hominem attacks do nothing to strengthen your assertions either.
_Jim says:
May 28, 2011 at 9:20 pm
Ryan Maue says on May 28, 2011 at 5:07 pm
At least with this post, I’m not being pilloried by “conservatives” who subscribed to the “Think-Tank” reasoning.
EASY Dr. Maue; it isn’t ‘conservatives’ that have a lock on so-called ‘think tanks’. Don’t start something you find yourself ill-equipped to defend.
(I’ve encountered more than my share of nit-wit PhDs out here in the field and in labs.)
===============================
EASY..nothing of the sorts. What’s YOUR qualifications??
He has a point. And really WHO is ill-equipped to ‘defend’ here??
Maybe you would do well examining “the nit-wit PhDs and labs” and otherwise GROUPTHINK phenomenon yes-men detritus bullsh*t blah blah blah…as being part of the problem….not the symptom.
‘EASY’….nothing…my arse….you have no authority nor say so in the ability to even pronounce that word ‘EASY’.
But hey…thanks for the laugh.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
He’s not smarter than Richard Lindzen
John Q. Galt says:
May 28, 2011 at 9:28 pm
> Bill Nye is included in the “97% of scientists agree with climate change theory” figure, right?
I’ve always considered him an entertainer. I have no idea if he’s a scientist or not. Other than that, yeah, he’s a serious warmist.
He’s not smarter than Joe Bastardi—but he is more smug
He sounds like a schoolchild who has not completed an assignment and is asked to explain it to rest of the class . Just went off on a ramble of unconnected thoughts.
Why has Bill Nye become a political advocate? He used to be a fun guy on his show.
I’m still wondering if Bill Nye thinks it’s ok that some global warming scientists truncated and spliced two different graphs together to do “Mike’s Nature trick”? What does the scientist in him say about that?
Slightly O/T…but would any of you with 5th graders of your own leave them alone with Bill Nye?
“That Nye guy looks like Pee-wee Herman. And has the brains to match”
I’ve got to disagree on that one, Herman’s idea to masturbate in public was a considerably smarter decision than Nye’s attempt to debate with Lindzen and Joe B.
I think poor Bill just got the H2O phase changes in the upper atmosphere reversed. Said “liquid to vapour” when he meant “vapour to liquid”. Being charitable.
Hey! No fair! You guys are cutting in on David Sukookie’s territory!
I’ve seen contradicting claims about water vapor – are there any official sites with recent satellite data? I’d suspect levels to have been high last year and low this spring, since they follow ENSO quite closely.
Ric Werme says:
May 28, 2011 at 4:04 pm
That quote about water vapor is just incredible.
I’m going to defend Nye on part of this one. He is being elliptical, which happens a lot in verbal, live interview situations. When you see a transcript, it looks wrong but I’ll fill in the missing bits:
Bill Nye:
“When water vapor is changed from a liquid to a vapor it [gains latent heat. Then it] gives up heat high in the atmosphere, or medium height in the atmosphere [as it re-condenses].
Most of the rest of what he says is however, completely wrong.
Espen says:
May 29, 2011 at 2:56 am
I’ve seen contradicting claims about water vapor – are there any official sites with recent satellite data? I’d suspect levels to have been high last year and low this spring, since they follow ENSO quite closely.
They do at lower altitudes. And do make a difference at higher altitudes too. But they are not the main driver.
The NCEP re-analysis of the radiosonde data (which isn’t as bad as the warmista make out) shows what controls specific humidity at high altitude up near the tropopause, where most of the radiation of energy to space takes place. It’s the Sun.
http://tallbloke.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/shumidity-ssn96.png
See also Miskolzci’s optical thickness graph over the same period:
http://miskolczi.webs.com/Fig10.jpg
@David
Glad I wasn’t the only one. It’s a shame about that episode, as overall it was better than usual. At the time I wasn’t all too fussed about global warming, but the full on propaganda in one of my favourite sci fi shows made me incredibly uncomfortable.
Ryan,
Is Bill Nye now the expert for American Science?
Boy is science hurt’n.
“Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
May 28, 2011 at 10:47 pm
He’s not smarter than Richard Lindzen”
Right at the start of the video that Amino posted, Bill Nye says glass holds heat in a greenhouse the same way that greenhouse gases hold in heat. That is completely wrong. Greenhouses prevent loss of heat by preventing convection. A totally different process. Did he make that up or is he being educated by other scientifically retarded individuals?
It seems ridiculous to blame global warming when Temperatures fell over the past year and water vapour levels also fell by 4.0%.
Temperatures are down 0.5C or so due to the La Nina (versus an El Nino the year before) and water vapour levels are down 1.2 g/kg (or kg/m2) or 4%.
http://imageshack.us/m/221/9702/ensotempsvstcwvapr11.png
Look at the La Nina climate impact map (on the ENSO resources page) and see that the climate in the US and North America has been exactly that over the past winter and early spring. (Note the wet spot in the east-mid-west which is there to signify that more intense storms occur here in these conditions due to the contrast between cold and warm areas).
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/images/content/209479main_elnino1_080128_HI.jpg