Weather affects business, and “It’s clear that our economy isn’t weatherproof,”. Gosh, who knew?
For some monetary perspective on this issue, please note that Obama’s economic stimulus package was $787 billion (The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) and it had little, if any, effect on the economy too.
From the: National Center for Atmospheric Research/University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
Economic cost of weather may total $485 billion in US
BOULDER—Everything has its price, even the weather. New research indicates that routine weather events such as rain and cooler-than-average days can add up to an annual economic impact of as much as $485 billion in the United States.
The study, led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), found that finance, manufacturing, agriculture, and every other sector of the economy is sensitive to changes in the weather. The impacts can be felt in every state.
“It’s clear that our economy isn’t weatherproof,” says NCAR economist Jeffrey Lazo, the lead author. “Even routine changes in the weather can add up to substantial impacts on the U.S. economy.”
This is the first study to apply quantitative economic analysis to estimate the weather sensitivity of the entire U.S. economy. The research could help policymakers determine whether it is worthwhile to invest in enhanced forecasts and other strategies that could better protect economic activity from weather impacts.
The authors caution that the study should be viewed as an initial estimate, which they plan to refine in subsequent research. Lazo and his colleagues did not calculate additional costs associated with extreme weather events, such as this year’s tornado outbreaks, since data on extreme events were not available for the time period covered by their economic model. Nor did they evaluate the possible impacts of climate change, which is expected to lead to more flooding, heat waves, and other costly weather events.
Still, the study concludes that the influence of routine weather variations on the economy is as much as 3.4 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.
The study, with co-authors from the University of Colorado Boulder, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Stratus Consulting, is being published in this month’s issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. The research was supported by the National Science Foundation, which is NCAR’s sponsor, and by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
—–All sectors, all regions—–
Weather can affect both demand and supply of various sectors, with complex and sometimes countervailing influences on the overall economy. A snowstorm, for example, may disrupt air travel and drive up heating costs while boosting subsequent attendance at ski resorts. A prolonged dry spell can affect supplies of crops while enabling construction projects to remain on schedule.
Previous studies looked at weather influences on particular economic sectors or produced subjective estimates of overall weather impacts. In contrast, Lazo and his colleagues combined historical economic data with economic modeling techniques to produce a detailed analysis of the U.S. economy’s sensitivity to temperature and precipitation.
The results indicate that the mining and agriculture sectors are particularly sensitive. Routine variations in weather may take a toll on the mining economy of 14 percent each year, perhaps because of changing demand for oil, gas, and coal. Agriculture ranked second at 12 percent, conceivably because of the many crops that are affected by temperature and precipitation.
Other sensitive sectors include manufacturing (8 percent); finance, insurance, and retail (8 percent); and utilities (7 percent). In contrast, wholesale trade (2 percent); retail trade (2 percent); and services (3 percent) were found to be least sensitive.
The study also concluded that the economy of every state is sensitive to the weather. Although the state-level findings were more subject to error than national findings, the study indicated that New York was most sensitive (a 13.5 percent impact on the gross state product) and Tennessee was least sensitive (2.5 percent). However, sensitivity to weather variation did not seem to follow a particular geographic pattern, and Lazo says more research will be needed to determine why the economies of certain states are more affected by weather variations.
“A key point here is that when aggregated across all 11 sectors, no one part of the country appears significantly more weather sensitive than another region in relative terms,” the authors wrote.
The United States as a whole is less sensitive than individual states because economic production can shift from one region to another, according to the study.
—–Putting the pieces together—–
Lazo and his colleagues drew on 70 years of weather records through 2008 from across the contiguous United States. They focused on variations in temperature (heating-degree days and cooling-degree days that denote temperatures above or below 65 degrees), total precipitation, and deviation from average precipitation. They also studied economic indicators for major economic sectors over 24 years, the period for which detailed state-level data were available and consistent for major economic sectors.
They then conducted a regression analysis, a statistical technique for comparing multiple variables, to examine the impacts of weather on 11 nongovernmental sectors of the economy in every state. The team constructed a computer model in which other key variables—labor, capital, and energy—were held constant based on a five-year average.
The researchers produced the estimated range of $485 billion in potential economic impacts by applying their weather sensitivity findings of 3.4 percent to the 2008 U.S. gross domestic product of $14.4 trillion. As the economy grows, costs of weather variability can be expected to increase accordingly.
The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research manages the National Center for Atmospheric Research under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation. Any opinions, findings and conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
About the article
Title: U.S. Economic Sensitivity to Weather Variability
Authors: Jeffrey Lazo, Megan Lawson, Peter Larsen, and Donald Waldman
Publication: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Does anyone have the costs of Climate not being normal? I thought it was supposed to be a few trillion over a decade world wide. Which by back of the envelope calculation seems cheaper than “normal” weather.
I am, in general, a tolerant fellow— well, at least to a point, and that point has now been reached. In the long history of government money-wasting bureaucratic boondoggles, this may represent a new high water mark.
From the screenplay of the film “Patton”:
“When your little girl asks you, ‘What did you do in the great war in Europe?’ at least you won’t have to say, ‘I shoveled shit in Louisiana.’ ”
This study is the Big Government/bureaucratic equivalent of “shoveling shit in Louisiana.” Unfortunately, it cost me money.
New research indicates that routine weather events such as rain and cooler-than-average days can add up to an annual economic impact
=========================================================================
Did they just say that lack of global warming…..is going to cost money?
What would these morons do if the climate stopped changing?
This is wonderful. NCAR (atmosphere folks) apparently spent their share of the $787 B. stimulus package on a study of the economy. Anyone that ever goes outside knew the answer – except for the now official estimate of $485 B. That’s about as much use as . . . (fill in the blank). With more money and a faster computer they can make a second estimate bigger and better than the initial one. Can we get the economists at the budget office to make weather forecasts too?
I think it is closer to $555 Billion. If they will send me a million bucks I’ll work up a more detailed estimate.
Or WUWT can do a poll – like the Arctic ice one. You’ve got my guess.
These folks need to get a job in the real world. What do they propose, to legislate the weather?
The ultimate excuse for a tanking economy. Now incompetence can be blamed on Climate Change.
So when it gets cold it costs money to heat our houses. When it gets hot it costs money to cool them. Who knew?
Strictly linear sea level, T and global ice trends are forever “much greater than expected,” and economic lulls are forevermore also worse than expected:
http://punditpress.blogspot.com/2011/06/unexpectedly-compilation.html
Quantitative (Economic) Analysis is more art than science. The result is always a subjective perspective. Run the numbers one way and you get a particular result. Run them another way and you get a hockey stick. The numbers are always incredibly important to the ones who run them.
It is interesting to contemplate numbers, but the enterprising control freak / bureaucrat / Enron economist always has a government plan or a trading scheme that can be based on such “data.”
Still, there might be some use for the numbers to an actuary for crop insurance. Of course, they already know that ag is sensitive to weather and may have something up on this “study.”
I read a study that indicated if a Maunder Minimum-type cooling happens, every province in Canada and all the northern states of the Union will see frost every month of the year. I’m in that zone, and am wondering if I could grow anything in my garden besides carrots and radishes. Such a weather pattern would have dire consequences on everybody!
Can’t wait for the report:
“The authors caution that the study should be viewed as an initial estimate, which they plan to refine in subsequent research.”
John W. Garrett, you are just going to have to learn to be more tolerant. /sarc……….
How did they factor in oil prices? Those are not affected significantly by weather but probably have more effect on GDP.
I’m not basing my opinion on fact, this is merely conjecture.
Weather can affect the economy. Whoda thunk it?
Certainly not farmers, commodities brokers, umbrella manufacturers, or the makers of convertible automobiles. Or snow shovel makers, raincoat designers, and car wash owners. Sometimes when it rains here the commuter traffic backs up for as much as an hour, and people are late for work. Does that figure into their $485 billion?
Dolts.
Being in the excavation and concrete construction business in Central illinois I can tell you first hand that our bottom line was devastated by the horrific blizzards and extreme cold this past winter, and the current cold, wet, late spring weather. Workplace injuries are also much more frequent on frozen or wet ground.
We do very well when it’s hot and dry. Please bring on a little global warming to help our profitability and keep our employees safe..
How much does it cost to state the bl**dy obvious?
Smokey says:
June 23, 2011 at 9:03 am
These folks need to get a job in the real world. What do they propose, to legislate the weather?
Why not? They believe you can solve every problem by passing laws. That is what they do, pass laws and expect the problems to be solved as a result. When the problem gets bigger, then the appoint a Tzar and declare war on it. War on poverty, war on drugs, war on climate is around the corner. With the war we get lots of soldiers on the payroll and the last thing they want is for the war to end. If some fool actually solved the problem, then everyone would actually have to get a job doing something productive.
@ Smokey says:
June 23, 2011 at 9:03 am
………………………………………. What do they propose, to legislate the weather?
Precisely.
All weather is bad for the economy. It can be 75F and sunny and it will be bad for some type of business.
Good thing they stuck to the weather and not the climate.
Did the study include the effects of good weather on the economy? Or does that not count?
What they meant to say was:
It seems that NCAR has a firm grasp of the obvious .
“However, sensitivity to weather variation did not seem to follow a particular geographic pattern, and Lazo says more research will be needed to determine why the economies of certain states are more affected by weather variations.”
Those are the key words “more research will be needed”
And who is paying this nonsense ?
The Obama economic stimulus package was created to pay back the people that made him president. It had nothing to do with stimulating the economy. The American economy is dead and only the wars and the printing press make it look like there is a economic recovery.
It’s as dead as the Global Warming lie .
This study is a waste of time. We all know that bad weather affects businesses and the economy. Now what do we do about the weather? Nothing! What will this study achieve? Diddly squat.
Say it ain’t so.
Yup, circumstances, which include the weather, change and people adapt to them as best they can with the resources the have available. I expect three more ground breaking studies letting us know that the sky is blue, water runs down hill, and broken glass is, like, really sharp, dude.
At least there’s no broken window fallacy here that I caught anyway; I’m sick of people talking about the economic ‘boost’ that ensues when a storm or whatever levels a town. One wonders if such destruction is so good for the economy why we don’t simply nuke our own cities on a regular basis. Think of all the rebuilding…
Okay guys … found another part of the budget we can cut over at NCAR … let’s defund the whole thing.
Let’s see … an “impact of as much as $485 billion” … watch out for those slippery lying words – “as much as”; it could also be much less.
Sounds like a game of “Trawling for Dollars.”
If ordinary weather-variations are so costly, it should put alarmists’ claims about the costliness of extraordinary weather-events in perspective.
No, the cost is not $484 million. That’s what is spent (perhaps part is “lost business” which is not really lost). The cost is lives disrupted, or in serve enough weather, lost.
Whenever I see something that says such-and-such COSTS x number of dollars, I ask: What was the money spent on?
Take the cold weather with snow. There are people who depend on their snow removal job for at least part of their winter income. Clothing manufacturers make money (and employ people) making winter coats, boots, etc. Your car needs snow tires, and on-and-on.
The point is that the $484 million is spent somewhere that creates jobs. So weather is job provider.
As for “lost business” from rain or cold or snow, IMO it is merely “delayed business.” People will still need the goods and services, and purchase them later.
I doubt if even the Ig Nobel committee would bother themselves with this.
Wow! That’s amazing. Of course here in Canada we had and now have a majority conservative government with common sense economic policies all through the last depression and continuing as I write. We had no housing crash, no banks failed, no corporations failed and had to be bailed out (however we did lend money to Canadian vehicle manufacturers) and our dollar grew stronger than the US dollar – despite the horrible weather sited here. And considering we live in a more northerly climate I hasten to add. All jobs lost during that depression have been long since been rehired and then some. Our economy is very strong with my province Alberta once again expected to lead Canadian growth – of course despite the weather once again. Oil sales are booming and Alberta will most likely be short of worker once again – as we did during the height of our last oil boom. No doubt there are a few weak spots here namely in Quebec but the rest of the provinces are doing very well. I don’t suppose Americans on this blog would care to ask why – and least anyone question yes we also fund two wars our military is fighting – Afghanistan and Libya. And of course our navy is also in the Persian Gulf helping out America. All that and our economy is still strong – despite the weather of course.
PS: Most of all our conservative government yanked us out of Kyoto and all that nonsense. And of course we have NO “green” job idiocy we seen south of the border.
Economist has had enough too WOW
http://www.economist.com/node/18866905
Coach Springer said: “Quantitative (Economic) Analysis is more art than science. The result is always a subjective perspective. Run the numbers one way and you get a particular result. Run them another way and you get a hockey stick.”
Yup!
http://oi54.tinypic.com/1zvrjoj.jpg
Cold air masses are the worst. Look at the havoc from the one that has bulldozed across the country. A total disaster. Why won’t the politicians and MSM address the risks of cooling?
Beyond the carnage and destruction from peak events, the generally cooler conditions inherent to a cold period would cause the slow death of millions if not billions. It’s much easier to deal with warmer-than-normal vs colder-than-normal.
Cold kills, warmth nurtures.
RockyRoad says:
June 23, 2011 at 9:25 am
I read a study that indicated if a Maunder Minimum-type cooling happens, every province in Canada and all the northern states of the Union will see frost every month of the year. I’m in that zone, and am wondering if I could grow anything in my garden besides carrots and radishes. Such a weather pattern would have dire consequences on everybody!
========================================
While not the “End Times” described by millenarian freaks, such a scenario would be hard times. REALLY hard times. 7th century type hard times. If today’s world was subjected to a repeat of that, things would get very ugly. You’re talking mass funeral pyres visible from high Earth orbit.
Call me cynical but I’m thinking this is nothing but a nifty ‘ruse’ to achieve two goals: Take the blame of the bad economy off of the failed economic policies of the democrats and Obama and, to bring added awareness to climate change.
Rebuilding the damage from this years storms put more “shovel” ready jobs in action than that bloated orgy of special interest spending did.
A mate of mine sells wellington boots, he often wondered why he didn’t make much money when it was sunny! Now he knows, great….
New research indicates that routine weather events such as rain and cooler-than-average days can add up to an annual economic impact
A new peer reviewed paper is coming out too – they just discovered water is WET!
This sort of study/conjecture, and associated warmist clap-trap, is a result of the high percentage of our population living in cities. The vast majority of people living in the developed world have a minimal connection to weather/climate/nature. How else could the watermelons and climatic high priests fool so many into the CAGW hoax.
When we get 24″ of snow I know that I can’t get out to by daily paper. They may be on to something.
It’s (to use the MFM’s favorite word) UNEXPECTED! As John Stossell might say, Gimme a break.
SteveSadlov says:
June 23, 2011 at 10:34 am
Two groups, Leftists and muslims, want us back in the 7th Century, and both are doing their best to take us there.
These estimates are likely a bit low. Think construction etc. On the other hand they show what once was a very resilient economic infrastructure. Unfortunately now in shatters. The effect of weather on such diverse economies such a Russia, India, Pakistan, Venezuela, Australia is far more dynamic.
“”Lazo and his colleagues drew on 70 years of weather records through 2008 from across the contiguous United States. They focused on variations in temperature (heating-degree days and cooling-degree days that denote temperatures above or below 65 degrees), total precipitation, and deviation from average precipitation.””
…Good thing they only chose the last 70 years for this study. I guess if they included the economic impact of the ‘dirty thirties’ during the dust bowl, today’s economic impact from ‘weather’, might not seem so bad. Of course they would also have to include the hottest year since records began in the USA, 1934. Good choice of a starting point though, very convenient.
Gosh and I have noted that rain is wet too. They pay people to state that the weather effects the economy? What a bleeping revelation!!
Curiousgeorge says:
June 23, 2011 at 9:41 am
Actually, I submit they’re using the weather as an excuse to legislate (control) us humans! It really won’t matter if the earth warms, cools, or stays variable. We’re jhosed.
I think this is groundbreaking I’m off to tell William Herschel about this. 😉
With such a study, they left out a very important aspect. We have all been reading about the cost of global warming and this study apparently is only about generic weather. Most interested in this topic would surely have wanted some measure of the relative costs of warming vs cooling. I guess one could go through the study and divide the thing up into cool events costs and warm events costs .
Severe impact on tourism at Yellowstone this year: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304887904576400291709584276.html
Ben Bernanke has effectively admitted he doesn’t understand what’s happening in the economy. There are many economists with Ph.D.s and many years of experience. They are all over the map about what is going on and what awaits us in the future.
Who the hell is Jeffrey Lazo and why is anyone paying him to pretend to be able to predict this stuff?
Does anyone really believe this is about science?
Could I have a big research grant to prove that you get wet if it rains?
Of course I’d have to include in the proposal that global warming means that it you will get wetter in the future even if it rains less. I’m sure I could manage to produce a hockey stick shaped graph to illustrate just how wetter we’ve all been getting and just how wetter we are likely to get, in fact so wet we might reach a tipping point of saturation. (I don’t want to turn the sarc off I could make money out of a proposal like that).
Even if I couldn’t prove we are getting wetter, I could blame the big umbrella corporations for distorting the data.
The study, led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), found that finance, manufacturing, agriculture, and every other sector of the economy is sensitive to changes in the weather.
So would my war wound if I had one.
Maybe they expect this sort of modelling to provide them with the necessary tools for world government. I have news for them. Nothing short of omniscience will work properly. And a dose of omnipotence will also have to be used. I suppose it doesn’t matter, as we’re all ‘gods’ now.
/sarc that last bit.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/06/21/gilding.environment.economy/index.html
For now, we will still push economic growth as hard as we can, at whatever cost required. As a result, the crisis will be big, it will be soon and it will be economic, not environmental. The planet will take further bludgeoning, but the economy cannot. So we’ll respond not because the environment is under greater threat, but because the emerging evidence in science and economics shows something more important to us is jeopardized — economic growth.
You might have to read this twice to untangle his point — we have to limit growth to save the economy.
For 50 years, environmentalists have argued we should save the planet for moral reasons, that there were more important things than money. But it will be the economic impact of climate change and resource limits that will motivate the sweeping changes necessary to avert catastrophe.
One of the odd things about certain catastrophes in countries which have insurance is that when
these things happen the insurance companies have to pay out. Rebuilding them presents a big
pickup in employment and replacement spending. There was a huge fire in the Berkeley-Oakland
hills in the early nineties and all sorts of huge houses replaced much plainer homes because of
the ‘replacement’ clause. Tons’o’ money was pumped into the local economy.
If politicians in washington really want to make a change to boost the economy and justify their phoney baloney jobs, there is a much better way than the economic stimulus program:
It has been known for a long time there is a strong correlation between the economy and the lengths of womens dresses. Long dresses, the economy is in the toilet. Short dress, the economy does well. And who can forget the micro mini and the boom times that resulted.
So, here is the “Berple Plan”. Forget higher taxes. Go with higher hemlines to stimulate the economy. Make it a law. The worst the economy, the shorter the dresses must be. Things pick up, dresses can come down a bit to prevent over inflation. Even if the plan is no better than what we have now, at least we will enjoy it a lot more, and nowhere does it involve higher taxes.
And who knows. Just maybe shorter dresses will get the economy working. After all, it is likely a lot more people will be looking up.
Remember, a vote for Berple in 2012 is a vote for change you can believe in.
It’s a strange and terrible commentary on the damage done to science by the IPCC that, every time an article appears describing new research in any aspect of weather and/or climate, people now expect an agenda-driven controversy. The legacy of Mann, Hansen et al is the trashing of public trust in hundreds of years of science that brought us modern civilisation.
@Alvin W says:
June 23, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Ahhh… the Broken Window Fallacy.
Works (not) every time.
“…add up to an annual economic impact of as much as $485 billion…”
Compared to what conditions? No weather?
Whether or not they have or can accurately estimate the effect of weather or climate on the economy is really beside the point. Even at the most hyperbolic worst case scenario level of those estimates the numbers are dwarfed by the self inflicted, or more accurately politically inflicted, damages which have been, and are increasingly being visited on our national prosperity. Just this week a CBO report indicated that that the stimulus bill, which was supposed to keep the unemployment rate from going over 8% and bring the economy back from the brink, caused the debt to grow at nearly double the rate which was estimated before it was passed.
http://tinyurl.com/6yly8gc
‘The 2011 Long-Term Budget Outlook, released Wednesday morning, reports that the “the combination of automatic budgetary responses” and Obama’s stimulus “had a profound impact on the federal budget.” According to CBO projections, before Obama’s stimulus became law, federal debt equaled 36 percent of GDP and was projected to decline slightly over the next few years. Instead, thanks in large part to the stimulus, debt reached 62 percent of GDP by 2010″
The power of the weather to affect the economy is dwarfed by the power of small numbers of nameless and unaccountable bureaucrats, comfortably ensconced inside the Beltway, to bring economic activity to a halt.
Boeing invests $2.5 billion in a new airliner assembly plant only to be told by NLRB that they not the corporation gets to decide where planes are built. Boeing now faces years of litigation and hundreds of millions in legal cost just try to rescue some of their investment, which in the interim will be generating no return and no new jobs.
An oil company, I think it was Exxon but don’t want to take time to look up the name, invests $2.5 billion in developing an oil lease in the Chukchi Sea only to have bureaucrats deny their permit because they failed to include the CO2 emissions of an ice breaker in their EIS. Recognizing that nothing they do will ever satisfy their government tormenters they decide to cut their losses and abandon the project.
These actions have a chilling effect far beyond the substantial economic losses they caused but even those effects are overwhelmed by other looming bureaucratic interference.
Ms. Jackson and her cohort of environmental thugs at the EPA threatening to keep the one campaign promise that BHO hasn’t abandoned i.e. to cause the price of electricity to “skyrocket’ and ” to bankrupt” the coal industry and coal powered electrical generation.
The hundreds of panels, boards, commissions, and other entities with unaccountable rule making authority created by the Obamacare bill which promise to greatly increase the already massive inflation in medical costs, while simultaneously reducing the availability of medical care.
The similarly massive new bureaucracies generated by the Dodd-Frank financial “reform” act, which promise to make every financial transaction in the country more expensive and credit only available to those who bear the blessing of the government. BTW is it not completely indicative of the death of irony that Dodd and Frank, two men who are in the top 20 of those who bear individual personal responsibility for the debacle of 2008, should have been given the power to craft the “reforms” which are supposed to protect us from a future repeat of that disaster?
We could have tornado outbreaks from now until Halloween, hurricanes freight training against our coasts like the Schumacher-Levy comet, floods, droughts, heat waves, cold snaps, and every other imaginable weather disaster and it would barely match the damage the economically illiterate members of our “we know what’s good for you much better than you do” ruling elite.
Alvin W says:
June 23, 2011 at 12:07 pm
“There was a huge fire in the Berkeley-Oakland
hills in the early nineties and all sorts of huge houses replaced much plainer homes because of
the ‘replacement’ clause. Tons’o’ money was pumped into the local economy.”
Don’t forget that the new construction is in real terms cheaper than it was 30 years ago due to an increase in GDP per capita and much better automation and machinery; so when you knock down an old house and build a new one it will nearly automatically be much more sophisticated. Don’t know about the details in the US but i had big construction going on behind my backyard over the last 2 years here in Germany and was amazed by the number of cranes of all sizes operating simultaneously. Did not see one worker carrying a heavy load.
Science and political science used to be separate fields of study. Under sponsorship by the National Science Foundation they are one and the same.
Sorry to disagree with you there, but Bush put forward the first “stimulus package”. Obama just doubled down on stupid.
Gee, I wonder what the economy was like in Pompey after Vesuvius!!!
ferd berple says:
June 23, 2011 at 12:22 pm
“So, here is the “Berple Plan”. Forget higher taxes. Go with higher hemlines to stimulate the economy. Make it a law. The worst the economy, the shorter the dresses must be. Things pick up, dresses can come down a bit to prevent over inflation. Even if the plan is no better than what we have now, at least we will enjoy it a lot more,”
you might be invoking the Law Of Unintended Consequences there… 😉
“Still, the study concludes that the influence of routine weather variations on the economy is as much as 3.4 percent of U.S. gross domestic product.”
Big deal! It’s called the cost of doing business in the real world. When will these guys grow up and realize that ALL of the conditions around us impact EVERYTHING we do—that’s real life!
Do they really think that weather is a constant or average that can be used to examine its variations? And that it is in any way constructive to try to separate out weather from geography, altitude, urban/rural, soil composition, plant species, animal species, all other endemic species, etc.?
Are we supposed to now worry about ameliorating all kinds of weather events when they happen? Will a passing afternoon thundershower become an insurable event with claim potential?
I now distrust anything that comes out of “Boulder”. It appears that everything done in Boulder is agenda driven. Maybe it’s the altitude or the proximity of Cheyenne Mountain with all the communication devices that befuddles the “researchers” in the region.
The obvious answer is we must eliminate weather. Maybe Barney Franks will write a bill …
Licks finger, sticks in air, “I feela climate change acomin”, starts copping more fire wood happy in the knowleadge that his tax dollars where in good hands.
Might have missed it in the comments, but any chance of a link to the actual paper/press release/propaganda item/whatever?
THE POSSIBILITY OF RAIN HAS ENTERED OUR FORECAST AT OR ABOUT THE 10 PERCENT LEVEL FOR TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY.
========================================
This is for the NWS Monterey CWA, covering the southern half of NorCal.
The thing that opened this door was a couple of dry cold fronts over the past couple of days, ala early Autumn. Is it, climatically, in fact early Autumn in this CWA?
If “cooler-than-average days … add up to an annual (negative) economic impact” this means that global warming is good for the economy. Hey, that’s excellent news, if there’s global warming.
higley7 said…
“Big deal! It’s called the cost of doing business in the real world. When will these guys grow up and realize that ALL of the conditions around us impact EVERYTHING we do—that’s real life!”
Good point. It’s kind of like calculating the cost of the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
And insurance companies did not know this?
Well duh.
Florida Freezes = citrus damage = higher prices
Floods = damaged planting = higher prices
Droughts = withered crops = no yield
Any weather that has interfered with a crop from start to finish = higher prices.
Sometimes it means total crop failure.
Why do we need a study to tell us what everyone already knows?
Oh, excuse me, this is stimulus money at work. No wonder the economy went nowhere.
This would have started when the first hunter gatherers had their harvest frozen? And now it is shocking world news?
Not so! Now, when an actual properly designed, conducted, and analysed experiment or study is published, loud Hosannahs and cries of joy are heard throughout the land. “Mirabile dictu! Somebody still remembers how to do this stuff right!”
So the climate klutzes have paradoxically heightened appreciation for and attention to real science. Their penalty is to be treated with deserved contempt and disregarded as the hacks and shills they are.
Heh. It’s everything you’ve got, and then some. You can’t win, and you can’t leave the game.
Gaudeamus igitur
Juvenes dum sumus
Post jucundum juventutem
Post molestam senectutem
Nos habebit humus.
Let us rejoice therefore
While we are young.
After a pleasant youth
After a troublesome old age
The earth will have us.
Ubi sunt qui ante nos
In mundo fuere?
Vadite ad superos
Transite in inferos
Hos si vis videre.
Where are they
Who were in the world before us?
You may cross over to heaven
You may go to hell
If you wish to see them.
Vita nostra brevis est
Brevi finietur.
Venit mors velociter
Rapit nos atrociter
Nemini parcetur.
Our life is brief
It will be finished shortly.
Death comes quickly
Atrociously, it snatches us away.
No one is spared.
That word “impact” is curiously ambiguous. How do you disentangle positive and negative impacts? Or are positive ones out of the question? That would imply that perfection is weatherless. I suppose Heaven is supposed to be weatherless, but it sounds deadly boring to me.
Well, I believe that may be over-simplifying it just a little bit!
(1) Bush himself did not ‘put forward’ anything in the sense that he invented it and drove it through the Congress (like LBJ or FDR).
(2) It was definitely not a ‘stimulus package’ as subsequent money dumps were.
On point (1), what started as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act appears to have come from Paulson and Wall Street, and Bush is said to have ‘immediately signed on’. Remember that there was a panic on Wall Street and behind the scenes we can guess that the powers that be completely convinced themselves that throwing good money after bad made perfect sense.
The story I remember best is that they met with Bush in an emergency meeting and convinced him that in a matter of days we would witness financial Armageddon. The notion that Bush and his spineless advisors plus the institutionalized socialism in DC would easily fall for this *is* VERY believable. But there was definite pressure to (A) get something quasi-Constitutional quickly to the President, and (B) get him to sign it. Many of us were contacting our reps and the White House urging them *not* to do any such thing. However, as usual, the people were ignored.
There was the prevailing notion that if Bush did nothing that he would kill McCain’s chances! Remember how McCain suspended his so-called campaign to get this done? Stunts like that by McCain and all politicians demonstrate what we are up against. There was practically no-one standing up to block this move, especially the Congress which could easily have over-ridden a veto. As much as I despise country club RINO’s like Bush, I have a hard time pinning this completely on him. I think it was a lot like what happened when his father (‘read my lips’) was snookered into a tax increase by the same phenomenon, institutional momentum.
On point (2), the thing was *not* a stimulus anyway, it evolved into the signed-bill called TARP (‘Troubled Asset Relief Program’), perhaps bailout is the best word. I would simply call it re-supplying the junkie with more drugs. We should have taken the hit then in 2008 painful as it might have been, closed Wall Street for however long it took to calm down, and begin weaning ourselves off the ironically fragile, centralized system that internationalists have built for themselves.
P.S. No argument on “Obama just doubled down on stupid”, except perhaps on the math. President Dumbo is logarithmically stupid. He is riding the Asymptote to infinity.
So, what have we got here?
1. Weather forecasting, a much maligned area of science for it’s lack of precision except over VERY short time periods added to:
2. Climate forecasting, a science so divorced from reality that it has become acceptable to use climate models to prove theory instead of data from…reality…added to:
3. Economic forecasting, the use of statistical models to determine what decisions will have what effects on the economy that retains credibility despite the fact that the most robust economies in the world have the least interference from government, and that the most heavily managed economies through history have been magnificent failures.
and what do they come up with?
“Agriculture ranked second at 12 percent, conceivably because of the many crops that are affected by temperature and precipitation.”
I nearly blacked out from laughing so hard when I got to “conceivably”. When I recovered enough to breath again, I read the whole sentence and got to “the many crops that are affected by temperature and precipitation”.
OMG!
many? Many? MANY?
Do tell! What’s the list of crops that are NOT affected by temperature and precipitation? Are rocks a crop? Oh wait…its just another model, and they can make any reality they want in their models.
So, in their minds, there are crops of rocks.
Knowing that their entire premise is based on the modeling of the rocks in their heads, it all makes so much more sense now…..
The cost of weather and climate has no meaning when the reality is you cam do nothing about what nature throws at you. Live with it and adapt.
All that money Obama has pledged to economic revival has been money wasted. He is acting like our last Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, who wasted billions trying to do we now know to be nothing. What it did do was put the UK into the poor house. Do not let your President do the same with your money. Remember every green job means the loss of 5 real jobs.
Wow, another very expensive glimpse of the flamin’ obvious!
I started my working life labouring on farms. On contract rates. No work, no income. While the weather was reasonably fine, we worked. If it rained too hard or our vehicles couldn’t access a site due to excess mud or snow, we didn’t work. In retrospect, it was a brilliant lesson in how the world works. No output = no income. Simple.
Years later, some social scientists carrying out a survey about ‘job satisfaction’ asked me how much I enjoyed being a teacher. They thought I was slightly odd and had no idea what I meant when I told them
“It’s great – it never rains or snows in my classroom.”
The waste of taxpayer funds is staggering. The federal government is completely out of control. If anyone needs evidence of that fact, here is an example of taxpayers being forced to subsidize “art”: click
MORE NOTABLE IS THE LATTER PART OF THE FORECAST WHERE ANOTHER LATE-
SEASON RAIN EPISODE IS POSSIBLE. THERE IS CONSISTENCY NOW AMONGST
THE MODEL RUNS CONCERNING AN UPPER LEVEL LOW PROGGED TO DROP
SOUTHWARD OFF THE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA COAST BY LATE TUESDAY AND
WEDNESDAY. LATEST RUNS OF THE GFS AND ECMWF STILL BRING A DEEP UPPER
LOW OFF THE COAST BY NEXT TUESDAY NIGHT WITH RAIN CHANCES REACHING
INTO OUR CWA. HAVE ADDED POPS TO THE FORECAST…SLIGHT CHANCE FOR
NOW…WHICH CAN BE ADJUSTED AS IT GETS CLOSER. GIVEN THE DEEPNESS
OF THE LOW CENTER AS WELL AS ITS PROXIMITY…THUNDERSTORMS ARE ALSO
POSSIBLE AND THIS WILL NEED TO BE WATCHED.
======================================================
Ouch. This is bad news. Not only would ag be negatively impacted by a late cold storm like this. Also, if there is thunder, and the storm is short on moisture (a common thing with Yukon storms like this), we may have a redo of the horrible fire storms of June 2009. In that event, the fire smoke was so thick, it lowered temperatures and impacted the wine grape crops due to less light.
Meanwhile in Minot there is no joy.
Apparently, there is still snow melt in the mix in that watershed.