By Mike Smith of Meteorological Musings
This story from London’s Daily Mail is so bad, the reporter won’t even put his or her name on it.
In the story, we learn the Joplin tornado was caused by global warming. We learn that Katrina was caused by global warming. We learn that droughts are caused by global warming. Floods are caused by global warming. Apparently, every storm or unusual weather phenomena is caused by global warming.
So, lets play ‘climate scientist’ (why not, apparently you don’t have to have any credentials to be one) and take a look at the arguments made in the article.
We’ll start with Hurricane Katrina. Remember how, in the wake of Katrina, we were told that hurricanes were going to be more frequent and more intense? Take, for example, this claim:
The work of hurricane expert Dr. Kerry Emanuel indicates that Global Warming provided the extra margin of energy that gave Hurricane Katrina enough power to break the levees in New Orleans. This is the conclusion of scientists, Global Warming observers along the Gulf Coast and others.
Hurricanes get their strength directly from the heat in the oceans they travel over, so it has long been expected that Global Warming would have an effect on the frequency and/or the intensity of tropical cyclones, which are called hurricanes in the United States. Observations have confirmed a sharp increase in intensity. The result is that the number of dangerous Category 3, 4, and 5 storms has increased. Dr. Emanuel’s innovation, the “power dissipation index,” helps track this intensification over time.
So, what actually happened from 2006 to 2010? The opposite of what was predicted! The five years since Katrina have seen record low hurricane activity — both intensity and numbers! The proof is right here (scroll down from top). The pro-GW crowd got it exactly wrong, again. One would think they would learn some humility, but that never seems to occur.
Second, here is their list of weather events tied to global warming (click to enlarge):
Considering the list encompasses the entire world for 11 years, there isn’t very much here. Nearly half of the years (2001, 2002, 2004, 2007, 2008) don’t have a single occurrence. Considering the warmest year was 1998 (see below) and that temperatures have cooled some since then the list proves nothing. As I have stated before, if tornadoes were tied to global temperatures there would have been record tornadoes in 1998. They did not occur.
 |
| World temperatures from the UK’s Hadley Center. |
Here is a graph of carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations (parts per million) since 1997. It continues to rise.
 |
| CO2 levels from the Mauna Loa Observatory |
But, temperatures do not rise with it. If, as the IPCC contends, CO2 is the dominant force driving atmospheric temperatures, then temperatures would have (more or less) risen along with CO2. That simply hasn’t occurred either in the atmosphere or in ocean heat content (the more important metric).
Blaming the Joplin tornado on global warming smacks of desperation. They are losing the scientific argument so they call people names and make ridiculous claims like blaming an individual tornado on global warming. They get away with it because most of the media prints this nonsense generally without question.
=============================================================
From Anthony:
I’m taking most of the weekend off to recover from my trip to ICCC6 and be with family on this holiday weekend, posting will be light until Tuesday, but I wanted to take a moment to give Mike Smith’s Meteorological Musings website and book a well deserved plug.
Mike is a weather and climate realist. In his world of practical forecasting, which I see much like like that of an engineer, you base your work on reality and hard facts, because if you don’t, there are tangible losses, and people may die from botched forecasts. He doesn’t have the luxury of making a forecast without responsibility or consequences if he is wrong like some climate scientists tend to do.
So bookmark his website, and may I recommend his book Warnings: The true story of how science tamed the weather.
I’ve read it, and I’ve lived and experienced much of what he’s written about in the quest to make forecasting, especially severe weather forecasting, more accurate, timely, and specific. For those of us that prefer practical approaches over the rampant speculation on mere wisps of connections to climate (such as the Daily Mail piece), this book is for you.
Thanks to the idiots in the California legislature and Gov. (Moonbeam) Brown, that have pissed off Amazon.com so bad that they’ve canceled all affiliates account holders in California, I won’t get that few cents if somebody buys the book via the link anymore.
But, I don’t care, the book is well written, factual, and engaging, and I’m happy to recommend it on that basis but also for the fact that if you buy it through Amazon now, you’ll spite those morons in Sacramento by depriving them of tax revenue that California affiliates.
Hell, I may buy another copy myself.
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Mike:
fun typo: “proves northing”. Would the opposite be “proves southing”?
🙂
“Greens” scuttled everyman’s Atomic Age
This we NO!
‘Twas ’cause CO2 be color gree’
Nukes ain’t fed us
PLANTS
Right decision, left
We are solar cells!
US PLANTS
Chickenshit Little nothing new
Tailored clothes
Of The Emperor
Fat piggy bank Gore
Evermore
There is more in us
.
Proof against fire
floods
tornado,
earthquakes,
electrical storms
Why is it that the law of unintended consequences is so often related to the entirely predictable? Could it possibly be that if the average IQ is 100, then half of all legislators (on the average, of course) have an IQ somewhat lower than that?
I don’t think that kind of tosh will get any traction with the Mail readership. It’s one of the few newspapers to regularly feature criticism of AGW alarmism, investigations into the ‘renewable energy’ subsidy scams etc.
I know we have to try and make folk aware of the scam style of reporting – and the ridiculous alarmist claims. But, quite frankly, it is becoming tiresome……I’m ready to throw in the towel with these anal retentives who promote such rhetoric… no, really I am! It’s ok that most here have ‘seen the light’ and realised that the AGW meme is just a scam – but if other ordinary folk are really so stupid as to believe everything they read, why should we bother? I am fast getting to the conclusion that I need to get myself a smallholding somewhere, become a hermit and leave the apathetic majority to their own BS! I am not angry about AGW anymore (like I was when i realised I’d been taken in by the scam a few years ago) – and I have tried to help people ‘see the light’ – but now, I’m just resigned to the fact that there are simply folk who refuse to use their brains and are always gonna be sheep! Let them go to be slaughtered is fast becoming my attitude…..it’s wrong to abandon my fellow man, I know that – but with this style of reporting, my level of exsasperation goes through the upper troposhere! Surely, there comes a time when one has to quit?
Reader may be interested to learn that somebody – clearly fed up with the Daily Mail, has developed an online Daily Mail Headline generator.
Try it: http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/toys/dailymail/
Cheers – John
Don’t worry. The London Daily Mail is rather like your National Enquirer.
Interesting,
As according to Mr Watts comment “Mike” bases his work on “reality and hard facts”
I say interesting because “Mike” makes this statement not far into his comment.
“So, what actually happened from 2006 to 2010? The opposite of what was predicted! The five years since Katrina have seen record low hurricane activity — both intensity and numbers!”
“Mike” seems to have missed this in that striving for facts and reality.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20081126_hurricaneseason.html
Now I don’t claim to be a meteorologist or a mathematician but even I think 2008 might fall right in the middle of the “record low” Mike is talking about.
Now I’m sure I’ll get the usual hostile responses but will there be any that actually use “facts”
Hi
For those who are not familiar with it, the UK’s Daily Mail is a comic for the unwashed masses of a right wing persuasion.
If you can read it without becoming nauseous, have a look through their “on line” edition.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
It is full of stories, (not reports), designed to titillate and stir various factions up. The stories do not appear to be checked for veracity and quite often seem to have a modicum of artistic license.
I would image an equivalent US paper would be the National Enquirer
regards
Patrick
It is not (often, here in the UK) referred to as “The Daily Fail” without good reason.
There is no relevant evidence of statistical significance linking present warming with increased extreme weather events. Perhaps this is not surprising since at most there has been a warming of only about 0.7degC and if the homoginisation/adjustmenats to the global temp record are illegitimately biased, it may be more in the regaion of 0.4 to 0.5degC. Does anyone really think that such a trivial rise in global temperature (mainly at the poles and during night-time temperatures) can really lead to and explain an increase in exreeme weather events over areas that have not seen drastic increases in temperature.
The weather is predominantly driven by the oceans and unless and until there is a significant increase in ocean heat content and changes in the circulation patterns of ocean currents, it is extremely unlikely that there will be a significant change in extreme weather events.
Extreme events are more a facet of better news reporting and mans stupidity in living in flood plains or reclaimed delta areas etc. The so called increase in extreme weather events is more a matter of perception than based in reality. The perception is also given partly because we are examining too short a time period and therefore do not really know what are typical conditions which would put events in their true and proper perspective. For example, who knows the number of tornados during the MWP?
As far as the UK is concerned, it is now being suggested that AGW/CC has lead to a reduction in the strength of prevailing winds. Ironically, this means that windfarms will in future be even less efficient!!! See for example:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2010156/Where-wind-Six-cent-drop-power-UK-wind-farms-lowest-wind-speeds-CENTURY.html
Whilst on the subject of windfarms, Christopher Booker has recently published a further interesting article pointing out that the increase in construction of/dependency on windfarms will lead to the need to build further gas powered generators (it is suggested that an extra 17 will be needed) to act as backup for when the wind does not blow. See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8612716/Proof-that-the-
Government-is-tilting-at-windmills.html
I wonder whether this takes into account the 6% drop in the strength of wind and if it does not I guess it will mean that the UK will need to build an extra 18 gas powered generators to back up these windfarms. One thing that rarely gets reported in the press (and of course never on the BBC) is that not one single conventional generator has been decommissioned not withstanding all these new wind farms. Of course, they cannot be since they are still required as back up.
The net eccet of this is that all these windfarms probably have not reduced CO2 emissions one iota. All they have done is led to enviromental harm (look at china for the polution lakes and think of all the CO2 used in the construction/erection of these farms not to mention the blight on the landscape and bird mincing).
What folly. What stupidity. But what can you expect from politicians. After all experience shows that politicians rarely if ever solve a real problem and in most instances simply make matters worse.
I think the link in the first paragraph should point to here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2010268/Global-warning-Scientists-claim-extreme-weather-climate-change-linked.html
It’s quite clear this is desperation. From the article:
The move is likely to be controversial as, in the past, scientists have avoided linking single exceptional weather events with climate change, not least because the science of ‘climate attribution’ is likely to be pounced upon by sceptics who question the link between industrial carbon dioxide emissions and a rise in global temperatures.
However, they now believe it is no longer plausible to say extreme weather is merely ‘consistent’ with climate change.
More like they have come to realise that it is no longer plausible to link global warming with any – erm – warming, and so are clutching at straws in an attempt to keep people fooled for just a little while longer.
The link to the Christopher Booker/Daily Telegraph article is:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8612716/Proof-that-the-Government-is-tilting-at-windmills.html
More Climate Craziness
The Climate Show 15: Michael Ashley and the ineducable Carter
( I posted it with the wine story but this is a better place)
and
Navy Admiral : “We haven’t had an ocean open on this planet since the end of the Ice Age”
Posted on July 3, 2011 by stevengoddard
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/07/03/navy-admiral-we-haven%e2%80%99t-had-an-ocean-open-on-this-planet-since-the-end-of-the-ice-age/
Apologies Anthony,
I think the link to the daily mail story should be
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2010268/Global-warning-Scientists-claim-extreme-weather-climate-change-linked.html
😉
Please excuse my ignorance but storms are caused by temperature gradients are they not? The more abrupt the gradient the more severe the storm. A lessening of storm intensity and frequency would indicate that the temperature gradient is less than it used to be. Warm ocean, warm atmosphere or cool atmosphere and cool ocean could both satisfy the requirement. It seems the temperature records and ARGO lean toward the latter.
Anthony,
They are the experts with degrees and “peer-reviewed” papers backing them up.
Teaching the next generation of educated idiots.
Some interesting articles are in here: http://www.iceagenow.com/
Every single day there is a 1% chance that some weather event will occur that exceeds all other such events in the past 100 years. This is true in all places at all times. With 365 days in a year one should expect 3.65 of these events will happen in any single location. There’s been a dearth of strong tornadoes at my end of tornado alley for the past 10-12 years. The last F5 I’m aware of in my neck of the woods was Jarrell in 1997. Shouldn’t the “increased energy” in the atmosphere since then have produced more not fewer Jarrell events?
The correct answer is no. These events do not happen due to total energy in the atmosphere but rather by energy gradients in the atmosphere. A tornado is a machine that is doing work where I use the physics definition of ‘work’. Work is performed across energy gradients. Uniform heating will not increase the potential for work to be accomplished. Differential heating is needed for that. Once again if one understands how and why heat engines (which applies equally to hurricanes, tornadoes, automobile engines, and air conditioners) work the way they do the conditions that make for severe weather events become much clearer and easier to understand. The problem with climate boffins is they have not studied engineering. Heat engines are a very basic, essential area of knowledge for engineers.
Fear ye not, for today’s anonymous offering from the Daily Mail flips us into global cooling:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2010757/Shivering-Britain-Little-Ice-Age-way.html
But oh dear, that’s still “climate change”, so let fear resume!
The essential bottom line vis a vis the global heat engine is that “global” warming is not equally distributed. The higher latitudes get more than the lower latitudes. Even though total energy in the system increases the differential energy, which is what drives severe weather, decreases. Less temperature difference between tropics and poles means we should expect less severe weather and more uniformity. Cold air masses from the higher latitudes clashing with warm air masses from the tropics have less difference in temperature and hence less potential for producing work in the form of winds and convection. In principle we should a decline in severe weather in the lower latitudes and a smaller increase in these events at higher latitudes. “Tornado alley” will move progressively northward and diminish in cumulative power as it moves north. This appears to be the case with fewer F5s at the southern end of the alley and more at the northern end. No surprise there. At least there shouldn’t be any surprise to any competent engineer.
What sounds worse, the CO2 in atmosphere rose by ±8% since 1997 or by just 0,000025%? Both figures are correct if put in the right context.
But somehow 0,000025% does not sound very menacing does it?
Anthony’s “love” for the California legislature is even more “entertaining” in person. Actually, “painful” is the better word – I hadn’t realized how much their actions have cost him, and it’s more than just pennies per book.
If it gets any worse, we’ll have to start a fund to help Anthony move out of the state.
Note to Californians – just because New Hampshire doesn’t have a sales tax[1] or an income tax[2] doesn’t mean all of you can fit into little New Hampshire. You’re better off going to Texas or taking over Wyoming. On the other hand, I currently live on a house on a 1/3 acre parcel. If you want for the cheap[3] price of only $1,000,000, I’ll be glad to start my retirement early and head for Mt Cardigan.
[1] We do tax tourists, e.g. 9% rooms and meals tax.
[2] There is this payroll tax employers (but not gov’t) pays. It’s a lot smaller than a real income tax, but it can be increased without much fanfare of calls to talk radio.
[3] Cheap by California standards.
Patrick Keane says:
“For those who are not familiar with it, the UK’s Daily Mail is a comic for the unwashed masses of a right wing persuasion.
If you can read it without becoming nauseous, have a look through their “on line” edition.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html
It is full of stories, (not reports), designed to titillate and stir various factions up. The stories do not appear to be checked for veracity and quite often seem to have a modicum of artistic license.
I would image an equivalent US paper would be the National Enquirer.”
Pete in Cumbria UK says:
“It is not (often, here in the UK) referred to as “The Daily Fail” without good reason.”
For an alternative view:-
The Daily Mail is the best selling tabloid in the UK, with sales far in excess of rivals such as the Daily Mirror and the Sun. It is unashamedly right wing and Eurosceptic. It, and its sister paper The Mail on Sunday, regularly provide left of centre journalists such as Lauren Booth (Tony Blair’s sisiter-in-law) with platrofrms for their articles. But it also employs right of centre journalists such as Littlejohn, Peter Hitchens and Christopher Booker (if he is right of centre). Its journalists regularly win awards such as the best correspondent of the year. Quentin Letts is acknowledged as the best parlaimentary diarist still writing.
Unfortunately, in order to boost circulation it invariably contains numerous pages of gossip about “celebrities”, including minor members of the Royal family. It also regularly publishes stories from victims of red tape and political correctness as well as from victims of crimes. These pages make it an easy target for ridicule by the trendy Islington set and their followers, particularly as the gossip is not always well-sourced.
But the real reason that it is despised by the left is because it is always among the first to expose their fads and, years ago it committed the biggest and most unforgivable sin in their eyes of actually supporting the hated Margaret Thatcher.
Dan July 3, 2011 at 3:59 am
….”“Mike” seems to have missed this in that striving for facts and reality.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20081126_hurricaneseason.html
Now I don’t claim to be a meteorologist or a mathematician but even I think 2008 might fall right in the middle of the “record low” Mike is talking about.”
Mike has the global numbers in his plots. The NOAA link is speaking only of the North Atlantic
Worst flooding in 50 years…
Worst drought in 50 years…
Glad I wasn’t around 50 years ago. The climate must have been terrible.