Climate Craziness of the Week: Mike Smith on "This Week's Stupidest Global Warming Story"

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.

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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.