Post by Dr. Ryan Maue (cross posted at my Policlimate)
“Must watch TV: Nye expounds on theory of racism”
Much “debate” has erupted in the liberal mainstream media concerning the effects of global warming on Hurricane Irene. With a few notable exceptions (Henry Fountain awesome), many of the journalists butchered the science and generally constructed disjointed narratives that quoted a variety of favorite experts which left me wondering why they even bother (Politico). Rush Limbaugh provided a compelling alternative explanation for the hurricane hype: “Politics is part of everything. The weather’s been politicized; the climate’s been politicized…Both Obama and the media were hoping for a disaster to revive his presidency and help prove climate change theory…The New York Times is trying to say that this violent hurricane is indeed indicative of global warming. It was a tropical storm when it left New York.”
But Bill Nye takes the “anti-science” crusade to a new level by showing up on Fox Business with my KFI 640 Saturday friend Charles Payne and embarrassing the hell out of himself. Once you watch the video and read the transcript, you will be left in amazement at his utter lack of comprehension of the topic at hand on national television! But, alas, Media Matters thinks Nye owned Payne (h/t to Andrew Revkin to Tweeted this). And CBS News headlines it as a story! Unbelievable!
The left actually thinks Bill Nye is a brilliant ambassador for their brand of global warming alarmism — a legitimate guy that understands the science and can articulate an explanation. However, Nye has no credentials or expertise with respect to global warming and hurricanes, at all. Not one iota.
Video is embedded or to go to CBS News and watch the Fox Business embedded video there. “Heady stuff, but Nye receives my respect for retaining his patience in outlining a life’s worth of work in a six-minute segment.” says Andrew Nusca. He has no idea that what Bill Nye is saying is disjointed and amateurish. Intricacies? Nye got almost everything wrong.
I transcribed my own transcript from the first 3 minutes of this (all I could take). Emphasis — bold and italics are my comments.
Charles Payne: While hurricane Irene brought more than just wind damage and flooding to the east coast, it’s revived a national debate as to whether global warming might be causing an increase in hurricanes and other extreme weather. In fact a recent cover story in Newsweek declared that this kind of wild weather may be quote “the new normal”. Here with insights on this is Bill Nye, otherwise known as the science guy.
Ok Bill, I’m going to come right at you. Um…Hurricane Irene – proof of global warming?
Bill Nye: Oh, I don’t think the word proof is what you are looking for – evidence of, a result of, yeah, yeah. Now here’s what the people will tell you that run these climate models. Now everybody, the word model in this usage is a computer program. A very sophisticated computer program. So you take data from satellites about the thickness of clouds and the extent of cloud-cover over the sea. You take data about the temperature of the sea surface. You take data about the existing weather say in North America or the Gulf of Mexico as this storm moves into it. Then you compute how much rain fell out of it, how much energy must have been put into it to create that much rain. It takes many months to analyze an event like Irene. Now the climate colleagues that I have will not tell you today that Irene was evidence or a result of climate change but check in with them about March next year after they have a few months to collect all of these millions and millions of data from weather services and satellites and compile them and run a climate model and show that Irene was a result of the world having more energy in the Earth’s atmosphere.
(Ryan: First of all, charitably, I think Nye is confusing a real-time operational weather forecast with a climate model. Climate models do not assimilate satellite observations of a given event — and it wouldn’t take months and months to compile the data. I have everything sitting on my server which generates my old FSU weather map page. Check back with them in March — that’s when they’ll have their climate model results back proving Irene was the result of more energy? This is a pretty unconventional way of doing climate or extreme event attribution. Bill Nye follows the “anti-scientific” method: I’ll give you the answer now, and then in 6-months, check back when I have the proof. )
CP: But here’s the thing here bill, ever since Katrina, right, we’ve heard that every year the hurricane season is going to be more devastating and apocalyptic, and the reality is we haven’t seen that. So how can Newsweek say “hey, this is a new normal”? is that irresponsible – is there any science behind that?
(Ryan: this is a great question by Payne. Since global hurricane activity — the number of storms, hurricanes, and Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) is at historical lows — collapsing since Katrina — as I showed in my recent GRL peer-reviewed paper, how on earth can you attribute one hurricane (Irene) to climate change.?)
BN: well there’s a lot more science behind that than just saying it’s not. But, uh, that aside. That’s only 6-years – in geologic time in terms of climate events, is not very long. Furthermore there is a lot of debate about this cool thing or remarkable thing is that the Sea-surface in the Pacific gets warmer, in the Pacific Ocean! Okay, tens of thousands of nautical miles away. As that gets warmer, it will strangely serve to decapitate certain hurricane or cyclonic storms off the coast of Africa – and actually get a few fewer hurricanes.
(Ryan: no kidding Nye, however, you haven’t come up with any science. Nye then launches into a tortured explanation of the El Nino Southern Oscillation warm phase — El Nino where the waters in the tropical Pacific cyclically become anomalously warm. But, it’s not “tens-of-thousands nautical miles away” — that’s more like the distance to the moon. There is actually little consensus in the climate community about the future of El Nino as the planet slowly warms. The CMIP3 models used for the IPCC AR4 report fail to reproduce historical ENSO events or variability, and therefore are useless prediction devices for the future. We already have a pretty good handle on the “teleconnection” effects of El Nino and La Nina on Atlantic hurricane development with research pioneered by Dr. Bill Gray and furthered by Dr. Phil Klotzbach who produces Colorado State’s seasonal hurricane forecasts. 2011 is a neutral-to-building La Nina year, so we should expect weaker vertical shear in the Main Development Region of the tropical Atlantic. It’s bizarre that Nye brought up El Nino which contradicts his original assertion that Irene was evidence of global warming.)
CP: But Bill, that’s not…
BN: This is another thing that’s very hard to show.
CP: But the Pacific Ocean, getting warmer, but that’s not from man.
(Ryan: excellent point again Charles. The tropical Pacific does not have a strong global warming signal over the past 30-years, which is due to the cyclical nature of ENSO on 2-7 year time scales. Our sea-surface temperature (SST) records get worse as you go backwards from the beginning of the satellite era in 1979. Nye has no answer.)
BN: (waving hands): you’re acting that you are dismissing those things like they they are not relevant.
(Ryan: Nye is defeated, and he knows it. After wagging his finger like Judge Judy, he pretty much has spent his arsenal of facts on this issue.)
CP: I’m not dismissing it, but you have so much information, I want to get to all of it. Are you saying though that it’s manmade, though?
BN: Well the world is getting warmer, uh, everybody, the world is getting warmer. I believe the debate is whether humans are causing it…Do we not agree that the world is getting warmer?
(Ryan: The world is getting warmer — so Irene has to be influenced by global warming. Maybe Irene did NOT reach its maximum potential because of global warming — has anyone considered that. Why must ALL of the climate change effects be a certain sign? Why didn’t Irene reach Category 5? Why did it weaken so fast if the SSTs were so warm? This is where the real tropical cyclone researchers will take over from the media hacks, and, yes, they will come with an answer in March. But, they will follow the “scientific” method and not the “I’ll get the proof later” Bill Nye “anti-science” method.)
CP: I have no idea. Someone told me that it’s warmed 1-degree over the past 100-years. I’ll take their word for it.
(Ryan: Charles is right.)
Show continues to talk about racism and shows the Al Gore “racism” clip – but Nye then really goes off into a different realm discussing that. I’m convinced that Fox News booked Nye knowing that he would butcher the science, and force me to write this post.
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Bill Nye seems to be regressing into this:
Let’s go easy on Billy . . he doesn’t advertise himself as a knowledgeable science guy so we can be comfortable knowing he’s really “Bill Nye The Kindergarten Level Science Guy” . . . because at that age, you can just make stuff up as required to answers questions and people think it is cute to have a vivid imagination.
Bill Nye is progressively looking more sinister. He used to be so much fun in his show, “Bill Nye, the Science Guy”. I wonder if he is in an internal battle with what he knows to be true in science and what his political advocacy tells him to say about global warming, and that battle mixed with the doom and gloom cynicism of global warming is affecting his face?
Scott Covert ,
Bill Nye is a TV “scientist” . AFAIK , he relies on the work of other scientists and regurgitates it . Kind of like teachers who depend on the teacher’s version of their textbooks for the answers to test questions . I would be surprised if he has looked into climate science at all . Mr. Wizard he ain’t .
Interstellar Bill says: “…political science…reveals the total failure of every liberal policy of the past,”
Ah, but those failures were the result of not going far enough. The answer to failed liberalism is always more liberalism. Just ask Obama. He’ll tell you.
/snarkoff
Newsflash: No sun, party over; no oxygen, party over; no CO2, party over; still not revelant to CAGW being a failed hypothesis.
“Hmmm…seems plausible” and yet not backed up by actual scientific analysis, how odd.
Source:
Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1029/2011GL047711, 2011
http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011GL047711
Title: Recent historically low global tropical cyclone activity
Author: Ryan N. Maue: Center for Ocean and Atmosphere Studies, Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Science, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA;
As much as some people hate Fox news, they are the only members of the MSM who actually bother to show both sides of the debate.
On a side note, it’s disheartening to see Biil Nye, who’s show I used to love as a kid, turn into someone who’s become nothing more then a PR man for AGW. Makes me want to watch old episodes of his show and see what he got wrong then, as well as now.
Katabasis says:
August 30, 2011 at 4:26 pm
What a thoroughly embarrassing car crash that was!
Which – Nye, or the R. Gates post just above yours?
Bill Nye on his appearance in the Stargate Atlantis episode was much better. He had his lines. LOL!
Bill Nye speaks not to make science but to make a lot of money. He follows the winds of graft.
R. Gates says:
August 30, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Newflash to skeptics:…………….
increased greenhouse gases beyond what we’ve seen in 800,000 years might cause some change in hurricane behavior? Hmmm…seems plausible, especially with the increases in ocean heat content and water vapor levels we’ve seen over the past few decades.
================================================================
lol, no, but the discussion never was about GHGs or hurricanes from 800,000 years ago. As far as being plausible, perhaps one could have thought of it in that manner, but reality and observations say otherwise. But Gates, you know that already…….. why posit things you know aren’t true?
YouTube of it:
R. Gates wrote;
“Guess what: no greenhouse warming, no hurricanes…oceans freeze solid…party over.”
Ah yes, the old ”the greenhouse effect keeps the oceans from freezing” yarn/lie/myth/hoax/dogma.
Do you really expect us to believe that the miniscule thermal capacity of the “greenhouse gases” are pulling the oceans (with their massive thermal capacities) into thermal equilibrium with the gases ???
This is about the same as 1 tiny little ice cube forcing a great big room temperature cast iron pot down to freezing temperatures. Or, in the opposite direction a small little candle pulling the temperature of a cast iron pot up to the temperature of the candle flame.
Not to mention the massive energy that has to be removed from the oceans to make them freeze.
The “greenhouse effect” only changes the response time of the gases in the atmosphere to changes in the energy input to the system (i.e. sunrise and sunset). This effect is so small we cannot afford to measure it.
Cheers, Kevin.
Charles Payne, who I appear with most Thursdays on FBN ( this week Friday) is a great guy and I feed him alot of behind the scenes info. But I would love round 2 with Bill “bring up Venus” Nye and test the guy on his knowledge of how bad hurricanes were in the last warm cycle of the AMO. Would love to hear the explanation of 130 G 156 at Cape Henry in 1944, or 121 for 5 minutes gust to 186 at Blue HIll in 1938. He obviously has no clue as to what went on with the hurricanes of the 30s, 40s and 50s, and by the way, bring up 38,44, or the sisters of 54 and you can really get a deer in the headlight look. I notice his media page never put my debate with him on O’Reilly up. I wonder why? I also wonder why he is doing this,, he must be so overboard leftist he simply lets ideology take over. What else could it be? Lining himself up with a guy that wants to play the race card in the climate debate, which boggles the mind that the son of a Senator that voted against the civil rights act multiple time could actually say that ( Al Gore) The whole thing is surreal to me
BTW, Ryan, we gotta get you out there.. First thing is defend the honor of U of M, and take on
Dr. Jeff Masters. I will sit in the front row, chugging protein shakes, watching that one.
JB
[ryanm: Masters’ is from a different generation. The choice for his website name was not as tongue in cheek as it should have been.]
R. Gates says:
August 30, 2011 at 4:26 pm
“is it possible that increased greenhouse gases beyond what we’ve seen in 800,000 years might cause some change in hurricane behavior?”
Unfortunately for the alarmists, the most reasonable scenario for climate warming is a reduction in cyclonic energy. The greenhouse warming hypothesis is that the poles will warm more than the tropics. The temperature gradient from poles to tropics will be less. It is not absolute atmospheric energy content that drives weather, it is energy gradients. While you did not come right out and say it, your extrapolation of a snowball earth situation with hypothetically minimal cyclonic energy through present weather/climate conditions to implies ever more cyclonic energy with increased warming, a hypothesis of dubious scientific merit.
But he must know what he’s talking about! He wears a bow tie!
For the many people who had their houses and towns flooded and their power lost for a week, Irene was a disaster; many rural communities suffered greatly. The flooding is most always the largest problem. That being said, the desire for Irene to be a hurricane that blasted the East Coast had a lot of politics behind it. I don’t think any decent person wants to see a disaster no matter what their political affiliation, but it seems obvious that many wanted Irene to provide an emotional boost to the global warming propaganda. Bill Nye is one of these. And some could envision how, with the right PR, the president could show he could take a stand on something and be seen as an effective leader. But alas, Nature did not cooperate with a mega storm that could provide the proper optics nor sustain the disaster loving headlines. And you end up with quasi scientists like Bill Nye giving embarrasingly tortured arguments to support global warming alarmism.
R. Gates says:
August 30, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Did good old Joe happen to mention how horribly wrong he was on his predictions for Arctic sea ice extent this year? Or how about how the floor is dropping out on global sea ice as well? Hope, along with his other prognostications, he’s mentioning, “oh, by the way, I’ve been horribly wrong about my predictions for Arctic and Global sea ice extent…I’ve been predicting it will go up, but it’s been going down down down.”
———-
Sea ice looks fine R. Gates, what’s the problem?
“Hurricane Irene was a catastrophe of enormous severity and magnitude, Christie said, adding: “Torrential rains have caused significant flooding in areas across the state, impacting residences, major and local roads, and necessitating highway closures and a suspension of rail services.”…
… Actually it was an unfortunate double whammy. Trenton, New Jersey’s highest single day rainfall total for the month of August occurred two weeks before Irene. August 14, saw 4.67 inches of rain. The second highest daily rainfall total occurred on August 27, with 3.91 inches. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania had their wettest August on record, ‘before’ Irene even made landfall in North Carolina.
By the way, to R Gates.. I admitted many times the ice was not as high this year as I thought. I do a video almost every Monday on this and like all good catholic boys confess my sins, But guess what, your side with their ice free nonsense, or this is the lowest ever, is much more out of touch as objective satellite data shows, data that started at the end of the last cold PDO and with the amo cold at the same time. Lets see where it goes over the next 30 years with those things turning around
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/seaice.anomaly.arctic.png
You made your point, but horribly wrong? Let me get this straight.. your ilk says no ice, I say it will be back where it was before 2007. Who is horribly wrong? We are in no death spiral, but like all the people that twist what I say, you fail to bring up my multiple admissions of being in error when I am. . But that is how you guys survive, for in your world, NO ANSWER IS WRONG AND ANYTHING THAT HAPPENS VERIFIES YOUR IDEA. Too much snow, you are right. Too little snow, you are right. Coldest ever in some place.. See right again. So knock it off, I have admitted many times I am wrong, you just choose not to admit it or see it.. in the end, the cold pdo and the cooling amo in the coming years will prove my point. The hurricane frenzy will fade and you will have to move on and find some other metric that your sides longer term forecasts are horribly busting on ( temps leveling off while co2 continues to rise for instance) to use.
You are correct sir, there is more ice melt this summer than I forecasted. But anyone that follows me knows I have admitted that. But there is a heck of alot more than your death spiral allies said there would be . I admitted my mistake ( multiple times) but we never hear anything like that from the close minded sheep that march lock stock and barrel to the drumbeat of bologna this issue really is.
As far as the hurricane issue with Irene. East coast hurricanes are notorious for bands of strong winds, well away from the center and high variability of the wind on the eastern side of the of the storm, heavy rains on the western side. The turbulent mixing needed to bring the wind down to the surface becomes very erratic, The 38 hurricane had wind gusts to only 86 mph at Providence, yet Blue Hill had a gust to 186 with a 5 minute wind speed of 121. But the damage was of a 120 mph hurricane across Rhode Island, though no weather station caught that. . I would suggest you look at what the real storm surge was the pics of houses taken out on the beaches, , the amount of major tree damage that occurred and understand that 40-60 mph tropical storms do not produce that, nor do nor easters ( even with the wet ground). Instead bands of strong winds came through, as they have in the other hurricanes when transitioning and are not like what you see in the pure tropical cyclone. But east of the center, in southern New England, this was as bad as Gloria ( another storm accused of being hyped) and apparently as bad as Isabel on the NC outer banks and tide water.
As for the flooding.. the west side of recurving east coast hurricanes all do that. Diane 1955 and Agnes 1972 are disasters for their flooding yet without the heat and energy from the hurricane, there is no flood. The list is endless with that.. rain the to west winds to the east. Its why I have that power scale, that incorporates pressure, that
is meant to inform people how the total package of the storm looks.
This will probably be snipped but I’ll try anyway:
“But he must know what he’s talking about! He wears a bow tie!”
[snip – correcto mundo you are]
I almost posted it Joe but figured it had been posted a lot on previous threads. By the way, you were great on O’Reily last night!
Fox News:
Global Warming – Bill Nye Versus Joe Bastardi
I saw this Fox News item in it’s entirety and I was utterly dumb-struck that they would get this colossal idiot to comment on these things. I also double-took when he said the Pacific Ocean is “tens of thousands of nautical miles away”. Considering the Earth has a circumference of approx 22,000 miles, the Pacific can never be more than a few thousand miles away from any spot on the planet. How can someone who doesn’t know this ever be called The Science Guy?! What a complete shower.
Questions on TV shows like this are designed to generate controversy, not help elucidate understanding. It’s just fine for infotainment, but a useless format to increase understanding on issues.
The problem with that interview is the same as any other pop media TV interview. The science is complicated and you need time to explain it. Bill kept trying to put the questions into the larger context, but there just wasn’t time, so his comments wind up coming off half-cocked. The problem isn’t with the show, the presenter or Bill Nye, it’s just that the form precludes any decent content.
The author of this article states:
But that is Fox’s M.O. right there. Why, indeed, did they choose Bill Nye? Because of his face value, not because of his credentials. This is infotainment, folks, and you’re going to get dumbed-down questions, two-dimensional journalism, and the reportage on it will reflect the circus, not the science. Interviewees who *succeed* in this format have their talking points all nicely lined up, stay on message, and practise their skills so they look and sound good. People lap them up because they exude confidence, even when what they say is rubbish.
Charles Payne is amazing. He can beat most people to a bloody pulp with his brilliance, but he has too much class to ever do it.