The tornadic outbreak in Dallas is barely over and already there’s a rush to scare the public over non-existent links between tornadoes and climate.
The Daily Caller reports:
On the Tuesday broadcast of “CNN Newsroom,” CNN meteorologist Alexandra Steele declared that tornadoes plowing through the Dallas-Fort Worth area were brought on by climate change.
Steele, formerly of The Weather Channel, also predicted that more extreme weather is on its way.
“It really is [such a strange spring],” Steele said. “That’s kind of the climate change we are seeing. You know, extremes are kind of ruling the roost and really what we are seeing, more become the norm.”
“CNN Newsroom” host Carol Costello said it made her “afraid” about what is in store for next spring.
“It might be unnaturally cold,” said Costello. Steele agreed that future weather would be less predictable.
“This global warming is really kind of a misnomer,” Steele said. “It’s global climate change. So the colds are colder and warms are warmer and severe is more severe.”
Source – The Daily Caller: http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/03/cnn-meteorologist-todays-tornadoes-are-climate-change-we-are-seeing
Time to invoke Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.’s handy button:
With this post I am creating a handy bullshit button on this subject (pictured above). Anytime that you read claims that invoke disasters loss trends as an indication of human-caused climate change, including the currently popular “billion dollar disasters” meme, you can simply call “bullshit” and point to the IPCC SREX report.
A few quotable quotes from the report (from Chapter 4):
- “There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change”
- “The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados”
- “The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses”
The report even takes care of tying up a loose end that has allowed some commentators to avoid the scientific literature:
“Some authors suggest that a (natural or anthropogenic) climate change signal can be found in the records of disaster losses (e.g., Mills, 2005; Höppe and Grimm, 2009), but their work is in the nature of reviews and commentary rather than empirical research.”
A few Notes:
La Ninas are often far more costly than El Ninos (PDF)
La Nina of 2010 2nd strongest (PDF)
During El Niño the jet stream is oriented from west to east across the southern portion of the United States. Thus, this region becomes more susceptible to severe weather outbreaks. During La Niña the jet stream and severe weather is likely to be farther north.
Note the collision zone in the US southeast during La Niña patterns. 1974 was a La Niña year too.
And of course there’s this from The folly of linking tornado outbreaks to “climate change”:
Historically, there have been many tornado outbreaks that occurred well before climate change was on anyone’s radar. Here’s a few:
1908 Southeast tornado outbreak 324 fatalities, ≥1,720 injuries
1920 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak ≥380 fatalities, ≥1215 injuries
1925 Tri-State tornado ≥747 fatalities, ≥2298 injuries
1932 Deep South tornado outbreak ≥330 fatalities, 2145 injuries
1952 Arkansas-Tennessee tornado outbreak 208 fatalities
1965 Palm Sunday tornado outbreak 256 fatalities
April 3-4 1974 Super Outbreak 315 fatalities
All of these occurred before “climate change” was even on the political radar. What caused those if “global warming” is to blame? The real cause is La Niña, and as NOAAwatch.gov indicates on their page with the helpful meter, we are in a La Niña cycle of ocean temperature in the Pacific.
I recommend reading my essay: Why it seems that severe weather is “getting worse” when the data shows otherwise – a historical perspective.
I also recommend: 2011 US Tornado Year Analyzed – no trend indication, still below 1974 for strong to violent tornadoes
Related articles
- Another blow to warmist hysteria over weather is not climate unless we say it is: “2011 damage is qualitatively indistinguishable from 1974″ (wattsupwiththat.com)
- Tornadoes tear through Dallas-Forth Worth area (fox13now.com)
- Forecastthefacts.org – Political Activists Gagging Our TV Meteorologists on Climate Issues (wattsupwiththat.com)
“It’s Better To Be Thought An Airhead Bimbo Than To Open Your Mouth And Remove All Doubt.”
With apologies to Mark Twain
I am waiting with interest to see the latest satellite temperature anomaly from Dr Spencer.
It is likely that the present anomaly is not above the 30 year average. That being the case, why would global warming be responsible for the weather today?
“…more extreme weather is on its way…”
Of course it is. Just like the climate of Earth has been changing for the last ~4.6 billion years.
We have more and better ways to identify and document “extreme” events. And they sure aren’t going to break into to a TV program to announce: “This just in! Today’s weather was perfectly average! More at 11!!!!”
The only thing I have ever liked about CNN is their building has a conveniently located Chick-fil-A when you are stuck at the World Congress center for a conference all week.
Before the use of fossil fuels there were no incidences of semi trailers being picked up by tornadoes.
Anthony, did you send a copy of the link to this page to Alexandra Steele? She really needs to know.
Yes tornados in Texas in April, must be unprecedented.
Here is interesting TV news coverage of a tornado outbreak in 1964 in Wichita Falls that I found.
I think TV news overages have change a bit since that time.
FOI, as a young officer in the Swedish Air Force my father spent the spring of 1963 at Sheppard Air Force Base. I have to ask him if he heard about this tornado which struck one year later.
CNN – the Communist News Network. Hardly surprising.
Cameras everywhere. Internet everywhere. Airheads everywhere.
“This global warming is really kind of a misnomer,” Steele said. “It’s global climate change. So the colds are colder and warms are warmer and severe is more severe.”
———————————
In other words…..we can’t predict s…….and this is our new excuse
I live in DFW area and it’s something I have to deal with EVERY SPRING no matter what. To link this to climate change is absurd…
Saw that in ‘real time’; one of the stations providing wall-to-wall coverage was also airing streaming video from their associated storm spotter field team and the team had this coming from their camera … at the time, it was difficult to determine just what was being seen, but now seeing the picture now it all becomes clear as to what the storm spotter was seeing and was streaming back to the station.
I also want to take this opportunity to commend _all_ the TV crews, the on-air mets and others behind the scenes for their work this afternoon … also commendable was the crew on WBAP and their associated Cumulus stations (they all went simulcast with WBAP news and lead met doing the broadcasting) as they all worked to keep the public fully-informed and up-to-date as events unfolded weather-wise this afternoon. They all did an excellent job.
BTW, the ‘count’ (unofficially at this point) is up to 12 tornadoes in this event today as of a little while ago …
.
Joseph Bastardi says….
Joe, I rather enjoyed watching you hold Beckel at arm’s length this afternoon. He’s normally a party line guy on climate change. Are you sure there aren’t any tornados waiting for him in Dakota?
: > )
Steele should be sacked for being thoroughly ill-educated about her supposed area of expertise. What an embarrassment.
If you are interested in seeing radar images, photos, and video of the Metroplex Metronadoes, please go here and scroll down: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/
PS – I don’t recall climate change ever being mentioned in The Wizard Of Oz!
We are were the news is.
CNN (1980)
The news is where we are.
CNN (1990)
If we don’t have a reporter there with a video camera then it didn’t happen.
CNN (2000)
More entertaining then theOnion.
CNN (2010)
Irrefutably changing “Global Warming” to “Climate Change” gives the alarmists a way out and enables them to continue their scare-mongering. We should not go along with that change of phrase at all, it only helps them to bury their massive “fry-and-die” mistake. THEY insisted on dangerous and extensive WARMING, now let’s see that it hangs them – figuratively speaking.
I wonder, do you think that tornado mistook the trucking company for a trailer park?
I live in the Dallas area & I remember seeing a tornado rip through Oak Cliff as a kid. Not to mention the one that hit Ft. Worth a few years back. There’s a reason where we live is called “Tornado Alley “. At lest there is warning of a storm coming, unlike the earth shaking of my wife’s native California.
Trailers flying in a tornado is nothing unusual. The trailers were empty. Mobile homes do it all the time when they are not empty.
I would think that a more obvious sign of climate change would be if we went through several years with a lack of weather extremes.
“This global warming is really kind of a misnomer,” Steele said. “It’s global climate change. So the colds are colder and warms are warmer and severe is more severe.”
Since the Global Warming circle was not happy with the good times, they are stuck with a mouthful of sour grapes for every type of weather imaginable.
From the NOAA website:
The Top Ten Deadliest Tornadoes in Texas since 1900:
1 – The Waco Tornado – May 11, 1953
2 – The Goliad Tornado – May 18, 1902
3 – The Rocksprings Tornado – April 12, 1927
4 – The Tri-State Tornado – April 09, 1947
5 – The Wichita Falls Tornado April 10, 1979
6 – The Frost Tornado – May 06, 1930
7 – The Karnes-Dewitt Tornado – May 06, 1930
8 – The Zephyr Tornado – May 30, 1909
9 – The Saragosa Tornado – May 22, 1987
10 – The Jarrell Tornado – May 27, 1997
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/ama/?n=top10_tornadoes
Also noted at the bottom of the list are 18 other tornadoes since 1990 that have caused more than a dozen deaths each:
of particular note:
May 9, 1927 – Dallas, 15 deaths F-Rating = 4
That is incredibly misleading on the part of that anchor. Shameful. She didn’t even mention that between 2001 and 2008 the number of wiccans DOUBLED in the U.S. and this didn’t have at least SOME degree of effect on the weather?
http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_nbr3.htm
Oh sure, you may say “The weather isn’t getting ‘worse'” or point to some graph that says the same thing. You may even say something along the lines of “Wtf do witches have to do with weather?”.
Well if you ask me that sounds like something a witch would say!
Witches. It’s the damn witches I tells ya.
There is also this:
April 1957 Dallas tornado outbreak:
The April 1957 Dallas tornado outbreak was a deadly tornado outbreak that struck most of the Southern United States from April 2 to the early hours of April 4, 1957.
The outbreak was most notable due to a tornado that hit a densely populated area of the Dallas Metropolitan area, while other deadly tornadoes struck portions of Mississippi, Texas, and Oklahoma. The two-day outbreak killed at least 19 across 3 states and produced 50 tornadoes from Texas to Tennessee.
See: http://www.1957dallastornado.net/