I cringe every time I see stories like the one being pushed in the Associated Press today by AP science writer Seth Borenstein.
My Way News – This US summer is ‘what global warming looks like’ http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120703/D9VP9J681.html
Even Drudge picked it up.
The amount of unsupported speculation trying to be passed off as science is nothing more than the classic appeal to authority. In this case, the “authority” is NCAR’s Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a man with so much hatred for alternate viewpoints that he refused to remove the holocaust word “denier” from his keynote address to the American Meteorological Society.
This reminds me of the Russian heat wave of 2010.
The same people made essentially the same comments, then months later the peer reviewed literature (published by NOAA researchers no less) said that it was caused by natural variation…a blocking high pressure pattern. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/09/noaa-findsclimate-change-blameless-in-2010-russian-heat-wave/
That was followed up by another paper saying the same thing: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/29/another-paper-shows-that-the-russian-heatwave-of-2010-was-due-to-natural-variability/
We have essentially the same thing happening here, a persistent quasi-stationary weather pattern, part of the normal natural variation.
As for the derecho, it is hardly new. The word was first used in the American Meteorological Journal in 1888 by Gustavus Detlef Hinrichs in a paper describing the phenomenon and based on a significant derecho event that crossed Iowa on 31 July 1877. Further, NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center has catalogued them through the years. According to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center, climatology, the Washington DC area gets a derecho about once every four years:
As I said in my essay, The idea that the recent derecho is linked to global warming is pure folly spun by people that wish to exploit any remotely plausible situation for political purposes. It happens on a regular basis, for example when they try to link tornado outbreaks to global warming: The folly of linking tornado outbreaks to “climate change”.
Or how about the disparity in “weather is not climate except when we say it is” blame game: New York Times Blames 2009’s Record Cold on Natural Factors — But Blamed Record Warmth in 2000 on Man-Made Global Warming!
Given how badly global warming is faring in the minds of the public according to the last Washington Post/Stanford poll:
Global warming no longer Americans’ top environmental concern, poll finds
…it is clear they are desperate to sell any connection because the public will probably not hear about the science studies that will follow.
It is another shameful attempt to do just that by Dr. Kevin Trenberth aided by Seth Borenstein’s media bully pulpit. I will give Borenstein at least one credit though, he asked Dr. John Christy what he thought about it and printed it:
‘…history is full of such extremes, said John Christy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He’s a global warming skeptic who says, “The guilty party in my view is Mother Nature.”‘
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I guess the “Dust Bowl” never happened. Anyway, maybe we could get Gore to jet around the center of the country to promote AGW.
I don’t understand what climate change has to do with the holocaust. Al Gore and his buddies can use the word denier if they want to use it. This has nothing to do with the holocaust or denial of the holocaust. Very few people in this country deny the holocaust. Those who are fixated on the holocaust use any and every excuse to talk about the holocaust. Something that they always seem to forget about is the 55 million people who were killed in WWII who were not Jews. The Jews make up only about 10% of those who were killed in WWII. We never hear about the other 90%. Is this a denial that non Jews were killed ? Or is it simply an affirmation that to some people have very little regard for anyone other than a fellow Jew ?
[REPLY: Two points, “Jimbo”. This appears to be your first posting here. The screen name “Jimbo” is already being used by a long-time poster here. If you would be kind enough to change to a different, unique screen name, it would be appreciated.
Second: The Jews were not among the majority of those killed in WWII, but their experience was unique. One does not have to be a Jew to recognize that. People who minimize The Holocaust are not welcome here. -REP]
I think this will be difficult for many of your readers to accept but the USA weather isn’t the global weather. In the UK the period April to June has been the wettest and coldest on record. Is this part of Dr Trenberth’s apocalyptic scenario
That fellow Seth Borenstein is really not very smart.
Ian,
Regarding the U.K. weather. It is indeed art of their apocalyptic scenario. Too much rain, too little rain, too much wind, too little wind, too hot, too cold. It’s all caused by Global Warming, don’t you know that?
“I think that the sheer numbers of local record high temperatures, rather than any one event make the better case for global warming.”
Pardon me, but the numbers of local record highs is a function of how many stations readings are taken in a given area. It is meaningless. I have to agree with Wills. One might consider quantitatively equalizing the data on the number of stations per square mile.
Then there is airport temperatures that are not representing anything other than what is happening very locally.
Example of heat islands: Nellis AFB, temp: 124 F. Temp on the flightline: 145 F
Additionally, there is little attention to exceptional cold areas globally. It’s just the weather, no significant change in climate.
Re “pyrotechnic round called Dragon’s Breath ”
Yeah, that sure could make a fire. Would you call that target shooting?
“This US summer is ‘what global warming looks like”
…Did summer end already I just didn’t know it. I though we were only in the second week of summer!? I am curious to see what the majority of this US summer WILL look like. Next 5 days are encouraging for Colorado.
HPC 5 day precipitation forecast.
http://www.hpc.ncep.noaa.gov/qpf/p120i12.gif
“global warming skeptic” Borenstein left out the “man made” part. As I have pointed out many times before, the public has been brainwashed to associate “global warming” with “man made”.
Just had a look at the Borenstein article and the Trenberth interview. Fascinating. These guys party like there’s no tomorrow.
We cannot use local cold spurts to disprove global warming; however, we must use local storms, heat waves, and anything else possible to prove AGW! I think I finally get it!!
Someone call Ringling…. they are obviously missing clowns Borenstein and Trenberth.
Just four months ago here in the upper Midwest morons were talking about “1000 year droughts!”…and then the floods came.
Same ol’, same ol’.
You would not expect Trenberth as a New Zealander doing such things and be a central piece of the Hockey Team. New Zealand is such a small country and people have trust in each other and talk to each other – well, except for the Greens, of course.
Anthony, the weather is always going to be influenced by natural variability or natural forces. To say that a heat wave isn’t influenced by GW because it was shown to be due to a natural factor is silly.. Exactly how are you expecting GW heat to show itself? Through some new weather pattern never before seen? Heat spells are always going to be caused by the same patterns they are today.. Blocking pressure, variability in jets, etc… GW Is only going to add to the pattern additional heat.. Right… In other words the el niño will just be a bit hotter but you can’t day it’s not due to GW because enso is just natural pattern….
REPLY: Well, I’m sorry but I call B.S. on your comment. Here’s some historical perspective from a time when CO2 was much lower. – Anthony
Yes indeed. Cherry picking season is here!
Is a denier someone who does not blame global warming on Jews?
Feel free to comment on Borenstein’s propaganda piece at:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=156172098
The holocaust references are always designed to make it socially illegitimate to challenge their assertions. Trust me, these are people who know how to use the herd instinct to create demand for what they want.
By invoking the Holocaust they push up the models so people will confuse modelling with documented facts. So they win all the way around. At least until the very equivalence becomes the issue and it taints those pushing the point.
@ur momisugly Babsy, No the outflow boundary is different. It’s a weak-looking little thing on the radar where the radar picks up the gusts of wind coming out of the storm (our local meteorologists sometimes call it a gust front), and it can spark another line of storms ahead of the main one.
The bow echo is where the storm itself shapes into a bow-shaped echo, hence the name. They usually blow in and out pretty quickly with strong, straight-line winds. It looks like a great big backwards “C” shaped wall of red on the radar. It can also be called a squall line. This event was a bad bowecho event, not an outflow boundary.
Isn’t taking a specific that is unrepresentative of the whole and using that specific to promote an hypothesis called ‘cherry-picking’?
BillD said (July 3, 2012 at 9:21 am)
“…I think that the sheer numbers of local record high temperatures, rather than any one event make the better case for global warming. The ratio of high to low records is a useful statistic…”
Statistics are a wonderful thing. Useful is another matter.
Let’s say that you are the first to put up a thermometer in a city, and proceed to keep a record (the first records ever kept in that city). For an entire year, you faithfully record the day’s highs and lows.
Since yours was the first thermometer ever in that city, and the first records ever kept in that city, you could truthfully say that all 730 entries are new daily records for that city (365 new record highs, 365 new record lows). Would that year of record highs and lows in that city (and a ratio of 1:1) mean anything there?
Let’s say for the second year, only 5 days set a new high record, and not a single day sets a low record (5:0). Reverse it. No high records, and five low records (0:5). Useful metric?
Now to today.
Every little town, village and airport has a thermometer. Every single one has been keeping records of their OWN readings. Large numbers of thermometers and local records have been kept. Readings fairly close to each other can and do vary quite a bit. Different records show different record highs for the same day.
So let’s try something. Let’s say that of three individual readings, two show new high records for that day, and one does not. One of the three shows a new low for that day, and the other two don’t. You’re saying that the two-to-one ratio of new high/new low temps has to be a sign of CAGW.
It’s possible that one thermometer is faulty. It’s possible that one is improperly placed. It’s possible that the person reading one thermometer transposed a number. It’s possible that one thermometer didn’t record either a new high or a new low. It’s possible that one thermometer is the one you placed there last year, while the other two have been around for decades.
How does that two-to-one ratio prove anything?
It really will be a disaster if it ever becomes politically incorrect to challenge AGW liberal fascist dogma.
Even Fox is in on this. I swear you would think that the USA has never had a hot summer.
A popular shooting target in BLM country is the exploding target made of Tannerite. Despite the manufacturer claims to the contrary, it appears it can start a fire.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQkULwGLTyc&w=420&h=315%5D
The amount of unsupported speculation trying to be passed off as science …
Makes me think of a certain website I know …
[REPLY: I think it would behoove us to be a lot more charitable to Real Climate, Skeptical Science and Open Mind. They are trying their best. All commenters should take notice. -REP]