Reality check: Who believes Hurricane Sandy was/was not caused by global warming?

This list of who’s who is instructive to review. It says a lot about credibility of the “Sandy was caused by global warming” argument being pushed by activists and media.

Compare who’s pushing the agenda versus who isn’t buying into the hype.  See below. 

Links to their statements are designated with an asterisk * – click on the * to see the story

Says Global Warming IS the cause of Hurricane Sandy Says Global Warming IS NOT the cause of Hurricane Sandy
Name affiliation/link Name affiliation/link
Al Gore activist Climate Reality Project * Dr. Martin Hoerling NOAA *
Joe Romm activist CAP  * Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. UC *
Bill McKibben activist 350.org * Dr. Karsten Brandt donnerwetter *
Chris Mooney activist and blogger, Grist * Dr. Chris Landsea NOAA NHC *
Roseann Barr actress/singer Pres.candidate * Dr. Ryan Maue Weatherbell *
Meghain McCain no known credentials * Dr. Patrick Michaels VA state climo/ Cato *
Dr.Katharine Hayhoe Texas Tech * Dr. Judith Curry Georgia Tech *
Dr. Michael Oppenheimer activist EDF * Dr.Norman Page PhD – Geology *
Jennifer Granholm TV host/fmr governor * Dr.Gerald North Texas A&M *
Dr. George Lackoff Berkeley * Eric Berger Houston Chronicle SciGuy *
Dr. James Hansen activist, NASA GISS * Tom Chivers UK Telegraph *
Van Jones apologist and activist * Andrew Revkin New York Times *
 Chris Matthews  Hardball * Deniers are pigs. Dr. Roy Spencer UAH *
 Bill Clinton  #42 *  Joe Bastardi  WeatherBELL*
 Dr. Stephan Lewandowsky  Pollster *
Michael Moore  Sicko (on CNN)
UNSURE/ASK ANOTHER/ DIFFERENT QUESTION: COMPLETELY OFF TARGET POOR GEOGRAPHY
Dr. Randall Dole (NOAA):Dr. Peter Stott of the UK Met OfficeDr. Kevin Trenberth (NCAR)   *  Dr. Michio Kaku *
Dr. Kerry Emanuel (MIT)  *

From this comparison it seems clear that activists are pushing the idea that Hurricane Sandy is cased by AGW/Global Warming.But what about the hundreds of other storms?

Readers are invited to submit other entries in comments.

Get notified when a new post is published.
Subscribe today!
0 0 votes
Article Rating
186 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
D. Patterson
October 30, 2012 8:21 pm

Let it also be noted that Van Jones is a self-described Communist, radical Marxist activist, and leader of the so-called green movement opposed to capitalism and the fossil fuels industry.

pat
October 30, 2012 8:26 pm

response to Al Gore:
30 Oct: Washington Times: PICKET: Al Gore blames Hurricane Sandy on ‘global warming’
New York and New England were hit with powerful hurricanes in 1821 and 1938. In 1821, the hurricane was called, The Great September Gale. In 1938, the hurricane, aptly named the Long Island Express, slammed New York and New England with winds of up to 120 MPH. The Berkshire Eagle lists other hurricanes and tropical storms dating back to 1635 that have hit the east coast.
Is Mr. Gore saying that these massive hurricanes were caused by some form of man-made global warming…really? Please.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/watercooler/2012/oct/30/picket-al-gore-blames-hurricane-sandy-global-warmi/

Jerky
October 30, 2012 8:34 pm

The fact is that ocean temperature anomalies were on the order of 2 degrees and warmer. Statistically, a percentage of that is due to anthropogenic warming. It’s really not that difficult of a question,

D. Patterson
October 30, 2012 8:40 pm

Seth Borenstein AP is once more serving as the MSM frontman for the Alarmist hoax team with the usual misrepresentations about temperatures and sea level heights.He neglects to tell the readers how sea level has been and is supposed to be increasing ever since the current ice age was interrupted by the warming climates of the present Inter-Glacial. It is also remarkable how Seth Borenstein omitted mention of how the sea level has been observed to uncharacteristically not increase significantly and/or ever so slightly decline in the recent decade or longer.
Seth Borenstein also neglected to report how the temperature changes in the Gulfstream relate to thecyclical switch in temperature regimes between the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean.While one ocean increases in temperature, the other ocean decreases in temperature. They tend to offset each other with any residdual differences resulting in an overall change in global average of seawater temperatures.
In other words, Seth Borenstein is conveying yet more of the same discredited climate propaganda.

Marcus
October 30, 2012 8:49 pm

Stephan Lewandowsky – http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4343312.html#comments
“Debating the extent to which Frankenstorm Sandy was put on steroids by climate change is a distraction.”
To be fair to the Professor, he also seems to suggest that superstorm Sandy might have been caused by tobacco smoking.

David Ball
October 30, 2012 9:00 pm

Jerky says:
October 30, 2012 at 8:34 pm
The difficult question is, can you show how the two are linked? You’ve done the easy bit.

Dr Norman Page
October 30, 2012 9:01 pm

Hurricane Sandy is a warning sign of the sort of extreme event which is likely to become more frequent as the current global cooling trend accelerates from 2014 on. For details see my post
Hurricane Sandy – Exreme Events and Global Cooling
at my blog
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com.

David Ball
October 30, 2012 9:01 pm

Discovery Channel is “bending the storm over the table”, so to speak. Hope they have a warranty for that hype machine.

AlexS
October 30, 2012 9:09 pm

“… anthropogenic warming”
It is impossible to determine if there is anthropogenic warming.

Darren Potter
October 30, 2012 9:13 pm

For sake of Alarmists surfing here — Let us suppose for a moment there is Anthropological Global Warming or Human induced Climate Change (HiCC) or whatever Alarmists are calling it this month…
What proof** do you Alarmists have that Hurricane Sandy was made worse by your claimed AGW? Is it not just as possible that Hurricane Sandy was lessened in strength by your claimed HiCC?
Put another way; Why is everything Alarmists contribute to man-made Climate Challenges – bad, worse, or devastating?
** Note Alarmists: Offering rantings by Chrissy “Tingles” (Spittle) Matthews about AGW deniers being “Pigs” isn’t proof.

James
October 30, 2012 9:18 pm

Seems to be a lot of 100 year events happening lately. Why did they pick the first part of the century to occur?

David Ross
October 30, 2012 9:24 pm

Kevin Trenberth is more explicit here (than he is in the above linked article):

Trenberth: Hurricane Sandy Mixes Super-Storm Conditions With Climate Change
by Kevin Trenberth
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/29/1103711/trenberth-hurricane-sandy-mixes-super-storm-conditions-with-climate-change/?mobile=nc
Global climate change has contributed to the higher sea surface and ocean temperatures, and a warmer and moister atmosphere, and its effects are in the range of 5 to 10%. Natural variability and weather has provided the perhaps optimal conditions of a hurricane running into extra-tropical conditions to make for a huge intense storm,

enhanced by global warming influences

.
Bloomberg and Cuomo are less restrained

Bloomberg and Cuomo blame Hurricane Sandy on climate change
PUBLISHED: 21:48, 30 October 2012 | UPDATED: 00:20, 31 October 2012
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-2225484/Hurricane-Sandy-Michael-Bloomberg-Andrew-Cuomo-blame-hurricane-climate-change.html
New York governor Andrew Cuomo and mayor Michael Bloomberg both pointed to climate change as the culprit for Sandy’s ravages as they addressed the scale of the destruction on Tuesday morning.
[…]
At a press conference in Manhattan on Tuesday, Cuomo said he had told President Obama that ‘we have a 100-year flood every two years now’.
He added: ‘There has been a series of extreme weather incidents. That is not a political statement. That is a factual statement.
‘Anyone who says there’s not a dramatic change in weather patterns, I think is denying reality.’
[…]
‘Whether that’s global warming or what, I don’t know, but we’ll have to address those issues.’

And as you might expect, it would be much quicker to list the people over at Huffpo and ThinkProgress that don’t believe Sandy was man-made. Expect to see much more like this:

George Lakoff: Global Warming Systemically Caused Hurricane Sandy
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/george-lakoff/sandy-climate-change_b_2042871.html
Global warming is real, and it is here. It is causing — yes, causing — death, destruction, and vast economic loss. And the causal effects are …
In Hurricane Sandy’s Fury, The Fingerprint Of Climate Change
Tom Zeller Jr.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/29/hurricane-sandy-climate-change_n_2038859.html

Noelene
October 30, 2012 9:24 pm

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4343312.html
Climate change likely contributed to Sandy’s rage, with sea temperatures off the Atlantic U.S. coast being far above average. But hurricanes and storms have also occurred in the past for entirely natural reasons.
Stephan Lewandowsky

David Ross
October 30, 2012 9:26 pm

Oops, don’t know what happened to the formatting on my last post.

D. Patterson
October 30, 2012 10:00 pm

Jerky says:
October 30, 2012 at 8:34 pm
The fact is that ocean temperature anomalies were on the order of 2 degrees and warmer. Statistically, a percentage of that is due to anthropogenic warming. It’s really not that difficult of a question,

The fact is you don’t know the difference between a temperature anomoly and your place where the climate does not shine. Otherwise, you would be able to identify the alleged “2 degrees” temperature anomoly between what, what, and what. Of course, then you would have to explain how you identified an anthropogenic causee in a 2 degree increase in temperature when the alleged anthropogenic contribution to global average temperatures is alleged to be less than a single whole degree. That too presents a rather impossible problem to solve given how the temperature measuring instrumentation was not capable of being anymore accurate than a half degree, one degree, or more than one degree Fahrenheit depending upon the instrument.
As for your claim about being warmer statistically, such a remark is laughable. I’ll let you wonder why while the rest of us chuckle.

October 30, 2012 10:05 pm

Dr Norman Page says October 30, 2012 at 9:01 pm
Hurricane Sandy is a warning sign of the sort of extreme event which is likely to become more frequent as …

Deja vu? Katrina 2005? Haven’t we been to the rodeo once before? Seen this movie-picture alrady? Heard this song and dance before? Is there an echo in this room? Algore, is that you?
Is Global Warming Fueling Katrina? Aug. 29, 2005
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1099102,00.html
Hurricanes and Global Warming – Is There a Connection? September 2005
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2005/09/hurricanes-and-global-warming/
Global Warming Linked to More Severe, Frequent Hurricanes
http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/10/16/global-warming-linked-to-more-severe-frequent-hurricanes
Causes & Effects of Hurricane Katrina
http://www.forthepeople.com/causes-and-effects-of-hurricane-katrina–11-2137.html

waterbuffalo
October 30, 2012 10:06 pm

[If you wish to be objectionable please back it up with facts. This is a content free post and seems to have no purpose other than to attract flames. You are a troll . . mod]

Darren Potter
October 30, 2012 10:06 pm

For the likes of Gore, Chrissy, Clinton, Rbarr, …
You Alarmists are pseudo-correct that humans have made hurricanes worse. Made worse, only in the sense that humans have propagated to the point where even a wimpy (no offense Sandy) Category 1 hurricane can not make landfall without doing damage.
Realizing the U.S. population has more than doubled over that past 60 years, resulting in large cities and more cities – in essence increasing the chances a hurricane will do damage. In that same 60 years, people have become more dependent on technology, and less self-sufficient (sad to say) – in essence increasing the impact of a hurricane.
Finally, there is no denying advances in technology have made dissemination of a hurricane’s impact far more reaching and detailed – in essence alarming. Alarmists can blame Gore for inventing the Internet, without it we would be blissfully unaware, other than perhaps what Walter Cronkite described on the evening news and the fuzzy b/w pictures in your daily newspaper.

October 30, 2012 10:10 pm

Jerky says October 30, 2012 at 8:34 pm
The fact is that ocean temperature anomalies were on the order of 2 degrees and warmer. …

Cite? Reference? Study? Survey? Periodical? Journal? Charts? Graphs? Author(s) name? Publication date? Volume number? Peer reviewers? Referee? Or … dinner napkin?
.

October 30, 2012 10:12 pm

Note how those claiming an association between Sandy and AGW fail to cite any actual evidence whatsoever. They simply jump on the bandwagon even before anyone has had any opportunity to collect or analyze any evidence that is specific to Sandy. And they completely ignore the analysis of other severe weather events that has shown no association with AGW.
Pure unadulterated fluff. [Mod: note the polite choice of words requiring a great deal of self discipline]

Gerry
October 30, 2012 10:15 pm

Sky News UK was interviewing a science type gentleman who stated that “the jury is still out” but at further insistence from the reporter suggested that the increase in sea level due to global warming may have contributed to the impact of the storm …!

Justthinkin
October 30, 2012 10:36 pm

John Parsons said…”What effect does human caused climate warming have on certain types of important weather events?” Is anybody here really proposing that the answer is “None”? JP
Until you can show me definitive proof ,not climate models or eco-cultist adjustments,that humans can change Mother Nature,then the answer to your last question is YES.

sophocles
October 30, 2012 10:38 pm

Salinger and Trenberth make me ashamed to be a New Zealander.
“Physics? What’s that? What relevance does that have? We’ll say it the way we want it.”

wayne
October 30, 2012 10:44 pm

From: 23–331PS
2006 – NOAA HURRICANE FORECASTING
HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS – FIRST SESSION
OCTOBER 7, 2005
Witnesses:
Brigadier General David L. Johnson (ret.)
Director of NOAA’s National Weather Service.
Mr. Max Mayfield
Director of the National Weather Service’s National Hurricane Center.
Page 32…


Today, many more people live in hurricane prone areas than during the last period of high tropical activity, meaning that today’s storms will affect more people and cause more damage than historical storms.

———
Well, that seems to say it all as if everyone did not already realize it. Their testimony seems to also be strictly AMO related. However, tagged environmental activists are too dense to see these simple relationships. If you ever want to identify one, you know, for the list, just home in on these simple flaws common to their logic.
If you build on a beach, on an ocean water front, it’s neat I’m sure, but one day you will also reap what you sowed. I do feel sorry for all of those affected, my heart goes out to them, however, they must also bear the blame for their plight, it was their decision. After all, this is still a free country, no one put you there. Help them, of course, wish I could travel there right now to lend a helping hand.

Mike Bromley the Canucklehead
October 30, 2012 11:07 pm

David Ball says:
October 30, 2012 at 5:40 pm
Has it been established that Sandy was a “Hurricane”?

This is what bugs me about the whole Sandy thing. Certainly it looks like a hurricane as it springs to life in the Caribbean, but by the time it gets to the Carolinas the cyclone really looks like it had become disorganized. No eye, lopsided, with the huge winter storm over the Appalachians making a beeline for the barometric low that now is a tropical depression. As the two merge, the center of cyclonic motion gets pulled into the larger Nor’easter. But I really don’t care what all the weather hacks are saying about the ‘size’ of Sandy the ex-hurricane, but it really didn’t look like much of anything once it passed Florida.
Some said that the barometric low was the lowest ever recorded, while others said it tied the New England Express of 1938. Either way the record was like all other ‘records’, by a tiny bit of a millibar. All the hoopla about the storm’s size is only because satellites could see how big it was. But the big storm, just looking at the animations is a hybrid. But a hurricane?
The link is the McKibbenization of the whole affair. Claptrap.
http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2012/10/29/bill_mckibben_on_hurricane_sandy_and