Guest post by Steve Goreham
Hurricane Sandy has come and gone, leaving a path of destruction. More than 100 people have been killed and 8.5 million lost power. Nineteen states from Maine to Tennessee were impacted, with deaths reported in 10 states. Widespread flooding and fires caused extensive damage in New Jersey and New York. More than two feet of snow fell in western Maryland, West Virginia, and parts of Tennessee. The power of nature in action is frightening to behold.
But some believe that mankind is now causing hurricanes, or making them worse. Former Vice President Al Gore warns, “Hurricane Sandy is a disturbing sign of things to come. We must heed this warning and act quickly to solve the climate crisis. Dirty energy makes dirty weather.” Activist Bill McKibben declares, “…what it means that we’re now seeing storms of this unprecedented magnitude. If there was ever a wake-up call, this is it.”
These comments are an outgrowth of Climatism, the belief that man-made greenhouse gases are destroying Earth’s climate.
The theory of man-made global warming claims that an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing stronger hurricanes and storms, droughts and floods, the melting of Earth’s ice caps, and dangerous sea-level rise. Mr. Gore now paints the Halloween image of “dirty weather.”
Yet, carbon dioxide is only a trace gas in our atmosphere. Only four of every 10,000 air molecules are carbon dioxide. Mankind’s contribution in all of human history is only a fraction of one of those 10,000 molecules. Nevertheless, proponents of the theory of man-made climate change now claim that this one molecule was responsible for Sandy, a hurricane with a 1,000-mile diameter.
But hurricanes are the result of larger forces. Sunlight falls directly on Earth’s Tropics, where much energy is absorbed, and indirectly on Polar Regions, were little energy is absorbed. All weather on Earth, including hurricanes, tropical storms, tornados, storm fronts, and the jet stream, along with ocean currents, acts to redistribute heat from the Tropics to the Poles. Hurricanes are born in the Tropics, where water evaporates from warm oceans, forming powerful rotating storms. Earth’s rotation then bends the path of hurricanes as they move north from the Tropics.
A large hurricane releases heat energy at the rate of one exploding 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes. Climatists claim that CO2, a trace gas, controls the weather, a system of huge forces with thousands of times more energy. This is more like the flea wagging the dog than the tail wagging the dog. Even more incredible, some claim that we can control the weather by controlling this trace gas. “Man-made warming has consequences. The time to act is now,” according to environmentalist Joseph Romm.
But, wasn’t hurricane Sandy unique in history? Well, not quite. The 1821 Norfolk and Long Island hurricane battered the New Jersey coast with winds estimated at 135 mph (Category 3), much stronger that those of Sandy (Category 1). Manhattan Island was flooded to Canal Street and this occurred at low tide. In 1954, Hurricane Hazel struck the Carolinas with 140 mph winds (Category 4). Hazel continued north along the U.S. Atlantic coast, through New York State and into Canada. Deaths from Hazel totaled 95 in the U.S. and 81 in Canada. More than 80 tropical or subtropical cyclones have hit the state of New York since the 1600s.
Climatism plays on human fear of nature to promote policy. Subsidize wind and solar power, stop using fossil fuels, switch to electric cars, change your light bulbs, green your business, become a vegetarian, have fewer kids, we are told. If you do all these things and more, then man will be able to control hurricanes, stop the rise of the seas, and save the polar bears.
Climate alarmists excel at gathering government funding to “fight” climate change. Today, the U.S. government is spending almost $9 billion each year in grants to study man-made climate change. Tens of billions more are spent for green energy subsidies, grants and loans. The world is spending over $250 billion each year to try to “decarbonize” national economies. Yet, mounting evidence shows that climate change is natural and man-made influences are very small. Suppose we shift efforts away from misguided efforts to control climate and toward solving the real problems of our nation and the world?
Steve Goreham is Executive Director of the Climate Science Coalition of America and author of the new book The Mad, Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change Mania.
Related articles
- A note to Bill McKibben: get used to it, few care enough to pony up money for your concerns (wattsupwiththat.com)
- This is the new normal, warn climate scientists. (smh.com.au)
Caleb says:
November 4, 2012 at 6:42 pm
I live in New Hampshire and have a land line. I’m in a “Batlleground State.” You would not believe the number of polls that call me up. Between eight and fifteen every evening, for weeks now. Sometimes they are absurd: Malfunctioning robo-calls; young ladies who ask me my age and then tell me I’m too old; automatic voices which tell me I have an invalid extension and should use another phone; (though I only have one.)
It is really annoying, when I am trying to study up on things on the web. How am I to read the comments on WUWT??? Therefore, though it is slightly off topic, I have composed the following poem:
If I get one more phone call
From a presidential pollster
I’m purchasing a cowboy hat
And buckling up my holster
And next time that my telephone
Dares to ding-a-ling
I’ll whip out my revolver
And I’ll shoot the stupid thing.
Everybody vote!
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😎
I lived in NH for 3 years in the early ’80s. (Can you still buy liquer at a state store at a rest stop on the Interstate?)
I’m in Ohio now. Not only a “Battleground State” but a “Swing State”.
Can I borrow your revolver?
Guys,
May I make an unscientific suggestion? I know this is a blog that touts itself as scientific and it appears that alot of scientists come to this blog to pontificate. However, alot of non-climate-based scientists do as well. There are a number of posts on WUWT that speak of galactic body temperature and their effect upon …. .. … … I get lost after “galactic”.
The reason I and so many others have fallen in love and give alot of respect to WUWT and Anthony is because he makes the science of climate understandable for the normal folk.
The statement about the percentages of CO2 in the atmosphere and how much man contributes to it makes alot of sense to me and allows me to visualize the context which the author is writing about.
While there are arguments that “better arguments can be made”, and I am sure that there can be (and many good ones are on WUWT), please don’t attack the messenger. If you feel that better arguments could\should be made on a point you feel strongly about, then ask Anthony if you can write up a post about it.
For now, please remember that normal folk come here as well and that statement about man’s contribution to CO2 does make alot of sense. Especially when he ties it in to how that one molecule can affect a very wide hurricane. Even for me, the argument against it by using cyanide on the human body does not make much sense. The human body is minuscule compared to the vast expanse of the atmosphere and oceans.
I’ve simply run out of things to say about this. It was barely a Cat 2 storm. It was intensified by COLD air from a COLD front and a full moon (tide). How is this cause by global warming when COLD made it more intense? Perhaps if the houses it hit weren’t worth $750,000+ the dollar value would be significantly less. If the Long Island Express (Cat 3) happened today, what would the damage/cost be? Or The Great Colonian Hurrucane of 1635 (at LEAST at Cat3)?? And before you say I am being a jerk, I live in NC and was lucky enough to have the eye of BOTH Hugo and Fran go directly over me. I know me some hurricane damage….
RE: Gunga Din says:
November 4, 2012 at 7:33 pm
In New Hampshire, Massachusetts is jokingly called Taxachusetts. It helps New Hampshire a lot that people from “down there” (sometimes called “Flatlanders,”) come up here to avoid sales taxes. (Also to buy fireworks, which are illegal “down there.”) When the voters “down there” rebel, and get so mad about all the taxes, fees, tolls, and what-have-yous that have to pay that they riot and throw their politicians into Boston Harbor like tea, it will be a sad day for New Hampshire, for we will lose a lot of business. However that day hasn’t come yet. And therefore, to answer your question about whether you can still buy (relatively) tax-free liquor at a rest area just across the border on Interstate 95, my answer is, (To quote Democrats,) “Yes, You can!”
Don’t shoot your phone. It feels good at the time, but afterwards you’re sorry. It’s not the poor telephone’s fault so may pollsters call..
captainfish;
The statement about the percentages of CO2 in the atmosphere and how much man contributes to it makes alot of sense to me and allows me to visualize the context which the author is writing about.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There are many articles on WUWT which delve into the subject in various amounts of detail. I suggest you start with the series by Ira Glickstein, What you will find is that this is a tremendously complex issue. Reducing it to a “one in ten thousand” argument is vastly over simplifying it, and I say that as a raging skeptic.
Ouch. Reading that was a little painful in spots .. I think in that first sentence you’re implying that the radiative power ‘curve’ peaks at 15 microns for a temperature of -4F, perhaps true (I have not checked or verified that), but as temperature increases the ‘peak’ moves UP in frequency (also DOWN in wavelength to shorter wavelengths as Wavelength is proportional to 1/Freq) BUT the absolute value of radiated IR energy near 15 microns doesn’t go down (decrease) as temperature increases … relative to the peak it may LOOK like it decreases, but of course it isn’t … the reference to a ‘smaller proportion’ of its IR in the 15 micron band does therefore seem to hold up, but, as I was saying reading the above was a little painful in spots …
Also bear in mind that these CO2 molecules are busy re-radiating this energy; ANY time these molecules are vibrating, the *oscillating (moving) charges” (molecule stretching and bending with their respective ‘charges’ or constituent charged particles that make up the molecule) are able to set up EM ‘fields’ that then according to Maxwell’s equations are able to radiate …
.
captainfish says:
November 4, 2012 at 7:35 pm
Guys,
May I make an unscientific suggestion? I know this is a blog that touts itself as scientific and it appears that alot of scientists come to this blog to pontificate. However, alot of non-climate-based scientists do as well. There are a number of posts on WUWT that speak of galactic body temperature and their effect upon …. .. … … I get lost after “galactic”.
The reason I and so many others have fallen in love and give alot of respect to WUWT and Anthony is because he makes the science of climate understandable for the normal folk.
================================================================
I think this blog is great because “they” (the scientist) and “us” (the non-scientist) can voice what we percieve. If we didn’t put up with each other, what would this blog be?
Sometimes you have to wait a bit for someone to put it in “layman’s terms”. It’ll come.
Caleb;
Don’t shoot your phone. It feels good at the time, but afterwards you’re sorry. It’s not the poor telephone’s fault so may pollsters call..
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
As soon as they start talking, interrupt, tell them you are the county sheriff, and demand to know who they are and how they know the murder victim….
(Way more fun and the phone doesn’t get hurt)
Before the alarmists took hold of the media, I thought fear of hurricanes would only be used to sell red shoes in Kansas.
Sadly, none of the alarmists appears to have ever been in “Kansas”.
A large hurricane releases heat energy at the rate of one exploding 10-megaton nuclear bomb every 20 minutes.
==============
Approximately, the same as 1 Hiroshima or Nagasaki bomb every 1 to 2 seconds second. These bombs killed 150,000 each, so by that measure large hurricanes must be killing 75,000 people per second.
Reminds me of the 10 megaton nuclear bomb that fell on Washington DC. $1.49 net damages, after the useless politicians and their $16 trillion dollar deficit were eliminated.
Gunga Din says:
November 4, 2012 at 7:33 pm
young ladies who ask me my age and then tell me I’m too old;
==============
too old to vote!! what the heck, invite them over for sex. A poor substitute, but any port in a storm.
I say we can fight changes in climate by reducing our trace rise of the trace gas co2 at massive cost and energy pain. We should do all we can to keep the climate in a steady state. No more hurricanes, no more tornadoes, floods will be a thing of the past, droughts will be forgotten. Our children won’t know what a changing climate looks like. Everything will be steady and still as it has always been prior to 1960 or is that 1900?
/ SARC
Back in the day people just could not understand how the far ‘safer’ level of co2 could cause such damage.
The Galveston hurricane killed 8,000 Americans in 1900.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1841442,00.html
1821 hurricane – New York
“The tide rose 13 feet in one hour and inundated wharves, causing the East River to converge into the Hudson River across lower Manhattan as far north as Canal Street. However, few deaths were attributed to the storm because flooding was concentrated in neighborhoods with far fewer homes than exist today.”
Forgot the link for the last quote.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/hazards/storms_hurricanehistory.shtml
What we have here is a conjunction of events, rise of CO2, and decline of religion. Thus the advent of new science-based religion, and Climatism is probably not the last.
Obama seems to have forgotten those in NY now. It’s getting colder and nothing is being done to house the homeless. Some President.
graphicconception says:
November 4, 2012 at 4:28 pm
If the atmosphere is 1.0% natural H2O and only 0.001% manmade CO2 then the ratio of one to the other is 1000:1.
Are you saying that if someone was poisoned with a mixture of 1000 parts ricin and 1 part cyanide then the cause of death would necessarily by the cyanide?
So while your argument may be a good one, it carefully omits the natural elements that swamp the man-made one.
The real ratio in quantity (not in original molecules) is 100:1 for water/man made CO2, but that is another discussion…
If the amount of ricin is not just enough to kill you, the 1 part of cyanide may be what is needed to push you over the edge… But because these poisons act via different pathways, the effects may be additional, or may be non-additional. In the latter case you may escape being killed for two just non lethal doses at the same time.
Of course that is not comparable: in the case of CO2 and water, there is a huge difference in mixing: water is very abundant in the lower atmosphere but getting very tiny with increasing height. CO2 is more or less (+/- 5%) at the same mixing ratio everywhere in the atmosphere and its absorption bands are (in part) not overlapping with the water bands, so IR absorption by CO2 is additional to what water does, but works all the way up to the stratosphere, while water is mainly absorbing (and partly re-emitting) in the lower troposphere. That makes a difference in what ultimately is emitted to space…
But while interesting, it is not the main point in this article. Only a pity that this argument is used, because it distracts from the main very good article, as davidmhoffer already said…
Just got the book on kindle. Great so far, I drive my wife mad with global warming. Thank you Steve Goreham.
Jim,
“Re-radiating?” I have read about that, in climate “science” journals, but my professor in Transport of Heat and Mass never mentioned it. There is a word you should look up, “flux,” and get back to us…
If you want to see a Hurricane that moved westward into the mid-Atlantic states, here’s an example that affected me when I was in mountainous SW VA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Dennis_%281999%29
Goode ’nuff says:
November 4, 2012 at 3:11 pm (Edit)
Good post, can I add the one that killed maybe 800… 1938
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Great clips. Just change the fashions and it could be Sandy today.
I do hope people take the trouble to learn about the storm of ’38 and also about Galveston in 1900.
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34304/34304-h/34304-h.htm
Michael Moon says:
November 5, 2012 at 7:08 am
Jim,
“Re-radiating?” I have read about that, in climate “science” journals, but my professor in Transport of Heat and Mass never mentioned it. There is a word you should look up, “flux,” and get back to us…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You should do some reading on radiative physics as applied to gas molecules, and then revise your remark accordingly.
The subject is heat transfer from the Earth’s surface to the atmosphere. Gases radiate of course, but the interesting parameter here is IR absorption by CO2. “Re-radiation” within the atmosphere cannot transfer heat either to the Earth’s surface or to space, as the net flux is entirely responsible. The heating is due to the molecule’s dipole moment which lets the molecule heat by vibrating. It then heats surrounding molecules, transferring heat from the surface to the atmosphere rather than the IR radiating out to space. This is a very minor effect, as the fraction of CO2 is tiny and the heat transfer from the cold surface of the Earth is mostly saturated in the first 10 meters of atmosphere.
Heat transfer? Talk to a mechanical engineer, this is what we do…
Michael Moon;
“Re-radiation” within the atmosphere cannot transfer heat either to the Earth’s surface or to space
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
You’d do well to put the preconceived notions of your mechanical engineering background to one side and study the radiative physics involved in this specific instance. Check out the articles by Ira Glickstein on this site, or pick up a text book on the specific subject matter. At the very least, think through your conjecture. |If you allow that a CO2 molecule can absorb a photon and re-radiate it, then the re-radiated photon only has three possibilities. It can a) escape to space or b) heat the surface or c) be absorbed by another molecule. The blanket statement that re-radiation cannot xfer heat to either the Earth’s surface or space just isn’t plausible, defies instrumental data, and would require a century of physics to be rewritten.
Think through your own! Mechanical engineering is “pre-conceived?” This blog has a very famous name, not the man who writes it, but possibly an ancestor, James Watt, maybe you have heard of him? If a CO2 molecule absorbs and “re-radiates” a photon, effectively nothing has happened assuming the energy level is the same. CO2 absorbs 15 micron photons and the molecule itself vibrates due to this excitement, and the surrounding molecules are heated by the increase in kinetic energy. You ignore the flux, where an object either heats up or cools down, cannot do both at the same time. Heat transfer from each square meter of the Earth’s surface to the atmosphere proceeds in one direction, not two. Heat transfer from the atmosphere to space proceeds in one direction, not two. Much heat transfers directly from the Earth’s surface to space, as the atmosphere is transparent to much infrared. On a clear night water can freeze at 59 degrees F ambient due to radiative heat transfer. The Second Law is one of the all-timers, ignore it at your peril…