From Tom Neslon who writes:
Barking madness in the New York Times: Global warming blamed for coldest winter in China in 30 years and many other extreme cold events; story illustrated with a photo of snow on the palm trees of Jerusalem
Extreme Weather Grows in Frequency and Intensity Around World – NYTimes.com
All this recent shift to pushing “extreme weather” in the clueless MSM made me wonder how the public is responding to it. Obviously, the use of the term has been dramatically on the rise, in fact it is a veritable hockey stick:
Source: Google ngram viewer (note: data only available to 2008)
But, I was really surprised at the public response. It seems that the public just might be smarter than the MSM and the AGW doomers think, or maybe they are just fed up with hype. Search trends on Google are flat:
Source: Google Trends
It seems that “extreme weather” is not catching on. I’m sure the doomers would say it is a “communications problem“. Compare “extreme weather” to the peak from Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth in 2007. All terms seem to be in an interest slump now.
Further, it seems to be mainly an English speaking aberration, the rest of the world apparently has even less interest.
Not to worry though, there’s still room on the leader-board for a new meme once the MSM and the doomers realize that “extreme weather” has fizzled out as a propaganda communications tool:
I do not want to be too fussy but it seems to me it’s normal english speaking aberrations cannot be seen in non-english speaking countries. For instance in French, “phénomènes climatiques extrêmes” has a pretty good score : http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=phénomènes+climatiques+extrêmes&year_start=1800&year_end=2008&corpus=19&smoothing=3&share=
In Mann acception I mean.
Hal44 and Pokerguy, climate science has nothing to do with politics at all. Some “so called” climate science lost credibility when this mixing was started. The IPCC is mainly a political organization and that’s a huge fragility because they usually mix politics with “science”. I only see this pseudo-alignment of opinions about climate with “right” or “left” in the United States. I´m not a USA citizen, I consider myself a leftist and I am a huge skeptic about the role of the “so called” Man Made Global Warming in the climatic dynamic. My opinions are aligned with most of the writers and commentators of this blog. Please put the discussion into the science and not into a pseudo climate war between Left and Right. That’s not climate anymore, that’s stupidity! Hal44, I’m not against success, fossil fuel, business or profit. Your vision about “left” might be very distorted… at least about my left 🙂 You don’t want me to put all the “right” related with certain things of a certain right… isn’t that true? Please stop and avoid this non-existent relationship between political positions and positions about climate science!!
I thought this was interesting, from the article:
Barry Lynn, who runs a forecasting business and is a lecturer at the Hebrew University’s department of earth science, said a striking aspect of the whole thing was the severe and prolonged cold in the upper atmosphere, a big-picture shift that indicated the Atlantic Ocean was no longer having the moderating effect on weather in the Middle East and Europe that it has historically.
“The intensity of the cold is unusual,” Mr. Lynn said. “It seems the weather is going to become more intense; there’s going to be more extremes.”
So we have ‘severe and prolonged cold in the upper atmosphere’?
Remind me how CO2 produces that.
Push the button on this nonsense. http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2012/03/handy-bullshit-button-on-disasters-and.html
I was always under the obviously mistooken impression that snow melts when the temperature goes up.
Oh this darned cruel heat!
Miguel Rakiewicz says:
January 11, 2013 at 8:26 am
~ Echo chamber of global doom is no more. ~
(11 Jan 2013) http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130111/new-york-times-dismantles-environmental-desk-journalism-fracking-climate-change-science-global-warming-economy
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That information (“The New York Times will close its environment desk in the next few weeks and assign its seven reporters and two editors to other department”) needs to be link to who OWNS the Times. From The Tallbloke Talkshop
Kind of interesting that a bailout of Times shares in November of 2010 (after the midterm elections) followed by the closing of the Environmental Desk now.
Can we hope this is the start of a quiet slinking away from the CAGW scam? Although Obama funded the scam for another year, I would not be surprised if this is the grace period when the big players/campaign donors (Al Gore anyone?) start to beat feet for the exit, leaving the little guys holding the bag. It is the same sort of scam Al Gore and Maurice Strong pulled with Molten Metal Technologies.
This would also explain why we are seeing IPCC and NASA starting to acknowledge the sun as a larger player in the climate
Also the next big bubble is already gearing up and big money is moving in. It is Food/Farmland and that will be as nasty for the little guy as global warming is. See my comment.
You don’t need a weather man
To know which way the wind blows.
— Subterranean Homesick Blues, Bob Dylan
The promotion of AGW is HIGHLY political. (Earth can be saved by taxation, for example.)
Now, it would appear, there are admitted leftists that are “deniers” of that fact.
I have never understood why being sceptical about the science of global warming makes one right wing! I do understand that some left and right wingers have latched on to the debate and used to further political agendas of their own, but the issue here is not political, it is the integrity of science and the reputations of the scientists (especially on the warming side of the argument) who seem willing to tolerate, or even turn a blind eye to, corruption inside their community.
With the one-tailed byword “global warming” being replaced by the catch-all “extreme weather,” maybe the hockey stick icon ought to be replaced with a dustpan.
S. Meyer says: @ur momisugly January 11, 2013 at 9:48 am
….I think more than a few liberals (me included) read WUWT and are starving for some propaganda-free science. Generalizations like that just drive us away and serve to polarize us more.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I am with you there. Liberal/Conservative is an artificial divide used by the powerful to keep the plebs at each others throats instead of going for theirs.
Start following the money and digging and you find nothing is as you thought. link
With regard to politics: I admire Anthony’s light moderation policy and wouldn’t want to see that changed, but I do tire of the political invective that creeps into some of the comments. It’s completely counterproductive to the discussion. Perhaps Anthony, if in agreement, would consider discouraging this?
@ur momisugly Julian in Wales:
” …. ostentatious use of money … renewable energy shops …. brand new four wheel drive land rovers.”
LOL … In Wales, memories are long 🙂
Back in about 1979 the new land rovers of BNF (prospecting for nuclear waste dumps) were a dead giveaway. (One or two ended up with a shotgun blast through the radiator.)
Back then renewable energy meant “too many poles needed to connect to the grid” and the only “shopfront” was at Machynlleth.
(We escaped in late 1986 to the western Pacific, on one of the last trains out of Mid-Wales before the big blizzard hit.)
I got an outdoor thermometer for Christmas for the first time. Since I started tracking temperature on January 1, 2013, my back yard has experienced the coldest temperatures ever in its “recorded” history (in fact, there has been a record eleven straight low daily temperatures set to date). Amazingly, my yard has also experienced the warmest daily temperatures in its “recorded” history (eleven straight record high daily temperatures). I’m predicting more of the same throughout the remainder of the year, but all my computer models (and my cat) indicate that the number of record highs and lows set in my back yard will begin decreasing substantially as early as 2014 and taper off further in subsequent years. This extreme weather stuff is truly unreal.
RE: Jimbo says:
January 11, 2013 at 10:12 am
Thanks, Jimbo, for that great collection of links. The one about the snow in Jerusalem in 1957 is especially handy, as it roughly fits the idea that extreme weather follows some sort of 50-70 year cycle. I noted that article mentioned it was the “worst snow in seven years,” (1950.) The current snow in Jerusalem is the worst in twenty years. (1993.)
When you meet someone who has swallowed the Kool-Aid, they will say any sort of current extreme is “unprecedented.” It is handy to just give them an old headline. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but an old headline is worth a long, poignant, and embarrassed silence.
Caleb says:
January 11, 2013 at 8:51 am
I don’t allow people off the hook, and insist on using the words “Global Warming.”
It helps if you can imitate Al Gore’s voice, and if someone states it is now politically incorrect to use the term “Global Warming,” use your Al Gore voice to say, ‘Oh? It has changed from “The planet has a fever” to “The planet took an asprin?” ‘
========================================================
I agree that we should continue remind people that the original scare that started the regulatory ball rolling was “We’re all going to fry!”.
But maybe we should offer them some alternative names for what the scare has morphed into since “Extreme Weather” doesn’t seem to working for them.
“HyperWeather”?
“HypedWeather”?
“Gaia’s gone Wild!”?
It is indeed clear that many news organisations are gently shifting their positions away from the ardent doomsterism of the late 20th early 21st centuries. However, ‘news’ is and always will be about hype and selectivity and fashion and politics. And there is a hard core of loyal organisations that simply have too much to lose, both in terms of reputation and funding, if they were to recant.
For example here in Australia, the state funded, Green leaning ABC has been desperately pumping a minor heat-wave and a thankfully mild fire season…it does this to provide background support to its master; the doomed Green/ Labor coalition government who introduced the disastrous Carbon Tax.
Conversely it remained silent all through last winter and spring with regard to record low temperatures, late frosts, Queensland snows etc etc.
The ABC does have a social media presence but interestingly this is heavily and indeed cleverly ‘rigged’ to give the impression that the whole world sees things its way. It does this by only allowing only one or two skeptical comments (usually of poor quality) to appear and then letting them be swamped, by right thinking Warmists. I of course am totally banned!
So what can we do to defeat this censorship?
The answer is simple, at every available opportunity, speak out in public and social circles – most ‘Believers’ are not committed zealots, they are in the main decent caring types who have been sold the idea that CO2 is threatening their wellbeing and indeed their existence!
I’m often amazed at the ignorance of, and gratified by the responses I get from some people.
You can see it in their eyes when you deploy checkable facts like 1/25th part of ONE PERCENT of the atmosphere is CO2…. or right now the temperature 5 miles above your head is MINUS 50 C, or direct them to the Danish National Museum so that they can see how Greenland was settled in the 10th century.
One killer fact coming from the mouth of one real human being can introduce the seed of doubt into the ‘wavering masses’ and sometimes start the process of independent thought.
Blogs are great, this one in particular, but the real battle for hearts and minds will be won down at grass roots level, face to face. Starting today.
Back at the peak of the AGW hysteria, did anyone think they’d see this satement: “Global warming blamed for coldest winter”
a little kidder says:
“I want to be a climate scientist if I grow up.
I would fit in well.”
Sorry, you have to grow in body, but NOT in mind.
Only then are you fit to be a “climate scientist” (of the catastrophic warming type)
Julia Indigo says:
January 11, 2013 at 11:44 am
I thought this was interesting, from the article:
Barry Lynn, who runs a forecasting business and is a lecturer at the Hebrew University’s department of earth science, said a striking aspect of the whole thing was the severe and prolonged cold in the upper atmosphere, a big-picture shift that indicated the Atlantic Ocean was no longer having the moderating effect on weather in the Middle East and Europe that it has historically.
“The intensity of the cold is unusual,” Mr. Lynn said. “It seems the weather is going to become more intense; there’s going to be more extremes.”
So we have ‘severe and prolonged cold in the upper atmosphere’?
Remind me how CO2 produces that.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Actually the propagandists are well aware that the PDO (graph) has shifted to a cooler phase and the AMO (graph) is in the process of switching to a cooler phase. North Atlantic Heat Content 0-700 meter depth (graph to present)
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this is going to cause the climate to shift especially when the jet stream also goes from zonal to meridional and you get blocking highs and you are sucking polar air or tropical air into the temperate zone.
Info. and graphs stolen from Climate 4 You
The following paper (abstract only, it is pay-walled) shows there exist points in time when the above ocean cycles synchronize and desynchronize. The cycles the paper considers are the PDO, the North Atlantic Oscillation NAO, the ENSO Index, and the North Pacific Oscillation NPO. These cycles constitute an interconnected complex over the globe. They model the behavior (computers again) as a complex system comprised of coupled anharmonic oscillators and identify three points in time during the 20th century (c. 1910, 1940, 1970) when the sychonization underwent a major shift, and these times of course correspond with significant changes in the temperature trend. The next shift if it follows the 30 year cycle would be ~ 2000 and that is what we are seeing.
The Abstract:
geran says:
January 11, 2013 at 12:23 pm
The promotion of AGW is HIGHLY political. (Earth can be saved by taxation, for example.)
Now, it would appear, there are admitted leftists that are “deniers” of that fact.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Being ‘leftist’ does not mean you left your brains at the door any more than being ‘conservative’ does. Most people who come to WUWT have their brains ‘in gear’ and that is all that matters.
The world map of results for ‘Climate Change, Global Warming’, etc. is interesting but a similar search in German. ‘Globale Erwärmung’. results in Germany and Austria coming to the fore. Nevertheless English speakers in India do not seem too bothered. The level of interest is certainly declining. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time.
In Australia, with a hot period and bushfires caused by Green prevention of ‘burning off’, especially in Tasmania, the Warmistas are on a roll. They are unaware that in the 1930’s it was hotter still and that Black Friday in 1939 burnt 2,000,000 ha. of land in Victoria’s 237,629 km2 area, and killed far more. There were 71 people killed that day
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. ” H.L. Mencken
Here in Australia we are being turned OFF as we are being treated like 2 year olds buy the Gov,t ,news papers, tv news THE ABC etc if a hot day is forcast they tell us how to dress stay indoors do not eat too much if you must go outside wear a hat sun glasses sun screen take plenty of water tell sombody what you are going to do dont over exert your self don,t leave the kids or dogs in the car don,t go into a bush fire prone area close all the windows turn on the A/C if you dont have a A/C go to the local shopping center PS if thay can afford to run a A/C, unit because of the carbon tax we are told it is all our fault because we are using power to run our A/C using a coal powerd generation and we are all going to fry I could keep going but i am starting to get depressed . I think I will stay home and hide under my bed