“This is what global warming looks like” turned out to be nothing but incorrect opinionated hype by AP Science correspondent Seth Borenstein and Dr. Michael Oppenheimer.
From the “we told you so department” and NOAA’s Drought Task Force, which makes it pretty clear all the hype about last summer’s drought was nothing but that: hype.
NOAA asks: What caused the 2012 Central Great Plains Drought?
NOAA’s answer: The central Great Plains drought during May-August of 2012 resulted mostly from natural variations in weather.
• Moist Gulf of Mexico air failed to stream northward in late spring as cyclone and frontal activity were shunted unusually northward.
• Summertime thunderstorms were infrequent and when they did occur produced little rainfall.
• Neither ocean states nor human-induced climate change, factors that can provide long-lead predictability, appeared to play significant roles in causing severe rainfall deficits over the major corn producing regions of central Great Plains.
Downloads available:
Click here for more information about the report, the Drought Task Force, or the Modeling, Analysis, Predictions, and Projections (MAPP) Program
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UPDATE: here’s Seth’s latest: (h/t Sam)
By SETH BORENSTEIN | Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Last year’s huge drought was a freak of nature that wasn’t caused by man-made global warming, a new federal science study finds.
Scientists say the lack of moisture usually pushed up from the Gulf of Mexico was the main reason for the drought in the nation’s midsection.
Thursday’s report by dozens of scientists from five different federal agencies looked into why forecasters didn’t see the drought coming. The researchers concluded that it was so unusual and unpredictable that it couldn’t have been forecast.
“This is one of those events that comes along once every couple hundreds of years,” said lead author Martin Hoerling, a research meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “Climate change was not a significant part, if any, of the event.”
http://news.yahoo.com/report-global-warming-didnt-cause-big-us-drought-211545586.html
“…dozens of scientists from five different federal agencies…..concluded that it was…..the lack of moisture usually pushed up from the Gulf of Mexico was the main reason for the drought in the nation’s midsection.”
Well dah. Think it’s time for a career switch for me.
“Hoerling used computer simulations to see if he could replicate the drought using man-made global warming conditions. He couldn’t. So that means it was a random event.”
Help me out here. So we argue that climate models are OK when they give us what we’re looking for?
I do have a concern with this report- it claims the 2012 drought was ‘worse than’ the Dust Bowl. I find that extremely difficult to believe. Thoughts, anyone?
Correction to my earlier post:
This could be just a coincidence, but NOAA could do well to initiate a further research, since the US could get a year + warning, for the farming communities of possible impending drought.
According to the warmists, two hundred year events will occur every decade with global warming. Or as Terry Pratchett would say, ‘million to one shots turn up nine times out of ten’.
Black Sunday, April 14, 1935….”horrible darkness that was darker than night”…..
when the term Dust Bowl was coined….from noaa:
http://www.srh.noaa.gov/oun/?n=blacksunday
don’t recall a 2012 repeat of this….
“• Moist Gulf of Mexico air failed to stream northward in late spring as cyclone and frontal activity were shunted unusually northward.”
How come?
“• Summertime thunderstorms were infrequent and when they did occur produced little rainfall.”
How come?
“• Neither ocean states nor human-induced climate change, factors that can provide long-lead predictability, appeared to play significant roles in causing severe rainfall deficits over the major corn producing regions of central Great Plains.”
Yeah, let’s all remain clueless 🙂
James Lovelock showed that deforestation in the Amazon will reduce precipitation in the US corn belt. Also known as the Kilimanjaro Effect. You cut down a tree, you cut down a raincloud.
Hallelujah!
Finally SOMETHING that isn’t caused by global warming!!!
After all the giant spiders, carnivorous lambs, iridescent green electric killer-wombats I ever thought I would hear the like!
In March, 2012, I asked our local meteorologist what the summer weather would be like and he said it would be hot and dry because of the La Niña conditions…the drought was NOT an unpredicted event. I live in Iowa and we knew it was likely.
Do those idiots at NOAA not know that the state abbreviation for Iowa is IA, not IO! Numb nuts, all.
THe drought was also a bit spotty andmoved around. My wife went back to Iowa in late July and the corn and farmers were doing just fine. The overall harvest would have been a bumper crop from the 1980s. ‘Still not a small yield by any measure.
It is the idiotic biofuels program that sucks up and wastes a huge percentage of the crop, insisting on the same amount and not a proportion of the yield, such that a smaller crop means less food for people while the biofuels programs gets preference over feeding people.
From the article: “Scientists say the lack of moisture usually pushed up from the Gulf of Mexico was the main reason for the drought in the nation’s midsection.”
>>>>>>
Interesting timing–I happened to be in the Dallas-Fort Worth area early this week. I watched for three days as massive cloud cover, driven by 20-30 mph southerly winds, moved rapidly northward. Each day, mega tons of moisture was being pulled off the Gulf of Mexico, and was headed North to fuel the record snows that were reported yesterday.
I kinda think the Midwest drought is over??
Looks like Mann and Nuticeli have taken on the Economist for their realistic article of AGW they don’t know what there in for haha This is REALLY going awaken the sleeping giant of MSN to the fact how badly they’ve been had for years.
Seems like this deserves to be enshrined in the Climate FAIL files. Indeed, that whole portion of your web site seems like it needs some attention. Not a criticism, just an observation that the number of fails seems to be mounting regularly and if a curious fence sitter visits, this might be the first place they go.
The Guardian carried this story and the comment section has a lot of activity. Should go check it out.
So Trenbarth’s “missing heat” must have come out of hiding last summer and then, not liking what it saw, retreated back to its “secret place.”
geran says:
April 12, 2013 at 5:18 am
I kinda think the Midwest drought is over??
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Not yet. The drought in the Central and Southern Central Plains and Southwest is not over yet. I think you were referring to this area, but called us the Midwest. There are definitely wide swaths catching up to normal, but large areas are still severely affected. Prior to a rain in last few days, areas of SW Oklahoma are so dry that many country roads are dried powder to depth and give a perception of driving on sand and are just as treacherous. NE Oklahoma has the ponds full, while Central areas of the state (OKC) still have low reservoirs and face a summer of rationing.
I see “Big Oil” has finally gotten to the NOAA, too.
http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
Distinct improvement (finally) over the week up to 9th of April. Precipitation worth billions, of course. Corn futured responded with a price drop of almost 15%.
Been unlucky with those irritating 100+ yr events recently:
“This is one of those events [drought in the nation’s midsection] that comes along once every couple hundreds of years”
Feb. 2012: “Irene [Aug 2011] was a “100-year event…..Today, a “100-year storm” means a surge flood of about two meters, on average, in New York. Roughly every 500 years, the region experiences towering, three-meter-high surge floods”
http://phys.org/news/2012-02-climate-today-year-years.html
Oct. 2012: “At Battery Park at the southern tip of Manhattan, the water level rose to a record-breaking 13.88 feet. The previous record was 11.2 feet, set in 1821”
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/10/29/14789362-water-surges-into-lower-manhattan-as-superstorm-sandy-blasts-through?lite
The droughts in IA, IL, IN, MO, and Midwest areas seem to have been alleviated for the moment. The drought in the SE US also has been reduced. While the drought in the southern plains is still prevalent the total area of the US in drought is far smaller than it was last year. Now, this doesn’t mean the drought couldn’t come back. Another summer like the last one would put all those areas right back into severe drought.
Okay, clearly this is counterfactual ideation of the nefarious kind; President Obama said people claiming this would ‘deny the overwhelming judgement of science’ and I think it obvious he knows more about it than Martin Hoerling as he’s got more teleprompters than Martin does. /sarc
ntesdorf says:
April 11, 2013 at 10:15 pm
“I just love the idea that Kevin Trenberth says that the study is wrong and that the natural variations were caused by man made Global Warming.”
Did he say exactly that? He, too, completely misunderstands the concept of natural variation. There are some who post here who share this misunderstanding. They treat natural variation as if it were another cause of climate and fully parallel, conceptually, to something like CO2. Natural variation is not a cause. Rather, natural variation is simply the range, top to bottom, of our reliable historical data. To say that something is best explained by natural variation is simply to say that these data points have been seen in the past. It is to say that nature has done this, produced these data points, but that we do not know what caused these data points.
Approaching Trenberth’s statement from the concept of CO2 forcing reveals an equally untenable belief. If CO2 causes increased average global temperatures, that increase must be in addition to what is caused by natural variation. It cannot be the cause of natural variation. In other words, the upward swings in temperature will have a fraction added by CO2 forcing and that fraction will be detectable because it exceeds natural variation.
cRR Kampen says:
April 12, 2013 at 3:05 am
“Yeah, let’s all remain clueless :)”
Among scientists, humility is the most important virtue.
Richard Carlson says:
April 11, 2013 at 9:19 pm
Kevin Trenberth (shocker!) is blasting the study and is saying the natural variations were caused by man made global warming.
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Borenstein needs to make a decision.
Listen to Kevin or “dozens of scientists from five different federal agencies.”
fwiw
With Jimmy – the – Hat gone, Phil – the – Prognosticator on the other side of the pond and Mikie – the – Magician in hiding from his lawsuits and disclosure could Kelvin-The-Missing Heat be keeping folks in line as the new Team leader?
Trenberth is mentioned as a main Team player in numerous CG emails.
I don’t know the pecking order.
Lew, could you get my survey back to me?
cn