“Yid with Lid” ran this scathing headline (in the screencap below) yesterday, and pointed out why Nye just doesn’t have a clue. The tornado data following eviscerates Nye’s claims, who seems unable (or maybe unwilling) to Google his own claims for accuracy before bloviating them on CNN.
The screencap source at “Yid with Lid” is here, and the article goes on to explain and prove the headline correct. But, while Nye is taunting Inhofe, his own claims go up in flames with a simple examination of data.
When Nye Tweeted Monday he’d be on CNN with Piers Morgan, I gave him some advice:
Which he promptly ignored, from The Blaze:
During CNN’s live coverage of the deadly Oklahoma tornado on Monday night, host Piers Morgan and Bill Nye speculated on the possible role of climate change in the disaster.
“As a scientist, when you hear about the size, scale, power, devastation of this tornado, what does it tell you about the ongoing debate about climate change?” Morgan asked his guest.
Nye said climate change has to be considered after a catastrophic weather event like the devastating tornado in Oklahoma. He also claimed 10 of the last 12 years are the “warmest years recorded.”
“Thunderstorms are driven by heat and a tornado is a super thunderstorm — result of a super thunderstorm. So you’ve got to figure that if there’s more heat driving the storm then there’s going to be more tornadoes. Now this is the kind of thing that is worth investigating,” he added.
Watch the video at the Blaze here
I agree, it is worth investigating, all you need is about 20 seconds on Google to figure out Nye’s claim is totally unsupportable.
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. Points out on Twitter, the map we carried in this post: The 2013 Moore Oklahoma Tornado – a synopsis
Fact of the day: In US 1953-1982 saw 38 F5/EF5 tornadoes (30 yrs) from 1983-2013 (30 5/12 yrs) there were 20. Source: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/f5torns.html …
From NOAA SPC:
This is a map and list of tornadoes since 1950 which the National Weather Service has rated F5 (before 2007) or EF5 (equivalent, 2007 onward, the most intense damage category on the Fujita and Enhanced Fujita damage scales. The tornadoes are numbered in the order they happened since 1950; so the numbers run from the bottom up. NOTE: Since the (E)F-scale is a subjective damage assessment tool, official NWS ratings (as logged in Storm Data and in the NSSFC/SPC database) may differ on occasion from those of other tornado databases, such as those of the Tornado Project or University of Chicago.
[Note: I’ve made the post 1983 F5 tornadoes blue, and the pre 1983 F5 tornadoes red in the table below – Anthony]
================================================= NUMBER DATE LOCATION ====== ===================== =========================== 59 May 20, 2013 Moore OK 58 May 24, 2011 El Reno/Piedmont OK 57 May 22, 2011 Joplin MO 56 April 27, 2011 Rainsville/Sylvania AL 55 April 27, 2011 Preston MS 54 April 27, 2011 Hackleburg/Phil Campbell AL 53 April 27, 2011 Smithville MS 52 May 25, 2008 Parkersburg IA 51 May 4, 2007 Greensburg KS 50 May 3, 1999 Bridge Creek/Moore OK 49 April 16, 1998 Waynesboro TN 48 April 8, 1998 Oak Grove/Pleasant Grove AL 47 May 27, 1997 Jarrell TX 46 July 18, 1996 Oakfield WI 45 June 16, 1992 Chandler MN 44 April 26, 1991 Andover KS 43 August 28, 1990 Plainfield IL 42 March 13, 1990 Goessel KS 41 March 13, 1990 Hesston KS 40 May 31, 1985 Niles OH 39 June 7, 1984 Barneveld WI 38 April 2, 1982 Broken Bow OK 37 April 4, 1977 Birmingham AL 36 June 13, 1976 Jordan IA 35 April 19, 1976 Brownwood TX 34 March 26, 1976 Spiro OK 33 April 3, 1974 Guin AL 32 April 3, 1974 Tanner AL 31 April 3, 1974 Mt. Hope AL 30 April 3, 1974 Sayler Park OH 29 April 3, 1974 Brandenburg KY 28 April 3, 1974 Xenia OH 27 April 3, 1974 Daisy Hill IN 26 May 6, 1973 Valley Mills TX 25 February 21, 1971 Delhi LA 24 May 11, 1970 Lubbock TX 23 June 13, 1968 Tracy MN 22 May 15, 1968 Maynard IA 21 May 15, 1968 Charles City IA 20 April 23, 1968 Gallipolis OH 19 October 14, 1966 Belmond IA 18 June 8, 1966 Topeka KS 17 March 3, 1966 Jackson MS 16 May 8, 1965 Gregory SD 15 May 5, 1964 Bradshaw NE 14 April 3, 1964 Wichita Falls TX 13 May 5, 1960 Prague OK 12 June 4, 1958 Menomonie WI 11 December 18, 1957 Murphysboro IL 10 June 20, 1957 Fargo ND 9 May 20, 1957 Ruskin Heights MO 8 April 3, 1956 Grand Rapids MI 7 May 25, 1955 Udall KS 6 May 25, 1955 Blackwell OK 5 December 5, 1953 Vicksburg MS 4 June 27, 1953 Adair IA 3 June 8, 1953 Flint MI 2 May 29, 1953 Ft. Rice ND 1 May 11, 1953 Waco TX ============================================================
Let’s look at the NOAA plot of F3+ tornadoes:
Now compare that chart with US temperature data for the same period:
Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/tmp/ytd/110/00/12/1953-2013?base_prd=true&begbaseyear=1901&endbaseyear=2000&trend=true&trend_base=10&begtrendyear=1895&endtrendyear=2012
The majority of violent tornadoes occurred in the cooler periods of US history.
So, no matter how you look at it, Nye’s claim of…
““Thunderstorms are driven by heat and a tornado is a super thunderstorm — result of a super thunderstorm. So you’ve got to figure that if there’s more heat driving the storm then there’s going to be more tornadoes.”
…gets flattened with a simple inspection of temperature and tornado data.
If Bill Nye really is a “Science Guy”, you’d think he’d want to check his claims against real-world data before going on international TV, especially after being admonished to do so. Apparently not.
As Yid With Lid points out, “Perhaps his Bow Tie is on a bit too tight.”
Of course, this seems to be a pattern for Nye, who made unsupportable claims in a paid video production for Al Gore, and got flattened by the recreation of the “high school physics” experiment. He still hasn’t come clean on that one. See:
Al Gore and Bill Nye FAIL at doing a simple CO2 experiment
Interesting quote from the drought monitor summary at http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
I wonder if Bill Nye will highlight this interesting data.
His insinuations and claims (and those of Sen. Boxer) are so ludicrous and are so comprehensively exposed as factually incorect they cross from valid opinion to outright dis-information. In fact, let’s cut to the chase: he lied.
Bill Nye , Climate Clown
A few more facts here that The Science Guy forgot to check.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/bill-nye-makes-a-fool-of-himself-again/
i am simply a layman but even i know storms are driven NOT by heat, but by the clash between the cold air mass and the warm air mass,and tornadoes happen when the UPPER air currents are moving in different directions, this cause a “rolling” of the air between the directional differences and then a storm gets some uplift into the spinning air and causes it to tilt and sometimes reach the ground as a tornado……..remove the different wind directions in the upper air and you dont get tornadoes.
I was a member of the Planetary Society since the beginning in 1980. Last year I declined to renew. Couple of months ago they called up to ask me to renew. I told them that as long as Bill Nye is the current president, I’ll have nothing to do with them.
Bill Nye reminds me of Dr. Karl in Australia. Both have wiped out any positive stuff they ever did by getting on this sinking ship.
Science has become scienciness in true Colbert fashion with these guys.
Back in 1975 they were blaming tornadoes on global cooling. Were they lying then or lying now?
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2013/05/21/1975-tornado-outbreaks-blamed-on-global-cooling/
Joseph A. Olson, you have a unique view of history. Puyi, the last emperor of China, abdicated in 1912, and the monarchy was officially abolished by China in 1916. There was no emperor to send gold to the USA in the years leading up to WWII. It is unlikely, in any event, that we would send six battleships to transport gold, and, if we had done so, the battleships would have had a great deal of difficulty in reaching Kentucky.
Strange thing is…. They could make an argument that AGW affects tornadoes. The formation of tornadoes relies of both warmer air AND cold air, something Nye doesn’t seem to know. Global warming might be affecting the frequency of tornado formation because it’s causing a decrease in cold systems aloft, making larger tornadoes LESS likely.
And the real world observations provided by NOAA supports that hypothesis, as the trend of observed larger tornado occurrences does seem to have decreased a bit over the years.
But a trend of LESS larger tornadoes just isn’t useful to the global warming alarmist industrial complex, so they’re not going to follow what the real world observations seem to be suggesting.
Joseph A Olson says:
May 23, 2013 at 8:39 am
Joseph I need references for the claims about gold being shipped to US.
There are no International Court of Justice cases involving the Federal Reserve and China.
The claim of 200,000 tons of gold being moved to US is hard to swallow as the US claims to have a total of 20,000 tons.
“As a scientist, when you hear about the size, scale, power, devastation of this tornado, what does it tell you about the ongoing debate about climate change?” Morgan asked his guest.
Nye said climate change has to be considered after a catastrophic weather event like the devastating tornado in Oklahoma.
Tornadoes are definately more devastating and catastrophic today than say back in 1888 when they would have caused hardly any damage at all. Why? Because Oklahoma City did not exist. It was settled in 1899 and has grown to over 1.3 million people today. That is a big target which wasn’t there not that long ago.
To be scientific the amount of devastation caused by a storm is not a useful measure of anything as the amount of people and the value and amount of their possessions keeps on growing.
Here is the giant hole in using the frequency of “strong” tornadoes as rated on the Fujita and Enhanced Fujita scales; the scale rates a tornado’s strength based not only on objective measurements of wind speed but also on the amount of damage that it causes. So as land use has changed (from rural/farmland to suburban) the amount of damage a tornado can do has increased. Until someone invents a way to normalize current tornado damage to historical land usage (or vice versa) it is impossible to know if the frequency and strength of tornadoes have increased.
Come on Bill, if you insist on wearing bow ties while getting political, not sticking with science, then people are going to lump you in with other bow tie- wearing pols like Louis Farrakhan and Karl Marx. (No, Pee- wee Herman isn’t political.)
Lying about the weather to kids is as creepy as can be. Since he is also still loved by so many immature but creative geeks, activists included, the stormy backlash will be quite a blowout indeed. The skin of the entire left side of the political equation is beginning to crawl.
Anyone ask Bill Nye about April 1974?
@Jack Simmons says:
May 23, 2013 at 10:42 am
@Joseph A Olson says:
May 23, 2013 at 8:39 am
“The claim of 200,000 tons of gold being moved to US is hard to swallow as the US claims to have a total of 20,000 tons.”
*****************
I’ve searched through all the posts above but cannot find where Olson claims that 200,000 tons [or 20,000 tons either] were sent to the US.
Can someone please point me to the Olson post that makes that claim? Thanks.
From his show long ago, there was one good piece of advice that we should all take to heart: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” (after Laplace, I think, though he didn’t give attribution). If you debate again, consider quoting that back to him.
It look from the graph that F3 to F5s have been going down with all the better detection we have nowadays. And during the ‘hottest’ decade on the record.
@ch3
It is not true that tornadoes are classified based on the total amount of damage they cause.
They are classified based on the *type* of damage they cause. A 100 mph wind causes a certain level of damage to structures and trees. A 200 mph wind causes a different level of damage to structures and trees. The difference was as obvious in 1913 as it is in 2013.
Whether this damage is only in a small area or along a path a mile wide and several miles long and whether or not there are only fields and trees in the path or neighborhoods and schools does not affect the rating of the tornado. Normalization is not necessary.
A couple of interesting things. First of all, people always refer to “tornado alley.” I wonder what that means? The number of locations, running West to East, south of Oklahoma’s northern border is the 2nd largest number. The largest number is from West Texas and South central Texas up thru central and eastern OK, up thru central and eastern KS and far western MO, up thru the middle of IA and on into Wisconsin. That appears to be the true alley.
If you show this temperature graph to any continental US citizen (1.2% of the earth’s area [I think]), they would probably say that global warming is obvious. We all know about the other 98% of the world, but, most of them do not. Also, I am not that good at math, but since 1955 the temperature trend is up, but the average is down? I know that is possible, but I think that means that the average the first 55 years was really high?
Dear Bill,
In was a great day, last Monday at Lehigh, as my daughter was graduating(with a job). I was looking forward to a day of inspiring speeches, happy students, proud parents and the joy that graduation brings. All those things happened. Even the weather held a perfect balance…no rain and not too much sun.
However, your speech was a little discordant. You are a good Public Speaker and being in front of a large live crowd must be a little tough, but your don’t have children and we are killing Mother Earth because of Co2 rant was kind of sad. Your going on Piers Morgan that night were you lied about tornadoes was brutal. The class of 2013 will as you said “Change the world”. They will do this being positive.
The future belongs to the brave. Tornado activity has declined these last fifty years. Why do you not say that? According to climate models(that you believe in) the poles warm faster than the equator thus lowering the difference between hot and cold…less storms…less severe weather.
Why do you not say this?
Bill Nye was the main commencement speaker at my daughters Lehigh University graduation ceremony this past Monday. I am sure that many real science guys in the audience were seething about his global warming claims.
Entertainer idiot who would sell his own mother to run with the big boys.. Its a pretty safe bet that nobody is paying him to tell the truth.. So he gets tapped to slip a little left wing indoctrination to the kids that followed his children’s show..
Standard stuff really.. If your politically powerful and completely full of dung the only way to ensure YOUR future is to brainwash the kids ASAP..