Once upon a time, we were constantly lectured that “weather is not climate”.
Now that climate change just isn’t scary enough (and not panning out) we are told daily by such luminary activists such as Brad Johnson of “Forecast the Facts” (a paid political group that harrasses TV weathercasters, and pickets Google to make them cry uncle on climate) that all weather is in fact climate, because the weather is now “poisoned” with CO2.
This is what happens when the weather gets poisoned. It jumps the shark. You’ve been warned.
Supposedly there were cameo appearances by Supermandia and the Mann of Steel who swoop in to save the day, but that was left on the cutting room floor because screening audiences didn’t find that subplot credible.
You can watch it tonight at 9PM/8Central on the SyFy channel
Personally, I blame Trenberth’s missing heat going into the ocean.
This is a joke, right?!
REPLY: no, it is an actual TV show – Anthony
Where’s the wizard of Oz when you need him?
That would be 9:00 p.m. Eastern (8:00 p.m. Central). I would not want anyone to miss it.
So to summarize, you cannot use weather to disprove climate change but you can use weather to prove climate change. Got it. Somebody’s sponsors need to be boycotted and held up to ridicule.
I’ve always been puzzled what they want local weather forecasters to say. For instance, do they want:
“Tomorrow we expect a high temperature of 87 degrees. Without man-made global warming, the high would only be 86 degrees.”
Mac the Knife says:
uly 11, 2013 at 12:03 pm
This is a joke, right?!
—
I’ve seen commercials for it.
Ahh yes, the SyFy channel “original movie”. Always good for a chuckle. Too bad MST3K is no longer around to do the appropriate mockery and commentary…
I can’t quite see why the sharks would want to swim into a tornado in the first place…
Other SyFy classics (for those who still believe this is a joke).
These all have a cause/effect relationship with global warming and/or Man messing with Mother Earth.
“Chupacabra vs. the Alamo”
“Stonadoes”
“Arachnoquake”
“Piranhaconda”
“Sharktopus”
“Mega Python vs. Gateroid”
“Malibu Shark Attack”
Sharks are the new tomatoes
Oh my aching side. That won`t be the end of it. There’ll be Sharknado II, Son of Sharknado, Return of the Sharknado and Sharkocane.
It is 1989 – the year just past having played host to the “The Long Hot Summer of ’88”. Here in my hands I hold the January 1989 issue of Natural History, and on page 42 therein Kevin E. Trenberth writes in reassuringly dulcet tones that weather is not climate, and that weather extremes come from natural processes. In this case, a strong El Niño, the “abnormal” warming of the waters along the equator shifting to a “recently dubbed La Niña” (SST fell 10ºF to 6ºF below normal) which he explains tends to suppress equatorial thunderstorm activity. Here the story breaks down a bit as what happens next seems to be describing a continuing El Niño.
I’m not sure what is abnormal about the El Niño warming – seems very natural to me, but at least we don’t have to worry about man-made weather.
I’m waiting for Snailquake.
Megashak vs Crocosaurus was a good one.
It was better than Transformers 2… well, it wasn’t worse.
Sharknado isn’t all that dumb an idea. Raining fish has been well recorded. Tornadoes have been well recorded.
Why not put them together and then up the ante to sharks?
It sounds less sinister than Rain of the Toxic Frogs (which I can write for you Syfy, call me).
Mann vs Nature
Sharknado is grim attempt to outdo “The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes”, a film that cognoscenti recognize as the greatest movie ever made
StyFry is really doing this. Truth may be stranger than fiction, but that doesn’t mean fiction won’t get even stranger (I just saw an ad for this … I can’t even think of a word).
I’m waiting for Night of the living vengeful massacring chainsaws. That is fictional. For now.
Jump the shark indeed.
“Personally, I blame Trenberth’s missing heat going into the ocean.”
NBC News has an article today on the missing heat having been found in the deep seas:
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/deep-oceans-warming-alarming-rate-6C10606562
The article is supposed to be very alarming; however, you have to read to the end to get the real story:
The new re-analysis of ocean data is not the last word on what’s happening in the deep seas, but the best estimate of what is happening.
“It’s more than speculation and suggestion,” agrees climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, “and it’s probably right to a reasonable degree. The fact of the matter is we’ll never be able to get data from below 400 meters in the middle of the Pacific Ocean” because there is not enough money invested in ocean sensors to cover such places. “So we have to use physics to fill in the gaps.”
So it is not based on real observations. They had to use “physics to fill in the gaps.” “and it’s probably right to a reasonable degree,” says Gavin. How can anyone dispute that science? /sarc
You really should watch these films. They are so very bad… they’re Great!
Mega Piranha was one of their classics. There is one scene where there is a 20 minute car chase. The villains start out in a black Chevy SUV. During the chase, the brand of the SUV changes from Chevy, to GMC, to a Hyundai, back to a Chevy, and ends up being the GMC when the chase ends.
Did I forget to mention it has Barry Williams (Greg Brady…. yeah, that guy) and Tiffanny in it?
Geez, stop taking the ‘Saturday Scifi movie’ so seriously. The people making these for the network are doing them entirely tongue in check-there’s nothing serious about them. Sit back and enjoy an absolutely ridiculous laugh.
I continue to be amazed by the name “Forecast the Facts”, which seems to be an oxymoronic concept, especially in an area of science which appears incapable of even hind-casting the facts.
What about Monty Python v Hissing Sid?
http://www.80sactual.com/2005/05/hissing-sid-is-innocent.html
Not to mention:-
“Timid Toad, Reckless Rat, Artful Owl and Batty Bat “
M Courtney says:
July 11, 2013 at 12:50 pm
Megashak vs Crocosaurus was a good one.
It was better than Transformers 2… well, it wasn’t worse.
——————-
No movie featuring Megan Fox is utterly without some minor visual redeeming value.
Should anyone miss it (I’m going to do my best to miss it), the schedule at http://www.syfy.com/schedule/ says it’s on again at 1AM (I assume so it’s at 9 PM in both EDT and PDT).
There are other “promising” shark movies too like Sharktopus and Malibu Shark Attack.
You’ve been warned.
I saw Pacific Rim yesterday. Even when the ‘aliens’ come through a tube that links universes, this is only possible due to Man’s effect on the oceans.
Hollywood cannot help themselves, it seems. When you are on a winner, keep backing it.
This is a repeat but …
“If the idea for your research grant was originally rejected by the SyFy Channel as being “to bizarre”, you might be a Green-neck.”
Anthony,
you should check out this book by Stephen R.J. Sheppard. “Professor in Landscape Architecture and Forest Resources Management at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, and Director of the Collaborative for Advanced Landscape Planning (CALP). He is an internationally recognized expert in visualization, and has over 30 years’ experience in research and practice in landscape planning, public involvement, environmental perception, and, since 2003, in planning for climate change. He is a Fellow at the Institute for Sustainability Solutions Research, University of Plymouth, UK, and Adjunct Professor at the Nanjing Forestry University, China.”
http://www.amazon.com/Visualizing-Climate-Change-Communication-Developing/dp/1844078205#reader_1844078205
This stuff is basically promoting the creation and diffusion of photoshopped images meant to illustrate the green agenda. The fact this is approved by Bill McKibben says it all.
This is no worse than Super Mandia…
Anthony, your attempt to link Brad Johnson, Scott Mandia, Michael Mann, and Kevin Trenberth to bad SF (okay, bad SciFi too) will make them disrespect you.
Perhaps we can get SyFy to do Sharkmino, Month of the Perlsharkwitz, and Sharksen Death Train.
I believe that is the dumbest premise for a disaster movie of all time.
===============================================================
I’ve heard of the other movies but not this one.
Did the movie explain what chupacabras have against rental cars?
I see this as good news. Were I still a believer (I started out as one a few years ago) this definitely would have given me pause. Let them hang themselves with their ridiculous, increasingly desperate antics.
Elaborating on the total nonserious of this, here’s an interview with the writer:
http://io9.com/736131336
How did you come up with such a blisteringly awesome concept?
Well, the Asylum (the company that produced the movie for Syfy) came to me just after I’d completed writing/directing duties on last year’s American Battleship (sorry, “American Warships”) and asked me to pitch them ideas for a movie called “Shark Storm”. I asked if this would be a straight up movie about sharks attacking during a storm or a crazy storm made up of sharks. They said it would be straight, so I declined, feeling like we’d seen enough shark movies and enough storm movies. A month later they came back to me and said they really wanted me to write a movie called “Sharknato” (at least that’s what I thought they said), and I asked what sharks had to do with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization? I was suddenly seeing the army battling sharks invading Europe… But they said “No, Sharknado!” They gave me about half a page of notes which I read and replied “This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever read… I’M IN!”
You’d better watch out for
The eggplant that ate Chicago
Iff’n he’s still hungry
the whole country’s doomed
I think that the movie trailer is an accurate metaphor of the state of climate science … UNBELIEVABLE !
From decades of scuba diving, I came to understand that sharks don’t like to venture close to rocky shores in unsettled currents, due to lack of bone structure. Strikes me that they would be equally shy of tornadoes for the same reason.
That’s right up there with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
Post-normal “science” has morphed into post-normal humor–with Bollywood overtones.
I think I’ll skip the film when it comes out.
Having Superandia and Mann of Steel
I’m reminded of how the original Godzilla hired Raymond Burr to give it an appeal to American audiences. Is it the same idea?
Later in the Godzilla 1998 remake we learned that we’d been mispronouncing Godzilla all along.
It’s actually “Gore”Zilla (who knew?)
It’s an old joke, but it would make a dandy movie of this genre. A group of geneticists manage to combine the DNA of an abilone and a crocodile. They were hoping to produce an abidile, but all they got was a crocabalone.
Gotta love those Syfy made for TV movies. They’ve created some of the most awesome horrible movies, ever, and I have a strange fascination for awful movies. I think my favorite scene so far still have to be out of Swamp Volcano. The blurt of lava that erupts out of the tennis court and engulfs the tennis ball without interrupting its trajectory so that it becomes a fiery projectile that then proceeds to burn straight through the tennis instructor in a clean hole was especially laugh-worthy, and the tennis ball survived long enough (parts were still bright green) for the tennis student to approach and stare at it and the dead instructor in poorly acted shocked horror. That scene is one of my favorites because it has so much wrong with it. I’m not sure if I’ll watch this one though. Sometimes, they’re just too bad.
Bleurgh! Whoever thinks up such unutterable junk? It’s just reminded me why I don’t bother with Hollywood movies.
Meanwhile Elmer over at Minnesotans 4 Global Warming is thinking:
“I’ve got to up my game.”
Mac the Knife says July 11, 2013 at 12:03 pm
This is a joke, right?!
REPLY: no, it is an actual TV show – Anthony
So, the jumping sharks have jumped the shark!
Brewster at July 11, 2013 at 12:41 pm
I like piranaconda.
But, then, I might settle for a Pirancolada.
pokerguy at July 11, 2013 at 2:17 pm
Were I still a believer (I started out as one a few years ago)
I myself, although never a believer but credulous as I didn’t have the facts, 30 years ago, came to my senses when I read the historical record. Not that written by crimatologists, but that written by people who were there 1000 and more years ago.
Excellent. AGW is finding its true niche in cheesy SciFi. How many ways can you find to use The Blob and Climate Change together in the same sentence? E.g. Climate change was going to destroy the world but in 1997, The Blob neutralized it, similar to the way Mothra’s babies saved Japan from Godzilla.
I really love libs and their propensity to use absolute gibberish when naming something, case in point Forecast the Facts. ?????
So, what exactly is my weather babe supposed to say? “High today 87 under mostly clear skies, because global warming/climate change has reduced cloud cover, hence less rain as well. I’d give you tonights low, but instead I’ll let you know that 15 years from now tomorrow will be 90, or 2 degrees more than the real tomorrow, because that’s what Mann/Trenberth etc.etc.etc. computer modeling is warning us, and all that trapped heat in the ocean will be spilling out in great waves (giggle), get it….wave, ocean? Now turn off that television, go buy that electric car, and we’ll see you tomorrow night here on Forecasting the Truth Weather, brought to you by Tesla.”
Oh yeah, hey Gavin. Yeah, you over there apparently wasting our tax dollars at NASA. Define “reasonable degree”. I have this feeling your definition will be quite different than most here at WUWT? Could you be a bit more vague next time?
Poisoned weather comes from sick, diseased minds.
Yes indeed. I can’t remember the number of times I pointed to snow in Brasil and the Mediterranean and was told, quite rightly, that the weather is not the same as climate. George Monbiot, the zoo keeper, told us in January 2010 that trends, and not events, matter more.
But today we have:
Bad weather =
global warmingclimate changeGood weather =
global warmingclimate changeAverage weather =
global warmingclimate changeMore snow = climate disruptivity
Less snow = global warming climatic change disrupt
Average snow = It should be more if it was not for climate disruption
Global surface temperature standstill = It should be cooler if it was not for global warming
and so on……………………
This is definitely not science, it’s a tragedy of unparalleled proportions.
Oh no, I forgot the loaded dice batshit. Sorry. 🙁
I’m constantly amazed at the wonderful things I find here. “Swamp Volcano” is now downloaded and ready for watching. 😉
Like Robert of Ottawa I read the historical texts and know what the climate (weather) was like for the last 2,000 years or so. Why are there no historians/archaeologists dealing with paleoclimate in the IPCC?
SYFY just makes some folks happy!
I can hear the ‘Jaws’ theme morfing into ‘we’re off to see the wizard’ in my head now..
Dur duh, dur duh…d’ de de de d’ de dar….
This poisoned weather reminds me of Al Gore declaring co2 a toxin. Yet he did not mind preparing and selling tobacco. Yet he did not mind pocketing tobacco political funding while his sister was dying of tobacco induced lung caner. Yet he did not mind taking share dividends from the oil company Occidental Petroleum while talking about environmental care. Yet he did not mind buying a second very large home with SIX fireplaces. Yet he did not mind flying on his book promotion tour. Yet he did not mind a very ‘toxic’ massage. Yet he did not mind selling his ‘Current TV’ company to oil funded Al Jazeera and pocketing millions earlier this year. Yet he did not mind…………………………………………
What does Al Gore mind about??? Is Al Gore in fact a hypocrite??? Answers on a postcard.
omnologos says:
July 11, 2013 at 12:42 pm
Sharks are the new tomatoes
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Nah, nothing can top The Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
“I believe that is the dumbest premise for a disaster movie of all time.”
Maybe the dumbest premise up till now, Bob, but not for all time.
I have great faith that Hollyweird can get even dumber.
Just when we think they can’t go any lower, they call in their fleet of backhoes.
This is one of those strange eras in TV that no-one will look back upon fondly. The Sci-Fi channel is pretty much a disaster ever since they put that kook John Edward on the air around a decade ago, and when they decided to produce their own stable of “B” movies rather than continue the airing of classics. This was the promise of the Sci-Fi channel, it is what led many to sign petitions and pressure the cable companies to add the channel back in the early 1990’s. Naturally they broke their promise to the people that demanded them in the first place. John Edward is long gone now, but replaced with countless fake ghostbuster-type shows and wall-to-wall grade “B” garbage that are mash-up names like “Gorillasaurus” ( just made that up! ). Truly they start with a name and then proceed to produce a show from that. For some real irony you can also catch wrestling on the Sci-Fi channel as well. That’s gonna be hard to top.
Pretty much The Weather Channel, National Geographic and Sci-Fi Channel ( aka SyFy or SuckFi ) are interchangeable when they run disaster type programming. The one difference is that on Sci-Fi the programs are labeled “fiction”, but on NatGeo and The Weather Channel they leave that label off for some reason.
This is the funniest thread I’ve ever seen on WUWT, or maybe anywhere—thanks to the sharks, the pirañas, and the killer tomatoes!
/Mr Lynn
Good grief people… Not everything needs to be looked at through a political prism… SyFy has a history of airing really preposterous movies… D movies at that. They usually are humor-comedies. Are they really any more preposterous than Batman, Supernan, or Startrek?
GlynnMhor says:
July 11, 2013 at 12:30 pm
I can’t quite see why the sharks would want to swim into a tornado in the first place…
Glynn, It’s called Global Weirding
I (mostly) stopped watching SyFy when they dropped Stargate SG1 and Atlantis. I never could get into Stargate Universe, but Sharknado may be hard to resist!
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
Bob Tisdale says:
“I believe that is the dumbest premise for a disaster movie of all time.”
Yep, up there with “An Inconvenient Truth”
Well, I think that set a new standard for unbelievability. I’m ready for Dr. Mann’s book now.
Thank you all so much I have had a great laugh watching all those clips. It shows as true a comment a late friend of mine used to make that some things have to be so bad they are good, but not for the reason that was intended.
James Bull
Now skepticism has its place, but this sharknado scenario seems pretty plausible…
..:)
I believe that ace of spades and company are live blogging it. I expect this to become a cult classic along the lines of “A Rocky Horror Picture Show.”
I adore bad sci-fi movies, and thanks to those who posted clips of “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes”, which I haven’t seen for years. “The Blob” and similar classics never fail to brighten one’s day.
Wobbly cardboard sets, terrible acting, absurd dialogue, maritime disasters that are obviously filed in bathtubs or swimming pools – what’s not to like?
Edit: “filed” sb “filmed”.
Thanks for all the trailors folks – brightened my day
I thought you were going to go there when you said ‘Jump the Shark’. I was right.
lol.
Mac the Knife says:
July 11, 2013 at 12:03 pm
This is a joke, right?!
REPLY: no, it is an actual TV show – Anthony
MarkW says:
July 11, 2013 at 12:24 pm
Mac the Knife says:
uly 11, 2013 at 12:03 pm
This is a joke, right?!
Reply: I’ve seen commercials for it.
Bloody hell !!! Unbelievable….
FerdinandAkin says:
July 11, 2013 at 3:21 pm
Meanwhile Elmer over at Minnesotans 4 Global Warming is thinking:
“I’ve got to up my game.”
Ferd,
You win the ‘Best Wit’ kewpie doll!
MtK
I just watched “Earth vs. the Flying Saucers”, 1956 for the first time and found it refreshing to enjoy a story where humans are not guilty of anything, are attacked and then pull together to win. The cheesy ‘special’ FX are good for a laugh as well.
“Earth vs. the Flying Saucers”
I loved that movie when I was a kid. Still try watch it again whenever it’s on. But remember that the cheesy FX (by today’s standards) was state of the art back then. Ray Harryhausen with his stop-motion animation was no slouch.
If you want cheesy FX even by that day’s standards, watch (I think it was called) “The Black Scorpion”. There were a bunch of giant scorpions but the really big one was the black one. When he was one the screen you could see through him to whatever background he was superimposed on. It must have been a really low budget movie. For the scorpion they reused the sound for the giant ants from “THEM!”.
Update on Sharknado, 1.3 million watched live with 600,000 tweets. What fun! Thank you, WUWT
My entry for best/worst sci-fi movie: Tremors – 1990
Broke into the wrong rec room, didn’t you, you %#%#$!!!
Enjoy!
http://youtu.be/KcsLaSBWG9k
Mac the Knife says:
======================================================================
Are you sure that was from “Tremors”? (I’ve got all 4 of them.)
I think that was a scene from “The Attack of The Root of Yamal 06”.
Why sharks? Why not crocs? Watch those snappers.
Hahahaha.
rogerknights;
Mann of Stool. Stolen.
It’s not actually that difficult to grasp, I think you guys make an issue of anything, even when it shows you up for being thick. Let me explain:
Global warming is the planet gaining heat over a long long period of time and not releasing as much of it into space as it once did.
Climate change is the effect of that extra energy on climate over decades and hundreds of years [that’s why it takes decades to get any accurate data] and this has been seen to be increasingly affected by warming. The oceans are of course also warming, in fact they are acting as heat sinks, abosrbing energy from the atmosphere.
Weather is what you see outside your window, it is a microcosm of climate, it is what climate is doing NOW, and if we’re careful and bright we can forecast what it will do next week, with a bit of luck. Weather is what the intellectually challenged are aware of. Climate is what the intelligent are aware of. Got it? I know, it can be challenging, taking all that information in in one go. Go figure, quietly on your own.
[snip . . you would need to post that at the Heartland site, this is WUWT . . mod]
“There is not enough money invested in ocean sensors to cover such places” according to the MSM.
Let’s assume for argument that there is finite govt money in the world (not necessarily true of Green causes, but let’s just say). The oceans are the ultimate negative feedback loop for the already trivial warming. All those CO2s are making the ocean heat by 0.002C.
How, precisely, would our lives be better if we spent the $ on electronic devices to measure an ocean the size of an 800mi sphere and decide whether it’s 0.0021C or 0.0019C?
Just humour me as someone who cares how finite resources are spent.
The hidden “pea” under the shell, economically speaking, is the AGW challenge, “So what?” Warming, aside from inanities like Hansen’s flooding fables, has shown itself to be benign and desirable ever since the LIA, not to mention the the pause in the current BIA (the Holocene Warming). IOW, the CAGW problem
More CO2 and more warming will bloom the biosphere and quiet extreme weather trends. Bring them on!