While watching her handwaving argument on the webcast with Senator Vitter, I was easily able to find data contradictory to her statement in Dr. Roger Roger Pielke Jr. submitted testimony.
What the data says:
5. Floods have not increased in the US in frequency or intensity since at least 1950.
Figure 5. One measure of flood frequency from the USGS, percent of US streamguages above “bankfull streamflow.” The USGS explains: “The bankfull streamflow is defined as the highest daily mean streamflow value expected to occur, on average, once in every 2.3 years.”
Xiaodong Jian, David M. Wolock, Harry F. Lins, and Steve Brady, Streamflow of 2012—Water Year Summary, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia, May 2013.
Live video here: Live Webcast – Flash
KevinM says:
July 18, 2013 at 11:02 am
Go to Judith Curry’s website and see what the resident Alarmists know about farming. LOL
Wait, I thought they were going to discuss the science. This lady has absolutely no study backing up anything she said!
KevinM says:(Given the basic physics of CO2 capturing heat…”
“Capturing heat” hey. What does it do with the heat once it is captured? And how does it go about this “capturing heat”. Curious.
“Andyj says:
July 18, 2013 at 10:43 am
AND due to the jet stream. The UK has been basking under a blocking high (30C) for quite a while now.
Our lawns are starting to go crispy at the edges so when we get a typical English rain, it will cause surface flooding”
Exacerbated by tarmacking where we shouldn’t do so.
Chad-just making a point about amenability to ideology among certain high profile faculty members over decades. And the noosphere project came out of Gaia interest.
That World Order Models Project was almost frightening to read about. Full of influential people and funding.
Andyj says:
July 18, 2013 at 10:43 am
AND due to the jet stream. The UK has been basking under a blocking high (30C) for quite a while now.
Our lawns are starting to go crispy at the edges so when we get a typical English rain, it will cause surface flooding.
Just tell me, how are those wind mills doing… not much I suppose as high pressure means no wind.
Your electricity under these circumstances will come from STOR diesel powered generators in the near future. I am glad I don’t have to pay your electricity bill.
http://autonomousmind.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/stor-are-even-higher-diesel-generator-costs-just-over-the-horizon-for-energy-customers/
Andyj says:
July 18, 2013 at 10:43 am
“Our lawns are starting to go crispy at the edges so when we get a typical English rain, it will cause surface flooding.”
If I were you I would take a pitch fork and start making holes in the ground.
I relieved myself from such a task because I turned my lawn into a parking lot.
No longer have to worry about my lawn and as the run off is concerned that’s why we have a sewer system.
in her intro Heidi says:
“communicating the risks of climate change is something I care deeply about.”
So she’s using her emotions rule over logical thought simpler to religion.
…‘73% increase in heavy downpours’ not supported by data…
Surely it’s easy enough to ask her for a cite for that figure?
“Does NOAA or anyone else for that matter, keep statistics on “heavy downpours”? First, a heavy downpour would have to be defined.”
Ok, you are in my area of knowledge now. I can only speak precisely for Australian conditions, but surely the US must have a similar system.
Down here we have a rather large manual called Australian Rainfall and Runoff. This tome is used by water engineers to try to predict things such as “Probable Maximum Precipitation” (PMP) as well for design work in determining Average Return Interval (ARI) for different amounts of rainfall in different areas of the country. All this is done by fitting curves to the 100 year or so records of rainfall. and deriving statistical formulas for.
I know the guys doing the recent updates to this manual, and while they have made changes that have increased the statistical PMP, that is mainly because we have gained knowledge about the “east coast lows” which bring the really heavy rain to the east coast.
Now , the rains in Queensland in 2010 were estimated as being a “statistical” 1 in about 120 year event about the same as the very local event that caused the Newcastle floods in 2007
ie NOTHING UNUSUAL !!!
The statistical ARI 100 rainfall event seems to occur about every 30-40 years in South East Qld (do some research on Brisbane floods, you will see what I mean)
chuckle, that statement will stuff up a few non statisticians..
The guys also looked at the climate models, and while I know a couple of them are of a “warmist” bent, they all have come to the conclusion that the climate models have basically ZERO skill when it comes to hydrological matters.
There has also been a 68% increase in brilliant rainbows. Science.
For those interested, here is an example booklet, to do just with PMP’s
http://www.bom.gov.au/water/designRainfalls/pmp/gsdm_document.shtml
Another point of interest.. while Flannery was sprouting his nonsense about permanent droughts, the engineers were building a massive extra spillway on Warragamba Dam.
This was bought about by the Dapto rainfall event I the early 1980’s, which changed the understanding of what an east coast low could deliver.
Mind you, a look at the historic record would have given them a pretty good idea http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/14947795
And if you really want to get wet.. Go to Dorrigo on the upper NSW coast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorrigo,_New_South_Wales
(scroll down to “significant weather events”)
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Hmmm … I wonder if Wirth or Hansen planted a sprinkler in the room?
Michael nailed it:
Key findings for Connecticut and New England include:
Extreme rainstorms and snowstorms are becoming more frequent. Connecticut experienced a 73 percent increase in the frequency of extreme rainstorms and snowstorms from 1948 to 2011. In other words, heavy downpours or snowstorms that happened once every 12 months on average in 1948 now happen every 6.9 months, on average.
Storms with extreme precipitation increased in frequency by 85 percent in New England during the period studied. The New England region ranks 1st nationwide for the largest increase in the frequency of storms with heavy precipitation.
The biggest rainstorms and snowstorms are getting bigger. The amount of precipitation released by the largest annual storms in Connecticut increased by 20 percent from 1948 to 2011. GK
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So … a “73% increase in downpours” does not lead to an increase in floods? Not even flash-floods? Any idea what caused floods in the past before “Climate Change” caused in increase in whatever she’s claiming today?
@Robin-
Yes, frightening indeed. The intellectual elite in this country has almost totally succumbed to this Nazi-like ideology. The historical parallels are compelling beyond compelling – it is history being relived. This isn’t America 2013, it’s Germany 1933.
@ur momisugly Gunga,
We know UHI doesn’t affect thermometers use for the global temp calc, so why should an increase in precipitation intensity cause floods. 😉
PS I’m very familiar with one particular stream gauge. A dam was built above it in the ’50’s. Of the top ten historic readings 5 were set before the dam was built.
Anthony, perhaps Pielke, Jr’s written testimony is worthy of a thread of its own:
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=a6df9665-e8c8-4b0f-a550-07669df48b15
He certainly shows that climate hypochondriacs are talking nonsense with regard to “extreme” weather phenomena….
PSPS The records for that gauge go back to 1938.
Yet another PS.
http://growingblue.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/GB_CWC_whitepaper_climate-water-stress_final.pdf
Don’t the word “climate” throw you. They seem to be using it correctly.
And regarding the paper itself and it’s take on counties in the US subject to water supply “stress”, if I understood it correctly, they did not consider water entering a county via streams and rivers but they said they weren’t. It seems to me that would effect whether a county may face “stress” or not.
The only region that her map shows a 74% increase is NewEngland which is somewhere around 5.7% of the US and 0.01% of the earth.
Did she imply the nation was “73%”? I don’t see it here.
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=c88f09be-da24-4501-8a69-c53f6b730c81
As a civil engineer I agree with:
highflight56433 says:
July 18, 2013 at 9:21 am
There has been an ever increasing increase in infrastructure that diverted water to streams that typically would have been absorbed into the local landscape. Urban growth covers the landscape, water is diverted to whatever streams are left and other storm drainage is built.
This region is one of the world’s most urban develped.
This link also states:
“The reason for these heavier rain events is relatively simple: in a world warmed by heat-‐trapping greenhouse gases, there’s more evaporation, the atmosphere can hold more water vapor, and when that water vapor condenses as rain or snow, there’s more of it available to fall.”
She presents hardly any eveidence to support that assertion excetpt maybe computer models.
Just since Mid May, here in Oklahoma City we’ve seen the widest tornado ever recorded, which was accompanied by the heaviest rainfall I’ve ever witnessed, 66F degrees at noon in Oklahoma City in mid July (This week), 100F+ in June and general weather weirdness which is nothing more than par for the course. A record here and there means nothing out here in the middle of this continent..
Today, I told my conspiracy theorist friend (who’s too paranoid for internet) that HAARP was being discontinued and her answer was….. “Then they really do have something better. Besides, everyone’s on to HAARP.”