UPDATE: 8/23/13 1:00PM PDT Its seems there’s blunders to go around. The Washington Post now says they “misquoted” Gore. Given his penchant for saying and doing dumb things in the past related to his views on climate, color me “skeptical”, especially when he makes ugly comparisons about people like he did below. It may be more of a case of some deal was worked out behind the scenes to salvage Gore’s waning credibility. I suppose we’ll never know, but I have asked WaPo to put the relevant audio of the tape recorded session online so we can verify that Gore was misquoted. – Anthony
From the WUWT story yesterday: Al Gore compares climate skeptics to anti abolitionists, racists, homophobes, and alcoholic families
Would there be hurricanes and floods and droughts without man-made global warming? Of course. But they’re stronger now. The extreme events are more extreme. The hurricane scale used to be 1-5 and now they’re adding a 6. The fingerprint of man-made global warming is all over these storms and extreme weather events.
We are used to such feckless bloviations, such as when Gore said on national television the temperature below the Earth’s crust is millions of degrees. or when he adds reverse rotation airbrushed hurricanes to his book to make the weather look scarier.
Today, the Capital Weather Gang at the Washington Post called out Gore for his nonsense.
Jason Samenow writes:
But Gore’s statement about this new breed of hurricanes is patently false. There’s no new hurricane category in the works.
Just to be sure, I contacted Chris Vaccaro, director of the National Weather Service’s office of public affairs, and asked him whether the National Hurricane Center is about to unveil the doomsday Category 6. In less than 10 minutes, he fired back this response:
No, we’re not pursuing any such change. I’m also not sure who VP Gore means by “they.” I’d also point out that the top rating, Category 5, has no ceiling: it includes hurricanes with top sustained winds of 157mph and higher
He adds:
But with his penchant for overstatement, Gore will continue to be a divisive and less than credible voice in climate change discourse.
Read it all here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/08/22/the-category-6-hurricane-al-gores-science-fiction/
Good for him and kudos for calling out this nonsense. Every time I think of Gore and Cat6, I think of him as the Stay-Puft man in Ghostbusters rampaging on NYC. The only valid question remaining is, why does anybody still listen to him?
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Gore with an `E` is just plain gory, the same old story
his verbal tracts are missing fact and truth it lacks.
He`s spouting forth for all he`s worth, but tis just mirth
He`s had his day made some big play but now we pray to rest he`ll lay
his long barrage to the world at large of nought but
verbiage
For info also see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffir%E2%80%93Simpson_hurricane_wind_scale
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=are-category-6-hurricanes-coming
http://www.hurricane.com/category-6-hurricane.php
for a discussion of a proposed Cat 6 scale.
REPLY: yes but NHC says there are no plans for it – Anthony
Janice Moore says:
August 22, 2013 at 12:20 pm
“Awww, I messed up the part about the Swedes. Gore wasn’t TRYING to be funny. Well, the Swedes did not find him amusing and likely will not — they probably just think he is someone to be pitied or scorned.”
Unfortunately a majority of the Swedes is about as stupid as ‘Muriccan Liberals and have elected a president that has turned Stockholm into a part of Somalia.
Al Gore finds the truth inconvenient.
Happy endings are best left in fairy tales.
Category 6 hurricane has never hit the US.
Gavin: Hello team welcome to our regular conference call to discuss the front lines of the Climate wars and to report on our progress and plans. Let’s begin with a roll call. This is Gavin, of course, Peter are you on the line?
Peter G: (silence)
Gavin: Peter. Peter!
PG: Uhh. Ohh. Yes it might have been me, but I’ll deny to my grave…
Gavin (interrupting): No not that Peter. I’m just asking if you are on the line.
PG: Oh. Well yes I do admit to making the call, but I didn’t forge…
Gavin (interrupting again): Oh for Heaven’s sake. You are on the line. Next. Who else is here.
Kevin T: It’s me Kevin. I’m here. It would be a travesty if you couldn’t find me … (laughing) get it?
Gavin: We get it Kevin, believe me we get it. Who else is on the line?
Michael M: I should very much like to report that I am a scientist. A CLIMATE scientist. Dr. Michael Mann, Phd and Nobel Prize winner at your service on the front lines of the climate wars.
Gavin: Oh your eminence, my liege, my Lord ….
MM (interrupting): Just call me your Dr. Mann Superior as per usual. That will suffice.
Gavin: Well then, of course, your Dr. Mann Superiorness in climate science and all things sciencey. We are honored beyond any expression of honor to have you with us and we await the inevitable settled elevation of all things with what you will demonstrate and the flattening of all historical resistance by your intellect and the very force of your powerful ….
MM (interrupting): That’s the trick, the nature trick …
KT: (bursting into laughter) good one Mighty Mann of Science and Humor. You are really Hot and on the Spot. Hot and on the spot…. (laughing) get it? Hot and on the spot, he’s a hot spot.
Gavin: (chuckling in a forced way) Well Steig is out to lunch as usual and Briffa is under the weather…
KT: (interrupting) You mean under the climate don’t you… (laughing)
Gavin: (ignoring the interruption) So I guess that’s all present and accounted for.
Al Gore: Hold on. You forgot about me! I don’t usually descend to this sort of level but don’t forget I was invited especially to report of that new level of hurricane I invented.
Gavin: Well, of course. I’m sorry I forgot. And that brings us to the first order of business. As you all know Vice President Gore, Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Tobacco apologist extraordinaire, Academy Award Winner, Bringer of Winter, Inventor of the Interwebby thing and the guy who put inconvenience on the world map has joined us. Welcome Mr. Vice President. Thank you for gracing our gathering with your greatness.
KT: (laughing) that’s a good one.
Al Gore: What are you laughing about?
KT: I don’t know Oh Great Inconvenient One. I seem to find humor in everything and that’s a travesty (laughing more) get it?
Gavin: We get it Kevin.
Michael M: Well I for one and very happy to welcome someone to our midst who I consider in some small way to be my equal. This definitely will hide the decline that usually presents itself when we get together. This is truly an uplifting experience for you people to have both the great Gore and the great Mann together.
Peter: Of course it is a privilege. And speaking as an ethical titan myself I would like to say that truth is really inconvenient, so your epic film is too true on too many levels so truly and ethically I’m honestly and truly overcome with joy to have you here.
Gavin: Now to business. The main purpose of this meeting is for us to pat each other on the back about what we are accomplishing saving the world from Global annihilation by carbon. Oh. What did I just say? Make a note. Add Global Annihilation by carbon to that list we have of catastrophic catch phrases to replace Global Warming. It just might be the ticket. But back to the point in hand. As you know Mr. Gore has invented a real winner with that level 6 hurricane thing. And so I was thinking, what the heck, no offense to you Mr. Vice President and Inconvenient Extraordinaire, but I was wondering if we all put our heads together could we come up with something even greater, higher and scarier even? Any suggestions.
Kevin T: Well if you put it that way I’m thinking there must be a number, I don’t know what it would be, but there must be one, that’s even great than 6.
Peter G: Wow. You are on to something there. 5 was bad. Really bad. And 6 well it’s even worse. But think of it. Could there be a higher number than that?
Gavin: I see your drift. And we should have asked Phil Jones to be with us today because he’s a whiz at numbers and mathy type spreadsheet stuff and probably he knows a number like that.
Al Gore: Yeah. I’ve heard that. But I think I know a number higher than 6. What about millions. That’s a big amount isn’t it? Millions of degrees for example, like the sun. That’s really hot. Imagine a hurricane that’s as fast and furious as the sun is hot. That would need a big number.
MM: Well you have a point there, but I think we should think about this for a while. I have a few secret files on hand that probably have numbers in them. I’m sure I could tease a number out of them that would be greater than 6 but not quite millions and millions. We should save the millions numbers for later in the century. You know, for when the oceans get boiling.
Gavin: Are we agreed then? Mike will find in his database some new scary number and we will announce it in a short while after the scare of the category 6 wears off a bit. Then we will save the millions number for a later time.
Kevin: Yeah. I agree because it would be a travesty to find the number too soon (breaking into uncontrolled laughter) get it?
All: (laughing uproariously)
Gavin: Well that settles it. Back to the trenches, and next week Michael will have a number for us. But no pressure because we could get a focus group of some sort and see if any of them knows what’s the next number after 6 is. Or someone could watch that blog by the person whose name we dare not mention. He might mention a number and we could just borrow it and then back date our announcement so it looks like we thought of it ourselves That usually works. See you all next week. Bye for now.
Wadda minit, you guys! I don’t know if it’s been mentioned in this comment thread,
but THERE IS A CAT 6! And yes it’s faster than CAT 5. And it’s part of something
that Albert Gorbal is an expert about! CAT 5 & CAT 6 are essential to the global
functioning of the internet! It’s the specification of cables for ethernet! So in his
mind (Ha!) He’s absolutely right about the new CAT 6 being faster. In case any of you
doubt me: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_6_cable.
Pamela Gray,
“If Al knows there is a category 6 but can’t find one, there must be dark hurricanes we just can’t see.”
In Hollywood they call that a “spit take,” hilarious, laughed out loud. Trenberth’s missing heat must be Dark Energy, mysteriously driving the deep ocean hotter as it drives the galaxies farther apart at an accelerating rate….
John Blake says:
August 22, 2013 at 2:16 pm
………………………….
As Big Al spews forth calumnies, yapping pejoratives like a poodle in a massage parlor, wizened frontal lobes approach a Darwinian limit below which sentience reverts to instinct: Breathe, feed, vegetate pretty-well define Big Al.
—————————————————-
I believe that was a sex poodle yapping pejoratives in the massage parlor.
cn
DirkH on August 22, 2013 at 3:04 pm
Stupid? Sorry to say, but in Sweden we can’t vote for a political position that doesn’t exist! We never have had any president ever. Why? Simple, Sweden is and basically always has been a monarchy, never a republic …
(Our queen is German, as you should know …)
Coalsoffire says:
August 22, 2013 at 3:40 pm
——————————————————————————————-
Very very funny.
Really enjoyed reading it all.
cn
========================================================================
Perhaps the same “they” who started naming snowstorms?
DocattheAutopsy beat me to it; my theory was that Al had this in his Netflix queue recently:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category_6:_Day_of_Destruction
How much money has Gore made from this scam? No matter stupid his pronouncements sound, he is profiting from the flim-flam. Laugh at him all you want, but until he is so embarrassed that he has to retreat to his many mansions, he still wins (financially).
Maybe he was thinking of this minor modification to the Categories in 2012: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/sshws_2012rev.pdf
Category 5 is 157+ mph, category 4 is 130-156. If there was a Cat 6 it would have to be something around 180+mph. There have only been 4 such hurricanes in recorded history, not all of which made landfall or hit the US: Dog, 1950, 185 mph., Camille, 1969, 190 mph., Allen, 1980, 190 mph., Gilbert, 1988, 185 mph.
Most of these “Cat 6” hurricanes were during cooler times. During the current “unprecedented warming” period we’ve now gone 25 years and counting since the last “Extreme hurricane”.
im going to guess Sandy would be algores first 6
He probably confused it with the open ended Richter scale…
dp,
“Is there anything stupid he’s willing to leave unsaid?”
Is there anything stupid he hasn’t already said?
There are so MANY witty and fun posts above, LOL (yes, read them all — at least you can know SOMEONE read and laughed at your comment). You WUWT commenters are the best!
Coals of Fire (at 3:40PM), there are many sitcoms that could use your fine writing. Terrific incorporation of the history and GREAT comedy.
@Sasja, you are definitely one of the intelligent Swedes. We’ve got them here, you’ve got them there, dunderheads are everywhere.
Bob Greene, (re: “Laugh at him all you want, but until he is so embarrassed that he has to retreat to his many mansions… .”)
I would rather be dirt poor than be Al Gore.
I can confirm that the trend of Cat 6 hurricanes is perfectly flat and that we’re continuously setting records for the most days without having a Cat 6 hurricane either forming or making a landfall.
The sad thing about Gore and many of his ilk is that they’re always waiting and hoping for destruction. They don’t want a future without hurricanes, let alone a future with no hurricanes. They want and need savage acts of nature to score points.
What do you mean “listen”? I don’t listen to Al Gore. I pray to him.
Gore is the ultimate non-checker-of-facts. He just gets some idea from somewhere and must make a press release before even asking anybody whether it is a good idea. Unfortunately, his style is what wins. People like the kind of crap he comes out with and his presentation style. Don’t forget, most Americans think that “Ellen” and “Oprah” and “The Voice” are “good TV”. That’s is the mindset of the voting public.
There has been more than some discussion of Category 6 hurricanes. An interesting response about no need for same is that Category 5 knocks everything standing down so there is no need for a Category 6. The other categories have upper limits
———————Wilipedia
After the series of powerful storm systems of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, a few newspaper columnists and scientists brought up the suggestion of introducing Category 6, and they have suggested pegging Category 6 to storms with winds greater than 174 or 180 mph (78 or 80 m/s; 151 or 160 kn; 280 or 290 km/h).[7][15] Only a few storms of this category have been recorded. Of the 35 hurricanes currently considered to have attained Category 5 level in the Atlantic, only 17 had wind speeds greater than 175 mph (78 m/s; 152 kn; 282 km/h) and only eight had wind speeds greater than 180 mph (80 m/s; 160 kn; 290 km/h). Of the 14 hurricanes currently considered to have attained Category 5 level in the eastern Pacific, only four had wind speeds greater than 175 mph (78 m/s; 152 kn; 282 km/h), and only one had a wind speed at 180 mph (80 m/s; 160 kn; 290 km/h). However, most storms which would be eligible for this category were from the western Pacific and are referred to as super typhoons, most notably Typhoon Ida in 1958 and Typhoon Nancy in 1961, both with sustained winds of 215 mph (346 km/h), and Typhoon Tip in 1979 with sustained winds of 190 mph (310 km/h).[16]