I wrote the day after IPCC AR5 SPM was released in Thoughts on IPCC AR5 SPM – discussion thread:
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On the plus side, contrary to ongoing claims from that alarmist media mill side there are no mentions of tornadoes and hurricanes in the extreme weather events section. They give low confidence to tropical storm activity being connected to climate change, and don’t mention mesoscale events like tornadoes and thunderstorms at all. Similarly, they give low confidence to drought and flood attribution.
They’ve only talked about heat waves and precipitation events and being connected. From Page 4 of the SPM:
This is consistent with what was reported last year in the IPCC SREX report ( IPCC Special Report on Extremes PDF)
From Chapter 4 of the SREX:
- “There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change”
- “The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados”
- “The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses”
Let’s hope this lack of attribution of severe storms to “man made climate change” in AR5 finally nails the lid shut on the claims of Hurricane Sandy, tornado outbreaks, and other favorite “lets not let a good crisis go to waste” media bleatings about climate change.
Now with two IPCC reports making no connection, and with Nature’s editorial last year dashing alarmist hopes of linking extreme weather events to global warming saying:
Better models are needed before exceptional events can be reliably linked to global warming.
…we can finally call it a dead issue.
There’s simply no connection between droughts, hurricanes, thunderstorms, flash floods, tornadoes and “climate change”.
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Dr. Roger Pielke Jr adds in blog post today some points from the IPCC AR5 WGI Chapter 2 on extremes.
- “Overall, the most robust global changes in climate extremes are seen in measures of daily temperature, including to some extent, heat waves. Precipitation extremes also appear to be increasing, but there is large spatial variability”
- “There is limited evidence of changes in extremes associated with other climate variables since the mid-20th century”
- “Current datasets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century … No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin”
- “In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale”
- “In summary, there is low confidence in observed trends in small-scale severe weather phenomena such as hail and thunderstorms because of historical data inhomogeneities and inadequacies in monitoring systems”
- “In summary, the current assessment concludes that there is not enough evidence at present to suggest more than low confidence in a global-scale observed trend in drought or dryness (lack of rainfall) since the middle of the 20th century due to lack of direct observations, geographical inconsistencies in the trends, and dependencies of inferred trends on the index choice. Based on updated studies, AR4 conclusions regarding global increasing trends in drought since the 1970s were probably overstated. However, it is likely that the frequency and intensity of drought has increased in the Mediterranean and West Africa and decreased in central North America and north-west Australia since 1950”
- “In summary, confidence in large scale changes in the intensity of extreme extratropical cyclones since 1900 is low”
And says:
Of course, I have no doubts that claims will still be made associating floods, drought, hurricanes and tornadoes with human-caused climate change — Zombie science — but I am declaring victory in this debate. Climate campaigners would do their movement a favor by getting themselves on the right side of the evidence.
Related articles
- IPCC Backpedals on Extreme Weather Claims (pjmedia.com)
- IPCC Report Blames Extreme Weather on Climate Change…But Should It? (theblaze.com)
- IPCC SPM: Bye to Extreme Weather (informthepundits.wordpress.com)
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As I’ve commented before there are three independent tentacles of the alarmist meme and believe that this one, “warming is bad”, is the most vulnerable as well as the most attractive one to hack off.
Without this tentacle, the other two, “earth temperature is unprecedented and going to get even warmer” and “humans are at fault” – become thoroughly irrelevant.
However, rather than just declaring it to be dead, I’d much favor the even sharper blade of “warming is good” which appears to be sitting there on the table.
Imagine the angst of James Hanson having to admit that yes, burning coal not only establishes a robust economy via cheap energy that produces a surplus, (more available to those too frail to support themselves) – it might also help warm the planet a little bit and put some extra plant food into the air thus benefiting life via NPP and and via a decrease in the frequency and strength of extreme weather events? Praise the Lord!
Map of desert areas at the last glacial maximum. Regions also covered.
http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc.html
At least some of the time the ‘meeja’ are just making stuff up. After the publication of the IPCC Fifth Assessment, Sky News quite definitely stated that storms, hurricanes, floods etc ‘would increase’ due to ‘climate change’. Nothing like making sure the facts don’t get in the way of a good story…
They did stop short of plagues of locusts, though…
This is (should be) hard to believe, but hornet attacks in China are being blamed on “climate change.”
“Yu’s story is a tragic but increasingly common one in north-west China’s Shaanxi province where, over the past three months alone, hornets have killed 41 people and injured a further 1,675. Ankang, a municipality in the province’s south, appears to be the epicentre of the scourge. While hornets infest its mountainous rural areas every year – 36 residents were stung to death between 2002 and 2005 – locals and municipal officials say this year is tantamount to an epidemic, the worst they have ever seen.
At least some of the deaths were caused by vespa mandarinia, experts say. The species does not typically attack unless it feels its nest is threatened. But when it does, it can be fierce and fast – the hornets can fly at 25 miles per hour and cover 50 miles in a day. They nest in tree stumps or underground, making nests extremely difficult to detect.
Both locals and experts blame this year’s scourge on climate change; the past year has been unusually warm, allowing a high number of hornets to survive the winter. Huang Ronghui, an official at the Ankang Forestry Bureau’s pest control department, lists a host of other possibilities: the hornets may have been agitated by a dry spell, while labourers have been moving deeper and deeper into the mountains, disturbing their nests. “Other than this, hornets are attracted to bright colours and the smell of peoples’ sweat, alcohol and sweet things,” he told state media. “They’re sensitive to movement, such as running people or animals.””
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/killer-hornets-chinese-city-living-in-fear
The fight is still not over, not by a long shot. After the latest IPCC report’s release, the ABC World News (US) reported on the horrors of global warming exactly as the IPCC would want them too. The “other side” of the story was told in a single phrase: “Skeptics, of course, deny this.”
Reblogged this on wwlee4411 and commented:
Isn’t it terrible when TRUTH is the opposite of what you believe?
@Gail Combs and Janice Moore –
Yes, hilarious! And now shall we move on to the State Penn?
Thanks, Chad. #(:))
Yeah, State Penn is certainly a “university,” (wink-wink-nod-nod-barf) isn’t it? Not really a laughing matter, huh? A regular delicatessen of scandals served up one after another.