The bogosity of Winter Storm Bodil

There’s so much desperation to tie extreme weather to climate change these days, that some people have taken to photoshopping faked images to make the point. In case you didn’t catch that, it’s a double entendre. Observe.

Sadly, even the Danes have picked up the Weather Channel’s silly naming of non tropical and winter storms. It even has a Wikipedia page. This photo of winter storm “Bodil” is circulating today on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media as it approaches Denmark:

Bodil_Twitter

One look at the mesocyclone in that locale told me it was bogus, not only is it meteorologically unlikely, the light is all wrong. It’s comically bad. But the hilarity has to do with the fact that the image is doubly bogus. It has been photoshopped twice. Once to put the storm over the city, and a second time to take out the logo identifying it as a gag image produced by a satire website.

Here’s the “gag” image:

9GAG_Bodil

Source: http://9gag.com/gag/a5dXzNG

Note the 9GAG logo (above my drawn red arrow) has been removed and is now in the wild as shown above in Twitter. Yes, that’s right, they faked the fake.

Here is the original mesocyclone, from Montana, USA

Montana_cyclone

Source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/570972058977542637/

The picture from Denmark that mesocyclone was added to is of Nyhavn canal, in Copenhagen, a touristy spot. It also has its own Wikipedia page.

While I couldn’t find the exact night photo used to make the fake, this one its very close, taken just a few steps up from the original vantage point:

Update: The original Copenhagen scene has been located, h/t to ArtRubicon and Helge K

Nyhavn_orginal_bodil

This fake of “Bodil” now join the ranks of other faked weather events, such as this laughable faked photo supposedly from Hurricane Sandy:

fake_ny_storm[1]

About.com Urban Legends has this explanation:

It was created by combining a fairly standard image of New York Harbor with a 2004 photo of a supercell thunderstorm taken by professional storm chaser Mike Hollingshead.

And this faked one from Hurricane Katrina:

090911_blog_hurricane_approach[1]

So, if you see somebody pushing any of these faked photos as proof of (take your pick: global warming, climate disruption, Al Gore is near, Bigfoot, Chemtrails, weather control, or increasing extreme weather) set them straight.

UPDATE2:  I forgot to add a link to this example of photoshopping from a couple years back, where Al Gore had to add hurricanes to his book cover. He couldn’t even get the hemispheric rotation right, likely because he’s never heard of the Coriolis Force.

Not finding any, Gore airbrushes in hurricanes for his new book

 

 

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DirkH
December 7, 2013 4:17 pm

Dubya G says:
December 7, 2013 at 4:09 pm
“Why is it that every bit of weather, even fairly benign, now has to have a name.”
We’ve been naming storm systems for half a century in Germany. Nothing to do with the latter day psychosis of CO2AGW.

December 7, 2013 4:20 pm

omnologos says December 7, 2013 at 1:50 pm
368 retweets
Humanity is doomed

Tower of Babel, Part Deux, “The Aftermath/Post-normal Science”.
PNS (Post-Normal Science) – a concept developed by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz, a methodology of inquiry … for cases where “facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent”
.

Randy
December 7, 2013 4:28 pm

And meanwhile a sharp little cold front came through central California today and pushed the Indian Wells Canyon RAWS station to a max gust of 99 mph and the station at Inyokern Airport read 76 mph. It topped our Mesquite (more firewood).

December 7, 2013 4:28 pm

Robert of Ottawa says December 7, 2013 at 3:54 pm

Anyone who says energy should be expensive and rationed are stating that food and health and all human activity should be rationed and controlled. In fact, they are saying that human life should be nasty, brutish and short.

The unstated goals of ‘wealth redistribution’ (1) and ‘economic justice’ (2)?
.
.
<barry>
1. Take everones’ pie, make the pie slices all the same size and give an equal portion back to everyone LESS the ‘cut’ for overhead (for the federal pie bureaucracy or the “Bureau of Pie Sizes”)
2. “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” – K. M.
</barry>

GlynnMhor
December 7, 2013 4:38 pm

Jim, it’s more like “from each according to their laziness, to each according to their greed”

Yancey Ward
December 7, 2013 4:39 pm

Global warming is causing a plague of faked photographs. At this rate of fakery, the world is clearly doomed.

Alan Robertson
December 7, 2013 4:42 pm

Robert of Ottawa says:
December 7, 2013 at 3:54 pm
Anyone who says energy should be expensive and rationed are stating that food and health and all human activity should be rationed and controlled. In fact, they are saying that human life should be nasty, brutish and short.
_________________________________________
Exactly! People have cataloged long lists of statements calling for human population reduction and other horrors; statements made by leading Greens, Statists, Elitists and tyrants of every stripe.
These quotes have been posted in these threads before, but can’t be repeated often enough:
——————————————————————————————–
”My three goals would be to reduce human population to about 100 million worldwide, destroy the industrial infrastructure and see wilderness, with its full complement of species, returning throughout the world.”
David Foreman,
co-founder of Earth First!
”A total population of 250-300 million people, a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”
Ted Turner,
Founder of CNN and major UN donor
”The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.”
Jeremy Rifkin,
Greenhouse Crisis Foundation
”Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.”
Paul Ehrlich,
Professor of Population Studies,
Author: “Population Bomb”, “Ecoscience”
“The data doesn’t matter. We’re not basing our recommendations
on the data. We’re basing them on the climate models.”
– Prof. Chris Folland,
Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research
“The models are convenient fictions
that provide something very useful.”
– Dr David Frame,
climate modeler, Oxford University
”We need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination… So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements and make little mention of any doubts… Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.”
Stephen Schneider,
Stanford Professor of Climatology,
Lead author of many IPCC reports
”Unless we announce disasters no one will listen.”
Sir John Houghton,
First chairman of the IPCC
”It doesn’t matter what is true, it only matters what people believe is true.”
Paul Watson,
Co-founder of Greenpeace
”Childbearing should be a punishable crime against society, unless the parents hold a government license. All potential parents should be required to use contraceptive chemicals, the government issuing antidotes to citizens chosen for childbearing.”
David Brower,
First Executive Director of the Sierra Club
”We’ve got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic and environmental policy.”
Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation
”No matter if the science of global warming is all phony… climate change provides the greatest opportunity to bring about justice and equality in the world.”
Christine Stewart,
former Canadian Minister of the Environment
”The only way to get our society to truly change is to frighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.”
Emeritus Professor Daniel Botkin
”Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?”
Maurice Strong,
Founder of the UN Environmental Program
”A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the United States. De-Development means bringing our economic system into line with the realities of ecology and the world resource situation.”
Paul Ehrlich,
Professor of Population Studies,
Author: “Population Bomb”, “Ecoscience”
”If I were reincarnated I would wish to return to earth as a killer virus to lower human population levels.”
Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh,
husband of Queen Elizabeth II,
Patron of the Patron of the World Wildlife Foundation
”The only hope for the world is to make sure there is not another United States. We can’t let other countries have the same number of cars, the amount of industrialization we have in the US. We have to stop these third World countries right where they are.”
Michael Oppenheimer
Environmental Defense Fund
”Global Sustainability requires the deliberate quest of poverty, reduced resource consumption and set levels of mortality control.”
Professor Maurice King
”Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class – involving high meat intake, use of fossil fuels, appliances, air-conditioning, and suburban housing – are not sustainable.”
Maurice Strong,
Rio Earth Summit
”Complex technology of any sort is an assault on the human dignity. It would be little short of disastrous for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy, because of what we might do with it.”
Amory Lovins,
Rocky Mountain Institute
”I suspect that eradicating small pox was wrong. it played an important part in balancing ecosystems.”
John Davis,
Editor of Earth First! Journal
“…the world is more sophisticated and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national autodetermination practiced in past centuries.” ~ David Rockefeller, June, 1991, Bilderberg Conference, Baden, Germany link
“We are on the verge of a global transformation.
All we need is the right major crisis…”
– David Rockefeller,
Club of Rome executive member
“I believe it is appropriate to have an ‘over-representation’ of the facts
on how dangerous it is, as a predicate for opening up the audience.”
-Al Gore,
Climate Change activist
“The climate crisis is not a political issue, it is a moral and
spiritual challenge to all of humanity. It is also our greatest
opportunity to lift Global Consciousness to a higher level.”
-Al Gore,
Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
”The big threat to the planet is people: there are too many, doing too well economically and burning too much oil.”
Sir James Lovelock,
BBC Interview
“We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place
for capitalists and their projects. We must reclaim the roads and
plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams,
free shackled rivers and return to wilderness
millions of acres of presently settled land.”
– David Foreman,
co-founder of Earth First!

Sisi
December 7, 2013 4:46 pm

[it’s satire, get over yourself – mod]

December 7, 2013 4:55 pm

I would prefer to see Sisi’s comment.
She is very easy to respond to.

Sisi
December 7, 2013 4:58 pm

[snip – religion and way off topic -mod]

Sweet Old Bob
December 7, 2013 4:59 pm

We have seen the enemy, and he is NOT us!

Alan Robertson
December 7, 2013 5:00 pm

dbstealey says:
December 7, 2013 at 4:55 pm
I would prefer to see Sisi’s comment.
She is very easy to respond to.
________________________
Let us know her by her words? Give her all the rope she needs?

John F. Hultquist
December 7, 2013 5:11 pm

Thanks for this one. I love this kind of stuff. And pretty pictures too!
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Richard says:
December 7, 2013 at 3:45 pm
“The loss of the fishery, normally worth CAN$32 million (US$30.7 million), took many by surprise..

“Many” don’t pay attention to much.
About 2 years ago regarding:
Title: “A cold oceanographic regime with high exploitation rates in the Northeast Pacific forecasts a collapse of the sardine stock”
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3306684/

Alan Robertson
December 7, 2013 5:14 pm

Janice Moore says:
December 7, 2013 at 3:20 pm
Mr. James McClellan (at 2:54pm) — You might want to do a bit of research into what the AGWers say they want to do. You cannot “control the climate” with out controlling…… people.
____________________
Yes, and worse.

John F. Hultquist
December 7, 2013 5:16 pm

Robert of Ottawa says:
December 7, 2013 at 3:54 pm

[ http://www.amazon.com/Catching-Fire-Cooking-Made-Human/dp/1469298708 ]

John F. Hultquist
December 7, 2013 5:17 pm

Sorry, about that link/image. Not intended. John
[fixed – mod]

JamesS
December 7, 2013 5:18 pm

“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” – K. M.
The very first time I saw this, I wondered, “Who gets to decide one’s abilities, and who gets to decide one’s needs?”
Why doesn’t EVERYONE think this when they see it?

Alan Robertson
December 7, 2013 5:18 pm

Mods: If my comment at 5:00pm gives you pause, then please strike it… mere musings from me and not a challenge to your authority.
On second thought, please strike it and this message anyway.
Thanks,
Alan
Ps Trigger trippers: Denialists, denier, Anthony Watts(our gracious host)

JamesS
December 7, 2013 5:19 pm

Cooking didn’t make us human.
Now, a bit of salt, some garlic, a little BAM! —
THAT made us human.

Sisi
December 7, 2013 5:20 pm

[snip – previously moderated, repeating it doesn’t make it better -mod]

December 7, 2013 5:32 pm

JamesS says December 7, 2013 at 5:18 pm
“From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.” – K. M.
The very first time I saw this, I wondered, “Who gets to decide one’s abilities, and who gets to decide one’s needs?”

Offhand: “The ruling party” …
KM was never bothered by the practicalities of his ‘proposals’. Such is the world of the impractical ‘reformer’.
.

Sisi
December 7, 2013 5:38 pm

@mod
beyond parody. You fail to explain the reason for moderation. What part of my original comment was against the rules?
[all of it, all moderation decisions are final -mod]

RoHa
December 7, 2013 5:49 pm

Can’t those of you who understand this Twitter thing send the photo out with the gag logo and the caption “Great faked storm photo – must see!”?

December 7, 2013 5:55 pm

Gosh, the things I missed by not being on the net all day. Bogosity, eh?

Chris @NJSnowFan
December 7, 2013 6:14 pm

OT Tip. I am posting this here because the tip page is so long it was taking me for ever to just get 1/4 waw down the page on Mobil device to post this tip.
Sorry for posting this here but this deserves a headline story.
https://mobile.twitter.com/RyanMaue/status/409461484758896641
In the last day CONUS avg has broken all time satellite record back to 1979 for earliest ever cold avg day for conus. 14.5 avg .
Yesterday broke all of last winters conus avg day temp on Jan 14 2013 of 18.9° to settle at 18.1° at 14z.
Ryan tweeted a bunch of info and charts in last two days.