While the most recent public polls on climate-change give a ho-hum response, Dr. Roy Spencer recently surmised that in the State of the Union Address tonight, President Obama will join the “everything is caused by global warming” club. He writes:
I predict that, despite the brutally cold weather in DC this Tuesday, Obama will preach on climate change in his State of the Union address. I predict he will even use the cold weather as evidence to support his case.
During his address it looks like there will be a wintry mix starting across the southern reaches of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas, and the Florida panhandle. I wouldn’t be surprised if he uses the event as evidence of human-caused climate change.
…
For those of us old enough to remember, similar events happened back in the epic cold winters of the 1970s. Many instances of snow falling in Florida in the 1800s surely weren’t due to humans. Believe it or not, more snow tends to go with colder weather, not warmer. Go figure.
Sounds plausible, rational, and factually based. Of course, the SOTU is all about politics, so we’ll have none of that.
In other related news, that National Journal Reports:
Public to Obama, Congress: Climate Action Is No Big Deal This Year
An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that 27 percent believe that addressing climate change should be an “absolute priority” in 2014.
Forty-one percent put the topic in the “can be delayed until next year” bucket, according to the poll conducted January 22-25 and released Tuesday.
In contrast, 91 percent say job creation should be a top priority, reducing the deficit comes in at 74 percent, and 63 percent say ensuring all children have access to preschool should be in the “absolute priority for this year” category.
A separate Pew Research Center poll finds that 29 percent of respondents want global warming to be a “top priority” for Obama and Congress this year, while 31 percent call it an “important but lower priority.”
http://www.nationaljournal.com/energy/public-to-obama-congress-climate-action-is-no-big-deal-this-year-20140128
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I won’t be able to listen to/watch the SOTU address, as I’m traveling today, so readers will have to dissect and post memorable quotes here for discussion.
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Watching Witness on another channel (Amish ignorance versus Obama arrogance?…hmm, choices choices), turned over during the commercial break to hear him claim ‘carbon pollution causes climate change’, shouted brief obscenities at the TV and turned over all in a period which must have taken all of 20 seconds. Business as usual for the both of us.
Spencer’s bit sounds slightly plausible, but it isn’t really factually based any more than it would be factually based for Obama to pin the current cold winter east of the Rockies on climate change.
Funny about how Spencer, while claiming Obama will use the weather to bring up climate change, sneaks in his own attempt to use the weather to say there isn’t climate change “despite the brutally cold weather…”.
And Dr. Spencer’s wrong about snow, too. More snow tends to fall as temperatures rise towards the freezing point. Basic science – warmer air holds more moisture to freeze into flakes. Colder air is drier.
In a more specialized version of cold reducing snow this year: Buffalo is getting LESS snow because Lake Erie is iced over enough to disrupt the lake effect. Colder weather = less snow. Go figure.
b fagan says:
January 28, 2014 at 6:42 pm
I suspect Roy was referring to the entire season. In cold areas you get:
Warm storms early in winter (though in New Hampshire that can mean rain or freezing rain).
Cold weather in January that keeps snow around for ages.
Warmer weather in February that can bring some serious storms.
Goofy New England weather in March and April (and May!) that can bring major snow falls.
Put it all together and we get more snow (and snow depth days) than Huntsville.
We also don’t get affected much by Lake Erie-style lake effect snows, we get coastal storms and the ocean rarely freezes.
Lake Erie has a short season because it’s shallow and cools enough to freeze over. Marquette MI gets a lot more snow because its water stays open longer. There’s more to lake effect cities than Buffalo!
Some of Obama’s rhetoric is very close to plagiarizing George Bush’s 2007 SOTU speach.
@Dirk H, Janice Moore, etc.,
Obama can’t seem to manage to get ANY stories correct – historical or present day. For example, did you know that Emperor Hirohito signed the Japanese surrender to MacArthur? Or that we have 60 states here in the USA? Here are a few Obama gaffes, all with linked sources:
Ode to Obama – or how we know what isn’t so
Handy Reference Guide to Obama’s Gaffes and Goofs
Obama lost without a teleprompter
AP’s Russ Bynum Covers Up Obama’s ‘Gulf Ports’ Gaffe
POTUS/SOTU so what. This man has turned out to be a fool. His science adviser wrote a book in the 70’s claiming that within 10 years billions would die from hunger. We are still waiting, the planet can feed more than now exist the main problem is logistics, getting the food to remote areas, and local wars forcing people away from their crops in fear of death.
Jtom says: @ur momisugly January 28, 2014 at 6:35 pm
Gail Combs says ….
1-3/4 inches of White “Global Warming” Shuts Down Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport
The most well-trained, experienced snow driver will take on a new appreciation for Newton’s Laws of Motion when attempting to go down a steep, ice-covered hill on a road with multiple sharp curves.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I originate from Upstate New York (It is hilly/mountainous). That is why I mentioned not only plowing but SAND and the problems of ice covered with snow which is much more of a problem down south. A quarter inch of ice with an inch of snow on top is a real killer. I will take two feet of norther snow over that combo any day.
Well-trained, experienced snow drivers (me and Hubby) stay the heck off the roads here in the south or put the chains on the truck if we have to go out.
For what it is worth, because of tire inflation pressures and shear weight Semis have much better traction than cars…. until they hit ice.
Remember the Rosenthal paper with the press release claiming that the Pacific Ocean is now “warming 15 times as fast” as any previous warming in the last 10,000 years? Well it seems that they have corrected their data in the supplementary materials to the paper.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/suppl/2013/10/30/342.6158.617.DC1/Rosenthal.SM.revision.1.pdf
At best they purport to show a warming of 7 times as fast, if one can even make that comparison from a 45 year period to a 350 year period comparing proxy data to the instrumental record.
I would post this on the relevant thread, but it seems to be closed.