From the “more facts against the Mann” department. While claims of climate change swirl about from the usual doomsayers, such as this one from Time Magazine:
Climate change is making rare weather events less rare
At least nine people have died in flooding across South Carolina that has left city streets submerged in water, destroyed homes and closed more than 100 bridges. Nikki Haley, the state’s governor, described the disaster as one of such an epic scale that science suggests it would only occur once every 1,000 years.
A flooding disaster of this scale was unlikely to be sure, scientists say, but climate change has transformed once-in-a-lifetime events into periodic occurrences. The flooding may have been hard to predict, but it should no longer come as a surprise.
And everybody’s favorite poster boy for disaster, Michael E. Mann, says at the Washington Post:
This is yet another example, like Sandy, or Irene, of weather on “steroids,” another case where climate change worsened the effects of an already extreme meteorological event. In this case, we’re seeing once-in-a-thousand year flooding along the South Carolina coastline as a consequence of the extreme supply of moisture streaming in from hurricane Joaquin. Joaquin intensified over record warm sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic, which both allowed it to intensify rapidly despite adverse wind shear, and which provided it with unusually high levels of moisture — moisture which is now being turned into record rainfall.
Really? As Bob Tisdale pointed out here a few days ago:
In fact, the sea surfaces along the {hurricane Joaquin] storm track were regularly warmer in the 1940s and 50s than they have been recently.
Clearly, Dr. Mann is all wet.
There is also the claim being tossed about that there’s more water vapor in the air due to global warming. There’s no support for this idea in the satellite data:
The NVAP-M project shows total precipitable water (TPW) data is shown in Figure 4, reproduced from the paper Vonder Haar et al (2012) here. There is no evidence of increasing water vapor to enhance the small warming effect from CO2.
Instead of “steroids”… a more mundane explanation has emerged from satellite imagery: a river of moisture, aka an “atmospheric river” much like we get in California from time to time, which we call the “pineapple express” due to the origin of the river of air near Hawaii. Wikipedia defines it as:
Pineapple Express is a non-technical term for a meteorological phenomenon characterized by a strong and persistent flow of atmospheric moisture and associated with heavy precipitation from the waters adjacent to the Hawaiian Islands and extending to any location along the Pacific coast of North America. A Pineapple Express is an example of an atmospheric river, which is a more general term for such narrow corridors of enhanced water vapor transport at mid-latitudes around the world.
…
Early in 1862, extreme storms riding the Pineapple Express battered the west coast for 45 days. In addition to a sudden snow melt, some places received an estimated 8.5 feet of rain, leading to the worst flooding in recorded history of California, Oregon, and Nevada. Known as the Great Flood of 1862, both the Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys flooded, and there was extensive flooding and mudslides throughout the region.
Get that? A “meteorological phenomenon” not a climate phenomenon. And, the confluence of meteorological events that led to that situation happened well before “climate change” was a glimmer in Jim Hansen’s eye. Even the normally pro-warming Capital Weather Gang say the flooding in South Carolina is a “very complex meteorological event “.
“At least eight key elements conspired to create a highly efficient, small-scale rain machine centered on South Carolina,”
Some meteorologists have been calling this plume of rain a predecessor rain event, or “PRE,” which sometimes occurs ahead of tropical storms that interact with separate areas of low pressure and lingering surface fronts — exactly what Hurricane Joaquin did. – Jeff Halverson at Capital Weather Gang
The reason things get complicated is that the heavy rains over South Carolina are a confluence of multiple causes, that low to the left, Hurricane Joaquin to the right; the atmospheric river tapped some of its tropical moisture and the low spun it right into South Carolina.
Clearly from this NOAA GOES satellite image of water vapor content, we have a meteorological phenomenon that is a rare confluence of meteorological events that resulted in an atmospheric river:
Added: h/t to Willis Eschenbach for the video clip
I watched the TV news for several hours yesterday, waiting for the inevitable statements that the Louisiana Flood, Chinese Typhoon and Riviera flash flood were intensified somehow by “climate change”.
I was not disappointed. Not in my expectation that such interpretations would be drawn.
Clearly, I was disappointed, inasmuch as I am constantly disappointed by the failure of human reasoning and the failure of individuals to think independentally and skeptically and to take a look at the recorded trends, i.e. adopt a scientific attitude.
Fortunately, the Sky interviewee who explained that events such as those witnessed were now more frequent due to climate change, was not a scientist and appeared to be in her early thirties.
I cannot blame her for being utterly bamboozled by the onslaught of misinformation.
She was thanked for her “insight” by the Sky interviewer. A man who clearly also is unable to discriminated between shit and shinola, or arses and elbows.
We also learned that the French President had made this spurious association.
Of course, much of the flooding was man-made.
Water rushing down metalled roads into underground car-parks does so because it find the roads easy to rush down and the car parks easy to rush into.
Primarily on account of its tendency to head in the direction of the lowest place.
You can’t blame nature in this regard. ‘Twas always thus.
But, clearly we have made a concrete and tile and asphalt paradise for ourselves and made insufficient account of the needs for equally artificial emergency storm drainage.
We can look at this two ways – as an engineering problem or as a problem of development.
Personally, I am convinced that with adequate funding engineering solutions in the form of drainage could remove most of the risk.
We seemingly have the money and technology that allows men and women to permanently live in an aluminium can in orbit.
I do believe that mankind has the money and technology to enable men and woman to permanently live on the Côte d’Azur.
But the anti-development eco-left will always prefer to propose that we should strip back the adornments of civilisation and re-wild the planet by creating more boggy peatland, reed beds and woodland.
They will also tend to suggest, that we deserved this misfortune as a penalty for having nice stuff.
And that we should all go and live in a shed and grow potatoes and wear a beard.
Or they will suggest that the problem is humans, period. And that we should find some way to cease to exist.
Whilst there is a place for both technology and idiots in the world, Cannes is rich and I’m sure that Cannes intends to continue to be a built up populated area. So, why not spend public money on infrastructure. Massive drainage to the sea and massive emergency sumps.
Once again though, we are going to see the wrong diagnosis and therefore the wrong prescription.
The events will lead to the diversion of public funds to yet more pie in the sky money wasting renewable “innovation”. Yet more expensive and extraordinarily stupid “deep water” floating wind turbines. Because apparently mankind has run out of unoccupied windy land. Yet more experimental bird toasting mirror farms.
More arable agricultural land given over to the production of replacement fuels, whilst under those lands lie heaps of fuel, untapped due to the total ban on effective gas extraction in France.
Yet more generous funding for promises of cheap wave power, More bobbing metal floats in corrosive sea water, generating miniscule amounts of power at ten times the market value. Yet more solar electricity pouring into the grid on sunny bank holidays and then vanishing just as everyone returns home to use heating cooking and lighting. In short, more shit that doesn’t work but costs a fortune.
And with the problem being most expensively “addressed” in this manner, then we can expect that shit-all of any practical effect will be done to aid the flash flood emergency drainage of Cannes and Marseille and next time a storm drops two months worth of rain on them in 2hours then all the cars will end up on big heaps at the bottom of the street. Again.
Except that next time most of the cars will be hybrid, or all electric. And none of them will have defeat mechanisms.
We need a defeat mechanism.
We need to defeat the forces of stupid.
Rant over…Did I miss anything out?!!
Yep, You forgot to take a breath.
“But the anti-development eco-left will always prefer to propose that we should strip back the adornments of civilization and re-wild the planet by creating more boggy peat land, reed beds and woodland.”
Loved your rant and agreed with most of it except your statement above, we had a river that used to be the main spawning river for land-locked Salmon. They “straightened” it out 50 years ago. The fish nearly disappeared.
(Take a breath here)
Now they ARE re-creating the natural “wandering” of the last 10 or so kms (5-6 miles) of the river as it used to be , recreating wetlands and spawning beds . It does work. But the whole community including the developers that wanted, no insisted the “river” frontage were “theirs” had to go along.
The benefits far outweighed their greed. There are and will be more walk ways for people, horses, playgrounds for kids, educational centers, bird sighting spots and so on. ( dang one negative, more squiters)
But you are right about one thing, do not buy low, buy the high ground!
(as an aside the river is forever important to our lake and water system but as rivers go, no matter how vital it is to our valley it is a creek, compared to say the Columbia River but in it’s prime carried over 550,000 spawning fish each year ).
Thanks @asybot.
I’m not really completely militant in my desire to put all the trees in a tree museum, pave paradise and put up a parking lot etc.
Actually, I came over from the other side. I used to be a Guardian and Monbiot reading gullible twit.
Now, I am inclined to simply dismiss all enviromentalist interference. But, really my complaint is with environmentalist ideologies.
I have no problem with somebody buying up poorly performing farmland and replanting it with forest. No problem with somebody deciding to allow a specific low lying area to flood so as to create a wetland reserve for wildfowl.
I only take issue with the new environmentalist ideology that the solution to all problems is to return to the natural condition. And by extension that any imposition of man upon the environment is intrinsically wrong.
I don’t take that view.
And I believe that that view has the potential to cause a great deal more harm than good.
To humans, AND to the environment.
As far as I am concerned, I’m a product of nature too, and yet – if I go and cut down some trees, dump them in a river and block up a major water way, causing flooding – then I’ll be arrested and fined.
And yet – when a beaver does the same thing…
Wait a minute, I seem to have started being silly!!
It is a failure to consider that you won has because you point out the other person is factually incorrect , when the argument is not about facts in the first place .
In cases like this which is a classic hit and run , where headlines are all that matter, it would be fair to say climate ‘scientists’ such has Mann have shown real skill. Indeed you could say it is their expertise in these hit and run approaches , of which the condense IPCC report which is all most politicians ever read is very much apart, is where there prime skill is actually found.
The issue is how do you counter them, and that is the hard part for has they not primarily factual arguments it is simply not enough to point out the factual errors.
I am genuinely concerned that your analysis may be correct.
And throw into the mix, that they have both the oil producing middle east and the Kremlin supporting their campaign of misinformation.
Various self-interested parties.
Putin clearly knows what he is doing.
I suspect that Mann did not know once in the pre MacIntyre days,
I can not possibly see how he could still believe in the climate on steroids schlock, even now.
Even when his precious graph has been ditched by the IPCC and when the IPCC are unable to state that they have “confidence” that there may be more extreme weather events in the future. In the sense that stating that you have “low confidence” is effectively saying that you are unable to state that you have “confidence”.
Who knows though. Maybe Mann really is just a deluded fool. That simple explanation is still plausible.
Occam’s Razor, and all that!!
It is not even a 1 in 1000 year event.
Much more rain fell on S Carolina during Hurricane Floyd in 1999.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/south-carolina-floods-a-thousand-year-rainfall/
Unfortunately Paul, in spite of your valiant efforts, I would predict that not a lot of people will know very much about any of this for the foreseeable future. Since I suspect that @knr (comment directly above) may be correct.
We are simply being strawman’d and ad homenim’d out of the game.
I often imagine Lord Deben peering over his glasses like a figure in the final pages of a John LeCarre novel and saying, “well, old boy, it seems that one way or another you ended up on the losing side. You didn’t ever imagine that any of this was about the truth, did you? Oh, you did. You poor chap”.
So sadly, I’m inclined to conclude that a lot of people will continue to not know a lot of things for quite some time.
I don’t imagine that this will ever blow up in the style of the Iran-Contra affair.
At most, we might hope for a gradual lessening of alarmist propaganda, perhaps over the course of the next fifty years.
At which point the sea will boil and crash in over the land and wipe the alarmists from the face of the earth.
That’ll teach ’em!!
But returning to a serious tone. Thanks for all your wonderful work.
Not even directly associated w/the hurricane itself. Oh, wait, CO2 causes such unusual interactions!
This is another example of how Global Warming theology is actually a rudimentary religion, and has nothing to do with science.
Millenia ago, atmospheric phenomena like lightning were explained by imagining a god hurling lightning bolts down from the heavens. Over time we learned more about the natural basis for lightning, and thus there was no more need for a god of lightning.
Those who would ascribe mysterious phenomena to god today encounter this same “god of the gaps” issue. If god is used to explain away every unknown phenomenon then over time as we gain more knowledge and those gaps are filled there is less and less of a role for god in the world. This is why more advanced religions often resist falling into this “god of the gaps” trap.
Now, it could be argued that just because we understand the physical basis for lightning, that doesn’t mean that a god of lightning might not be behind the scenes orchestrating each lightning strike. This isn’t a scientific argument, it if fully a religious/philisophical argument. The statement can’t be falsified because you can’t prove a negative, which makes it non-scientific.
Here we have this exact situation. We have a freak rain event triggered by known weather phenomena, yet some argue that Manmade Global Warming is behind the scenes orchestrating it. These Global Warming acolytes are dragging mankind backwards by thousands of years to the bronze age with their rudimentary religious proselyting.
[quote]Get that? A “meteorological phenomenon” not a climate phenomenon.[/quote]
As has been explained to you many times before, the two are not mutually exclusive. All extreme weather is going to be the result of an unusual meteorological setup. It does not logically follow, however, that the extreme event was not made more likely or more severe by climate change.
Here’s an example to help you: If I give you a die that has two 6’s on it, instead of the usual one…and you roll it many, many times until you get ten 6’s in a row, this can be attributed to an unusual event in the tossing that caused the 6 to come up ten times in a row in the tossing. However, that obviously doesn’t negate the fact that getting those ten 6’s in a row was made much more likely by giving you a die that had two 6’s on it rather than just one!
[quote]The NVAP-M project shows total precipitable water (TPW) data is shown in Figure 4, reproduced from the paper Vonder Haar et al (2012) here. There is no evidence of increasing water vapor to enhance the small warming effect from CO2.[/quote]
You haven’t shown any analysis to support your claim that there is no evidence of a trend in that data. And, there is other data that does show a clear trend. See, for example, http://www.sciencemag.org/content/310/5749/841.short , http://www.sciencemag.org/content/323/5917/1020.summary , and http://www.pnas.org/content/111/32/11636.abstract and references therein.
(After all this time you still don’t know HTML? Square brackets (BB code) don’t work here. -mod.)
mod – Sorry…I often can’t remember which works where.
When in doubt, visit http://wattsupwiththat.com/test/ for answers and a “proving ground.”
The same tired old nonsense Joel?
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/310/5749/841.short – Model results, not observations
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/323/5917/1020.summary – Not what you claim it is
http://www.pnas.org/content/111/32/11636.abstract – more model results, not observations.
No…It is satellite observations that are compared to model results to see if they are better explained by a model that includes or does not include water vapor feedback.
It is a paper is a paper that discusses and has references into the literature on the water vapor feedback and the evidence that it is behaving as the models predict it to behave.
This one is the most strongly model-based, but it still uses models to investigate the question of whether the behavior seen in observations can be explained by natural forcings and variations or by anthropogenic forcings. And, it contains considerable discussion of the underlying data from satellite that it is seeking to do this attribution study on.
The allergy you guys seem to have to any discussion of models, even in the context of compariosn to observations, is ridiculous and scientifically-immature.
Published on May 8, 2014
Rosalind Peterson, the US president of Agriculture Defence Coalition, addressing Geoengineering, SRM in UN meeting.
She’s not Roalind Peterson. That’s actually Dustin Hoffman from Tootsie
RE joeldshore:
**As has been explained to you many times before, the two are not mutually exclusive. All extreme weather is going to be the result of an unusual meteorological setup. It does not logically follow, however, that the extreme event was not made more likely or more severe by climate change.**
Correction:
****As has been explained to you many times before, the two are not mutually exclusive. All extreme weather is going to be the result of an unusual meteorological setup. It does not logically follow, however, that the extreme event was made more likely or more severe by climate change.****
Removed the word “not”. Sounds better.
I actually agree with your wording too. The point is that the statement that there was an unusual meterological setup alone does not in and of itself provide evidence either way.
There are things, however, that can provide evidence, such as a trend in extreme events over time, particularly if the trend matches what is predicted by modeling to occur in response to an increase in greenhouse gases.
Yeah…It is not like James Hansen has ever been recognized for his scientific achievements by his peers in the scientific community, besides being elected to the National Academy of Sciences, winning the American Meteorological Society’s Carl-Gustaf Rossby Research Medal, being elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), winning the Roger Revelle Medal of the AGU, winning the Leo Szilard Award of the American Physical Society, and winning numerous NASA awards.
It is not like James Hansen has ever been recognized for his scientific achievements by his peers in the scientific community
Honor among thieves.
Emphasis on ‘thieves’.
Some of the Rossby awards from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Carl-Gustaf_Rossby_Research_Medal_recipients :
2009 JAMES E. HANSEN
2007 KERRY A. EMANUEL
2005 Jagadish Shukla (Honor among thieves sounds about right)
2000 Susan Solomon
1969 Edward N. Lorenz (The AMS hadn’t been taken over back then)
Oh yeah – Bill Gray will likely never win the Rossby award….
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/16/on-the-hijacking-of-the-american-meteorological-society-ams/
Ah, he had a good list:
“Honor among thieves.
Emphasis on ‘thieves’.”
Yes…So, the major scientific societies in the U.S. and most other nations have all been taken over by “thieves” because they refuse to align their science with your ideology?
“So, the major scientific societies in the U.S. and most other nations have all been taken over by “thieves” because they refuse to align their science with your ideology?”
I think what he means is…
“The major scientific societies in the U.S. and most other nations have all been taken over by “thieves” because they refuse to align their ideology with actual science?”
Joel, the first thing you should get it that “appeals to authority” hold little weight here.
“Joel, the first thing you should get it that “appeals to authority” hold little weight here.”
Yes…They have little weight because the scientific authorities almost all disagree with you. That is why you guys adopt a “poisoning of the well” approach, so that you can ignore the fact that most of those who are qualified to evaluate the science disagree with you.
Nobody here has ever been able to explain to me how we can use science to inform public policy if we do not assume that the best people to evaluate the science are the scientists. If you guys can’t come up with a way to do this, you are essentially just saying that you don’t believe that science should be used to inform public policy…at least in cases where the science conflicts with your ideology.
Hence, your position is fundamentally anti-science, although you will never state it that way. Instead, you will just claim that you can evaluate the science better than the scientists (or that because you can find a few scientists who agree with you, that somehow negates the fact that most of the scientific community does not).
But Joel…I am an atmospheric scientist. Most of the drivers of opinion on this site are highly qualified scientists. We generally disagree with claims of catastrophic global warming. So do most of my retired college professors. So do my co-workers. We are a large crowd.
The argument that “scientists say it is so and the rest of you are knuckleheads” is ridiculous and insulting.
If you would like to actually argue some science, have at it. If you just want to appeal to the great authorities, then check out the recent Washington Post article on saturated fat. A few influential scientists got it wrong and passed weak science to the government who made it dogma. A giant “low fat” industry was born. Forty years later, the damage has been enormous. Many here think the same is being done with global warming and, as scientists, won’t stand silently by while weak science is passed as fact.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/10/06/for-decades-the-government-steered-millions-away-from-whole-milk-was-that-wrong/
Mary – A few comments in response:
(1) “If you would like to actually argue some science, have at it.” I was in fact doing that until “Abe” distracted us by making these claims, then essentially supported by others, that Hansen has not done any real science and that all the major scientific organizations have been corrupted (because they don’t agree with these people’s ideologically-driven conclusions of what the science says) and so forth.
(2) “I am an atmospheric scientist.” Well, when you are posting under the name of “Mary Brown”, it is sort of hard for us to know who you really are and what your credentials are. I post under a complete enough (and, by good fortune, unusually enough) name that people can readily look up what my scientific background and credentials are.
(3) “Many here think the same is being done with global warming and, as scientists, won’t stand silently by while weak science is passed as fact.” And, I do not have any problem with the idea of scientists, like Roy Spencer, Roger Pielke Sr., or yourself trying to convince their colleagues of a different view. What I do have a problem with is the implication that, when it comes to using science to inform public policy, we should do it in a way that is different from the way we do it on every other subject. And, that way is by having review panels like the IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, … summarize the current state of the science. Especially, when the only logic to when we should listen to the scientific evaluation and when we should ignore it seems to come down to whether the scientific evaluation agrees with the desired ideology. I don’t think this is good when done by conservatives on subjects like climate change or evolution, nor when done by liberals on subjects like GMO’s, because what it is really a recipe for is to abandon any attempt to use science to inform public policy decisions. I also think it is generally the last refuge of people on the losing side of the scientific debate.
(4) You give the example of the medical science regarding fat intake. However, I think that the physical sciences are on a stronger footing than the medical sciences because the human body is very complicated and hence the studies come down mainly to purely empirical statistical studies fraught with problems. Furthermore, I would argue that the role of a scientist who thought the advice was bad to try to change the opinion of their fellow scientists so that the recommendations are changed, rather to just argue that we should ignore the recognized processes and channels for having science guide policy decisions. (Or, they should come up with concrete ways to improve this process.)
The question really boils down to whether we are going to let science or ideology inform public policy decisions. And, while ideology has a role to play in the decisions themselves (since these involve values), it should as much as possible be excluded in having a role in saying what the current science actually says.
There are 1063 cities in the world with half a million people or more. I would expect a one-in-a-thousand flood to hit one of them about once a year on average.
If you see somebody do something crazy tomorrow and think that was a “one-in-a-million”, then it happens 7200 times a day… because there are 7200 million people on earth.
Earth…it’s a big place.
papiertigre on October 5,
2015 at 8:25 pm
I saw an interview with a
resident of South Carolina.
They were standing in
water knee deep in front
of her house which was
built on stilts, the carport
underneath, the house
proper two stories
another fifteen feet up.
If it only flooded there
knee deep once in a
thousand years, why the
stilts?
Yep, papiertigre. Only reasonable question.
Only reasonable answer.
____
but then: You wan’t spoil the bureaucrats joy of shoving academics the political right way, will You.
Best Regards – Hans
I feel the need to clarify some accidental misinformation that has been on the lips and minds of many the past few days.
I want to answer the question: What exactly is a ‘1000 year flood’?
This term has been used often the past couple of days and, in fact, in some pretty high places, but if you are not a floodgeek the term can be easily misunderstood and even more easily misused, when trying to describe the enormity of this past weekend’s historical flood event.
A ‘1000 year flood’ or a ‘1000 year event,’ does not mean that the flood event will only happen only once every 1000 years.
The term ‘1000 year’ is a statistical way of expressing the odds of something, in this case a flood, occurring in any given year.
A ‘1000 year flood’ event is a flood event that has a one in one thousand chance of happening in any given year. You will also see it expressed as a “0.1 percent annual-chance-flood” (FEMA’s latest lingo for it).
While a storm of this magnitude is highly unlikely to occur again any time soon, we can conceivably see a storm of this proportion and intensity again in our lifetimes (although, we certainly hope and pray that is not the case!!)
If it makes it easier, think of it as a mathematical probability that a storm like this one we have just experienced over the weekend will happen again anytime soon.
Likewise, a ‘500 year flood’ event has a 0.2 percent annual chance of occurring in any given year and a ‘100 year flood’ has a 1 percent annual chance of occurring in any given year.
Obviously, a “100 year flood’ has a higher probability of occurring than does a “1000 year flood’.
In the same manner, storms can be described as 2-, 5-, 10-, 25- and ’50 year’ storm events. The smaller the number, the higher the probability of that storm event occuring in any given year. (I’ll let you have the enjoyment of computing the probability for yourself!!)
It is important to note here that many communities have had multiple ‘100 year’ floods in the same year! While this is statistically highly unlikely, it HAS happened (and could happen again)!
Thus, the need for flood insurance, since your standard homeowner’s policy does not cover events due to rising water; i.e. floods!! If your community participates in the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), you CAN purchase federally backed flood insurance EVEN IF YOU DO NOT LIVE IN A SPECIAL FLOOD HAZARD AREA (SFHA), or what is more commonly referred to as a ‘floodplain’.
Sending thanks out tonight to those who have attempted to ‘get it right” on explaining the ‘1000 year’ term!
Good night all!!
@floodplaingeek