Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new study suggests that extreme weather does impact climate concern, but the effect on people’s thinking only lasts for 3 months after the extreme weather event.
From the Press Release;
Will extreme weather events get Americans to act on climate change?
Scientists are drawing a link between climate change and extreme weather events with increasing confidence.
…
Yet actually experiencing extreme weather does not seem to be having a significant impact on American citizens’ concern about climate change.
This may change in the future, especially if extreme weather events become more frequent and widespread. But, as things stand today, our recent analysis reveals that Americans experiencing more unusual weather are not any more concerned about climate change.
…
Our analysis suggests there is indeed an association between exposure to extreme weather and increased concerns about climate change. Importantly, however, we also find that people’s concern about climate change is associated only with recent extreme weather. In fact, events more than three months in the past typically have no bearing on opinions about climate change.
In addition, it is important to emphasize that these effects are dwarfed by Americans’ partisan identification and political beliefs. …
Read more: https://theconversation.com/will-extreme-weather-events-get-americans-to-act-on-climate-change-53199
The abstract of the study;
Abstract
This paper examines whether experience of extreme weather events—such as excessive heat, droughts, flooding, and hurricanes—increases an individual’s level concern about climate change. We bring together micro-level geospatial data on extreme weather events from NOAA’s Storm Events Database with public opinion data from multiple years of the Cooperative Congressional Election Study to study this question. We find evidence of a modest, but discernible positive relationship between experiencing extreme weather activity and expressions of concern about climate change. However, the effect only materializes for recent extreme weather activity; activity that occurred over longer periods of time does not affect public opinion. These results are generally robust to various measurement strategies and model specifications. Our findings contribute to the public opinion literature on the importance of local environmental conditions on attitude formation.
Read more: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-015-1555-3
Even the IPCC doesn’t think there is a verifiable connection between global warming and extreme weather. Unless there is a noticeable surge in weather extremes, alarmists can hype the weather all they want; ordinary people will mostly continue to ignore them.
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The posted article says people forget about extreme weather after about 3 months.
I have observed just the opposite happen. My wife and I moved to a locale in Northeast Washington in 2008. The first winter dropped 2 feet of snow between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Long term residents all said that while snowfall had been lighter during the recent decade, it used to always snow heavily when they were young.
Last summer we moved to Central Oregon. For the last 2 years I have been watching web cams to get an idea of expected snowfall, and saw only light snowfalls of a few inches at a time that melted away between events. This time we got 20 inches over a week right after Thanksgiving, and at least 9″ are still on the ground. Locals say that snowfall had been light for several years, but it used to snow this much most winters!
It seems that extreme snowfall is never forgotten. Though records show heavy snowfalls for both areas have come along periodically, people remember every event, swearing it was “usually”.
I think the time that passes between extreme weather events gets dropped from memory, so that extreme weather seemed to have been more frequent years ago, at least in our memories. Thus whenever several months have passed since the last extreme weather event, people think extreme weather is getting rarer, whether it is or isn’t.
SR
Of course, if the lack of weather (precipitation) is the extreme weather, it only takes a short time before the lack of weather seems extremely persistent…
SR
People’s memory of extreme events is directly proportional to how much it affected them. It’s not that affected by what the media tells them – that’s the short-term part.
If you had to dig yourselves out 60 days in a row, you’ll remember that a damn sight longer than if you had one bad blizzard.
If your house floods and you have to live in a hotel, a caravan or whatever for 6 months before the repairs are all finished, you’ll remember that a lot longer than if the local park had some swans swimming on it for a few days.
If you have power cuts all winter, you’ll remember that a lot longer than if you kept warm with central heating.
People remember things that really affected their lives.
I remembered being in a van which overturned at 50mph for many years afterwards, especially if young men were driving cars too fast.
I remembered the blizzards in Scotland in early January 1987 because I skied to work and hacked open a frozen river for water at the weekend when climbing the winter mountains (both extremely rare events).
I don’t remember the famous 1987 hurricane in the UK, because I was in Scotland and we just had a fairly windy evening, nothing special. Those in the SE who had trees collapse near their homes probably have a more vivid memory…..
We certainly do.
I remember the Philadelphia Bulletin had the hottest and coldest USA temperatures every day posted everyday during the summer during the 1950’s. Usually Yuma AZ was the hottest with 120F or + and the coldest was usually somewhere in Colorado – Leadville at 10,000 ft was the coldest… I was in Blythe, CA in 1955 during the summer and it was 120FG in the shade. There is probably some record somewhere this….
What a load of BS.
My father in law often told us his memories of growing up on the family farm on the Canadian praries in the early 1900’s.
He used to have to walk ten miles each way to get to school. Through snow drifts over his head. While wearing shorts. In bare feet. Except for the barbed wire he wrapped around his feet for traction on the ice.
Those warmists should be thankful for all the warming.
In the other major battle with the; USDA/UN world health org., Dr. Tim Noakes has said that if all diabetics around the globe were put onto LCHF, “at least six major pharmaceutical companies would go out of business”.http://www.biznews.com/low-carb-healthy-fat-science/2016/01/22/tim-noakes-and-what-good-scientists-do-when-faced-with-the-evidence/ ZIKA is a just a grain in the sand compared to – stratospheric health care costs, a chronically sick health care system, epidemics of obesity, diabetes and heart disease.
“Scientists are drawing a link between climate change and extreme weather events with increasing confidence … OF STAYING ON THE GRAVY TRAIN !
The temperature drops, because the polar vortex is broken and the winter will be long.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_t50_nh_f00.png
Don’t jump the gun …
http://users.met.fu-berlin.de/~Aktuell/strat-www/wdiag/figs/ecmwf1/temps.gif
http://users.met.fu-berlin.de/~Aktuell/strat-www/wdiag/figs/ecmwf1/fluxes.gif
This is just the waves caused by the decrease in solar activity.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_WAVE1_MEAN_JFM_NH_2016.png
http://sol.spacenvironment.net/raps_ops/current_files/rtimg/dose.15km.png
Let’s see galactic radiation.
Now look at the temperature anomalies.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat-trop/gif_files/time_pres_TEMP_ANOM_JFM_NH_2016.png
Jump temperatures in the stratosphere.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/temperature/50mb9065.png
Jet stream dives to on the east United States.
It will be cold in the eastern US.
http://www.weatherplaza.com/en-US/sat/?region=usa.ir
@ren: http://www.aer.com/science-research/climate-weather/arctic-oscillation
Pentagon orders commanders to prioritize climate change in all military actions
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/feb/7/pentagon-orders-commanders-to-prioritize-climate-c/
The Pentagon is ordering the top brass to incorporate climate change into virtually everything they do, from testing weapons to training troops to war planning to joint exercises with allies.
A new directive’s theme: The U.S. Armed Forces must show “resilience” and beat back the threat based on “actionable science.”
They will fix this with a global winter via nuclear war.
Except that the concept of nuclear winter was quite possibly invented by the Ruskies in order to promote western calls for unilateral disarmament.
And would have no more reality in practice than the predicted persian gulf war oil fires cooling – which turned out to be a load of hogwash.
“According to Sergei Tretyakov, “The KGB was responsible for creating the entire nuclear winter story to stop the Pershing II missiles.” Tretyakov says that the KGB wanted to prevent the United States from deploying the missiles in Western Europe and that, directed by Yuri Andropov, they used the Soviet Peace Committee, a government organization, to organize and finance demonstrations in Europe against US bases. He claims that misinformation based on a faked “doomsday report” by the Soviet Academy of Sciences about the effect of nuclear war on climate was distributed to peace groups, the environmental movement and the journal Ambio which carried a key article on the topic in 1982.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_measures
Bureaucracies love the “climate change” meme, as a way to boost their relevance and hopefully, funding.
Don’t you just love “military intelligence”?
The problem with “crying wolf” is when the wolf does not show up, one does tend to lose credibility. If Algore could continually revise An Incovenient Truth so it did not look silly, perhaps he sould not be a running joke. Remember what Winston Smith’s job was in 1984. Now he would be doing it for NASA GISS.
“Rent-seeking “scientists” are drawing a link between climate change and extreme weather events with increasing desperation.” There, fixed. It’s a complete fabrication, of course, and they know it. But, they are simply following the sirective of their hero, Stephen Schneider who said “….we need to get some broadbased support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This ‘double ethical bind’ we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest.” For the now-failing Climatist Industry, there is no decision and no balance. Lying is their only option, and they just lie their pants off.
man killed by falling meteorite……….extreme weather
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Govt-confirms-meteorite-blast-in-Vellore-killed-man/articleshow/50894959.cms
The flip side of the same coin is “Will the common-sense of American voters ever convince the climate-ejits that their doomsday scenario is exaggerated?”
I find great irony in the entire “severe weather” line since both the geological record and the historical record show that the Little Ice Age was marked by more frequent, violent storms while the Medieval Warming had notably milder weather. Guess that doesn’t fit the political summary’s scary story compulsions.
It is doubly curious, because the computer models predict that most of the warming should take place toward the poles with little effect on the tropics. This should actually produce less tension in Earth’s heat exchange engine, but I guess warning of milder weather just doesn’t do ring the scary story alarm very well.
Another Harpo Marxist paper:
http://www.city-journal.org/2016/bc0205rb.html
[excerpt]
“In chapter 15, we finally get to Malm’s solution, which is, wait for it . . . central planning. A few paragraphs after quoting Leon Trotsky, Malm notes that the majority of global greenhouse gases are emitted from four places: the U.S., the E.U., China, and India. The way to cut those emissions is simple, says Malm. We merely need to “set up one special ministry in each and we would be on our way.” Ah yes, a special ministry. Welcome, comrades, to Professor Malm’s Climate Gulag. It’s for your own good, after all.”
We need to go back to the good old days prior to climate change or what. That should make the global warning extreme weather people happy.
Here is link about the winters of 1887-1888 on the northern plains: http://climate.umn.edu/pdf/mn_winter_1887-1888.pdf
According to Laskin’s account, “Even in a region known for abrupt and radical
meteorological change, the blizzard of 1888 was unprecedented in its violence and
suddenness. There was no atmospheric herald. No eerie green tinge to the sky or
fleecy cirrus forerunner. One moment it was mild, the sun was shining, a damp wind
blew fitfully out of the south – the next moment frozen hell had broken loose. The air
was so thick with find ground wind lashed ice crystals that people could not breathe.
The ice dust webbed their eyelashes and sealed their eyes shut. It sifted into the loose
weave of their coats, shirts, dresses and underwear until their skin was packed with
snow. Farmers who had spent a decade walking the same worn paths became
disoriented in seconds……The blizzard of January 12, 1888, known as the ‘the
Schoolchildren’s Blizzard’ because so many of the victims were children caught out
on their way home from school, became a marker in the lives of the settlers, the
watershed event that separated before and after. The number of deaths – estimated as
between 250 and 500 – was small compared to that of the Johnstown Flood that
wiped out an entire industrial town…the following year or the Galveston hurricane of
1900….But it was traumatic enough that it left an indelible bruise on the
consciousness of the region. The pioneers were by and large a taciturn lot……..Yet
their accounts of the blizzard of 1888 are shot through with amazement, awe,
-18-
disbelief…..The blizzard literally froze a single day in time. It sent a clean, fine blade
through the history of the prairie….”.
I guess the climate charge people are really long for this kind of weather.
Like that huge increase in hurricanes:
http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/accumulated_cyclone_energy.asp?basin=gl
Oooops! ok so just the opposite has happened the last 2 decades. Hurricanes are only one type of weather. How about like that huge increase in violent tornadoes;
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/images/tornado/clim/EF3-EF5.png
OK, so violent tornadoes are also just one type of very extreme weather that has decreased noincreased.
Surely Super Storm Sandy………
Nope, Hurricane Hazel in 1954 formed for the exact same reasons and did the exactly same thing, in the same place, starting out as a much stronger Cat. 4 which was stronger(and during global cooling):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Hazel
OK then, that widespread severe drought in the Cornbelt in 2012 must have been caused by Climate Change as were were told!
Nope, actually, the 24 consecutive growing seasons without a severe drought(previous one was 1988) in that region was a record and represented the best growing conditions in recorded history.
OK, time to tell the truth then. The types of extreme weather that have increased are related to heavy rain events/flooding. Warmer air holds more moisture. It also makes heat waves in the Summer more unbearable , with higher dew points/humidity. Also, more record warm nights and record warmth in the higher latitudes.
Odd that human caused Climate Change seems to get the blame for only bad things, with a planet greening up and and most life benefiting……..but you don’t need to pay attention to those facts. They are just observations, you know, empirical data.
Computer models and government paid scientists are much better at telling us what we should know about climate.
The key to inducing global warming hysteria is to push beyond weather items. For example, we can blame all forest fires on global warming, In my recent pseudo paper I managed to say we would see increased child mortality from hypothermia as children fell through thin ice. We can also blame low milk prices on warmer winters, as cows give more milk in milder winters. This is bad for farmers. You get the idea.
How many Hiroshima bombs are the equivalent of that thunderstorm at the top? Quite a few I’d guess.
Hiroshima bombs are an excellent way to describe heat/energy when:
1. You are releasing all of that energy in one location in seconds………..as in the original event that resulted in the term.
2. When you are trying to scare people that don’t understand the ocean/atmosphere system by intentionally using a term that sounds very alarming to mislead a targeted audience. The vast heat capacity of the oceans mean that adding a Hiroshima bomb of heat is like adding a drop of hot water to your in ground pool. Even adding 4 drops of hot water per second to your pool will contribute, in a relative sense just a minuscule bit of heating vs a days worth of solar energy.