By ALAN REYNOLDS, Cato Institute
“Harvey Is What Climate Change Looks Like: It’s time to open our eyes and prepare for the world that’s coming.” That August 28 Politico article by Slate weatherman Eric Holthaus was one of many trying too hard to blame the hurricane and/or flood on climate change.
Such stories are typically infused with smug arrogance. Their authors claim to be wise and well-informed, and anyone who dares to question their “settled science” must need to have their eyes pried open and their mouths shut.
There will doubtless be similar “retroactive forecasting” tales about Irma, so recent story-telling about Harvey may provide a precautionary warning for the unwary.
I am an economist, not a climatologist.* But blaming Harvey on climate change apparently demands much lower standards of logic and evidence than economists would dare describe as serious arguments.
Atlantic’s climate journalist said,
“Harvey is unprecedented—just the kind of weird weather that scientists expect to see more of as the planet warms.”
But Harvey’s maximum rainfall of 51.88 inches barely exceeded that from Tropical Storm Amelia in 1978 (48”) and Hurricane Easy in 1950 (45”). And what about Tropical Storm Claudette in 1979, which put down 42 inches in 24 hours near Houston (Harvey took three days to do that)? In such cases, attributing today’s extreme weather to “climate change” regardless of what happens (maybe droughts, maybe floods) is what the philosopher Karl Popper called “pseudoscience.”
If some theory explains everything, it can’t be tested and it is therefore not science. (Popper’s favorite examples of pseudoscience were communism and psychoanalysis.)
Seemingly plausible efforts to connect Harvey to climate change are precariously based on another unusual event in 2015–16, not long-term climate trends. In the Atlantic, Robinson Meyer wrote that
“Harvey benefitted from unusually toasty waters in the Gulf of Mexico. As the storm roared toward Houston last week, sea-surface waters near Texas rose to between 2.7 and 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit above average.”
Meyer’s source is a single unsourced sentence from “Climate Signals beta” from the Rockefeller Foundation’s “Climate Nexus” project run by Hunter Cutting (“a veteran political director who develops communications strategy”). Perhaps it would be wiser to consult the National Hurricane Center about Gulf temperatures, which shows they are averaging about one degree (F) above the baseline.
Looking back at any unpredicted weather anomaly, “fact-checking” journalists can always count on Michael Mann and Kevin Trenberth to spin some tale explaining why any bad weather (but never good weather!) must surely be at least aggravated by long-term global climate trends. “It’s a fact: climate change made Hurricane Harvey more deadly,” writes Michael Mann. Gulf sea surface temperatures have increased from about 86 degrees to 87 “over the past few decades,” he says, causing “3–5% more moisture in the atmosphere.” He neglected to point out other compensatory things he surely knows, like that the same climate science predicts a more stable tropical atmosphere, reducing the upward motion necessary for hurricanes.
Even The Washington Post’s esteemed Jason Samenow got onto shaky ground, writing that “rainfall may have been enhanced by 6 percent or so, or a few inches.” It would have been nice if he noted that Harvey’s maximum observed rainfall of 51.88 inches is statistically indistinguishable from the aforementioned Amelia’s 48, forty years ago.
In either case, to blame the Gulf’s temperature and moisture in August 2017 on a sustained global increase in water temperatures requires more than theory or “confidence” (faith). It requires evidence.
As it happens, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were not rising significantly, if at all, during the years between the two super-strong El Ninos of 1997–98 and 2015–16. On the contrary, a January 2017 survey of four major data sources finds that “since 1998, all datasets show a slowdown of SST increase compared with the 1983–1998 period.” That may sound as if SST had been increasing rapidly before 1998, but that too is unclear: “Prior to 1998, the temperature changes in Global, Pacific, and Southern Oceans show large discrepancies among [four leading estimates], hindering a robust detection of both regional and global OHC [ocean heat content] changes.”
From 1998 to 2012, the evidence on sea surface temperatures becomes even more inconvenient. Two of the four studies show “weak warming” near the surface while the other two show “cooling, coincident with the global surface temperature slowdown [emphasis added].” In other words, the embarrassingly prolonged 1997–2014 pause or “hiatus” in global warming is also apparent in oceanic surface temperatures, not just land and atmospheric temperatures.
Keep in mind what the vaunted “climate change consensus” means. By averaging four estimates, NASA declares “Globally-averaged temperatures in 2016 were 1.78 degrees Fahrenheit (0.99 degrees Celsius) warmer than the mid-20th century mean.” The underlying yearly estimates are deviations from that mid-century meanؙ—“anomalies” rather than actual temperatures.
To convert anomalies into degrees NASA had to use computer models to add anomalies to temperatures in the base period, 1951–80, where the data are hardly perfect. As a result,
“For the global mean,” NASA explains, “the most trusted models produce a value of roughly 14°C, i.e. 57.2°F, but it may easily be anywhere between 56 and 58°F and regionally, let alone locally, the situation is even worse.”
It might be rude to notice the range of error between 56 and 58°F globally (“let alone locally”) is larger than NASA’s supposed increase of 1.78 degrees over many decades. Note too that NASA’s ostensibly cooler base period, 1951–80, includes the second and third biggest floods in U.S. history.
My main point here is simple: Weather is highly variable. There’s a great deal of noise in hurricane and flood data, and it is impossible to attribute a single hurricane or a flood to the slight rise in temperature. Yes, warmer ocean temperatures would logically seem to correlate with more or stronger hurricanes, but as shown below, they don’t.
*Cato climate scientist Patrick Michaels contributed his $0.02 to this post, and the Accumulated Cyclone Energy chart comes from meteorologist Ryan Maue, also with Cato.
Addendum by Anthony:
NOAA doesn’t think the alleged impact of anthropogenic CO2 on storm intensity is detectable.
… It is premature to conclude that human activities–and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming–have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity. That said, human activities may have already caused changes that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of the changes or observational limitations, or are not yet confidently modeled (e.g., aerosol effects on regional climate). …
Read more: https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
Bill Maher @billmaher
·
3h
We are thinking about Florida right now. They are looking at a Category 5 Liberal Hoax. #Irma #ClimateChange. #ActOnClimate
6:08
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.usnews.com/news/articles/2008/01/17/the-legacy-of-hanging-chads%3Fcontext%3Damp
The linked article said “The Gore team demanded that every vote be counted”. They only demanded that every vote be counted in solidly Democratic counties. That’s why the SCOTUS voted 7-2 that the Florida court was wrong.
Florida is looking at reruns of Real Time right now?
It’s often said that it is in very bad taste to start playing politics before the dead have been buried, so now they try to get the politics in before it even makes landfall !
This is the proof that Irma isn’t about Global Warming but a random act of Nature. Watch her form off Africa. She gets hit by a southward-moving ridge and is an organized anti-rotating system from the moment of birth.
http://tropic.ssec.wisc.edu/real-time/mimic-tpw/natl/anim/20170828T000000anim72.gif
Is that a map of TPW, or what?
MIMIC-TPW
sorry that’s not proof of anything, one way or the other.
Greg yes it is. Get out your textbook and look at how and where most Atlantic hurricanes develop. The typical hurricane is not gifted with such anti-clockwise rotation from the start.
I took your advice JaneHM and it doesn’t appear that what you said is accurate. The direction of a hurricane’s spin depends on which hemisphere of the world the hurricane begins. Hurricanes originating in the northern hemisphere rotate counter-clockwise due to the Coriolis effect. Those in the southern hemisphere spin in a clockwise direction. Irma initially developed near Cape Verde off Africa’s coast on August 30. Cape Verde is above the equator. As a result, Irma turns counter-clockwise as we would expect. This has nothing to do with Global Warming, which is basically a concern that warmer-than-average ocean temperatures have caused this to be an active hurricane season.
So poorer nations cause hurricanes.
“human activities may have already caused changes that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of the changes or observational limitations, or are not yet confidently modeled”
It’s like I keep saying: just because we can’t see space aliens yet doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
They are not “aliens”
They are undocumented visitors from other planets.
Potato, potahto.
Considering the risk from aliens and yetis and the sinister elven invasion it is clear that we cannot wait for mere evidence. The impact could be catastrophic and irreversible.
The Precautionary Principle demands that we take action now to prepare for the Klingons, Abominable Snowmen and the Banshees.
Trenberth will tell you that it is time to reverse the burden of truth. How can you tell me that Irma isn’t due to fairy magic hidden by cloaking devices?
The new null hypothesis should also apply to AGW, of course.
John 3:16 vaD joH’a’ vaj loved the qo’, vetlh ghaH nobta’ Daj wa’ je neH puqloD, vetlh ‘Iv HartaH Daq ghaH should ghobe’ chIlqu’, ‘ach ghaj eternal yIn. (Klingon Language Version)
I’m ready. 😎
>>
. . . prepare for the Klingons, Abominable Snowmen and the Banshees.
<<
According to one episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” it was the “Q” interfering with our weather control system. How are we going to fight the all powerful “Q?”
Jim
Jim,
You ask, “How are we going to fight the all powerful “Q?””
The answer to your question is by immediately implementing Global Socialism and thus anointing an elite-class of our betters to tell us all how to live and what we can buy.
Liberal Logic.
Ah, you don’t understand the hidden skills of Kevin Trenberth. He recently stated that man made warming was responsible for at least 20 per cent of Irma’s strength. Unfortunately he did not state how he had arrived at that vital piece of information..
We should never let the burden of disproof be shifted to us. The burden of proof lies squarely on the shoulders of the alarmists. In particular they make the claim that global warming must be due to CO2 because all the other proposed theories have flaws. Just because we can’t adequately explain the MWP and LIA, that doesn’t mean we have to accept the CO2 explanation.
I leave the Flying Spaghetti Monster to you as an exercise.
“It’s like I keep saying: just because we can’t see space aliens yet doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”
Wow… Spoken like a true man of faith. Who would have thought it?
Yo Bro, you DO know that he was mocking NOAA’s statement, right?
They are here. I saw them at Penn State and the University of East Anglia.
Regarding the NOAA statement. The first sentence is a statement of “fact”. The second sentence is simply speculation.
It is worse than speculation. The second sentence is an assertion can never be proven false.
First the ‘climate’ was nice.
Then there was a hurricane.
The climate changed.
aka “Climate Change”
If the author is Alan Reynolds the economist,
I have read some of your columns and enjoyed them.
I happen to write an economics / finance newsletter as a hobby, since 1977.
Why, oh why, would you want to get involved in the fairy tale world of climate change?
The claims have been ridiculous since Al Bore’s first book,
and are getting worse, even as the average temperature
barely changed since the early 2000’s.
I got fed up with the escalating climate change fairy tales a few years ago
and started a climate change blog as a public service.
But it is practically impossible to change minds of liberals,
even friends, who “believe” CO2 controls the climate, and is evil.
They seem to believe anything they are told about climate change
by government bureaucrats, and Democrat politicians.
Even more than their own senses.
We’re having a cool summer here in Michigan …
yet all evidence that it has not getting warmer in Michigan
over the past few decades, is dismissed by liberals here as not important
— just local weather.
Even by friends with high IQ’s
who graduated from top colleges
for engineering degrees.
Climate change is a secular religion, IMHO.
My climate blog for non-scientists:
http://www.elOnionBloggle.Blogspot.com
Try this site for laypersons
rockyredneck.simplesite.com
“We’re having a cool summer here in Michigan …
yet all evidence that it has not getting warmer in Michigan
over the past few decades, is dismissed by liberals here as not important
— just local weather.
Even by friends with high IQ’s
who graduated from top colleges
for engineering degrees.
Climate change is a secular religion, IMHO.”
That should give you pause for thought. Your friends with high IQ are not prone to religious dogma, but are capable of analysing complex phenomena. Your belief that their belief is dogma and they are believing anything they are told is where simplistic thinking enters the situation.
JD, your comment that intelligent people are not prone to religious dogma is preciously weird. As the educated class in most societies, most of the time, were clerics, from what do you derive that assertion?
China, India, the various Muslim societies, Europe prior to the 19th Century, and their derivative societies mostly had quasi-religious education systems. Arguably, Marxism is a de-facto religion, as are the hard core greens.
Tom Halla, we’re talking about intelligent liberals who understand science. Such people are not generally driven by dogma – whether it be of scientific or mystical ilk.
Oh, who are the “intelligent liberals” you refer to, Mr Davis? It is not the major parties in Europe, Australia ,and the US, who readily buy into Keynesian or Marxist economics, anti-GMO biology, or still tolerate Ehrlich or John Holdren.
There are damn few educated people who have not fallen into an intellectual fad that they regret.
“Tom Halla, we’re talking about intelligent liberals who understand science. Such people are not generally driven by dogma – whether it be of scientific or mystical ilk.”
But if an individual understands science, why would an individual believe by faith in the dogma of AGW?
Nobody’s perfec’ Mr Halla! Look – even you forgot Monetarism in your list of foolish fads.
Holthaus is the guy who tweeted that it was sad (Sad!) that tropical depression Donald (maybe storm) that was projected to possibly strike east FL didn’t intensify. He recently went to work for Griff as a climate writer. He strikes me as being a nice, sensitive guy, but also clueless and gullible.
Sorry forgot to close the bold tag. Only Donald should be bolded.
because the Netherlands is falling behind with RE targets, Irma headed straight for St.Martin , otherwise it sure would have missed it. (revenge of Mother Earth (former God))
Branson’s little island got gob-smacked quite hard. But unlike the poor residents of Barbuda, he has the resources to clean it up and rebuild.
There are so many other things affecting hurricanes (ENSO, the multidecadal oscillation, etc) that any purported global warming effect gets lost in the noise.
That’s mean, Alan, confusing Lefties with the FACTS.
Yes indeed : “it is premature to conclude that human activities, and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, [are causing] cyclone activity”. It is premature – because to prove a negative, namely that CO2 does NOT cause cyclones, is very difficult. It will take a long time to deliver definite such proof – I suggest we will need at least 1000 years of painstaking scientific observation of multiple phenomena to get to such scientific conclusion.
If it takes a 1000 years to gather the evidence to prove something, that something isn’t very important to start with.
Sort of like the delema of theoretical physics: the things we don’t know are unknown because they have so little impact on anything.
This is what the last IPCC says about hurricanes: basically, they might form less often, but when they form, they will be stronger. Basically, what Mann said last week.
Well, the frequency hasn’t increased.
We currently have an occurrence. Tragically.
This would need to happen often and increasingly often for that model to have gained any support for the understanding it portrays.
Models are only speculation.
Where is the EVIDENCE? (you know, the difference between science and religion)
There were four Cat 5 hurricanes between 1969 and 1979, nothing unusual has happened.
Tell that to the media running hard with the false story that there are more and worse storms.
It is now clear that the Irma threat was over hyped. Perhaps it would be more constructive to get your community to stop misrepresenting the facts and the science.
And please get you true believer pals to stop being disaster vultures.
Global warming is a religion. As such, it does not need facts. They will use anything that could support their cause. Is Irma dangerous? Yes. Is it warm? Yes. That’s all we need, global warming caused it. No one cares for your contrived anti-arguments. Facts (and a consensus) are on our side.
There is low confidence. Says it all.
“medium confidence that tropical cyclone rainfall rates will increase”
Harvey’s rainfall RATE was not an increase over previous major hurricanes. However, the confidence level was merely “medium”. RealySkeptical, are you saying the projection was confirmed, because by “medium” they mean some tropical cyclones WON’T have increased rainfall rates? Shouldn’t some tropical cyclones have to have an increase in rainfall rate for their projection to be justified? We’re still waiting for the first one…
Of, course, just one tropical cyclone having an increased in rainfall rate still would not be a trend.
SR
ReallySkeptical’s citations seem not to fit his, assumed, image of himself:
1) “low confidence” means no proof, at all, for “… region-specific projections of frequency and intensity.” It means that regional down-scaled model-speculation can’t resolve globalized model-speculation down to any of the unspecified ocean basins’ response.
2) “… more likely than not …” means that they speculate that unspecified “extensive physical effects” will cause the frequency of the most intense storms to have an unspecified greater than 50% chance of occurring in unspecified specific ocean basins. With the preface “Still,” this mishmash of words directly contradicts their disclaimer of no reliable model-speculation results at the region-specific level, cited in 1).
3) “… medium confidence …” means that their, admitted, unreliable down-scaled model-speculation about the unspecified ocean basins noted above results in a 50/50 chance that rainfall rates will increase, or not.
That pile of verbiage is just one of the boundless examples of the IPCC (and U.S. government’s) efforts to SELL CAGW, not explain the observations and science of climate. Since they probably (unspecified) used AR5 RCP 8.5, they are using an extreme form of model speculation they don’t warn us about. Just another way of misleading us.
Either ReallySkeptical is more gullible than his name projects, or he is just another CAGW shill.
“Either ReallySkeptical is more gullible than his name projects, or he is just another CAGW shill.”
How about both?
How about both?
Those are model-based projections of what might happen according to IPCC AR5. Here’s what they say about what has actually happened:
“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 hurricane counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin”
If the following is still true, it would seem there’s no evidence with which to validly base any claim regarding extremes (emphasis mine):
http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm
No different to a blizzard or two in that it can’t also be blamed on global cooling. They are generally a bunch of BS hypocrites to suit their own agenda usually government propaganda. They don’t care about facts or science just to get their religious like views across as we know it is all for the cause.
“Harvey is unprecedented—just the kind of weird weather that scientists expect to see more of as the planet warms.”
Tropical storms and hurricanes aren’t weird weather, just that they don’t occur that often because the season is limited and alarmists are only confirming they are forgetting the difference between weather and climate. They can’t say why or how with evidence, it is any different from any natural hurricane to support their agenda. Any change from CO2 is not detectable in natural weather events and they are government groups that admit it.
They’re not actually saying that Irma was caused by global warming. They’re just saying that we can expect more hurricanes because of global warming.
Naturally, feeble minded liberals will take the above quote to mean that Irma was caused by global warming. It is possible to tell a lie without actually lying.
“He hasn’t beaten his wife in years.”, could be literally true.
That could mean he used to but stopped or that he never has…but the desire is to make the implication he has.
Hurricanes seem to happen during La Nina times. Any combined charts available?
I found this link that has a lot of information on ENSO and hurricanes:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/lanina/
If it is at all sensible to speak of the temperatures of the oceans and of the atmosphere as separate things, it cannot be the case that the temperature of the atmosphere affects the temperature of the oceans, even the ocean’s surface, The enthalpy of the oceans is 3 orders of magnitude higher than that of the atmosphere. Indeed the mere fact that we can talk about the energy in the oceans providing the motive power for the storms in the atmosphere shows that the arrow points up, not down.
Tis a good article, but perhaps the better line of attack is to go after the “made worse by” claim.
The warmists hope to benefit from the ‘entire storm’
The reality of their claims is a they are talking ‘few more inches’ on an already massive disaster!
They are trying to claim the entire 54″. Reality OF THEIR CLAIM (note the qualifier) is perhaps 4-5″ of the 54″ (assuming an excessive 10 percent boost).
If the atmosphere is warming faster than the ocean, and available energy is related to sst and air temp difference, doesn’t that imply hurricane activity would go down?
Climate change must have also caused the decadal hurricane drought — made it much worse.
KNX radio here in the Los Angeles area put on a “scientist” who said “It seems like storms are getting stronger. This is expected because of global warming”. It seems like? What kind of scientist says that? With all the measurements on weather and climate and storms, wind speeds, number of storms and frequencies, KNX decides to put a guy who says “it seems like”? Pathetic, just blatant liberal propaganda.
What kind of scientist? A social scientist. Social sciences are all about IT SEEMS LIKE.
Dark age superstition dressed job with sciencey sounding words is the climate kooks standard communication style.
You can hear the same on any talk-radio station that runs “paid programming” by the hucksters of “dietary supplements.” Their preposterous product claims, without one shred of biological plausibility, are couched in lots of “science-y” sounding language to make you think their old-tyme “medicine show” is real. Of course, the placebo effect upon the gullible often has wondrous effects.
Hey, if the liberal numskulls want to believe that every time they eat a burger or start the car they have to torment themselves about their Impact On Life On Earth, they can knock themselves out. I’m convinced most of ’em are depressives etc. looking for an excuse for their lifetime bummer anyway. Just make sure they don’t get to legislate their religion on the rest of us. In Trump We Trust!
Waiting for Irma to take the projected turn to the north. Now heading due west, and giving Cuba a taste of Hell. If it does not turn, hunker down again here in Houston. And wondering… if we had the Ike dike in place, how would that have helped us drain all that rainfall? More likely, it would have impeded the flow.
Are we really much different from the superstitious, backwards cultures that are now ridiculed, for belief in witches, omens and signs, appeasement of and propitiations to the gods, ritual human sacrifice, etc. etc.?
I use the word “we” advisedly – but there seems to be a large number of them, too large to claim we are now advanced, scientific and rational in comparison…
Much of the alarmist language of the past two weeks is exactly that: We have Angered The Gods, Uh-Oh!!
Change 2 or 3 words, and it could have been written in the 13th century. The irony is they’re so “educated” they’re incapable of seeing it.
Take a look at this article: http://www.defenddemocracy.press/climate-denialism-is-literally-killing-us/
It’s the belief – in common with societies we now ridicule – that it is Man’s behavior that is bringing down the wrath of the gods (or nature) on us. And now as then, there are the self- righteous, who courageously denounce these behaviors and warn of apocalyptic doom if we do not heed their prophetic words.
It’s only secondary that these same self-righteous demagogues profit from their prophecies and hypocrisies…
Superstitions have more scientific value than a man living up in the sky watching everything we do, so no, we are worse than those backwards cultures you mention.
For skilled cherry-picking, this article can’t be beaten. A simple example (discussing the Wang et al paper):
“Two of the four studies show “weak warming” near the surface while the other two show “cooling, coincident with the global surface temperature slowdown [emphasis added].””
The original article actually said:
“The upper 100-m experienced a weak warming (…) or cooling (…), coincident with the global surface temperature slowdown discussed in recent literature (…). This 0–100-m warming slowdown is accompanied with a large subsurface warming within 100–300-m, which is consistent among these three datasets”.
And then there’s this bit: “As it happens, sea surface temperatures (SSTs) were not rising significantly, if at all, during the years between the two super-strong El Ninos of 1997–98 and 2015–16”.
The text following that line seems to be confusing temperature increases with rates of increase (a handily placed weblink helped in this). The text conveniently ignored the conclusion from the original article: “The findings confirm that each ocean basin has experienced a robust warming in the past three decades”.
Did the writer assume that nobody would read the original article?
You are not the intended audience.
The graph below is from Liao (2015) “The coastal ocean response to the global warming acceleration and hiatus” shows the Gulf Coast has been cooling between 1998 and 2013.
http://landscapesandcycles.net/image/124919508_scaled_616x285.jpg
Be warned! The Cato Institute are financed by Charles and David Koch so this information is unlikely to be completely objective.
It really is fascinating how you actually believe the lies you keep telling.
What lies am I telling here? Be more specific.
According to this article in Forbes by Laurie Bennett on Mar 13, 2012 @ur momisugly 12:56 PM, the Kochs no longer fund the Cato Institute. The article is titled: “The Kochs Aren’t the Only Funders of Cato:”
The statement was made in response to a lawsuit brought by the Koch brother against the institute. According to this article, the suit was settled:
Like information from government funded sources. The government pushed global warming, so I would then have to assume that advocates of global warming would be advocates to keep their jobs and the money. Guess that means I can’t believe anyone. Problematic, ivankinsman.
I would look at all the sources and make up your .own mind on the issue. But this is a good summary of the sceptics approach:
“It’s a lot easier for someone to claim they’ve been suppressed than to admit that maybe they can’t find the scientific evidence to support their political ideology… They weren’t suppressed. They’re out there, where anyone can find them.” Indeed, the review raises the question of how these papers came to be published in the first place, when they used flawed methodology, which the rigorous peer-review process is designed to weed out.
“There is no cohesive, consistent alternative theory to human-caused global warming,” … “Some blame global warming on the sun, others on orbital cycles of other planets, others on ocean cycles, and so on. There is a 97% expert consensus on a cohesive theory that’s overwhelmingly supported by the scientific evidence, but the 2–3% of papers that reject that consensus are all over the map, even contradicting each other.”
(Get back on topic!)
Ivan,
No such consensus exists.
Doran and Zimmerman cherry-picked 79 “actively publishing climate scientist” government bureaucrats and academics out of more than 3000 respondents to their survey, of whom 75 answered yes to both questions, to wit: 1) has it warmed since c. 1850?, and 2) is mankind “significantly” responsible for whatever warming has occurred? The lowest “yes” rate was among “economic geologists”, at 47%. “Significantly” wasn’t defined and there was no third question, as to whether warming was good or bad.
Then the media ran with “97%” (which it wasn’t, anyway), but claimed that was of “all scientists”.
It is called the ad hominem fallacy for a reason.
I see the Ivankinsman, comes along with another fact less attack on the author of this guest post. He is unable to address the content of the post,as he is too busy with irrelevant claims.
Don’t you know when to stop being stupid?
Fact less? It’s a well-known fact that the oil refinety-owning Koch Brothers finance the Cato Institute.
As to whether Harvey, Irma and Jose are linked to climate change or not – there is mo definitive yes or no at this stage.
Ivan,
There is a definite no on global warming and hurricanes.
And the Koch Bros. don’t fund Cato.
One more strike and you’re out.
Still Ivan,you have YET to address the post itself. Snicker…………….
Your funding canard fallacy is so old and worn out,people can only think you are here to Troll,nothing more. It is so boring too since rational debate never has fallacies in them,but you have trouble with reality,therefore being rational might be impossible for you?
The article must be very good then,since you Ivan, have posted a few times without a SINGLE attempt to counter the guest post,that means you have NOTHING!