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/
The issue with this article and many of the comments is that it is looking at the two hurricanes in isolation. Since the theory of climate change is about global phenomena one has to look at the larger picture. At the same time we are having these massive storms (with Irma being especially extreme) there have been forest fires and extreme heat on the western side of the continent – with places like British Columbia and Montana having record and extended fire seasons. At the same time stationary high pressure ridges are playing a part in both creating dry and hot conditions in the west and providing for cooler and wetter conditions in the east, or so it looks like. Massive floods are occurring in SE Asia. My thought is that we need to look at all these events in total, since this is ‘global’ climate change.
As far as ‘confidence’ goes, the author puts the word ‘faith’ next to confidence. The author seems to be unaware of the meaning of the words faith and confidence. Confidence is a statistical term which is associated with measurement of probability given a specific sample. Faith is described in the story of the centurion and Jesus (Matthew 8:5–1 – you need to read that if you want to refer to faith).
The “big picture” is still just weather. We are bombarded with weather news 24/7, and hyped to the max. So it may seem like we are having more and more unusual or “extreme” weather, but that is not the case. We are just hearing about it more.
The big picture is climate – climate is a system – weather is local. The weather that is in a climate regime displays weather phenomena within a certain range of parameters – those parameters define the climate regime. So for Northern California we have a Mediterranean climate regime – where it rains only in the winter and where we have a certain range of temperatures given proximity to the coast and time of year. If weather phenomena starts to show a different pattern, then it is ‘climate change’. Is the pattern only a temporary anomaly or does it constitute a trend? That is a question of climate change. If we begin to see anomalous weather phenomena across the globe – anomalous in that it is outside of the normal range of weather for the climate regime for that area – and if that anomaly is typically an amplification of what would be considered outlier events – then science has to investigate the cause for this amplification.
The question should not be a political question – it should be a question of measurement – and in order to understand the measurement we need to understand the climate regime which frames what weather is considered in the normal range.
Also – I don’t think you are interested in climate science. The focus of this article is on extreme weather events – the two hurricanes. Both hurricanes are anomalous events in the extreme. Plus as I mentioned, British Columbia is having a record fire season – I believe Montana’s is at this time the third largest. Regarding local events in SF – we had a record temperature reading of 106 F – be aware that people in SF typically do not have air conditioning because it is normally not needed. These record weather events are costing a lot of money. This is all being reported – so I don’t think you are really interested in the subject since all these events are substantial and extreme.
Ah, but it is political. The Alarmists have made it so. The implication is that 1) the weather has become more “unusual” or “extreme”, and further to that, that it is somehow man’s “fault”. They need for it to be man’s fault, and that is why this “extreme weather” meme, in its various forms keeps being proferred. There is no proof either thing is true, of course, but they don’t care about that.
Well it is more extreme. Do you think that when it is stated that Irma is the largest Atlantic hurricane that this is a false statement? Do you think that the behavior of Hurricane Harvey was an outlier, or was it a normal occurrence for a hurricane? Whether or not there was a previous event with that much rainfall, that previous event was most likely an outlier when it comes to hurricanes in Texas. When it is announced that there are a record number of fires in British Columbia, do you think they are lying?
I live in California and I noticed the climate changing. A couple of years ago we had almost no snow pack. I felt the heat – it is definitely different – given my own experience – than it was when I first got here. The fire seasons have become more intense. A fire came down in Lake County and wiped out Middletown – people died because the fire was so fast moving. Now, were there fires and heat before in California – well, yes, of course. But looking at the information from weather stations (and I have gone through the data) we are moving towards more extreme conditions – either utterly dry, or bursts of rain. Lower snow pack.
Anyway, I don’t get your point of view. If you think everything is hunky dory, what can i say.
Bill, all of the data on cyclones, tornadoes, floods, droughts, etc. prove that everything is “hunky dory” in slightly warming world.
Unvalidated models are rank speculation, output being based on the modelers’ predisposed programming assumptions. Not even GIGO!
Bill the big picture is GLOBAL. The pacific is having a very quiet typhoon season. Global ACE will likely be a bit high this year. ZERO GLOBAL increase in tornadoes hurricanes droughts extreme storms, rate of SL rise, etc. Yet a Massive increase in hype!
I guess it depends on what you read and where you get your data. I read this site from time to time and when it was a quiet hurricane season here there were very active typhoon seasons in the western Pacific – and I would read people on this site crowing about how much BS global climate change is because of the quiet season here. It is my experience in CA that the climate has changed – and it certainly seems like the jet stream started to amplify longitudinally – when we had very warm temp all the way up to Barrow Alaska. It was warmer in the Alaska Arctic that year then down in Louisville KY. It is my impression that those people who say this stuff is not happening – I have no sense of what has to happen for those folks to say that they think it is occurring. What would have to happen?
Globally we have warming oceans – evidenced by large coral bleaching events and a diminishing ice cap (reached minimum levels early in this year).
anyway – good luck to all.
It doesn’t matter what NOAA says because they are a boring Romanesk guvmnt group. University based climate starlets with their holy scrolls predicting the Messiah are given the main stage and whatever they say is gospel! In addition they have their fan clubby faithful followers who think these starlets walk on water, telling the rest of us to “come to JESUS”. Gawd. I can’t even think of this current scenario 2000 years into the future. The faithful will all be Earth Muffins and their holy book will be a collection of Climate Warming articles and letters telling us to accept Hansen into our hearts and follow his 12 disciples, with Mann being the one Hansen loved most.
I just threw up a little in my mouth.
[snip]
So this shouldn’t make people consider the idea that science can help? that we should try to get a better approach on the clean energy and future climate change for the future generation? ok then.
Your “future generation” will be wealthier, healthier, longer-lived and possess better technologies.
Let them shift for themselves.
It HAS helped! Thanks to those energy burning, CO2 producing satellites sent into orbit, people in threatened areas get plenty of warning, and have plenty of time to use their fossil fuel burning, CO2 producing automobiles to get out of the danger zone.
The problem with seeing climate change as a larger than life issue and blaming it for outsized effects is that it distracts focus and consensus from real problems which then go unaddressed. In Houston, as the metropolitan area grew, no new dams were created since the 1940s to contain water from the streams running through newly developed areas so we get flooding. That is the urgent and pressing issue for politicians which needs all focus and support from voters. Unfortunately climate change activists dominate debates as all new observations are always more evidence of climate change and can only be solved by addressing climate change even though the actual problems can be solved with infrastructure spending on dams. Always making climate alarmism a central issue even when it is only a tangential one destroys cohesive narratives for society and the democracy loses its ability to respond to real issues when the public needs to agree on solutions. Climate change alarmism is the danger to society, costing billions from inaction and not actual climate changes.
No overall change in the SST in ‘hurricane alley’ (North Atlantic 5o-20oN, 30-60oW) for at least a decade:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20SST-NorthAtlantic%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1979%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
(climate4you Oceans).
You are an economist.
So now all climatologists are qualified to give full economic reports?
You are not a scientist and clearly not informed adequately on any level of climate change.
What a joke. Stick to what you actually know about, although after this article i also now doubt your economic abilities.
[Jodie, what are your qualifications in either climatology or economics? -mod]
(You spent your effort to attack the credentials of the author,while ignoring what he wrote about)MOD
What’s a Jodie?
Jodie:
“You are not a scientist and clearly not informed adequately on any level of climate change.”
Please see the following statement from the IPCC. I assume it is still valid…if not, someone please correct me.
Note that bolded portions are mine:
http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm
“…the long term prediction of future climate states is not possible”
Model solution ensembles are all that AGW proponents have for evidence, yet by the IPCC’s own admittance the computer resources required to build an accurate model(s) of the climate DO NOT CURRENTLY EXIST. Moreover, along with the non-existent computational horsepower that will be required to generate the currently non-existent accurate models, new methods of model diagnosis will also be required. Naturally, this presupposes that the current methods of model diagnosis are inadequate for the job.
So really AGW appears to boil down to an argument based on a computer model that currently doesn’t exist. Even if the model could be coded, a computer powerful enough to run it doesn’t yet seem to exist. And after these hurdles are cleared, we’re still going to have to figure out how to diagnose the model that doesn’t exist on the hardware that’s not yet been developed.
Or so it appears to me.
Given the above, why would anyone first be required to be a scientist in order to comment on the validity of the claims of AGW proponents?
Prof Humlum @ur momisugly climate4you: “… the amount of direct solar radiation received in the Equatorial regions presumably is important for both the global sea surface temperature and the global air temperature …”:
http://www.climate4you.com/images/HadCRUT3%20and%20TropicalCloudCoverISCCP.gif
Like I said above at 8:42 am. The arrow points from the Ocean to the atmosphere.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/09/fact-hurricanes-harvey-and-irma-cant-be-blamed-on-global-warming/comment-page-1/#comment-2605514
I do not endorse the following, I am merely reporting it to this august assemblage.
We report, You Deride:
“Irma Reorganizes En Route to Devastating Florida Hit” by Dr. Jeff Masters · September 9, 2017, 7:51 PM EDT
https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/irma-reorganizes-en-route-devastating-florida-hit
“Global warming may make extreme Tampa hurricanes up to 14 times more likely
“Using a detailed hurricane model embedded within six different global climate models, hurricane scientists Kerry Emanuel of MIT and Ning Lin of Princeton University showed in a 2015 paper that the risk of extreme “grey swan” hurricanes in Tampa may increase by up to a factor of fourteen by the end of the century, thanks to human-caused climate change. Grey swan hurricane are storms so violent that they have never been observed in the historical record, but can be anticipated to occur in the future. See Jeff Masters’ blog post on the subject.–https://www.wunderground.com/cat6/irma-reorganizes-en-route-devastating-florida-hit”
GIGO. ‘Nuff said.
Walter:
““Using a detailed hurricane model embedded within six different global climate models…” (emphasis mine)
From here: http://ipcc.ch/ipccreports/tar/wg1/505.htm
(SNIPPED) MOD
You have been completely off topic,that has to stop!
(SNIPPED) MOD
NOAA says: “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”
Then AGW should be dismissed as bullshit. This proves that it is quackery and alarmist scientists are quack doctors
http://68.media.tumblr.com/c6d48a75be2cfc0b5ea61d525a30c0e0/tumblr_ncqei2bEmr1qhxazgo1_500.png
What is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Otherwise, it is the new religion of nature worship by green fools
Sunsettommy This article by Bob Ward, policy and communications director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science, has just as much validity and relevance as Reynolds’ on this topic:
Irma and Harvey lay the costs of climate change denial at Trump’s door
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/10/hurricane-irma-harvey-climate-change-trump
Even the Republican Mayor of Miami,Tomás Regalado, wants Trump to change his viewpoint on AGW:
Miami Mayor To Donald Trump: It’s Time To Talk About Climate Change
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/miami-mayor-climate-change-hurricane-irma_us_59b417dee4b0b5e5310683ae
And this is referring to the extremely high financial costs of the Florida Governor’s repudiation of AGW:
Irma: Florida governor’s climate change denial has made state even more vulnerable, warn experts
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/irma-florida-latest-hurricane-news-climate-denial-governor-infrastructure-a7937356.html
Ivan,
I note with interest that you have failed to quote a single scientist, let alone one specializing in hurricanes.
Against this total lack of support for your antiscientific opinion, here is a NOAA scientist on the virtually nonexistent affect of global warming on hurricanes:
http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/gw_hurricanes/index.html
His conclusion is the same as that of IPCC and the late, great, sainted Bill Gray, Father of Hurricanology. Even Michael Mann had to admit that global warming didn’t cause this year’s hurricanes, although he unscientifically claimed that it made then worse, without any valid basis for that assertion.
Hurricanes were more frequent and powerful during the Little Ice Age than now. Besides, what global warming? There hasn’t been any, except for El Ninos, for 20 years.
Mann and others are not claiming AGW causes hurricanes but some climate scientists claim they exacerbate the effects e.g. increased storm surge, greater rainfall density. Get your facts right.
Mann and some other climate scientists are not claiming AGW causes hurricanes you fool. They are arguing that it exacerbates them e.g. increased storm surge, greater rainfall density. Get your facts right.
Ivan,
You need to get some facts at all. You’ve provided none, apparently because you don’t know what a fact is, but prefer baseless assertions.
Read what IPCC has to say. Obviously you didn’t bother to read my link to the work of a NOAA scientist.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-es-13-tropical-cyclones.html
Who are these scientists of whom you speak who have concluded based upon actual science what you claim without any evidence that they’ve said?
I’m sure you can’t be bothered to read this, either, since you can’t handle the truth and don’t have any interest in it. But should you suddenly decide to educate yourself, go to section 14.6:
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter14_FINAL.pdf
I assume that even a totally fact-free commenter such as yourself has at least heard of the IPCC.
‘ivankinsman September 9, 2017 at 11:11 pm
Mann and others are not claiming AGW causes hurricanes but some climate scientists claim they exacerbate the effects e.g. increased storm surge, greater rainfall density. Get your facts right.”
No, they need to get their “facts” right. They are making these claims without the tiniest bit of science or empirical evidence nor even a demonstrated track record of being correct even in their own field, let alone in the meteorological study of tropical cyclones to back them up. And they make these unsupported claims despite the fact such claims are contrary to what the “consensus” of the IPCC has declared on that very subject.
They make these claims knowing that dupes and tools will believe them to have merit simply because they stated them. And so here you are doing just that. That Ivankinsman is FAITH, not science.
Here you go Sixto. You sceptics really have no idea what lies in store in the future. Tell all the Caribbean islanders and Floridians whose lives have been destroyed that this is just business as usual. Sceptics are a danger because any inaction now is just going to make it worse for future generations and those who are already vulnerable to more intense events. Let’s see sceptics’ homes inundated by storm surge and then see if they are convinced that nothing different is happening to the climate.
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/10/us/irma-facts-record-numbers-trnd/index.html
“You sceptics [sic] really have no idea what lies in store in the future.”
We should heed prophets of doom, because they can see into the future. Really! Their predictions have been spot on!
60% of Florida without power – 7 million + people. An absolute catastrophe that will take months to restore power and other infrastructure back to normal. A mammoth hurricane and I betcha the new federally-funded study (money very well spent) will find the causative link between higher than normal SSTs (which is indisputable) and the intensity of Irma, which has completely f@ur momisugly@@ur momisugly#d the state of Florida.
So SSTs were measurably lower over the entire last 12 years, ivankinsman?
https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-sea-surface-temperature
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ivankinsman! Flat for 12 years, with a (past) El Nino spike.
The point was that there was a 12 year hiatus of major land-falling U.S. hurricanes. If global SSTs affected N. Atlantic hurricanes, wouldn’t we have noticed as CO2 rose by significant percentages?
Basta!
No not basta because you are not understsnding what the AGW scientists are stating.
They are NOT saying that there will be more hurricanes. What they are stating is that the hurricanes in the North Atlantic will be exacerbated by AGW i.e. higher storm surges, increased rainfall density etc and this seems to be exemplified by Irma which was a complete monster. There is no claim I have encountered relating to increased frequency of hurricanes occuring.
Read more, ivankinsman. Quotes of more and stronger future hurricanes are rampant. You do your own research.
Making extreme claims are a hallmark of climate alarmists.
Stronger but not more. The Caribbean islands like the BVI were completely flattened this time round. Same for 25% of homes on Florida Keys. It is the intensity that is the factor.
B.S., ivankinsman. I’m through with you.
Well, you said Basta and I don’t think it was – as I think was proven — so now we can both agree to
Basta.
And Gov. Inslee of Washington State puts this point exactly here in this interview:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/11/politics/jay-inslee-axe-files-axelrod/index.html
Ivan,
Here is what?
Apparently you didn’t read hurricane expert Phil Klotzbach’s Irma commentary here. No surprise instead that you rely upon CNN.
Where is the evidence for your baseless assertion that man-mad “climate change” is responsible for hurricanes this year? I’m still waiting. And why wasn’t it responsible for the lack of major Atlantic hurricanes since 2005 and the total absence of Pacific cyclones so far this year?
I’ve already showed you that NOAA and IPCC can’t pin hurricanes on “global warming”.
Ivan,
How did you miss all the repeated predictions that hurricanes would become both more frequent and severe as a result of “global warming” or “climate change”?
http://www.pnas.org/content/109/48/19601.abstract
https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2012/10/16/global-warming-linked-to-more-severe-frequent-hurricanes
http://www.climatecentral.org/news/study-projects-more-frequent-and-stronger-hurricanes-worldwide-16204
Ivan,
Hurricanes now are not stronger than in the past. My parents, grandparents and I all recall more powerful storms.
CACA is a pack of lies.
ivankinsman September 12, 2017 at 10:03 pm
Skeptics give you actual scientific data and you give us the opinion of a Loony Leftwing WA State politician?
Hmmm…whom to credit?
If a politician looking for fed funds is your information base, well lets politely agree that science is not cogent to your post normal source.
Ivan the terrible,came up with the howler that recent powerful Hurricanes exist because of a SINGLE man in the White House,who is a skeptic.
Wow, I didn’t realize Weather based storms such as Harvey and Irma can read newspapers,decide to exist as powerful Hurricanes to then be able blame it on Trump for their destructive behavior. They must be Democrats then…………,trying to apologize for their destructive behavior,by smearing an elderly man.
This after TWELVE years of ZERO category 3+ Land falling Hurricanes….. amazing they suddenly come onshore to join the progessives in blaming President Trump for it!
This means Democrats are responsible for breaking that 12 year long…………..
Don’t be moronic in your posts … doesn”t do you any justice my friend, or me for that matter in debating with you.
I was being sarcastic,because your post is pure stupidity.
from your comment are these idiotic claims,
“Irma and Harvey lay the costs of climate change denial at Trump’s door”
“Irma: Florida governor’s climate change denial has made state even more vulnerable, warn experts”
“Even the Republican Mayor of Miami,Tomás Regalado, wants Trump to change his viewpoint on AGW:
Miami Mayor To Donald Trump: It’s Time To Talk About Climate Change”
Blaming Trump personally over a couple of powerful hurricanes,because he is a “denier”, is really stupid.
For TWELVE YEARS there were a total of ZERO Category 3,4,5 Hurricanes making landfall,the longest in recorded history. But a soon as Harvey went into Texas,leftists like you immediately blame it on President Trump.now Irma comes along,with the same blame game.
Then we have this data that you brain dead warmists seem to overlook:
“Weather historian Roger Pielke, Jr. says 14 Category 4-5 hurricanes made landfall along US coasts, during the 44-year period between 1926 and 1969. In the ensuing 47 years, 1970 to 2017, just four struck the US mainland, including Harvey. Some, like the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane in the Florida Keys, were incredibly powerful. NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division counts 10 Category 4-5 monsters between 1920 and 1969 (50 years), but only four since then. Either way, it’s a huge reduction.”
You write like a stupid ignorant partisan troll.
“You write like a stupid ignorant partisan troll.”
Hey Tommy, don’t you think that’s mortally insulting and extremely hurtful to stupid ignorant partisan trolls, mate?
They have feelings too you know!
“This article by Bob Ward…”
Bob Ward… Jesus wept…
Tell you what Ivan, why don’t you quote from a REALLY credible source, such as ‘The Beano’, for example?
So why is Reynolds from the Cato Institute any more valid? Think before you write.
Catweazle, not once has Ivan provided a counterpoint to the article,because he knows he can’t,instead he goes the personal attack,authority,and consensus fallacies way as the miserable warmist troll he is.
I see that Ivan,is going to ignore SIXTO’s three comments,because he suspect it destroys his partisan attack game.
Imagine having to see that the IPCC and the NOAA links doesn’t support the partisan troll at all.
An increase in the numbers of the most intense tropical cyclones … This is what the IPCC states and this what AGW climate scientists are arguing i.e. that AGW os not causing more hurricanes to form; but there is a causative link to making hurricanes more intense.
Here is what Ivan, allegedly read:
From the 2007 IPCC report,
“Tropical Cyclones (Hurricanes and Typhoons)
Results from embedded high-resolution models and global models, ranging in grid spacing from 100 km to 9 km, project a likely increase of peak wind intensities and notably, where analysed, increased near-storm precipitation in future tropical cyclones. Most recent published modelling studies investigating tropical storm frequency simulate a decrease in the overall number of storms, though there is less confidence in these projections and in the projected decrease of relatively weak storms in most basins, with an increase in the numbers of the most intense tropical cyclones.
Mid-latitude Storms
Model projections show fewer mid-latitude storms averaged over each hemisphere, associated with the poleward shift of the storm tracks that is particularly notable in the Southern Hemisphere, with lower central pressures for these poleward-shifted storms. The increased wind speeds result in more extreme wave heights in those regions.”
Tropical Cyclones ARE Hurricanes/Typhoons. You were already shown that there is a significant DECREASE in the number of Category 3+ making landfall. There was a TWELVE year drought of Category 3+ land falling from 2005 October to 2017 September. There was no visible pole ward shift,no notable increase in wind speed either.
Harvey and Irma,developed in the usual areas of the oceans.
That means the IPPC was wrong!
Here I repeat what Dr. Pielke said:
“Weather historian Roger Pielke, Jr. says 14 Category 4-5 hurricanes made landfall along US coasts, during the 44-year period between 1926 and 1969. In the ensuing 47 years, 1970 to 2017, just four struck the US mainland, including Harvey. Some, like the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane in the Florida Keys, were incredibly powerful. NOAA’s Hurricane Research Division counts 10 Category 4-5 monsters between 1920 and 1969 (50 years), but only four since then. Either way, it’s a huge reduction.”
There were far more land falling Hurricanes when CO2 levels were much lower. This is what you try avoiding, is the obvious.
But the IPCC are led by a communist who wants to change the global economic model so why, as a sceptic, are you using this particular data but you totally ignore all their other data supporting AGW. You can’t just cherry pick when you feel like it.
This is why some climate scientists see a link between AGW and future increased intensity of hurricanes:
http://time.com/4933743/hurricane-irma-climate-change-global-warming/
It’s models all the way down, ivankinsman.
NOAA says: “The situation for Atlantic hurricane long-term records is summarized in Figure 4. While global mean temperature and tropical Atlantic SSTs show pronounced and statistically significant warming trends (green curves), the U.S. landfalling hurricane record (orange curve) shows no significant increase or decrease. The unadjusted hurricane count record (blue curve) shows a significant increase in Atlantic hurricanes since the early 1900s. However, when adjusted with an estimate of storms that stayed at sea and were likely “missed” in the pre-satellite era, there is no significant increase in Atlantic hurricanes since the late 1800s (red curve). While there have been increases in U.S. landfalling hurricanes and basin-wide hurricane counts since the since the early 1970s, Figure 4 shows that these increases are not representative of the behavior seen in the century long records. In short, the historical Atlantic hurricane record does not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced long-term increase.” [https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/]
Also: “Our regional model projects that Atlantic hurricane and tropical storms are substantially reduced in number, for the average 21st century climate change projected by current models, but have higher rainfall rates, particularly near the storm center. The average intensity of the storms that do occur increases by a few percent (Figure 6), in general agreement with previous studies using other relatively high resolution models, as well as with hurricane potential intensity theory (Emanuel 1987).” [Please note that down-scaled regional models are spectacularly inaccurate, even compared to the global models they are based upon.]
How about this: “… detection of this projected anthropogenic influence on hurricanes should not be expected for a number of decades. ” So NOAA is saying “trust our models, we will tell you the results AFTER a number of decades.”
NOAA 2016 report results here my no means providing an upbeat now on positive state of the planet:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/08/10/us/noaa-2016-climate-change-report/index.html
“An increase in the numbers of the most intense tropical cyclones … This is what the IPCC states”
Quote?
Dave Fair So hold on, now you are showing me NOAA models that you are using as evidence but you totally reject those that introduce climate change into their scenarios. So like Sunsettommy you are simply cherry picking data that backs you up.
This is why some climate scientists are seeing a potential link between AGW and intensifying strength of hurricanes. I say potential here as more data will need to be assimilated before final conclusions can be reached:
http://time.com/4933743/hurricane-irma-climate-change-global-warming/
Rumor has it that Irma is the first category 7, clockwise rotating northern hemisphere hurricane that formed on the equator in recorded history. With sustained winds of nearly 1000 miles an hour and recorded rainfall up to 10 feet per hour, the storm is now four times larger than the earth itself!
Source: a friend who has this friend whose brother knows this guy who has a cousin who works at NOAA
Or did I hear it on CNN?
Take away the first four words above and start quoting it on other blogs. How long will it be before ivankinsman is quoting it as fact?
SteveT
Does anyone else find it odd from a physics perspective to see the phrase “ocean heat content”? I know they mean energy by it, because it’s measured in joules, but we stopped thinking of “heat” as something that could be “contained” when we threw out the caloric theory and phlogiston, over a hundred years ago. (I know the caloric theory had a lot of explanatory power going for it, so I’m not disparaging it – but we now know that heat isn’t an actual substance, nevertheless.) Is this an example of alarmists resorting to dodgy and wishy-washy concepts because they haven’t got anything solid to stand on? Does the ocean’s “heat content” make any more sense than a car’s “speed content” on the highway?
Rofl!!! The “experts” made prediction after prediction in the week prior to Irma that turned out to be wrong. Sometimes a little wrong, sometimes a lot wrong, where she’d hit land, what strength she’d be, where and how high storm surges would be, where to evacuate to be safe. And on top of all that, Mickey Mann and the gang pile on declaring their expertise and accuracy about the FUTURE.
Jump that shark!! We love it Mike.
Look into geoengineering, ionospheric heaters, weather modification and weather warfare.
It’s definately not climate change