Michael Bastasch
4:08 PM 09/18/2017
Former President Al Gore said Monday that Hurricane Harvey brought once in 500,000 year rainfall to parts of Texas, only to be questioned by scientists challenging his data.
“Within the last two weeks we have had two more record-breaking, climate-connected storms,” Gore said at an World Economic Forum summit in New York City.
Gore said that Harvey brought once in 25,000 year rainfall to the greater Houston area, adding that some “parts of Texas received totals that represented a once in 500,000 year event.”
Gore likely got the figures from a report released by the company MetStat, which found “localized maximum recurrence intervals of over 500,000 years or a 0.0002% chance of occurring in any given year.”
Many scientists, however, have shied away from using such phrasing to describe rainfall because of the lack of data. Even MetStat’s analysis admitted “these estimates contain considerable uncertainty.”
“Dang, that’s right up there with his claim on NBC’s tonight Show with Conan O’Brien that the temperature inside the Earth is ‘several million degrees’ at ‘2 kilometers or so down,’” Climatologist Roy Spencer told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Spencer is the author of a new e-book debunking Gore’s “Inconvenient Sequel” film. Spencer’s book, “An Inconvenient Deception,” has outsold on Amazon Kindle the e-book Gore released with his movie.
Spencer’s e-book reached number 17 on Amazon’s most sold ranking for the week of Sept. 10. Gore’s e-book is ranked 46,059 on the Kindle Store.
Spencer has cautioned readers of his blog to ignore “claims of 500 year flood events” associated with Harvey, “because we don’t have enough measurements over time to determine such things, especially when they also depend on our altering of the landscape over time.”
Gore’s claim of a 500,000 year rain event has even less evidence to back it up. People have not been measuring Texas rainfall long enough to say with any strong certainty this is true. The rainfall data of Texas that does exist can also be spotty the farther back one looks.
Harvey brought record levels of rainfall to Texas in late August, causing widespread flooding and damage to southeastern Texas and parts of Louisiana. Houston got about 50 inches of rain.
Gore tied the storm to man-made global warming. He claimed that Harvey was able to pick up power by crossing warmer-than-normal waters over the Gulf of Mexico and stalling over land due to Arctic Sea ice melt.
“It is a global phenomena and it is getting worse,” Gore said.
Spencer has also taken issue with this claim, pointing to data showing no apparent trend in hurricane activity, despite a warming Gulf of Mexico. He found that “major hurricanes don’t really care whether the Gulf is above average or below average in temperature.”
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See Dr. Roy Spencer’s new e-book “Why hurricanes can’t be blamed on Global Warming”
Al Gore will still be raving on when the men in white coats come to strap on the straight-jacket and lead him away.
Not before time.
ntesdorf
You got that wrong ! It’s the stake they will be strapping him to.
Message to AlGor ; Keep away from Massachusetts
Do you really believe that Al Gore ever believed a single word he said?
He is not mad, he is just cynical. It’s a way to make money, that’s all.
Don’t make the prime mistake of thinking that this is a man who thinks like you and has a moral code like yours, and who is simply mistaken.
This is a man who was paid to do a job to use the eco movement to effect changes in US and global laws for the purposes of one particular bunch of rent seekers making more money than another. It was baseless propaganda from the get go, but the Greens and Liberals sucked it up like koolaid.
This comment is exactly correct!
We have a winner!
It is rumored that the great Goracle has to change his underwear 8-10 times a day, because every day is a once in 12 billion year event and that is really scary.
Actually until this year we hadn’t heard from him in a while with stagnate surface temps and little to no hurricane activity. Every time there is a big hurricane he pops up like a clown in a jack in the box.
Gore getting called out on his lunacy? Now THAT would be a 1 in 500,000 year event.
Al Gore is well known for statements which can be summarised, “Don’t confuse me with the facts, my mind is made up.”
That is if you are being kind, more realistically he is guilty of peddling cheap, rabble rousing, deceits to his adoring gullible acolytes and the equally gullible ‘liberal’ media. Gore’s empty hyperbole just gets worse year after year.
Like Prince Charles, he surrounds himself with adoring sycophants, whose sole job is to shield him from reality by constantly telling him how wonderful and wise he is. This is a classic conceit of the rich.
Hurricanes are extreme weather events and nothing else. This simple truth is far too complex for the average alarmist to comprehend.
Well put.
A case of shit happens get used to it.
Check out @chaamjamal’s Tweet: https://twitter.com/chaamjamal/status/910285918434496512?s=09
The sea ice melt is unremarkable this year. Using Gore’s logic, early season hurricanes should always stall over land because that’s when the sea ice is melting. In fact, Harvey occurred when the sea ice melt was slowing.
The sea ice melt theory is right up there with the ocean surface temperature. The ocean is warm enough every year to support hurricanes. Neither explanation is useful for explaining why some hurricane seasons are worse than others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=40&v=MzGm-z-kB_s Vaclav Claus on Gore
Vaclav Klaus (not Claus)
related to santa Klaus??
Well played Roy Spencer – telling it straight again.
“Former President Al Gore “…
Would that be in the same Universe as the one with President Hilary Clinton?
yeah…lets also hope its in a universe FAR FAR AWAY!
By the polling models his campaign used, he was elected President. Reality and the Supreme Court determined the models failed again.
Here’s what Roger Hodgson wrote that matches what I think of him…
Based on misanthropogenic climate faith recitals during the past three decades, it’s more about the interpretation than the facts themselves. And based on the evidence Gore has volunteered in public so far himself, he has about 0.0002% chance to be right once in 500,000 years.
Bases on his performance he has the mentality of a 500,000 year old man
Perhaps , but certaily not the wisdom….
Gore’s pronouncement in this case is far more accurate than the rest of his predictions and pronouncements.
Speaking of extreme events, there has been found evidence of hyper-super-extreme-etc. El Nino events that happened at about a 300 year interval in the archeological record of South America. These events were history altering. See page xiii of https://books.google.com/books?id=kj4rDwAAQBAJ&pg=PR13&lpg=PR13&dq=mega+el+nino+south+america+300+years&source=bl&ots=QBZxNJeUzI&sig=e8CaGApZLJSabKw3wNzo_QVg8vU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8vJr-4sjVAhVD34MKHS43BzEQ6AEIQTAF#v=onepage&q=mega%20el%20nino%20south%20america%20300%20years&f=false Aside from the fact that the fish decamped for an extensive period of time, the rains were heavy enough to cause extensive mud slides that caused cities to just cease to exist.
But then Al Gorge could care less about history.
So this site uses proxy data. Reading this site I thought that it is discredited.Or is it only discredited if it shows warming.
No. It is discredited if it ignores contrary data.
It is discredited if it uses statistical techniques that produce hockey sticks out of random data. Do keep up, the problems with trees as thermometers are manifold and consequential. They are better rain/co2/fertilizer gauges than thermometers, though there is a slight correlation with temperatures as well. The problem in tree growth is they grow in accordance with the limiting factor in the environment, whether that is water, food or growing season length has to be determined on a case by case basis. dO18 and other isotope studies SEEM to be fairly responsive to temperature, though they may have confounding factors that need to be teased out as well. The real problem with all proxies is they are data passed through a low pass filter – rapid changes get smoothed out and sometimes eliminated – we compare proxy data with instrument data with a large bag of salt not a pinch!
Al Gore is not going to keep quiet until such time as he divests his renewable investments at a reasonable profit margin.
Or more likely, an ‘unreasonable’ profit margin.
Al Gore has mostly lost money on his renewable investments. They are irrelevant to his net worth.
former vice president…. please.
Former VP, but still an atom – – makes up everything – – reference ‘the internet.’
Don’t think people are buying Gore’s BS – and certainly not in theatres!
https://www.kingdomcomment.com/blog/an-inconvenient-box-office-bomb
That graph reminds me of the graph of global temperature projections from climate models….blue line vs observations….green line (-:
Or Gore was aiming to replicate the logarithmic effect of CO2 forcing…. 😉
“Spencer’s e-book reached number 17 on Amazon’s most sold ranking for the week of Sept. 10. Gore’s e-book is ranked 46,059 on the Kindle Store.”
HaHaHa….HeHeHe…….HoHoHo.
Anyone with the mathematical skills to represent those numbers as a swing of the global population’s scepticism growth since Al Baby’s first movie?
Gore at this point is a figure at which to poke fun; a cliche of the silliness of our times. Hillary Clinton is on the short track to join him.
Point well made (but embarrassing, for the country, to admit).
It’s Al Gore…
…enough said!
“He found that “major hurricanes don’t really care whether the Gulf is above average or below average in temperature.””
Ah he “found” no such thing.
Gulf temperatures certainly do play into strengthening of cyclones (in fact any sea surface temperatures a cyclone passes over). However, this year’s unusual warmth has little to do with CAGW. As the official record shows, there is only a infinitesimally small amount of global sea temperature warming (which may or may not be related to human CO2 emissions). The year to year variance is certainly not related to human CO2 emissions.
Most hurricanes, but not all, start in the far eastern Atlantic Ocean. I’ll go with the notion that the quote is a throw-away line of little importance.
“A key remote factor is SST variability in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean associated with El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO). Positive Pacific SST anomalies associated with warm-phase ENSO (El Niño) have been linked to increased ∣Vz ∣ over the MDR, and conversely for cool-phase ENSO (La Niña) (15, 20,30). Another remote factor that has been linked to interannual and multidecadal variability in Atlantic basin tropical cyclone activity is rainfall variability over the western Sahel (2, 31), with positive rainfall anomalies associated with reduced ∣Vz ∣ over the MDR (15).”
Therefore the lack of hurricanes during the last 12 years before recently, have likely been caused by numerous El Ninos over recent years.
“Contrast of U.S. East Coast major hurricane landfalls between colder (A) and warmer (B) values of the Atlantic multidecadal mode. The solid red lines indicate where the storms were at major hurricane intensity. The years are like those in (44) except that the first four warmer years (1899–1902) are not included to make the number of colder and warmer years similar. Colder years (47 years) include 1903–1925 and 1971–1994. Warmer years (51 years) include 1926–1970 and 1995–2000.”
A and B are referring to the AMO and when the AMO was positive (warmer) it had caused more hurricanes.
“For almost every measure of tropical cyclone activity, the differences between the warm and cold phases of the mode are statistically significant (34, 44). The single exception is the number of U.S. Gulf Coast landfalling major hurricanes. This is because the Gulf of Mexico activity does not have a significant relationship with ∣Vz ∣ fluctuations in the MDR (11, 12, 15) or to the multidecadal North Atlantic SST fluctuations (Fig. 2A). The greatest differences (ratios) are for major hurricanes, hurricane days, U.S. East Coast major hurricane landfalls, and especially Caribbean hurricanes and U.S. damage.”
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/293/5529/474.full
Recent weeks the AMO is positive and the ENSO with NINO 3.4 is negative, hence ideal conditions for hurricanes during the peak season. The Gulf of Mexico has no significant relationship with US landfall major hurricanes. This can be predicted without AGW at all.
Almost 50/50 between warm and cool SST’s.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/ams/journals/content/apme/2009/15588432-48.1/2008jamc1871.1/production/images/medium/i1558-8432-48-1-111-f04.gif
Oops , meant to say : “certainly” , in my reply to Ziiex Zeburz 🙂
US 24 hr rain record: Alvin, Texas, was deluged by 43 inches of rain in 24 hours from July 24-25, 1979.
That would be more impressive than 52 inches over four days.
They had to come up with a record, and the only record broken by Harvey afaics was the single storm and the four day record.
For a real deluge, look at the 1926-27 Mississippi flooding that lasted one year.
A room mate many years ago had a copy of this book http://www.worldcat.org/title/excessive-rainfall-in-texas/oclc/2561039 It showed by plotting storm tracks, that when it rains in Texas, sometimes it really pours. Can’t even begin to grasp the concept of so much rain over such short periods of time. I’m sure if I were on the gulf coast, I could now grasp it, but Harvey only brought 2 tenths to a particularly dry spot in the state.
As for the randomness of weather–I once bought some flood plain property–knew it was–and asked an old timer living on the hill above the creek about it’s flooding history. His reply, it might not flood again in your (mine) lifetime, or it could flood twice this year. Kept that place about 5 years (didn’t come close to flooding) and sold it for a nice profit. I understand that it did flood a few years later.
here in Texas, there is a saying–if you don’t like the weather, just wait a few minutes–it will change.
My understanding for local highways in many states, is that they are built for the basin discharge 100 year event, major roads for 250 years, and interstate highways on the order of the 500 year event. This is not a measured event, it is based on the histogram curve fitting to historical data, getting a least square curve, and reading off the values for 100, 250, and 500 years off that trend. Even though small rain events are more common, there are enough bigger events in the past 100 years to get a good trend fit. Not to 500 K years, but to 500, yes. This is the civil engineering basis of road construction to climate probability of rain events. A case study of a 300 year rainfall event in Pennsylvania was discussed in a climatology course I took. The town did not rebuild the levy, not expecting a similar flood for 300 years. However, it occurred again the following year. The state climatologist had to explain the concept of probability.
Be careful not to confuse flooding events with rainfall events. Gore is speaking about a rainfall event (his apparent source for the 500,000 year rain event reference is referring to a 5-day rainfall event). A “basin discharge 100 year event” sounds like a flooding event. I don’t think the levee story makes sense, either. A 300 year rainfall event doesn’t necessarily lead to a 300 year flood event. A 300 year rainfall event can have a duration of 15 minutes, or an hour, and be relatively small in volume. A 100 year rainfall event over 48 hrs, on the other hand, likely causes substantial flooding.
The atmosphere has warmed by 1 deg. C in the last 100 years and can hold 4% more moisture. Could be that half of that, 2% of that was from humans.
How much did that potential 2% increase in atmospheric moisture attributed to humans play a role in a so called once every 500,000 year event?
nothing. global moisture just changed 0.2 g water per kilogram air but that doesn’t tell the whole story:
the only issue is: you need increase of temperature difference to make an increase in rain. warmer air has by default a higher specific humidity.
in a closed ideal environment this would produce less rain or the same amount, in a dynamic chaotic system it may have regional effects, but in blobal precipitation will stay the same.
but assume it is not, then 2% of this 0.2 g would be 0.004 g… which is seen the yearly variables not even possible to quantify….
should be global not blobal think i gonna first finish my first coffee 🙂
Damn blobal warming
Blobal warming is so powerful it swallows capital letters!
The specific humidity does not vary as the temperature or pressure of a body of air changes
Relative humidity (RH) is the ratio of the partial pressure of water vapor to the equilibrium vapor pressure of water at a given temperature. Therefore how global temperature changes are affecting water vapour require Relative humidity measurements.
http://www.climate4you.com/images/NOAA%20ESRL%20AtmospericRelativeHumidity%20GlobalMonthlyTempSince1948%20With37monthRunningAverage.gif
Matt – You were correct . . . until you got to ‘therefore’.
The average lower atmosphere has more energy contained within it, when RH =70% at 15.1c compared when RH = 65% at 15.1c.
Global temperature changes can easily be down the change in mean RH, not an actual increase in energy. A true reflection of global temperature changes should include global RH in the equation.
The above link showing RH provides scientific evidence that what little warming there has been recently has been caused directly by RH declining.
Therefore was referring to what evidence there is for global warming influencing water vapour, but these observations available show RH affects global temperatures.
Matt – You have the cause and effect backwards. Raising the temperature of a volume of atmosphere reduces its RH. As you say, the absolute humidity does not change with temperature.
Absolute humidity has been increasing 1.5% per decade, 8% since 1960. It is countering the temperature decline that would otherwise be occurring. This and some other stuff is described in my blog/analysis at http://globalclimatedrivers2.blogspot.com
I don’t have it backwards that refers to ground level, the AGW theory does suppose this is the case, but the observations don’t. There are also exceptions to this theory.
The theory was increasing CO2 gases leads to increased water vapour with positive feedback, increasing global temperatures significantly higher than 1c per CO2 doubling.
Where are the observations showing actual increased observed water vapour with increasing global temperature?
“Raising the temperature of a volume of atmosphere reduces its RH. As you say, the absolute humidity does not change with temperature.”
While we seem to agree observed decreasing RH with increased global temperature are found. There is a difference regarding absolute humidity as it doesn’t take temperature into account, but it is changed by temperature and pressure. Absolute humidity is only a potential condition like dew point, not an actual condition that occurs most of the time. So there is no way of knowing how changes in air masses relate to the atmospheres potential absolute humidity. That’s why relative humidity comes in and is required to observe changes in water vapour that actually occur not potentially occur. RH is an important metric used in weather forecasts and reports, as it is an indicator of the likelihood of precipitation, dew, or fog. It is an observed weather condition that contributes part of local climate.
During the major ice ages the world was very dry and would have had a very low RH overall despite being much colder. The atmosphere had significantly higher dust levels indicating low water vapour levels. Antarctica has very low RH levels away from coasts like hot deserts, but it is much colder than anywhere else.
At ground level the RH rises as the temperature falls. This is because less vapour is needed to saturate the air so, vapour condenses as the temperature falls.
At ground level the RH decreases as the temperature rises. This is because more vapour is needed to saturate the air.
Increasing RH in the atmosphere from warm/cold fronts lowers temperatures because the water then needs more energy to sustain the same atmospheric temperature.
Lowering RH in the atmosphere from ridges increases temperature because the water then needs less energy to sustain the same atmospheric temperature.
Warming during the day does show decreasing RH levels in the atmosphere related to solar radiation. RH levels do increase during the night with decreasing temperatures. The main reason for these changes is not just temperature, but due to solar radiation. During the night there is no solar radiation so RH levels are able to rise even if temperatures during the day are also similar at night.
It also depends on if the atmosphere is unstable or stable. Removing water vapour from the atmosphere reduces its RH by cutting off its moisture source. A warming unstable atmosphere can increase water vapour in the atmosphere and form clouds and rainstorms. The increased water vapour and rain will then lead to falling temperatures in the atmosphere because the increased water vapour requires more energy to sustain the same temperature.
Gore was never a President. Should read, V. P.
Was hoping to find a Comment pointing that out.
Couldn’t call Gore a liar, he’d need to know the truth to be a liar.
He is prone to ludicrous exaggeration however:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/16/gore-has-no-clue-a-few-million-degrees-here-and-there-and-pretty-soon-were-talking-about-real-temperature/
‘ … ’cause the interior of the earth is extremely hot, several million degrees … ‘
Classic snake-oil salesman.
Not really, you see, while Gore was busy inventing the internet, he was working a side project to redefine the temperature scale inventing the new unit of temperature measure called the Gore. It is equivalent to one one thousandths of a Kelvin. and thus the Earths core is several million Gore degrees, or about 6000C. /sarc
“especially when they also depend on our altering of the landscape over time.””
The landscape alters perfectly normal all by itself
At least Gore is consistent with his attention-flogging. I used to wonder if he had a working brain, because he’s always seemed like a walking stiff to me. Now I know he’s just a sack of hot air, desperate for attention, grooving on what he gets from grandiose exaggerations in his published statements.
If he’s this desperate for attention, he needs professional help with his problem, that, and a room with a view of an ice-coated lake that won’t melt, ever.
I wonder if some of the hype around the every hundred or every 500,0000 year events is based on some major misperceptions. It does not seem unusual to me that in a country as large as the US that we see a lot of 100 year events. How many different sub-regions are there in the US that can have “rain events”? There are about 3.8 Million square miles in the US – that provides 38,000 sub-regions of 100 square miles each. Assuming completely random rain events across each sub-region, you would expect to see one 500,000 year event every 13 years or so. Take away the random component and it still averages out to having one 100 square mile area in the US having a 500,000 year event every 13 years.
I’ve just used total US areas and conjectures about area. Anyone with a firmer grasp on these statistics s or the size of the localized area within Texas that saw the 0.0002% chance rainfall?
“It is a global phenomena”: to think of the money wasted on his education!
He is an alumni of Harvard. Prof. Oreskes was not his advisor.
“phaedo on September 20, 2017 at 3:53 am
Couldn’t call Gore a liar, he’d need to know the truth to be a liar”
No. He’s a liar. He went to paleoclimatologists to find out about the past climate from cores. They explained it all carefully with proof and were furious when Gore completely misrepresented it in his first film. Watch the graphs showing, or which should show, the CO2 lagging temperature by centuries
He was also careful not to actually say the lie but to infer the lie to a deluded audience. He came very close to saying it at one point (a question of semantics) but skilfully just avoided it. You don’t do that by accident.
No wonder he won’t have a free Q&A session.
Money, according to those who know him, is his prime motivation and that he loves money above all else. Power comes second but as power usually means great wealth, it is on his list of things to achieve.
Thank you Margaret. I’m grateful for your insightful correction.
Gore has made his money on non climate related investments, so your point makes no sense.
Gore is like a vampire, feasting on the suffering (and money) of others over his nonsense claims about climate.
There is a lot of evidence that in fact the scientists who modeled the rainvhistory of the SE Texas area under estimated the potential for high rain events.
There is even more evidence that people in Gore’s profession, government, messed up land use regulations, infrastructure maintenance and construction. This vastly aggravated the impacts of heavy rain events in the Houston area.
As I observe Gore over the years, it is pretty clear he has developed a mental disorder from his fixation on climate and serially exaggerates any number that may sound sciencey.
In my line of duty even less than biblical claims must be proven. While recognising the approach maybe a bit extreme in political circles, Al could work his imagination closer to socially acceptable consensus on the topic. There are plenty of jigsaw puzzles to help out. Could be beneficial to his idle thumbs too.
?1454685789
“Former President Al Gore”
No, that was a previous bullet your country dodged, luckily.
Well, I am so grateful Al Gore invented the internet./sarc
Other than doom-mongering, I don’t see much utility for such a vast timescale. I imagine the topography and local environs have changed dramatically in half a million years, so what does that figure even mean?
marnof,
You might find this (a little old, now) of interest.
http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/how-the-isthmus-of-panama-put-ice-in-the-arctic
“The closing of the Central American Seaway initially may have warmed Earth’s climate, but then set the stage for glaciation in the Northern Hemisphere at 2.7 million years ago.”
Maybe weather and climate for TX & other south and southeastern states experienced big changes beginning at 2.7 million years ago?
Well we all know how ManBearPig loves a massage, especially when it comes to numbers.
Ewww.
You’ve made my day, thanks.
The surface area of the earth is 510 Million Sq KM. So 10 Sq KM of the earth would have on average a 500K Year event each year. So what is Gore’s point? Is Houston somehow special?
Aagh. I meant 1000 SQ KM not 10.
500,000 year rainfall? Since modern humans evolved only 200,000 years ago. Maybe Al Gore’s pal Homo Erectus was measuring rainfall in Texas 500,000 years ago. They have the same brain size
This author cannot even get his facts straight – Gore was never President for a start.
The Caribbean Islands are as flat as a pancake. Totally destroyed in many areas. When will you climate sceptics get it?
“The Caribbean Islands are as flat as a pancake”
No, get your facts straight… please consult a geography book, many are mountainous.
As a result of the AGW-exacerbated hurricanes that have rolled over them this year.
They are no different for any major historical hurricanes recorded.
Ivankinsman, do you live on any of those islands? They aren’t all as flat as a pancake. They aren’t all built out of coral sands like the Bahamas. Many are, in fact, volcanic in origin. Perhaps you should visit The Soufriere Hills volcano, for example, drove everyone off Montserrat when it erupted a few years ago.
Here’s a little info for you. http://www.summitpost.org/caribbean-island-peaks/170902
Misunderstanding. Many parts of these islands have been completely flattened by the AGW-exacerbated hurricanes that have rolled over them one after the other. Even the old islanders are stating they have seen destruction like this. Time to get real lady…
Ivankinsman:
“Bowled them over”?
My my, is Guam still in danger from tipping over?
*rolled
Ivan,
Perhaps the “misunderstanding” is on your part. Did you really mean, “Even the old islanders are stating they have seen destruction like this”? I believe you’re the one who needs an English lesson.
Why are you algore disciples like to take the Lords name in vain? I bet you wouldn’t do that to Muhammad.
Contrary to what you seem to believe skeptics are a heterogenous group of individuals forming their own opinions themselves. You are not an authority on their thoughts. The sooner you accept it, the quicker you’ll be in compliance with UN human rights declaration.
Based on the Al’s performance so far, I don’t buy his commercial products.
Now when you are spreading your misanthropic faith on the suffering of weather victims, I’ve taken note storm called Irma ravaged the private island of climate misanthropist hypocrite Richard Branson and Castro’s tragic Marxist–Leninist socialist human right oppression experiment island first – before calming down and hitting democratic civilisation on the continent.
Not sure the 25% of residents of the Florida Keys whose homes were destroyed by Irma would agree with you on this point i.e. your fellow Americans.
In accordance with Malleus Maleficarum storms are caused by witches, but I presume your god is gender neutral.
Ivan,
Your ignorance knows no bounds.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/sfl-1919-hurricane-story.html
The 1935 hurricane has already been mentioned, but the 1919 hurricane did the most damage to the Florida Keys in the past century, with loss of 800 lives.
Your ignorance is amazing. Before you spout off nonsense you should at least bother to look at actual historical data. Check out the 1935 hurricane that hit the Keys. The 1900 hurricane that hit Galveston Tx. The 1938 hurricane that pummeled New England. Oh, and there are many more examples. All well before any propaganda about Global Warming.
Oh, and the storms this year are a return to normalcy after a record period of a lack of major hurricanes hitting the US. I could go on but it’s wasted breath on fanatics like you.
Perhaps you should have consulted a topographical map of the Caribbean before you opened your mouth and promptly inserted your foot?
Jesus … learn some f@@@##g English.
I am fairly sure Ivan is referring to buildings being flattened, not mountians.
However, his argument is a clear logical fallacy, similar to “Think of the Children”. Ivan, we all realise that Harvey, Irma (I was in Florida for Irma), and Maria have caused a lot of human suffering. However, human suffering does not logically flow to CAGW. Lets face it, not matter what is happening this year, 2005 was a much more active Atlantic Cyclone year. Draw a line from there, and we are in a negative pattern. If over the next decade or so, we saw a gradual increase in cyclonic activity, we could start to look at the cause. However, as of now, THERE IS NO INCREASE IN GLOBAL CYCLONIC ACTIVITY. Anyone suggesting that there is a human CO2 link is only telling us that there is no problem from CO2. There has been lots of CO2 emitted, but no increase in cyclonic activity. The logical conclusion is that CO2 is OK and does not contribute to cyclones.
Ivan Kinsman: Freelance proofreader/editor and quality controller/manager
Swietokrzyskie District, Skarzysko County, Poland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ivan-kinsman-27460a75
“It’s like teaching English elementary class.”
Why would anybody want English lessons from a Polish “proofreader” who doesn’t evan proofread his own words?
even
Ivan,
Many Caribbean islands, indeed most of them, have rugged topography. The highest point on Hispaniola is 10,614 feet, in the Dominican Republic. It is a tectonically active region.
Ivan is wrong as usual:
“The Caribbean Islands are as flat as a pancake…”
Virgin Islands.
and,
Saba.
http://www.gazettextra.com/storyimage/JG/20160514/ARTICLES/160519877/EP/1/1/EP-160519877.jpg
and,
Jamaica.
http://www.gazettextra.com/storyimage/JG/20160514/ARTICLES/160519877/EP/1/1/EP-160519877.jpg
Shall I go on?
You once again said something profoundly stupid.
Learn some English. As flat as a pancake is what is called a metaphor. A metaphor has a different meaning to a literal meaning. In the case the buildings and infrastructure on the islands have been flattened ‘like a pancake’. Christ – It’s like teaching English elementary class.
Ivan,
You learn some English.
You didn’t say, “The Caribbean islands hit by Irma have been rolled flat as a pancake”. You said that, “The Caribbean islands are flat as a pancake”. Which isn’t true, anyway.
The last time that no structure was left standing on a Caribbean island after a hurricane was in 1780,
I suspect the author made a simple typo by leaving the word “vice”.
(Or maybe he just couldn’t bring himself to say that Al’s “vice” is in anyway “former”.8-)
I know it was a typo.
I’m well practiced in the almost-lost art of Typo-ing.
“I suspect the author made a simple typo by leaving OUT the word “vice”.”
Yeah, keep on rockin’ man
Former President Al Gore ???
I thought he was President of Vice.
“Climate connected storms” ? Arent they all climate connected?
Exactly what I was thinking!
Some politicians you can’t believe a word they say and Gore is one of them.
If he told me it was raining I would have to look outside to confirm it.
Every claim on here by him is either false or impossible to check.
Huston is built on a traditional flood plain so I don’t see how anyone could be surprised that it flooded when a Hurricane hit the area.
Really, the only unusual aspect is that Harvey sat in place for 4 days. That was a result of the specific atmospheric conditions present as it arrived in Texas. These was really just a random change issue, having nothing to do with Human CO2.
Imagine Gore trying to “show” an audience where a 500k-year rain event would be on a graph. Instead of a scissors lift, he’d need a giant crane. It’d be awesome.
Just looking at man-bear-pig gives my heart palps. Absolutely detest that SOB!
A 500,000 year storm event is impossible to define with any dataset available on earth today.
For purposes of estimating floods, storm return periods of up to 500 years used,but obviously with each progressively longer return period, the less confidence in the calculated rainfall depth. Hence engineers don’t fool around with very long return periods but rather base very large flood event calculations on what is called “Probable Maximum Precipitation” or PMP. The PMP is statistically calculated based upon available data. It’s definition is:
“Theoretically, the greatest depth of precipitation for a given duration that is physically possible over a given size storm area at a particular geographical location at a certain time of year.”
Note that it takes into account the storm duration as well as the area of the watershed. The longer the duration, the greater the precipitation possible, but the rainfall intensity necessarily trends lower. The larger the watershed, the lower the rainfall because of the effect of very intense storms over very small areas is naturally greater.
A meteorological consultancy prepared an analysis of the actual rainfall depth-area-duration data for Harvey with the theoretical PMP values. Their results are published at chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/http://www.appliedweatherassociates.com/uploads/1/3/8/1/13810758/awa-harvey-pmp-asdso.pdf. The data from Harvey thus adds to the database of extreme events and would be expected to have a positive effect on the theoretical PMP events for Texas.
Note that except for three depth-are-duratoin combinations under the Tropical PMP (i.e., theoretical maximums for tropical storm events), the effects on PMP were only about 10% or less higher post Harvey than pre Harvey. For general PMP and average PMP, the Harvey rainfall data had no measurable effect on PMP.
Effectively Harvey demonstrated that PMP basically holds and is reliable as a measure of PMP. Nothing about Harvey “broke the bank” on rainfall estimating, even though it resulted in the all time high precip for the Houston area. As might be expected when a major Cat 5/5 storm pops up in the western Gulf of Mexico, proceeds north, and through the flukes of influencing high and low pressure systems that steer hurricanes, caused it to park over SE Texas for an extraordinarily long, 156 hour period.
Gore,in his usual way lifted a statistic that was practically worthless from the start:
“Gore likely got the figures from a report released by the company MetStat, which found “localized maximum recurrence intervals of over 500,000 years or a 0.0002% chance of occurring in any given year.”
He is a con artist,with a lot of warmist suckers out there hanging on every misleading,lying word he utters.
He is a COWARD,who will not debate anyone.
Like the Fortune 1000 and many governments, Gore is in the action phase now, not the talking or debating phase. He is not wasting his time debating skeptics.
I think Al only said that because he’s positioning himself to head up “The Blue Team”.
“Former President Al Gore ” Since when did he get a raise?. I am pretty sure he lost to George Bush after the Florida ballot count fiasco. Wonder if this was a typo or wishful thinking.
Definitely a Typo-of-Omission.
It was not the figure of speech “ELLIPSIS”.
Outside chance it was “TAPEINOSIS: or, Demeaning”. (You know, rubbing it in that he lost.8-)
Nobody would legitimately try to extrapolate rainfall event data to get to a 500,000 year event. But since they did…the MetStat link shows that this 500,000 year event was of the 5-day duration variety. A 5-day event is about as long as you’re going to get, and at a frequency of 500,000 years, that should be biblical flooding anywhere, especially with widespread coverage over the Houston area. And considering all of the impervious area added to Houston, the flooding should be even more biblical than it would be in a rural area. But the extrapolated estimates of flood events said it was maybe a 500 or 1,000 year event. This makes the assertion of a 500,000 year, 5-day rain event look even more ridiculous.
This is difficult to admit considering the circumstances, but I didn’t know that until Algore told me so!
If you want real information, look up Joe Bastardi. He’s one of a few who gets this stuff (predictions) right.
An unbelievably tragic series of events in terms of property, lives and the environment, and the readers of WUWT are debating whether the Caribbean islands are flat or mountainous and whether Gore was justified in his claims or not. Speaks volumes about the folk on here. How about donating to hurricane relief or getting off your fat arses and helping with the clean up instead of mastubrating on your laptops?
Well WTF are you and your fat arse doing here, Bruce? Al Gore an his ilk try to use every tragic weather event to push their agenda, and that’s ok with you? Hell, they seem to WANT bad things to happen so that they have the opportunity to preach. But the problem lies with people who post here in defiance?
For the record, I did help with clean up after Irma in FL. So stop “mastubrating” and GFY.