Opinion by Kip Hansen — 16 July 2024 — 1700 words/6 minutes
In the last decade or so, there has been an increasing effort to tie every strong or unusual weather event, no matter how local, to Global Climate Change. This need arose from the inability of the IPCC and its thousands of contributors to actually find, “detect” is the word they use, the negative effects of Climate Change in the real world, despite over 40 years of endless dire predictions.
You may have seen this before, but I offer it as evidence of the above:
A few notes about AR6 WG1 Chapter 12 Table 12.12:
1. ONLY the middle column represents real information: “Already Emerged In Historical Period”. This means that the IPCC has failed to even to detect increases/decreases in all the other Climate Impact Drivers (see definition at end of essay) which have white boxes in that column. You must ignore the “Emerging by….” Columns – both are shown as “at Least for RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5” which is considered by many the now-impossible climate scenario. (and here).
2. The darker colors in the Already Emerged column indicate that the climate-impact driver has been detected with high confidence – but any numeral in the box is a caveat as to in what regions. For instance, “Cold Spell” has been detected only in “Australia, Africa and most of Northern South America”. Decreases in “Lake, river and sea ice” has been detected only for Arctic sea ice.
3. It is interesting to read the list of things (white boxes across all three columns) that are still not expected to be found even in 2100 RCP8.5 dystopia-land. The majority of Climate-impact Drivers (19 out of 33) are not predicted to “emerge” by 2100 even under RCP8.5. And yet, almost every day, there is a media story telling us that it is already happening and has been “caused by climate changed” or “intensified or made worse by climate change” contrary to the IPCC’s AR6.
So, today I ask:
Question: “Why do we read that it has been determined by scientists that [some weather event] was caused or made XX% worse by climate change?”
Answer: Storyline Attribution.
And what might that be, you may ask? Well, it is my opinion that Storyline Attribution is simply a “Just So…” story about the weather used by the climate gang to tie every weather story to global climate change somehow, anyhow.
Just-so story — “a speculative story or explanation of doubtful or unprovable validity that is put forward to account for the origin of something … when no verifiable explanation is known”
Pielke Jr. wrote last week, in Climate fueled extreme weather, Part 2::
“The last decade has seen the rise of what is called storyline attribution, which now dominates discussion of every extreme weather event.
A storyline provides a putative causal explanation for the incidence of a particular extreme event that just happened and explains why the event was worse than it otherwise would have been, absent the human influence.
For example, from just last week:
- Oceans have been warming due to human influences, notably increases in greenhouse gases and a reduction in aerosols;
- Warmer oceans are associated with stronger hurricanes;
- Hurricane Beryl was an unusually strong hurricane for July;
- Therefore, Hurricane Beryl is an example of how climate change results in an increasing number of strong hurricanes.
The recent flood? More moisture available. That drought? Less moisture available. A flood somewhere and a drought somewhere else? Wavy jet stream. Duh. Just connect the dots.
A seemingly plausible-sounding storyline for every event is easy to create. I say seemingly because the storyline approach is free to discount parts of the story that don’t advance the narrative, to change the story event by event, and to ignore events that didn’t happen or did not become extreme. A storyline is a story, not science.“
What kind of a story? A Just So…story. Specifically: “a speculative story or explanation of doubtful or unprovable validity that is put forward to account for the origin of something (such as a biological trait) when no verifiable explanation is known”.
In these cases, a Just So Story about the origins, the cause, the probability of a specific weather event, mild or extreme. In the quote from Pielke Jr. above, the four bullet points, in order, make up the storyline attribution.
Now, to be fair, there is allegedly a scientific version of storyline attribution. It is detailed in a report for the U.S. Congress titled “Is That Climate Change? The Science of Extreme Event Attribution” [.pdf]. Here is what they say:
“Storyline Attribution Analysis
Research using storyline attribution is an analysis of causes:
It [the Storyline Approach] is a framing based on analysis of physical processes and is similar to an accident investigation…. The causal chain of factors leading to the event is first identified, and the role of each factor is assessed.
Researchers analyze atmospheric circulation and meteorological patterns using models and observational data to try to establish the factors that contributed to the event. This analysis includes determining linkages among factors. For example, a circulation pattern may contribute to extreme precipitation in a study area, and the increased water vapor in the air carried by the circulation may be linked to an area of increased sea surface temperature.
The next step is to estimate anthropogenic climate influence on the causes linked to the event— for example, the extent to which human influence may have affected sea surface temperatures, temperatures that, in turn, contributed to increased precipitation in an extreme event. An attribution statement can then be made about the degree of human influence on the causes of the event.”
How does this play out in the real world, with real world example of this “scientific” Storyline Attribution? The Congressional Research Service supplies an example a storyline (which fails to find human influence):
“Researchers studying the record-setting 2011 drought/heat wave in Texas used a combination of observational data and climate model simulations to examine specific factors that may have influenced the magnitude of the event. The researchers found that the “principal physical process” contributing to the drought/heat wave was the extreme and continuing lack of rainfall in the previous winter and spring. This rainfall deficit was in turn linked to changes in sea surface temperatures. As the associated sea surface temperatures were within the range of natural variability, the researchers did not find evidence of human influence in their analysis of this extreme event.” [Oops…-kh]
[The analysis referred to in the above paragraph is M. Hoerling et al., “Anatomy of an Extreme Event,” Journal of Climate, vol. 26, no. 9 (2013). Hoerling is a full analysis, and not just a storyline attribution. It is what a proper attribution study should be, but not what is presented to the media by weather attribution groups today.]
Typical storyline attribution presented to the media, as Pileke Jr. points out, is something more like this in a piece from the Climate Crisis Propaganada outfit, Inside Climate News regarding Hurricane Beryl:
“Hurricanes are expected to intensify, he [Kerry Emanuel] said, as greenhouse gas emissions warm the atmosphere and ocean, supercharging evaporation and heat transfer in a warmer atmosphere that already holds more moisture.
“A demonstrable greenhouse gas effect is the proportion of hurricanes that turn out cat 3 or 4,” Emanuel said.
When Hurricane Beryl formed in the Atlantic in early July, hundreds of miles from the Texas coast, it reached category 4 status–the earliest category 4 storm on record. Record warm temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean this year have led to predictions of a highly active hurricane season.“
In the storyline attribution the public sees and hears on a daily basis, there simply is not any scientific analysis at all, just a storyline…just a story…a Just So story. [see real hurricane data detailed, for instance, here.]
And the root of all good propaganda is a good believable story – believable because it is built around a little nugget of truth. You can count those little nuggets in the storyline above:
1. “Hurricanes are expected to intensify” – a meme of climate crisis prediction, so, yes, “expected” by them
2. The ubiquitous, “warmer atmosphere … holds more moisture.” A trivially true scientific fact.
3. A fact “earliest Cat 4 storm in record” [this is as “as far as we know…”-type fact] and tied to predictions of a highly active hurricane season.
The actual event is Hurricane Beryl, a Cat 1 hurricane coming ashore at Houston, Texas. The storyline paints the event as “intensified” by warmer air/warmer sea water and part of an [non-existent] increasing proportion of Cat 3 and 4 hurricanes caused by greenhouse gases.
And thus it was, they say, Just So….
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Author’s Comment:
Storyline Attribution of weather events is ubiquitous in the news stream: even your sports-crazed neighbor can tell you why we have “all this crazy weather”. He hears it every night on the weather news – cute little easy-to-remember “Just so” stories explaining it all to him, devoid of any science whatever. The same type of storylines are taught to your children everyday in their schools…
Storylines, Just So storylines, are very common in science today. Biology is full of them, theoretical physics too. The soft-sciences may be nothing but just-so storylines. Feel free to suggest examples….
Thanks for reading.
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NOTE: Opinion essays, sometimes called OpEds, express the opinion(s) of their author. Not the opinion of the newspaper, news agency, radio station or their owners; in this case, not the opinion(s) of WUWT as an entity, its owner Anthony Watts, or any of its associated staff and/or other contributors. This Opinion Essay is written by Kip Hansen and I am happy to own these opinions in their entirety.
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As promised, here is the Definition of a Climate Impact Driver from IPCC AR6, the subject of the chart far above:
FAQ 12.1 | What Is a Climatic Impact-driver (CID)?
A climatic impact-driver is a physical climate condition that directly affects society or ecosystems. Climatic impact-drivers may represent a long-term average condition (such as the average winter temperatures that affect indoor heating requirements), a common event (such as a frost that kills off warm-season plants), or an extreme event (such as a coastal flood that destroys homes). A single climatic impact-driver may lead to detrimental effects for one part of society while benefiting another, while others are not affected at all. A climatic impact-driver (or its change caused by climate change) is therefore not universally hazardous or beneficial, but we refer to it as a ‘hazard’ when experts determine it is detrimental to a specific system.
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Very good article
It’s only in recent years that bad weather has become “climate change” while good weather is just weather.
Why?
Because the global warning predictions were not scaring enough people anymore. The average temperature had been increasing for 45 years but that change was actually pleasant: Mainly warmer winters.
The climate scaremongering was getting old and losing its ability to create fear. A few years ago, bad weather is climate change became popular.
If that stops working, we’ll be told climate change will kill your dog, or will shrink man’s favorite organ. You can’t make the same scary climate predictions 48 years in a row without people losing interest.
Richard ==> “You can’t make the same scary climate predictions 48 years in a row without people losing interest.” — or, so one would think. But they do, and many people, instead of discounting the nonsense, just begin to accept it as true, despite lack of proof. The buy the story.
Someone hears the same thing over and over again and it becomes reality. This is how brainwashing works.
“The next step is to estimate anthropogenic climate influence on the causes linked to the event— for example, the extent to which human influence may have affected sea surface temperatures, temperatures that, in turn, contributed to increased precipitation in an extreme event. An attribution statement can then be made about the degree of human influence on the causes of the event.””
I think the “estimate” step is where we lose the science.
Trying ==> Yes, “ estimate anthropogenic climate influence” is something that they cannot and do not do. Even in Hoerling et al. , which was a serious attempt, they use the absolutely nut-crackery idea that if they run a climate model [some number] of times, taking out the lines of codes that require the model to get X degrees hotter with Y additional ppm of atmospheric CO2, and then average the chaotic output of those model runs — the average will somehow magically be what the climate would have been without human influence. They compare that illegitimate idea with some idealized version of actual climate (which an not predict small scale events) …..
Impossible.
Gavin said the average of the model runs gave the “correct” answer, although I can’t find the link anymore.
It has been a very long time since I read Rudyard Kipling’s Just So stories, but they were definitely his version of Tall Tales, where neither the author or the readers take them seriously.
Tom ==> Read today’s biology’s explanation of the giraffe’s long neck….
It’s a brilliant book, with great stories. My father read it to me, I read it to my son, my children will read it to their children.
Nice post, KH. Just so stories are all the alarmists have left after 4 decades of failed predictions.
Rud ==> They have to tell stories, based on little nuggets of trivial fact, in order to make Climate Change responsible for Bad Weather — which never happened before 1890 (some versions) or 1980 (IPCC AR6 uses both, almost interchangeably).
When it comes to “climate attribution™”..
It just ain’t so !!
As I am fond of asking . . . If Man Made Climate Change is causing all the bad weather what is the cause of the clement weather we get?
Observe the question – What is bad weather? I could get 100 replies to that question, with 100 different definitions.
The thing is ‘bad weather’ is utterly subjective. Perhaps its horribly windy for some folks but it is great conditions for the participants in the sailing regatta that afternoon?
The story, the narrative woven directly linking burning of oil, coal and gas to ‘extreme’, ‘severe’, or whatever alarming descriptor you want to use is irrational.
Observe also, the word ‘event’ is now ubiquitous with weather. We don’t have just rain anymore we have a rain ‘event’. Or a ‘ deadly weather system’.
Its correlation, causation and catastrophe, that’s what underpins the fictional story of climate apocalypse.
“The next step is to estimate anthropogenic climate influence on the causes linked to the event“. That’s the easy step. The models have nothing in them that can actually do anything, other than man-made GHGs. Bingo! Every single event is necessarily attributed to man-made GHGs.
The models ignore the Sun which has had its highest output over the last 100 years of any 100 years over the past 400 years.
The model ignore the clouds which reflects around 30 percent of the Sun’s energy back into space and have been reduced due to pollution control letting more solar energy warm the Earth
And, the model ignore to ocean currents which can store up solar output for 100 years or more releasing it a a later time.
“Just so..” Very good, I had not thought of that but have seen similar wording, including in scientific papers, an implied “You know..” sort of phrase. You know how some people use that repetitiously in conversation, sloppy use especially in serious writing or speaking. You know, just so about climate change you don’t know?
hd ==> Once you know they are using Just so stories, they jump right out at you from the news reports like Jack-in-the-Boxes.
That’s propaganda for you. Wash, rinse, repeat ad nauseam.
mleskovar ==> Are they really still using Road Runner email accounts out there?
Yes.
I’ll bet WileECoyote was taken
Every time the subject of attribution comes up I remind people it was a Obama era propaganda strategy. It was shortly after the idea was proposed that all the world weather attribution group type organisations started cropping up.
https://freebeacon.com/politics/hacked-memo-reveals-steyers-wh-climate-policy-influence/
MrGrim ==> Ah, true that. It would have been a conspiracy if it hadn’t been done quite so openly — they openly decided to create a pseudo-science called “Rapid Weather Attribution” —
It isn’t just weather. We ‘could’ lose spacecraft in the future because of climate change! I nominate the following as an example of how the Media attempts to blame almost everything negative on climate change and tries to scare the public with inconsequential results:
Length of days on Earth is increasing at ‘unprecedented’ rate (msn.com)
This one runs a close second:
https://scitechdaily.com/historic-loss-rising-seas-completely-eradicated-a-u-s-species-for-the-first-time/
Clyde ==> the cactus — Not extinct, extirpated. Just not found there anymore. And, not completely, the completely part was biologists taking the last bits to grow elsewhere.
Essay from Middleton coming soon on the longer days.
A typical rationalization is the claim that modeling showed “X” times greater probability of the event(s) happening despite no direct link.
Clyde ==> And vice versa, a lot of “has been linked to….” thrown in — nearly all bad things weather have been “linked to…” some climate change meme.
To what do they “attribute” end of the Little Ice Age or, even, The Big Ice Age, let alone the beginnings of either?
Why don’t they just admit “There’s a lot we don’t know.” rather than assume they do know…now?
Actually, no. A warmer atmosphere has the potential to hold more moisture. However, if there is no water available, such as downwind of a desert, or the leeward side of a mountain range after the orographic uplift has depleted the water content, then the air will contain far less moisture than it is capable of holding. There has to be a source of moisture for the atmosphere to reach the potential.
Clyde ==> Yes, of course, that is the truer fact — but usually like this (from the NY Times): “warmer air can hold more water vapor, which it eventually releases as precipitation”.
That sneaky little “can”…..
And they omit evaporation, meaning it never turns to rain..
Storyline attribution: CO2 traps heat.
Definition of heat is the movement (flow) of thermal energy from a high temperature to a lower temperature.
By definition, if it is trapped, it is not flowing and therefore not heat.
Storyline attribution: Blankets trap heat and that is what keeps you warm.
Blankets are not perfect insulators, therefore nothing is trapped.
If blankets trapped heat, why put on a second blanket?
If a covering traps heat, then a simple linen sheet would do just fine.
Blankets change the thermal resistance between the energy source (human body metabolism) and the external environment. The internal temperature rises until equilibrium is reached.
(T1-T0)/ RT (RT is thermal resistance)
If the heat (aka thermal energy) was trapped, a person would literally cook under a blanket. Without thermal energy egress the temperature would keep rising.
It is quite understandable that trapping was the explanation by a parent to a child long before the nature of thermodynamics was even suspected. That folk lore continues to day. It is easier to tell someone it is trapping than to do a discourse on thermodynamics and physics.
Storyline attribution: IR is heat radiation.
IR is electromagnetic radiation.
Heat radiation is thermal energy, that like EM energy, is affected by 1/r^2.
Back in the 1800s before the physics was understood, the used “sensible heat” for temperature and thermal energy and “heat radiation” for IR because they had not yet discovered the physics.
Sir William Herschel in 1800 demonstrated that different bands of visible light had different energies. He also stumbled on the existence of IR. He called it Invisible Light.
John Ritter in 1801 discovered UV. Ritter called UV and IR Chemical Rays.
Eunice Foote in 1856 demonstrated that (EM) energy from light was not the same as thermal energy (in air).
Her experiments as later John Tyndall in 1859 did not demonstrate the greenhouse effect but rather demonstrated the specific heat of various gasses in a fixed volume (Cv). Foote used sun and shade for comparative purposes. Tyndall used steam (100C) and a thermoelectric pile. IR really does not have absorption for 100C black body emissions.
Sparta ==> A lot of “loose language” being tossed about, eh? Certainly so, just so….
Several good pieces here at WUWT about heat, temperature and their differences from “heat energy” .
If it were all easy, we could go back to playing golf.
He who controls the language controls the ideas. K. Marx
Yes. And the words being hijacked are redefined continuously to conform to the narrative.
Without language precision, how can we communicate?
My message to all of WUWT and all climate pragmatics (who by definition are also skeptics) is to STOP using IPCC language. Use the language of science in its fullest precision and accurate definitions.
*** End of rant ***
I have never seen a “blanket” that actively COOLS the surface when it gets a bit warm.
Excellent point.
“Just So Stories” the book for children, is attributed to Rudyard Kipling, 1902. It is yet another example of a shift in cultural and social structures that are being shown day by day in new literature that touches on climate change.
In those olden days, it was common for one or several folk to rise to dominance in a field, similar to say golfers of today narrowing down to a few people like Tiger Woods at the pinnacle. These are opinion makers. They have special skills that the public studies and respects.
In literature of the 1800-1900 transition, Kipling had special skills and was perhaps the Tiger Woods of the era. With literary works of today, we do not seem to have this structure of people with skills becoming champions.
Modern devices like DEI are created to destroy that concept of leadership through excellence and special skills. Not everyone can become good at golf because natural variation exists in bone and muscle.
The assault on literary excellence seems designed to make a path for all people to write what they wish, irrespective of quality. It follows that children are faced with education by a motley mob of current authors, not by past skilled authors. This is a death spiral that should be resisted. Geoff S
Geoff ==> Now, my wife is the family expert on written literature (English Lit, Phi Beta Kappa, from one of the Seven Sisters). She is the one who tells me “need a comma between two verys”…as in “very, very bad”.
There are still few identifiable GREAT writers, even in our day. John Le Carre (I just finished his latest, and the next day started at at page one again). Larry McMurtry. James Lee Burke. James Clavell. James A. Michener.
And a million and one decent writers worth visiting. Not enough time for even just the truly good-enough ones.
Kipling, of course, is a must-read for all young men. He was required when I studied intelligence work (spy-craft) back in the day.
Kip,
But it seems wider than just literature. Where are the people today who can compose the equivalent of a Beethoven symphony? The painted art of a van Gogh? Maybe I am being harsh, maybe it takes some posthumous decades for the real qualities of the best to shine through and add to the historic record of the best.
Nice article, thank you to the Hansens, look forward to more. Mrs Hansen, my apologies for dropping verbs,
Geoff ==> I think that there are several factors that lead to the effect you are describing.
1) There are a LOT MORE PEOPLE now than then. This is simple dilution. There still maybe several hundred great writers, but they are mixed in with a million other writers and across a dozen major languages or so. Far harder to rise to the surface of public attention.
2) With the ‘Net and other worldwide communications, mediocre people and writing and art are pushed — ARE POPULAR — are FADS — attracting the attention of 7 billion mediocre minds….drowning out the truly great ones.
I am sounding elitist here?
Sounds like a good definition of the weather, in which case why do they need to come up with a scary label like “climatic impact-driver”? Oh, yeah. nevermind…
I also thought that there was a good Goldilocks and the Three Bears analogy in there somewhere, but couldn’t put it together. Maybe someone with a good sense of humor could come up with one.
Phil ==> The IPCC authors are, in the end, just folks like us, albeit with a required-or-you’re-fired bias. They have to admit that some places and societies would benefit from a bit of warming or a bit more rain.
The mere fact they use the words “ocean acidity” is enough to make me cringe..
Can someone please explain to them what acidity means!! They could have just used Ph but i guess ‘acidity’ sounds badder (a Bidenism)..less alkaline is kinda ‘meh’. I understand.
Use “acid” in the word and it sounds so much worse than “less caustic”.
As there is no actual evidence that enhanced atmospheric CO2 causes any change in ocean pH…
… either makes sense.
There is evidence that changes in ocean CO2 concentration has a minor effect, altering the pH from something like 8.5 (basic) to 8.4 (basic) but the list of stuff being put into the ocean that could cause a slight shift is pH is very long and includes the megatons of trash and debris we dump.
Whenever there has been an extreme weather event and my wife and i are watching TV together i irritate her by saying: “wait for it”… and most of the time the end of the report says: ‘scientists say that these events will be more likely because of climate change’. I should make a bet.
Didn’t someone here expose an organisation which had links to most of the mainstream media outlets and “trained” their “climate journalists” how to crowbar “AGW” or “climate change” into practically any story about anything? Their influence could be confirmed by the same words in the same order appearing in all the media organs at the same time. I believe the BBC subscribed to this outfit. Most of these journalists have net zero science qualifications.
cartoss ==> “Didn’t someone here expose an organisation” — Yes, me plus others. Covering Climate Now (CCNow), out of Columbia University (NY) and Inside Climate News are two of the biggest and most active. Your The Guardian is a founding member of CCNow.
They both supply “suggestions” of wording, ready-to-use stories, and “talking points”. Promote “every story a climate story”.
cartoss ==> use WUWT search for Climate News Cabal.
Thanks Kip, will do.
The Elephant’s Child in the picture is saying “Led go. You are hurtig be” as his trunk is pulled by the crocodile. Alarmism hurts all of us.
Lion Heart ==> Yes, indeed, it does. as do all the false stories, all the little Just So stories in biology class, history class, sociology, “the xxx studies classes”. Believing false things to be true damages the mind and the spirit.
Thank You Kip. I’m a member of the Kipling Society and once sat on the trail of Zam Zammah.
Kip, on the recent polar bear-sea ice offering by Susan Crawford, who seems to have to do battle on this front alone, a question was asked in comments: Don’t polar bears eat other stuff but seals? All other bears do! The answer is , yes they eat fish, occasional oldv walruses, reindeer, mice birds eggs, they catch a young beluga or other small whales or larger dead carcasses, garbage dumps. The propagandists know it but dont mention it because they lose a lot of alarm if they can’t restrict their diet to obe thing.
Bingo. As I’ve had occasion to mention before, a common saying where I live is “A bear’ll eat anything but a rock.” It’s not far off.
Gary ==. Dr. Crockford is the expert I depend on on all things Polar Bear. I understand that PBs get a large percentage of their annual calories from eating seals (mostly pups) born on the sea ice in the Spring. Of course, if they can catch an adult they do, and any other thing living in the sea that comes up to breathe at air holes in the ice. They will, of course, eat anything that might have food value…always, every time; unless there is something easier or with higher food value at hand.
Nice Kip.
Thanks Bob.
Attribution.
I remember reading stories of long lived people (Over 110 years old) being asked to what they attributed their long life.
One old guy said it was because he smoked a cigar everyday.
He was probably wrong, but, at least he didn’t cause a hurricane everyday.