No, it has nothing to do with “climate change.”
To think that it does is akin to, in the president’s words, being part of the Flat Earth Society. And unlike when the president said it, when I say it, it’s true.
36 thoughts on “Extreme Weather”
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On a whim, I decided to travel to the Flat Earth Society’s page linked in the Salon article, and then on to their Wiki. To say that I’m flabbergasted is one of the great understatements of this century.
To wit, “Q. Isn’t the burden of proof on you to prove the earth is flat?
A. No. You’re the one claiming that NASA can send men to the moon, robots to mars, and space ships into the solar system. We’re not claiming those things.” and ending with “The burden of proof is always on the claimant and never on the skeptic. The burden of proof is on you.”
The ignorance displayed in that line of thought is just mind-boggling. “We’re not claiming that the earth is flat, YOU are claiming that the earth is ROUND, so YOU have to prove it!”
Yikes… I need to visit the NASA APOD archives to renew my faith in humanity and reality (and to remind myself that we ARE in space)…
You do understand it’s satire, right?
U.N. WMO: “it is not yet possible to attribute individual extremes to climate change,”
(Emphasis mine)
Watts: “The WMO now joins Nature magazine and IPCC SREX in saying extreme weather can’t yet be reliably linked to climate change.”
As has been pointed out millions of times, while individual extreme weather events can’t be attributed to AGW, there is evidence that there is a trend of increasing numbers and severity of such events (I’m surprised Watts doesn’t understand the difference /sarc).
If chaos theory is applicable then people do influence the weather, but there’s no way to predict in what direction.
But it’s pretty easy to show that butterflies don’t have quite as much influence as that huge nuclear heat engine that churns our atmosphere.
“But it’s pretty easy to show that butterflies don’t have quite as much influence as that huge nuclear heat engine that churns our atmosphere.”
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This is true; that huge fusion reactor clearly *IS* churning our atmosphere. It’s also a very dirty reactor that emits a lot of radiation. It’s certainly not “green”.
I think the answer is clear; it needs to be shut down, or at least taxed. For the children.
there is evidence that there is a trend of increasing numbers and severity of such events
Citations please.
Note that “By dollar value in year XX” has the problem that “We’re richer now.”
And the various sensor improvements that detect F0/F1 tornadoes and non-landfalling cyclone/hurricanes.
Citations please.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/07/30/1205276109.abstract
we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small.
I can state, with a higher degree of confidence, that the chance these researchers have no financial stake and are unbiased is exceedingly small.
Weather. Otherwise known as lots of variables, both dependent and independent operating chaotically (meaning there will always be extremes.)
What are they measuring? Temperature, when they should be measuring heat. Temperature tells you almost nothing and is easy to improperly measure. There’s a variation of over 20 degrees in temperature within a mile of my house every evening. 98 in Springerville is 78 in Eager. These towns share a main street. The climate dopes would have us believe a half degree over a century is significant. Temperature is not heat. Heat is the amount of energy in a system. Temperature is a crude way of measuring it. Or as my old physics professor used to say, “What is temperature? It what thermometers measure.” Which is to say, it’s not fundamental as other measurements are. It’s highly subjective with a strong measurement bias. Heat is transferred by the very operation of measuring temperature. So the heat capacity of two different object is enough to give you bad readings.
I look forward to your peer reviewed refutation of the paper.
You have entirely too much faith in “peer review.”
You have entirely too much faith in “peer review.”
Well, I think you have too much faith in “blog review”
To others here, if the Hansen paper is torn to pieces by responses published in peer reviewed journals , great! that’s the scientific process, if you find ’em, give us the link.
I have faith in my own knowledge of physics, mathematics and statistics, and computer modeling and its limitations.
Wait a minute, the title of that paper is “Perception of Climate Change”. I’m not interested in James Hansen’s “climate dice” perception, but in actual evidence. The paper merely notes that the Earth is somewhat warmer by their system of measurement in the last thirty years than in the previous thirty year period. And then it uses that to argue that a couple of hot weather events wouldn’t have happened in the absence of global scale warming. And they’re “confident” too.
I see no real evidence backing that claim since this “perception” paper is just an example of confirmation bias. Hot weather events, such as what they describe, would have happened anyway. Their probability isn’t “exceedingly small”.
They had to get five 9’s before tentatively announcing the discovery of the Higgs boson. None of the climate models are anywhere near today’s temperatures, dropping off the 5% confidence level… so how come the climate guys are so confident, without even a single 9?
It follows that we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small.
Good. Lord. Andrew, are you serious? That quote (from the abstract!) is so idiotic it’s hard to even parody. “Extreme anomalies are caused by X because without X they’d be… extremely anomalous.”
Just to try to stay ahead of the idiocy, what do you folks have planned for a response when the black line in the top two of these makes it clear your train has gone off the rails?
What I find interesting about those graphs, Curt is how the models deviate from reality the moment the training wheels are taken off and the model starts to make actual predictions rather than merely fit existing data. It’s a classic extrapolation problem.
WUWT “Extreme Weather” Reference Page.
Another person who hasn’t read the paper.
The Hansen paper isn’t peer-reviewed. Members like Hansen can publish in PNAS without going through the normal review process, not that real peer-review has been the norm in warmist circles for a decade or so (now it’s “pal review” where authors get to pick their friends as reviewers).
And it got shredded after it was published for invalid conclusions and faulty statistics. Here’s just one post on it from Cliff Mass.
Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels said of it:
Anthony Watts backs that up with 17 charts and graphs.
When a region has a 10 degree temperature anomaly (and those follow a bell curve except perhaps in the fantasy world of warmist pseudo-science), and the world has only warmed up half a degree, then 9.5 degrees of the anomaly are natural.
And of course, the problem with linking a severe heat wave to global warming is that the air in an arid heat wave contains the lowest amount of greenhouses gases found throughout the planet’s atmosphere. It’s the one spot where we know global warming can’t be happening because all the IR is radiating straight out into space, unhindered by traces of water vapor or clouds.
When a region has a 10 degree temperature anomaly (and those follow a bell curve except perhaps in the fantasy world of warmist pseudo-science), and the world has only warmed up half a degree, then 9.5 degrees of the anomaly are natural.
And of course, the problem with linking a severe heat wave to global warming is that the air in an arid heat wave contains the lowest amount of greenhouses gases found throughout the planet’s atmosphere. It’s the one spot where we know global warming can’t be happening because all the IR is radiating straight out into space, unhindered by traces of water vapor or clouds.
You don’t understand the basis for the increase in extreme weather events claim.
I don’t understand telekinesis or demonic possession, either, because they’re all disconnected from reality.
A) Global warming theory predicts a decrease in extreme weather events because most of the warming is supposed to occur in upper latitudes, reducing the temperature differences that drive the weather.
B) Hurricane intensity is not positively correlated with increased temperatures, and Chris Landsea, lead expert for the IPCC’s hurricane section, resigned in disgust when the IPCC ignored both theory and data to claim that hurricanes would get worse. The hurricane records since then have completely vindicated Landsea.
C) If extreme weather had a positive correlation to global temperatures, which show much larger yearly and decadal swings than the fractional degree warming attributed to global warming, then there would be numerous papers packed with graphs showing how warm years have much more extreme weather than cooler years. Such papers don’t exist because there is no such correlation.
D) Extreme weather was more extreme during the little ice age, during which hurricanes blew bark off trees and left entire Caribbean nations without a single standing structure, and battle fleets were destroyed in protected anchorages.
“if the Hansen paper is torn to pieces by responses published in peer reviewed journals , great! that’s the scientific process”
Actually no.
The scientific method is comparing ideas to reality with reproducible experiments. If you’re not doing that, you’re not doing science – even if you have academic credentials and are publishing in the technical newsletters of professional societies.
What you’re describing is a modern custom mostly connected to career advancement in the academy.
while individual extreme weather events can’t be attributed to AGW, there is evidence that there is a trend of increasing numbers and severity of such events
Not good evidence.
There is actually evidence regarding the severity and frequency of extreme events such as hurricanes and tornadoes. The trend has been downward.
Therefor, if indeed this is due to AGW, then ipso facto one of the goals of the AGW crowd is to increase the number and severity of said events.
🙂
The funny part is that the models generally predict more warming in the arctic than at the equator, which would likely lead to a reduction in extreme events as there’d be less energy available to power them. So the Global Climate Warming Changers should be celebrating a reduction in extreme events as PROOF of their models.
Except, if they did, Joe Sixpack would be saying ‘You’re predicting a decrease in hurricanes and tornadoes? And we’re supposed to be worried about that?’
“The burden of proof is always on the claimant and never on the skeptic.”
Only math has proofs and then only because the participants agree to the rules. Science isn’t about proof. It’s about disproof.
In high school we had two calculus teachers. The one that wasn’t mine once asked me to debate his entire class. I was to take the flat earth position and those 30 or so students were to prove it was round. They couldn’t do it. For about 40 minutes I was able to counter every argument they came up with. The main reason I could get away with it was because they couldn’t test my arguments during the debate so I just made assertions regarding light bending and heat rising and they couldn’t untangle it. I was positively ‘Chris and Jim’ ish.
Frankly I was amazed that a bunch of twelfth grade students couldn’t do a better job. I was even more amazed that I could always find a counter argument to anything they came up with. I’m pretty sure I’m not up to that kind of task today. Of all the things I’ve lost I miss my mind the most. Although a healthy body is a strong second.
To argue flat earthers you have to start with what they know that is true. Start with light and shadows and straight lines.
Good comment, but then, figuratively, who are the flat earthers? AGW proponents would say the denialists.
I’d say that a Flat Earther would have to be akin to someone who would think that thinks throwing virgins into a volcano would prevent the world from burning up.
Virgins in volcanoes are not trillions of dollars of future wealth and standard of living, but the principle isn’t that far off.
Or maybe flat earthers are the people who are always arguing against the better understanding of the Universe that science gives us, preferring to stick their head in the sand and rationalize why the scientific evidence must, just has to be, wrong.
Or m aybe Flat Earthers are the ones demanding everybody agree with their interpretation of complex and often contradictory evidence because THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Warmists, in other words.
A scientist, when his predictive models refuse to function the way he expected them to, goes back and checks his assumptions.
Scientists who find suspect data- even suspect data that confirms their hypothesis- throw it out and start fresh.
Warmists announce that even though the models don’t predict and the evidence is faked*, the world really is gonna end tomorrow- really it is!
AGW (in the macro sense, the “we’ve got to pass laws about this or we’re all gonna DIE!” sense) isn’t science by any accepted sense of the word. It’s as close to science as Scientology or Christian Science is.
In short: either a kook religion, or a confidence game. And it’s adherents are either just as flaky as the Hare Krishnas or just as crooked as Jim Jones’ followers… only it’s everyone else they want to drink the Kool-Aid.
*”Hide the decline”, et cetera ad nauseum
Denialists is such a prejudicial term. Shouldn’t we agree with what is true and deny what is not? I eat and burp and fart and my body generates heat. Obviously it’s part of the chaos that is weather. But even if I’m some robber baron putting tons of carbon into the atmosphere, how much influence do I have? The sun still seems to big the biggest factor in weather. Any other influence is so minor that individuals acting under economic forces will handle any issue without the need for any government forcing some solution on us all.
Government having such a good track record. /sarc
I think the entire concept of EXTREME weather is stooopud!
Since we’ve been keeping ‘official’ weather records, the Army started in 1878, the Weather Service in 1890, we have steadily broken record after record after record for drier, wetter, colder, HOTTER, snowier, less than snowier, blah, blah, blah. And it’s NOT that these events are firsts, they are just REPORTED firsts!
The weather has been changing for eon upon eon and it shall continue to do so long after we are all worm food.
And if the truth be known, WAY fewer people are subject to death by way of weather today, than at any time in history. Masses of people dying via starvation due to lack of water or from flooding, is hardly ever heard. People no longer die in floods at the rates they once did either. That’s just two examples, both offset by MODERN advances in engineering and chemical / agricultural advances.
But the idea that weather is ‘extreme’ now, would seem pretty stupid to a man who lived in the last Ice Age. And I understand that the ‘he’ in question wasn’t dumped overnight into the Ice Age. But compared to ‘his’ weather, we really are in a Goldilocks Weather Time Zone.
Most people don’t understand statistics, so they are helpless when it comes to comprehending whether or not “extreme weather” in the form of record breaking “extremes” is actually an unusual occurrence.
Consider N different heat waves across only the continental US, all more or less the same in bulk but different in minor details. Each heat wave will span a slightly different part of the country, peak at a slightly different time of day, peak at a slightly different location, etc. And that will result in different records in different cities for each heat wave. That’s the downside of recording things based on temperatures in individual point locations, especially in regards to extremes.
RG,
please STOP making sense, and re-join the collective, resistance is futile.
On the subject of peer review, there have been a lot of stories lately about the sorry state of affairs. People have tested the system by getting submitting plagiarized papers or papers with serious errors and have been published. The peers don’t seem to take reviewing very seriously. This is a cross discipline problem.