Al Gore says that unprecedented extreme weather is the “new normal.”
“24 Hours of Reality will focus the world’s attention on the full truth, scope, scale and impact of the climate crisis. To remove the doubt. Reveal the deniers. And catalyze urgency around an issue that affects every one of us.”
It has been well over 1000 days since the most extreme form of weather hit the US, a hurricane. It has been almost twenty years since a category five hurricane hit the US.
Here is what denier James Hansen said :
What’s happening to our climate? Was the heat wave and drought in the Eastern United States in 1999 a sign of global warming?
Empirical evidence does not lend much support to the notion that climate is headed precipitately toward more extreme heat and drought. The drought of 1999 covered a smaller area than the 1988 drought, when the Mississippi almost dried up. And 1988 was a temporary inconvenience as compared with repeated droughts during the 1930s “Dust Bowl” that caused an exodus from the prairies, as chronicled in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath.
The U.S. land area is, what, 2% of the global area? Why is that small amount expected to be a stand-in for the entire planet? If you want to make an argument, at least use global statistics.
Well it isn’t as big as Moscow was last summer. Certainly no where near as big as Brisbane either.
So then you don’t have any global statistics?
Moscow or Brisbane or any particular city isn’t a stand-in for the planet either. AGW is about long-term trends…. You know that. I realize your blog is about manufacturing doubt by any means necessary, but even you must feel sheepish about putting forth assertions you know aren’t what the science says.
I’m sure that Big Al will focus on global statistics rather than a tornado in Joplin.
David you know what they about opinions.. do not be one.
If you want to discuss anything do it or buzz off.
If it AGW is about global stuff, then Arctic is local too and when you see AGW proponents talking about glacier melt, rap their knuckles (which should be close to their toes) about this local/global climate/weather distinction.
Folks have all sorts of different interpretations of”global,” don’t they. When there is a South Great Plains drought, it’s “global warming” and snow in the Pyrenees at the same time means nothin’.
You know as well as I do David that “global” means “global” and if you don’t see something that is supposed to be happening “globally” not happening “globally” it ain’t “global” anything at all
You’re channeling the jester-jousting adjuster’s comments a few years ago to justify why the NASA GISS US temperature record FUBAR ‘didn’t matter.’
Let’s play on.
The Arctic is, what, 3% of the global area? The western Antarctic peninsula is, what, <0.2% of the global area? A couple of ice cores in Greenland and the Antarctic are, what, 0.000001% of the global area? A few stands of Bristlecone pines in western US are, what, 0.0000001% of the global area? A single tree on the Yamal peninsula is, what, 0.00000000001% of the global area?
On the other hand, two points in an East Coast marsh can tell us everything we need to know about accelerating sea level rise.
And the accelerating rate of species extinction and ocean acidification
David you should leave a comment at Mother Jones as Julia Witty is pretending that short term weather over less than 2% of the surface area of the Earth is proof of new weather extremes. lol She quite the ninny.
http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/07/new-weather-extremes
David
You seem to be forgetting that it was a certain James Hansen who said “What’s happening to our climate? Was the heat wave and drought in the Eastern United States in 1999 a sign of global warming?”
In the meantime maybe you could provide statistics to back up what Gore talks about when he says :-
“Each hour people living with the reality of climate change will connect the dots between recent extreme weather events — including floods, droughts and storms — and the manmade pollution that is changing our climate,”
You are so funny David!
Remember the brouhaha in 2005.Where many alarmists crowed this is evidence for global warming.Where a number of science papers were published by the likes of Kerry Emmanuel,and other AGW believers.Pushing the idea that we would see more hurricanes and that they would be bigger and windier and so on.
Have you forgotten that already?
Here is a link you should look into.Where it conclusively shows the DECLINE of tropical storm activity around the world.
EXCERPT:
New Paper: Maue (2011) Recent historically low global tropical cyclone activity:
During the past 6-years since Hurricane Katrina, global tropical cyclone frequency and energy have decreased dramatically, and are currently at near-historical record lows. According to a new peer-reviewed research paper accepted to be published, only 69 tropical storms were observed globally during 2010, the fewest in almost 40-years of reliable records.
Furthermore, when each storm’s intensity and duration were taken into account, the total global tropical cyclone accumulated energy (ACE) was found to have fallen by half to the lowest level since 1977.
http://coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/
What exactly did Emanuel say? Or anyone else?
“My results suggest that future warming may lead to an upward trend in [hurricanes’] destructive potential, and–taking into account an increasing coastal population–a substantial increase in hurricane-related losses in the 21st century,” reports Kerry Emanuel in a paper appearing in the July 31 online edition of the journal Nature.”
– Jul 31 2005
@ Or anyone else?
David, here is some history on the 2005 hurricane misinformation put out by Kevin Trenberth that he tried to sell as expert consensus information.
“Shortly after Dr. Trenberth requested that I draft the Atlantic hurricane
section for the AR4’s Observations chapter, Dr. Trenberth participated in a
press conference organized by scientists at Harvard on the topic “Experts to
warn global warming likely to continue spurring more outbreaks of intense
hurricane activity” along with other media interviews on the topic. The
result of this media interaction was widespread coverage that directly
connected the very busy 2004 Atlantic hurricane season as being caused by
anthropogenic greenhouse gas warming occurring today. Listening to and
reading transcripts of this press conference and media interviews, it is
apparent that Dr. Trenberth was being accurately quoted and summarized in
such statements and was not being misrepresented in the media. These media
sessions have potential to result in a widespread perception that global
warming has made recent hurricane activity much more severe.
I found it a bit perplexing that the participants in the Harvard press
conference had come to the conclusion that global warming was impacting
hurricane activity today. To my knowledge, none of the participants in that
press conference had performed any research on hurricane variability, nor
were they reporting on any new work in the field. All previous and current
research in the area of hurricane variability has shown no reliable,
long-term trend up in the frequency or intensity of tropical cyclones,
either in the Atlantic or any other basin. The IPCC assessments in 1995 and
2001 also concluded that there was no global warming signal found in the
hurricane record.”
– Chris Landsea
17 January 2005
http://www.climatechangefacts.info/ClimateChangeDocuments/LandseaResignationLetterFromIPCC.htm
From IPCC AR4 :-
It is likely (>66%) that we will see increases in hurricane intensity during the 21st century