Hansen is hoping to choke off the energy supply for the US economy, has declared that the game is over for climate again – and that the west is going to enter yet another permanent droughtflood.
Game Over for the Climate
By JAMES HANSEN
Published: May 9, 2012That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough. Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding. Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley could no longer be irrigated. Food prices would rise to unprecedented levels.
If this sounds apocalyptic, it is. This is why we need to reduce emissions dramatically. President Obama has the power not only to deny tar sands oil additional access to Gulf Coast refining, which Canada desires in part for export markets, but also to encourage economic incentives to leave tar sands and other dirty fuels in the ground.
Precipitation has been increasing slightly in the southwest, and most of the last 30 years have been much wetter than the previous 30 years. Hansen has no idea what he is talking about.
SOUTHWEST REGION Climate Summary
I lived in New Mexico during the late 1950s, and it was much drier then.
h/t to Marc Morano
I am trying to recall years for cold/warm PDO phase… According to bastardi, we’re entering cold phase of PDO that would increase chances for dry weather (La Nina). We’ve had warm phase of PDO for the past 30 years… wasn’t 1950s during cold phase of PDO?
Aren’t semi-arid areas in kind of a permanent drought permanently? Isn’t Ft. Collins normal precip. at about 12″, below the mean of 13.56″ shown on the graph..
If a bad corn crop is definited as a reduction of 20% or more, we have had not had any since 1988. We had two such crops in the 1980’s and four in the 1930’s. So there has been absolutely no trend toward drought in the Midwest. Hansen is FOS!
Also the last few days there has been more drenching rain in the permanent Texas droughtflood region.
Funny the timing of this press release…May 9, 2012; it rained here in Phoenix yesterday afternoon and evening.
You should see my garden this year – so far the weather has been great for growing stuff. Nice, warm, not as dry as usual, and yesterday rain. Excellent, beautiful weather we are having here in Phoenix.
Hansen can make his dire predictions. I’ll stay put here in Arizona as long as it is nice, warm, and generally pleasant. I certainly have seen nothing Hansen alludes to here in the Southwest and I’ve been here going on twenty years.
I regard anything Hansen says as the fevered musings of a mad-man.
Spot on, gregole – the man has clearly become a fanatical nutcase and it’s time that funding authorities, medal donors and NASA recognised this.
MT
Oops! Sorry about typo (getting on a bit myself….)
Michael
“Forever Marilyn” dismantled
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/photo/2012-05/10/c_131579611_6.htm
Game Over
The Shroud Waver General weaves yet another apocalypse, and the fearful shepple cower under the blanket of imagined doom.
In days gone by such derange pitiful weirdos were ignored as they chanted their cry –
“The end is nigh! Repent! The end is nigh!”
Today they have the ear of presidents and kings.
Now I get it. It wasn’t ManBearPig after all, it was MeltDroughtFlood.
You pick one month from 1956 as evidence for your claim; “I lived in New Mexico during the late 1950s, and it was much drier then”. Seriously?
I have written endlessly about the drought of the 1950s in dozens of different articles. You are too busy listening to the echo in your own empty head,.
So you have picked one month from 1956 as your evidence.
Just because you don’t feel the need to support your posts with credible evidence, regardless of whether you think you have no need, don’t expect truly sceptical people to accept either your unqualified word on it or to trawl your sites trying to find something you should be supplying.
“The 1950s Drought
Fueled by post-war economic stability and technological advancement, the 1950s represented a time of growth and prosperity for many Americans. While much of the country celebrated a resurgence of well-being, many residents of the Great Plains and southwestern United States were suffering. During the 1950s, the Great Plains and the southwestern U.S. withstood a five-year drought, and in three of these years, drought conditions stretched coast to coast. The drought was first felt in the southwestern U.S. in 1950 and spread to Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska by 1953. By 1954, the drought encompassed a ten-state area reaching from the mid-west to the Great Plains, and southward into New Mexico. The area from the Texas panhandle to central and eastern Colorado, western Kansas and central Nebraska experienced severe drought conditions. The drought maintained a stronghold in the Great Plains, reaching a peak in 1956. The drought subsided in most areas with the spring rains of 1957.
The 1950s drought was characterized by both low rainfall amounts and excessively high temperatures. Texas rainfall dropped by 40% between 1949-1951 and by 1953, 75% of Texas recorded below normal rainfall amounts. Excessive temperatures heated up cities like Dallas where temperatures exceeded 100°F on 52 days in the summer of 1953. Kansas experienced severe drought conditions during much of the five-year period, and recorded a negative Palmer Drought Severity Index from 1952 until March 1957, reaching a record low in September of 1956.”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_history.html
Cheez and crackers, these alarmists are dumb.
Can I ask you a question jim: Do you accept the authority of NOAA on climate matters? Yes or No?
I suspect there will either be no answer or one that basically means only the bits that you can use to suit your ideological beliefs.
Your quote states makes Steve’s cherry pick even clearer, it states:
“The drought maintained a stronghold in the Great Plains, reaching a peak in 1956. The drought subsided in most areas with the spring rains of 1957.”
And he chose the last month of 1956 – funny that.
No I do not accept their authority on climate matters.
However they are the historical repository of record for US weather history and stats.
Your argument has changed.
You argued before that Steven’s one month was cherry picked and implied that it didn’t indicate a regional drought. Now you change your tune to some irrelevance about that month beig the last of the drought.
Was there a drought in 1950’s or not? That was the question that you could not answer except with disbelief . I am thinking there was.
Laz”You pick one month from 1956 as evidence for your claim; “I lived in New Mexico during the late 1950s, and it was much drier then”. Seriously?”
Historical records say YES, seriously. But you doubt it. This is a bias .
Apparently if you were not there it didn’t happen.