Climate-change skeptics will dismiss this summer’s North American weather as just that – weather. They’ll argue it says nothing about longer-term climate trends. It’s true that the U.S. droughts of the 1950s and 1930s were worse than the current one, at least so far. But even without getting into the causes of this unusually hot and dry summer, data clearly show that the frequency of extreme weather is soaring around the world. For example, in the 1950s, summertime heat events that scientists classify as abnormally severe – technically, those that are at least three standard deviations from the average temperature and that experts call “three-sigma events” – affected less than 1 per cent of Earth’s land area. Now, in any given summer, three-sigma events affect about 10 per cent of our land area.
Data shows nothing of the kind. Heatwaves were much worse during the 1930s, and it wasn’t just the US
11 Aug 1930 – 130 IN THE SHADE! HEAT-WAVE IN MESOPOTAMIA PEOPL…
27 May 1935 – 122 IN THE SHADE. Madras Suffers. Deaths From He…
02 Jul 1935 – HEAT-WAVE IN FRANCE. LONDON, July 1.
23 Jan 1939 – SNAKES STARVE TO DEATH. Heal Dries Up Frog Ponds…
Someone should check and see if there was cold Pacific water in the 1930’s. I feel fairly confident that is what is driving the current hot pattern and Cornbelt drought over the US.
130°F in 1930 in Basra is hot. It’s going to be -105°F tonight in Vostok Antarctica. That’s cold.
Imagine that we invaded Iraq in 1930 instead with it 130° every day. Our soldiers with all that gear would have been dropping like flies. Sadam would still be with us, and he wouldn’t have even had to use any Scuds.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGPqV_Fwo4Q
She’s a brilliant speaker.
Thx for the vid. She’s one of the few journalists today worthy of the title. She scrupulously avoids commenting on science issues where she has no expertise, but focusses intensely on the political shenannigans, where she is an expert.
I read her blog posts religiously, but wondered how she was as a speaker. I am pleasantly unsurprised to see she’s as good live as she is in print.
It is just weather. Whenever there is a deep freeze they brush it off as weather, and now they’re bitching about skeptics. No data shows that extreme events are getting worse. None. Alarmists are so blissfully ignorant of history, that they don’t even bother to fact check. Clearly, they don’t know that Saskatchewan and great parts of Canada were affected by the drought – and that’s more than 1%. China, India, Russia, and other parts of the world suffered from extreme heat. That’s more than 1%. God, I just wish they would stop already.
Also, “data shows that extreme weather events are soaring around the world” – Did they even show data? No evidence shows that the weather is getting worse, but rather, the opposite. In Canada, we have the second highest frequency of tornadoes, and few have appeared. We have gotten little thunderstorms. America hasn’t gotten any “big” tornadoes. They’re making up stuff.
“Climate-change skeptics will dismiss this summer’s North American weather as just that – weather.”
TGAM: you mean like how alarmists also dismiss cold snaps as just “weather”?
These guys set themselves up for ridicule; it would be hysterical if it wasn’t so sad.
Steven,
I am interested to hear your justification for the claim that “Data shows nothing of the kind”.
You first of all seem to be trying to compare 2012 to the 1930s, Hmmmm, isn’t the 1930s ten times as long?
Anyway, if you can show that there were 10 times as many 3-sigma events during the 1930s as in 2012….
You might like to start by trying to find out what a 3-sigma event is… Your 3 press cuttings above would seem to suggest that you are a moron.
I`m rapidly losing any remnant of respect that I might have had for you.
“Data clearly show that the frequency of extreme weather is soaring around the world.”
I’m sick of the lay press making unsubstantiated statements like this.
Tornado activity year-to-date is around the 25th percentile after a strong start (sorry, forgot the link).
There is currently no tropical cyclone activity despite the prediction of a busier than avg hurricane season due to the “unprecedented” record warmth: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
Stats to date for the season show we’re below avg: http://policlimate.com/tropical/
http://policlimate.com/tropical/global_ace_month.png
But the season is still young so who knows what will happen.
Yet it has been 4 years since a hurricane strike on the U.S. and 7 years since a major hurricane strike on the U.S. – and that is “unprecedented.”
Yo Steven , jak brings no facts or data with his argument , he just makes ignorant remarks with nothing to back up his claims . Why didn’t jak just pick a year out of the 1930s and compare it to 2012 ? Like 1932 for instance ? No , it would be too much of a brain strain for him to fact check. So don’t let him get to you ” not that he has enough brains to do that ” and keep on truckin . He likes to spout about sigma events so someone must have patiently explained what they are to him . I wonder how many times they explained before it took? By the way I offered 1932 to jak because it wasn’t the hottest year , you know a little cherry picking. Speaking of cherry picking my late cherry crop came in very good.
Jak, here is some one year stats with just a little research….
1936 HIGHEST state temperature ever recorded in Nebraska 118 Jul. 24, New Jersey 110 Jul. 10, North Dakota 121 Jul. 6, Oklahoma 120 Jun. 27, Pennsylvania 111 Jul. 10, South Dakota 120 Jul. 5, Virginia 112 Jul. 10, Wisconsin 114 Jul. 13, Arkansas 120 Aug. 10, 1936, Indiana 116 Jul. 14, ever recorded Kansas 121 Jul. 24, Louisiana 114 Aug. 10, Maryland 109 Jul. 10
1936 TORNADO outbreak April 5-6 Mississippi and Georgia 436 dead
1930 to 1936 20 Twenty state record all time HIGHEST in 6 year period plus 7 were tied ONLY in the same 6 year period. 9 record Lowest in same period. Contrast that to 5 highs set in 1990 – 2000 all 5 in 1994. And 5 lows in the same period ten year period.
Six of Canada’s highest ever records were set in the same period.
1936 Bay of Bengal Myanmar May 1st cyclone 72,000 homes lost 360 dead
1936 Drought related famine in China, five million dead. (
NOAA’S TOP GLOBAL WEATHER, WATER AND CLIMATE EVENTS OF THE 20 TH CENTURY)
1936 July 11th St. Albans, Manitoba 2nd highest temp ever in Canada 44.4 C
1936 Northeast Flood – Spring 1936
Rain concurrent with snowmelt set the stage for this flood. It affected the entire state of New Hampshire.[17] … In all, damage totaled US$113 million (1936 dollars), and 24 people were killed.