There are so many things wrong with article, it is difficult to know where to start. Drought is actually affecting an unusually small portion of the US right now, and it is localized in the Pacific Northwest. This has been the wettest year on record in the US.
Compare with October, 1934.
Then the author quotes the Arizona State Climatologist disputing everything she said about extreme weather and drought, but implies that she agrees with him.
Dr. Nancy Selover, the state climatologist for Arizona, said there is good science supporting the public’s belief in global warming.
That isn’t what she said at all. She said the exact opposite.
“we’re not necessarily seeing evidence of extreme events …. drought is not a good indicator of global warming.”
Droughts are becoming less severe and less frequent in the US
If they still made Americans read Steinbeck in high school, 70% of the population wouldn’t be so ignorant.
We skeptics do not dis-believe “Global Warming”. The Earth warms and cools under the influence of the Sun. It is HUMAN-CAUSED global warming that is worthy of dis-belief. In particular, CO2 is not an important GHG – and the human-caused increase in its atmospheric content is but ~4% of that supplied by Mother Nature – apparently in response to warming.
Department of Gruberisation fully funded by the United States of Alinsky has effectuated another Sprosity.
Convincing skeptics to reconsider?
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/un-poll-agw-dead-last.png?w=720&h=363
Um, no.
In case anyone is wondering about the apparent oddity of Connecticut being in bright red severe drought while the rest of the northeast is normal, that’s actually somewhat true. We had a very dry summer, and are indeed several inches down on normal. On the other hand another couple big storms like the remains of Patricia that passes through last week will get us right back to normal.
BTW, the drought hasn’t affected agriculture very much, with an absolute bumper crop of apples, and I believe that the drought helped keep pests down too.
Drought in WA State hitting hard at the same time glaciers melting…Rainier now:
http://www.nps.gov/webcams-mora/mountain.jpg?2015103132136
Drought? What Drought. I wish like heck it would quit raining! It has cost me a good $$$$ loss in gross revenue thru September and October and it is STILL raining. I could not even get my winter grass seed in.
The farmers down the street lost their crops because they could not harvest them.
Look for the orange belt in the middle of them South to disappear given the rain that we’ve had since October 24.
The whole Palmer Drought Index makes no sense to me. While 4 inches below “normal” precipitation in Southern California may be significant and indicate an “Extreme Drought” it certainly isn’t in a lot of places. Here in Southern Louisiana we’ve had well over a foot of rain over the last few weeks. Our average Jan-SEP is around 50 inches of rain. So no, if we had only 46″ of rain from Jan-SEP we would not be close to Extreme Drought conditions.
Maybe there’s some kind of unseen indexing going on in the Palmer Drought Index, but that’s not clear given the absolute inches by which the Index is presented.