Real Climate Science

Record Tornado Season Caused by Climate Change?
Unfortunately, no one knows.

KEVIN BULLIS 05/25/2011

Tornadoes have killed more people this year than they have since 1953. This has some wondering whether higher global temperatures might be contributing. The answer: there isn’t a statistical correlation between the number of tornadoes and rising temperatures. Yet scientists predict that climate change will bring increasingly harsh weather, and that’s got some commentators wondering whether this year’s tornadoes, record floods, and droughts, might be connected.

http://www.technologyreview.com/

Actually we do know. There is an anti-correlation. As temperatures go up, violent tornadoes go down. Why would MIT try to claim otherwise?

http://www.drroyspencer.com/

For the past few months, most of the cold air in the Arctic has been centered over Greenland. This means that it is not over Siberia. Sometimes it is the other way around. This is the normal condition for the Arctic – the cold tends to pool on one side or the other.

Either way, alarmists have devised a mechanism to keep the madness alive. When Greenland is warmer, they warn of meltdown and sea level rise drowning the planet. When Siberia is warmer, they warn of massive bubbles of methane that will consume the planet.

Antarctica has almost completely dropped off the AGW radar. Greenland is turning into an AGW train wreck. Look for the attention to turn back to Siberia.

To those of us living in Boulder and surrounding communities, it may come as a surprise that many people remain unconvinced that the use of fossil fuels is the main contributor to current climate change

An example of what happens when such concentrations are too high can be seen by looking at our planetary neighbor, Venus: the Venusian atmosphere is more than 96 percent carbon dioxide (compared to 0.038 percent on Earth), and the temperature can reach 460 C, which is hotter than your oven can get. On the other hand, the planet Mars has a very thin atmosphere is quite cold at -63 degrees C (-81 F). Venus, Earth and Mars are often referred to as the “Goldilocks” planets. Venus is the porridge that is too hot, Mars is porridge that is too cold and Earth is just right.

http://www.boulderweekly.com/

That is what smoking the whacky weed will do for you. Mars has 95% CO2, and the partial pressure of CO2 in Mars atmosphere is about an order of magnitude larger than on Earth. Yet temperatures are extremely cold on Mars. How did the Boulder author miss that part?

The SSTs in the Gulf have been running perhaps 2 deg F above pre 1970 values. Warm waters also extend across the tropical Atlantic north of the equator in the region favored for hurricanes, and hence the recent NOAA forecast for an above average  hurricane season (although the La Nina is fading and will likely be over by August, so there may be more competition from the Pacific).

Of those 2 degrees F, 1 can be assigned to human influence.

– Kevin Trenberth NCAR Director

http://stlouis.cbslocal.com/

Sea surface temperatures around the US are running well below normal, with the most anomalously cold water in the Gulf of Mexico at 2C below normal.

http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif

Land temperatures in the US have also been below normal. One might think that the director of NCAR would check basic weather information before spreading misinformation to the press?

http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/MonthTDeptUS.png

The “world’s top rated climatologist” – James Hansen warns that continued use of coal will completely eliminate the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. Be afraid – be very afraid …..

http://www.wunderground.com/

http://www.wunderground.com/

There isn’t a rat’s ass worth of difference between climate alarmists and other doomsday cults any more.

LIKE most people, I’m an instinctive optimist. In any case, I see no margin in pessimism. If you concluded the world was irredeemably wicked, or destined for certain destruction, what would be left but to curl up and die? Since we can never be certain the end is nigh, much better to keep living and keep plugging away for a better world.

I confess, however, I’ve needed all my optimistic instincts to avoid despair over the terrible hash we’re making of the need to take effective action against global warming. We’re showing everything that’s unattractive about the Australian character.

We pride ourselves that Aussies are good in a crisis, but until the walls start falling in on us we couldn’t reach agreement to shut the door against the cold.

http://www.smh.com.au/

http://www.accuweather.com/us/ok/oklahoma-city/73101/watches-warnings.asp

Furthermore, denial is not the same as being skeptical, either, and Washington and Cook argue it is quite the opposite. Hence, the term “skeptics” for these deniers can be described as Orwellian “doublespeak”“newspeak”.

Denial is apparently caused by our lizard brainstem. What coincidence then, when talking about fossil fuels from plants from the era of huge long dead lizards (the fossil fuels are not made of the dinosaurs), that denying evidence for anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is linked to that lizard part of the brain.

http://www.realclimate.org/

U.S. SNOW COVER SHRINKING (YES, REALLY)
In a sign of global warming, satellite maps show a sharp decline in late winter and early spring snow cover since the 1980s.

Put another way, the snow cover is leaving earlier but is just as extensive in winter and fall. This, said Robinson, is just how models have suggested climate should be changing snow cover and matches other research that has found earlier warming and greening up of the land in spring.

“It all fits together,” said Robinson, who is scheduled to present his work on Jan. 20 at the meeting of the American Meteorological Society in Atlanta

http://news.discovery.com/

Sure they did, Larry.

2001 15.2.4.1.2.4. Ice Storms

Milder winter temperatures will decrease heavy snowstorms

http://observatory.ph/resources/IPCC/TAR/wg2/569.htm#1524123

IPCC Draft 1995

shrinking snow cover in winter

http://www.nytimes.com/

http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/05/president_obama_has_no_idea_wh.html