Real Climate Science

For now, there simply isn’t enough data to say whether climate change makes severe thunderstorms and tornadoes more or less likely. But 2011 could prove to be the beginning of a trend.

“We can’t say much about one particular outbreak, but if this if this is still happening ten years in a row, we will definitely be wondering what is going on,” says Joshua Wurman, president of the Center for Severe Weather Research in Boulder, Colorado.

http://www.newscientist.com/

And if aliens abduct the entire population of Boulder tonight, we will definitely be wondering what is going on.

VARIABILITY AND TRENDS IN MOUNTAIN SNOWPACK
IN WESTERN NORTH AMERICA
Philip W. Mote 1,  Martyn Clark, and Alan F. Hamlet

5.  CONCLUSIONS
We have demonstrated that the widespread decline
in springtime SWE noted by Mote (2003) in the Northwest is broadly true in the West.  In parts of the southwest, large increases in winter precipitation have successfully offset the decreases driven by warming.  The Oregon Cascades experienced the largest losses in the region owing to a combination of high temperature sensitivity and declines in precipitation

http://www.sustainableoregon.com/Mote2004.pdf

Spring snowpack has declined in Oregon to 200% of normal.

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/snotelanom/basinswe.html

Before we leave bin Laden to his watery grave, I did want recall the few times when he spoke out on another issue dear to our hearts around here: climate change. Though bin Laden had been silent for some time—and now we may know why—in the years following 9/11 he would periodically issue video or audiotapes of his messages to the West and the world. And sometimes they went beyond simple threats of attacks, instead offering critiques of American behavior. So it was with climate change. In January 2010, in the wake of the failure of the Copenhagen summit, bin Laden added climate change—and specifically, American inaction on the issue—to his long list of grievances. From Al-Jazeera English:

In an audio tape obtained by Al Jazeera, bin Laden criticised George Bush, the former US president, for rejecting the Kyoto pact and condemned global corporations.

“This is a message to the whole world about those responsible for climate change and its repercussions – whether intentionally or unintentionally – and about the action we must take,” bin Laden said.

“Speaking about climate change is not a matter of intellectual luxury – the phenomenon is an actual fact.”

In the new recording, bin Laden says “all the industrial states” are to blame for climate change, “yet the majority of those states have signed the Kyoto Protocol and agreed to curb the emission of harmful gases.”

He continued: “However, George Bush junior, preceded by [the US] congress, dismissed the agreement to placate giant corporations. And they are themselves standing behind speculation, monopoly and soaring living costs.”

http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com

Typical Obama. The mission succeeded in spite of his best efforts to mess it up. Then he takes credit.

WikiLeaks: Osama bin Laden killed after tip-offs from Guantanamo
The mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, who was interrogated using “torture” techniques, gave the United States the breakthrough that resulted in the killing of Osama bin Laden.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), who was repeatedly subjected to methods including “waterboarding” and stress positions, provided the CIA with the name of bin Laden’s personal courier, according to US officials.

A second source – also an al-Qaeda “leader” held at Guantanamo Bay – then confirmed the courier’s identity, sparking an intense manhunt that resulted in the dramatic final raid.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/

—————————————————————————

Obama orders Guantanamo Bay closed, bans torture

January 22, 2009 11:47 AM

With a few strokes of a pen, President Obama this morning reversed linchpins of the Bush administration’s war on terror.

He signed executive orders to shut down the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention center within a year and to ban harsh interrogations — what critics say are tantamount to torture .

Obama signed the orders after meeting with 16 retired military officers, who he said pleaded with him to stand up for human rights and American values in combatting terrorism.

http://www.boston.com/

They warned us that snow cover was rapidly declining in the Cascades.

http://www.skimountaineer.com/MtnWebCams/Rainier-MtnWebCams.html?size=med

In fact, it may be that President Obama single-handedly came up with the technique in order to pull this off.  You see, the military wanted to go in there and bomb like they always do. They wanted to go in there and drop missiles and launch bombs, a number of totally destructive techniques here.  But President Obama, perhaps the only qualified member in the room to deal with this, insisted on the Special Forces.  No one else thought of that.  Not a single intelligence advisor, not a single national security advisor, not a single military advisor came up with the idea of using SEAL Team 6 or any of the Special Forces.

Our military wanted to go in there and just scorch the earth, leaving no evidence of anything after the mission.  But President Obama single-handedly understood what was at stake here.  He alone understood the need to get DNA to prove the death.  Obama alone understood the aftermath, alone understood that there would be doubting Thomases if the place was just obliterated and no evidence was to be found.  According to news reports, not one member of the military, not General Petraeus, nobody in the intel community, nobody had the slightest idea of going in there and using Special Forces.  It was President Obama, single-handedly and alone, who came up with the strategy that brought about the effective assassination of Osama Bin Laden.

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/

Romm is blaming the high tornado count the last two weeks on global warming. There are so many things wrong with his analysis, it is difficult to tell where to start.

• Global temperatures have been below the 30 year mean this year.
• Most of the increase in tornadoes is due to better detection of small tornadoes. It is well know that severe tornadoes (F3 and above)  have declined, and that “significant” tornadoes (F2 and above) have also declined.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/m12r5j32v4m05v04/fulltext.pdf

• It is also well understood that the tornadoes this year are the result of very cold water and air to the northwest, colliding with warm humid air in the southeast. Last spring was much warmer and had below normal tornadoes.

Similarly, Romm blames the flooding on the Mississippi on global warming, despite the fact that there is no trend in precipitation.

Is the problem that Romm is not very bright, or is he just wildly dishonest?