Events that have seemed relatively rare will become commonplace, said the latest report from the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, a joint effort of more than a dozen government agencies.
Thursday June 19, 2008, 8:18 pm
The article lost all credibility in the next to the last paragraph when it jumped on the computer climate model train. Up until then it just showed a misunderstanding of cause and effect.
Global Warming Myths and Facts
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/page.cfm?tagID=1011
How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic
http://gristmill.grist.org/skeptics
Here is our round-up of the 26 most common climate
denialist myths and misconceptions.
http://www.care2.com/news/member/537645068/411848
Anti-denaliest Resources
If you're looking for a chance to educate yourself on climate change, get started on greening your own life (with all the normal caveats that lifestyle changes are nowhere near enough) or have facts and figures at hand to win your next argument with a denialist, you've got some tricky choices ahead of you. After all, the web has never been more overrun with climate "resources" and "guides," and most of them are lame -- some are downright inaccurate or misleading. (quote from the author, not me )
Here is a quick survey of some interesting and useful links:
http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007016.html
Here are some Myths and their rebuttals. Detailed explainations can be found on the site:
Myth: The science of global warming is too uncertain to act on.
Fact: There is no debate among scientists about the basic facts of global warming.
Myth: Even if global warming is a problem, addressing it will hurt American industry and workers.
Fact: A well designed trading program will harness American ingenuity to decrease heat-trapping pollution cost-effectively, jumpstarting a new carbon economy.
Myth: Water vapor is the most important, abundant greenhouse gas. So if we’re going to control a greenhouse gas, why don’t we control it instead of carbon dioxide (CO2)?
Fact: Although water vapor traps more heat than CO2, because of the relationships among CO2, water vapor and climate, to fight global warming nations must focus on controlling CO2.
Myth: Global warming and extra CO2 will actually be beneficial — they reduce cold-related deaths and stimulate crop growth.
Fact: Any beneficial effects will be far outweighed by damage and disruption.
Myth: Global warming is just part of a natural cycle. The Arctic has warmed up in the past.
Fact: The global warming we are experiencing is not natural. People are causing it.
Thursday June 19, 2008, 8:56 pm
There are signs of Nature being way out of sync ALL OVER, ice melting, forests dissappearing, mercury in the air and food, etc.,etc.,etc.and yet almost everybody goes off to "work" everyday oblivious because the TV says everything is okay, well sort of. Or they are waiting for their Gov't to do something while they eat toxic food and talk on their toxic cellphone watching Starsearch or whatever that show is. WAKE UP !!!!!! I have been studying the situation for 15 months now, this gov't and other Gov'ts have barely done anything, except talk and finally admit there is a environmental problem. The only change that is going to help is if WE change OUR LIFESTYLES and spread the word, OUR GOV"T IS BROKEN< FACE IT NOW B4 ITS TOO LATE! RESERCH< THINK , take PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY of YOUR LIFE and for heavens sake don't let the fear they promote get you, its what they thrive on. Don't let them bounce you around like a pinball with their fear program, YOU ARE POWERFUL, they are scared of you finding out the truth!!!!!! Call your real Gov't Officials at the following:
1-Monsanto Corp>(GMO)314-694-1000)
2-ADM-217-424-5200(ask for Patricia)
3-Exxon-Mobil-# unknown,lol.
4-Pfizer-(Pre. ill.Drugs)-1-800-438-1985
5-Cargill(Rainforest,etc.)-1800-227-4455
6-Dupont("Chemicals")
Theres a sixpack that will really get you intoxicated, call them and tell them you are aware and what your THOUGHTS are on this SITUATION. THx Chris!!
Thursday June 19, 2008, 10:15 pm
"The article lost all credibility in the next to the last paragraph when it jumped on the computer climate model train. Up until then it just showed a misunderstanding of cause and effect."
What misunderstanding? You think you know more about the laws of physics and chemistry than the scientists who build their careers on such laws? What hubris! And to reject computer models just because you don't like the results they give is personal bias. What are those models ultimately based on? The known laws of chemistry and physics!
Thursday June 19, 2008, 10:38 pm
I rely on something far more reliable, common sense. Computer climate models can’t even accurately predict weather patterns that have already occurred and that is a well known FACT! Computer models are only as good as the data that is input into them and the parameters the programmer incorporated in determining which data has the greater impact on what will happen. Since they have not been able to design one that can predict climate patterns that have already occurred it proves they do not understand enough about climate to be making wild claims about climate change that may or may not happen.
Thursday June 19, 2008, 10:55 pm
Perhaps the short answer to Dale's question of Ralph might be: "No, I don't know more...I'm just honest"
Questions for the Three Amigos
. 1. Has global temperature warmed over the last few years?
2. Is today's global temperature unnaturally high?
3. Does CO2 output correlate with temperature change?
4. Does CO2 lead or lag temperature change?
5. Does the pattern of temperature change match theoretical predictions of greenhouse warming?
I'll give you a hint. All of the questions may be answered by a word beginning with N.
Friday June 20, 2008, 7:44 am
Judy/Ralph Please read my links and stop repeating the same "questions" over and over again - Judy and Ralph - your position is clear, whould you mind letting others express their opinions without being baggered?
Friday June 20, 2008, 9:18 am
"Computer climate models can’t even accurately predict weather patterns that have already occurred and that is a well known FACT!"
That's because climate is not the same as weather. Short-term weather patterns are indeed chaotic, making predictions of individual events beyond a few weeks impossible. But long term climate patterns are predictable because over a period of several decades, chaotic events disappear as they are smoothed out by averaging. Thus, even if a snowstorm hits Miami once or twice a decade (weather), the climate of that city is generally warmer than what would normally permit snow.
As for Judy's questions: 2, 3 and 5 can indeed be answered YES and 4 refers only to natural climate change during the past Ice Age and therefore is irrelevant to the present day situation, which involves our civilizations greenhouse gas output. And question 1 is merely cherry picking.
Friday June 20, 2008, 9:23 am
Ralph, if you are so sure the computer models are unreliable, disprove them by making your own computer models which can be shown to be more accurate than the one the climate scientists use. Then you will have a case. All you have now are baseless assertions, which have no relevance in science.
Friday June 20, 2008, 12:03 pm
Your constant mantra when you don't like the facts is to somehow manage to get Exxon tangled up in them.
Your position is bankrupt. It is actually more religious ...with Exxon playing the Devil to Gores "Savior" ,than it is scientific.
A fact is a fact is a fact.
And the fact is...there is NO DIRECT LINK between Carter and Exxon, so you you are pulling is "guilt by association" 2x removed.
By that token, both Gore and Maurice Strong9UN, Rio Summit) have not only been in business together bilking the taxpayer (see Molten Metals), they are profiting from the AGW scam by selling carbon credits from companies they own seperately.
Generation Investment (Gore) and the Chicago Climate Exchange (Strong)
Friday June 20, 2008, 1:31 pm
Do you drive a car? I do, specifically a dark blue 2002 four-door Saturn. I am aware of that car burning gasoline every time I drive it and thus emitting CO2, among other pollutants. And what my car does, so do millions of other vehicles around the world. It all adds up to MASSIVE amounts over time. And those millions of vehicles, along with thousands of fossil fuel burning power plants, are added to the CO2 emitted naturally by volcanoes and by all animals and other organisms, including myself. All the CO2 emitted by vehicles and power plants is what would NOT be added to the atmosphere if they didn't exist. And the relationship between CO2 amounts and global tamperatures, WHICH CARTER FAILED TO DISPROVE with the same cherry-picking Judy endorses, has been common knowledge among scientists since the 1900s.
That practical everyday knowledge of my own car means more to me than a bazillion charts. The charts only help us understand the problem, but dishonest cherry-pickers can always use minor variations in a chart to confuse and mislead people from accepting the big picture, which the chart also clearly shows.
"A fact is a fact is a fact." Yes, and a lie is a lie is lie as well. Bob Carter is a liar, regardless of if he is supported by Exxon.
Friday June 20, 2008, 1:47 pm
http://newmatilda.com/node/1585?ArticleID=1585&HomepageID=142
24 May 2006
Fair Weather Friends?
By Robyn Williams
Robyn Williams looks critically at objections to the theory of global warming
I like Bob Carter. Even in a kilt. He has that baritone warmth that men share when they assume they're united against the Philistines.
I first met Professor Carter in 1998 at James Cook University in Townsville where we recorded an interview outside the old staff club him in a kilt. I like that spot because it is in the open, under the tropical sky and interviews have to be short (under 10 minutes) because after that the mosquitoes bite like piranhas.
We talked about Bob's part in the deep-ocean drilling scheme carried out by ship, in various parts of the world. The cores produced are analysed chemically and offer time capsules going back centuries and histories of past climate change. He thought the project to be valuable. I agreed, for what that's worth, and the interview duly went to air.
Australia then withdrew from the project and Bob's involvement went on hold. There were two consequences: the first, apparently, was that Carter now had time on his hands; the second, I inferred, was that he was not at all pleased with whichever authorities had cut off the funds.
It is from about that time, four years ago, that many of us began to receive helpful items from Carter, clearly meant for publication, most knocking the orthodoxy, the bleak line on global warming. The first, a scripted talk, I duly put to air. Then a similar piece turned up in The Australian newspaper; then he was on Counterpoint, ABC Radio National, twice, all with the same position.
[IslandAd]
This was becoming not so much the availability of a helpful boffin, more pressing a line. His interpretation of the uncertainties went, shall we say, rather further than most weather researchers allowed. I decided to dig deeper and discovered that Professor Bob Carter, geologist from Townsville, was a vocal member of the Institute for Public Affairs (IPA). Fair enough. But the effect of this kind of debating is more like politics than science.
First, it presents the issue as one-side-or-the-other, for-or-against. Second, it accuses the other side of what it itself, a lobby group, is trying to do: push ideology.
I decided to put all this on the record and invited Bob Carter into the studio for a chat. I had already knocked back his latest encyclical on climate, connected to the G8 summit, on the dual excuse that I had no spare air time (true) and that I had already arranged a piece linked to G8 based on new, peer-reviewed research, published in a leading journal. Evidence.
We chatted at length, discussed the demise of Australia's involvement in the drilling scheme and then moved to his unequivocal opposition to worries about climate change. They amounted, essentially, to two concerns: the first, his claim that there is 'no theory of climate:' the second, that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its adherents are either naïve at best, or Green 'religionists' at worst.
When I quietly pointed out that I often go to labs like the renowned Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, where they first discovered the carbon dioxide increase 50 years ago and meet scores of renowned scientists who have made worrying findings on climate ranging from deep-ocean warming and plankton death to atmospheric analysis and bird counts, Bob was unimpressed.
Then he told me that the upper atmosphere is actually getting colder. I had heard this before. It was a weird paradox none of us could fathom. We parted amicably, as usual.
The following day he sent me an email. Would I cut the final remarks? Two papers in the journal Science had just exposed the 'cooling' story as false. Bob was too good a scientist to let a flagrantly misleading fact be broadcast. But I reckon he was too committed to his position to have any qualms about the rest of his unabashedly skeptical remarks.
That is what's so extraordinary about this 'debate.' Any reasonable person would say: 'This is a complex matter, which, if true, has devastating consequences and must be taken seriously.
So far, the evidence, on many fronts, is worrying. There is uncertainty elsewhere. On balance, I am 62 per cent convinced the scientific authorities are right and action should be taken.'
Choose your own percentage. It is likely, if you are sensible, to be in the mid-range. If you opt for either 100 per cent or zero, I'd think you're cockeyed. Or political in the extreme.
Let's take the four famous furphies of the climate nay-sayers. They are: the troposphere is cooling; it's all in the solar cycle; the glaciers are expanding; and it's a matter of water vapour, not CO2 and methane.
The troposphere is at the top of the surprisingly thin veneer of atmospheric gases covering the Earth. Its temperature has been measured by satellites over the years and in doing so, incorporated an adjustment for direct solar heating of the apparatus. As the instrument circles the planet, day and night, it is warmed up during the day. This must be distinguished from measurement of the air itself. It was this adjustment that the Science papers had shown was wrong. The troposphere is getting hotter.
What about the solar cycle? This is about 11 years in duration and its effect on warming rather than any human cause has been the line taken by Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas. I interviewed them both in their office at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and they insisted: 'The climate of the 20th century is neither unusual nor extreme.'
Chris Mooney also quotes this line in his magisterial book The Republican War on Science (Basic Books, 2005), in which he says that Soon feels free to dismiss great swathes of other scientists' findings 'based on tree rings, ice cores, corals and other sources.'
Mooney also notes that Soon and Baliunas received support from the George C Marshall Institute which is funded, in part, by Exxon Mobil and that their key rebuttal of the climate-change orthodoxy was published under dubious circumstances involving the resignation of a journal editor in protest.
And what about the sun? Well, on October 1, 2005, New Scientist quoted the work of Chris Turney from the University of Wollongong, whose research was published in The Journal of Quaternary Science. Headed 'Climate Doesn't Swing to the Rhythm of the Sun,' it reported that Turney's studies of peat bogs in Ireland show that 'peaks in solar activity do not coincide with peaks in warmer conditions.'
Which brings us to glaciers. The following stunning statement was made by botanist David Bellamy, writing to N ew Scientist on April 16, 2005: 'Many of the world's glaciers,' he announced, 'are not shrinking but in fact are growing 555 of the 625 glaciers under observation by the World Glacier Monitoring Service in Zurich, Switzerland, have been growing since 1980.'
George Monbiot, a friend of mine who lives in Oxford, couldn't believe his eyes. He therefore phoned the glacier monitors in Zurich and received the following reply. 'This is complete bullshit. Despite his [Bellamy's] scientific reputation, he makes all the mistakes that are possible.' How come?
Monbiot tracked the source of the snafu: a paper quoted by an anti-climate-change website (no such paper exists) plus an admitted ' typing error' by Bellamy ('555' instead of '55%'). Bellamy's reputation is now in tatters but the misleading factoid rides on.
Three down, one to go.
So, finally, to water vapour. There is no doubt that water is a greenhouse gas and that it exceeds carbon dioxide as a constituent of the atmosphere. There is also no doubt that the main advocate of this theory, Professor Richard Lindzen of MIT, is a respected scientist and member of the American National Academy of Sciences.
I interviewed Lindzen in Boston and was impressed by his assurance as well as his cheerful chain-smoking and delight in being contrary. He is known to dispute links between cigarettes and lung cancer.
But what is he really saying about IPCC and the near universal concern about climate? Does he dispute the stance taken by his own Academy in warning the world?
Mooney quotes Lindzen as saying he has no essential dispute with the Academy's line and is merely critical of the IPCC's summary for policy-makers. The Academy gave 'an okay summary of what's gone on in the field, read in total' conceded Lindzen. Water vapour is no doubt important in the equation but few use it to discount the entire mountain of evidence from other sources.
I am a science journalist and I report evidence as released in journals where truth is paramount. I may also seek opinion to place some of the findings in context, but it is my job to distinguish between the two and so try to avoid confusing the public.
When I read some commentators here and abroad I am overwhelmed by their sudden omniscience about scientific research and also their blithe confidence that they can master vast amounts of information normally outside their province.
So it was in The Australian when Christopher Pearson took on Tim Flannery and his book The Weather Makers (Text, 2005) :
One of the Radio National worldview's more disconcerting features is its enthralment to apocalyptic science. Sometimes, listening to Fran Kelly discussing the latest portents of global warming, I can almost hear the polar ice melt and rising waters lapping at the front doorstep. No hint of licensed skepticism, no inkling that this may be just one more millennial fantasy, is allowed to obtrude. This is not a radio show. It's a sacramental observance for true believers.
As for Flannery, 'he's more shaman than showman, a folk mystic and prophet for the New Age remnant.' And who is wheeled in as a counter authority? Why, my old friend Bob Carter.
It reminds me of the 'debates' on smoking in the 1950s and 1960s, or the flak we took in reporting on asbestos in the 1970s, or lead in petrol in the 1980s. Give 'both sides' was the instruction (asbestos doesn't kill? Lead is good for children?); and on TV we saw one versus the other, as if it were our old friend with two heads, 50/50.
Well, it isn't.
There are some predictable columnists who will rail as skeptics of climate change. There are some retired scientists, often geologists like Bob, who will front up in a trice, to run their familiar party pieces; and there are one or two, not many, researchers in the field with some doubts about detail, if not the whole picture.
There are no certainties in science. Most of us are as happy about the prospect of man-induced climate change as we are about the prospect of disembowelment. We would rather it disappeared like Y2K bugs. But nature is doing something out there, whether we like it or not. If it is drastic, we need to know.
Meanwhile, Dr Barrie Pittock of CSIRO Atmospheric Research in Victoria has just spent months analysing 65 major papers on climate, ranging from permafrost melting and global dimming to tropical cyclone incidence and ocean circulation. His conclusion? Scientists look like they have 'consciously or unconsciously downplayed ' the problem. My italics. Our worry.
Friday June 20, 2008, 2:04 pm
So what you have done with is two year old article, is establish that Prof Carter is an honorable man and dedicated to truth.
The recent discoveries on how ocean current sychronization affects abrupt climate change was not yet published. Also, it was not generally known that the warming stopped in 1998 and the temperature started cooling in 2001.
All the Big Green Machine has is lots of money to pay NGOs and PR agencies to churn out alarmist stories...all.the rest is BS (bad science).
Friday June 20, 2008, 2:46 pm
the green machine organizations - as per Judy's list (short list here)
American Land Conservancy
Environmental Defense
ForestEthics
Friends of the Earth
Greenpeace
Natural Resources Defense Council
The Nature Conservancy
Natural Resources Defense Council
Sempervirens Fund
Sierra Club
Union of Concerned Scientists
World Wildlife Fund
So does anyone belong to any of these groups? If you do, YOU are among "the evil ones"
Friday June 20, 2008, 6:22 pm
OK, now back on topic...
For those interested, here is a link to the full report - it is 9 plus megs (so it may download slowly for those on dial-up) since it is 180 pages long - good read if you want the details...
Saturday June 21, 2008, 8:40 am
Thanks for the support Stephanie - if we are going to get through all of this we will need to work together - lots of Care2 folks are "on the earths side" and that is what gives me hope :)
Saturday June 21, 2008, 9:51 pm
1. Over the long-term U.S. hurricane landfalls have been declining.
Yes, you read that correctly. From the appendix (p. 132, emphases added):
The final example is a time series of U.S. landfalling hurricanes for 1851-2006 . . . A linear trend was fitted to the full series and also for the following subseries: 1861-2006, 1871-2006, and so on up to 1921-2006. As in preceding examples, the model fitted was ARMA (p,q) with linear trend, with p and q identified by AIC.
For 1871-2006, the optimal model was AR(4), for which the slope was -.00229, standard error .00089, significant at p=.01. For 1881-2006, the optimal model was AR(4), for which the slope was -.00212, standard error .00100, significant at p=.03. For all other cases, the estimated trend was negative, but not statistically significant.
2. Nationwide there have been no long-term increases in drought.
Yes, you read that correctly. From p. 5:
Averaged over the continental U.S. and southern Canada the most severe droughts occurred in the 1930s and there is no indication of an overall trend in the observational record . . .
3. Despite increases in some measures of precipitation (pp. 46-50, pp. 130-131), there have not been corresponding increases in peak streamflows (high flows above 90th percentile).
From p. 53 (emphasis added):
Lins and Slack (1999, 2005) reported no significant changes in high flow above the 90th percentile. On the other hand, Groisman et al. (2001) showed that for the same gauges, period, and territory, there were statistically significant regional average increases in the uppermost fractions of total streamflow. However, these trends became statistically insignificant after Groisman et al. (2004) updated the analysis to include the years 2000 through 2003, all of which happened to be dry years over most of the eastern United States.
4. There have been no observed changes in the occurrence of tornadoes or thunderstorms
From p. 77:
There is no evidence for a change in the severity of tornadoes and severe thunderstorms, and the large changes in the overall number of reports make it impossible to detect if meteorological changes have occurred.
5. There have been no long-term increases in strong East Coast winter storms (ECWS), called Nor’easters.
From p. 68:
They found a general tendency toward weaker systems over the past few decades, based on a marginally significant (at the p=0.1 level) increase in average storm minimum pressure (not shown). However, their analysis found no statistically significant trends in ECWS frequency for all nor’easters identified in their analysis, specifically for those storms that occurred over the northern portion of the domain (>35°N), or those that traversed full coast (Figure 2.22b, c) during the 46-year period of record used in this study.
6. There are no long-term trends in either heat waves or cold spells, though there are trends within shorter time periods in the overall record.
From p. 39:
Analysis of multi-day very extreme heat and cold episodes in the United States were updated from Kunkel et al. (1999a) for the period 1895-2005. The most notable feature of the pattern of the annual number of extreme heat waves (Figure 2.3a) through time is the high frequency in the 1930s compared to the rest of the years in the 1895-2005 period. This was followed by a decrease to a minimum in the 1960s and 1970s and then an increasing trend since then. There is no trend over the entire period, but a highly statistically significant upward trend since 1960. . . Cold waves show a decline in the first half of the 20th century, then a large spike of events during the mid-1980s, then a decline. The last 10 years have seen a lower number of severe cold waves in the United States than in any other 10-year period since record-keeping began in 1895 . . .
From the excerpts above it should be obvious that there is not a pattern of unprecedented weather extremes in recent years or a long-term secular trend in extreme storms or streamflow. Yet the report shows data in at least three places showing that the damage associated with weather extremes has increased dramatically over the long-term. Here is what the report says on p. 12:
. . . the costs of weather-related disasters in the U.S. have been increasing since 1960, as shown in Figure 1.2. For the world as a whole, "weather-related [insured] losses in recent years have been trending upward much faster than population, inflation, or insurance penetration, and faster than non-weather-related events" (Mills, 2005a). Numerous studies indicate that both the climate and the socioeconomic vulnerability to weather and climate extremes are changing (Brooks and Doswell, 2001; Pielke et al., 2008; Downton et al., 2005), although these factors’ relative contributions to observed increases in disaster costs are subject to debate.
What debate? The report offers not a single reference to justify that there is a debate on this subject. In fact, a major international conference that I helped organize along with Peter Hoeppe of Munich Re came to a consensus position among experts as varied as Indur Goklany and Paul Epstein. Further, I have seen no studies that counter the research I have been involved in on trends in hurricane and flood damage in relation to climate and societal change. Not one. That probably explains the lack of citations.
They reference Mills 2005a, but fail to acknowledge my comment published in Science on Mills 2005a (found here in PDF) and yet are able to fit in a reference to Mills 2005b, titled "Response to Pielke" (responding to my comment). How selective. I critiqued Mills 2005a on this blog when it came out, writing some strong things: "shoddy science, bad peer review and a failure of the science community to demand high standards is not the best recipe for helping science to contribute effectively to policy."
The CCSP report continues: For example, it is not easy to quantify the extent to which increases in coastal building damage is due to increasing wealth and population growth in vulnerable locations versus an increase in storm intensity. Some authors (e.g., Pielke et al., 2008) divide damage costs by a wealth factor in order to "normalize" the damage costs. However, other factors such as changes in building codes, emergency response, warning systems, etc. also need to be taken into account.
This is an odd editorial evaluation and dismissal of our work (Based on what? Again not a single citation to literature.) In fact, the study that I was lead author on that is referenced (PDF) shows quantitatively that our normalized damage record matches up with the trend in landfall behavior of storms, providing clear evidence that we have indeed appropriately adjusted for the effects of societal change in the historical record of damages.
The CCSP report then offers this interesting claim, again with the apparent intention of dismissing our work:
At this time, there is no universally accepted approach to normalizing damage costs (Guha-Sapir et al., 2004).
The reference used to support this claim can be found here in PDF. Perhaps surprisingly, given how it is used, Guha-Sapir et al. contains absolutely no discussion of normalization methodologies, but instead, a general discussion of damage estimation. It is therefore improperly cited in support of this claim. However, Guha-Sapir et al. 2004 does say the following on p. 53:
Are natural hazards increasing? Probably not significantly. But the number of people vulnerable and affected by disasters is definitely on the increase.
Sound familiar?
In closing, the CCSP report is notable because of what it does not show and what it does not say. It does not show a clear picture of ever increasing extreme events in the United States. And it does not clearly say why damage has been steadily increasing.
Overall, this is not a good showing by the CCSP.
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001462what_the_ccsp_extrem.html
Saturday June 21, 2008, 10:03 pm
A great example of "cherry-picking" simply picking out the bits that fit your position - interested folks should read the ENTIRE REPORT and see what they think OVERALL...
"Over the long-term U.S. hurricane landfalls have been declining." That is what the report says - but it also says that the storms are more powerful...
"Nationwide there have been no long-term increases in drought." Correct - droughts are LOCAL events. For example the southwestern US is experiencing increases in droughts...
The rest of the items are simply cherry-picking...
Saturday June 21, 2008, 11:49 pm
Oh, please. They base their claim of more damage on insurance payouts which are high because of more development and more expensive housing and has little to do with more severe storms or more storms....which didn't happen.
Saturday June 21, 2008, 11:57 pm
NOAA: Global Warming Not Causing More Destructive Hurricanes
Photo of Noel Sheppard.
By Noel Sheppard | February 21, 2008 - 18:30 ET
One of the cornerstones of climate alarmism is that global warming is causing stronger, more destructive tropical storms.
If you don't believe me, just ask the Global Warmingist-in-Chief Al Gore.
Well, on Thursday, the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration issued a press release that should make the Nobel Prize committee demand Gore immediately return his award and their money.
As reported by Anthony Watts moments ago:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE - February 21, 2008
*** NEWS FROM NOAA ***
NATIONAL OCEANIC & ATMOSPHERIC ADMINISTRATION U. S. DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE WASHINGTON, DC
Contact: Dennis Feltgen, NOAA 305-229-4404
Increased Hurricane Losses Due to More People,
Wealth Along Coastlines, Not Stronger Storms, New Study Says
A team of scientists have found that the economic damages from hurricanes have increased in the U.S. over time due to greater population, infrastructure, and wealth on the U.S. coastlines, and not to any spike in the number or intensity of hurricanes.
“We found that although some decades were quieter and less damaging in the U.S. and others had more land-falling hurricanes and more damage, the economic costs of land-falling hurricanes have
