September 3, 2021

"Those leaders, from President Biden down to New York’s Democratic nominee for mayor, Eric Adams, expressed a similar sentiment in their reactions to the storm: Climate change is here."

From "Storm heightens a sense of vulnerability to climate change" (NYT). 

The storm was Ida, as it hit the New York metropolitan area, killing 23 in New Jersey (mostly people trapped in cars) and 13 in New York City (many in "ground-level" (below ground level?) apartments).  

It's disturbing to hear political leaders reacting to one storm by declaring it climate change. We're supposed to believe the science and, simultaneously, accept prodding to believe that's not done scientifically but emotionally and politically. 

66 comments:

hawkeyedjb said...

Not one of "those leaders" knows anything about science - literally nothing of any use whatsoever. They recognize an opportunity for political power when they see it, but that's all they're capable of seeing. If there were no opportunities for graft and increased power over the citizenry, politicians would pay no more attention than they do to mosquito control.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Floods, hurricanes, drought.
None of it is new. Are they more severe?
The left like to sell Camelot. Earth isn't Camelot.
The answer might be less people on the planet. Pandemic to the rescue.


the left's answers are often woven with punitive taxes and the underlying reality of how leftists in power acquire more wealth using Climate scare tactics as a weapon.

I'm all for stopping the destruction of old Growth rain forest in places like Brazil.
Leftists do not mention that - they want carbon taxes. Lame.

Kai Akker said...

Yes, you are right, it IS disturbing to hear political leaders express such nonsensical views.

Three steps to peace of mind on the subject of "climate change."

1. Review EPICA and Vostok temperature records from South Pole ice cores. Note repetitive pattern over the last 400,000 years. For bonus points, note our current position in the latest of those cycles and think how fortunate we are to be alive right now.

2. Review all the forecasts the Global Warming "climate change" crowd got right. This will be a very brief exercise.

3. Give a prayer of thanksgiving and enjoy your dinner!!

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Yep. There is no evidence that the expected but not yet arrived global warming is causing “extreme weather” events. Death from weather are still declining as they have for all recorded history. The proper response is to mock these unscientific political hacks and remove them for being charlatans. If one honest climate alarmist exists then please step up and tell us what weather event is NOT evidence of CAGW. Just one that does not prove your theory.

Jim Tantillo said...

Climate change is simply now a convenient excuse for politicians to let themselves off the hook for their own lack of planning and ineptitude.

Dave Begley said...

Disturbing? That's their game. Never let a crisis go to waste.

Researcher and author Michael D. Schellenberg (@schellenbergerMD) posted a chart on Twitter showing that damage caused by floods in the US has *dramatically* declined in the last 70 years.

Liars.

rhhardin said...

Climate science has never had adult peer review. Their stuff ought to be reviewed by experts in the tools they're using, e.g. hydrodynamics, statistics, not by fellow climate scientists, who only normalize bad work.

What used to be geophysics actually is science and looks much different, e.g.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/2416238

"A nonlinear mechanism for the generation of sea waves" from 1968, BCS (Before climate science)

wendybar said...

If only the left actually believed in Science. They pretend to.

Temujin said...

Science today is nothing but a word misused by political actors to further a narrative which will allow their professional grift to continue. Every large natural event, things that have happened since the beginning of time, are called out as 'Climate Change'. Which is, I guess, supposed to mean that, although the climate is always changing and has always been changing and will aways continue to be changing, this event- this one large storm that we would have ignored had it gone through Georgia and the Carolinas- is reason to to what we tell you to do. Give up your money to us, do as we say, allow us to determine the future of energy because, though we cannot balance a budget, figure out how to get the trash removed regularly, have turned over the subways to the rats, and the streets to the criminals- on the side we're energy experts and climatologists and geophysicists. We know how to stop the natural world and make it do tricks.

I'm so tired of our politicians, our media, and Big Tech. Every one of them needs to be cleared out.

Dave Begley said...

China has 1,100 coal-fired power plants. Go bother China.

And if CAGW is really an existential threat to life on Earth, bomb those power plants.

Joe Smith said...

More people would 'believe the science' if it wasn't politicized and subsidized by government grants.

Politicians in general aren't very bright...they have good enough people skills to get elected, but I'm not going to listen to a bunch of lawyers on Capital Hill lecture me on anything other than law.

Daniel12 said...

Fires, floods, heat domes, storms, drought. All at once. Look around the country. Look around the world. (Add famine in Madagascar due entirely to climate conditions accelerated by warming that has substantially outpaced the global averages due to geographic location. Locusts. Massive rains. Massive ongoing droughts. Tens of millions at risk of famine.) There should not be this much water in the atmosphere in many places. There should not be this little in others.

Do you really want to keep your eyes closed, complaining that any one event that is worsened by x% due to climate change cannot be fully attributed to climate change? The right has been doing this for a decade, while the world burns. When you look around the country and world at what's been going on, is the response you want to muster to complain that climate change is biased politics?

Achilles said...

People die in flooding.

Leftists cheer the opportunity to seize control of fossil fuels.

Not really surprised.

TJ said...

It's is silly to equate weather with climate on the near scale. Both sides of this argument do it when it is convenient. Everyone just STOP.

Achilles said...

No mentions of warning systems?

Government failed in NJ and New York.

Leftists see an opportunity for more government.

Daniel12 said...

MY GOD THE ARROGANCE OF THESE COMMENTS!
You're like the Supreme Court, hiding your politics around procedure.

Is it worse? YES. FACTUALLY. INARGUABLY. Have you noticed the extreme droughts? The massive floods? The slower, worse storms that dump more and more rain? The heat domes, one after another? The collapse of agriculture in parts of the country?

Have you even looked around? Have you read the science? Nope. Eyes closed, politics first, all the way to our doom.

Mick said...

When someone whose main source of information is the television tells me that they "believe in the science" I tell them, "No, you believe what you are told".

If interviewers would say in reply to claims that a hurricane was related to climate change "You know, the IPCC cautions against making links to individual storms" it would help. The problem is that most of the people who tell me they "believe in science" wouldn't even know what IPCC stood for or what their role is.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...


AOC is much wealthier today. Climate Change, baby!

gspencer said...

"It's disturbing to hear political leaders reacting to one storm by declaring it climate change."

Disturbing? For certain, but it's also a commonplace brought to you/us by the Democrat Party which so lusts for control over us it uses anything to gain power.

Even vanilla ice cream the eating of which is now racist.

Bob Boyd said...

A bat flaps it's wings in a Chinese virology lab and causes a killer rain storm in New York.

hawkeyedjb said...

Temujin said...
"...we cannot balance a budget, figure out how to get the trash removed regularly, have turned over the subways to the rats, and the streets to the criminals..."

When government stops even trying to do the things it is supposed to do, and embarks on the chimerical undertaking of stopping the weather, it is a recipe for true human disaster. The tides will not obey, any more than they did for King Canute; the rats and the criminals, however, could be controlled if we have the will to control them. We do not.

Joe Smith said...

I saw the videos of water flooding into the NY subways...it was pretty dramatic.

But those subways have been there for well over 100 years.

And during those 100 years, New York has been one of the largest and most important cities on earth, extracting billions of dollars in tax revenue from its citizens.

Coinciding with this history is the fact that subways and trains in NYC have been the most important modes of transportation for its population.

So the same politicians who are smart enough to know everything there is to know about climate science, somehow couldn't figure out how to design the subways and trains to withstand the ravages of climate change.

Which is it? Are politicians geniuses or morons? I know where I'd put my money.

madAsHell said...

Climate change exists.

I can see the scars in the Earth left by the retreating ice shelf just outside my front window. The ice shelf created lakes, valleys, and mountains as it retreated.

How can anyone be so naive as to think we can change the outcome of such a force??......with tax dollars, and government!!

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

If I buy carbon offset credits at the San Fransisco airport google-youtube-Pelosi slot machine - will that help?

cubanbob said...

The problem here isn't "climate change". The problem here is stupidity, arrogance and incompetence. Hurricane Sandy wasn't ancient history, the morons in charge should learned something about this and planned accordingly. Somehow they can always find money for BS social spending but never for actual useful public services that taxpayers expect their taxes to fund such as flood control. As for "climate change" if the advocates of the current stupidity fashion were actually in favor of doing something "practical" about it the simple, effective, can be done starting now solution would be to replace all fossil fuel electric power plants with nuclear power plants and upgrade the grid to accomodate the need to have every vehicle existing today replaced by electric powered vehicles along with the needed charging stations. All of this could probably be done with a lot less than the Democrat bogus infrastructure bill.

tcrosse said...

Found quote of the day:
"Climate is what you expect. Weather is what you get."

Kai Akker said...

Here is an assist to step 1 as mentioned in my prior comment on how to obtain peace of mind on climate change.

You can find the EPICA and Vostok Station temperature-change charts fairly readily, and a direct comparison appears in Wikipedia under the article for "Interglacial," which is the condition the Earth is in right now. The repetitiveness of our warmth-to-cool cycles is quite remarkable.

Here is the Wikipedia entry for Vostok Station, which has an excellent chart of its findings for the last 420,000 years of the Earth's temperature changes near the end, subhead "Ice core drilling." I am told these charts appeared in Al Gore's scare movie about global warming, which surprises me because they present a powerful case that we are in yet another of these cycles and are lucky to be near the top of the warming phase.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vostok_Station


retail lawyer said...

Fascinating that AGW causes drought here in California and too much rain in Germany and in NY and NJ. Putting a label of "extreme" or "climate chaos" doesn't explain anything. Is there anything it can't do? As my Gov Newsom tweeted last year, "Climate. Change. Is. Real." He knows nothing about science or grammar. Wine, he's an expert on wine.

typingtalker said...

"Climate change is here."

And it's been predicted for more than 20 years including Elizabeth Kolbert's three part series in The New Yorker followed by a best selling book.

Like millions of other Americans, I first learned about climate change in the summer of 1988.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/three-scenarios-for-the-future-of-climate-change

If the politicians are so smart, why haven't they been hardening the city against the predicted ravages of Global Warming. Is it possible that they prefer to plan for the future by looking in the rear view mirror? Or maybe they're not really true believers.

JAORE said...

POTUS just now said Ida was caused by climate change.

Putz...Liar.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

It's because the storm hit New York. That makes it worse than storms that kill people in Texas and Louisiana (or hey, foreign countries, remember?). It is therefore worthy of attention and requires explanation, because things aren't supposed to happen this way. Having no actual knowledge of whether this is out-of-place in anything more than a statistical way, they revert to their default explanations.

Wa St Blogger said...

The best leaders lead by example. Let's see all the leaders live like Afghani tribes people, who, I understand, have very low carbon footprints. If not those, African Villagers, Inuit out on the snow caps. Anything but big city urbanites.

holdfast said...

Let’s assume it is true, and in fact it is climate change, human-caused climate change, that is causing or at least exacerbating recent storms, droughts and similar extreme weather events.

So what do we do? Everyone buys a Tesla and everyone who is not a member of the ruling class gives up their overseas vacations? Will that stop China from building hundreds of new coal-fired generation plants? Will that stop people in Africa and elsewhere from wanting a better, more energy-intensive lifestyle? Why do these people believe that forcing Americans to wear carbon neutral hair shirts will fix the problem?

Shouldn’t we be considering whether some of that “infrastructure” money should be spent on hardening our actual infrastructure against extreme weather events? Building more reservoirs to prepare for droughts? Strengthening levies and other flooding protection?

Since they don’t advocate for any of these things, it’s hard to believe that they actually take the threat seriously. When the only solutions that they do advocate are either completely unworkable, or have such a long timeline as to be almost meaningless, it is impossible to conclude that they really care. Instead we conclude that this is just another power grab combined with an ability to channel funds to their friends, relatives and donors.

holdfast said...

Let’s assume it is true, and in fact it is climate change, human-caused climate change, that is causing or at least exacerbating recent storms, droughts and similar extreme weather events.

So what do we do? Everyone buys a Tesla and everyone who is not a member of the ruling class gives up their overseas vacations? Will that stop China from building hundreds of new coal-fired generation plants? Will that stop people in Africa and elsewhere from wanting a better, more energy-intensive lifestyle? Why do these people believe that forcing Americans to wear carbon neutral hair shirts will fix the problem?

Shouldn’t we be considering whether some of that “infrastructure” money should be spent on hardening our actual infrastructure against extreme weather events? Building more reservoirs to prepare for droughts? Strengthening levies and other flooding protection?

Since they don’t advocate for any of these things, it’s hard to believe that they actually take the threat seriously. When the only solutions that they do advocate are either completely unworkable, or have such a long timeline as to be almost meaningless, it is impossible to conclude that they really care. Instead we conclude that this is just another power grab combined with an ability to channel funds to their friends, relatives and donors.

typingtalker said...

The more things change, the more they stay the same ...

Fred Turnbull stated in the Hurricane Hazel Report by the Weather Office that, “I am sure many since the major disaster of last Friday have asked, ‘Why did it happen?’ There no doubt are many, too, like myself, who have, in attempting to answer that question, at least to ourselves, in private soul-searching, asked, ‘What could I have done which might have prevented the tragedy?’

Hurricane Hazel. Toronto, Canada. 1954.

http://www.ec.gc.ca/ouragans-hurricanes/default.asp?lang=En&n=E1111740-1

Temujin said...

Daniel12: "Fires, floods, heat domes, storms, drought."

Sounds like stories right out of the Bible. It's as if this stuff has been going on for some time. I'm guessing you're young and haven't seen repeating 'Greatest Storms of the Century' in your lifetime. Yet.

Man is like a gnat on a cow's ass to the earth. Mother nature can shrug us off like we're nothing but a pest. Which we are. So my suggestion is to live your life and worry about the things we can control, like plastic islands in the ocean, or air in China that the poor Chinese cannot breathe (we can breathe our air), or better managing our forest brush in California, or learning that building communities in areas that get cyclical droughts without managed forests is probably a recipe for 'bad luck'.

Howard said...

Excellent, tcrosse: they need to sell Weather Change, not Climate Change

Daniel12 said...

"Fascinating that AGW causes drought here in California and too much rain in Germany and in NY and NJ."

It is fascinating. And consistent with climate models. Germany is at incredible risk from climate change, for entirely different reasons than US agricultural zones are versus eastern coastal communities versus southern coastal communities, and entirely different reasons than the Sahel or Madagascar or northern India or the coastline of China. Why would you think, in a world this diverse from a climate perspective, that a major global increase in temperature would have precisely the same effects across many different climate zones?

hawkeyedjb said...

Daniel12 said...
"Have you noticed the extreme droughts? The massive floods? The slower, worse storms that dump more and more rain? The heat domes, one after another? The collapse of agriculture in parts of the country?"

None of those things is statistically outside the range of normal, and most are below historic averages. When statisticians rather than politicians or other hysterics observe the data, the findings do not appear to indicate Armageddon or anything like it.

Climate science, a very young branch of study, should neither be ignored nor politicized. Many have fallen into the abyss of idiocy by taking an observation that is most likely factual (earth's temperature has risen, by around 0.7 degrees, in the last century) and turned it into on opportunity for panic by adding "and all of this, and more, is due to man-produced CO2 in the atmosphere." This is not remotely a scientific statement. I do not know of an actual, scientific statement made by a politician on this subject. Joe Biden reading his script for the day is not "science" and nobody should associate himself with anything so nonsensical.

DeepRunner said...

Ann Althouse opined:
It's disturbing to hear political leaders reacting to one storm by declaring it climate change. We're supposed to believe the science and, simultaneously, accept prodding to believe that's not done scientifically but emotionally and politically.

OF COURSE they will say that climate change caused Ida (although they would say that regardless of the circumstances). In their world, climate change causes hurricanes, causes polar caps to melt, causes blizzards in winter, causes unusually cool springs, etc., etc., etc. Horse-hockey. The party of "science" is less about "science" than it is about scaring people.

TJ said...

Yes, Daniel, I have been reading...for years. You need a little more skepticism and a more detailed look at the beginning of this climate change discussion. You would be embarrassed.

Unknown said...

Johnstown Flood: 1889, 6-10 inches of rain, 2209 souls lost

Michael K said...

"Climate Change" is what the left will use to try to forget Afghanistan. I see it is working with a few.

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

Still waiting for the breaking news story: "Marvelous Weather Streak - Just at the Comfort Zone for People and Crops/Climate Change is Here!"

Yancey Ward said...

These are the first people to die from flooding in the northeast in American history, doncha know? Never happened before, nosiree.

TJ said...

Daniel, did you just say "consistent with climate models" with a straight face? Oi vay!

Yancey Ward said...

Daniel12, you are acting like someone whose knowledge of history started 11 years ago.

Mary Beth said...

They say, "believe the science" but what they mean is "believe our data". Or, more precisely, I should believe their interpretation of their data.

Bilwick said...

I know as much about Climate Science as Chuck and Biden know about economics and the syllogism. But I grew up in an area of NY prone to flooding during severe weather, and if flooded streets are a sign of climate change, the climate has been changing since I was a little boy wearing a Davy Crockett cap. And as long as climate change is an article of faith among "liberals"--the Stupidest People on Earth--I will remain a skeptic.



Leora said...

My community in Florida blames flooding on blocked storm drains and poor drainage systems. They are spending money on improving the water control systems and cleaning the drains more often.

effinayright said...

Daniel12 wrotte:

Have you even looked around? Have you read the science? Nope. Eyes closed, politics first, all the way to our doom.
*******************

Daniel, emotional incontinence won't get you very far in life.

The USA is the only nation in the world that has maintained consistent and standardized meteorological records, for about 140 years. If you look at them you will see that nothing unusual has been happening.

FACT: it is only since 1979 have we had consistent means to track the temperatures of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans, using satellites and ocean buoy systems. Everything before that was mush, requiring guesswork, estimates and proxies. Vast areas of the planet had never been subject to measurement.

You mention floods and droughts, as if they have never happened before. Apparently you are unaware of the Dust Bowl of the 1930's, or the many times the Mississippi has breached its banks. Or the heatwaves that used to kill hundreds before a/c was widely available.
Hurricanes are neither historically more frequent, nor more severe.

These events have happened many times in the past, long before anyone could claim with a straight face that a rise of one degree Kelvin marked a climate crisis. (that's a 0.3% rise, btw).

Meantime, forests have vastly increased, all around the globe. India just had its best grain harvest EVER, and is now exporting wheat to other countries. (India hasn't had a major famine since 1943. Borlaug's "Green Revolution" certainly helped, but the weather has been consistently favorable.)

As for "computer models" there are at least 75 of them, and they all disagree. In any event computer models are not scientific "experiments", and their results are not "data."

Get a grip.

effinayright said...

Daniel12 wrotte:

Have you even looked around? Have you read the science? Nope. Eyes closed, politics first, all the way to our doom.
*******************

Daniel, emotional incontinence won't get you very far in life.

The USA is the only nation in the world that has maintained consistent and standardized meteorological records, for about 140 years. If you look at them you will see that nothing unusual has been happening.

FACT: it is only since 1979 have we had consistent means to track the temperatures of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans, using satellites and ocean buoy systems. Everything before that was mush, requiring guesswork, estimates and proxies. Vast areas of the planet had never been subject to measurement.

You mention floods and droughts, as if they have never happened before. Apparently you are unaware of the Dust Bowl of the 1930's, or the many times the Mississippi has breached its banks. Or the heatwaves that used to kill hundreds before a/c was widely available.
Hurricanes are neither historically more frequent, nor more severe.

These events have happened many times in the past, long before anyone could claim with a straight face that a rise of one degree Kelvin marked a climate crisis. (that's a 0.3% rise, btw).

Meantime, forests have vastly increased, all around the globe. India just had its best grain harvest EVER, and is now exporting wheat to other countries. (India hasn't had a major famine since 1943. Borlaug's "Green Revolution" certainly helped, but the weather has been consistently favorable.)

As for "computer models" there are at least 75 of them, and they all disagree. In any event computer models are not scientific "experiments", and their results are not "data."

Get a grip.

MartyH said...

This is how I know climate change hysteria is a scam: no benefit is ever ascribed to climate change or increased CO2. Warmer = universally worse for everyone everywhere all the time. A change in any complex system will result in winners or losers. In reality, increased CO2 increases crop yields and greens the planet. Deaths are higher in winter than summer; perhaps life expectancy will increase in a warmer world.

Finally, the first IPCC report came our thirty years ago, which is the baseline time period to analyze climate change. In other words, you can compare their prediction to reality. The highest predicted warming is what is hyped; the actual warming was half their expected value and just over the lowest predicted warming. (Actual: .15 degrees per decade: expected: .1 to .8 IIRC.)

Achilles said...

Daniel12 said...

"Fascinating that AGW causes drought here in California and too much rain in Germany and in NY and NJ."

It is fascinating. And consistent with climate models. Germany is at incredible risk from climate change, for entirely different reasons than US agricultural zones are versus eastern coastal communities versus southern coastal communities, and entirely different reasons than the Sahel or Madagascar or northern India or the coastline of China. Why would you think, in a world this diverse from a climate perspective, that a major global increase in temperature would have precisely the same effects across many different climate zones?

None of us do. Your computer models have been wrong about everything for 30 years.

The earth's temperature has been warmer than it is now for over 95% of it's history.

CO2 levels have been over 2000 ppm for more than half the earth's history.

These two facts alone destroy the entire scientific basis behind the global warming religion.

Which is why you all act like religious zealots.

If CO2 levels fall too low plants will not be able to respire. At that point all macro life on the planet ends.

Original Mike said...

"As for "computer models" there are at least 75 of them, and they all disagree. In any event computer models are not scientific "experiments", and their results are not "data.""

Actually they agree with each other quite a bit (admittedly, there is a range). What they don't agree with is the actual temperature record. The temperature record is about half of what the models predict. There is something (or multiple things) fundamentally wrong with the models. I believe someday we'll know what, but we're not there yet.

Robert Marshall said...

Whatever effects increasing CO2 emissions are causing in the climate, to the detriment of humans, should show up statistically in terms of impact on human welfare. That could be increased deaths due to weather. It could be reduced crop yields due to weather. These are statistics that have been recorded with a fair degree of precision, at least in recent centuries, the centuries in which global warming has been detected.

So instead of just asserting that climate change is harming us, show us the money! Show us the long term increased deaths due to weather. Show us the long term reduced crop yields due to weather. Show us the money!

The problem is that you can't.

Weather-related deaths are down in the long term. Not surprising, because people have always suffered and died more from cold weather than from hot, and we're getting less cold and more hot. Plus, people are wealthier, and therefore healthier.

Crop yields are way up in the long term. If there is some negative effect due to warmer weather, it is so small that it is being buried under the positive effects of better agriculture, higher CO2 concentrations (plants love it), and that negative effect is too small to measure.

So, in the long term, and overall, global warming so far hasn't significantly harmed human welfare. If you disagree, identify some measurable impact on human welfare, and show us the money. Not just the fact that some people died from flooding in NYC this last week; give us stats for the long term, world-wide.

You might try reading "False Alarm" (Bjorn Lomborg). He'll show you the money.

Francisco D said...

They say, "believe the science" but what they mean is "believe our data". Or, more precisely, I should believe their interpretation of their data.

Yes. They get away with it because the average politician and reporter knows nothing about the philosophy of Science, much less how it is conducted.

Scientific method is a process that has the best opportunity to discover "truth". However, the best scientists are the ones who are able to disprove "discovered truths". In other words, scientists are wrong far more often than they are right.

TJ said...

Francisco...you could have stopped at "the average politician and reporter knows nothing". Seriously, journalism would benefit from persons with outside knowledge. It should be a master's degree, but then they would all undergrad in political science which would just double-down on knowing nothing.

Read an article about something you know very well and you will be startled by the errors. I work in a technical field that often gets written about because when things go wrong local HAZMAT is involved and the reporters follow. It's maddening.

Josephbleau said...

Admit it, Anthro-Climate Catastrophe Science is a case of p value hacking. The worst hurricane in New Orleans was in Rhett Butler's time. At logarithmic saturation, more CO2 is not going to make a big difference, according to Arrhenius.

LA_Bob said...

Thinking of Daniel here.

It is or should be disturbing that EVERY SINGLE INSTANCE OF BAD WEATHER is now attributed to climate change. Every too hot day. Every too cold day. Every too dry day. Every too wet date. Every single one is PROOF OF CLIMATE CHANGE. It's INARGUABLE.

Once upon a more innocent time, bad weather was just bad weather. Actually, it still is.

Real climate change is different, and we're not going to do a damn thing about it.

Gospace said...

Ah, hurricanes. The actual history of hurricanes is very incomplete. Take a look at today’s Hurricane Larry in the Atlantic. In pre-satellite days, if it continues it’s projected path, a few ships might be lost, but a hurricane would neither be named nor reported. An even greater occurrence of such hurricanes occur in the Pacific basin. And going back to the early 1800s and before, even if a typhoon made landfall on a remote inhabited island- there’d be no written record or estimated wind speed. The Beaufort Wind Scale, estimating wind speed by looking at flags and how they’re waving wasn’t developed until the early 1800s. Before then, “Wow””! What a blow!!” Sailors and coastal towns and cities would be familiar with gales and hurricanes. Inland just a few miles to more interior there’d be bad storms. Coming from seemingly nowhere. Sailors, observant ones, could see storms off in the distance and make efforts to steer around them. Sailing into them was the height of folly.

Our deadliest hurricane was in 1900- the unnamed Galveston hurricane which came with warning a storm was coming- but no way to know how bad it would be.

Jeff said...

And consistent with climate models. Germany is at incredible risk from climate change, for entirely different reasons than US agricultural zones are versus eastern coastal communities versus southern coastal communities, and entirely different reasons than the Sahel or Madagascar or northern India or the coastline of China. Why would you think, in a world this diverse from a climate perspective, that a major global increase in temperature would have precisely the same effects across many different climate zones?

Nonsense. You're either ignoring or unaware of the weaknesses of large statistical models.

The situation we find ourselves in is much like the heyday fifty years ago of large econometric models. Clive Granger (my thesis advisor) showed several examples in the 1970s wherein small time series models that incorporated no economic theory whatsoever gave more accurate predictions than did several famous big econometric models. Few economists take the big models seriously anymore.

The problem is endemic to large statistical models estimated with limited data. As the number of parameters to be estimated goes up, accuracy goes down.

Climate models are huge systems with hundreds of parameters estimated over only a few decades of data. And like the big econometric models, their forecast accuracy is terrible.

I suspect a simple weighted average of temperature observations can give more accurate forecasts of future temperatures than the big climate models do. If that's true, if their theory-informed models can't out-forecast my simple atheoretic one, what does that tell us? I maintain that implies the theory is wrong, unimportant or both.

Daniel12 said...

"The earth's temperature has been warmer than it is now for over 95% of it's history.

CO2 levels have been over 2000 ppm for more than half the earth's history."

We're in agreement that the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old, right?

LA Bob, that's not what I said. That's a straw man argument used to avoid considering the consequences of climate change.

Robert, in 1999 India had a horrible cyclone that killed 15,000 people. In the last three years they've had similar cyclones that killed just hundreds. They have a far more effective early warning system, an extremely efficient evacuation system, and a network of permanent shelters to house people. Economic damages have skyrocketed (also but not only because the country is richer). Yet deaths have plummeted due to effective preparedness and response. You've chosen a bad indicator of whether the climate is worsening. Humans learn and adapt, though often at great great cost.

Original Mike said...

Of all of the climate change claims, it's my understanding that the "increasing extreme weather" is the most baseless. I've seen several climate scientists disown it.

A high quality, recent, review paper in a reputable journal supporting your claims would be appreciated, Daniel.

effinayright said...

I said:

"As for "computer models" there are at least 75 of them, and they all disagree. In any event computer models are not scientific "experiments", and their results are not "data.""
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Original Mike said:

Actually they agree with each other quite a bit (admittedly, there is a range). What they don't agree with is the actual temperature record. The temperature record is about half of what the models predict. There is something (or multiple things) fundamentally wrong with the models. I believe someday we'll know what, but we're not there yet

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NO, they don't agree, because they ALL start out with different assumptions, different values and sensitivities they attribute to CO2 and all the myriad factors that drive our atmosphere.

Here's a chart showing how they differ, from each other and reality::

https://tinyurl.com/4hf77m4e

ALL those assumptions cannot be correct ERGO they do not agree with each other. AND THEY ARE FALSIFIED BY REALITY.

Have you ever actually studied what an "experiment" is, and how its results are judged? Starting with reproducibility? As I SAID, computer models are NOT experiments.

QE effing D.

Original Mike said...

"Have you ever actually studied what an "experiment" is, and how its results are judged? Starting with reproducibility? As I SAID, computer models are NOT experiments."

Actually, I made quite a good living for 40 years as an experimental physicist. Yeah, I know what an experiment is. And after you calm down, perhaps you could point out in my original comment where I claimed "models were experiments."

Now, as to what I actually said: In your slide the model outputs all rise over time and in 2010 the ensemble is up about 0.8 +/- 0.3 deg-C (1 sigma). I'd say that's rough agreement between the models. If you say they don't agree that's your prerogative. I also said the actual temperature record was half the models. In your figure, it's more like one-quarter. That's more disagreement than I've seen before, but fine. Depends on what data you select to present, etc. Go back 2 slides at your link and it's more like 1/2, which is what I've seen before. (BTW, on that slide it says "Over 95% of Climate Models Agree" in big red letters). Perhaps you'd like to send a nasty email to the author of that slide telling him what a bad scientist he is.