Via Ed Driscoll, who writes
If NPR really believes that, it’s up to them to set an example for the rest of America by voluntarily shutting down their stations and Websites, in order to help save Gaia. Or as the Professor likes to say, I’ll believe there’s a crisis, when the people who tell me it’s a crisis start to act like it’s a crisis themselves.
They won’t. Because it’s not about slowing or even stopping the “planet’s fever”. It might have been for about 3 days, but, ever since it has been about increasing the power, size, scope, and revenue intake of the Central Government, while controlling people, businesses, States, and the economy
No, you schmuck. Even the NY Times’ resident Warmist, Andrew Revkin (who refuses to give up his unnecessary fossil fueled life) says “just stop. We do not know.”
The hyper-charged political landscape we are crossing now creates its own sparks when trying to answer that question. In a world looking for “wake-up calls” and “smoking guns,” how do scientists address the thorny issue of attribution? Did anthropogenic climate change cause the storm that rained out your picnic yesterday? Is it causing the terrifying storm crawling up the East Coast now? There are deep, powerful and potent issues here that touch on both science and the relationship between science and politics.
Let’s start with the science.
For years, most climate scientists would say it’s impossible to link an individual weather event with climate change. That, in fact, is the difference between weather and climate. Climate is all about long-term trends — not the 5-day forecast.
Recently, however, some researchers have taken the issue of attribution seriously. Using a variety of techniques, they are attempting to quantify the role human-driven climate change plays in particular events. This is science at the bleeding edge, where framing their questions correctly so that they might lead to meaningful answers is still a hot issue.
This more resembles carnival palm reading prognostication than science. With all due respect to carnival palm readers, who mostly know they are just playing a part. It’s about wishing and hoping that what the “climate scientists” and computer models say is correct, with no actual way to prove it. Even if the next 5-10 years have this happening every year, there would still be no way to prove what’s happening is anthropogenic due to greenhouse gas output instead of simply natural (there is some observable as well as anecdotal evidence that the Urban Heat Island Effect contributes to local weather patterns). But, wait, the author, Adam Frank, hedges his bets
So how about the Frankenstorm?
Here the waters get muddied. There is a hierarchy of weather events which scientists feel they understand well enough for establishing climate change links. Global temperature rises and extreme heat rank high on that list, but Hurricanes rank low. As the IPCC special report on extreme events put it “There is low confidence in any observed long-term (i.e., 40 years or more) increases in tropical cyclone activity (i.e., intensity, frequency, duration), after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities.”
Then Adam tries to skirt around the issue, and sorta kinda provide a reasoning that Sandy was possibly maybe caused by the Warmists notion of hotcoldwetdry. Ugh. Loony tunes. This is not science. And, it doesn’t seem that Sandy was actually a hurricane when it hit the Jersey Shore
That’s the data from buoy station CMAN4 at the southern tip of New Jersey, the closest buoy to landfall (The ones near Atlantic City were either not reporting or do not report wind speed. I’m actually surprised there are so few buoys along the Jersey shore). Notice the highest continuous wind speed is 52.1kts. That’s 59.96 mph. Minimum hurricane speed is 74mph.
Notice, these are gusts, not winds. And there was tons more data like this from multiple source.
It begs the question, why was Sandy over-hyped? One reason is that people won’t check. Another is that so many in the media are believers in hotcoldwetdry. Some might have been giving Obama a chance to “look presidential”. And, also because the media likes to go overboard (the NYSE smacked CNN around after CNN claimed there was 3 feet of water on the Exchange floor).
The thing is, there was no need to over-do it. Regardless of what caused Sandy, it was, and still is, a big damned storm with a huge wind field, lots of rain, and was pushing a huge storm surge. And even a tropical system is damned dangerous. Of course, saying it is a tropical storm doesn’t have the same impact on people as saying it’s a hurricane. Until someone lives through one. I’ve been through many. Fran caused massive damage here in the Raleigh, NC area back in 96, and it was a strong TS went it blew through.
My parents lost power in Southern NJ around 430pm. They lost wired phone service around 8pm, and you know things are bad when home phone service goes out. It’s typically the service that lasts the best.
Millions and millions are without power. Lots of flooding, lots of storm surge. Sand blown out onto the roads. Trees down. Property damaged. Trees taking out the power lines and poles. Boardwalks destroyed. People killed.
It’s not anthropogenic global warming: it’s simply what the processes of the Earth do.
