The Financial Times reports:
Cities along the US east coast face a looming “sea level rise crisis” from a growing number of disasters as severe as hurricane Sandy, according to research on links between extreme weather and climate change.
Human-made global warming was a factor in at least six intense weather events last year, the study shows, from the superstorm that hit New York in October to the record melting of the Arctic and US heatwaves.
Climate change also had a role in Spain’s drought and torrential New Zealand rains, though natural weather variation was a leading culprit in each case, and no strong connection was found in other prominent 2012 weather events such as the US drought.
“We don’t have evidence that we are seeing things that could not have happened without natural weather variability doing its stuff,” said Peter Stott of the UK Met Office, one of the report’s editors. “But potentially climate change can in some cases add something on top.”
Well said MT Geoff. CO2 levels in the atmosphere plotted against global temperature levels show an almost exact correlation. But as we know, correlation does not equal causation. But either way, the temperature goes up FIRST, and anywhere between 800 and 1300 years later, the CO2 levels go up. Usually by that time, the temperature has already dropped significantly, and continues to fall. Al Gore and his trusty powerpoint presentation saw to it that we all swallowed the idea that CO2 levels caused temperature rise, not the other way around, as the actual science shows.
Howdy Gordon
There’s also the question of how much of the increase in CO2 is due to human activity. I understand that humans have not produced, and do not produce now, enough CO2 to raise the levels as high as they have gotten and that human CO2 production is a small fraction of the planet’s CO2 production.
Since all evidence indicates that CO2 is a minor forcing anyway, the whole CO2 discussion is closer to propaganda than it is to science.
I would add, Gordon, that the “predicted” Hot Spot is predicated upon the same assumptions that the now falsified models are built upon.
The UK Met Office statements seem absurd, because we are fed a diet of constantly overheated alarm. For instance, we are given testimonials that make it sound like Hurricane Sandy was caused by man’s burning of fossil fuels. But all they are really saying is that increasing carbon dioxide made it worse. That is a MUCH weaker thesis, presented in a way that they know will be misinterpreted to mean the stronger thesis.
In this instance, the Met Office is just being a little more careful than alarmists typically are. They present the usual nonsense about “Human-made global warming was a factor in at least six intense weather events last year and then go on to explain what they mean. The appropriate comeback is to ask “How much of a factor, 0.00001 % ?” Then ask how they know for sure!
The earth’s climate is the interactive sum of many phenomena. Alarmists keep pushing carbon dioxide as a major driver, yet they have no evidence that it is even a minor driver. The fact that CO2 is a greenhouse gas is far from the complete story. They need more, such as their predicted but not observed Hot Spot in the tropical troposphere. That is a necessary but not sufficient condition.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)
Corbett, Oregon USA
It’s quite a leap between the second paragraph that kenw quotes above and the last paragraph in the snip, which acknowledges that global warming or climate change is not evident in the events. Then the last paragraph goes on to claim that climate change “potentially” can add something on top. Unless there’s some real proof at the link, this is essentially fraud.
“Human-made global warming was a factor in at least six intense weather events last year, the study shows, from the superstorm that hit New York in October to the record melting of the Arctic and US heatwaves.”
well, others would (and already have) disagree….