Tonight’s forecast: A 50% chance of snow and 100% chance of propaganda?
The media release below. Be sure and do the ForecasttheFacts.org poll.
From 350.org-affiliated ForecasttheFacts.org:
A new campaign, Forecast the Facts (www.forecastthefacts.org), launches Sunday to pressure TV meteorologists to inform their viewers about climate change. The launch coincides with the kick-off of the American Meteorological Society’s (AMS) annual meeting in New Orleans, LA.
The campaign will deliver thousands of petition signatures that demand the AMS pass a strong statement on climate change. The current statement—drafted in 2007—is set to expire on Feb1. In the five years since, scientific consensus about climate change has grown even stronger, and the Forecast the Facts campaign is urging the AMS to reflect that consensus in their new information statement. The new statement, drafted by a panel of experts, requires approval by the 21-member AMS Council, which convenes on Sunday, January 22 at their annual meeting.
“This is an important moment in the history of the AMS,” said Daniel Souweine, the campaign’s director. “It’s well known that large numbers of meteorologists are climate change deniers. It’s essential that the AMS Council resist pressure from these deniers and pass the strong statement currently under consideration.”
In the coming months the campaign plans to launch a full-fledged initiative to educate and activate communities at the local level. Grassroots outreach efforts will include a robust and creative online and offline engagement campaign, including video, advertising, and activist tool-kits, among other interactive elements.
The issue of climate change denial among television weather reporters has gained increasing attention of late, especially with the release of a national study by George Mason University in March 2010. The study found that 63% of T.V. meteorologists think climate change is due to natural causes, and a full 27% think global warming is a scam.
The AMS is the leading national organization for meteorologists, with over 14,000 members. Its information statements are “intended to provide a trustworthy, objective and scientifically up-to-date explanation of scientific issues of concern to the public at large.“ According to the George Mason study, meteorologists trust information from the AMS more than almost any other source, including climate researchers, making the AMS statement on climate change a closely watched document in the meteorological community.
Recent increases in extreme weather have added further impetus for meteorologists to report on climate change. In 2011, the United States experienced a record twelve “billion-dollar” extreme weather events, including flooding from Hurricane Irene, unprecedented tornadoes in the Midwest, and crippling droughts and wildfires in the Southwest. Most scientists believe that climate change exacerbates extreme weather, a conclusion affirmed by the International Panel on Climate Change’s November 2011 report on the subject.
That’s just like goldbugs: “gold’ has gone down in price but that’s okay because gold is the real money and should trading at $30,000 per ounce and so you keep buying regardless and don’t pay attention to the fact that I sell gold too.”
I s’pose if you’re a day trader you can’t tell the difference between everyday price fluctuations and long-term price changes.
Your point is not without value, but the US record of billion-dollar weather-related disasters was shattered this year, not just broken, but shattered. I’m not sure but I think the AMS upped the number from 12 to 14 in like November anyhow. The previous record was 9, set in 2008. 14 means an increase of 56%. Whereas 12 would mean a 33% increase, still a whopping jump. The historical baseline for disasters of this scale like 1970-2000 was, again I think, 4. So . . . unless there has been an enormous spike in the building of “things to rip up” since 2008, the jump in billion buck breakage events would seem to be disproportional to growth, outstripping it by a good deal, although the metrics of this are beyond me. Plus there was some amazing stuff in 2011 too, events that had nothing to do with the number of events but their intensity as well: the Mississippi river flood levels eclipsed records set in the legendary year of 1927, and Texas had the worst drought, the most fires and the hottest year in its history. Then there was the triple battering of the upper Appalachians by record blizzards, Hurricane Irene and TS Lee, all of which were among the worst precipitation events in the hsitory of many localities in the region. It strikes me as revealing that this infamous climate denier website seems to be reduced to reporting stories of the rock solid evidence of anthropgenic global warming while trying to snark, smirk and spin the stories into evidence against AGW theory. That’s an indication of what cultural studies scholars call “cultural exhaustion.” Milloy can’t even find bloggers who’ll do a good job of obscuring the evidence anymore. Soon denialists will be a cultural oddity like Trekkies or something. Speed the day!
“In 2011, the United States experienced a record twelve “billion-dollar” extreme weather events, including flooding from Hurricane Irene, unprecedented tornadoes in the Midwest, and crippling droughts and wildfires in the Southwest.”
And I predict that the record will be broken consistently in the years ahead. Unless, of course, we have massive deflation and/or significant de-urbanization. However, as long as the price of things continues to go up and people keep building more things in more places, Mother Nature will have more and more things to rip up.
Like how do you explain that 98% of working climate scientists have missed this? Why does NASA, the Pentagon, the National Academy of Sciences, Munich Re and the Bristish Royal Society–who have all issued statements of serious concern over AGW–continue to miss this simple fact that no warming signal can be discerned because of all the “variance in the noise”? Do you think that the US Pentagon, the UN IPCC, the world’s largest insurance company and the world’s oldest scientific society are all in cahoots? Are you worried that almost all of working climate scientists and every single scientific body of note really DON’T accept the evidence of manmade global warming–evne thought they say they do–and are just having us on? Yeah, you’re right. That could happen. That’s pretty plausible. Hey, are you in the market for some real estate in Florida? How about a bridge in Brooklyn? Just email me your credit card number and pin, and I’ll put the deeds in the mail. Really. I will.
According to DR. Heidi Cullen “weather is not climate”. Heidi apparently is in the game again since her demand any meteorologist who didn’t support man made global warming should have their certification taken away. Meteorologists should not have a political agenda. After all they can’t even predict weather 5 days out so how can they predict climate change in the next 100 years?
“Weather is not climate.” Yes it is, Tom, and I really wish my fellow skeptics would stop repeating this nonsense. The only difference is climate is the weather averaged over a long period of time. That doesn’t mean that transient weather events are a sign of catastrophic climate change (CCC). They aren’t. CCC is a fraud for many reasons, but “weather is not climate” is not one of them.
Weather is not climate.
Weather forecasters are no more or less qualified to predict next year’s weather than a Wal-Mart cashier is qualified to forecast the results of EU Fiscal policies.
Empiricism rules. Look at the data. Periodic variations totally overwhelm any evidence of secular trends. The Signal-to-Noise ratio (S/N) is so low that the variance in the noise exceeds the signal, resulting in an uncertainty at the 99+% Confidence Level of >100%:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_Sept_10.gif
(note that in the Spencer chart, the plotted points are *already* averaged over 30 days, so much of the variance has already been concealed)
Lysenkoism at its best.
like their ratings are strong enough already….
Denver CO ,April 4th, “Well the temperature is a minus 20 F and that is quite a bit above seasonal for this time of year!”
Major snow job predicted. I want to propose a rule for scientific discourse similar to Godwin’s Law. When the words “belief” and “denial” enter the conversation, it ceases to be a scientific discussion. Call it what you will.
“In the five years since, scientific consensus about climate change has grown even stronger”
Lol! Says who?
Climate change is dead.
cheers