On past form, if the numbers had been up, global warming would certainly have been blamed but when there have been fewer tornadoes than usual that has nothing to do with global warming of course. Silly me to expect otherwise!
No one died in a tornado in April or May, normally two of the three busiest months for the storms. The National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center reported Wednesday that only 129 tornadoes struck the USA last month. There were more than 500 in May of both last year and 2003. Over the past decade, an average of 1,274 tornadoes a year struck the nation. For the first five months of this year, the count is 365, far below normal. In another twist, Oklahoma, in the heart of "Tornado Alley" and home to the prediction center, had zero tornadoes in May, a new record. Five people have died in tornadoes since Jan. 1, matching the lowest total recorded. In 1992, there were five tornado deaths, and none in April or May. "It's a pretty unusual, quite a drastic change," said Dan McCarthy, warning coordination meteorologist at the prediction center in Norman. Tornadoes have killed an average of 51 people a year since 1990. May is usually the deadliest month. An average of 19 people were killed in May each year from 1997 to 2004.
Deaths generally are down and sightings of tornadoes are up over the past two decades. Factors include better-trained tornado spotters in the field and better forecasting techniques. Improved warning systems also have helped. McCarthy said a key factor in the low number of tornadoes so far this year has been a large low-pressure system that has persisted over the Great Lakes and Northeast this spring. He said the low pressure blocked the usual parade of storms from forming in the Plains and Midwest. Those weather systems draw moist air from the Gulf of Mexico to create thunderstorms that can spawn tornadoes. But McCarthy cautioned that June, usually as busy for tornadoes as May, could bring the count back to normal. "By any measure, we're not out of the woods yet," he said. He noted that in 1992, the last year with so few deaths early in the year, 98 tornadoes struck in the first week of June. He said conditions for possible tornadoes are likely this weekend and again in the middle of next week.
Antarctic Ice: A Global Warming Snow Job?
(I have lifted this post from World Climate Report. It suggests that the sort of moderate global warming that is usually predicted could LOWER sea levels -- by increasing snowfall in Antarctica and hence building up the antarctic icecap. Antarctica is so cold that the main influence on the size of the icecap is how much snow falls on it rather than slight variations in temperature. What fun!)
Climate scientists have long suspected that warming the oceans around a very cold continent is likely to dramatically increase snowfall. Consider Antarctica. It’s plenty chilly, dozens of degrees below freezing, and it’s surrounded by water. The warmer the water, the greater the evaporation from its surface, and, obviously, the more moisture it contributes to the local atmosphere.
So, when this moisture gets swirled up by a common cyclone, do you think it’s going to fall as rain in Antarctica?
A recent study, no shocker to real climatologists (but perhaps to climate doomsayers), demonstrates this simple physics. It appears in the latest SciencExpress, and it shows that the vast majority of the Antarctic landmass is rapidly gaining ice and snow cover.
Obviously this moisture comes from the sea. And, being deposited in solid form on the land-way-down-under, this lowers the earth’s sea level.
Like we said, this should shock no climatologist. But consider the “profession” of environmental journalism, which ran these headlines just one teensy month ago:
“Antarctic glaciers shrink” –The Baltimore Sun, April 22, 2005
“Study shows Antarctic glaciers shrinking” –Associated Press, April 22, 2005
“Vanishing glaciers: Antarctica’s big melt” –The Australian, April 23, 2005
“New study points to big melt in Antarctica” – Sci-Tech Today, April 22, 2005
“Antarctic glaciers in mass retreat” –Nature.com, April 21, 2005
“Antarctic glaciers at risk of global warming” – All Headline News, April 22, 2005
“Antarctic glaciers are getting smaller faster” –The Times On-line, April 22, 2005
“Shrinking glaciers confirm the worst” –New Scientist, April 27, 2005
Suddenly the tune has changed:
“As climate shifts, Antarctic ice sheet is growing” –Los Angeles Times, May 20, 2005
“Scientists link global warming to Antarctic’s ice cap’s growth” –Chicago Tribune, May 20, 2005
“Antarctica ice cap thickens” –Pittsburgh Post Gazette, May 20, 2005
“Warming is blamed for Antarctic’s weight gain” –New York Times, May 20, 2005
“Ice sheet confounds climate theory” – The Telegraph, May 20, 2005
“Antarctica ice cap thickens, slowing rise in sea levels” – Pioneer Press, May 20, 2005
Recent climate changes have led to a fairly large warming trend in the region around the Antarctic Peninsula—the spit of land the stretches from the Antarctic mainland towards the southern tip of South America. In this region, comprising about 2% of the entirety of Antarctica, significant changes associated with rising temperatures are being observed—floating ice shelves are breaking up, glaciers are shrinking, seal species are moving in, grasses, tiny shrubs and mosses are thriving, etc. By most accounts, transitioning from a relatively barren, frozen landscape to a warmer, less frozen one would seem to be a positive development, as this change presents a growing opportunity for increased species richness and diversity. But, in today’s world, dominated by an eagerness to demonstrate how human activities are impacting the innocent “natural” species of the world, all change is bad.
The fact is that the vast majority of global warming stories that have come out of Antarctica are based upon observations and events on and around the Peninsula. This isn’t surprising as it conforms to my theory of “Predictable Distortion” recently published in my book Meltdown.
Indeed, the number of stories about Antarctic melting is roughly in inverse proportion to the percentage of the Antarctic continent that they pertain to (and thus their global significance). For instance, most of Antarctica has actually been cooling for the past couple of decades (see here for more details). And now comes word that the snow and ice cover over large portions of Antarctica has been increasing, leading to a drawdown of global sea level.
In their SciencExpress article, Curt Davis (University of Missouri-Columbia) and his collaborators used satellite radar altimetry measurements from 1992 to 2003 to determine that, on average, the elevation of about 8.5 million square kilometers of the Antarctic interior has been increasing (Figure 1). The increasing elevation was then linked to increases in snowfall, which was translated into a mass gain of 45 ± 7 billion tons per year, tying up enough moisture to lower sea level by 0.12 ± 0.02 millimeters per year.
(The study region covered about 70% of the total ice sheet area–the satellites couldn’t “see” all the way to the South Pole due to orbital constraints, and the altimetry doesn’t work well in areas of rough terrain such as along the coastline).
Figure 1. Rate of elevation change (cm/yr) from 1992 to 2003 as determined by satellite altimetry measurements (from Davis et al., 2005).
This 0.12 millimeters is a very fortuitous number. In 2000, NASA iceman William Krabill grabbed global headlines by claiming that melting in the world’s other big icebox—Greenland—was raising sea level by 0.13 millimeters annually. In blackjack, this would be called a “push,” and everybody would get to keep their money. (Global warming obviously isn’t “21”, is it?)
It seems perfectly logical that a warming of the Southern Oceans (as opposed to most of the Antarctic continent proper where temperatures have been decreasing) has led to higher levels of atmospheric moisture that eventually precipitates out over Antarctica. The authors caution though, that from their work alone, it is impossible to tell whether the observed snowfall increases are from natural climate variations or from a human-induced global warming.
Just for the hey of it, assume the increased snow cover is because of anthropogenic global warming. That would be more evidence it that the global climate system has more checks and balances in it than the U.S. Constitution, something as obvious as this planet’s propensity to sustain life for three billion years.
References:
Cook, A.J. et al., 2005. Retreating Glacier Fronts on the Antarctic Peninsula over the Past Half-Century. Science, 308, 541-544.
Davis, C.H., et al., 2005. Snowfall-driven growth in East Antarctic ice sheet mitigates recent sea-level rise. SciencExpress, May 19, 2005.
Krabill, W., et al., 2000, Greenland Ice Sheet: High Elevation Balance and Peripheral Thinning, Science, 289, 428–430.
Michaels, P.J., 2004. Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media. Cato Books, Washington DC. 272pp.
HOPE FOR NUKES IN BRITAIN
Now and again, I feel a flash of my old respect for Tony Blair. One such moment came recently, when he announced a commitment to reopen the debate on nuclear power. If this remark prompts action, and does not slip away into the sand like so much government rhetoric, then Blair will have done something genuinely statesmanlike. Contrast his words with those of a junior minister on the radio a few months ago. This functionary observed complacently that there was no urgency about nuclear decisions because Britain's power needs were secure for at least 15 years. What he meant, of course, was that he would have long since retired to a comfortable billet in the House of Lords before any lights started going out.
One could hear the man's relief at not having to participate in a public argument that provokes so much heat and dust. I got a taste of this the last time I suggested in the Guardian that nuclear power might come to seem the least bad option for Britain's energy needs. I almost drowned in cross emails from readers, not all called Toynbee or Monbiot, of which the general refrain was "Never!"
Before anything can happen there is a bitter public argument to be won, yet it is surely worth the winning. Good government, as distinct from comfortable politics, is about making unwelcome choices. At present, the very word "nuclear" inspires a Pavlovian reaction, understandable in this 60th anniversary year of Hiroshima.
It is chilling that some military chiefs - though, thank heavens, no British ones - display a continuing fascination with the concept of "usable nukes". Terrorists will strive to gain possession of nuclear devices. Preventing them will remain a major preoccupation for global security in the 21st century.
Yet it seems wrong to dismiss nuclear energy merely because of our revulsion for nuclear weapons. Atomic power has worked. Today it provides 23% of Britain's energy, which is scheduled to fall to 7% by 2020 as old stations reach their expiry date.
Nobody can propose a credible alternative energy source that is anything like as environmentally acceptable. Anyone who supposes that wind turbines can meet demand is a mathematical duffer. A wind farm the size of Dartmoor would be required to provide the energy of one nuclear plant. In the past, atomic power has been very costly, but in the future it is reckoned that it will be cheaper than fossil fuels if oil prices exceed $28 a barrel (the current price is $50).
Opponents of nuclear power are on good ground when they point to the incompetence, and propensity for deceit, of those who have managed the British atomic industry over the past half-century. I remember a Tory minister saying in exasperation 15 years ago: "It is depressing to stand up in the House of Commons and broadcast explicit assurances from our nuclear 'experts' one day, only to find them discredited the next."
If Britain builds a new generation of nuclear generators, we can be confident that they will overrun cost predictions and there will be mishaps. A sceptic might explode and say: "You can't use a word like 'mishap' to describe a nuclear accident!" Yet all industries suffer accidents. Almost 50 years of worldwide nuclear power generation has killed far fewer people than the oil or mining industries in the same period. Britain's surviving coalpits suffer an annual 11 deaths per 100,000, and twice as many miners die in Russia. The Piper Alpha oil rig disaster killed 167.....
Need is causing a lot of people to think again about their gut resistance. Even Germany, with its powerful Green party, is thinking hard about its decision to end nuclear generation. In 1988 Sweden started to phase out its 11 nuclear power stations. Today, however, the rising price of fossil fuels, together with a mounting enthusiasm for curbing greenhouse gas emissions, has caused a start ling change of public sentiment. A recent poll suggests that 80% of Swedes now favour nuclear power. The country is building a new repository for nuclear waste....
The anti-nuclear lobby is so impassioned and the public's instinctive inertia so great that it may be years before a new commitment is made to nuclear power. It takes at least a decade to design and build a power station, and the Sizewell B planning inquiry lasted six years. Every British business and household will pay for delays in formulating and executing a new policy. But I will bet my socks that half a century from now our children will depend heavily on nuclear power to keep their lights burning - because there will be nothing else that is clean, affordable and works.
More here
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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.
Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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