CBS News has a piece today from Stephanie Condon under the headline "Climate change report says U.S. is getting warmer, urges action". To put it mildly, the CBS report ignores reality. The article is about the National Climate Assessment, a "comprehensive scientific report... developed over four years by hundreds of the nation's top climate scientists and technical experts".
Let's start with warming and the question whether or not it truly exists. Here is one example: According to CBS, "the report presents evidence that the nation is getting warmer: the decade from 2001 to 2012 was warmer than any previous decade in every region of the country, looking as far back as 1901." So, shouldn't that be the end of the discussion? Actually not. Since 1998, the world as a whole has not gotten any warmer. There have been yearly fluctuations, but the atmospheric temperatures measured at thousands of locations around the globe have not increased during that time. But some folks may say, "Aha! you are talking about the world and CBS was just talking about the USA." Of course, the problem there is that America just finished the coldest winter on record since the nineteenth century. That's right, it was the coldest winter in the entire USA since 1898!
CBS, however, also tells us that warming is shown by severe weather. As CBS puts it, "Cases of extreme weather are detailed in the report, such as the severe storms that have hit the U.S. with increasing frequency and intensity since the 1950s." Once again, the problem with that claim is that there actually has been a major decline in the number of strong hurricanes that have hit the USA in the last five years. In fact, there were severe hurricanes that hit the USA in 2004 and 2005. Since then, however, there have been many fewer hurricanes hitting America than the average of the last century. For those of you who start thinking about hurricane Sandy, remember that the reason Sandy was so devastating was not its strength; it was pretty weak. Sandy caused devastation because it took a strange and unusual course that maximized its impact in the New York City region. Indeed, it is often called "superstorm Sandy" because when it hit New York, it was not even a hurricane anymore. No one would call a tropical storm unusual severe weather. There are ten to fifteen of them most years. But maybe, you might say, the government was talking about tornadoes. Here too, there has been a remarkable reduction of such storms in the last few years across America. They are not gone, but the occurrence of tornadoes is at a low point for the last fifty years. In other words, there is no unusual severe weather. In fact, there is less severe weather in the USA. (There was an unusual amount of snow this winter, but it is hard to blame extra snow on global warming.)
The key problem with the CBS report, however, is not that it just misrepresents the weather in the USA. No, the problem is that after making false statements about the weather, CBS just announces that this is due to human activity. That connection, of course, is the heart of the debate over global warming. There is no valid scientific evidence which connects human activity to the climate changes of the last century. Indeed, many of the changes are clearly not due to human activity. For example, there have been two periods of forty years each since 1890 when the world atmospheric temperature rose. In each of the two periods, the rise in temperature was roughly the same. The problem that this presents for the global warming crowd is that the initial period was 1890 to 1930 and it predates the time when humanity was putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in amounts that supposedly would cause warming. The second period of 1955 to 1995 had substantial emissions of carbon dioxide but the same rise in temperature as the first period. There is no reason to believe that the second period was anything different than the first period, but the global warming alarmists blame it all on carbon emissions. It is invalid science.
The sad thing is that reports like this one from CBS continue to flood the media.
Let's start with warming and the question whether or not it truly exists. Here is one example: According to CBS, "the report presents evidence that the nation is getting warmer: the decade from 2001 to 2012 was warmer than any previous decade in every region of the country, looking as far back as 1901." So, shouldn't that be the end of the discussion? Actually not. Since 1998, the world as a whole has not gotten any warmer. There have been yearly fluctuations, but the atmospheric temperatures measured at thousands of locations around the globe have not increased during that time. But some folks may say, "Aha! you are talking about the world and CBS was just talking about the USA." Of course, the problem there is that America just finished the coldest winter on record since the nineteenth century. That's right, it was the coldest winter in the entire USA since 1898!
CBS, however, also tells us that warming is shown by severe weather. As CBS puts it, "Cases of extreme weather are detailed in the report, such as the severe storms that have hit the U.S. with increasing frequency and intensity since the 1950s." Once again, the problem with that claim is that there actually has been a major decline in the number of strong hurricanes that have hit the USA in the last five years. In fact, there were severe hurricanes that hit the USA in 2004 and 2005. Since then, however, there have been many fewer hurricanes hitting America than the average of the last century. For those of you who start thinking about hurricane Sandy, remember that the reason Sandy was so devastating was not its strength; it was pretty weak. Sandy caused devastation because it took a strange and unusual course that maximized its impact in the New York City region. Indeed, it is often called "superstorm Sandy" because when it hit New York, it was not even a hurricane anymore. No one would call a tropical storm unusual severe weather. There are ten to fifteen of them most years. But maybe, you might say, the government was talking about tornadoes. Here too, there has been a remarkable reduction of such storms in the last few years across America. They are not gone, but the occurrence of tornadoes is at a low point for the last fifty years. In other words, there is no unusual severe weather. In fact, there is less severe weather in the USA. (There was an unusual amount of snow this winter, but it is hard to blame extra snow on global warming.)
The key problem with the CBS report, however, is not that it just misrepresents the weather in the USA. No, the problem is that after making false statements about the weather, CBS just announces that this is due to human activity. That connection, of course, is the heart of the debate over global warming. There is no valid scientific evidence which connects human activity to the climate changes of the last century. Indeed, many of the changes are clearly not due to human activity. For example, there have been two periods of forty years each since 1890 when the world atmospheric temperature rose. In each of the two periods, the rise in temperature was roughly the same. The problem that this presents for the global warming crowd is that the initial period was 1890 to 1930 and it predates the time when humanity was putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in amounts that supposedly would cause warming. The second period of 1955 to 1995 had substantial emissions of carbon dioxide but the same rise in temperature as the first period. There is no reason to believe that the second period was anything different than the first period, but the global warming alarmists blame it all on carbon emissions. It is invalid science.
The sad thing is that reports like this one from CBS continue to flood the media.
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