Time Magazine has a lengthy article out at the moment which makes the following point:
researchers now say they can use a variety of approaches to show that climate change is all but certainly causing and worsening extreme weather events.
The problem with the article is that it is based upon nothing. It's wrong. Indeed, it's demonstrably false.
In the years around 2000 we were told repeatedly that global warming would cause more extreme weather events and that they would be more severe. In 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast, we were told that this was the start of the really bad times coming due to global warming. Then came the next dozen years. In all that time, there has not been a strong hurricane that hit the USA. It is the longest time span in recorded history without a major strike by a hurricane. We did have Tropical Storm Sandy that hit the Northeast, but that was not a more severe storm than in the past; it was just on a track and timed with high tides so that maximum damage was done.
During this century, the number of tornados in the USA has been decreasing. So much for those extreme weather events. There have also been droughts, but statistically no more than usual. Floods, too, have fallen within the normal parameters in the USA.
In other words, there has been no increase in extreme weather events. But Time is prepared to tell us that the opposite is true (when it isn't.)
A good example of all this is Time's claim that rising ocean levels have been causing more coastal flooding. There's a problem with this too, however. Melting sea ice does not raise the oceans. Only melting ice on land would raise the ocean levels. We now know that ice in Antarctica has been increasing, not decreasing. In fact, satellite measurements show that more ice is being created at the South Pole than is melting elsewhere (mainly in Greenland.) There is no measurable rise in sea level over the last 20 years. There may be a change of an eighth of an inch depending on who is doing the measuring, but an extra eighth of an inch is not going to mean the difference between a terrible flood and a non-event.
It's all nonsense. Time should know better.
researchers now say they can use a variety of approaches to show that climate change is all but certainly causing and worsening extreme weather events.
The problem with the article is that it is based upon nothing. It's wrong. Indeed, it's demonstrably false.
In the years around 2000 we were told repeatedly that global warming would cause more extreme weather events and that they would be more severe. In 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast, we were told that this was the start of the really bad times coming due to global warming. Then came the next dozen years. In all that time, there has not been a strong hurricane that hit the USA. It is the longest time span in recorded history without a major strike by a hurricane. We did have Tropical Storm Sandy that hit the Northeast, but that was not a more severe storm than in the past; it was just on a track and timed with high tides so that maximum damage was done.
During this century, the number of tornados in the USA has been decreasing. So much for those extreme weather events. There have also been droughts, but statistically no more than usual. Floods, too, have fallen within the normal parameters in the USA.
In other words, there has been no increase in extreme weather events. But Time is prepared to tell us that the opposite is true (when it isn't.)
A good example of all this is Time's claim that rising ocean levels have been causing more coastal flooding. There's a problem with this too, however. Melting sea ice does not raise the oceans. Only melting ice on land would raise the ocean levels. We now know that ice in Antarctica has been increasing, not decreasing. In fact, satellite measurements show that more ice is being created at the South Pole than is melting elsewhere (mainly in Greenland.) There is no measurable rise in sea level over the last 20 years. There may be a change of an eighth of an inch depending on who is doing the measuring, but an extra eighth of an inch is not going to mean the difference between a terrible flood and a non-event.
It's all nonsense. Time should know better.
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