July 14, 2011
There’s a Drought—Is It Climate Change?
Ponds in East Texas have dried up because of the drought (Texas AgriLife Extension Service photo by Robert Burns)
Whenever we get an especially cold winter or very bad snowstorm, climate change deniers fill our TV screens with their claims that the day’s weather proves that global warming is a joke. But we don’t see the opposite. There’s a severe drought in the southern United States and heat waves are hitting various parts of the country, but no one is screaming “climate change is real” because of them. Why?
Cold spells, snowstorms, droughts, heat waves—these are all examples of weather, not climate. And weather and climate are not the same thing. “No climate scientist will tell you that a dry year is a result of climate change,” Barry Nelson, a senior policy analyst for the National Resource Defense Council’s water program recently told Salon. “What they will say is that the decade-long drought in the Southwest that we’ve seen is consistent with the patterns we’re likely to see in the future. The basic weather patterns are what climate change predicts.”
Here’s how I explained it a couple years ago:
In short, weather is a data point. Climate is a collection of data.
You can think of it like the economy. I can tell you that the Dow is up 112.61 as I write this, at 9,284.22. This is the weather (partly sunny, 84 F). But it doesn’t tell you anything useful about the economy as the whole (like the weather conditions don’t tell you anything useful about climate). A graph of the Dow over the last year, showing a terrifying decline followed by a steady rise, begins to tell the story of the last year. But to get a true picture of the economy, we’ll need to look at lots of other bits of data, like consumer confidence, unemployment rates and durable goods orders. It’s complicated, messy and hard to understand. That’s climate.
Now, if you make changes to the country’s economic situation, for example, by raising taxes, that is going to have some effect on the economy as a whole. Economists will crunch the numbers and come out with predictions. They won’t all be the same, but they will probably trend toward some particular end.
Adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere is akin to raising taxes. We’ve changed the climate situation. And while these climate models—which are far simpler than economic models and more certain—may not agree on the specifics, the general trend is that temperatures are going to rise.
What responsible climate scientists will tell you is that extreme weather events—not only droughts and heat waves but also floods, severe snowstorms and other events one might not associate with something called “global warming”—are likely to become more and more common as we continue to pump carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. And like tomorrow’s Dow, we can’t predict exactly which one will happen, where and when. But as long as we continue to debate a science that is largely settled, all we can do is prepare for the inevitable disasters.
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So we are going to tax the air to make the weather colder? “What century was this?”, is the question history will be asking. If I still believed this comet hit of an emergency, I’d be marching in the streets warning the world but even the scientists are silent now, even as Obama never even mentioned the “crisis” in his last state of the union address. The myth of thousands of scientists is shown clearly as the scientists vastly outnumber the climate change protesters. Be happy. We have avoided a crisis.
*Scientific “CONSENSUS” was NOT true and real planet lovers are happy about that fact, not disappointed. PROOF: It couldn’t have been consensus when every one of the “countless thousands” of scientists had their own different definition of climate “crisis”. It was a consultant’s w*et dream and while we hated the giant oil corporations, climate blame wasted billions on what could have gone to good social reform. Remember this: Scientists polluted the planet with their pesticides and chemicals in the first place don’t forget.
I’m not the only former believer urging prosecutors to lay criminal chargers to the leading scientists and news editors for knowingly inciting this needless panic of CO2 climate crisis and REAL planet lovers don’t WANT this misery to have been real. Climate change wasn’t stewardship, it was a CO2 death threat to billions of children and a criminal exaggeration rationalized with political correctness on steroids. All the scientists studied effects of a crisis that never happened and called it consensus. This is a dark our for civilized humanity.
Meanwhile, the UN and the entire SCIENCE world had allowed carbon trading to trump 3rd world fresh water relief, starvation rescue and 3rd world education for just over 25 years of climate control instead of the obviously needed population control.
I confess to being a believer for many years and I see now that my liberalism’s dark side embraced climate blame for its sacred cows failure, envy and misery. Climate Change was our Iraq War folks. We looked our kids square in the eyes and told them they wouldn’t have kids if they didn’t start turning the lights out more often. This was progressive and loving? No wonder Glen Beck and the other neocons make fun of us. We need to back off of the CO2 mistake and reverse course to lead responsible environmentalism with courage and optimism, not fear of the unknown like heartless fear mongers.
C’mon Sarah…every time there is a hurricane, or other natural disaster, we are told by climate change alarmists that it is proof of global warming. Look up from your small set of chosen blogs once in a while!
I am sorry, but I have to chuckle at your blog post.
It is hardly the ‘deniers’ as you call them, but the alarmists (hey, if you are going to be derogatory I guess I can be too) who are citing weather rather than climate.
After 16 years of either stable or for much of that time cooling worldwide temperatures, one really does have to consider the trend, and not local weather events.
What is the trend? 16 years of stable or cooling temps worldwide… All the ‘alarmists’ (to continue with the tone you set) have to grasp onto is local weather events, like a short term drought in a restricted area.
Sarah, why do you persist in the ad hominem “denier” meme?
There is no tested science in support of the claim of increased likelihood of severe weather. There are only hypotheses, and those hypotheses are juxtaposed by no less likely alternative hypotheses that suggest that there is nothing significant to expect from climate sensitivity to a single degree of warming.
The IPCC’s concepted 3 degree warming is not supported in physical science, it is based on the existence of positive feedbacks and tipping points, neither of which have ever been observed. In real science, Sarah, we rely on observational evidence rather than human-programmed, computer manufactured data as evidence.
In real science, these theories are testable, reproducible, experiments replicable. Definitively that is what real science is. Definitively, therefore, climate science is somewhere between unscientific and anti-scientific. This is what you are promoting, Sarah. Unreproducible, non-replicable, pseudo-scientific guff.
And, having pointed this out, I no longer feel the need to respond with an equivalent to your immature broad-brush “denier” insult.
Oh, and one last point, Sarah. Those states suffering the worst drought in 60 years? It was worse 60 years ago, Sarah. That’s what it means when they say “worst drought in 60 years”. If climatology were are hard science, it would be burdened with a requirement to show both how and why, this time, the cause of the drought is anthropogenic while last time, 60 years ago, it wasn’t. But it isn’t a hard science, which is why there is only supposition with no observational evidence to support it.
Simon,I must say your post is one of the enjoyable post I have read in awhile! There seems to be a lot of common sense in your post. I wonder why still do not get it! Climate science as all science is a theory. Theories and conclusions always change, this is why it upsets me so to see people take anything that climate science says as fact.
It has been the conclusion of science, until just recently that the moon and mars had no water, but know with more observations that large amounts of water was found.
The warmest favorite saying is to people who questions climate science “you still think the earth is flat”. But this term could be used to describe them as well.
Well sure there’s climate change, it’s been changing since weather began. Our modern climate has been relatively tame compared to periods in the distant past.
More recently, if we wish to look at the American Southwest as an indicator, then tell me how mankind caused the climate shift in the Mesa Verde/Chaco Canyon region that went from a wet sustainable period to arid “draught” conditions.
What about the mini age-ages (Europe, etc) that have occured since Roman times and more recently, the American “dustbowl” during the great depression (1930′s).
These are just a few of a great many examples, but the one point it clearly shows, is that climate is never a constant and shouldn’t be used as a poster child for environmental preservation…
Wow, you commented on economics and climate change in the same column. It’s like you laid out a stack of idiot bait and the masses came a’ runnin!
I thought you made your point very well, and I really like the analogy with economics (something most of us like to think we understand) as a model for data points vs data collection and trending.
Climate science is difficult. Like economics, there are a million variables, and it’s damn near impossible to predict with any real accuracy. That said, it is possible to draw trends and predict outcomes from various inputs. It’s also possible to look at historical data and draw trends. Who here would advocate a “command” style economy like the USSR? We’ve seen what that does, so it’s a demonstrably bad economic system. We can see the pattern over the past 100+ years of CO2 increasing and temperature increasing at a corresponding rate. Study after study, model after model all show this. Anyone who understands the first thing about science can see the trend and correlation; and knows damn well that if anyone could disprove the conventional wisdom they would do it in a heartbeat, and probably win a Nobel Prize.
In short: don’t let the comments get you down. There is always going to be a slice of the population who know for certain that we never landed on the moon, we found WMD in Iraq, and that Paul McCartney died in 1966. As Mark Twain once said: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you caught up, it’s what you know for certain that just ain’t so.”
After recently attending a conference on sustainable communities, I learned that you have to cater to your audience. People are more likely to respond to the pitch, “In this dire economy, you can stretch your family’s budget by driving less/carpooling/riding a motorcycle.” rather than, “ZOMG!!! POLAR BEARS HAZ NO MOAR ICECAPS!!!” Sad, but true, while I love me a good polar bear as much as the next guy, nothing gets through better than the hot button topics of jobs and cash.
That being said, I also attended a screening of “Dive” which is about a family who dumpster-dives in Pasadena, surviving on perfectly consumable food (pre-expiration date) disposed of by various supermarket chains. They reclaimed so much product, they began a holiday food drive to feed the various food shelters and stock the food banks in their neighborhood. Point being, America wastes one half of all the food it produces. Can we, as a nation, produce less and waste less? Or have our farm subsidies become too expensive to sustain our country? If we produce less, we transport less, we preserve Mother Earth.
Anyways, that was my week. Cheers Sarah!
I have unfortunately been in a coma since August of 1974 and I just woke up a week or so ago and what’s this I hear about we are all gonna pay a tax on the air to make the weather colder? WTH! Oh, and what happened to all the chocking smog we had when the rock hit my head back in old 77? And what happened to that river in Ohio that caught fire from all of the pollution in it? I’m told the American Rust Belt has not had a smog day in over five years? WTH? Is it because of the smaller cars and them thar Cadilac Converters that stop that blue smoke from comin out of the tail pipe? Did you guys make the sky bluer? I swear its bluer. I like what you did with my Natural Gas furnace though, replacing the chimney with a pipe that just drips water. Cool! And I see longevity rates have continued to rise too. Nice work there!
But what I DO find more than disturbing is how you all bow like domesticated cattle to the scientists when it was scientists who polluted the planet with their cancer causing chemicals and pesticides in the first place. And what happened to youth radicalism? All I see is bunch of politically correct pansies listening to a politician promise to lower the sea levels, with taxes. WTH! This world is just a bunch of omen worshippers. I’m going back to sleep.
It’s not sustainablility. That is another matter. CO2 climate crisis was a death threat to my kids and we are not going to allow you to hand over the management of the climate to carbon markets and corporations and politicians. Climate Change is Greenzism.
I’m not the only former believer urging prosecutors to lay criminal chargers to the leading scientists and news editors for knowingly inciting this needless panic of CO2 climate crisis and REAL planet lovers don’t WANT this misery to have been real. Climate change wasn’t stewardship, it was a CO2 death threat to billions of children and a criminal exaggeration rationalized with political correctness on steroids. All the scientists studied effects of a crisis that never happened and called it consensus. This is a dark our for civilized humanity.
GOOGLE :- washington post archives november 2 1922 .
Vegimite Sandwich, you write: “We can see the pattern over the past 100+ years of CO2 increasing and temperature increasing at a corresponding rate. Study after study, model after model all show this.”
This isn’t even true. In fact it’s a blatant falsehood. I find it remarkable that this kind of assertion is made with a straight face. There is absolutely no discernible correlation at all, through the C20th, between global temperature (which fluctuated quite wildly) and atmospheric CO2.
There is an observed ~0.6 degree average increase in global mean temperature during the C20th. There is not even agreement among climate scientists which year in the C20th was warmer, 1998 or 1934. Yes! 1934 could possibly have been warmer than the most warm year in the latter half of the century! But there are no climate scientists arguing that the temperature in 1934 was caused by anthropogenic influences.
Climate science is an immature field of science, more astrology than astronomy, with far too many pseudo-scientific overtones, not enough scientific discipline or adherence to the Scientific Method. Accordingly, it is simply not safe to base economic policy upon its grossly suspect conclusions, model projections or sub-standard scientific practices.
To you remaining faded Climate Blame believers terrorizing the world with your CO2 death threats:
You bible thumping amateur arm chair climatologists are too too funny! Get your copy of Gore’s DVD, and start to goose step march and then smack your foreheads with every click of your obedient heels. If this really was a climate crisis, somebody would be acting like it’s the greatest emergency ever. What is worse than a climate crisis? A comet hit.
IF you really believe my kids will suffer in a climate crisis from my SUV gas, get a sign that says THE END IS NEAR and start acting like it’s the crisis your trusted scientists say it is, was or will be. Studying effects instead of causes assumes consensus. Add the fact that NASA, MET, IPCC, NOAA, they and every single scientist have a different view of what the crisis will be. A consultants w*t dream if there ever was one. Be happy the danger has passed. Be happy it was all a sick exaggeration, not disappointed. Love the planet instead of condemning it and billions of children to Human CO2 Death. Be REAL Christians. Be REAL planet lovers, not humanity haters. Stop scaring my kids, but even they are laughing now.
Put your purse down before you faint! Back in 1900 some worried about where to put all of the horses needed by the year 2000. You are not helping the planet or anyone with your pessimism and fear of the unknown. Welcome the challenges of the future with courage, not with trailer park intellectualism and needless panic.
REMINDER: CO2 climate crisis was not sustainability or fossil fuels. It was a CO2 death threat to billions of children and thankfully a criminal exaggeration fueled by political correctness on steroids. So don’t ride the back of responsible environmentalism and call it climate change.
Regards,
A Long Time Former Believer who is sick of spreading needlss fear like a neocon.
The planetary CO2 climate crisis, human or not, truly is one comet-hit of an emergency. Nothing could be worse than a climate crisis. So to “believe” in climate change, whether you are a scientist or not, obligates one to comply with the Good Samaritan moral obligation of assisting fellow human beings. “Belief” is just shallow, transparent and insincere if it is not legitimized with doing all you can to help stop this coming misery and to warn others who disbelieve. YOUR actions determine your love for the planet, not this politically correct grunt of “Climate Change is real and happening and all of science agrees.”
As a member of the “Former Believer” voting majority now, I challenge any believer to show you truly believe it yourself, by at least getting a sign that says THE END IS NEAR and start ACTING like you believe in a coming CO2 climate crisis. Words without action, for the greatest emergency of all time does not constitute legitimate belief.