A demo of why we do nothing about climate change

Summary: Here is a tale of modern America, a nation lite only by propaganda. Climate change (like so many other public issues) cannot be seen through the chaff thrown out by activists. Unless we focus on what the major climate agencies tell us, the 21st century might be ugly.

This is America today, as seen in this post at the WordPress Blog. Well-meaning but deliberately ill-informed people taking bold political actions.

“Join us in a Digital Climate Strike“

By Jack Lenox at the WordPress Blog.
“This September, millions will take to the streets to demand an end to the age of fossil fuels. Show your solidarity by displaying a digital climate strike banner for the month.”

“With fires raging in the Amazon, hurricanes ripping across the Atlantic, and typhoons flooding Japan, our planet and our climate are sending us a message: We can no longer continue with business as usual. The week starting September 20th, 350.org is organizing a Global Climate Strike, in association with Fridays For Future, to show global leaders that the time to act is now. Alongside the people walking out of workplaces, schools, and homes around the world, 350.org is organizing a digital climate strike. Websites participating in the digital strike will promote the physical strikes in the lead-up to the date, and partially block themselves to users on September 20th itself. That is where you come in!”

This is on the official blog of WordPress.com (which has over 75 million websites). WordPress.com has the Global Climate badge as an option in their software. This shows the growing reach of climate activists through America’s key institutions.

Lenox mentions three phenomena. None of which result from climate change, let alone anthropogenic climate change. The current fires in the Amazon have been misrepresented (see NASA and here). The hurricanes and typhoons are normal weather, as has been repeatedly pointed out by the major climate agencies.

Yet these people are so indoctrinated that they have no interest in what climate science says, and ignore it when shown to them (as Lenox did my response to his post). They listen only to those that exaggerate and misrepresent the science. Decades of Leftist propaganda has closed their minds to science. They are deniers, just as much as those who deny that the world is warming or the role of greenhouse gases.

The climate crusade has run for thirty years and produced little public police action in America. The Left’s response has been to double down on its agitprop. This can’t end well for us.

Anyway, let’s look at what the major climate agencies say about hurricanes – the most intensely studied of these three phenomena. We are in the peak months of the season, and probably be bombarded with more hurricane hysteria.

IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (2013)

From Chapter 2.6.3 of the Working Group I report.

“Current data sets indicate no significant observed trends in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century and it remains uncertain whether any reported long-term increases in tropical cyclone frequency are robust, after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities. …No robust trends in annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have been identified over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin. …

“In summary, this assessment does not revise the SREX conclusion of low confidence that any reported long-term (centennial) increases in tropical cyclone activity are robust, after accounting for past changes in observing capabilities. More recent assessments indicate that it is unlikely that annual numbers of tropical storms, hurricanes and major hurricanes counts have increased over the past 100 years in the North Atlantic basin. Evidence, however, is for a virtually certain increase in the frequency and intensity of the strongest tropical cyclones since the 1970s in that region.”

More current: from the WMO

More detailed are two papers by a distinguished international group of scientists who serve on the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Task Team on Tropical Cyclones: Tropical Cyclones and Climate Change Assessment: “Detection and Attribution“, published in BAMS (in press).

“An assessment was made of whether detectable changes in tropical cyclone (TC) activity are identifiable in observations and whether any changes can be attributed to anthropogenic climate change. …

“We conclude there is at least low-to-medium confidence that the observed poleward migration of the latitude of maximum intensity in the western North Pacific is detectable, or highly unusual compared to expected natural variability. Opinion on the author team was divided on whether any observed TC changes demonstrate discernible anthropogenic influence, or whether any other observed changes represent detectable changes. …

“{We then} used a much weaker “balance of evidence” criterion for assessment. This leads to a number of more speculative TC detection and/or attribution statements, which we recognize have substantial potential for being false alarms (i.e., overstating anthropogenic influence or detection) but which may be useful for risk assessment. …”

Most current: an assessment from NOAA

The staff of NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dyamics Laboratory (GFDL) are “Leaders in Climate Model Development and Research.” See their website.

GFDL annually updates their statement on hurricanes and climate change. This excerpt from their 15 August 2019 update (bold emphasis in the original), lists some of their negative findings about current hurricane activity.

“We find that, after adjusting for such an estimated number of missing storms, there remains just a small nominally positive upward trend in tropical storm occurrence from 1878-2006. Statistical tests indicate that this trend is not significantly distinguishable from zero. In addition, Landsea et al. (2010) note that the rising trend in Atlantic tropical storm counts is almost entirely due to increases in short-duration (<2 day) storms alone. Such short-lived storms were particularly likely to have been overlooked in the earlier parts of the record, as they would have had less opportunity for chance encounters with ship traffic. …

“The evidence for an upward trend is even weaker if we look at U.S. landfalling hurricanes, which even show a slight negative trend beginning from 1900 or from the late 1800s. …While major hurricanes show more evidence of a rising trend from the late 1800s, the major hurricane data are considered even less reliable than the other two records in the early parts of the record. …In short, the historical Atlantic hurricane frequency record does not provide compelling evidence for a substantial greenhouse warming-induced long-term increase.“

Dr. Curry’s post “Extremes ” has a brief discussion of this paper.

Choose wisely.

Conclusions

WordPress is ignoring the clear consensus of climate scientists, misleading the public about a key issue in this vital issue. This is the kind of behavior by activists that is responsible for three decades of deadlock in America’s climate-related public policy. We cannot afford it. Only through a strict focus on the guidance of the major climate agencies do we have any hope of making rational decisions.

See these to learn more about hurricanes

1. A “Special Report on Hurricanes and Climate Change“ by climate scientist Judith Curry of Climate Forecast Analytics Network.
2. NOAA’s information about hurricanes: their records page and about years with the most hurricanes.
3. Statement by WMO’s Expert Team on Climate Impacts on Tropical Cyclones on possible linkages between Hurricane Harvey and anthropogenic climate change. Summary: little to none.
4. The Weather Underground website has good information about global and regional tropical cyclones (TC). For example, the Atlantic contributes on average only 13% of global TC energy (ACE).
5. Ten years after Katrina: let’s learn from those predictions of more & bigger hurricanes.
6. What you need to know about hurricanes and their trends.
7. Cut thru the myths about Irma, Harvey, and climate change – by Dr. Curry.
8. A new paper about hurricanes shatters the narrative.

For More Information

Ideas! See my recommended books and films at Amazon.

If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. For more information about this vital issue see the keys to understanding climate change. Also, see all posts about hurricanes, and especially these …

1. Important: climate scientists can restart the climate change debate – & win.
2. Focusing on worst-case climate futures doesn’t work. It shouldn’t work.
3. A look at the workings of Climate Propaganda Inc.
4. The Extinction Rebellion’s hysteria vs. climate science.
5. “Climate’s Uncertainty Principle“ by Garth Paltridge.
6. Listening to climate doomsters makes our situation worse.
7. See how climate science becomes alarmist propaganda.

Alarmists don’t want you to read these books

Some unexpected good news about polar bears: The Polar Bear Catastrophe That Never Happened by Susan Crockford (2019).

To learn more about the state of climate change see The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters & Climate Change by Roger Pielke Jr., professor for the Center for Science and Policy Research at U of CO – Boulder (2018).