Randall Munroe who draws the comic xkcd did this illustration of the worst hurricane people might remember (larger view). He used data from the North Atlantic Hurricane Database (HURDAT) and rainfall data from NOAA’s National Center for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) for the years 1914-2014.
It does a nice job of illustrating that hurricanes occur naturally, with the worst of them occurring over a wide span of years.
Munroe tends to be fully on board with the global warming narrative. Nonetheless, we enjoy his creativity (particularly on tech issues) and data is data.
Among the most shameless and least scientific tactics in the global warming playbook, is the trumpeting of strong storms and other weather events as the results of CO2 emissions. They do this to motivate the uneducated, whom they believe will only fall into line if they believe the effects of any global warming will be experienced by them personally, rather than by future generations.
Scientific data consistently shows today’s storm and weather activity to be historically normal.
Marc Morano has documented repeatedly over at Climate Depot that U.S. hurricane experience has been historically low during recent years. The frequency and severity of tornadoes, droughts and wildfires are likewise low to normal.
The small amount of global warming that occurred during the second half of the 20th century (with no meaningful warming this century) is simply too small to account for current weather events.
Keep this in mind when climate campaigners, or worse, elected officials such as Senator Barbara Boxer, Governor Andrew Cuomo, or even the President of the United States attribute naturally variable weather to your over-the-top SUV driving, food refrigerating, air conditioned, free market lifestyle.
Hottest ever? That’s propaganda. There’s nothing hot about less than half a degree Celsius.
Computer models place any meaningful global warming and any meaningful warming impact on the weather a long way off. Real world temperature data reveals computer models projecting higher temperatures than have actually occurred. Whether future temperatures will ever verify the models remains to be seen. So far, they’re not looking good.
_____________
xkcd via creative commons license.
it’s always the worst when it happens to you???
The worst extremes of weather a person experiences are often confused for climate. For those of us over 50 years old, some of today’s ‘unprecedented’ weather are nothing of the sort and we know it because we lived it and remember it. Those of us under 40 have simply not lived long enough to have adequately sampled the weather and thus are susceptible to the drivel that poses as climate reporting.
About 10 years ago, my daughter’s boyfriend had just read a headline in a Minnesota paper that screamed that the previous night had been Minnesota’s hotest in over 70 years. The article said that something like 12 or 15 overnight temperatures had set record highs the previous night. He was deeply concerned about global warming and what to do about it. I asked him to read the headline again and think what was being said. He complied but clearly didn’t get the message. I explained: Hotest night in 70 years meant that it had been hotter 70 years ago. His eyes popped open with comprehension. I also pointed to the last paragraph in the article, which stated that 8 or 10 over night lows for the previous night were record lows. He got the right answer when I asked: “so if you average 12 or 15 overnight record highs with 8 or 10 overnight record lows ON THE SAME NIGHT, what do you get? His reply: “an average night”. He finally realized that common sense really has a place in evaluating publicly declared “science”.
Unfortunately many young people don’t have the guidance that you so propitiously afforded him. These same headlines are being waved around elementary and high school classrooms WITHOUT the common sense analysis that needs to accompany it.