Hurricane season begins: Record ‘4,252 days since Category 3+ hurricane made USA landfall’

Via: https://theclimatefix.wordpress.com/2017/06/15/pielke-on-climate-3/

Extreme weather expert Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. is a professor of environmental studies at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Latest Science: 

A few this crossed my screen that are worth sharing:

1. 1. US drought has decreased over more than a century: “For most of the [continental United States], drought frequency appears to have decreased during the 1901 through 2014 period.”
   2. Tropical cyclones in the South China Sea making landfall in China and Vietnam declined over 65 years.
   3. The US National Academy of Sciences just published a review of a forthcoming “Climate Science Special Report.“ Here are some quotes from that review on extreme weather:
      1. “analysis of global and continental-scale trends indicates that drought severity and other statistics have actually declined”
      2. “Within the existing literature, few locations show statistically significant changes in flooding nor have they [changes in flooding] been clearly linked to precipitation or temperature”
      3. “There is some evidence of upward trends in precipitation extremes, but essentially none in floods”
      4. “flooding is (contrary to popular view) changing in complicated ways with no clear national trend”
      5. “There is, at best, scant evidence that tornadoes are exhibiting changes linked to climate change”
      6. Note: NAS says little on hurricanes in the review other than there has been an increase in the NATL since 1970s, consistent with IPCC AR5
      7. Bottom line: Just like I’ve been telling you
   4. US hurricane season has started (with no permanent NHC or FEMA directors in place, but I digress). As of today it has been 4,252 days since the last time a Category 3+ hurricane made a US landfall. That is long enough to get lazy and to forget. The streak will not last.
   5. Cliff Maas at the University of Washington explains what it is like to discuss the science of extreme weather: “Every time I correct misinformation in the media like this, I get savaged by some “environmentalists” and media. I am accused of being a denier, a skeptic, an instrument of the oil companies … My efforts do not go unnoticed at the UW, with my department chairman and leadership in the UW Climate Impacts Group telling me of “concerns” with my complaints about hyped stories on oyster deaths and snowpack. One UW professor told me that although what I was saying was true, I needed to keep quiet because I was helping “the skeptics.” Probably not good for my UW career.”
   6. Is sea level rise accelerating? No detectable acceleration since 1993 (the altimeter era), but if climate models are accurate, then a signal should be detectable in the next decade.
   7. Interesting paper comparing energy transitions in Germany and Japan.

Coming Attractions

If you’ve read this far you deserve a preview of a few things to come.

1. A new short book is just out in the ASU/CSPO “Rightful Place of Science” series, titled Climate Pragmatism. Could not be more timely:

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Related Links: 

Climate Activists Seek To Redefine What A Hurricane Is ‘So We’ll Have More Of Them’ – Every storm now will be ‘unprecedented’ – After Matthew dumped more than 17 inches of rain in North Carolina, science editor Andrew Freedman wrote in Mashable that “it’s time to face the fact that the way we measure hurricanes and communicate their likely impacts is seriously flawed. ” “We need a new hurricane intensity metric,” he said, “that more accurately reflects a storm’s potential to cause death and destruction well inland.”…

“So with a new metric, warmists can declare every storm ‘unprecedented’ and a new ‘record,’ ” says Marc Morano, publisher of Climate Depotand producer of “Climate Hustle,” a movie that “takes a skeptical look at global warming.” “This is all part of a financial scheme,” says Morano. “If every bad weather event can have new metrics that make them unprecedented and a record, then they will declare it fossil-fuel-‘poisoned weather.’ Warmist attorneys general will use any storm now to get money from energy companies claiming that their company made tornadoes, hurricanes, floods and droughts worse. They will use any bad weather event to shake down energy companies. That is why the extreme storm meme is so important.”

NOAA: U.S. Completes Record 11 Straight Years Without Major (Cat 3+) Hurricane Strike – But Climate Depot publisher Marc Morano pointed out that those who predicted more major hurricane activity due to climate change now want to change the definition of a major hurricane because their predictions have fallen short of reality. “With a new metric, warmists can declare every storm ‘unprecedented’ and a new ‘record’,” Morano said.

Obama’s FEMA Dir. Sounds Like GOP ‘Denier’!? FEMA Dir. Craig Fugate said hurricanes cyclical, not linked to AGW! Should FEMA Withhold Funds From FEMA?!

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  Flashback 2012: Obama Appointed FEMA Dir.: Frequency of Hurricanes Cyclical: Since 1850s ‘a cycle, & its over decades increased activity & decreased activity’ — Won’t Say If he Believes Global Warming Involved – Federal Emergency Mgt. Agency Dir. Craig Fugate: ‘If you look back for the amount information we have going back to about 1850s, you’ll see a cycle, and it’s over decades of increased activity and decreased activity. And so that cycle has been there. As far anything driving that, I’d really defer to climate scientists. But the reality is the history says we’ve had this period of activity, we’ve had a period of quiet’