This is such an odd and troubling motivation for doing scientific research – to win the daily news cycle over your political opponentshttps://t.co/ORViFa7tAG pic.twitter.com/JD7uDdNYAT
— The Honest Broker (@RogerPielkeJr) July 14, 2021
Don't forget pre-event attribution science. https://t.co/recmJ6fdy0
— Charles Rotter, Slayer of Climate Sophistry (@crotter8) July 14, 2021
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By Henry Fountain (Fountain covers climate change for NYT)
Climate Change Drove Western Heat Wave’s Extreme Records, Analysis Finds
A rapid analysis of last week’s record-breaking heat found that it would have been virtually impossible without the influence of human-caused climate change.
The extraordinary heat wave that scorched the Pacific Northwest last week would almost certainly not have occurred without global warming, an international team of climate researchers said Wednesday.
Temperatures were so extreme — including readings of 116 degrees Fahrenheit in Portland, Ore., and a Canadian record of 121 in British Columbia — that the researchers had difficulty saying just how rare the heat wave was. But they estimated that in any given year there was only a 0.1 percent chance of such an intense heat wave occurring.
“Although it was a rare event, it would have been virtually impossible without climate change,” said Geert Jan van Oldenborgh of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, who conducted the study with 26 other scientists, part of a collaborative group called World Weather Attribution.
If the world warms another 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit, which could occur this century barring drastic cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, similar events would not be so rare, the researchers found. The chances of such a severe heat wave occurring somewhere in the world would increase to as much as 20 percent in a given year.
“For heat waves, climate change is an absolute game changer,” said Friederike Otto, of Oxford University in England, one of the researchers.Climate Fwd A new administration, an ongoing climate emergency — and a ton of news. Our newsletter will help you stay on top of it. Get it.
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The study is the latest in a growing body of research termed “rapid attribution” analysis, which aims to establish if there is a link between climate change and specific extreme events like heat waves, heavy rain storms and flooding. The goal is to publicize any climate connection quickly, in part to thwart climate denialists who might claim that global warming had no impact on a particular event.
The study, which took a little more than a week, is not yet peer-reviewed or published in a scientific journal. But it uses techniques that have been peer-reviewed before over the decade that these kinds of studies have been done. World Weather Attribution itself has completed about 30 of them since 2015.
Essentially the research uses computer simulations, 21 in all for this analysis, to compare what happens in the existing world, which has warmed about 2 degrees Fahrenheit since the rise of industry and its accompanying emissions, to a hypothetical world in which humans had never pumped any greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
Climate scientists are certain that global warming has made heat waves worse, because the baseline temperatures from which they begin are higher than they were decades ago. Rapid attribution analysis attempts to answer two questions about a specific heat event: how much worse, and how much more likely, did climate change make it?
For the Pacific Northwest heat wave, the analysis showed that, even though rare, it was far more likely to occur in the current warmed world than in a world without warming. And if the heat wave had occurred in such a hypothetical world, it would not have been as hot, with maximum temperatures about 3.5 degrees lower.
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Related Links:
‘We never hear the absence of extreme weather analysed.’ Is ‘global warming’ causing less ‘extreme weather?!’
How Do They Explain ‘The Extreme Weather Events That Did Not Happen’
“Attribution” analysis is specifically criticized by former Obama administration climate scientist Steven E. Koonin in his new book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters.
Koonin: “Practitioners argue that event attribution studies are the best climate science can do in terms of connecting weather to changes in climate. But as a physical scientist, I’m appalled that such studies are given credence, much less media coverage. A hallmark of science is that conclusions get tested against observations. But that’s virtually impossible for weather attribution studies. Its like a spiritual adviser who claims he influence helped you win the lottery — after you’ve already won it.
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The bottom line is that the science says that most extreme weather events show no long-term trends that can be attributed to human influences on the climate. (What models might project for future extremes is quite a different matter, though its often conflated with what the observational record shows.) Yet the popular perception that extreme events are becoming more common and more severe remains.”
The Massive NASA & IPCC Embarrassment: Hansen’s Abysmal Global Warming Model Predictions: ‘Whether it is long or short-term, Hansen/NASA models are no better than a Ouija board as a tool to predict global temperatures. This massive failure by Hansen et al can also be seen in his model’s prediction of ocean heat content and sea level rise’
Schumer claims: Human Beings Could Reduce Frequency of Hurricanes
New York Senator Chuck Schumer: “If we would do more on climate change, we’d have fewer of these hurricanes and other types of storms. Everyone knows that, except a few.” – Schumer said the Trump administration has done nothing but “move the issue backward.”
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Climate Expert: Attribution Science Was Designed To Bolster Climate Lawsuits
Friederike Otto, a climate expert at the University of Oxford: ‘Unlike every other branch of climate science or science in general, event attribution was actually originally suggested with the courts in mind.”
In fact, Otto herself has relied on climate attribution work to support climate lawsuits as a 2019 E&E News story mentions: “Friederike Otto, a climate expert at the University of Oxford and lead scientist at the World Weather Attribution project, said she talks ‘a lot with lawyers’ about how attribution science could be used as a litigation tool.” … Otto also signed onto a motion in support of San Francisco and Oakland’s climate lawsuit and the E&E News article mentions that she works with Myles Allen, another climate academic at Oxford, who, the publication notes, “authored what is widely considered the first attribution study on the 2003 European heatwave,” and he wrote an op-No, The West Coast Heat Wave Has Nothing To Do With Climate Change – Media hypes ‘fantasy land of complex & unproven attribution models’
According to the University of Washington, the hottest temperature recorded in the state was 118 degrees Fahrenheit. Wahluke reached this temperature on July 24, 1928, and the ironically named Ice Harbor Dam tied the record on August 5, 1961.
The university lists other extreme weather events and their dates, including lowest temperatures in 1968, record rainfall in 1986, record snowfall in 1994, maximum snow depth in 1956, etc. These weather extremes don’t suggest a pattern, although perhaps another 200 years of record gathering might provide a degree of statistical certainty
According to the University of Washington, the hottest temperature recorded in the state was 118 degrees Fahrenheit. Wahluke reached this temperature on July 24, 1928, and the ironically named Ice Harbor Dam tied the record on August 5, 1961.
The university lists other extreme weather events and their dates, including lowest temperatures in 1968, record rainfall in 1986, record snowfall in 1994, maximum snow depth in 1956, etc. These weather extremes don’t suggest a pattern, although perhaps another 200 years of record gathering might provide a degree of statistical certainty
KRTH Radio Houston – July 8, 2021
“It’s absurd, everywhere there’s a record hot temperature they claim this evidence of global warming” said Marc Morano, author of a great new book titled “Green Fraud: Why The Green New Deal Is Even Worse Than You Think”. … The real motive? Green, from the ‘green new deal’. “This is what happens when you have people with a vested interest in pushing an agenda” Morano told KTRH, “Every single weather event is now more of a reason to push the new green deal. They’re using the weather for their own personal lobbying interests, and we’ve seen this now for decades.”
But it’s not funny. Why? Because the next move? “We are facing the morphing of Covid lockdowns to Climate lockdowns” Morano said. “They’re going to be limiting our freedoms in order to save the climate.”
Global Warming Is Actually Sparing Lives …Cold Kills 17 Times More Than Heat, According To Lancet!
The Truth About Heat Waves: ‘Media is promoting misinformation’
Disturbingly, some scientists dependent on global warming funding also suggest only global warming explains that heatwave. However, they ignore the fact that the heatwave’s clear skies reduce the local greenhouse effect driven by water vapor. Additionally, global warming can’t explain cold events such as Europe’s record cold just 2 months earlier. So, beware! The media is promoting misinformation.