Links tagged “Borenstein”

AP Media hyped claim by Seth Borenstein: Will Borenstein follow up on the study?! 

"The biggest most destructive hurricanes happening 3X more often than century ago," Borenstein wrote. 

Dr. Roger Pielke Jr.: "The press release accompanying the paper announced that United States mainland “hurricanes are becoming bigger, stronger and more dangerous” and with the new study, “doubt has been eradicated.”

If true, the paper (which I’ll call G19, using its lead author’s initial and year of publication) would overturn decades of research and observations that have indicated over the past century or more, there are no upwards trends in U.S. hurricane landfalls and no upwards trends in the strongest storms at landfall. These conclusions has been reinforced by the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), U.S. National Climate Assessment, and most recently of the World Meteorological Organization.

In fact, however, the new PNAS paper is fatally flawed. The conclusions of major scientific assessments remain solid. As I’ll show below, G19 contains several major errors and as a result it should be retracted." ... The first big problem with G19 is that it purports to say something about climatological trends in hurricanes, but it uses no actual climate data on hurricanes. That’s right, it instead uses data on economic losses from hurricanes to arrive at conclusions about climate trends."

"From 1900 to 1958, the first half of the period under study, NOAA reports that there were 117 total hurricanes that struck the mainland U.S.. But in contrast, G19 has only 92. They are missing 25 hurricanes. In the second half of the dataset, from 1959 to 2017, NOAA has 91 hurricanes that struck the U.S., and G19 has 155, that is 64 extra hurricanes.The AP passed along the incorrect information when it reported that the new study looks at “247 hurricanes that hit the U.S. since 1900.” According to NOAA, from 1900 to 2017 there were in fact only 197 hurricanes that made 208 unique landfalls (9 storms had multiple landfalls)."

Dr. Pielke ridicules the study for not including Hurricane Andrew as top destructive storm. "Andrew not in top 20? LOL."

Pielke Jr.: "I should point out that this group published similar bombshell findings about hurricanes in 2012 (Also in PNAS). That study was recently updated by the WMO TC assessment and WMO found that its results did not hold up."

Dr. Pielke's note to Associated Press' Seth Borenstein: 

The truth is that the changes in air quality cited are statistically insignificant, largely driven by wildfires, and do nothing to contradict claims that America’s air is as clean as it has ever been.

AP hypes study: Global warming is shrinking glaciers faster than thought

But reality: "27mm (of sea level rise) between 1961 and 2016! Two inches a century. Head to the hills!"

Also see: Scientists, studies & data agree: ‘Global warming’ not fueling acceleration in sea level rise 

The reason why AP decided to hide the data prior to 1958 becomes immediately obvious. Hot records were far more common not only in the 1930s, but 1950s as well. We also see far fewer cold records since around 1990. It is that lack of cold records which has skewed the ratio of hot/cold, and not an increase in the hot ones.

According to Guy Walton: “You are getting more extremes. Your chances for getting more dangerous extremes are going up with time.”

In fact, the opposite is true. The number of extremes, hot and cold added together, have been getting fewer in recent years...Borenstein claims that we are seeing more and more “record breaking heat” and “more extremes”. The opposite is true. Hot records are less common than in the past, and cold records have become even rarer. As a result, we are seeing a reduction in extreme temperatures.

AP wants you to believe that…

1. …more hot than cold temperature records being broken means something. It doesn’t.
2. …on a 4.5 billion-year-old planet, temperatures recorded over a mere 20 years mean something. They don’t.
3. …on a 4.5 billion-year-old planet, temperature records that reach back only 99 years (to 1920) mean something. They don’t.

Also see: ‘Rank climate propaganda’ – ‘Associated Press touts ‘a clear sign of human-caused climate change’ – But scientists dismantle claims

Morano: 'Americans who rely on the Associated Press for climate news and information are being misinformed. The AP is serving up nothing short of rank climate propaganda.'

Also see: Analysis: ‘AP and NOAA are intentionally deceiving the public’ to support the climate narrative

AP’s Seth Borenstein Tries The Daily Records Con – ‘Another remarkably dishonest and deceitful piece, even by Seth Borenstein standards’

Borenstein’s implication that the temperature at Phoenix last year was not a natural, weather event, but instead something caused by climate change is grossly misleading propaganda.