2 replies to this topic

[mss]

The 2007 hurricane season is officially over and it was, just like the 2006 season … a dud. Global warming evangelists are no doubt wringing their hands in green dismay.

The insurance industry is probably licking its lucrative lips and pondering a return to the Florida and Gulf Coast markets, where it has left so many high and wet since 2005. One newspaper commentator in Florida observed that the state is experiencing a “category 5 sigh of relief.”

The puny 2007 season surprised not only the warmers, who have asserted since the red-hot 2005 hurricane year that mankind is responsible for the devastation of big bangers such as Katrina and Rita, but the professional hurricane scientists. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration officials at the start of the season in the spring (hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30), said they expected the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index for 2007 to be twice the average hurricane year. The ACE index is the historical tool the hurricane watchers use to estimate future activity. It apparently isn’t very predictive.

It now looks like the ACE for 2007 will be only half to a third of normal. Can we explain that by invoking the universal scientific solvent of global warming? I don’t think so, although some will say that the global warming that produced the hurricanes of 2005 also produced the relative calm of 2006 and 2007. They also believe that global warming causes forest fires, earthquakes, traffic accidents, and tooth decay.

After 2005, the warmers swarmed over hurricanes. Global warming, they argued, would increase the frequency and intensity of hurricanes. It was a no-brainer, as hurricanes result from warm tropical oceans.

The pros in the hurricane science community reminded us that it’s much more complicated than ocean temperatures. All hurricane seasons exhibit cyclical characteristics. It was unlikely that 2005 had anything to do with warming, man-made or otherwise, according to the cooler scientific heads.

Pshaw and horsefeathers, said the advocates. Clearly, 2005 demonstrated the folly of continued burning of fossil fuels. Coal caused Katrina and Rita.


Of course, a trend line composed of one data point (2005) isn’t very convincing. But, then, much of the media is scientifically illiterate and mathematically innumerate. That includes the reporters at major newspapers and TV networks. So much of what an erstwhile sports reporter called “bull jive” ends up in print and on the evening news in the guise of science.

Now we have three data points, if we start from where the warmers began – 2005, 2006, and 2007. Those aren’t much, but they sure don’t bolster the claims of the catastrophists.

In any case, we do know one inconvenient truth. Hurricanes in the future, whether they are more frequent or more powerful than in the past -- or less -- are going to create more damage. That’s because people, including most who should know better, keep building and rebuilding on hurricane-prone coastal land. Just as folks in California continue to build and rebuild on land subject to periodic mudslides and wildfires and unpredictable earthquakes.

It’s their money and they can spend it as they like. But society has little obligation to bail out the victims of self-inflicted folly, even if they claim global warming made them do it.

[Rogerdodger]

If some of the "experts" are correct, we have already seen the top of a cycle of warming and may be headed back down.

Earlier this year broke many records for cold as S. Africa broke 54 records and S. America saw the coldest May since 1962.
LINK

Just yesterday an 1890 snow record was tied and a 1926 record was broken:

Grand Forks, N.D. airport had 8.1 inches of snow yesterday, setting a record for the date. And Fargo set a record with 5.9 inches. The previous mark in both cities was set back in 1926.

Portland, Maine tied the record for the date set in 1890 with 8.5 inches of snow on Monday, according to Bob Marine of the National Weather Service.

Don't forget last winter's picture of snow on the palm trees near Las Vegas:

Edited by Rogerdodger, 05 December 2007 - 11:42 AM.

[maineman]

Portland, Maine tied the record for the date set in 1890 with 8.5 inches of snow on Monday, according to Bob Marine of the National Weather Service.

We had a "bit" more than that....

I'm actually miffed. I've been counting on Global Warming to make my life more bearable up here...

mm