Three Examples That Prove the Media and Politicians Have No Clue What They Are Doing in Climate Science

By Chris Martz | May 30, 2019

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Inconvenient Truths: Opinion by Chris Martz and Daniel Lai

Disclaimer: Both of us appreciate the fact that the media exists to spread useful information around to people on a daily basis. However, when there is bias and poorly conducted journalism, it needs to be addressed seriously.

Introduction

Time and time again, media outlets and our elected officials misrepresent various social, economic, and/or environmental issues in order to boost their ratings, gain political power, and/or create mayhem and hysteria among their viewers and constituents, respectively. The climate change debate is no exception, as the issue is constantly conveyed to the public eye as a 'crisis,'¹ (Figure 1) when in fact, good scientific analysis and data say otherwise. H.L. Mencken said it best; "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule."² If one can exercise power, then that person has the ability to control you through your actions.

Figure 1. Bernie Sanders says climate change is an 'existential crisis' - CNN.

Agree to Disagree

While many people have the perception that there isn't any common ground on climate change, this simply isn't true. Dr. Judith Curry, a climatologist noted that there are a few key things most 'skeptics' and 'alarmists' agree on.³

1. Global average temperatures are warmer than they were 100 years ago.
2. Man-made fossil fuel combustion has contributed more or less to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels.
3. Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and water vapor should cause some warming.

However, there is widespread disagreement and differing opinions on these two things...

1. How much warming we have seen is or isn't a result from man-made processes (including urbanization and land use) and what exactly causes the climate to change.
2. How much more warming, if any we will see observe century (considering lower tropospheric temperatures have plateaued since the very strong El Niño of 1998) (Figure 2).⁴

Figure 2. UAH Version 6.0 Global Troposphere Temperature Anomalies, 1979-2019 - Wood  for Trees.

Disagreement is actually good for science because it opens the door to new ideas, debate, and research. Without debate, advances in science would simply not occur.

Name-Calling Tactics

One of our biggest pet peeves in the entire climate change debate is the constant use of name-calling, and this name-calling primarily comes from those on who preach AGW. If you're skeptical of the 'climate crisis,' you're shunned and labeled as a 'climate [change] denier.' This use of name calling is not only unreasonable, but it also couldn't be further from the truth. Nobody I have ever met or talked to denies the fact climate change itself exists in natural form. Climate has been in a state of constant change for 4.5 billion years, and it will continue to do so in the future. Even those who have openly stated that global warming is the biggest scam and hoax ever, such as Donald Trump (Figure 3),⁵ don't really deny climate change - they're usually just referring to anthropogenic climate change.

Figure 3. Donald Trump calls global warming a hoax.

Misleading Information From the MSM and Politicians

Mother Jones, a generally left-leaning news website apparently had nothing better to do with their website's bandwidth, than compile a list of every single one of President Trump's Tweets mentioning "global warming" or "climate change," calling them "insane" (Figure 4).⁵

Figure 4. Every Insane Thing Donald Trump Has Said About Global Warming - Mother Jones.

In all fairness, Mother Jones should have also done an op-ed on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's 'tornado rant' on Instagram last Thursday, May 23. What she said on her story made her "end of the world"⁶ claim believable... (just a joke, don't take me seriously).

1. AOC Has A Tornado Rant About Tornadoes

Last week, Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez took to her Instagram story (Figure 5) stating that tornadoes are getting worse due to climate change; "The climate crisis is real y'all... guess we're at casual tornadoes in growing regions of the country?"⁷ ⁸

Figure 5. AOC's Instagram tornado rant.

First and foremost, tornadoes are not casual. Most tornadoes are spawned from highly organized thunderstorms known as supercells, and as a matter of fact, most thunderstorms don't even produce them (see the tropics for instance).⁹ ¹⁰ As Dr. Roy Spencer of UAH and Joe Bastardi of Weather Bell Analytics have been saying for years,¹⁰ ¹¹ one of the key components of tornado outbreaks are the 'clashing' of warm and cool air masses. When there is a lack of 'clashing' - as such has been the case in recent decades¹² (Figure 6) due to predominately warmer springs - tornado outbreaks and thus violent tornadoes (EF4-EF5) become more infrequent.

Figure 6. NOAA temperature anomaly composites, March-May 2008-2018.

Because of the lack of clashing, wind shear is inhibited, which would otherwise be vital for tornadogenesis.¹⁰ The end result of this setup is a decrease in violent tornadoes, which has indeed been observed over the past 69 years.¹³ In fact, last year was the first year on record with no violent tornadoes (Figure 7). This totally destroys AOC's theory.

Figure 7. Violent tornadoes in the United States since 1950 - The Washington Post.

2. The New York Times Ignores Weather History

Figure 8. It's Not Your Imagination. Summers Are Getting Hotter - The New York Times.

Two summers ago, The New York Times stated¹⁴ (Figure 8) that extremely hot summers are becoming increasingly common, and that it's not our "imaginations." They say, "Extraordinary hot summers - the kind that were virtually unheard-of in the 1950s - have become commonplace. Had the authors of that piece done any actual research, then they would have known that summertime temperatures used to be much hotter in the U.S. prior to the 1980s. Raw NOAA data¹⁵ shows that the percent of days above 90, 95, and 100°F have been plummeting for over 100 years, and the 1920s, 1930s, and 1950s, without a doubt, had the worst summers on record in the U.S.

Figure 9. Percent of days at or above 90, 95, and 100°F at all USHCN stations, 1895-2018 - UNHIDING THE DECLINE

3. The Des Moines Register and Elizabeth Warren Fail to Address Iowa Flooding Seriously

Figure 10. Farmers should be a part of the solution to climate change, Elizabeth Warren says in Iowa - Des Moines Register.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a Democrat running for President in 2020, visited Iowa this past spring to address the flooding that was widespread across the state.¹⁶ She stated, "I'm very worried about seeing the floods again. Climate change is real, the problem is urgent and we are running out of time."¹⁶ 

The entire problem with her statement is that recent flooding in Iowa had nothing to do with climate change. In fact, it was 'just the weather.' 

February, March, and April of this year were among the coldest on record across the western 2/3 of the U.S., especially the Northern Plains.¹⁷ Temperature departures from normal were a good three to six degrees below average in Iowa, which meant that the ground was frozen from both the winter and first half of spring.¹⁸ With the two large storm systems that rolled through the region in March and April dropping a nice, solid snowfall and rain, the combination of a frozen ground and melting snow meant that the water had nowhere to run off to, thus creating the flooding.¹⁸

Figure 11. Departure from normal temperature (F) (February-April) - High Plains Regional Climate Center.

In Summary...

In each scenario shown above, it is clearly evident that both journalists at media outlets and politicians alike have no clue what they are talking about when it comes to climate science, simply because they are too ignorant to look back at the past and look at statistical data that derails their train. And perhaps they purposefully don't look at the data in order to gain power and control over the American people.

These politicians are trying to implement policies that would put intense regulations on fossil fuel companies and the American people. If they can implement these policies, then that's one more thing they can control. While I'm all for renewable energy (if it were to be sustainable and effective), fossil fuels are our 'way of life.' Without them, we'd suffer consequences far greater than has ever been known to man.

It's important we educate the youth about the non-mainstream view of climate change, because our weather history and actual statistics are important for not only setting the record straight, but for our country's well being.

REFERENCES

[1] Sullivan, Kate. "Bernie Sanders says climate change is an 'existential crisis.'" CNN. February 25, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/25/politics/bernie-sanders-climate-change-existential-crisis/index.html.

[2] Mencken, H.L. "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." BrainyQuote. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/h_l_mencken_143263.

[3] Steele, Jim. "Dr. Judith Curry and Dr. Patrick Moore demolish Michael Mann in climate debate!" A Walk on the Natural Side. June 12, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. http://perhapsallnatural.blogspot.com/2018/06/dr-judith-currys-debates-climate-change.html.

[4] "UAH Version 6.0 with Trendline." Wood for Trees. Accessed May 30, 2019. http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah6/plot/uah6/trend.

[5] Schulman, Jeremy. "Every Insane Thing Donald Trump Has Said About Global Warming." Mother Jones. December 12, 2018. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2016/12/trump-climate-timeline/.

[6] Shorts, TheDC. YouTube. January 22, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHk8nn0nw18.

[7] Fredericks, Bob. "Meteorologist takes Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to task about climate change message." The New York Post. May 24, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://nypost.com/2019/05/24/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-chided-by-dc-meteorologist-about-climate-change-message/.

[8] Bastasch, Michael. "'It's Just the Weather': Meteorologist Fact-Checks Ocasio-Cortez on Climate Change." The Daily Caller. May 23, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/23/ocasio-cortez-weather-fact-check/.

[9] "Thunderstorm Hazards - Tornadoes." National Weather Service - JetStream. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.weather.gov/jetstream/tornado.

[10] Bastardi, Joe. "Some cold hard facts on tornado activity." CFACT. May 23, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.cfact.org/2019/05/23/some-cold-hard-facts-on-tornado-activity/.

[11] Spencer, Roy. "Roy Spencer: Why so many tornadoes this year? It's not what AOC, Bernie Sanders (or maybe even you) think." FOX News. May 29, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/roy-spencer-tornadoes-ohio-ocasio-cortez-sanders.

[12] ERSL : PSD : US Climate Division Maps. March to May 2008-2018. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/cgi-bin/data/usclimdivs/climdiv.pl?variab=Temperature&type=1&base=8&mon1=3&mon2=5&iy%5B1%5D=&iy%5B2%5D=&iy%5B3%5D=&iy%5B4%5D=&iy%5B5%5D=&iy%5B6%5D=&iy%5B7%5D=&iy%5B8%5D=&iy%5B9%5D=&iy%5B10%5D=&iy%5B11%5D=&iy%5B12%5D=&iy%5B13%5D=&iy%5B14%5D=&iy%5B15%5D=&iy%5B16%5D=&iy%5B17%5D=&iy%5B18%5D=&iy%5B19%5D=&iy%5B20%5D=&irange1=2008&irange2=2018&xlow=&xhi=&xint=&iunits=1&scale=100&iwhite=1&iswitch=0&Submit=Create+Plot.

[13] Livingston, Ian. "2018 will be the first year with no violent tornadoes in the United States." The Washington Post. December 26, 2018. May 30, 2019. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2018/12/26/will-be-first-year-with-no-violent-tornadoes-united-states/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.8eb032ca52a1.

[14] Popovich, Nadja and Pearce, Adam. "It's Not Your Imagination. Summers Are Getting Hotter." The New York Times. July 28, 2017. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/07/28/climate/more-frequent-extreme-summer-heat.html.

[15] Heller, Tony. "UNHIDING THE DECLINE FOR WINDOWS." The Deplorable Climate Science Blog. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://realclimatescience.com/unhiding-the-decline-for-windows/.

[16] Norvell, Kim. "Farmers should be part of the solution to climate change, Elizabeth Warren says in Iowa." Des Moines Register. May 3, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/elections/presidential/caucus/2019/05/03/iowa-caucus-election-2020-elizabeth-warren-climate-change-farmers-flooding-missouri-river/1094532001/.

[17] ACIS Climate Maps. High Plains Regional Climate Center. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://hprcc.unl.edu/maps.php?map=ACISClimateMaps.

[18] Hassan, Adeel. "Why Is There Flooding in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin?" The New York Times. May 18, 2019. Accessed May 30, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/us/nebraska-flooding-facts.html.