Storm Warnings: Extreme Weather Is a Product of Climate Change

[MountainLaurel]

First in a 3-part series from Scientific American.

snip

Yet the disaster unfolding in North Dakota might be bringing even bigger headlines if such extreme events hadn't suddenly seemed more common. In this year alone massive blizzards have struck the U.S. Northeast, tornadoes have ripped through the nation, mighty rivers like the Mississippi and Missouri have flowed over their banks, and floodwaters have covered huge swaths of Australia as well as displaced more than five million people in China and devastated Colombia. And this year's natural disasters follow on the heels of a staggering litany of extreme weather in 2010, from record floods in Nashville, Tenn., and Pakistan, to Russia's crippling heat wave.

These patterns have caught the attention of scientists at the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). They've been following the recent deluges' stunning radar pictures and growing rainfall totals with concern and intense interest. Normally, floods of the magnitude now being seen in North Dakota and elsewhere around the world are expected to happen only once in 100 years. But one of the predictions of climate change models is that extreme weather—floods, heat waves, droughts, even blizzards—will become far more common. "Big rain events and higher overnight lows are two things we would expect with warming world," says Deke Arndt, chief of the center's Climate Monitoring Branch. Arndt's group had already documented a stunning rise in overnight low temperatures across the U.S. So are the floods and spate of other recent extreme events also examples of predictions turned into cold, hard reality?

Increasingly, the answer is yes. Scientists used to say, cautiously, that extreme weather events were "consistent" with the predictions of climate change. No more. "Now we can make the statement that particular events would not have happened the same way without global warming," says Kevin Trenberth, head of climate analysis at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.

That's a profound change—the difference between predicting something and actually seeing it happen. The reason is simple: The signal of climate change is emerging from the "noise"—the huge amount of natural variability in weather.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=extreme-weather-caused-by-climate-change

[fascisthunter]

1. Congrats Right Wingers... thanks for Impeding our Efforts

to clamp down on polluters and then to actively lie to the world about something as critical as this. You should be proud... you deserve credit. You, yourselves may not have been completely responsible, but you sure as hell haven't helped, but instead made it harder for us all to get our government to do what's right for EVERY TAX PAYER, and not just your little club on the hill.

[guardian]

2. What a bunch of alarmist tripe

"Normally, floods of the magnitude now being seen in North Dakota and elsewhere around the world are expected to happen only once in 100 years."

Duhh. The last big flooding at this level in Minot ND was 130 years ago. OMG! A hundred year flood...every 100 years or so! I bet these doomers at NCAR and NOAA needed a computer model and a million $$$ grant to figure that one out.

[RC]

4. How many 100 year floods has Fargo had in the last 10 years?

[guardian]

7. Why don't you enlighten us?

Please provide links.

[RC]

11. Seeing how I live there for 15 years and remember at least in 3 in the last 10 years.

Two in the last 3 years. Prove me wrong.
(I moved to KCMO last November.)

[guardian]

12. Do your own research

don't ask me to do it for you. It is your job to prove your assertion. It's not my job to prove a negative. If you want to assert that Fargo has had three 100 year flood in the last ten years then supply some sort of evidence/link. You'll have to do better than 'your memory' if you expect to be persuasive.

I await your evidence.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Interesting

A few years ago, in my area we had a 100 year flood, followed the next year by a 200 year flood, followed the third year by a 500 year flood.

It's not statistically impossible, but I think you’ll agree, it’s unlikely.


FEMA has since recalculated:
http://www.fema.gov/plan/prevent/fhm/st_main.shtm

[guardian]

8. What is your area? What city/town?

You want to change my mind about AGW? Then show me actual occurrences of things like you mention (i.e., a 100 year, 200 year, and 500 year flood in three consecutive years in the same location).

But people should not get their panties in a wad over Minot ND having a 100 year flood for the first time in 130 years; this is NORMAL not unusual.

[guardian]

18. Still waiting for you to identify the location of this anomaly.

I think I'm ready to call bullsh** on this one. Another fabricated anecdote to frighten people into believing global warming.

[OKIsItJustMe]

20. I'll give you a hint

September 2004
April 2005
June 2006

[guardian]

21. Let me give you a hint

B*** M*

[kestrel91316]

15. Climatologists, like most serious earth scientists, are hardly the alarmist type.

But carry on with the propaganda. I'm sure you need the money these days.

[guardian]

17. "Climatologists... are hardly the alarmist type"

Not from what I can see. I guess your definition of 'alarmist' doesn't include citing perfectly normal occurrences as extreme.

What's next for these bozos? Soon they'll be saying that pretty sunsets at part of the "staggering litany of extreme weather". Be afraid. Be very afraid. How big of a grant do you think they'll need to 'study' pretty sunsets?

[XemaSab]

3. It's 64 and raining in Redding, CA

We've already broken the record for late June. It's 34 degrees below what it's supposed to be for this time of year.

[guardian]

9. It's called weather

deal with it

[neverforget]

16. and over time it's called climate

[cilla4progress]

5. Blowback.

I get a lot of blowback when I make these connections (see comment no. 2), even with references, as your OP includes. I find it interesting. Denial, much?

[guardian]

10. so how is having a 100 year flood

every 100 years evidence of global warming?

[RC]

13. That's what I thought. A Global Warming denialest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denialism


BTY, it has been unusually warm and long spring in KCMO. Record breaking temp right now.

[guardian]

14. That's what I thought. A doomer who can't stay on topic.

The OP wasn't talking about temperature in KCMO. It was talking about a 100 year flood in ND. So let me help you focus, I'll ask the question again that you sidestepped:

How is having a 100 year flood every 100 years evidence of global warming?

[RC]

19. Where are our glaciers and polar ice caps going? The permafrost?

The answer is not Summer, either.
Why is the sea level raising? Everything you deny on this thread is related. Weather change is due to global warming, i.e., energy gain.
Does your pay check depend on you not believing the obvious?

[guardian]

22. You really have trouble staying focused don't you?

If you want to change the subject from that put forth in the OP then start a new thread. If you don't want to answer a simple question then don't bother replying.

[RC]

23. These are all tied together.

Get a clue. It is called climate change.

[guardian]

24. So the best evidence of climate change

is the "staggering litany of extreme weather" such as the "disaster unfolding in North Dakota" that is a 100 year flood every 100 years. Very convincing. Based on the OP, I can see the best and brightest are working the problem.

[RC]

25. Extreme weather link 'can no longer be ignored'

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/extreme-weather-link-can-no-longer-be-ignored-2305181.html

[guardian]

26. I'll ignore the purported link in the same way

that you have completely ingored the fallicy of the OP and the point about calling the flooding in Minot evidence of AGW.

[RC]

28. The flood in Minot is not evidence in itself.

The heavy snow pack and spring rains in Montana and North Dakota, on the other hand are evidence of shifting weather patterns that are the hall mark of global warming. As are the drouths in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Kansas.

[OKIsItJustMe]

27. I believe you misread it

One example of a event related to “Climate Change” was perhaps the flood.

…

Yet the disaster unfolding in North Dakota might be bringing even bigger headlines if such extreme events hadn't suddenly seemed more common. In this year alone massive blizzards have struck the U.S. Northeast, tornadoes have ripped through the nation, mighty rivers like the Mississippi and Missouri have flowed over their banks, and floodwaters have covered huge swaths of Australia as well as displaced more than five million people in China and devastated Colombia. And this year's natural disasters follow on the heels of a staggering litany of extreme weather in 2010, from record floods in Nashville, Tenn., and Pakistan, to Russia's crippling heat wave.

…

The whole idea of the article is to say that, yes, 100 year floods do occur, as do other extreme weather events. The question is, are they occurring more frequently? and are the more intense than they might otherwise have been?

[guardian]

29. occurring more frequently

Would this be like the 100 year flood, followed the next year by a 200 year flood, followed the third year by a 500 year flood in undisclosed fictitious Hintville?

[OKIsItJustMe]

30. It's a whole range of events occurring more frequently

Look up the dates I gave you. (You do know how to use a search engine, right?)

[guardian]

31. Stop with the stupid cutsie games

Either identify the location or admit you are lying.

[OKIsItJustMe]

32. So you don’t know how to use a search engine!

This is not an either/or situation.