Archives par mot-clé : Extreme events

climate-debate

The Climate Scaremongers: More Lies From The UK’s Crackpot Climate Change Committee

by P. Homewood, May 09, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch 

The UK’s Climate Change Committee has warned the government that the country is heading for disaster unless it quickly ramps up efforts to tackle what it calls ‘climate risks’. [emphasis, links added]

In their latest Progress Report on Adaptation, they claim:

‘The increasing impacts of climate change are clear, both globally and in the UK. Adaptation is needed now to ensure that the UK is prepared for today’s extreme weather as well as the rapidly increasing severity of future risks. The costs of these impacts are already being felt, and the risks will continue to grow even if international targets to limit global warming are met. Action is needed now whilst we still have the opportunity to address these risks in a way that is both cost-effective and timely.’

They say that by 2050:

• Over half of England’s prime farmland, one in four homes, and half of roads and rail lines will be at risk of flooding;

• Heat-related deaths could pass 10,000 in an average year;

• Unchecked climate change could cost 7 percent of GDP.

Absurd claims such as these, which have no basis in reality, show that the CCC is a body that we should not take seriously.

Their statement about floods ignores the reality that only a few thousand properties a year are affected by flooding, and there has been no upward trend in the numbers, according to official data from the Environment Agency.

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climate-debate

No, Euronews, Europe is Not Suffering ‘Serious Impacts’ from Climate Change

by L. Lueken, pr 29, 2025 in WUWT

A recent post by Euronews, titled “Deadly floods, storms and heatwaves: Europe suffered the ‘serious impacts’ of climate change in 2024,” claims that Europe is experiencing very severe impacts from climate change, citing heatwaves, wildfires, and flooding, among other conditions. This is false. Europe experienced many different kinds of severe weather across the continent in 2024, but this is not unusual.

Although part of the story is hidden behind a paywall, the Euronews post details several examples of supposed climate-change fueled extreme weather events from last year. The main ones mentioned were the wildfires in Portugal, flooding in Valencia, Spain, and heatwaves in parts of the continent.

“Storms were often severe, flooding was widespread, and parts of the continent were gripped by record-breaking heatwaves,” Euronews claims.

Addressing the claims about wildfires first; Euronews said that “Wildfires in Portugal in September burned 110,000 hectares of land in a week – a quarter of Europe’s total annual burnt area for 2024.”

Luckily, Europe’s Copernicus service, the very group that published the State of the Climate report that Euronews based their coverage on, publishes an annual wildfire report, breaking it down by country. Portugal, according to their data, is not suffering from any long term trend in increasing wildfire size or quantity. (See figures below)

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better to know...?, climate-debate

German Droughts Were Much More Common Back In The Old Days, Before 1980!

by P. Gosselin, Apr 23, 2025 in NoTricksZone 

Central Europe has been experiencing a bout of dry weather since February. Germany’s DWD national weather service reported in a recent press release that just 19 liters per square meter (l/m²) fell in March compared to the approx. 60 liters that normally fall in the month. This made last March one of the driest since measurements began in 1881.

“The pronounced drought, which had already lasted in some regions since the beginning or middle of February, was caused by high-pressure areas that repeatedly settled over Central Europe or in the surrounding area,” reports the DWD.

Not surprisingly, the media are making alarmist claims of unprecedented drought, and all hinting it’s due to climate sins by mankind.

Driest years overwhelmingly before 1980

So is drought in rainy Germany something new that we have only begun to experience, like the media and pols suggest?

The historical data show that the answer is clearly NO.

Four of the 5 driest years on record in Germany occurred before 1960. Eight of the top 9 occurred before man-made climate change was ever an issue (before 1980).

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climate-debate

WPR Blames Climate Change For ‘Record Start’ Of Wildfire Season. Data Burns That Claim

by H. Sterling Burnett, Ar 23, 2025 in ClimateChangeDispatch

wisconsin forest fire
Wisconsin Public Radio (WPR) ran a story blaming the unusual number of wildfires in the state in January and February on climate change. This is wrong. One year’s early start to the wildfire season can’t be blamed on climate change. [emphasis, links added]

Only a long-term trend of increasing or increasingly early wildfires would suggest climate change as a factor in this year’s fires, but no such trend exists.

A buildup of vegetation due to improved rainfall conditions in previous years, human populations expanding into the urban/forest interface, and more human-sparked fires from carelessness and arson, is the cause unusual number of wildfires starting off the year in 2025.

The WPR story, “Wisconsin sees record start to the fire season as climate change drives more blazes,” which is long on speculation but short on hard data and evidence, says:

“Wisconsin saw a record number of fires in January and February this year due to a lack of snow as climate change has set the stage for more wildfires,” says Danielle Kaeding, WPR’s environment and energy reporter for Northern Wisconsin. “Wisconsin averages 864 wildfires that burn around 1,800 acres each year, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.

“The state had already seen more than 470 fires as of Monday, double the average for this time of year. More than 1,900 acres have already been set ablaze,” Kaeding continues.

Kaeding interviewed Jim Bernier, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (WDNR) forest fire section manager, about the fires, which he blamed on two years of drought caused by climate change.

“With these droughty conditions that we’re experiencing, we’re seeing these fire-staffing needs occurring more and more all year round,” Bernier said. “We’ve never had this many fires in January and February ever in the state of Wisconsin,”

Bernier’s claim is belied by the fact that Wisconsin is not in drought, and especially not an unusually severe drought.

Data from the U.S. National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) shows that in January through March of 2025, precipitation was nearly an inch above normal, with 2025 being the 35th wettest year [since] 1895. At present, no counties in Wisconsin are designated as being under Drought Disaster conditions.

Long-term drought data for Wisconsin show that over the past 30 years, drought conditions have been less severe than historically common, with the last decade being particularly wet in general. (See the graph from NIDIS, below.)

The fact that Wisconsin has not suffered unusual degrees of drought or extremely hot temperatures in recent years is confirmed in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Wisconsin State Climate Summary, which reports that the number of very hot days in Wisconsin has declined sharply over the past century, while the amount of winter and summer precipitation has either slightly increased or remained about the same.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Role of Climate Change in LA Wildfires “Not Statistically Significant”, Says Report Author

by C. Morrison, Apr 4, 2025 in WUWT

Climate change was a major factor behind the recent Los Angeles wildfires, reported Matt McGrath of the BBC last January. According to a ‘scientific study’ instantly produced by World Weather Attribution (WWA), the prevailing weather conditions were made about 35% more likely due to humans using hydrocarbons. The WWA study, according to the trusting McGrath, is said to confirm this somewhat precise attribution of blame. Possibly the BBC and most of the mainstream that also parroted the WWA line might consider some corrective copy in the light of a devasting critique of the claims from the theoretical physicist, science writer and prominent youtuber Dr Sabine Hossenfelder. In a YouTube video broadcast here that has gone viral on social media, she elicited an astonishing admission from one of the report’s authors that, “as you can see from the numbers, the changes in intensity and likelihood are unsurprisingly not statistically significant”.

Not statistically significant is exactly what Hossenfelder found since she noted that the figures supplied by the WWA were within a 95% statistical probability level. Her broadcast goes into detail about the numbers falling within the 95% level meaning that an alternative explanation is that climate change had no part to play in the LA fires.

But the laughter has a touch of gallows humour since Hossenfelder is concerned about matters of public policy arising from such widespread fearmongering. Wildfires affect the lives of millions of people and the claims of the WWA broadcast worldwide by unquestioning activists are policy relevant numbers, she observes. People in LA need to consider their response to the recent tragedy and judge whether it will happen more frequently in the future, she says, observing: “This research matters for people’s lives.” Of course similar observations can be made about all the other mainstream pseudoscience babble designed to deliberately induce mass climate psychosis and promote the collectivist Net Zero fantasy.

Lost in all the mainstream narrative-driven madness was any report about the recent sensational scientific finding that wildfires across the United States and Canada were occurring at a rate of only 23% of that expected from a review of the tree ring fire scar record going back to the 17th century. The findings published in Nature Communications effectively blew the politicised wildfire climate change scam out of the water. It was noted that a current ”widespread fire deficit” persisted across a range of forest types, and the areas burned in the recent past “are not unprecedented”.

Such was the alarm created by these inconvenient findings that one pre-publication reviewer noted: “I see this paper as potentially being used by deniers of climate change impacts.” Advice was given to rephrase “to put even more emphasis on impact rather than burned area”. In other words, concentrate on emotion rather than facts to help produce the Ultra Processed Message that is slowly but surely destroying faith in both climate science and the useful idiot media.

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climate-debate

Guardian Falsely Claims Climate Change is Intensifying Cyclones

by E. Worall, Mar 13, 2025 in WUWT

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Are climate modellers putting the effect before the cause when it comes to long term cyclone frequency and intensity vs surface temperature? Because there is a very simple possible explanation for why atmospheric and ocean surface temperature is rising but cyclone frequency and intensity are decreasing – cyclone frequency and intensity likely have an inverse relationship with ocean surface and atmospheric heat content. Cyclones are powerful dissipators of surface heat, an uptick in cyclones would cause an immediate and sustained drop in surface temperature.

Bonus points for anyone who has a good theory for what causes more cyclones – I mean a theory which doesn’t contradict observations.

better to know...?, climate-debate

A fire deficit persists across diverse North American forests despite recent increases in area burned

by S.A. Parks et al., OPEN ACESS, Feb 10, 2025 in Nature

Abstract

Rapid increases in wildfire area burned across North American forests pose novel challenges for managers and society. Increasing area burned raises questions about whether, and to what degree, contemporary fire regimes (1984–2022) are still departed from historical fire regimes (pre-1880). We use the North American tree-ring fire-scar network (NAFSN), a multi-century record comprising >1800 fire-scar sites spanning diverse forest types, and contemporary fire perimeters to ask whether there is a contemporary fire surplus or fire deficit, and whether recent fire years are unprecedented relative to historical fire regimes. Our results indicate, despite increasing area burned in recent decades, that a widespread fire deficit persists across a range of forest types and recent years with exceptionally high area burned are not unprecedented when considering the multi-century perspective offered by fire-scarred trees. For example, ‘record’ contemporary fire years such as 2020 burned 6% of NAFSN sites—the historical average—well below the historical maximum of 29% sites that burned in 1748. Although contemporary fire extent is not unprecedented across many North American forests, there is abundant evidence that unprecedented contemporary fire severity is driving forest loss in many ecosystems and adversely impacting human lives, infrastructure, and water supplies.

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climate-debate

The LA fires were man-made, but not like they say

by C. Martz, Feb 13, 2025 in WUWT

The political fires that ignited with President Donald Trump’s second inauguration shifted national attention away from the devastating wildfires in California.

Now entirely contained, the Los Angeles County fires should not be allowed to fade into the history books, chalked up to yet another consequence of man-made global warming. Politicians trying to pin the blame for the disaster on climate change are not only attempting to avoid accountability but are just plain wrong.

Fires require three key ingredients: an ignition source, fuel, and oxygen. Wildfires do not spontaneously combust because the planet is 1.2°C warmer now than in 1850. There must first be an ignition source. These can be natural, such as lightning, or man-made, such as fireworks, sparks, or arson. Ninety-seven percent of fires between 1992 and 2012 had a human ignition source, according to a study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mediterranean California is no exception. While the exact cause of the Los Angeles fires has yet to be determined, lightning has already been ruled out. Whether it was an accident, arson, or broken utility lines remains unknown. If it was a broken power line, Southern California Edison must explain why it didn’t deenergize its transmission lines in the foothills. What is known is that the weather conditions have been ripe for fires to escape containment and spread.

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Australia, climate-debate

Australian Heatwave Stories Cop Severe Criticism

by G. Sherrigton, Jan 29, 2025 in WUWT

The daily temperature observations from many Australian weather stations have now been routinely updated by the Bureau of Meteorology, BOM, to the end of year 2024.

Year 2024 has been publicized GLOBALLY as the “hottest year evah!” so it is time to examine how Australia fared. Here, heatwaves are the medium used.

The frequent, accepted chant is that globally, heatwaves are becoming “hotter, longer and more frequent”. This chant is not supported by the following heatwave analysis which examines 10 Australian weather stations with lengthy historic observations. This study has generated 160 graphs that are linked by weather station/city that is the main part of this article for readers to examine.

Here is a snapshot of Adelaide, using only 3-day heatwave examples, 4 graphs out of a possible 16 for Adelaide.

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Some essential points:

  1. A day of missing data can lead to large damage to the calculations, because that 1 day affects 9 other days in the 10-DAY analysis. Therefore, all missing values were infilled, either by a subjective guess in the ballpark of surrounding values, or with the overall average Tmax value for the station. The shortest duration station, Brisbane, has some 50,400 days analyzed, with a few hundred missing values, so the odds of induced error are small. They can be traced.
  2. I have made the Excel commands as simple as possible. No knowledge of macros, programming or even Pivot tables is needed. The invitation is open for you to replicate the methodology for your own locations.
  3. I have not cherry picked the weather stations. Together, these 10 cities/locations house more than 70% of Australian population. This has meaning when planning for heatwaves, such as where to build hospitals and how large to make them.
  4. The chosen cities probably suffer from the temperature distortion of Urban Heat Island effect. There have been transect studies showing UHI in excess of a couple of degrees at times in both Sydney and Melbourne. I have now included two stations unlikely to have been affected by UHI, Cape Leeuwin and Longreach.

The Climate Sciences Use Of The Urban Heat Island Effect Is Pathetic And Misleading – Watts Up With That?

  1. Rebuttal of the misunderstanding that heatwaves are becoming “hotter, longer and more frequent” lacks credibility if actual data are used such s here, for 10 stations in far off Australia. It is hard to maintain that misunderstanding when simple graphs of real data are shown to those who make such claims. I am writing a more detailed analysis of these 160 graphs, should WUWT accept it.
  2. You are encouraged to make similar graphs for regions elsewhere. For heatwaves, they are hard to refute, in contrast with official/IPCC type studies, which usually commence after 1950 and which rely upon arcane definitions of heatwave to arrive at conclusions.
better to know...?, climate-debate

Climate Bombshell: New Evidence Reveals 30 Year Global Drop in Hurricane Frequency and Power

by C. Morrison, Jan 4, 2025 in DailySceptic

Last month a small but powerful cyclone named Chido made landfall in Mayotte before sweeping into Mozambique, causing considerable damage and leading to the loss of around 100 lives. Days after the tragedy, the Green Blob-funded Carbon Brief noted that scientists have “long suggested” that climate change is making cyclones worse in the region, while Blob-funded World Weather Attribution (WWA) at Imperial College London made a near-instant and curiously precise estimate that a Chido-like cyclone was about 40% more likely to happen in 2024 than during the pre-industrial age. Not to be outdone, Green Blob-funded cheerleader the Guardian chipped in with the obligatory “cyclones are getting worse because of the climate emergency”. Almost unnoticed, it seems, among all the Net Zero dooming and grooming was a science paper published during December by Nature that found no increase in the destructive power of cyclones – the generic term for typhoons and hurricanes – in any ocean basin over the last 30 years. In the South Indian basin, the location of cyclone Chido, there was a dramatic decrease in both frequency and duration in recent times.

Reality rarely gets much of a look-in these days when fanatical Net Zero activism is afoot, but the paper, written by a group of Chinese meteorologists, makes its case by considering the facts and the data. The scientists apply a “power dissipation index” (PDI) which they consider superior to single measure indicators since it combines storm intensity, duration and frequency. The graphs below show the cumulative index for tropical cyclones across all ocean basins along with a global indication.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

News Outlet Relies On Flawed ‘Attribution Studies’ To Blame Climate Change For Extreme Weather

by A. Watts, Nov 19,2024 in ClimateChaneDispatch

On Monday, November 18, The Guardian published an “explainer” piece titled “How do we know that the climate crisis is to blame for extreme weather?” This is false. [emphasis, links added]

Actual data on extreme weather does not support their claim, and the claim is mostly based on flawed “attribution studies.”

The narrative that severe weather events are worsening due to climate change has become a mainstay in today’s media. However, a closer look at the data and the science behind these claims often reveals inconsistencies that should give us pause.

Attribution studies, which are widely used to link specific extreme weather events to climate change, frequently lack rigorous peer review and are published hastily to garner headlines, raising significant concerns about their reliability.

Attribution studies work by using climate models to simulate two different worlds: one influenced by human-caused climate change and another without it. These models then assess the likelihood of extreme weather events in each world.

Yet the validity of such studies is only as good as the models and assumptions underpinning them.

This methodology is prone to overestimating risks because climate models often reflect overheated worst-case scenarios rather than actual observations.

Moreover, these studies are often published without proper peer review. Climate Realism has documented how media outlets run stories based on these model-driven studies, ignoring real-world data that often contradicts the alarming conclusions.

For example, articles frequently cite reports that heatwaves, floods, or hurricanes are “worsening” without disclosing that these claims rely on theoretical simulations rather than measured evidence.

Empirical data does not support claims of worsening severe weather. In fact, long-term trends for many extreme weather events have remained stable or even declined.

According to Climate at a Glance, heatwaves in the United States were most severe in the 1930s, with temperatures and frequency outstripping recent records.

The number of strong hurricanes making landfall in the United States has not increased either. The country even experienced a record 12-year lull in major hurricanes between 2005 and 2017.

Additionally, droughts have not intensified in the U.S. The nation saw historically low levels of drought in recent years, with 2017 and 2019 setting records for the smallest percentage of the country affected by drought. These data points highlight a crucial disconnect between what is reported and what is actually happening.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Climate Activists Frustrated by IPCC’s Refusal to Link Extreme Weather with Carbon Emissions

by C. Morrison, Oct 10, 2024 in WUWT

Last June, the state-reliant BBC reported that human-caused climate change had made U.S. and Mexico heatwaves “35 times more likely”. Nothing out of the ordinary here in mainstream media with everyone from climate comedy turn ‘Jim’ Dale to UN chief Antonio ‘Boiling’ Guterres making these types of bizarre attributions. But for those who closely follow climate science and the assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), “such headlines can be difficult to make sense of”, observes the distinguished science writer Roger Pielke. In a hard-hitting attack on the pseudo-scientific industry of weather attribution, he states: “neither the IPCC nor the underlying scientific literature comes anywhere close to making such strong and certain claims of attribution”.

Pielke argues that the extreme position of attributing individual bad weather events is “roughly aligned” with the far Left. “Climate science is not, or at least should not serve as a proxy for political tribes,” he cautions. But of course it is. The Net Zero fantasy is a collectivist national and supra-national agenda that increasingly relies on demonising bad weather. With global temperatures rising at most only 0.1°C a decade, laughter can only be general and side-splitting when IPCC boss Jim Skea claims that British summers will be 6°C hotter in less than 50 years. Two extended temperature pauses since 2000 have not helped the cause of global boiling. In addition there are increasing doubts about the reliability of temperature recordings by many meteorological organisations that seem unable to properly account for massive urban heat corruptions.

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climate-debate

Of The Top 10 Deadliest Hurricanes in U.S. History, Most Occurred Over A Century Ago

by G. Martinez, Oct 7, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is well underway, with forecasters predicting active and potentially dangerous conditions. … [emphasis, links added]

In late September, Hurricane Helene slammed into Florida’s Gulf Coast and drenched the Southeast, with devastating flooding taking a deadly toll in the mountains of North Carolina.

Here are the top 10 deadliest recorded hurricanes in U.S. history, according to the National Weather Service.

10. Last Island hurricane (1856)

The Last Island hurricane killed 400 people after slamming into the Louisiana coast in August 1856.

The highest points of the island were left under five feet of water in the wake of the storm, with the resort hotel and surrounding gambling establishments destroyed, according to NOAA.

The island itself was devastated, left void of vegetation, and split in half, NOAA said.

9. Labor Day hurricane (1935)

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climate-debate

Climate Propaganda Cabals Ramp Up the Heat for Summer

by K. Hansen, June 18, 2024 in WUWT

Covering Climate Now [CCNow], the Columbia University-based climate propaganda outfit, which claims the ability to reach over 2 billion people worldwide with its ready-to-use, ready-to-share and content-directed climate alarm stories, is ramping up and issuing directives to climate journalists around the world.

Here are the main points that they insist that journalist around the world make in each and every story about Summer.

“Reporting Guidance: 2024’s Extreme Heat

Climate change is making extreme heat more frequent and more severe. Here are resources, sample copy, and tips to help you meet the moment.”

Now, I am a climate journalist myself and I admit that I am not entirely sure exactly what they mean by “tips to help you meet the moment”, nonetheless, I will share those tips with readers here.  Why?  So that when you see them repeated in your local newspapers, hear them on the radio, or watch some TV weatherman rattle them off, you’ll know the true source of the exaggerated statements and general misinformation.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

With Summer Heat Waves, The Media’s Having A Field Day Pushing Climate Change Lies

by Editorial Board, One 18, 2024  in ClimatChangeDispatch

city sun heat wave

There’s a summer heat wave going on, which gives journalists the opportunity to fill up their stories with climate change boilerplate. [emphasis, links added]

It no longer matters whether any of it is true. Just the opposite, in fact. If you point out the truth, you’re accused of being a denier.

Sure, the data doesn’t show an increase in the number or intensity of hurricanes or tornadoes or wildfires. Yet every time one or the other strikes, the press robotically connects that event to “climate change.”

Every tornado season, we hear about how climate change is making them more frequent and more deadly. Except the facts don’t support the narrative.

 

Source: ustornadoes.com
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better to know...?

Tooting’s Great Storm Of 1914

by P. Homewood, June 14, in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

May be a black-and-white image of 3 people, street, Rijksmuseum and text that says "商聞 THEGREATSTOR STOR SuNe1t. SEELY ነ Joly"

May be an image of street and Rijksmuseum

May be a black-and-white image of street and text

110 years ago today, much of SW London was hit by what was called The Great Storm.

Tooting was hit with floods, as the above photos show, an event still remembered today.

The Met Office report for the month highlighted how much rain fell in such a short period over much of London. There was also extreme rainfall in other parts of the country.

Note also the serious railway accident in Inverness four days later.

climate-debate

They Never Used To Have Heatwaves in Mali!

by P. Homewood, Apr 18, 2024 in NotALotOfPeopleKnowThat

A deadly heatwave in West Africa and the Sahel was “impossible” without human-induced climate change, scientists say.

Temperatures soared above 48C in Mali last month with one hospital linking hundreds of deaths to the extreme heat.

Researchers say human activities like burning fossil fuels made temperatures up to 1.4C hotter than normal.

A number of countries in the Sahel region and across West Africa were hit by a strong heatwave that struck at the end of March and lasted into early April.

The heat was most strongly felt in the southern regions of Mali and Burkina Faso.

In Bamako, the capital of Mali, the Gabriel Toure Hospital said it recorded 102 deaths in the first days of April.

Around half the people who died were over 60 years of age, and the hospital said that heat played a role in many of these casualties.

Researchers believe that global climate change had a key role in this five-day heatwave.

A new analysis from scientists involved with the World Weather Attribution group suggests the high day time and night time temperatures would not have been possible without the world’s long term use of coal, oil and gas as well as other activities such as deforestation.

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climate-debate

Meteorologist: Climate Change Not Increasing Hurricanes, Wildfires, Or Migration

by A. Watts, Apr 18, 2024 in WUWT

An article by the website ProPublica titled The Flooding Will Come “No Matter What” linked to Hurricane Katrina, storm refugees, and climate change, claiming that the storm was evidence of the beginning of a “climate migration” in America. [emphasis, links added]

The connection is false. Data refutes a climate connection to any particular hurricane or trend in migration.

The article does a lot of rambling coverage of a family that was displaced by Hurricane Katrina back in 2005, saying:

Another great American migration is now underway, this time forced by the warming that is altering how and where people can live. For now, it’s just a trickle. But in the corners of the country’s most vulnerable landscapes — on the shores of its sinking bayous and on the eroding bluffs of its coastal defenses — populations are already in disarray.

The article goes on to follow the trials and tribulations of a single family who had their home destroyed during Hurricane Katrina.

ProPublica believes this case is evidence of climate change causing a “migration,” because the family has not moved back to the same location.

The article itself cites no data or study to support its claim about Hurricane Katrina. Rather, it simply states the author’s opinions as if they were established facts.

Later the article similarly describes families displaced by the 2018 Camp Fire in Paradise, Calif., as climate refugees, writing:

As the number of displaced people continues to grow, an ever-larger portion of those affected will make their moves permanent, migrating to safer ground or supportive communities. They will do so either because a singular disaster like the 2018 wildfire in Paradise, California — or Hurricane Harvey, which struck the Texas and Louisiana coasts — is so destructive it forces them to, or because the subtler “slow onset” change in their surroundings gradually grows so intolerable, uncomfortable or inconvenient that they make the decision to leave, proactively, by choice.

First, it should be noted that weather events such as hurricanes are not proof of climate change, and ProPublica is falsely conflating short-term weather events with long-term climate change.

Further, as discussed in Climate at a Glance: Hurricanes, even the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admits to finding no increase in the long-term frequency or severity of hurricanes.

Also, after Katrina, the United States went through its longest period in recorded history without a major hurricane strike and recently experienced its fewest total hurricanes in any eight-year period.

There has been no increase in the number or intensity of tropical cyclones since 1972 as the planet has modestly warmed. Indeed, for some basins, the data suggests tropical cyclone frequency has declined over the past century.

Data presented in more than 100 previous Climate Realism posts here, here, here, and here, for example, clearly show that hurricane trends have been relatively flat over the past 50 years of modest warming, and the trend in powerful Atlantic hurricanes is downward (see the figures below).

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better to know...?

New Report: Globally, Hurricanes Not Getting Worse Or More Frequent

by Dr. P. Peiser, Apr 17, 2024 in ClimateChangeDispatch

The Global Warming Policy Foundation has today published its periodic review of global hurricane activity. [emphasis, links added]

The author, climate researcher Paul Homewood, says that official data is absolutely clear: hurricanes are neither increasing in number nor intensity.

Click to enlarge

Homewood says:

“The observational data published by meteorological agencies in 2023 has confirmed once again that there are no upward trends in global hurricane activity since reliable records began in the 1970s.”

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climate-debate

After All the Media Hype, Wildfires Across Southern Europe Were Completely Normal in 2023

by C. Morrison , Feb25, 2024 in TheDailySceptic

Writing in the Daily Telegraph last July, Suzanne Moore reported that the “world is on fire – and we can’t ignore it any longer”. She was noting the usual outbreaks of summer wildfires in southern Europe and suggested a retreat by cautious holiday makers in Rhodes away from one conflagration was “what climate refugees look like”. The Guardian was in similar hysterical mode observing that the lesson from Greece was “the climate crisis is coming for us all”. Such was the level of Thermogeddon interest last summer it is curious that final figures for areas burnt during the year are missing from mainstream media. In the five largest southern European countries for which the EU provides separate data – Portugal, Spain, France, Italy and Greece – 2023 was only the 20th highest in the modern satellite burnt acreage record going back to 1980.

This is perhaps not surprising. Fire ‘weather’ is a potent tool in stoking up general climate anxiety and helps promote the need for a collectivist Net Zero political solution. The Guardian used video footage of tourists moving away from one wildfire last year to claim “survival mode” could easily pass for a “TV climate crisis awareness raising campaign”. An Agence France-Presse report in the Guardian quoted EU spokesman Balazs Ujvari as stating that fires are getting more severe. “If you look at the figures every year in the past years, we are seeing trends which are not necessarily favourable.”

Let us look at some of the figures, starting first with the graph below compiled by the investigative climate writer Paul Homewood.

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climate-debate

UK Met Office Fails to Retract False Claim of “More Intense” Storms Due to Climate Change

by C. Morrison, Feb 23, 2023 in WUWT

The Met Office is refusing to retract a claim made by a senior meteorologist on BBC Radio 5 Live that storms in the U.K. are becoming “more intense” due to climate change. This is despite admitting in Freedom of Information (FOI) documents that it had no evidence to back up the claim. The Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF) noted the “false” claim seriously misled the public and demanded a retraction. The Daily Sceptic covered the story last Thursday and has since contacted the Met Office on three occasions seeking a response. “False information of this kind does much to induce climate anxiety in the population and I am sure you would agree such errors should be corrected by any reputable organisation,” it was noted. No reply was received – no retraction has been forthcoming.

The storm claim was made by Met Office spokesman Clare Nasir on January 22nd and led to an FOI request for an explanation by the investigative journalist Paul Homewood. The Met Office replied that it was unable to answer the request due to the fact that the information “is not held”. Interestingly, the Met Office’s own 2022 climate report noted that the last two decades have seen fewer occurrences of maximum wind speeds in the 40, 50, 60 knot bands than previous decades. The Daily Sceptic report went viral on social media with almost 3,000 retweets on X, while GWPF’s demand for retraction was covered by the Scottish Daily Express.

The lack of action by the state-funded Met Office is very interesting. Extreme weather is now the major go-to explanation for the opinion that humans largely control the climate, despite a general lack of scientific evidence. Backing away from this ‘settled’ narrative risks damaging a potent tool nudging populations across the world towards the collectivist Net Zero political project. Mainstream media usually take care to fudge their reporting of any direct link, using phrases such as ‘scientists say’ and sprinkling words ‘could’ and ‘might’ in the copy. The mistake Nasir made was to forget this basic requirement of broadcast fearmongering.

There appears to be an arrogance around the Met Office, an arrogance it shares with many other organisations and scientists promoting Net Zero …

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better to know...?, climate-debate

No Trends In Extratropical Cyclones – IPCC

by  P. Homewood, Jan 2, 2024 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

image

We constantly hear that storms are getting worse because of global warming. These claims are not referring to hurricanes and tropical storms, but the sort of storm which hits the UK several times every winter.

These are known as Extratropical Storms. The clown Jim Dale made this very claim again this week after Strom Gerrit. According to him, it is all to do with warm oceans, which pep up these storms. If this was correct, there would never be any storms in the Arctic. But claims such as this show a basic misunderstanding of meteorology; astonishing for somebody who claims to be a meteorologist!

NOAA explain the difference between tropical and extratropical cyclones (ETCs):

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unclassified

The 2023 Atlantic Hurricane Season Was Average–Not 4th Busiest

by P. Homewood, Dec 1, 2023 in NotaLotofPeopleKnowThat

As even CBS own chart shows, the number of hurricanes and major hurricanes has only been average.

Instead it is those named storms, which did not reach hurricane strength, that have been above average. And as we know, this is simply because we are able to spot many more of these short lived, weak storms with the help of satellites, along with the fact that many storms are now named which would not have been categorised as Tropical Storms in the past.

First, let’s look at the actual data.

The best record we have is for US landfalling hurricanes, with reliable data back as far as the 1900. According to the US Hurricane Research Division (HRD):

Because of the sparseness of towns and cities before 1900 in some coastal locations along the United States, the above list is not complete for all states. Before the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts became settled, hurricanes may have been underestimated in their intensity or missed completely for small-sized systems (i.e., 2004’s Hurricane Charley).

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better to know...?, climate-debate

Critical Examination of Hurricane Intensification Predictions

by J. Steele, Oct 1, 2023 in WUWT

Why climate models not yet worth their salt!

As all hurricane researchers lament, model predictions of when and where hurricanes will intensify, have not improved much in the past 20 years. As recently as the early 2010s, weather model forecasts failed to predict 88 percent of rapidly intensifying tropical storms. Nonetheless National Public Radio (NPR) has ranted that hurricanes are “intensifying more quickly, turning from less-serious storms to very strong ones in hours or days. Superheated ocean waters hold a lot of extra energy, and a growing storm can draw from that enormous pool.” But such “superheated water” is not widespread as rising CO2 narratives suggest, but found only in very limited regions and usually associated with “barrier layers”.

Hurricanes intensify as they draw “superheated” subsurface waters  of 65.5°F or higher. However, when a hurricane’s suction pulls up cooler subsurface waters, the hurricane weakens. This negative feedback naturally limits the intensity of all hurricanes. In the upper panel of the attached graphic, Arnand (2023) illustrates where thin barrier layer exists, hurricane intensity hovers around Category 1. In contrast, where thick barrier layers form, cooler deep waters are prevented from reaching the surface, and instead allow superheated sub-surface waters to cause rapid intensification.

Denser fluids don’t naturally rise above less dense fluids! Barrier layer formation happens wherever freshwater overlays dense salty waters. Although solar heating would normally make subsurface waters less dense and rise to the surface, layers with higher saltiness makes the water more dense which inhibits warm convection. That traps and intensifies the subsurface heat, enabling hurricanes to intensify to Category 5.

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better to know...?, climate-debate

THE TRUTH ABOUT WEATHER EXTREMES What the Past Tells Us

by Alexander, Sep 2023 , in GWPF

Executive summary

This report refutes the popular but mistaken belief that today’s weather extremes are more common and more intense because of climate change, by examining the history of extreme weather events over the past century or so. Drawing on newspaper archives, the report presents multiple examples of past extremes that matched or exceeded anything experienced in the present-day world. That so many people are unaware of this shows that collective memories of extreme weather are short-lived.

Heatwaves of the last few decades pale in comparison to those of the 1930s – a period whose importance is frequently downplayed by the media and environmental activists. The evidence shows that the record heat of the 1930s was not confined to the US Dust Bowl, but extended throughout much of North America, as well as other countries such as France, India and Australia.

Major floods today are no more common nor deadly or disruptive than any of the thousands of floods in the past, despite heavier precipitation in a warming world (which has increased flash flooding). Many of the world’s countries regularly experience major floods, especially China, India and Pakistan.

Severe droughts have been a continuing feature of the earth’s climate for millennia, despite the brouhaha in the mainstream media over the extended drought in Europe during the summer of 2022. Not only was the European drought not unprecedented, but there have been numerous longer and drier droughts throughout history, including during the past century.

Hurricanes overall actually show a decreasing trend around the globe, and the frequency of landfalling hurricanes has not changed for at least 50 years. The deadliest US hurricane in record- ed history, which killed an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 people, struck Galveston, Texas over 100 years ago in 1900.

Likewise, there is no evidence that climate change is causing tornadoes to become more frequent and stronger. The annual number of strong (EF3 or greater) US tornadoes has in fact declined dramatically over the last 72 years, and there are ample examples of past tornadoes just as or more violent and deadly than today’s.

Wildfires are not increasing either. On the contrary, the area burned annually is diminishing in most countries. Although wildfires can be exacerbated by other weather extremes such as heatwaves and droughts, those extremes are not on the rise as stated above.

The perception that extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity is primarily a consequence of modern technology – the Internet and smart phones – which have revolutionised communication and made us much more aware of such disasters than we were 50 or 100 years ago. The misperception has only been amplified by the mainstream media, eager to promote the latest climate scare. And as psychologists know, constant repetition of a false belief can, over time, create the illusion of truth. But history tells a different story.

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