Al Gore has scheduled a photo-op for Monday or Tuesday in Florida with the backdrop of a burning state to bolster climate change action. He's asked NASA via the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) for information gathered from space on lightning rates and fires. Reportedly, NASA staff has been working day and night the past 3 days to get "fantastic photos" of the destruction.
The spin will be "this has never happened before" -- when in fact there are only 3 years of satellite data of lightning and not much more for fires. Droughts do happen. But that fact seems to be lost in the present climate. (No pun intended.)
Some things to think about:
- In climatology, nothing less than 30 years counts as a trend. Would any reputable scientist will try to link specific weather events or even 3-year "trends" to climate change?
- In his June 8, 1998 press release, Gore said that the first 5 months of 1998 set temperature records in 5 states. But as John Christy has pointed out, 37 states had their warmest temperature days before 1940 and only 13 after 1940. By Gore's logic, this is evidence of global cooling.
- Gore also said in the June 8 press release that "Tornadoes have killed 122 people this year, matching the annual record set in 1984." In fact, tornadoes on April 3-4, 1974 killed 315 people, and the Tri-State Tornado of March 18, 1925 killed 695 people.
- This year's tornadoes were lethal not because they were exceptional as weather phenomena, but because of where they struck -- trailer parks, i.e., neighborhoods where people can't take shelter in basements. More importantly, the indices for tornadoes are flat or falling -- as they have been for hurricanes.
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