For much of the world, 2012 is going out the way it came in, with a deadly cold wave, leaving hundreds dead in its wake. Here are but a few of the chilling headlines from across the globe:
• Cold wave in north, east India claims over 40 lives — Mangalore Today (India), December 28, 2012
• Record Cold Grips Vast Area Of Asia – China Sees Temperatures Drop To – 37°C! — NoTrickZone (Germany) December 26, 2012
• Cold War: Bitter Winter Weather Kills Hundreds In Eastern Europe, Russia — International Business Times (U.S.), December 24, 2012
• Numerous Japanese cities reach record lows as freezing temperature persist — The Japan Daily Press (Japan), December 26, 2012
• East Europe’s bitter cold kills 300 — Vatican Radio (Rome), December 26, 2012
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• Down to -50C: Russians freeze to death as strongest-in-decades winter hits — Russia Today (Russia), December 19, 2012
• Heavy snowfalls keep Balkans in deep freeze — U-T San Diego (U.S.), December 11, 2012
• Tens of thousands of holiday travelers stranded as wild weather heads east — TomNelsonBlogspot.com (U.S.), December 2, 2012
• Blizzard warnings stretch for 730 continuous miles due to Winter Storm Euclid — The Weather Channel (U.S.)
But most of the so-called mainstream media (MSM) are stuck in their global warming groove and are determined to stay there, obstinately ignoring the scientific evidence that shows their alarmist predictions to be spectacularly wrong. They also have downplayed, totally ignored, or attempted to explain away the fact that for several winters in a row much of the world has been struck with deadly cold waves.
National Public Radio (NPR) and the Associated Press (AP) are all too typical of the willfully blind and invincibly ignorant MSM “news” organizations. On December 20 NPR ran an AP story entitled, “2012 Another Record-Setter, Fits Climate Forecasts” to spread more climate apocalypse fear.
The article intoned ominously:
In 2012 many of the warnings scientists have made about global warming went from dry studies in scientific journals to real-life video played before our eyes: Record melting of the ice in the Arctic Ocean. U.S. cities baking at 95 degrees or hotter. Widespread drought. Flooding. Storm surge inundating swaths of New York City.
All of that was predicted years ago by climate scientists and all of that happened in 2012.
The article continued in the same vein, citing a litany of weather events that supposedly buttress the “extreme weather” meme that climate catastrophists hope will scare the world into adopting their plan for global regimentation of everything. The AP fright piece claimed:
America’s heartland lurched from one extreme to the other without stopping at “normal.” Historic flooding in 2011 gave way to devastating drought in 2012.
“The normal has changed, I guess,” said U.S. National Weather Service acting director Laura Furgione. “The normal is extreme.”
The AP report is filled with almost every discredited frightmare conjured up by the discredited Climategate propagandists posing as scientists. But that was to be expected; the story was concocted by AP’s Seth Borenstein, an ardent global-warming alarmist who was at the center of AP’s 2009 Climategate scandal (See: “AP Caught Misleading on Climategate”).
That NPR chose to run with the AP/Borestein story is not surprising. NPR has long been infamous for its fact-averse, reality-free, taxpayer-financed, hard-left bias on virtually all things considered: gun control, gay marriage, abortion, ObamaCare, deficit spending, welfare, foreign aid, amnesty for illegal aliens, the United Nations, government regulation of just about everything, and, of course … global warming. Over the past several months, NPR has run dozens of its own print and broadcast stories on global warming. Among those are stories on how man-made global warming is supposedly causing: “extreme weather,” which, in turn, is causing “extreme food prices” and global hunger (see here); extreme hot weather in Texas (see here); “Hurricane” Sandy and widespread extreme weather (see here, here, and here); and more frequent and extreme wildfires (see here). NPR also joins its confreres on the Left in claiming that natural gas “fracking” contributes to global warming. NPR stories are heavily biased with quotes from “experts” — scientists and NGO activists — promoting the alarmist line, and the network frequently features full interviews with leading alarmists, such as its October 3, 2012 interview with climate über-alarmist Michael Mann (of Climategate infamy). But any NPR pretense of balance and objectivity on the subject was certainly destroyed by at least two articles this December defaming global warming skeptics (including world-renowned scientists) as “deniers” and equating them with space alien “conspiracy theorists” (see here and here).
Extreme Weather or Extreme Alarmism?
But is the world truly experiencing unnatural “extreme weather” and has it become “the new normal” because of anthropogenic (human-caused) global warming, or AGW? Happily, the answers are “no” and “no.” As The New American reported recently (“New Report: Man-made Global Warming Is a Farce”), there is no scientific, empirical evidence that droughts, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and other extreme events are any more frequent or intense in recent years than in times past.
Steven Goddard at RealScience responded to the NPR claims with this post on December 28:
NPR told us today that the summer of 2012 was a record breaker in the US. The only thing which broke any records was the level of BS coming from the ministry of truth.
An apples to apples comparison, shows that the summer of 1936 had five times as many record maximums as the summer of 2012.
RealScience then reproduced the graphs and data from the Global Historical Climate Network stations to show that 1936 was indeed a much hotter year — during a time when CO2 levels were much lower.
Regarding the continuously repeated false claim that recent hurricanes and Tropical Storm Sandy are “unprecedented,” Anthony Watts, at WattsUpWithThat.com, charges: “Next time somebody tries to tell you hurricane Sandy was an ‘unprecedented’ East Coast hurricane, show them this.” The “this” he refers to is a NOAA graphic of the U.S. eastern seaboard plotting the paths of the nine H3 and H4 category hurricanes that hit the region 1951-1960. He notes:
All one need to do to explode the memes that paid political activists Bill McKibben and Brad Johnson are pushing is to look at a history book. In this case, WeatherBELL’s Joe Bastardi points us to NOAA’s National Hurricane Center history book.
Meteorologist Joe Bastardi of WeatherBell.com observes that six of those hurricanes occurred in just two years — Carol, Edna, Hazel, Connie, Diane, Ione — and five of them were majors. “Nothing even CLOSE on east coast since then,” says Bastardi.
Apropos to the situation, Anthony Watts asks a very relevant question. “Along the same lines of looking at history, what was the CO2 level then?” Watts refers us to a NOAA chart. Surprise: CO2 levels were below 310 parts per million prior to 1960.
Watts notes: “Looks like the CO2 level was less than 310 ppm prior to 1958, when the data begins.” “So here’s the question,” says Watts, “if 350 ppm is the ‘safe’ level as defined by activists Dr. James Hansen and Bill McKibben, how did all those hurricanes happen back then?”
What about the dramatic AP/NPR claim that “all of that was predicted years ago by climate scientists and all of that happened in 2012”? Well, when it comes to predictions, the “climate scientists” AP/NPR favors are about as reliable as the advocates of the Mayan Calendar Apocalypse. As we reported recently (Climate-change Computer Models Fail Again — and Again, and Again), one scientific report after another has shown the computer models used by the AGW alarmists to be fatally flawed and much of their data to be exaggerated, manipulated, fabricated, and outright fraudulent. But scientific evidence and common sense haven’t stopped NPR, AP, and other MSM Chicken Littles from doubling down and cranking up the AGW fright peddling.
Snowmaggedon Clobbers Warmaggedon
ICECAP is a top climate science site that regularly debunks claims of the global warming alarmists. Its staff and contributing writers include renowned climatologists, meteorologists, and physicists. In a December 19 posting, meteorologist Joe D’Aleo notes that “75% or more of the nation will be snow-covered by end of year. The hemisphere has again been well above normal w/r snow. For the US, two major snowstorms this week and a frigid New Year’s Eve. Snows will fall west south and east. Another storm in early January.”
D’Aleo took aim at the year-end hyperventilating by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) over the “crisis” that 2012’s weather supposedly proves. D’Aleo observes:
Another bout of nonsense from UNH/UCS and NRDC environmental activists who never really look at the data. Back in 2007, the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), an environmental advocacy group that has seeded the once great universities with alarmists, had a meeting atop Mt. Washington where they warned ski areas that snow would vanish as global warming accelerated and the maple sugar industry would also suffer as maple trees packed their bags and retreated to Canada.
That very next winter set all types of snow records in the northeast and across all the country west to Colorado and north to Alaska. Across almost all of North America, 2007/08 was the best, or one of the best seasons ever for those who enjoy winter sports. Practically every ski area from Alaska across Canada in the Western U.S. – the Midwest and New England saw plenty of snow; some places reporting all-time record snow. Michael Berry, President of the National Ski Areas Association told the AP that, “This could very well be the record year”.
ICECAP Executive Director D’Aleo, who was the first Director of Meteorology at the cable TV Weather Channel and has over 30 years of professional meteorological experience, goes on:
Two years later, another enviro terrorist, RFK Jr., lamented that children in DC would no longer be able to enjoy winter sports like sledding because of global warming. The following winter 2009/10 set all-time snow records for the Mid-Atlantic with sled and snowshoes and skiis the best way to get around.
D’Aleo produces satellite photos, Doppler radar, charts, data, and photos of snowbound cities, villages, and countryside to go along with his story. He notes:
In 2010/11 major snows hit the nation again. Chicago had a blizzard…. The east was buried in snow…. NYC had their third snowiest year and second snowiest month (behind February 2010).
A major blitz of heavy snowstorms occurred in the east, in the big cities of the east. Since 2000, we have had 17 major east coast storms among the 46 major impact storms NOAA has cataloged in the 56 years of the record, a full 10 such storms since the first ludicrous UNH/UCS press release….
In the hemisphere, 2009/10 had the second highest snow extent behind 1977/78. 20010/11 was third, 2007/08 4th and 2002/03 fifth. So 4 of the 5 snowiest years on record for the hemisphere have occurred in the last decade….
In an ironic twist, instead of greenhouse effect producing less snow, too much snow collapsed greenhouses in China this fall! (D’Aleo includes a photo of Chinese digging out collapsed greenhouses).
What’s more there has been no warming in any US region in the last 15 years, even with the warm winter last year.
FACT: No Measurable Warming for 15+ Years
Yes, to top it all off, even many of the top alarmist individuals and institutions — Dr. Phil Jones (of Climategate infamy), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the British Met Office, to name a few — have been forced to admit that there has been no measurable global warming for more than 15 years, during which time the same alarmists have been screaming in panic mode about the “end of the world as we know it” due to AGW.
However, the AGW alarmists have been hit with an even harsher dose of reality: The temperature records they have been relying on have been shown to be unfairly tilted in favor of the AGW thesis. The land temperature records from the weather stations have long been suspected of showing a warming bias due to poor siting, in violation of standard siting protocols. For several years meteorologist Anthony Watts has doggedly pursued this very vulnerable area of climate alarmism, with a dedicated band of volunteers, checking and documenting the problems with many of the weather stations that provide the temperatures used in the AGW models to produce the scary scenarios of a melting earth.
A large number of the weather stations are situated in areas that, over the decades, have changed from rural to urban and suburban habitat, with measurable “heat island effect.” In addition, as Watts has shown, many of the thermometer sites have egregious violations, such as placement on, next to, or near black top, exhaust fans, brick buildings, barbecues, metal structures, etc., all of which skew the temperatures in an upward directions and therefore give false warming signals.
As we have reported previously, an important study by Anthony Watts published this past July is what many scientists are calling “a game changer.” Watts’ comprehensive study shows that the faulty, non-compliant station sites, not surprisingly, have doubled the temperature increase of the better-sited, compliant stations. This is hugely important, since the cumulative temperature increase recorded by the compliant thermometers falls within the range of natural variability, which is to say, there is no measurable warming.
Time for the alarmists to chill out, relax — and celebrate; there is no AGW “crisis,” no “existential threat” from human activities to warrant all the anxiety.
Related articles:
Climate-change Computer Models Fail Again — and Again, and Again
Study Shows Global Warming Data Skewed by Bad Monitoring
New Report: Man-made Global Warming Is a Farce
Blaming Climate Change for Hurricane Sandy
Heat or Cold: Which Is More Deadly?
Global Climate Warming Stopped 15 Years Ago, UK Met Office Admits
“Climate Science” in Shambles: Real Scientists Battle UN Agenda
Blizzards Caused by Global “Warming”?
NOAA and the New “Climategate” Scandal
