A Friend of Mine Bet Me It Wouldn't Be Long Before...

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…yesterday's tornadoes were blamed on global warming. He was, unfortunately, correct. Below is the headline from the Kansas City Star with a photo from yesterday's tragic Pilger tornado.

 I guess it didn't occur to the Star to check the facts:
  1. Violent tornadoes (like yesterday's) have decreased over the last 30 years. Here is a graph from NOAA:
  2. The tornadoes occurred in an area where, given a stable climate, tornadoes would be most expected (arrow). If the tornadoes had instead occurred in Alabama, Nevada or Maine, that would be an indication of climate change. 
    It is increasingly apparent that the facts are not important to the climate cultists. 

Comments

  1. Frontier CarpenterJune 17, 2014 at 11:20 PM

    Great info on your blog! I don't think most people take into account the effects of geography on natural disasters. As the population of the earth increases so will the increase in people experiencing natural disasters. I live only about 15 miles from Pilger. If the tornado hadn't hit the town few people would be talking about it. Imagine the if the Pilger tornado or if the monster up by Laurel tonight hit a populated city like Omaha. There would be a lot more people blaming global warming verses just be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownJune 18, 2014 at 7:13 AM

    So many people read a newspaper article with an expectation of credibility. That is long gone these days.

    Thanks again for countering climate change hype with fact.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Fact checkerJune 18, 2014 at 10:02 AM

    Maybe Mike Smith should be the one checking facts. The actual NOAA report from which this graph is extracted also provides an summary analyzing the data. The NOAA analysis explicitly states that many variables create a great deal of uncertainty regarding any trend tornado frequency. These variables include decades of changes in technology used to detect tornadoes, changes in population (i.e. observer distribution) etc. Nowhere does the NOAA report state that the frequency of strong tornadoes has decreased, as Smith concludes. In fact, the NOAA report explicitly cautions against making such long-term piece-meal comparisons.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mike SmithJune 18, 2014 at 11:09 AM

    @Fact Checker: So, we are supposed to believe global warming is causing worse tornadoes even though the data indicates the opposite is correct?

    Because of tornado chasers, storm spotters and Doppler radar, the percentage of detected tornadoes, when compared to all tornadoes, has never been higher. For example, storm chasers in southeast Montana documented a tornado yesterday that almost certainly would not have been observed in the 1950's. So, because of the better observations and tools, the trend in tornado numbers would be expected to be UP. Instead, it is down. That is a very significant signal that tornadoes are not getting worse.

    Climate 'science' is the only branch of science in history that believes its various hypothesis are not falsifiable. What that really means is that climate science is a system of beliefs rather than true science.

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownJune 20, 2014 at 5:16 AM

    MIke GREAT story. That being said keep in mind here that NO pro agw climate scientist has made this claim. The fact that the KS star newspapers cant do 30 minutes of research has NOTHING to do with the climate science

    ReplyDelete
  6. Mike SmithJune 20, 2014 at 9:28 PM

    @Unknown: That is not true. The debris had not even stopped falling in Moore, OK on 5/20/13 before Kevin Trenberth was blaming it on global warming.

    ReplyDelete

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