Topic category:  Climate/Climate Change/Weather

Are climate alarmists' claims of catastrophic consequences of human-caused global warming reinforced by recent weather events?

Apparently, according to climate alarmist scientists.

Southern Australia has experienced excessive heat during the 2008-2009 summer with drought affecting many areas of the south.

"The oppressive heat [i]s a major talking point of the vast and drought stricken country of Australia.

"While cyclonic winds have been lashing the coast off Townsville, the temperature today soared to 112 degrees Fahrenheit (44.4° C) in Adelaide and Broken Hill, and 104° F (40° C) in Melbourne.

"So dry is much of Australia that the riverboats on the Murray have come to a stand still.  On a cattle station in central Queensland, it is reported that the kangaroos are too weak to hop and the kookaburras can no longer fly.

"In Western Australia, Victoria and Tasmania, the New Year sees these State’s battling to recover after recent bushfires. But if its not fires it would be floods, and if not floods it would be drought.

"In the north the odd cyclone adds a bit of interest by knocking down a few towns, or sinking the fishing fleet."

Except that the report cited above was made more than 108 years earlier! (See, Chronicles of Australia, Edited by John Ross, Legrand, 1993.) What caused that episode of warming? Could the same source be responsible for today's Australian heat and drought? We're not likely to find out from the UN's IPCC as they have little interest in learning about natural climate events.

So much for "unprecedented" warming!

Meanwhile, up in the northern winter, Britain experiences the worst winter weather in decades. And, of course, the UK Telegraph reports scientists claim snow is consistent with global warming. Dave Britton, a meteorologist at the UK Met Office, said: "Even with global warming you cannot rule out we will have a cold winter every so often." The story goes on to quote Bob Ward, spokesman for the Grantham Research Institute for Climate Change at the London School of Economics:  "What is important to do is look at the long term global trends and they are still up. What we experience in the short term in this country is not important. After all, Melbourne had a heat wave last week."

It is correct to point out that weather events are not necessarily an indication of the trend of climate change. However, Ward is incorrect when he claims "long term global trends ... are still up." If James Hansen's doctored data from questionable reporting stations is your only source of temperature records, you might come to Ward's conclusion of an upward trend. Though you'd have to ignore real world reports that fly in the face of the nonsense produced by Hansen's operation.

An accurate view of the record of temperature trends since 1895 reveals the recent warming spell peaked in 1998 with an accelerating cooling trend beginning at the beginning of the 21^st Century.

When weather events pile up consistently over time, one might expect that even the climate change alarmists would notice that maybe they are not such isolated events after all. Evidently that would be expecting too much.

The past two winters have been particularly severe and persistent through most of Asia and North America. Even Europe has not been spared from the cold onslaught with glaciers advancing in Norway, frozen Dutch canals, and blizzards in the UK.

To summarize, we are instructed by climate alarmists that the bitter cold and snow in the UK is not an indicator of climate change and that isolated weather events should not be taken as evidence of climate change. Yet the major heat wave in Melbourne, Australia during a summer of heat and drought that have plagued a large part of southern Australia, is cited as evidence for human-caused global warming by climate alarmists!

Ever notice that the "human-caused" modifier is automatically assumed when any of the climate alarmists speak of "global warming" or the new code phrase, "climate change"?

So there you have it. It's been bitter cold in much of the northern hemisphere for two consecutive winters, even Arctic Sea ice was greater this past summer than the previous summer, and yet that is all quite "consistent" with alarmists' theory of human-caused global warming. And, oh yes, so is the heat wave and drought in southern Australia evidence for human-caused global warming, despite a more persistent and severe heat and drought having occurred more than 100 years earlier!

To climate alarmists, everything is evidence of human-caused climate change.

Bob Webster
WEBCommentary (Editor, Publisher)

Biography - Bob Webster

Author of "Looking Out the Window", an evidence-based examination of the "climate change" issue, Bob Webster, is a 12th-generation descendent of both the Darte family (Connecticut, 1630s) and the Webster family (Massachusetts, 1630s). He is a descendant of Daniel Webster's father, Revolutionary War patriot Ebenezer Webster, who served with General Washington. Bob has always had a strong interest in early American history, our Constitution, U.S. politics, and law. Politically he is a constitutional republican with objectivist and libertarian roots. He has faith in the ultimate triumph of truth and reason over deception and emotion. He is a strong believer in our Constitution as written and views the abandonment of constitutional restraint by the regressive Progressive movement as a great danger to our Republic. His favorite novel is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and believes it should be required reading for all high school students so they can appreciate the cost of tolerating the growth of unconstitutional crushingly powerful central government. He strongly believes, as our Constitution enshrines, that the interests of the individual should be held superior to the interests of the state.

A lifelong interest in meteorology and climatology spurred his strong interest in science. Bob earned his degree in Mathematics at Virginia Tech, graduating in 1964.