Bad Weather Proves Climate Change, Says WMO

By Paul Homewood

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-real-extreme-weather-wmo-world-meteorological-organization-global-warming-a7640376.html

 

From the “A bit of bad weather proves climate change “ Dept.

An unbelievably crass piece from the failed Independent (and doubtlessly the BBC and the rest of the dismal MSM):

 

There is “no room for doubt”. The astonishing weather experienced by the world last year and advances in climate science demonstrate conclusively that fossil fuel emissions are causing global warming – and something must be done about it.

That was the reaction from scientist after scientist to a new report by the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), which documented record-breaking droughts, heatwaves, rainfall, melting of sea ice and a host of tangible signs observed in 2016 that the Earth’s climate has changed.

Amid fears that Donald Trump will withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change, the Secretary-General of the WMO said it was “vital” to slash carbon emissions and prepare for increasingly dangerous weather.

Writing in the report’s foreword, Petteri Taalas said: “The influence of human activities on the climate system has become more and more evident.

“This influence is increasingly being demonstrated by attribution studies for some of the most critical weather and climate extremes, in particular extremes related to heat.

“It is vital that [the Paris Agreement’s] implementation becomes a reality and that [it] guides the global community in addressing climate change by curbing greenhouse gases, fostering climate resilience and mainstreaming climate adaptation into national development policies.”

The WMO Statement on the State of the Global Climate in 2016 pointed to multiple signs that our planet’s weather is getting more extreme, including:

•    the record average temperature for the year of about 1.1C above pre-industrial levels;

•    millions of people going hungry after crops failed in parts of Africa as rainfall fell up to 60 per cent below average;

•    flooding that displaced hundreds of thousands of people in south-east Asia;

•    record low levels of sea ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic;

•    the wettest ever winter on record in Scotland and China’s wettest year;

•    France’s driest July and August and the record driest winter and spring that helped produce Canada’s worst-ever wildfire at Fort McMurray, Alberta;

•    extreme temperatures which saw records fall from Santiago in Chile, which hit 37.3C, to Svalbard in the Arctic, which was 6.5C warmer over the year than the average between 1961 and 1990;

•    devastating wildfires in Tasmania amid a prolonged drought;

•    and then devastating floods in Tasmania after the drought ended and the island experienced it wettest May to December on record.

Climate scientists have been forecasting just such an increase in bad weather driven by the rising global temperature, with a huge amount of extra energy now being trapped in the atmosphere as a result the greenhouse gases humans pumped into the atmosphere.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-real-extreme-weather-wmo-world-meteorological-organization-global-warming-a7640376.html

 

The Independent’s readers are a pretty naive lot, but even some of them can see through this nonsense, judging by some of the comments.

 

The first thing to remember is that the WMO has been at the centre of the global warming scam since its inception, when the IPCC was set up. As part of the UN, it is just another politicised agency and nothing it says can in any way be regarded as reliable.

As is usually the case with these sort of “we’re all going to die” articles, the banner picture is of a drought in Africa, this time Somalia.

But as the UN itself reported in 1973, before the warming scam was dreamt up, droughts were widespread across Africa and Central Asia.

 

 

 

UNESCO Courier Magazine – August 1973

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/a-colder-climate-in-the-1970s-brought-widespread-drought/

And as HH Lamb explained in the same edition, it was the result of the Earth cooling:

 

 

Taking each of the WMO bullet points in turn, we can see just what a dishonest statement it is:

 

1)  The record average temperature for the year of about 1.1C above pre-industrial levels

Why is there no mention of the fact that satellite measurements of atmospheric temperatures prove that last year was statistically no warmer than 1998?

Even if the figure is right, so what. Why should the Earth’s climate be any worse now than it was 10 years ago, or 50, or 150?

 

2)  Millions of people going hungry after crops failed in parts of Africa as rainfall fell up to 60 per cent below average.

Where is the context that proves this is in any way unusual or unprecedented?

Why is there no mention of studies, such as this by McCabe & Wolock in 2015, that there has been no trend in global droughts in the last century.

Not to mention HH Lamb’s evidence that global cooling leads to worse droughts.

 

3) Flooding that displaced hundreds of thousands of people in south-east Asia

In 1971, the Red River floods left 100,000 dead in North Vietnam.

In the same year, Orissa in India was hit by a cyclone which left 10,800 dead, and 180,000 were affected in the Kuala Lumpur floods, reckoned to be the worst floods since 1926.

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2011/09/21/is-our-climate-becoming-more-extreme/

 

What is so special about 2016?

 

4)  Record low levels of sea ice in both the Arctic and Antarctic

Arctic sea ice extent at minimum has changed little since 2007. The lowest extent was in 2012.

 

 http://ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover_30y.uk.php

 

Although ice extent has been low this year, the trend in Antarctic sea ice extent has been strongly upwards since 1979:

 

http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/

 

 

5) The wettest ever winter on record in Scotland and China’s wettest year.

It goes without saying that there are a lot of countries in the world, which makes such claims disingenuous.

While it may have been Scotland’s wettest winter (since 1910), in England & Wales the wettest spring was 1782, the wettest summer was 1912, and the wettest year was 1872.

In the US, the wettest year was 1973, whilst in Australia it was the following year of 1974.

Such one off “records” are meaningless.

 

6)  France’s driest July and August and the record driest winter and spring that helped produce Canada’s worst-ever wildfire at Fort McMurray, Alberta

They’re getting desperate now, having to resort to individual months!

In the UK, the driest July was in 1955, and August was 1947. The driest summer was 1995.

 

No figures are available for last year yet, but Canada’s National Forestry Database show no long term trend in wildfires:

http://nfdp.ccfm.org/dynamic_report/displayGraph_e.php?chart_type=column&agency=CA&displayCol=5&startRow=1

 

It is also ludicrous to describe the Alberta wildfire as the “worst ever”. The Chinchaga firestorm in 1950 was probably ten times as big.

 

7) Extreme temperatures which saw records fall from Santiago in Chile, which hit 37.3C, to Svalbard in the Arctic, which was 6.5C warmer over the year than the average between 1961 and 1990.

If record temperatures mean anything, it must have been much hotter in the 1930s, when 36 US State temperature record highs were set/tied. In contrast, only two such records have been set since 2000.

As for the Arctic, long running temperature records, such as Akureyri, Iceland, consistently show that temperatures were just as high as now back in the 1930s and 40s.

To claim that Svalbard is warmer than the average between 1961 and 1990, is deceitful, as that period was a much colder interlude. Svalbard, in any event, only has data since 1977.

 

 

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/gistemp/stdata_show.cgi?id=620040630000&dt=1&ds=5 

 

8) Devastating wildfires in Tasmania amid a prolonged drought.

The summer of 2016 was not unusually dry. By far the driest summer was in 1960.

 

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/index.shtml#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries

 

9) and then devastating floods in Tasmania after the drought ended and the island experienced it wettest May to December on record.

May to December? This is what is known as data mining.

Annual records for Tasmania show that last year’s rainfall was not the highest, that being 1956. More significantly, rainfall has always been highly variable there, and large swings from extremely dry to extremely wet are common.

 

http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/change/index.shtml#tabs=Tracker&tracker=timeseries

 

 

There are, of course, many things that the WMO forgot to mention.

For instance, low hurricane activity:

 

https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/01/21/2016s-record-warmth-brought-record-crop-yields-fewer-storms/

 

Or the fifth year running of below average tornado activity:

 

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/2016/torngraph-big.png

 

Or the fact that the great US droughts of the 1930s and 50s are, for now, a thing of the past:

 

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/

 

Indeed, you could write a book about all of the bad weather that did not happen last year!

All that the WMO has done is write a list of the things that did.

 

Sadly, many are unable to see through this deception.