Blue Marble Climate

Gore’s increase of deadly storms

John Nicklin — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:50:24 +0000

Al Gore was quick to point out that “we’re seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming.” - Al Gore, 5/6/08.

The lastest storm in Burma with its tragic death toll is not unique, nor is it indicative of more severe weather caused by AGW or human caused climate change. It just is what it is a tragic event. Current estimates place the death toll at somewhere around 70,000, it could go up or down, its too early to tell. The table below lists other big deadly storms from history and we will see where this storm fits in. Let’s hope it doesn’t make the top 10.

Lest someone accuse me of downplaying or minimizing the impact of more recent stoms, I do feel for the victims. BUT, we would be in better shape to help people caught up in these catastrophes if we weren’t caught up in money wasting schemes to try to prevent the unpreventable.

I also think that it is unsavvory, at best, for people like Al Gore to try to use these tragedies to further his cause. (its also unacceptable for skeptics to minimize the scale of the disaster.) While Al and his friends play the blame-game, let’s cheer for the people who respond with immediate aid for the victimes.

Rank:	Name	Areas of Largest Loss:	Year:	Ocean Area:	Deaths:
1.	Great Bhola Cyclone,	Bangladesh	1970	Bay of Bengal	550,000
2.	Hooghly River Cyclone,	India and Bangladesh	1737	Bay of Bengal	350,000
3.	Haiphong Typhoon	Vietnam	1881	West Pacific	300,000
3.	Coringa, India	Bay of Bengal	1839	Bay of Bengal	300,000
5.	Backerganj Cyclone,	Bangladesh	1584	Bay of Bengal	200,000
6.	Great Backerganj Cyclone	Bangladesh	1876	Bay of Bengal	200,000
7.		Chittagong, Bangladesh	1897	Bay of Bengal	175,000
8.	Super Typhoon Nina,	China	1975	West Pacific	171,000
9.	Cyclone 02B,	Bangladesh	1991	Bay of Bengal	140,000
10.	Great Bombay Cyclone,	India	1882	Arabian Sea	100,000
11.	Hakata Bay Typhoon,	Japan	1281	West Pacific	65,000
12.		Calcutta, India	1864	Bay of Bengal	60,000
13.		Swatlow, China	1922	West Pacific	60,000
14.		Barisal, Bangladesh	1822	Bay of Bengal	50,000
15.		Sunderbans coast, Bangladesh	1699	Bay of Bengal	50,000
16.	Bengal Cyclone,	Calcutta, India	1942	Bay of Bengal	50,000
17.		Canton, China	1862	West Pacific	37,000
18.		Backerganj (Barisal), Bangladesh	1767	Bay of Bengal	30,000
19.		Barisal, Bangladesh	1831	Bay of Bengal	22,000
20.	Great Hurricane	Lesser Antilles Islands	1780	Atlantic	22,000

Gore quote from (http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2008/20080506160205.aspx)

List of storms comes from the Weather Underground

So much for predictions

John Nicklin — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 16:59:33 +0000

From the great prognosticators of inclement weather, we get these two headline stories.

Warm Winter Predicted For United States
ScienceDaily (Oct. 11, 2007) NOAA forecasters are calling for above-average temperatures over most of the country and a continuation of drier-than-average conditions across already drought-stricken parts of the Southwest and Southeast in its winter outlook for the United States, announced at the 2007-2008 Winter Fuels Outlook Conference in Washington, D.C October 9, 2007.

The reason for this warm forcast?

“La Niña is here, with a weak-to-moderate event likely to persist through the winter,” said Michael Halpert, head of forecast operations and acting deputy director of NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

Just 6 months later, we see this story:

Coolest Winter Since 2001 For U.S., Globe, According To NOAA Data
ScienceDaily (Mar. 15, 2008 ) The average temperature across both the contiguous U.S. and the globe during climatological winter (December 2007-February 2008 ) was the coolest since 2001, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C. In terms of winter precipitation, Pacific storms, bringing heavy precipitation to large parts of the West, produced high snowpack that will provide welcome runoff this spring.

So what happened to that weak to moderate La Nina?

The presence of a moderate-to-strong La Niña contributed to an average temperature that was the coolest since the La Niña episode of 2000-2001.

Amazing what 6 months will do to a forcast. But rest assured, these guys know for certain what the climate will be like in 50 years.

Sources:

National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (2007, October 11). Warm Winter Predicted For United States. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 24, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2007/10/071010131931.htm

National Oceanic And Atmospheric Administration (2008, March 15). Coolest Winter Since 2001 For U.S., Globe, According To NOAA Data. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 24, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2008/03/080314175834.htm

Increasing costs lead to increase in world hunger.

John Nicklin — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:07:17 +0000

We learned, yesterday, that the west will no longer be able to provide food aid at current levels due to increasing costs. With diversion of food products like corn and wheat to biofuel production and the increase in oil prices driving transportation costs skyward, coupled with a downturn in our own economies, we just just can’t do it any more.

Last night, and every night for the last few years, 32,000 people starved to death on a planet where obesity is now a crisis. We are mowing down rain forests, not to plant food crops, but to grow biofuel feedstock. The whole thing is a mess of lunatic proportions. The authors of this latest assault on the world’s poor? Gore, Suzuki, Greenpeace, Sierra Club, and Friend of the Earth to name a few.

Over the past 4 or 5 years, we have heard cries from the Greens for Nuremburg trials for the bastards who deny global warming. Is it now time to call the Greens to answer for crimes against humanity?

Am I angry? Hell yes! We spend, and intend to spend, money by the truck load to avert a theoretical 0.08 degrees of further warming, hundreds of billions of dollars, while the poor of the world starve to death or suffer from diseases that we would not tolerate for a minute. All so we can feel good about our carbon footprints while we put the jack-boots to the third world.

Gore and his elite friends will try to tell you that global warming and climate change are causing the scarcity of food. As Penn and Teller say, BULL SHIT!

Survived another Earth Day, Sanity Intact

John Nicklin — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 15:00:20 +0000

Well almost. I’m still shocked, amazed, amused, whatever, over the lack of critical thinking by highly placed influential people. I’m currently working in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the heart of the north american continent (almost literally, actually the dead centre of the continent is somewhere near Grand Forks, ND, about 120Km south of here.) Yesterday in celebration of Earth Day, the provincial government anounced its plans to meet its Kyoto committments, a lofty goal. I applaud their efforts. In their announcement, however, they said that Europe was meeting its targets under Kyoto. Got me to thinking…

I’ve looked at the numbers previously and that didn’t sound right. So I went back to the well, or the internet at least, to see what the current state looks like. Interestingly, I couldn’t find numbers past 2004, but the trend is still interesting. I got the numbers from Mongabay.com, they have a page called Carbon Dioxide Emissions Charts, 2005 where they have lots of charts showing a great number of things. If you drill down to the raw data, derived from National Fossil-Fuel CO₂ Emissions data at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

I downloaded the raw numbers from the Oak Ridge site and plotted them. The graph for the EU15 is interesting and shown below.

Blue = raw, Black = linear trend.

The numbers for 2004 show the EU15 to be 4.8% above the 1990 target and hence above the Kyoto target of 5.2% below 1990. We could say that the target has to be met by 2012 and they still have a few years to get there, but if the numbers were going up in 2004, it doesn’t look good.

Indeed, an article at EurActiv provides the following insight;

European CO2 emissions up in 2007

Published: Thursday 3 April 2008

Early analyses reveal a slight increase in EU industrial CO2 emissions in 2007, casting doubts as to the bloc’s ability to honour its CO2 reduction commitments on time. However, analysts predict emissions will drop in coming years as the Commission begins to tighten the EU’s carbon belt.

EU industrial installations publicised data on their CO2 emissions in 2007. The figures, which may be subject to adjustment by national authorities, indicate a 1.1% overall increase, according to an initial analysis by the carbon market consultancy Point Carbon.

Member states like Germany saw a 2% rise in emissions, and the UK emitted 85 million tonnes more CO2 than it was allocated.

We shall see.

Note: If anyone knows where a country by country listing of CO2 emissions up to 2007 can be found, please let me know.

Dearth Day

John Nicklin — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:39:26 +0000

I’d call it Earth Day except that I know that all we are going to hear today is doom and gloom, so why not call it Dearth Day?

PS: Happy Birthday Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, born April 22, 1870.

Cognitive Dissonance?

John Nicklin — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 15:31:30 +0000

Just a thought…

How is it that people can simultaneously complain about winter lingering on and on while worrying about global warming?