By Paul Homewood
WOW!! A BBC video about severe weather, and no mention of climate change:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/47725850
Off to the re-education camp for Darren Bett!
Category: Tornados
Washington Times: “Tornado Drought” Impacting Democrat Climate Change Narrative
Reblogged from Watts Up With That:
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Nature refusing to play along with climate crisis narratives.
‘Tornado drought’ dampens Democrats’ climate-change narrative
Bernie Sanders pushes climate-change narrative despite last year’s ‘tornado drought’
In the wake of last week’s deadly twister outbreak, Sen. Bernie Sanders declared that climate change is making tornadoes worse, to which the experts say: Not so fast.
Purdue University professor Ernest Agee, who has studied tornadoes for 50 years, said his research and that of other scientists shows that the number of violent U.S. tornadoes has in fact tapered off slightly in recent decades.
…
What’s more, 2018 was the first year since record-keeping began in 1950 without an EF4 or EF5 tornado, the most devastating twisters, as rated on the Enhanced Fujita Scale from EF0 to EF5, according to the NOAA/NWS Storm Prediction Center.
“We’re definitely not seeing a trend of increase. If anything, we’re seeing a decrease in the number of strong and violent tornadoes,” Mr. Agee said. “And that’s in papers that I’ve published and my students and other colleagues that are prominent in the field.”
…
Climate change is inevitably blamed for any natural disaster, and Mr. Sanders led the charge following the deadly tornado, saying in a Facebook post, “The science is clear, climate change is making extreme weather events, including tornadoes, worse. We must prepare for the impacts of climate change that we know are coming.”
…
“He [Sanders] references our study, which says that climate change is shifting eastward. We just don’t know for sure if it’s precisely climate change that’s causing it, and certainly we cannot say at all that climate change caused the Lee County, Alabama, tornado,” Mr. Gensini said. “We’re not there as a science to be able to do that.”
…
Read more: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/10/tornado-decline-dings-climate-change-narrative-ber/
Let us hope one of Bernie’s supporters helps Bernie understand that he is making a fool of himself, with his wildly inaccurate claims about climate change and tornadoes.
New Study Claims Tornadoes Are Getting More Frequent In Southeast
By Paul Homewood
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At least 23 people have died after a tornado barrelled through Lee County, Alabama on Sunday, leaving behind damage that Sheriff Jay Jones described as “catastrophic,” CBS reported.
“I cannot recall, at least in the last 50 years, and longer than that, a situation where we have had this type, this loss of life that we experienced today,” Jones told CBS affiliate WRBL-TV.
The National Weather Service (NWS) in Birmingham, Alabama issued a tornado emergency at 2:09 p.m. Sunday for Lee County, AccuWeather reported. The tornado was part of an extreme weather event Sunday that saw several tornadoes touch down across the Southeast as part of a series of storms, The Associated Press reported.
The incident comes a little less than six months after a Northern Illinois University study found that tornado frequency was trending away from the traditional “tornado alley” of the…
View original post 736 more words
Inverse Hockey-Stick: climate related death risk for an individuals down 99% since 1920
Reblogged from Watts Up With That:
Bjørn Lomborg writes on Facebook about some new and surprising data that turn climate alarmist claims upside down.
Fewer and fewer people die from climate-related natural disasters.
This is clearly opposite of what you normally hear, but that is because we’re often just being told of one disaster after another – telling us how *many* events are happening. The number of reported events is increasing, but that is mainly due to better reporting, lower thresholds and better accessibility (the CNN effect). For instance, for Denmark, the database only shows events starting from 1976.
Instead, look at the number of dead per year, which is much harder to fudge. Given that these numbers fluctuate enormously from year to year (especially in the past, with huge droughts and floods in China), they are here presented as averages of each decade (1920-29, 1930-39 etc, with last decade as 2010-18). The data is from the most respected global database, the International Disaster Database. There is some uncertainty about complete reporting from early decades, which is why this graph starts in 1920, and if anything this uncertainty means the graph *underestimates* the reduction in deaths.
Notice, this does *not* mean that there is no global warming or that possibly a climate signal could eventually lead to further deaths. Instead, it shows that our increased wealth and adaptive capacity has vastly outdone any negative impact from climate when it comes to human climate vulnerability.
Notice that the reduction in absolute deaths has happened while the global population has increased four-fold. The individual risk of dying from climate-related disasters has declined by 98.9%. Last year, fewer people died in climate disasters than at any point in the last three decades (1986 was a similarly fortunate year).
Somewhat surprisingly, while climate-related deaths have been declining strongly for 70 years, non-climate deaths have not seen a similar decline, and should probably get more of our attention.
If we look at the death risk for an individual, seen below, the risk reduction is even bigger – dropped almost 99% since the 1920s.
Data Source: The International Disaster Database,http://emdat.be/emdat_db/
Fraud In The National Climate Assessment
Here are Tony Heller’s videos on the 2018 National Climate Assessment
More Tornadoes? Capital Weather Gang Plug Flawed NOAA Study
Severe and tornadic thunderstorms are spawned by strong temperature and pressure gradients. Warmer planet means lower continental temperature gradients; ergo–fewer strong tornadoes.
By Paul Homewood
As I noted earlier today, the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang have reported that last year is the first on record to have no EF-4 and EF-5 tornadoes in the US.
The Capital Weather Gang long ago sold their souls to the global warming religion, and are usually very loathe to admit that sometimes the weather might be better because of a bit of warming.
At the very end of the above article, they get in their little dig:
In fact the study they refer to is hopelessly flawed, as I proved at the time.
But just to rehash, this is the narrative Climate Central published in 2016:
View original post 696 more words
2018 will be the first year with no violent tornadoes in the United States
Reblogged from Watts Up With That:
In the whirlwind that is 2018, there has been a notable lack of high-end twisters.
We’re now days away from this becoming the first year in the modern record with no violent tornadoes touching down in the United States. Violent tornadoes are the strongest on a 0 to 5 scale, or those ranked EF4 or EF5.
It was a quiet year for tornadoes overall, with below normal numbers most months. Unless you’re a storm chaser, this is not bad news. The low tornado count is undoubtedly a big part of the reason the 10 tornado deaths in 2018 is also vying to be a record low.
While we still have several days to go in 2018, and some severe weather is likely across the South to close it out, odds favor the country making it the rest of the way without a violent tornado.
If and when that happens, it will be the first time since the modern record began in 1950.
2005 came close to reaching this mark. That year, the first violent tornado didn’t occur until Nov. 15, much later than typical for the first of the year, which tends to come in early spring.
This year’s goose-egg may seem to fit a recent pattern.
In simple terms, there have been down-trends in violent tornado numbers both across the entire modern period, and when looking at just the period since Doppler radar was fully implemented across the country in the mid-1990s. A 15-year average as high as 13.7 in the mid-1970s will drop to 5.9 next year.
Expanding to include all “intense” tornadoes, or those F/EF3+, this year’s 12 is also poised to set a record for the least.
Right now, the mark there is held by 1987 when there were 15 F3+ tornadoes. As with violent tornadoes, this grouping is also exhibiting both a short and long-term decrease in annual numbers, likely for similar reasons.
The causes for 2018′s lack of violent tornadoes are many, but one key factor is high pressure tending to be more dominant than normal throughout peak season this past spring. This was particularly so during April and May, when tornado numbers were below to well below normal.
Although the country ended up seeing a number of memorable tornado events after the spring, including several this fall, in most years over half of the tornadoes occur from March through May. Making up those numbers is difficult at other times of the year when ingredients for them are less likely.
Despite the downtrend in annual numbers, studies continue to find that more tornadoes are happening on fewer days. In that light, it is certainly possible this drought won’t last much longer.
HT/marcusn, SMC, Neo, Marcus, and Latitude
2018 U.S. tornadoes on track to be lowest ever – NOAA’s temperature trends blow a hole in “climate correlation”
From Watts Up With That:
BLUF: Clearly, warmer climatic periods yield fewer violent F3 or greater tornadoes in the United States. And that blows a hole in any warming correlation that advocates like to claim for increasing numbers of severe tornadoes.
While claims of increased severe weather due to “climate change” aka “global warming” are thrown about by the media, with recent claims that more and more tornadoes are shifting east in the U.S., the fact of the matter is that the trend for strong tornadoes is decidedly down, according to data from NOAA. The US is on track to have the lowest annual tornado count in 65 years.
h/t to Mark J. Perry, AEI for the graph.
We recently covered the lack of tornadoes in 2018 from data supplied by the NOAA Storm Prediction Center, but the above graph clearly illustrates the downward trend. from 1954 to 1985, there was an average of 55.9 F3 strength or greater tornadoes in the USA per year, and in the period from 1985 to present, that number dwindled to 33.8 F3 strength of greater tornadoes per year. The year isn’t over yet, but now that we are out of the main period of tornado activity, it’s a likely bet that 2018 will come in the lowest ever.
For those not familiar, here is the original Fujita tornado strength scale, which is accepted as a world-wide metric by NOAA and the WMO:
Since “global warming” is said to be the cause of the perception of increased violent weather, taking a look at temperature for the USA during the same period should yield a correlation.
This comparison graph I prepared, showing USA temperatures from 1954 to 2018, illustrates the correlation between tornadoes and temperature is exactly opposite of what we are being told by climate advocates.
See below for this comparison graph I made, showing USA temperatures from 1954 to 2018, illustrates the correlation is exactly opposite of what we are being told by climate advocates. Again the source of the data is NOAA, using their “climate at a glance” plotter. I’ve shaded the 1954 to 1985 period of temperature to match the shaded 1954 to 1985 period in the tornado count graph,but otherwise both graphs are original:
Source of temperature plot (and data) is here.
Source of Tornado data is here
Breaking down the two periods, the NOAA “climate at a glance” plotter provides the 1954 to 1985 trend, when there were the most violent F3 or greater tornado counts in the USA:
Source of plot (and data) is here.
Shockingly, from 1954 to 1985, when violent F3 or greater tornadoes were most common in the U.S., there was a cooling trend of -0.13°F per decade.
But let’s look at the 1985 to 2017 (2018 is not complete yet) trend, when there were fewer violent F3 or greater tornadoes:
Source of plot (and data) is here.
In the 1985 to 2017 period, there was a warming trend of +0.48°F per decade.
Clearly, warmer climatic periods yield fewer violent F3 or greater tornadoes in the United States. And that blows a hole in any warming correlation that advocates like to claim for increasing numbers of severe tornadoes.
Oh, and remember the story about tornado paths shifting east?
This map illustrates that in the larger scheme of things, even if the claim holds true, most tornadoes in the USA are in the east anyway, and the difference really isn’t that significant when you look at where the majority of U.S. tornadoes occur:
Source: NASA Earth Observatory
2018 US tornadoes lowest in 65 years of record-keeping
From Watts Up With That:
From the NOAA Storm Prediction Center comes this inconvenient data that pretty much kills the “climate is making weather more severe” claim.
Get this – a record-low 759 tornadoes formed in the U.S. so far this year, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Storm Prediction Center (SPC). According to the SPC data, there were two fewer tornadoes than the previous annual record-low of 761.
Tornado activity has been unusually low in recent years which goes back 65 years to the early 1950s.
Dr. Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama-Huntsville wrote on his website:
“This lack of tornadic storms in recent years should also correlate with lesser severe thunderstorm activity in general in the U.S., since the conditions which produce large hail and damaging winds are generally the same as are required for tornadoes…”
In related news, meteorologist Steve Bowen noted on Twitter Wednesday
Today marks the 1,961st consecutive day without an F5/EF5 tornado in the United States. Currently ranks as the second-longest streak since 1950.
And added this graph:
That certainly blows a hole in alarmist claims that climate change is making severe weather worse.
And the trend, when adjusted for increases in population, reporting, and improved technology is simply FLAT as this SPC generated graph shows:
This graph only goes to 2007, hopefully they will have an update.
Pielke Jr. – U.S. Tornado damage continues to fall, 2018 activity near record lows
For those that are sure there’s global warming driving tornadoes and other severe weather events, here’s some inconvenient news. Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. has updated his tornado loss data via his Twitter account. He writes:
2017 update to our normalized US tornado losses based on our 2013 paper: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17477891.2012.738642 …
- Past 5 yrs have 2nd lowest normalized tornado damage of any 5-yr period since 1950 (1997 #1)
- 2016 had least
- 2015 2nd least
- 2017 3rd least
- 2018 near record-low tornadoes
Normalized US tornado damage to 2017 ($) values:
Average annual damage
- 1950-1983 (34 yr) = $7.6 billion (median= $5,5B)
- 1984-2017 (34 yr) = $3.9 billion (median= $2.9B)
There are legitimate debates about tornado incidence, but clearly recent years have seen depressed levels of tornado incidence, accounting for the depressed levels of observed damage.
Here is data from 2012-2017 on tornadoes from NOAA WCM (here: http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/ ). There is legitimate debate about this data & inflation-adjustments, but it is safe to conclude that overall 2012-2017 tornado incidence was below long-term average. Lucky us, once again.
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