{"id":157751,"date":"2021-08-18T01:19:43","date_gmt":"2021-08-17T23:19:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=157751"},"modified":"2021-08-18T01:19:44","modified_gmt":"2021-08-17T23:19:44","slug":"does-climate-change-cause-extreme-weather-now-heres-a-scorcher-of-a-reality-check","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=157751","title":{"rendered":"Does Climate Change Cause Extreme Weather Now? Here\u2019s a Scorcher of a Reality Check"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Reposted from RealClear Investigations<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Eric Felten<\/a>, RealClearInvestigations
August 17, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Pacific Northwest was hit with a record-shattering heat wave in June, with temperatures over 35 degrees higher than normal in some places. On June 28, Portland, Ore., reached 116 degrees. Late last week the region suffered another blast of hot weather, with a high in Portland of 103 degrees. The New York Times<\/a> didn\u2019t hesitate to pronounce the region\u2019s bouts of extreme weather proof that the climate wasn\u2019t just changing, but catastrophically so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To make that claim, the Times relied on a \u201cconsortium of climate experts\u201d that calls itself World Weather Attribution<\/a>, a group organized not just to attribute extreme weather events to climate change, but to do so quickly. Within days of the June heat wave, the researchers released an analysis, declaring that the torrid spell \u201cwas virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Cliff Mass, Pacific Northwest atmospheric scientist: An inconvenient dissenter from blaming climate change for extreme weather. Wikimedia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

World Weather Attribution and its alarming report were trumpeted by Time magazine<\/a>, touted by the NOAA website  Climate.gov<\/a> , and featured by CBS News<\/a>, CNBC<\/a>, Scientific American<\/a>, CNN, the Washington Post<\/a>, USAToday<\/a>, and the New York Times, among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group\u2019s claim that global warming was to blame was perhaps less significant than the speed with which that conclusion was provided to the media. Previous efforts to tie extreme weather events to climate change hadn\u2019t had the impact scientists had hoped for, according to Time, because it \u201cwasn\u2019t producing results fast enough to get attention from people outside the climate science world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBeing able to confidently say that a given weather disaster was caused by climate change while said event still has the world\u2019s attention,\u201d Time explained, approvingly, \u201ccan be an enormously useful tool to convince leaders, lawmakers and others that climate change is a threat that must be addressed.\u201d In other words, the value of rapid attribution is primarily political, not scientific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inconveniently for World Weather Attribution, an atmospheric scientist with extensive knowledge of the Pacific Northwest climate was actively running weather models that accurately predicted the heatwave. Cliff<\/a> Mass rejected the notion that global warming was to blame for the scorching temperatures. He calculated that global warming might have been responsible for two degrees of the near 40-degree anomaly. With or without climate change, Mass wrote, the region \u201cstill would have experienced the most severe heat wave of the past century.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mass has no shortage of credentials relevant to the issue: A professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington<\/a>, he is author of the book \u201cThe Weather of the Pacific Northwest.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mass took on the World Weather Attribution group directly: \u201cUnfortunately, there are serious flaws in their approach.\u201d According to Mass, the heatwave was the result of \u201cnatural variability.\u201d The models being used by the international group lacked the \u201cresolution to correctly simulate critical intense, local precipitation features,\u201d and \u201cthey generally use unrealistic greenhouse gas emissions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
World Weather Attribution was organized to quickly attribute extreme weather events to climate change. World Weather Attribution<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

World Weather Attribution was organized to quickly attribute extreme weather events to climate change. World Weather Attribution<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WWA issued a \u201crebuttal\u201d calling Mass\u2019 criticisms \u201cmisleading and incorrect.\u201d<\/a> But the gauntlet thrown down by Mass did seem to affect WWA\u2019s confidence in its claims. The group, which had originally declared the heatwave would have been \u201cvirtually impossible without human-caused climate change,\u201d altered its tone. In subsequent public statements, it emphasized that it had merely been making \u201cbest estimates\u201d and had presented them \u201cwith the appropriate caveats and uncertainties.\u201d Scientists with the attribution group did not respond to questions about Mass\u2019s criticisms posed by RealClearInvestigations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what of the group\u2019s basic mission, the attribution of individual weather events to climate change? Hasn\u2019t it been a fundamental rule of discussing extreme temperatures in a given place not to conflate weather with climate? Weather, it is regularly pointed out, refers to conditions during a short time in a limited area; climate is said to describe longer-term atmospheric patterns over large areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump once joked, on a cold day in 2017, that he could go for some global warming<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u2026 and his comment was denounced<\/a> as \u201cscientifically ridiculous\u201d by Anthony Leiserowitz of Yale University, above.  But today it\u2019s hardly unusual for climate advocates to conflate weather with climate.Yale School of the Environment<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Donald Trump joked, on a cold day, that he could go for some global warming, he was chastised for confusing weather with climate. The director of Yale University\u2019s project on climate change communication, Anthony Leiserowitz, denounced<\/a> Trump\u2019s comment as \u201cscientifically ridiculous and demonstrably false.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is a fundamental difference in scale between what weather is and what climate is,\u201d Leiserowitz added. \u201cWhat\u2019s going on in one small corner of the world at a given moment does not reflect what\u2019s going on with the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until recently, at least, climate scientists long warned against using individual weather events to ponder the existence or otherwise of global warming. Typically, that argument is used to respond to those who might argue a spate of extreme cold is reason to doubt the planet is warming. Using individual weather events to say anything about the climate is \u201cdangerous nonsense,\u201d the New Scientist warned a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps, but it happens all the time now that climate advocates have found it to be an effective tool. In 2019, The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago found that three-fourths of those polled said their views about climate change had been shaped by extreme weather events<\/a>. Leah Sprain, in the book \u201cEthics and Practice in Science Communication<\/a>,\u201d says that even though it may be legitimate to make the broad claim that climate change \u201cmay result in future extreme weather,\u201d when one tries \u201carguing weather patterns were caused by climate change, things get dicey.\u201d Which creates a tension: \u201cFor some communicators, the ultimate goal \u2013 mobilizing political action \u2013 warrants rhetorical use of extreme weather events.\u201d But that makes scientists nervous, Sprain writes, because \u201cmisrepresenting science will undermine the credibility of arguments for climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is exactly what happened with the World Weather Attribution group, according to Mass: \u201cMany of the climate attribution studies are resulting in headlines that are deceptive and result in people coming to incorrect conclusions about the relative roles of global warming and natural variability in current extreme weather,\u201d he wrote at his blog. \u201cScary headlines and apocalyptic attribution studies needlessly provoke fear.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sweltering in Portland.(AP Photo\/Nathan Howard)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Covering the back-and-forth between the World Weather Attribution and Mass, the Seattle Times labeled the local atmosphere academic \u201ca controversial figure.\u201d<\/a> The newspaper noted that \u201cMass has sometimes gotten into very public disputes with other scientists.\u201d He has also been critical of the news media \u2014 \u201cincluding the Seattle Times,\u201d wrote the Seattle Times \u2014 for what he says is alarmist coverage of the climate. The Seattle Times did not respond to questions from RCI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newspaper was not wrong that Mass has disagreed with his fellow climate scientists. He didn\u2019t hesitate to take on any and all comers at the Real Climate blog. But he doesn\u2019t think that should make him controversial. \u201cScience is all about conflict,\u201d Mass has said. \u201cSomebody has an idea; and then someone else criticizes it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mass also counts as \u201ccontroversial\u201d because he spoke out last summer against the rioting and looting taking place nightly in Seattle. A recurring segment he had on Tacoma public radio was canceled after Mass \u2013 on his own blog, not on the radio \u2014  likened the shattering of glass in Seattle to the shattered glass of Kristallnacht, the Nazi anti-Semitic pogrom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The blogging professor laments that atmospheric sciences have been \u201cpoisoned\u201d by politics. \u201cIt\u2019s damaged climate science,\u201d he told RCI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And not just politics \u2013 Mass also says that the accepted tenets of global warming have become a sort of religion. Consider the language used, he says, such as the question of whether one \u201cbelieves\u201d in anthropogenic climate change. \u201cYou don\u2019t\u00a0believe<\/em>\u00a0in gravity,\u201d he says. The religious metaphor also explains why colleagues get so bent out of shape with him, Mass says: \u201cThere\u2019s nothing worse than an apostate priest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That goes even for those who are merely mild apostates. Mass doesn\u2019t dispute warming, he merely questions how big a problem it is. \u201cWe need to worry about climate change,\u201d he has said. \u201cBut hype and exaggeration of its impacts only undermine the potential for effective action.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

via Watts Up With That?<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/ift.tt\/3mcj53G<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

August 17, 2021<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reposted from RealClear Investigations By Eric Felten, RealClearInvestigationsAugust 17, 2021 The Pacific Northwest was hit with a record-shattering heat wave in June, with temperatures over 35 degrees higher than normal in some places. On June 28, Portland, Ore., reached 116 degrees. Late last week the region suffered another blast of hot weather, with a high in Portland […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","has-post-thumbnail","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-F2n","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":332854,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=332854","url_meta":{"origin":157751,"position":0},"title":"Summer 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