{"id":300570,"date":"2024-02-07T15:01:28","date_gmt":"2024-02-07T14:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=300570"},"modified":"2024-02-07T15:01:30","modified_gmt":"2024-02-07T14:01:30","slug":"no-los-angeles-times-climate-change-is-not-supercharging-the-latest-winter-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=300570","title":{"rendered":"No, Los Angeles Times, Climate Change Is Not \u2018Supercharging\u2019 the Latest Winter Storm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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

By Anthony Watts<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

An article in the Los Angeles Times<\/em> (LAT) by Hayley Smith<\/a> and Grace Toohey<\/a>, titled \u201cEl Ni\u00f1o and climate change are supercharging incoming storm, SoCal\u2019s biggest this winter,\u201d<\/a> falsely claims the present storm is being caused or exacerbated by climate change. While it is true the present storm will be the biggest storm so far in 2024, there is no evidence it is unique historically or driven by climate change. Smith and Toohey write:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the powerful atmospheric river \u2014 worrisome enough on its own \u2014 is being supercharged by climate change and El Ni\u00f1o, which together are warming ocean waters, upping the odds of significant downpours and offering a preview of the state\u2019s future in a warming world, experts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The incoming storm is feeding off unusually warm waters between California and Hawaii where a significant marine heat wave<\/a> has persisted for months, said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As is typical for many media outlets these days, the authors of the LAT story are conflating short term weather patterns with long term climate change. As defined by the World Meteorological Organization, and referenced in Climate at a Glance: Weather vs. Climate<\/a>,<\/em> climate is an average of weather over 30 years. So, \u201ca significant marine heat wave has persisted for months\u201d is part of a short-term weather pattern, not an indication long-term climate change. For example, it is unlikely to be there next year. Only a long-term trend of increasing significant marine heat waves or marine heat waves of greater strength would suggest a signal of climate change, cut no such trend can be found in the record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Further, while the current moderate El Ni\u00f1o<\/a> might certainly have an effect on weather patterns, it too is a relatively short-term event. For example, last year there was a La Nina pattern and California saw record amounts of snowfall. Back then, the LAT<\/em> claimed that \u201cCalifornia drought, Australia floods: Two sides of La Ni\u00f1a amplified by climate change<\/a>,\u201d which was thoroughly debunked by my colleague Linnea Lueken in the ClimateRealism<\/em> piece Los Angeles Times Ignores Science, Claims Climate Change is Amplifying La Ni\u00f1a<\/a>. In that article, Lueken provided data showing that neither flooding or drought had increased in California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration<\/a> (NOAA): \u201cEl Ni\u00f1o is a naturally occurring climate pattern associated with warming of the ocean surface temperatures in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean, which can significantly influence weather patterns, ocean conditions, and marine fisheries worldwide.\u201d Furthermore, El Ni\u00f1o events in the Pacific Ocean are natural patterns that have been going on for millions of years<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The supposed human driven climate change has been noted for a century so you can\u2019t really claim that El Ni\u00f1o or La Ni\u00f1a events spanning millennia are being driven by the recent noted warming, especially if they change from year to year from warm to cool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LAT<\/em> quotes Daniel Swain, a climate scientist with UCLA, saying,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs ocean temperatures warm, and as atmospheric temperatures warm, those rates of evaporation of water vapor into the lower atmosphere are going to increase quite quickly,\u201d Swain said during a briefing Friday<\/a>. \u201cA few degrees of warming of nearshore and offshore water temperatures means that there\u2019s more moisture in that lower atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, extra heat and moisture from the warm sea surface are moistening the atmospheric river storms as they approach California, making them more likely to deliver heavy rainfall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that doesn\u2019t explain how in the winter of 2022 and 2023, when California had a record snowfall year during a La Ni\u00f1a event<\/a>, that extra evaporated moisture made it into the atmosphere when the ocean surface was cooler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can\u2019t have it both ways when trying to blame climate change for weather events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because La Ni\u00f1a and El Ni\u00f1o cycles often span multiple consecutive years, the last La Ni\u00f1a event impacted the Pacific during the winter of 2020-2021 and then again in the winter of 2022\/2023, as shown in this analysis (figure below) by Meteorologist Paul Dorian, \u201cLa Nina Conditions Continue Across the Equatorial Pacific<\/em>.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Figure from Paul Dorian\u2019s analysis of UAH global temperature anomalies, data from Dr. Roy Spencer, University of Alabama at Huntsville (UAH). From https:\/\/wattsupwiththat.com\/2022\/02\/10\/la-nina-conditions-continue-across-the-equatorial-pacific\/<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Then in June 2023 the pattern switched to El Ni\u00f1o<\/a>, and now the LAT is flip-flopping the climate blame game for weather events, based mainly on opinion from one scientist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most damning evidence against the flip-flopping LAT claims comes from the latest climate report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). On table 12.12 on\u00a0Page 90<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 Chapter 12 of the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Emergence of\u00a0Climate Impact Drivers<\/a>\u00a0(CIDs) seen below, there is no evidence in the present that climate change is affecting heavy precipitation or marine heat waves, highlighted in yellow.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
Table 1 from Page 90 \u2013 Chapter 12 of the UN IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Emergence of Climate Impact Drivers (CIDs) in time periods, for the present-day, 2050, and 2100. The color corresponds to the confidence of the region with the highest confidence: white colors indicate where evidence of a climate change signal is lacking or the signal is not present, leading to overall low confidence of an emerging signal.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

As can be seen from the IPCC Table 1, there is no evidence of any increase or decrease, globally or by region, in the frequency, severity or extent of frost, mean precipitation, river floods, heavy precipitation and pluvial floods, landslides, aridity, hydrological drought, agricultural or ecological drought, fire weather or wildfires, mean wind speed, severe wind storms or tornados, tropical cyclones or hurricanes, sand and dust storms, snow glacial or ice sheets, heavy snowfall and ice storms, hail, snow avalanche, relative sea levels, coastal floods, coastal erosion, marine heatwaves, ocean acidity, or air pollution enhancing weather.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, climate change isn\u2019t driving current weather patterns at all.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s no evidence supporting the LAT claim that climate change enhancing El Ni\u00f1o in a way that would cause heavier precipitation during the present storm in California. Instead, what this story really reveals is just another couple of low-information journalists\u2019 efforts to blame every negative weather event on human caused climate change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The post\u00a0No, Los Angeles Times, Climate Change Is Not \u2018Supercharging\u2019 the Latest Winter Storm<\/a>\u00a0appeared first on\u00a0ClimateRealism<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

An article in the\u00a0Los Angeles Times\u00a0(LAT) by\u00a0Hayley Smith\u00a0and\u00a0Grace Toohey, titled \u201cEl Ni\u00f1o and climate change are supercharging incoming storm, SoCal\u2019s biggest this winter,\u201d\u00a0falsely claims the present storm is being caused or exacerbated by climate change. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":300578,"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_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":"An article in the\u00a0Los Angeles Times\u00a0(LAT) by\u00a0Hayley Smith\u00a0and\u00a0Grace Toohey, titled \u201cEl Ni\u00f1o and climate change are supercharging incoming storm, SoCal\u2019s biggest this winter,\u201d\u00a0falsely claims the present storm is being caused or exacerbated by climate chang","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691818068,691818056,691826792,691822736,691826793],"class_list":{"0":"post-300570","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-latest-winter-storm","11":"tag-los-angeles-times","12":"tag-short-term-weather","14":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/00HD-Weather-Image.jpg?fit=2560%2C1600&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1gbU","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":424477,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=424477","url_meta":{"origin":300570,"position":0},"title":"Sorry, Los Angeles Times, Coastal Highway 1 Has Always Suffered from Weather, Not Climate","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"02\/03\/2026","format":false,"excerpt":"The Los Angeles Times (LAT) posted an article, \u201cCalifornia\u2019s iconic Highway 1 is fighting a losing battle against climate change. 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