{"id":327476,"date":"2024-05-08T08:25:58","date_gmt":"2024-05-08T06:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=327476"},"modified":"2024-05-08T08:26:00","modified_gmt":"2024-05-08T06:26:00","slug":"panama-canal-drought-not-caused-by-climate-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=327476","title":{"rendered":"Panama Canal Drought:\u00a0 Not Caused by Climate Change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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

From Watts Up With That?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

News Brief by Kip Hansen \u20147 May 2024<\/p>\n\n\n\n

World Weather Attribution, a purpose created organization intended to manufacture attention getting news stories in support of the Climate Crisis meme that  \u201cAll Extreme and Bad Weather is caused by Human Induced Climate Change\u201d, has published a report<\/a> on the   drought in Panama that has been affecting shipping through the Panama Canal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWho is World Weather Attribution (WWA)?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The WWA initiative was formed in 2015 by Dr Geert Jan van Oldenborgh<\/a> and Dr Friederike Otto. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, the core WWA team is formed by researchers from several institutions, including the Grantham Institute \u2013 Climate Change and the Environment, Imperial College London<\/a>, The Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute<\/a>, the Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l\u2019Environnement<\/a>, and the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The core team also works with climate scientists and other experts in the country on which the study is being conducted, providing critical knowledge and insights on weather, databases, modelling and impacts.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why are WWA studies performed rapidly?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following an extreme weather event, people often ask: is climate change to blame?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rapid attribution studies are carried out to give a robust, scientific answer to this question. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The results are published days or weeks after the event to inform discussions about climate change, mitigation and adaptation, while the impacts of the extreme weather event are still fresh in the minds of the public and policymakers, and decisions about rebuilding are being made.\u201d <\/em>[from the About page of the WWA<\/a> ]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The acknowledged climate crisis advocacy group, Climate Central, claims responsibility and credit for the creation of the WWA<\/a>.  And Jessica Weinkle of The Breakthrough Institute<\/a>,<\/em> recently noted:  \u201cElsewhere, the advocacy group, Climate Central, works to spread heightened views of climate change in run of the mill television weather broadcasting. Climate Central organized development of weather attribution studies fit for media<\/a> rather than science. The studies are now integral to climate litigation<\/a><\/em>.\u201d [ source \u2013 a must read<\/strong><\/a> ]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, as with the recent terrible drought in southern Africa<\/a>, which is causing a serious humanitarian situation, there is a good problem<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That problem is that WWA, try as they might to keep to their mandate of scientifically proving (in a rather odd and invalid statistical way<\/a>) that all bad weather events can and should be blamed on human-caused climate change, has been unable to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why? Simple, drought in Central America, including the Panama highlands, is dependent on the worldwide cyclical ENSO weather pattern<\/a> \u2013 and specifically not<\/u><\/em><\/strong>  on any aspect of recent slight general warming of Earth\u2019s climate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The disappointment is glaring obvious in the official report from WWA, which is headlined on the WWA website as:  \u201cLow water levels in Panama Canal due to increasing demand exacerbated by El Ni\u00f1o event<\/a>\u201d.  [ The full official report is available as a free .pdf here<\/a>. ]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After 8 other bullet-points highlighting reduced rainfall and increased demand on the reservoir water, WWA finally includes this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith neither climate model data nor a strong physical argument to support the hypothesis, we therefore cannot conclude that the observed drying is attributable to human-caused climate change.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

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

And while it may have disappointed Fredi Ott<\/a>o [\u201cTogether with climate scientist Geert Jan van Oldenborgh<\/a> she founded the international project World Weather Attribution which she still leads.\u201d], not even the reservoir\u2019s evaporation water loss could be blamed on warmer temperatures:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvapotranspiration in Panama is mainly driven by wind speed, humidity and cloud cover which is in contrast to most other regions in the world, where temperature is a key driver. \u2026  the amount of water lost annually through evapotranspiration in this area is small compared to the rainfall deficits from  lack of rainfall.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All in and done, the effort to blame Panama\u2019s rainfall troubles on climate change was a total bust.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

# # # # #<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author\u2019s Comment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sorry, WWA, that\u2019s two major loses in a row.  Keep trying \u2013 you might be able to trick the data into showing something was maybe<\/em> caused by climate change\u2026like the rainfall in a single city in Ireland<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my not-so-humble opinion, the WWA is, at the top, just a bunch of Climate Crisis Inc. weather panic shills, drawing on \u201cexperts\u201d from other countries who are honored to be asked to participate in these studies and get their names added as authors on a sure-to-be published paper that will attract media attention \u2013 one of the most-sought-after forms of compensation available to today\u2019s scientists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, I have been encouraged by the dilution effect<\/em>.  The advocacy of WWA\u2019s founders, Fredi Otto and Geert Jan van Oldenborgh, becomes diluted through the addition of various national and local scientists who are not primarily intent on sharpening the climate crisis axe.    These other scientists are much less likely to spin and stretch the data to fit the climate crisis meme.     And I offer them my congratulations for refusing to bend to the pressure they must be under to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

# # # # #<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

World Weather Attribution, a purpose created organization intended to manufacture attention getting news stories in support of the Climate Crisis meme that \u00a0\u201cAll Extreme and Bad Weather is caused by Human Induced Climate Change\u201d, has\u00a0published a report\u00a0on the \u00a0\u00a0drought in Panama that has been affecting shipping through the Panama Canal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":327480,"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":"","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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691828529,691818056,691828528],"class_list":{"0":"post-327476","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-canal-drought","9":"tag-climate-change","10":"tag-panama","12":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/0LNG-transiting-the-Panama-Canal.jpeg?fit=1540%2C800&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1nbS","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":220942,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=220942","url_meta":{"origin":327476,"position":0},"title":"Scientists 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