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July 21st, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
Some things you really can pin on climate change – the heatwave that struck Texas last year, for instance. A long-term rise in temperatures due to greenhouse gas emissions made the hot weather 20 times more likely, modelling suggests.
The same study found that four other extreme weather events last year can be linked to climate change.
Until recently, climate scientists have been reluctant to blame individual weather events on climate change. There have been exceptions: studies have found that the European heatwave in 2003 was twice as likely because of climate change, and that the UK floods in 2000 were also made more likely. But now, for the first time, climate scientists are systematically examining recent extreme weather events to determine whether climate change played a role.
Peter Stott of the UK Met Office in Exeter headed a project looking at six unusual weather events in 2011. “This is the first time this has been done so soon after the events in question,” he says.
Five of the six events could be blamed on climate change to some extent. “We can never say 100 per cent absolutely that this is due to climate change,” Stott says. “But we are very confident.”
Texas fried
In 2011, Texas suffered the hottest and driest growing season since records began in 1895, which resulted in a severe drought. Farmers were forced to sell their cattle because their pastures were so dry they could not feed them. Climate change is expected to bring more drought to the US Southwest, but few states are planning for this eventuality.
A study led by David Rupp of Oregon State University in Corvallis examined the causes of the Texas drought. One major factor was the La Niña in the Pacific, which changed seasurface temperatures and thus rainfall patterns, boosting the chances of a drought in the US Southwest. But that wasn’t the only cause.
According to Rupp’s models, such a severe heatwave is now 20 times more likely in a La Niña year than it was in the 1960s, when global temperatures were significantly cooler. “Ongoing climate change has exacerbated that existing vulnerability,” says Stott.
Europe and UK
Three other events, two in Europe and one in Africa, were also affected by climate change.
In the UK, November 2011 was the second warmest since records began in 1659. “That warm November was about 60 times more likely than in the 1960s,” Stott says.
Meanwhile, continental Europe had an unusually warm spring and autumn in 2011. This was partly the result of westerly winds bringing warm air from the tropics, but these circulation patterns cannot explain all the heat. “It wouldn’t have been that unusual without the long-term warming,” says Stott.
Famine struck East Africa last summer, after both the region’s rainy seasons failed and caused a severe drought. Several studies linked this to changes in sea surface temperatures in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans, but it was not clear if this was part of a long-term trend. Stott now says there is “initial evidence” that climate change has, indeed, affected ocean temperatures, and partly caused the drought.
Reduced risk
Some events have been made less likely by climate change. December 2010 was the second coldest on record. Greenhouse gases have reduced the odds of such events in the UK. “It’s about half as likely,” Stott says.
And some events did not appear to be related to climate change at all. Thailand suffered severe floods from July 2011 as a result of a strong monsoon. The capital, Bangkok, was inundated in October. “We didn’t find a clear human influence on that weather event,” Stott says. Rather, there were changes to the management of rivers, which made the floods more severe than they otherwise would have been.
All the studies rely on the same basic method. The team used models to simulate climate with and without greenhouse-gas emissions, and compared the chances that a given extreme weather event would occur. If it was significantly more likely in the models that included emissions, climate change was judged to have been a factor.
Journal reference: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, in press
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Uncritical
Tue Jul 10 17:44:38 BST 2012 by bill
In its 2012 platform document, the Texas GOP rejected “higher-order thinking skills,” making it unlikely that the state’s leaders will ever accept global climate change, especially anthropomorphic warming. As conservative pundit George WIll put it recently “It’s called summer, so get over it.”
Uncritical
Thu Jul 12 13:58:40 BST 2012 by Eric Kvaalen
You’re somewhat misrepresenting things. “Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS)” is a specific programme which the GOP deemed to undermine parental authority. It might be a good programme, but it’s not as though the GOP had simply rejected critical thinking! No party would say that.
Modelling Suggests.
Tue Jul 10 17:59:32 BST 2012 by Martin
NS banging the same old Global Warming drum again. The headline sounds like a statement of fact but you don’t have to read too far down to find the weasel words ‘…modelling suggests….’. And what were the assumptions upon which this ‘modelling’ was based? How was a non-biased double blind control established?
Modelling Suggests.
Tue Jul 10 19:16:20 BST 2012 by TwoZeroOZ
Did you seriously ask why a “double blind” study was not done?
Do you know what a double blind study is?
Wow…
Modelling Suggests.
Tue Jul 10 19:38:20 BST 2012 by Gesha
No he does not.
Modelling Suggests.
Wed Jul 11 05:58:38 BST 2012 by Martin
Would you take a drug whose effect had only been tested by a computer model? Would you trust it if the scientists running the model worked for the pharma company and believed in advance that the drug would work? Would you believe a climate scare story generated by a computer model and sold by ‘climate scientists’ who are deeply immersed in group think? Climate science needs to conform to the standards of science, not religion.
Modelling Suggests.
Wed Jul 11 05:42:44 BST 2012 by Martin
Yes I did. Clearly you do not. Do you seriously believe that computer modelling the earths climate is not affected by the beliefs and prejudices of the ‘climate scientists’ operating the model? Or for that matter by the prejudices of magazine editors and reviewers who choose which results get published
Modelling Suggests.
Wed Jul 11 03:33:03 BST 2012 by Dann
Any scientific discipline that relies as much on probability as it does actual data will always be contentious. Probability is just a more scientific term for uncertainty and assumptions.
Unfortunately, the only way to evaluate the accuracy of a predictive model is to wait and see if it was correct – at which point the predictive model is no longer required. Projecting the model into the past to see if you can ‘predict’ what has already happened is also fraught with difficulties, as it’s possible to accidentally come to the ‘right’ conclusion based on incorrect assumptions and methodology.
What we need are multiple parallel earths, time machines, and the ability to change past events, in order to look at how certain climatic variables affect the outcome over time. That would be the only sort of double-blind experiment possible for climate change issues. Clearly that’s not possible though, so we’ll just have to live with the uncertainties and see what happens.
Modelling Suggests.
Wed Jul 11 05:45:29 BST 2012 by Martin
Agreed. A well reasoned comment.
So Heat Waves Were Non Existent 50 Years Ago In Texas?
Thu Jul 12 05:32:34 BST 2012 by Tom Andersen
If you made a model and it predicted 20 times more of a certain kind of event, you would think it would be pretty easy to go back, look at the weather records, and in this case find no comparable texas heat waves in the past. Lets check reality.
‘However, the drought is not unprecedented in every way, and much longer droughts have occurred in the past. The worst extended drought remains the massive 1950’s event when Texas suffered under drought conditions for 10 years from the late 1940’s until the late 1950’s.’
It obvious that the down spike in 2011 was bad, but nowhere near out of the ordinary.
So Heat Waves Were Non Existent 50 Years Ago In Texas?
Thu Jul 12 14:18:52 BST 2012 by Eric Kvaalen
You can`t say that the probability is not 20 times as high just because similar heat waves have occurred in the past!
What was the probability of a heat wave like last summer, 50 or 100 years ago?
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