Extreme Weather- Is it safe out there?
In the Skeptical Environmentalist, Lomborg notes that one claim of the global warming alarmists is that there will be an increase in extreme weather. From articles in Newsweek to the political Congressional Quarterly, reports seem confident that global warming is a real concern and will be the cause of all kinds of damaging weather. Al Gore has claimed that it is a known fact that global warming is driving El Nino, in turn causing more and more "wild" weather. Remember Hurricane Katrina, right? That was a busy hurricane year and the alarmists proclaimed it as proof of their theories, and an even busier hurricane year was predicted for the following year…but not one hurricane hit the US in 2006!! In fact, according to an AP report I read, ”…no hurricanes at all struck the U.S. in 2000, 2001 or 2006. And during a less active period from 1970 to 1994, there were six seasons when no hurricanes hit this country (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090911/ap_on_re_us/us_where_are_the_hurricanes). Briefly, as background information, El Nino is a naturally recurring phenomenon that has a 3-5 year cycle. The causes of this cycle are not clearly understood. The two most intense El Nino episodes of the 20th century occurred in 1982 and 1987.
So, on the one hand we see lots of media reports and talk of wild weather being a concern….yet the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) as late as 2001 found that only precipitation and heavy precipitation had increased—no increase in tropical storms, or tornadoes, thunder days or hail were found in the areas analyzed. In an article in Science, it was noted that many statements we hear predicting extreme weather are not supported by climate science or by high-quality climate models. Other statements are just misleading. For example, Worldwatch Institute stated in 2000 |  |
that weather-related damage in the 1990’s was five times more than in the 1980’s, implying that the world is in peril of ever more extreme weather. Such a comparison doesn’t account for the fact of a larger population inhabiting risk-prone areas with more and more assets to lose. For instance, while the population of the US has quadrupled over the last century, the Florida coastal population has increased more than 50-fold! Such increases in concentration of populations can result in misleading cost figures. Indeed, a 1999 American damage study of hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes found that there was no increase in such events in the 1990’s and that the high losses were “...largely the result of societal changes and not major weather changes.” (The Skeptical…) These findings have been substantiated by several other, new studies.
Once again, it seems to me that things are not as portrayed…I don’t understand why the media insists on so much drama! It seems just one side of an issue gets presented with no balance from the opposing facts and perspective. Our climate and why it changes are things not completely understood as far as I can tell. Beyond the science, there are philosophical perspectives on weather and our role in it…Gregg Braden, mentioned elsewhere on this site, relates a story of a friend of his of Native American descent whom he watched “pray rain.” Basically the friend performed an ancient ritual of his people and got the rain that was needed. There’s the Biblical story, of course, of Jesus calming a storm at sea. And then there’s the whole notion that we are co-creators of our experience to consider. Who knows? I have this sense that we are cared for and that that care involves a habitat (earth) that is able to adjust and balance things for us (like the air vents mentioned in the Greenhouse Gases page)….extreme weather is perhaps part of that balancing act, but maybe it’s not a necessary thing. Maybe one day—when “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid (Isaiah: 11:6)..we will find that we don’t need to experience violent weather to have balance—wouldn’t that be nice?! But, meanwhile, in regards to doomsday predictions, it seems to me that things are much like they’ve always been—there are good years and bad years for extreme weather. The frequency of such events is not ever-increasing, as is often implied in the media. So, take a deep breath…I think I’ll go outside and marvel at the wonders of our world!
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