Perceptions and Reality about Climate Change

The PowerPost section of the Washington Post bills itself as “Intelligence for Leaders.” The January 24 print edition carried an article titled “More Americans are alarmed about climate change, polls say, ” by Dino Grandoni. On the next page, an op-ed by two University of Pennsylvania faculty, Cary Coglianese and Mark Neavitt, blamed last year’s hurricanes Florence and Michael, as well as the California fires, on climate change.The assertions made in both pieces are quite testable.Post:“A third, and perhaps most important, reason [for heightened concern] is the spate of nasty weather events in recent years, which include the sort of massive wildfires in the Western United States and intense hurricanes in the Atlantic that many climate scientists expect to become more common in a warming world.”Facts:We are living in a warming world, and we are also living in a world with no demonstrable increase in the power and/or frequency of tropical cyclones. Figure 1. Accumulated Global Tropical Cyclone Energy.  Source:  Ryan Maue, 2011 andupdates through January 24, 2019. Figure 2. Total hurricane frequency (top) and major hurricane frequency (bottom).   Source: same as Figure 1.The perception that hurricanes are increasing in power comes in part from the 2014 “National Assessment” of climate change effects on the U.S., from the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP), which clearly cherry-picked hurricane data. Although records go back much further, it emph...

Source: Cato-at-liberty - January 25, 2019 Category: American Health Authors: Patrick J. Michaels Source Type: blogs