I absolutely guarantee if this happened today it would be blamed on fossil fuel combustion.

1. If you read between the lines in the news articles, we really have no idea what is going on.  The guy could have falsified his travel expense reports
2. The likelihood that an Obama Administration agency would be trying to root out academic fraud at all, or that if they did so they would start here, seems absurd to me.
3. There is no room for fraud because the study was, on its face, facile and useless.  The authors basically extrapolated from a single data point.  As I tell folks all the time, if you have only one data point, you can draw virtually any trend line you want through it.  They had no evidence of what caused the bear deaths or if they were in any way typical or part of a trend — it was all pure speculation and crazy extrapolation.  How could there be fraud when there was not any data here in the first place?  The fraud was in the media, Al Gore, and ultimately the EPA treating this with any sort of gravitas.

Fortunately, the only thing it apparently does not change is wind, and leaves winds everywhere at least as strong as they are now.

Rising global temperatures will not significantly affect wind energy production in the United States concludes a new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Early Edition.

But warmer temperatures could make wind energy somewhat more plentiful say two Indiana University (IU) Bloomington scientists funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF).

. . .

They found warmer atmospheric temperatures will do little to reduce the amount of available wind or wind consistency–essentially wind speeds for each hour of the day–in major wind corridors that principally could be used to produce wind energy.

. . .

“The models tested show that current wind patterns across the US are not expected to change significantly over the next 50 years since the predicted climate variability in this time period is still within the historical envelope of climate variability,” said Antoinette WinklerPrins, a Geography and Spatial Sciences Program director at NSF.

“The impact on future wind energy production is positive as current wind patterns are expected to stay as they are. This means that wind energy production can continue to occur in places that are currently being targeted for that production.”

Even though global warming will supposedly shift wet and dry areas, it will not shift windy areas and so therefore we should all have a green light to continue to pour taxpayer money into possibly the single dumbest source of energy we could consider.

Te entire emerging industry of pundits willing to ascribe individual outlier weather events to manmade CO2 simply drive me crazy.  Forget the uncertainties with catastrophic anthropogenic global warming theory.  Consider the following:

• I can think of no extreme weather event over the last 10 years that has been attributed to manmade CO2 (Katrina, recent flooding, snowstroms, etc) for which there are not numerous analogs in pre-anthropogenic years.   The logic that some event is unprecedented and therefore must be manmade is particularly absurd when the events in question are not unprecedented.  In some sense, the purveyors of these opinions are relying on really short memories or poor Google skills in their audiences.
• Imagine weather simplified to 200 balls in a bingo hopper.  195 are green and 5 are red.  At any one point in time, the chance is 2.5% that a red ball (an extreme event) is pulled.  Now add one more ball.  The chances of an extreme even is now 20% higher.  At some point a red ball is pulled.  Can you blame the manual addition of a red ball for that extreme event?  How?  A red ball was going to get pulled anyway, at some point, so we don’t know if this was one of the originals or the new one.  In fact, there is only a one in six chance this extreme event is from our manual intervention.   So even if there is absolute proof the probability of extreme events has gone up, it is still impossible to ascribe any particular one to that increased probability.
• How many samples would one have to take to convince yourself, with a high probability, the distribution has gone up?  The answer is … a lot more than just having pulled one red ball, which is basically what has happened with reporting on extreme events.  In fact, the number is really, really high because in the real climate we don’t even know the starting distribution with any certainty, and at any point in time other natural effects are adding and subtracting green and red balls (not to mention a nearly infinite number of other colors).

At the American Geophysical Union meeting late last month, University of Miami geologist Shimon Wdowinski argued that the devastating earthquake a year ago may have been caused by a combination of deforestation and hurricanes (H/T Treehugger). Climate change is spurring more, stronger hurricanes, which are fueled by warm ocean waters….

The 2010 disaster stemmed from a vertical slippage, not the horizontal movements that most of the region’s quakes entail, supporting the hypothesis that the movement was triggered by an imbalance created when eroded land mass was moved from the mountainous epicenter to the Leogane Delta.

I have heard this theory before, that landslides and other surface changes can trigger earthquakes.  Now, I am not expert on geology — it is one of those subjects that always seems like it would be interesting to me but puts me in a coma as soon as I dive into it.   I almost failed a pass-fail geology course in college because in the mineral identification section, all I could think to say was “that’s a rock.”

However, I do know enough to say with some confidence that surface land changes may have triggered but did not cause the earthquake.  Earthquakes come from large releases of stored energy, often between plates and faults.  It’s remotely possible land surface changes trigger some of these releases, but in general I would presume the releases would happen at some point anyway.  (Steven Goddard points out the quake was 13km below the surface, and says “It is amazing that anyone with a scientific background could attempt to blame it on surface conditions.”)

The bit I wanted to tackle was the Thin Green Line’s statement that “Climate change is spurring more, stronger hurricanes.”   This is a fascinating statement I want to attack from several angles.

First, at one level it is a mere tautology.  If we are getting more hurricanes, then by definition the climate has changed.   This is exactly why “global warming” was rebranded into “climate change,” because at some level, the climate is always changing.

Second, the statement is part of a fairly interesting debate on whether global warming in general will cause more hurricanes.  Certainly hurricanes get their power from warm water in the oceans, so it is not unreasonable to hypothesize that warmer water would lead to more, stronger hurricanes.  It turns out the question, as are most all questions in the complex climate, is more complicated than that.  It may be hurricanes are driven more by temperature gradients, rather than absolute temperatures, such that a general warming may or may not have an effect on their frequency.

Third, the statement in question, as worded, is demonstrably wrong.  If he had said “may someday spur more hurricanes,” he might have been OK, but he said that climate change, and by that he means global warming, is spurring more hurricanes right now.

Here is what is actually happening (paragraph breaks added)

2010 is in the books: Global Tropical Cyclone Accumulated Cyclone Energy [ACE] remains lowest in at least three decades, and expected to decrease even further… For the calendar year 2010, a total of 46 tropical cyclones of tropical storm force developed in the Northern Hemisphere, the fewest since 1977. Of those 46, 26 attained hurricane strength (> 64 knots) and 13 became major hurricanes (> 96 knots).

Even with the expected active 2010 North Atlantic hurricane season, which accounts on average for about 1/5 of global annual hurricane output, the rest of the global tropics has been historically quiet. For the calendar-year 2010, there were 66-tropical cyclones globally, the fewest in the reliable record (since at least 1970) The Western North Pacific in 2010 had 8-Typhoons, the fewest in at least 65-years of records. Closer to the US mainland, the Eastern North Pacific off the coast of Mexico out to Hawaii uncorked a grand total of 8 tropical storms of which 3 became hurricanes, the fewest number of hurricanes since at least 1970.

Global, Northern Hemisphere, and Southern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone Accumulated Energy (ACE) remain at decades-low levels.

The source link has more, and graphs of ACE over the last several decades (ACE is a sort of integral, combining the time-average-strength of all hurricanes during the year.  This is a better metric than mere counts and certainly better than landfall or property damage metrics).

So, normally I would argue with alarmists that correlation is not causation.   There is no point in arguing about causation, though, because the event he claims to have happened (more and stronger hurricanes) did not even happen.  The only way he could possibly argue it (though I am pretty sure he has never actually looked at the hurricane data and simply works from conventional wisdom in the global warming echo chamber) is to say that yes, 2010 was 40-year low in hurricanes, but it would have been even lower had it not been for global warming.  This is the Obama stimulus logic, and is just as unsupportable here as it was in that context.

Postscript: By the way, 2010 was probably the second warmest year in the last 30-40 years and likely one of the 5-10 warmest in the last century, so if warming was going to be a direct cause of hurricanes, it would have been in 2010.    And yes, El Ninos and La Ninas and such make it all more complicated.  Exactly.  See this post.

There are potential impacts on cancer both directly from climate change and indirectly from climate change mitigation strategies. Climate change will result in higher ambient temperatures that may
increase the transfer of volatile and semi-volatile compounds from water and wastewater into the atmosphere, and alter the distribution of contaminants to places more distant from the sources, changing subsequent human exposures. Climate change is also expected to increase heavy precipitation and flooding events, which may increase the chance of toxic contamination leaks from storage facilities or runoff into water from land containing toxic pollutants. Very little is
known about how such transfers will affect people’s exposure to these chemicals—some of which are known carcinogens—and its ultimate impact on incidence of cancer.  More research is needed to determine the likelihood of this type of contamination, the geographical areas and populations most likely to be impacted, and the health outcomes that could result.

Although the exact mechanisms of cancer in humans and animals are not completely understood for all cancers, factors in cancerdevelopment include pathogens, environmental contaminants, age, and genetics. Given the challenges of understanding the causes of cancer, the links between climate change and cancer are a mixture of fact and supposition, and research is needed to fill in the gaps in what we know.

One possible direct impact of climate change on cancer may be through increases in exposure to toxic chemicals that are known or suspected to cause cancer following heavy rainfall and by
increased volatilization of chemicals under conditions of increased temperature. In the case of heavy rainfall or flooding, there may be an increase in leaching of toxic chemicals and heavy metals
from storage sites and increased contamination of water with runoff containing persistent chemicals that are already in the environment. Marine animals, including mammals, also may suffer
direct effects of cancer linked to sustained or chronic exposure to chemical contaminants in the marine environment, and thereby serve as indicators of similar risks to humans.64 Climate impact
studies on such model cancer populations may provide added dimensions to our understanding of the human impacts.

Remember, the point of this all is not science, but funding.  This is basically a glossy budget presentation.  Obama has said that climate is really, really important to him.  He has frozen a lot of agency budgets, and told them new money is only for programs that supports his major initiatives, like climate change.  So, every agency says that their every problem is due to climate change, just as every agency under Bush said that they were critical to fighting terrorism.  This document is the NIH salvo to get climate change money, not actual science.

According to Prof McGuire, in Taiwan the lower air pressure created by typhoons was enough to “unload” the crust by a small amount and trigger earthquakes, reports the Scotsman.

Uh, right.  We don’t know what triggers earthquakes in general, so we certainly don’t know the affect of atmospheric conditions on earthquakes.  This is outrageous speculation from an all night session at the pub, breathlessly reported as actual news.

Let’s do a thought experiment.  A strong typhoon might drop local atmospheric pressure by 0.2atm.  The pressure at the bottom of the ocean averages 200-600atm, and under a few miles of rock is even higher.  I would challenge someone with measurement instruments on a fault to even detect such an atmospheric change.  Even on surface faults, we are talking about gigatons of force held in check by friction — this is roughly the equivalent of a feather landing on the Empire State Building and collapsing it.

I sometimes wonder if we will see a future SAT question whose answer is “climate studies are to science as alchemy is to chemistry”.

Climate change is already having “pervasive, wide-ranging” effects on “nearly every aspect of our society,” a task force representing more than 20 federal agencies reported Tuesday.

“These impacts will influence how and where we live and work as well as our cultures, health and environment,” the report states. “It is therefore imperative to take action now to adapt to a changing climate.”

Indeed, climate change has begun to affect the ability of government agencies to fulfill their missions, reports the White House Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force.

The group is led by the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It is made up of representatives from more than 20 federal agencies, departments and offices, including the Department of Commerce, the National Intelligence Council, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the Pentagon. That’s diverse – and it’s definitive.

Seriously?  I love how the author says “it’s definitive.”  If the Bush White House had gotten all the same groups together 8 years ago to say that Islamic terrorism was the greatest threat ever faced by every Federal Agency, would that have been “definitive” too? (In fact, exactly this happened, as every department made a pitch for why they needed new security funds).

LOL, let’s see, I will go to a Federal Agency, and tell them that their funding is flat but that they can get more funding, potentially, if any of their problems are caused by climate change.  I wonder how many will then blame all their problems on climate change?  Anyone who has studied the government for 12 seconds will know that government departments are more than happy to pitch all their efforts in the context of the boogeyman de jour, whether it be terrorism or climate change, if doing so will get them some extra bucks in the appropriations process.  If the guy handing out goodies says “I really, really care about X,” then do you really think the Department of Whatever is going to say that X is irrelevant to them?

Here are some of the devastating non-trends in US Climate:

“Well, if it is but a myth, and the global scientific community is involved in some sort of conspiracy, why is it then that around the globe sea levels are more than six inches higher than they were 100 years ago?

“This isn’t an opinion – it is a fact.”

He added: “And, ladies and gentlemen please be in no doubt that the evidence of long-term and potentially irreversible changes to our world is utterly overwhelming.”

Here is the deal with sea levels.  Yes, they were rising in 2009.  And they were rising in 2000.  And they were rising in 1950.  And they were rising in 1900.  And they were rising in 1850.   In fact, sea levels have been rising (due to thermal expansion of water and perhaps some melting land ice**) since the end of the little ice age  (and longer, see WUWT)

In fact, I would argue that this extended sea level rise helps disprove, rather than prove, the strong anthropogenic hypothesis.   The influence of manmade CO2 had to be small from 1850 to 1900 or even 1950.  Therefore, for the 1950-2000 sea level rise to be due to man, it means the natural warming had to stop at the exact same moment that anthropogenic effects took over.  Occam’s Razor says a better answer is that the end of the little ice age around 1800 has led to a general recovery of temperatures ever since.  We see the exact same pattern in glaciers melting

So many people are obsessed over whether or not current temperatures are the highest in the last 100o years or not, they forget that the temperatures in the little ice age were in fact lower than at any time in perhaps the last 5000 years.  It was very cold.

Postscript: By the way, I love the carbon footprint for me, but not for thee angle of the Prince Charles story:

Charles spoke after arriving in Manchester by Royal Train pulled by a coal-fired steam locomotive, named the Tornado, which was rebuilt from a 1948 design.

** Footnote: We know glaciers around the world have retreated since 1850, as shown above, but 90% of the world’s land ice is in Antarctica and we don’t fully understand what has happened there.  Some climatologists believe that warming weather actually increases the ice pack in Antarctica because it never will cause much melting but it increases  snowfall.