In 2008, a 100 Percent Chance of Alarm

SPPI quotes a story wriiten by John Tierney of NY Times. In it he states,

I’d like to wish you a happy New Year, but I’m afraid I have a different sort of prediction. You’re in for very bad weather. In 2008, your television will bring you image after frightening image of natural havoc linked to global warming. You will be told that such bizarre weather must be a sign of dangerous climate change — and that these images are a mere preview of what’s in store unless we act quickly to cool the planet. Unfortunately, I can’t be more specific. I don’t know if disaster will come by flood or drought, hurricane or blizzard, fire or ice. Nor do I have any idea how much the planet will warm this year or what that means for your local forecast. Long-term climate models cannot explain short-term weather. But there’s bound to be some weird weather somewhere, and we will react like the sailors in the Book of Jonah. When a storm hit their ship, they didn’t ascribe it to a seasonal weather pattern. They quickly identified the cause (Jonah’s sinfulness) and agreed to an appropriate policy response (throw Jonah overboard).

I like the Jonah analogy. When we don't understand something, we look for irrational explanations, like Jonah's shipmates. He continues with,

When the Arctic sea ice last year hit the lowest level ever recorded by satellites, it was big news and heralded as a sign that the whole planet was warming. When the Antarctic sea ice last year reached the highest level ever recorded by satellites, it was pretty much ignored. A large part of Antarctica has been cooling recently, but most coverage of that continent has focused on one small part that has warmed.

Currently, global warming activists are ignoring certain data sets which don't support their cause. This fact is extremely shameful, but shows the state of global warming science. If it is hot, it must be due to global warming. If it is cold and storming, it must also be do to global warming.

My complete primer on this subject is here.

John Tierney's complete article can be viewed here.