Community | August 14, 2011 | 51 comments

U.S. media downplays link between climate change and extreme weather

source: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/08/14/295494/extreme-weather-media-downplay-climate-chang...

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JanforGore
On April 14, a massive storm swept down out of the Rocky Mountains into the Midwest and South, spawning more than 150 tornadoes that killed 43 people across 16 states (Capital Weather Gang, 4/18/11). It was one of the largest weather catastrophes in United States history—but was soon upstaged by an even larger storm, the 2011 Super Outbreak that spread more than 300 tornadoes across 14 states from April 25 to 28 (including an all-time one-day record of 188 twisters on April 27), killing 339 people, including 41 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (CNN, 5/1/11).

Ensuing weeks saw Texas wildfires that had been burning since December expand to consume more than 3 million acres (Texas Forest Service, 6/28/11; CNN, 4/25/11), plus record flooding along the Mississippi River, which couldn’t contain the water from April’s storms on top of the spring snowmelt. On May 22, a super-strong F5 tornado killed 153 people as it flattened a large part of Joplin, Missouri (National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, 5/22/11) ; in the first two weeks of June, a heat wave broke temperature records in multiple states, and the Wallow fire became the largest in Arizona state history (Washington Post, 6/14/11).

It was an unprecedented string of severe weather: By mid-June, more than 1,000 tornadoes had killed 536 people (NOAA, 6/13/11), nearly as many deaths as in the entire preceding decade. And it was only natural to ask: Were we seeing the effects of climate change?

Most scientists would say yes, or at least “probably.” The Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change, a global scientific body that has been a target of conservatives despite a record of soft-pedaling its findings to avoid controversy (Extra!, 7/8/07), warned on February 2, 2007, “It is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent.” (In science-speak, “very likely” refers to a certainty of greater than 90 percent, and is as near as you get to a definitive conclusion.) Other forecasts (e.g., Environment America, 9/8/10) have projected that wet regions will receive record rainfall thanks to increasing evaporation, while dry ones get record drought, as climate patterns shift to accommodate the new normal.

Yet despite these dire predictions, U.S. media were hesitant to investigate the links between climate change and this spring’s extreme weather. Much coverage settled for the cheap irony of contrasting extreme phenomena, as when NBC’s Saturday Today show meteorologist Bill Karins (6/11/11) quipped:

Feast or famine’s been the rule this spring. The northern half of the country, we’ve dealt with the heavy rain, the record snow pack that’s now melting in the northern Rockies. That’s causing the flooding. The southern half of the country, you would love some of that rain.

Even news reports that probed deeper into the causes of the spring’s extreme weather, though, often stopped short of looking at climate factors. A Chicago Tribune story (4/29/11) headlined, “Why April Record for Twisters? Experts Call It Random, Say Nature Varies,” noted that “some meteorologists” blame the periodic weather pattern known as La Niña, but then cited other scientists as saying the tornado outbreak was just random variation, with University of Illinois meteorologist Bob Rauber saying, “Global warming is occurring, but this is not a manifestation of it.”

On the CBS Evening News (6/9/11), meanwhile, John Blackstone noted, “Perhaps the biggest weather troublemaker has been in the Gulf of Mexico, where sea surface temperatures have been almost 2 degrees [Fahrenheit] above average. That warm, moist Gulf air meeting the powerful jet stream created the string of tornadoes that killed 525 people.” Yet, asked by anchor Scott Pelley why the Gulf of Mexico is hotter than usual, Blackstone replied only: “Well, it’s related to the drought in the South—in the South-Southwest, with little clouds, lots of sunshine, the waters warming up and those warm waters could add energy to this hurricane season as well.”

But while La Niña is a natural cyclical variation, the warming Gulf is not—at the very least, it’s exacerbated by the global warming trend, which has pumped at least four times the heat energy into the oceans that it has into the atmosphere (NPR, 3/19/08). As National Center for Atmos-pheric Research climatologist Kevin Tren-berth explained to Extra!, the air over oceans now averages 1 degree Fahrenheit warmer and 4 percent wetter than it was before 1970. “So there is more warm moist air from the Gulf flowing into all spring storms that travel across the U.S. That destabilizes the air, provides fuel for thunderstorms and converts some thunderstorms into supercell storms, which in turn provide the environment for tornadoes to form.”

The easiest connection for most reporters to make was with heat waves, probably because they match best with the popular image of “global warming.” “Intense hot conditions will increase dramatically over the next 30 years,” ABC News’ Jim Avila (6/8/11) reported after June’s record-setting heat wave. “Climatologists say it’s clear: Global warming is beginning to show itself in plain sight.”

snip

As noted, the role of climate change in the spring’s severe weather wasn’t entirely ignored. The Christian Science Monitor (6/9/11), in its report on Arizona wildfires that had “blackened an area half the size of Rhode Island,” called them “the latest poster child for what some scientists see as a long-term trend toward larger, longer-lived wildfires in the American West,” noting that “climate change appears to be an important contributor.”

Urgency was left to op-ed pages: Climate activist Bill McKibben wrote a scathing op-ed in the Washington Post (5/23/11) that sarcastically suggested: “It’s very important to stay calm. If you got upset about any of this, you might forget how important it is not to disrupt the record profits of our fossil fuel companies.” Environmental writer Chip Ward wrote an opinion piece on CBS News.com (6/16/11): “Global warming, global weirding, climate change—whatever you prefer to call it—is not just happening in some distant, melting Arctic land out of a storybook. It is not just burning up far-away Russia. It’s here now.” (CBS News’ television programs, meanwhile, never once mentioned climate change in their coverage of the spring’s wildfires.)

One example of how to cover the story differently came from the Edmonton Journal (5/17/11), where columnist Graham Thomson wrote:

No scientist can guarantee that any of these events are caused by human-induced climate change. Climate change is all about trends.

However, the trends are consistent: The atmosphere is warming, the climate is changing and we are largely responsible through our burning of fossil fuels.


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51 comments // U.S. media downplays link between climate change and extreme weather

  • totally_dilapidated
  • jackshin
    • +1
      jackshin  

    • The elephant in the room.

      I consider myself an environmentalist, and I am glad there hasn't been devastating hurricanes since 2005, but for me, I need an explanation of why no hurricanes. I understand global warming affects the environment in many ways, and the most egregious of them all is the melting of the polar caps. Unfortunately, along with the melting of the caps, the new green movement was in part a reaction to the 2005 hurricane season. I don't want hurricanes, but the media only pays attention when there is one and the public may only relate global warning to hurricanes. I am convinced current weather patterns is a direct result of the earth warming, but environmental activitists must explain why there isn't as many devasting hurricanes, . Certainly, I would like to know.

    • 10 months ago
  • nashkildare
    • +1
      nashkildare  

    • I really think controlling carbon dioxide is missing the point a little. Methane is about ten times worse than CO2 when it comes to global warming. Two solutions come to mind.

      1. Work with natural gas companies to collect the methane

      2. Instead of farms that run on electricity from coal plants, they should be run on cow poo. There's a farm in california that gets it's electricity from cow dung. And well, I don't know if this is possible or not, but have tractors run on cow poo.

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
    • +1
      JanforGore  
    • nashkildare:

      Co2 is the largest amplifier. However, methane, nitrous oxide and sulphur dioxide deifnitely need to be controlled as well. We have overwhelmed the hydrologic cycle and are pushing it beyond its natural boundaries. Global events make that very ckear.

    • 10 months ago
  • passingthru
    • -4
      passingthru  
    • nashkildare:

      Nice contribution Nashkildare. I've seen this done in some parts of the world where villages are using methane from waste to produce cooking fuel. Now, if we could just get JanforGore to speak into a tube for capture, we'll all have enough fuel to cook with.

    • 10 months ago
  • OlBlue
  • artemis6
    • +2
      artemis6  

    • Absurd , isn't it . Cowards fear to call it what it is . I shouldn't judge , though , were my employers breathing down my neck , i might give in to pressure too ... Ah who am i kidding . Since i was a toddler , i have had an impulse to do the opposite of what i was ordered to . I need to be under my own command .

    • 10 months ago
  • coolplanet
    • +2
      coolplanet  
    • Image

    • Climatologists have been warning us about this very crisis for 30 years now, only they didn't predict things to get this bad until 2050 or later.
      Their models don't factor in the massive amount of methane melting from permafrost at the poles hardest hit by the greenhouse effect.
      2011 is turning out to be the year global warming is becoming undeniable, breaking heat, fire, flood and drought records in every nation on Earth.

    • 10 months ago
  • artemis6
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • coolplanet:

      "Their models don't factor in the massive amount of methane melting from permafrost at the poles hardest hit by the greenhouse effect."

      Models have been proven to be seriously flawed.
      Methane levels rose early last century but then entered a period of decline since about 1980.
      Your planet is not burning up, get used to it.

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
    • +3
      JanforGore  
    • coolplanet:

      Yes, climatologists and climate scientists have been warming us, and some even held back on predictions. But you know the usual deniers with the usual crap don't care. This is affecting the poor and darkskinned people globally the most, and well, these nose in the air elitists with their English accents, mansions, cricket clubs and relationships with coal magnates can't be bothered worrying about those who aren't in the same "league." Personally, I am getting to the point where I wish one huge typhoon would come and blow all of these lying p***** away.

    • 10 months ago
  • dugdog47
    • 0
      dugdog47  
    • IceKat:

      Early man walked away as modern man took
      control.
      Their minds weren't all the same, to
      conquer was his big goal,
      So he built his great empire and slaughtered
      his own kind,
      Then he died a confused man, killed himself
      with his own mind.
      Early man walked away as modern man took
      control.
      Their minds weren't all the same, to
      conquer was his big goal,
      So he built his great empire and slaughtered
      his own kind,
      Then he died a confused man, killed himself
      with his own mind.

    • 10 months ago
  • Varex_Sythe
  • Blueshound9
  • JanforGore
    • +5
      JanforGore  
    • Blueshound9:

      These are real climate scientists, not sellouts.

      http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2011/07/misdiagnosis-of-surface-te...

      Already refuted. And that "scientist" is part of the EXXON funded Heartland Institute as well as the Marshall Institute. But thanks for making Dr. Oreskes's point of the video so clearly. It's the same crap spewed out OVER and OVER and OVER again by the same pseudoscientists and merchants of doubt.

      http://www.desmogblog.com/roy-spencer

      "Satellite Research Refuted
      According to an August 12, 2005 New York Times article, Spencer, along with another well-known "skeptic," John Christy, admitted they made a mistake in their satellite data research that they said demonstrated a cooling in the troposphere (the earth's lowest layer of atmosphere). It turned out that the exact opposite was occurring and the troposphere was getting warmer."

      Heartland Institute, Marshall Institute and an interfaith organization that doesn’t believe in evolution and these organizations also involved with the tobacco industry in selling misinformation about the health effects of smoking? I would surmise from this that the author of this paper does not write from a perspective of caring about the science.

    • 10 months ago
  • IceKat
  • passingthru
    • -3
      passingthru  
    • Blueshound9:

      Nice find Bluehound9. At least this article shows there are people out there thinking beyond the usual unproven speculative junk - such as what's coming out of JanforGore. Even if using satellite data doesn't prove one way or the other, its nice to see there is intelligent life after all

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • artemis6
  • passingthru
    • -4
      passingthru  

    • Such nonsense. I agree that there seems to be a shift with the norm of weather - at least over my life time; however, I love how this article threw in the statement at the very end that its from burning fossil fuels. Such nonsense. Prove it with evidence. From what I heard, the Earth goes thru these cycles many times over. We're just a speck in time.

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • passingthru
    • -4
      passingthru  
    • JanforGore:

      I'll keep playing. I have more quarters.

      Show me the science. Provide me some links that specifically call out the burning of fossil fuels as the direct contributor to the fluctuation of temperatures on the planet.

      WINNER! There's only one.

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • passingthru
    • -5
      passingthru  
    • JanforGore:

      Still don't see anything on the Internet - out from under a rock - that specifically calls out the burning of fossil fuels as the source of global temperature changes. Guess you haven't either.

    • 10 months ago
  • OlBlue
  • passingthru
    • -5
      passingthru  
    • OlBlue:

      No offense taken, especially if you had made me more aware of the situation. However, the article your reference is pointless as it based on a questionnaire of scientists and concludes that it is "very likely". Again, circumstantial evidence and not empirical facts.

      Please help someone. I found a few other links such as with NOAA that talk about the specifics of rising temperatures (nothing so far found about the extreme weather changes over the winter - i.e. high volumes of snow fall in areas out of the norm). But again, nothing specifically calling out the burning of fossil fuels directly contributing to the changes in the climate.

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
    • +5
      JanforGore  
    • OlBlue:

      Trying to entice you into a false debate about something that is already scientific fact regarding the greenhouse effect and the effect of Co2 as an amplifier of temperature which is easy to find is a classic tactic of a shill. Especially from someone who just signs up here and automatically comes to this thread to defend fossil fuels.

      I call BS.

    • 10 months ago
  • northernexpat
    • +4
      northernexpat  
    • JanforGore:

      There is no sense getting into a pissing contest with these ignorant non-believers. They obviously do not want to take their heads out of the sand and see what is happening right in front of their faces. You could provide them all the fact in the world and they would claim it is junk science. Of course they also believe that man lived among the dinosaurs and that the earth is only 6,000 years old.

      As long as fossil fuel companies continue to pay off politicians nothing will change either. You got to love the oil and coal company ads that paint them as clean energy providers that are saving the planet and pouring all their profits back into creating green energy. Ya right!

      I wish we could put all the non-believers on the big iceberg floating off the coast of Newfoundland that broke off Greenland last year and is bigger than Rhode Island. We still don't know yet if it will enter the Northwest Passage and block the shipping lanes there or continue down the East Coast, block shipping lanes there and raising the sea level until it melts.

      Just how do they explain the ice fields melting all over the world? A normal phase? These ice fields have been there longer than man and they are now disappearing in the grand scheme of things almost overnight.

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • ozzone
    • +2
      ozzone  
    • JanforGore:

      Absolutely true JanforGore. This guy is a full of it. To say that there is no evidence or 'empirical facts' is so ludicrous that it's not worth the time talking about it. If the guy really knows science, he would not say such a thing. All science starts as an idea or hypothesis that evolves over time. I would go so far as to say some of the greatest laws of sciences were only theories in someones head that other people called nonsense. If he can't find any evidence, it's because he's not looking.

    • 10 months ago
  • IceKat
    • -2
      IceKat  
    • JanforGore:

      "...if you know science"

      And you have proved time and time again that you don't know science, which is why you always resort to re-posting known alarmists' blogs to back-up your failed theory.

    • 10 months ago
  • IceKat
    • -2
      IceKat  
    • OlBlue:

      But it turns out this so-called consensus amounts to only 75 self-selected climatologists.
      Less than 31% of those contacted (10,257) bothered to respond to the survey. Only 5% of the respondents described themselves as climate scientists, only half of those were described as specialists... some consensus!!!

    • 10 months ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • JanforGore:

      One again blaming someone with different opinions (probably gained by actually doing some reading) as being in the pay of big oil. It's a pretty cheap response, don't you think?
      Try re-labelling the greenhouse effect, call it the atmosphere effect and you'll be a lot closer to what it actually is. The planet is not enclosed within a glass frame, the gases within our atmosphere do more than just keep the planet warm, they regulate the temperature, and that includes cooling too. Yes, CO2 helps cool the planet!!!
      If you open your eyes you'll find the debate on so-called greenhouse gases is alive and kicking.

    • 10 months ago
  • IceKat
    • -3
      IceKat  
    • northernexpat:

      "We still don't know yet if it will enter the Northwest Passage and block the shipping lanes there or continue down the East Coast, block shipping lanes there and raising the sea level until it melts. "

      How much will floating ice raise sea levels when it melts?
      With all this melting ice, how do you explain the reduction in sea level rises?

      "Just how do they explain the ice fields melting all over the world?"

      How do you explain the ice fields that are actually growing or that have remained stable?

    • 10 months ago
  • OlBlue
    • +1
      OlBlue  
    • Image

    • I had never seen a tornado in my life until two months ago when I was traveling through the midwest to see my parents, on a road I had driven many times. It certainly doesn't prove anything about climate change but it sure got my attention.

    • 10 months ago
  • Wyley_Wombat
  • OlBlue
  • passingthru
  • coolplanet
    • +1
      coolplanet  
    • passingthru:

      Do you get coached in playing devil's advocate before they pay you to spread lies and confusion with endless questions which science answered a decade ago?
      And if you aren't paid to circulate bogus information then exactly what is your motivation???

    • 10 months ago
  • Wyley_Wombat
    • 0
      Wyley_Wombat  
    • passingthru:

      One made it into Morris County and dropped a tree on a roof. It passed through the woods near a friend's house and you could see a corridor of splintered trees. That one went over where I live but did not touch down. You cannot mistake that rumble they make. I have been in the southwest and seen one at about a mile distant. I will never forget the sound.

    • 9 months ago
  • Lairderg
    • +2
      Lairderg  

    • Thanks for posting this. As soon as I heard of those tornadoes, how bad they were and where they were, I knew these were not "normal" by most standards. We cannot allow defunding of green initiatives and deregulation of fossil-fuel corporations. I'm tired of the lies by those who love their fossil fuels.

    • 10 months ago
  • Johnny_Los_Angeles
  • coolplanet
    • +2
      coolplanet  
    • Johnny_Los_Angeles:

      But this isn't about bad weather.
      It's about a climate gone wild, with ever-increasing severe heat and cold and flood and drought and famine and storms every year.
      Arctic ice and tundra are melting at historic (10,000 year) rates, glaciers all over Earth are disappearing before our eyes, sea levels are rising and creating climate refugees as we speak, and never before seen heat and fires are sweeping the globe worse by the day.
      We need to understand the difference between weather and climate.

    • 10 months ago
  • VoyagerFilms
    • +4
      VoyagerFilms  

    • Big media is owned and controlled by corrupt bastards like Rupert Murdock and his son - they have only achieved the level of success they have by being friendly to big oil, friendly to big pharma, friendly to big insurance companies - and they will do all they can to protect they're fat cows

    • 10 months ago
  • Incredulous
  • passingthru
    • -3
      passingthru  
    • Incredulous:

      Another reason she's about shutting down the EPA is due to the funding from the Koch brothers into the Tea Party. They have had so many problems with the EPA fining them because of the lack of controls in place to protect the environment.

      Oh, and they keep losing those fights :)

    • 10 months ago
  • JanforGore
  • Vic_Romano
  • remanns
  • VoyagerFilms
    • +4
      VoyagerFilms  
    • remanns:

      No, the suppression of the facts is simply to keep it business as usual so as not to upset the balance of power in the world.

      President Obama is right, let's stop giving welfare to super profitable oil companies and put the money into green energy and the spread of individual power production!

    • 10 months ago
  • coolplanet
    • +1
      coolplanet  
    • remanns:

      Oh but there is enormous money to be made in building a clean energy infrastructure, just not for the fossil fuel industry (whom make more money every year than any companies in world history).

    • 10 months ago
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