Gore Demonstrates He Doesn't Understand Basic Meteorology, Much Less Climate

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1. Date: 2008-10-05 23:44:17
Subject: Gore Demonstrates He Doesn't Understand Basic Meteorology, Much Less Climate
From: "ozobn" <o...@y...com> Search message by this author

5 Oct 2008

Gore links Iowa floods and tornadoes to climate change, but makes a
basic error on global temperature to evaporation linkage, plus he misses
the real reason behind imagined tornado increases.

Excerpt: In a recent article in the Des Moines Register, Al Gore
attributed the historic floods that devastated Iowa in June to man-made
emissions causing more water to evaporate from oceans, increasing
average humidity worldwide. "In 66 of your 99 counties, the flood damage
was truly historic." Gore told the crowd of 1,000 Democratic donors. "No
one has ever seen a flood like this." Gore also blamed climate change
for increased tornadoes, including the one that leveled much of
Parkersburg earlier this year. "Yes, we've always had tornadoes in Iowa
and in Tennessee," he said. "But they're coming more frequently and they're
stronger."

In my opinion, the biggest error Gore makes is that water vapor in the
atmosphere (and water cycle) has a much shorter residence time than his
worrisome CO2; days to weeks from evaporation to precipitation, and thus
would not be linked to "warming" now, since warming has subsided
globally.

And, as all four global temperature metrics (UAH, RSS, HadCRUT, GISS)
have demonstrated, we are cooler globally now than in 2005 than when his
An Inconvenient Truth movie came out, and the current global temperature
anomaly is hovering close to the zero line:

UAH satellite derived global temperature data.

Current value for August 2008 is -0.010°C

According to our current scientific understanding of the water cycle and
water vapor on Earth, the average residence time of water molecules in
the troposphere (where evaporation and most weather occurs) is about 10
days.

Since the global temperature trend has been a negative slope since 2007,
and is currently near the zero anomaly line, and with the short
residence time of water vapor in the water cycle, Gore's claimed
"warming" could not be responsible for increased water vapor. If
anything, water vapor in the water cycle would be less now.

Gore clearly doesn't understand basic meteorology, much less climate.

Then there is Gore's claim of "Yes, we've always had tornadoes in Iowa
and in Tennessee," he said. "But they're coming more frequently and they're
stronger." Well, the graph below says otherwise.

Graph from NWS/NOAA. Smaller (F1) tornadoes seem to be on the increase,
but not larger ones (F2-F5). This is likely due to increased reporting
from Doppler Radar, storm chasers, and news gathering. Small tornadoes
that once went unnoticed are now often reported, and make the news.

Gore is flat wrong.

References:

1) Climatologist dismisses extreme weather predictions due to man-made
warming as 'complete nonsense' - By Hydro-climatologist Stewart Franks,
an Associate Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of
Newcastle in Australia. (LINK)

2) Another scientist dismisses fearmongers: Midwest Floods and
'Completely Unjustified' Climate Change Fear Mongering - June 22, 2008 -
By Mike Smith is a certified consulting meteorologist and a Fellow of
the American Meteorological Society He is CEO of WeatherData Services,
Inc., an AccuWeather Company, based in Wichita.) (LINK)

3) U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) report shows Hurricanes
declining,

NO increases in drought, tornadoes, thunderstorms, heat-waves - June 20,
2008 - (LINK)

4) Going Down: Death Rates Due to Extreme Weather Events (LINK)

5) Analysis in peer-reviewed journal finds COLD PERIODS - not warm
periods - see INCREASE in floods, droughts, storms, famine - April 24,
2008 - (LINK)

6) Increasing tornadoes or better information gathering? - February 8th,
2008 - (LINK)

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/10/05/gore-demonstra
tes-he-doesnt-understand-basic-meteorology-much-less
-climate/#more-3478
--

Warmest Regards

Bonzo

"It's very appropriate that it [An Inconvenient Truth] got an Oscar from
the land of make-believe." Dr. Timothy Ball, Chairman of the Natural
Resources Stewardship Project (NRSP.com), Former Professor Of
Climatology, University of Winnipeg