Last week I read an article on why Global Warming is happening according to Knack (a Belgian magazine): 10 recent weather phenomena ‘that indicate global warming’. It is a list of 10 weather phenomena observed in 2013 that indicates Global Warming is real.
Apparently this list of extreme weather events was compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). They stated that extreme weather is one of the consequences of global warming and that weather is becoming more extreme. Of course also the mandatory “No single weather event is proof of global warming”-statement. I heard that before. It is misleading: on the one hand it is acknowledged that none of those events can be considered proof of global warming, but on the other hand it IS used as such.
These seems to be the 10 most important indications that global warming is among us:
- In 2013, Australia had the warmest year, New Zealand experienced its third warmest year and Argentina’s second warmest year since the start of the measurements.
- The UK and Ireland had the wettest winter
- Typhoon Haiyan
- One of the warmest winters in the history of several countries in Western and Central Europe, in Austria and Germany accompanied by heavy rainfall. The average temperature in December over Russia was the highest ever recorded.
- The historic cold snap in the United States.
- The north and southeast of Brazil experienced the worst drought in half a century and a large part of Chile experienced extreme drought in February
- Paraguay and Bolivia saw then exceptionally heavy rainfall in February.
- The EF-5 tornado that took 18 people living in El Reno was 4.2 kilometers, the widest ever measured
- Large parts of Japan by the side of the Pacific in February were plagued by exceptionally heavy snowfall.
- Even in different areas in the Middle East there was winter as had not been seen for several years.
So here you have it: global warming causes warm winters as well as cold winters, droughts as well as heavy rainfall and storms.
But that is not all: these are all LOCAL events. This is weather. Not climate. What is wrong with the global stuff? In the past we heard a lot that “Global” Warming existed. That even a small temperature difference in “global” temperatures seemed insignificant, but nevertheless was a big deal. Now when global averages don’t seem to cooperate with that hypothesis, we get to hear that not global temperatures indicate global warming, but local anecdotal events instead…
That is as low as the bar can go. If the variability of local weather events is being used to prove global warming, then there is no limit to the amount of proof one could accumulate!
Trust, yet verify 