The Iowa flood happened during a cooling a cycle and has no relation to warming. In the NW US we had record snow packs the last two years and both events happened during a cooler Pacific Ocean. The man-made Global Warming lie is only being sold by people trying to make money and gain control and by people that have never taken a science class.

Well done, at last a statement based on data

"Your problem is not global warming. Your problem is that you're nuts."

I like that.

Someone help me here. Was there not a report from about a week or two ago from some panic monger group that stated "glo-BULL warming will reduce the number of hurricanes?" Huh? Well which is it? Are we headed for disaster with more large storms or are we not? These lunatics want to have their cake and eat it too. All in an effort to shove their carbon taxes and economy destroying regulations/controls down our throats. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. There is just no satisfying these people. (That is until the glo-BULL playing field is equaled through wealth redistribution).

As for this:

Achenbach seems to zero in on the rapid growth of human population as the main culprit to many of these disasters.

REPLY: More guilt laden pap from another agenda driven over paid employee of the Washington Post. For the last time. We humans CAN NOT CONTROL THE WEATHER (Believe me, If I could it would be 88 degrees and sunny 24/7/365). Or how many of these storms happen every year. Enough already!

Great article! And whatever happened to survival of the fittest? The drug companies and medical institutions are doing a fabulous job at making sure those 6 billion + human beings will be around alot longer than mother nature intended.

Not all of NASA is bowing to Hansen either . . .

http://launchmagonline.com/index.php/Viewpoint/In-Science-Ignorance-is-not-Bliss.html

Excerpt

"You might have to go back half a million years to match our current level of atmospheric CO2, but you only have to go back to the Medieval Warming Period, from the 10th to the 14th Century, to find an intense global warming episode, followed immediately by the drastic cooling of the Little Ice Age. Neither of these events were caused by variations in CO2 levels."

Steve

Achenbach seems to zero in on the rapid growth of human population as the main culprit to many of these disasters. What do you think?

Reply: Yeah he is right, well not completely the "global warming" part is wrong. The more people there are on this planet the greater the chance that they will be effected by natural diasters. If all the human population was in one small place on the globe then natural diasters would be rare, but we are spread out all over the world and weather DOES happen and therefore humans are most likely going to be in the way...

As human populations go up I expect more weather related casualties. But as for "global warming" being caused by humans it's complete non-sense.

And I don't know how anyone could blame Katrina on global warming. It was almost all human error!
1. Katrina made landfall as a cat 3 (Should have been able to ride it out!)
2. New Orleans is built UNDER sea level yet right next to the Ocean. (Human error)
3. The MAN made structures built to hold back the Ocean didn't hold (Human Error)
4. Everyone in the danger area should have packed up and left to minimize casualties. (Human Error)
5. Perhaps we should have better building codes for places along the coast!? (Human error)

In 2007 hurricane Dean hit Mexico I believe as a catagory 5 and there were 37 casualties in 10 ten countries but NONE in Mexico. That could be bacause
1. Mexico has better hurricane response or
2. It hit an area with very little human poplulation.

In this case number 2 is correct.

"Downed power lines and damaged buildings were reported in Mexico and northern Belize. But even in the hardest-hit area, Red Cross officials said, no deaths were reported and only one injury, which was minor.

"http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/americas/08/22/hurricane.dean/index.html

or see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Dean_(2007)

Well, the fact that we've added thousands of buildings and literally millions of people living in the flood zones and hurricane coastal areas seems to make sense that we would be seeing more damage than the 1930's.

Several studies out seem to indicate that there is a wind shear that 'warming' creates that causes fewer hurricanes to form than before.

Yes I agree that any one individual storm itself is not an indication of global climate change, but there has been a series of record breaking hurricane/tropical cyclone events just in the past year that develops a pattern that one cannot simply ignore.

The following information was for the tropical season just last year and was posted on Dr. Jeff Master's hurricane blog site.

Lorenzo sets a rapid intensification record for 2007: Hurricane Lorenzo hit Mexico's Veracruz coast near Tuxpan. The storm's heavy rains have triggered mudslides blamed for at least four deaths. Lorenzo has tied the Atlantic record for fastest intensification from a tropical depression to a Category 1 hurricane--twelve hours. Hurricane Blanche of 1969 was the only other storm on record that intensified from a tropical depression to a Category 1 hurricane in just 12 hours. Hurricane Ethel of 1960 may have done so faster, though. Ethel strengthened from a 45-mph tropical storm to a 85 mph Category 1 hurricane in just 6 hours. We don't know when Ethel started as a tropical depression, since this was before the satellite era.

Reliable record keeping of intensification rates of Atlantic hurricanes began in 1970, when regular satellite coverage became available. Since 1970, Hurricane Humberto of 2007 holds the record for fastest intensification from first advisory issued to hurricane strength--18 hours. (Actually, Humberto did the feat in 14 1/4 hours, but this will get rounded off to 18 hours in the final data base, which stores points every six hours). There have been six storms that accomplished the feat in 24 hours.

Since 1970, Hurricane Felix of 2007 holds the record for fastest intensification from the first advisory to a Category 5 hurricane. It took Felix just 54 hours to accomplish the feat. Hurricane Camille of 1969 also took 54 hours to do so, but the first advisory put Camille as a 60 mph tropical storm. It is likely that Camille would have been classified as a tropical depression earlier had reliable satellite imagery been available.

Is it a statistical fluke that we've had three record-speed intensifying hurricanes this year? It could be. Our reliable data records only go back to 1970, and there may have been periods in the past with similar events. No scientist has published a paper linking rapid hurricane intensification rates with global warming. However, three record-speed intensifying hurricanes in one season certainly raises questions, and is very odd.

2007 also marks the first time in recorded history that two Category 5 storms (Felix and Dean) have made landfall in the Atlantic basin in the same year. Since reliable record keeping began in 1944, there have been 27 Category 5 hurricanes in the Atlantic. Eight of these (or about a third) have occurred in the past five years.

Tropical Cyclone Sidr made landfall in October 2007 in western Bangladesh as a mighty Category 4 storm with 150 mph winds. Sidr is the second strongest cyclone to make landfall in Bangladesh since reliable record keeping began in 1877. The only stronger storm was the 1991 Bangladesh Cyclone, which struck eastern Bangladesh as a Category 5 cyclone. The 30 foot storm surge of that storm killed at least 140,000 people.

In the Middle East, Severe Cyclone GONU entered the Gulf of Oman and struck Iran in early June 2007. This is an unprecedented event. NO CYCLONE has ever entered the Gulf of Oman in recorded history.

Then the Middle East was hit by their second tropical cyclone of the month. Tropical Cyclone 3B crossed India, killing at least 140, and re-formed in the Arabian Sea, and hit Iran/Pakistan border area. This is the first time in hundreds of years since the last time the Middle East was hit by two tropical cyclones in the same month.

Meanwhile just last month for this current hurricane season, Hurricane Bertha set the record for the longest-lived July hurricane on record (and the longest-lived hurricane so early in the season). Bertha was a hurricane 7.75 days, which eclipses the previous record of 7 days held by Hurricane Emily of 2005. Bertha was also the longest-lived tropical storm on record for July (and for so early in the season), 17.25 days. Bertha was also the farthest east forming tropical storm and hurricane for so early in the season.

I would have to say that the increase in the human population is definately the main reason we are seeing more and more major disasters. So many more people are living on the coast, so when a hurricane hits the coast a higher probabilty of it hitting an inhabited area, and creating a major disaster increases. While global warming probably plays a roll in increasing the intensities of storms, we really aren't sure to this point. Let me pose this question... If no one lived in New Orleans, would we even remember Katrina? Would it just be anouther hurricane, instead of a major disaster? As our populations expand and we are inhabiting more high risk areas, aren't we just increasing the chance that storms will damage more property? In my opinion we have a dangerious combination of slighty increased storms and population growth in areas where these storms hit...

Dennis Hlinka:

You just used an awful lot of words to prove absolutely nothing.

There are two sources of pertinent information that have come through my mail. The first is the address by Herbert Meyer, titled "What in the world is going on? A global intelligence briefing for CEO's." In there he presents data on populations in countries around the world. He points out that most countries are showing rapid reductions in their populations. I make that to read the population of humans in the world is decreasing.The second critical mass of data is on global warming gathered from many climatological sources around the world and based on 3,000 years of warming and cooling cycles. Pull up "Environmental Effects of Increased Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide" by Arthur B. Robinson, Noah Robinson, and Willie Soon. It is too much to cover here, but shows sea surface temperatures are just now approaching the average from colder times dating back to the Little Ice Age. Also data shows there during the 20th & 21st centuries increased atmospheric CO2 levels have had NO "deleterious effect upon Earth's weather and climate. Global warming is non-existent in spite of Al Gore being awarded a Noble Prize for deciding it did exist. Dumb.

Isn't it wonderful how the Cataclysminoids put the blame on Glo-BULL WARMING for weather events like Katrina but then conveniently put the blame on weather events , like La Nina' , for Global Cooling. SO tell us one of you Alarmists; does climate change control the weather or does the weather control climate change? If you say the former,then,.... Why did GMT's fall during the La Nina we just experienced all while CO2 levels continued to rise [BTW,CO2 is forcing the climate to heat up,remember that?]. If you say the latter ,then answer me this; How, when we can't accurately project future weather beyond a few weeks at best , are we suppose to believe that your computer models are able to tell us with any amount of certainty what the climate - which is controlled by the weather - is going to be fifty YEARS from now ?!!!! And don't give me any of that CRAP about how weather and climate are Different , they are still integraly linked, especially If you're going around saying climate change is causing worse weather , especially if you're going around saying La Nina caused the recent cooling, and most especially if you're going around predicting Gloom and Doom for the world if we don't all repent and join the Churh of CATACLYSMASTOROLOGY 111

People have been building in floodplains and along coastlines, filling in wetlands, channelizing rivers, and generally modifying the hydrology of the regions with little planning or foresight.

The areas that are getting hit hard have always gotten hit hard but we are removing the various natural protective mechanisms and relying on man-made structures instead. Since floodplain designations are correlated by water elevation to an event frequency, reductions in flood storage or floodway capacity will automatically give an apparent lower frequency to the event than is actually the case because the ability to accomodate the flooding has been reduced.

My understanding is that there wasn't even a database or map of all the levees in the recent Midwest flooding. As a result, the floodplain maps were probably 25-years or more out of date and the designation of a certain event frequency essentially meaningless despite all the hype about 500-year event. As a result, the flood insurance system has probably been compromised.

Since major dike failures in the 1950s, the Dutch have treated similar issues as a major national initiative where the engineers and citizenry in the low lying areas are integrated essentially into an anti-flooding army. They have all their eggs in one basket and watch it like a hawk. The US has elected to do it on the cheap, even allowing graft and corruption to dominate in places like Lousiana. So why is everyone surpised when we see the flood management systems failing? If an area can't afford to maintain its own systems, then it should probably take a hard look at its own land use policies.

The recent moves to try to nationalize hurricane and flod relief have cause a major moral hazard. Planning, zoning, and development are local activities (typically town and county level) but relief is expected to come from the state and national level. Politicians and developers have every incentive to maximize property taxes and development profits while retaining little of the long-term risk. This virtually assures more and bigger catastrophes without requiring any change in weather patterns due to global warming.

With increased CO2 levels, we know from science that the atmosphere can hold more water vapor and in turn deliver greater precepitation events.

This does not necessarily mean more storms, but instead that the amount of preciptation can be greater than it would otherwise.

However, preciptation events (storms) are never totally uniform. No surprise; they vary just like the weather.

So, while we know that global warming will enhance these events, it does not actually cause the event itself.

However, as CO2 levels continue to rise and push water vapor levels to ever higher levels, the contribution of "Global Warming" to weather events will become greater. Eventually, the climate will have shifted so dramatically, that there will be more and more truth to blaming it.

No one weather event is proof or disproof of AGW, which is why I laugh at those on this blog who post about their backyard weather as if it somehow proves AGW isn't real. Of course, when it's hot in their backyard, we never hear a word about it, but I digress.

Higher population puts more people at risk, especially the morons who choose to live right on the coast. However, better warning systems have mitigated this to the point where the biggest danger isn't necessarily human lives, but monetary damage.

GWSteve:
Thanks for another quote from a right wing web site. Here is a quote from the American Institue of Physics. It does not take political stances like launch. It is not fake news.Love the media?
A new study of climate data suggests that global warming is causing the Atlantic Ocean to generate deadlier hurricanes. Hurricanes have become stronger in recent decades, in apparent correlation with the raise in atmospheric temperatures. Indeed James Elsner of Florida State University in Tallahassee reports in Geophysical Research Letters that there is in fact a clear cause-and-effect link.
Less than three weeks after Hurricane Katrina, a study published in Science showed that, while the number of tropical cyclones had not increased between 1970 and 2004, their strength had surged: Category-4 or -5 hurricanes where more than 50 percent more frequent in the second half of that period than in the first (Webster et al., Science, 16 September 2005).
The same period saw a rise in global atmospheric temperatures -- widely attributed to the accumulation of greenhouse gases such as CO2 -- and in sea-surface temperatures in the Atlantic, where hurricanes are born. Some climatologists believe that global (atmospheric) warming is causing the oceans' temperatures to rise, and that warmer sea surfaces can in turn add to a hurricane's strength.
Devised by economics Nobel Prize winner Clive Granger to answer the first of those two questions. He examined spikes in global atmospheric temperature (using satellite and ground-based data collected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and compared them to seasonal changes in average sea-surface temperatures for the entire northern-hemisphere part of the Atlantic (based on National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration data). His analysis showed that the spikes in atmospheric temperature mostly tended to come right before hurricane-season spikes in oceanic temperature, suggesting that the first were causing the second. Global warming could indeed be causing stronger hurricanes. Brett Scientific discovery and the media are two different things.
Who knows!95% of climate Scientists.
KIPP

www.aip.org/dbis/stories/2008/18020.html

Joe Romm thoroughly refutes Achenbach (see original for hyperlinks and emphases):

The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach doesn't understand basic climate science

Repeat after me, Joel: "Global warming makes the weather more extreme." If even the Bush administration accepts that basic fact of climate science, shouldn't you?
Reply: Did he actually say that GW does NOT make the weather more extreme. I did not see that. He is questioning the link to some specific disasters.

I used to like Achenbach's cutesy science pieces, but his knowledge of climate science is about one or two decades old, as evidenced by his major story in the Washington Post today, "Global Warming Did It! Well, Maybe Not." It is a typical ly uninformed journalistic "backlash" piece, whereby a reporter creates a straw man and then sets it on fire.

Achenbach is trying to seem reasonable by complaining that the next time we get a big hurricane, "some expert will tell us that this storm might be a harbinger of global warming." Uhh, I hate to break this to you Joel, but global warming doesn't need a "harbinger." It has been here for decades.

In that sense, your article is not a harbinger of global warming denial, since deniers have been pushing back against the "global warming causes extreme weather" story for years, browbeating the media into downplaying the connection. You really should read your fellow journalist Ross Gelbspan's long discussion of this in his great 2004 book, Boiling Point. Achenbach writes:

'"Weather alarmism" gives ammunition to global-warming deniers. They're happy to fight on that turf, since they can say that a year with relatively few hurricanes (or a cold snap when you don't expect it) proves that global warming is a myth. As science writer John Tierney put it in the New York Times earlier this year, weather alarmism "leaves climate politics at the mercy of the weather."'

You cannot be serious. The best you can do is quoting Tierney, a well-known climate doubter/denier/delayer? And deniers don't need to look for any ammunition -- they just make up stuff. You could waste a lot of time trying to figure out what you should or shouldn't say based on a fear of how deniers might twist it or take it out of context.

This is simple stuff. As the climate changes because of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, the weather becomes more extreme. That's what climate change is. I understand why deniers don't want the rest of us talking about the connection between global warming and the surge in extreme weather events that has been documented statistically by scientists -- including NOAA's National Climactic Data Center (NCDC). That would shut down most discussion of current climate impacts. But I don't understand why Achenbach falls for that spin.

Anyway, it is now officially absurd to take the view of the deniers, Achenbach, and Tierney. Back in June, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (aka the Bush Administration) issued Weather and Climate Extremes in a Changing Climate that acknowledged the basic climate science:

'Changes in extreme weather and climate events have significant impacts and are among the most serious challenges to society in coping with a changing climate.

'Many extremes and their associated impacts are now changing. For example, in recent decades most of North America has been experiencing more unusually hot days and nights, fewer unusually cold days and nights, and fewer frost days. Heavy downpours have become more frequent and intense. Droughts are becoming more severe in some regions, though there are no clear trends for North America as a whole. The power and frequency of Atlantic hurricanes have increased substantially in recent decades, though North American mainland land-falling hurricanes do not appear to have increased over the past century. Outside the tropics, storm tracks are shifting northward and the strongest storms are becoming even stronger.

'It is well established through formal attribution studies that the global warming of the past 50 years is due primarily to human-induced increases in heat-trapping gases. Such studies have only recently been used to determine the causes of some changes in extremes at the scale of a continent. Certain aspects of observed increases in temperature extremes have been linked to human influences. The increase in heavy precipitation events is associated with an increase in water vapor, and the latter has been attributed to human-induced warming. No formal attribution studies for changes in drought severity in North America have been attempted. There is evidence suggesting a human contribution to recent changes in hurricane activity as well as in storms outside the tropics, though a confident assessment will require further study.

'In the future, with continued global warming, heat waves and heavy downpours are very likely to further increase in frequency and intensity. Substantial areas of North America are likely to have more frequent droughts of greater severity. Hurricane wind speeds, rainfall intensity, and storm surge levels are likely to increase. The strongest cold season storms are likely to become more frequent, with stronger winds and more extreme wave heights.'

If the Post keeps publishing such uninformed pieces, how will the public ever become informed on this crucial issue?