Al Gore Calls Myanmar Cyclone a 'Consequence' of Global Warming

[leobold1]

Al Gore Calls Myanmar Cyclone a 'Consequence' of Global Warming

Former vice president tells NPR's 'Fresh Air' cyclone is example of 'consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming.'

By Jeff Poor
Business & Media Institute
5/6/2008 4:04:54 PM

Using tragedy to advance an agenda has been a strategy for many global warming activists, and it was just a matter of time before someone found a way to tie the recent Myanmar cyclone to global warming.

Former Vice President Al Gore in an interview on NPR’s May 6 “Fresh Air” broadcast did just that. He was interviewed by “Fresh Air” host Terry Gross about the release of his book, “The Assault on Reason,” in paperback.

“And as we’re talking today, Terry, the death count in Myanmar from the cyclone that hit there yesterday has been rising from 15,000 to way on up there to much higher numbers now being speculated,” Gore said. “And last year a catastrophic storm from last fall hit Bangladesh. The year before, the strongest cyclone in more than 50 years hit China – and we’re seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming.”

Gore claimed global warming is forcing ocean temperatures to rise, which is causing storms, including cyclones and hurricanes, to intensify.

“It’s also important to note that the emerging consensus among the climate scientists is although any individual storm can’t be linked singularly to global warming – we’ve always had hurricanes,” Gore said. “Nevertheless, the trend toward more Category 5 storms – the larger ones and trend toward stronger and more destructive storms appears to be linked to global warming and specifically to the impact of global warming on higher ocean temperatures in the top couple of hundred feet of the ocean, which drives convection energy and moisture into these storms and makes them more powerful.”

In October 2007, CNN Meteorologist Rob Marciano disputed Gore’s claim that there is a strong correlation between intense storms and global warming. He explained that “global warming does not conclusively cause stronger hurricanes like we've seen,” pointing out that “by the end of this century we might get about a 5-percent increase.”

[herbstin]

algore is an idiot.

[Snowden]

Originally Posted by herbstin

algore is an idiot.

Herb, you're exactly right.

Of course, with Al and his like thinkers, facts have very little impact on what they have decided is happening. Just recently I read that the cooler oceans will mean cooler weather for the next decade. A German scientist, but even so, Al should take such findings under consideration.

[cato2]

Who should one believe in the Global Warming debate? Writers who work for an admitted source that seeks to extol the virtues of free enterprise? Or perhaps the scientific community that is doing the actual research on the issue? It does not take long to find the information from the scientific community.

Business and Media

America needs the Business & Media Institute to assist the media and challenge them to produce material that is both accurate and informed. The Media Research Center and the Business & Media Institute intend to continue this important work, but only by working together can we ensure accurate coverage of one of America’s greatest assets – its free enterprise system.

Vs Scientists

IPCC Fourth Assessment Report
An Assessment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
This underlying report, adopted section by section at IPCC Plenary XXVII (Valencia, Spain, 12-17 November 2007),
represents the formally agreed statement of the IPCC concerning key findings and uncertainties contained in the Working
Group contributions to the Fourth Assessment Report.

Core Writing Team
Lenny Bernstein, Peter Bosch, Osvaldo Canziani,
Huq, David Karoly, Vladimir Kattsov, Zbigniew
Bettina Menne, Bert Metz, Monirul Mirza,
Parry, Dahe Qin, Nijavalli Ravindranath,
Rusticucci, Stephen Schneider, Youba Sokona,
Dennis Tirpak, Coleen Vogel, Gary Yohe
http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-re...yr/ar4_syr.pdf


NASA - NASA Study Predicts More Severe Storms With Global Warming

NASA - Short-Term Ocean Cooling Suggests Global Warming 'Speed Bump'

NASA - NASA Satellite Instrument Warms Up Global Cooling Theory

NASA - Global Warming

NCAR Climate Research: Our Climate Now - The Greenhouse Effect & Global Warming

NCAR Climate Research: Climates of the Future

nsf.gov - News - Global Warming Affects World's Largest Freshwater Lake - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

nsf.gov - News - "Brown Cloud" Particulate Pollution Amplifies Global Warming - US National Science Foundation (NSF)

[Woodmonkey]

An interesting thread along these lines is herbstin's - http://www.trackpads.com/forum/point...edictions.html

[cato2]

I think this tread is more along the lines of a politically motivated think tank verses Scientific institutions research. While the columnist Walter Williams points out some of the mistakes in the past by individuals. His observation of the U.S. Geological Surveys prediction of no oil being found in California, was the lack of technology available at that point and time.

Those links are not individuals making predictions. Those are groups of scientist who are following scientific method to find answers and their results are up for challenge. And the consensus is continuing to point to a gradual warming of the earth because of pollution.

Here is research that is looking at 250 years of date to base their predictions, not opinion.

Expert predicts 'Monsoon Britain'

Prepare for more floods – in ways we are not used to - that’s the message from experts at Durham University who have studied rainfall and river flow patterns over 250 years.

Last summer was the second wettest on record and experts say we must prepare for worse to come.

Professor Stuart Lane, from Durham University’s new Institute of Hazard and Risk, says that after about 30 to 40 less eventful years, we seem to be entering a ‘flood-rich’ period. More flooding is likely over a number of decades.

Prof. Lane, who publishes his research in the current edition of the academic journal Geography, set out to examine the wet summer of 2007 in the light of climate change. His work shows that some of the links made between the summer 2007 floods and climate change were wrong. Our current predictions of climate change for summer should result in weather patterns that were the exact opposite of what actually happened in 2007.

The British summer is a product of the UK’s weather conveyor belt and the progress of the Circumpolar Vortex or ‘jet stream’. This determines whether we have high or low pressure systems over the UK. Usually the jet stream weakens and moves northwards during spring and into summer. This move signals the change from our winter-spring cyclonic weather to more stable weather during the summer. High pressure systems extend from the south allowing warm air to give us our British summer.

In 2007, the jet stream stayed well south of its normal position for June and July, causing low pressure systems to track over the UK, becoming slow moving as they did so. This has happened in summer before, but not to the same degree. Prof. Lane shows that the British summer can often be very wet – about ten per cent of summers are wetter than a normal winter. What we don’t know is whether climate change will make this happen more in the future.

However, in looking at longer rainfall and river flow records, Prof. Lane shows that we have forgotten just how normal flooding in the UK is. He looked at seasonal rainfall and river flow patterns dating back to 1753 which suggest fluctuations between very wet and very dry periods, each lasting for a few years at a time, but also very long periods of a few decades that can be particularly wet or particularly dry.

In terms of river flooding, the period since the early 1960s and until the late 1990s appears to be relatively flood free, especially when compared with some periods in the late 19th century and early 20th Century. As a result of analysing rainfall and river flow patterns, Prof. Lane believes that the UK is entering a flood rich period that we haven’t seen for a number of decades.

He said: “We entered a generally flood-poor period in the 1960s, earlier in some parts of the country, later in others. This does not mean there was no flooding, just that there was much less than before the 1960s and what we are seeing now. This has lowered our own awareness of flood risk in the UK. This has made it easier to go on building on floodplains. It has also helped us to believe that we can manage flooding without too much cost, simply because there was not that much flooding to manage.”

He added: “We have also not been good at recognising just how flood-prone we can be. More than three-quarters of our flood records start in the flood-poor period that begins in the 1960s. This matters because we set our flood protection in terms of return periods – the average number of years between floods of a given size. We have probably under-estimated the frequency of flooding, which is now happening, as it did before the 1960s, much more often that we are used to.

“The problem is that many of our decisions over what development to allow and what defences to build rely upon a good estimate of these return periods. The government estimates that 2.1 million properties and 5 million people are at risk of flooding. In his review of the summer floods Sir Michael Pitt was wise to say that flooding should be given the same priority as terrorism.”

Professor Lane concluded: “We are now having to learn to live with levels of flooding that are beyond most people’s living memory, something that most of us have forgotten how to do.”

Flooding is one of the issues covered by the Institute of Hazard and Risk Research at Durham University where Prof. Lane is a resident expert. The IHRR, which launches this week, is a new and unique interdisciplinary research institute committed to delivering fundamental research on hazards and risks and to harness this knowledge to inform global policy. It aims to improve human responses to both age-old hazards such as volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides and floods as well as the new and uncertain risks of climate change, surveillance, terror and emerging technologies.