Trump's Climate Tweet Is Ignorance Again. Or Just More Gaslighting

Yes, it's cold this week in eastern North America (blue shading)
But it's warm in much of the rest of the world (orange).
Donald Trunp would have you scoff that the northeastern
U.S. cold disproves climate change. Don't believe it
He's either dumb, lying or gaslighting. 

Yes, I'm partisan, but I just have to comment on yet another Donald Trump tweet.

Last night he said on Twitter: "Brutal and Extended Cold Blast could shatter ALL RECORDS - Whatever happened to Global Warming?"

I'm not sure why Trump is obsessed with improperly placed capital letters but I'll leave the argument for another day, or just call the grammar police.

He's done this kind of false climate tweet before but it still irks me.

For the record: Yes, anybody who steps outside this morning and the rest of today anywhere in the Northeast knows it's friggin' cold outside. Awful.  Some record low temperatures for the date will be set, if they haven't been set already.

I'm in Rutland, Vermont this morning and the temperature as I write this is 1 below zero. Being originally from Rutland, I don't remember the last time it was below zero this early in the season.

So yes, it's quite a cold wave. But no. ALL RECORDS, as Trump put it, won't be shattered.  There have certainly been worse cold spells than today's. This is not an extended "Cold Blast." It started yesterday evening and will be over with by Friday night. That's a  pretty brief cold spell, all things considered.

Most importantly, and we have to say this over and over again: A cold spell in one corner of the world tells us absolutely nothing about global warming, one way or another. I think even the most ardent ciimate change skeptics would tell you that. So would so-called climate change alarmists.

The immediate cause of this cold snap is a well placed, sharp southward dip in the jet stream. Most often, cold waves come down from Canada across the northern Great Plains then move eastward. The air warms up a little bit by the time it gets to the Northeast. That means places like here in Vermont get cold, but not unreasonably so.

This time, the jet stream aligned so that we got a straight shot of Arctic air coming down from near the North Pole, then across snow- covered Quebec and Ontario and down on us. There wasn't really time for the air to modify on its trip south.

The air had even less time to get warmer than it otherwise would because strong winds between high pressure in Ontario and western Quebec and low pressure in eastern Quebec propelled the bitter air quickly down on New England.

As for why the jet stream and other weather systems aligned themselves this way to give us this cold shot, who knows? I suppose one could make an argument that climate change is making the jet stream screwy, creating extreme weather events like this cold wave. But I have no way of knowing that.

Likely, this cold wave is just a random,  chance event. A fluke. Climate change doesn't cancel out a lot of the natural variability of weather. Remember, weather is akin to a person's mood.  Climate is like a guy or gal's personality.

A mood, and weather is transitory. Climate, and personality are a long term thing.

If this cold wave is a sign that there's an absense of global warming, as Trump suggests, how do you explain the record heat that gripped the Northeast this past July? Again, a heat wave in one corner of the world does not tell you much about climate change.

But by Trump's logic, there must have been intense global warming last summer, but a new ice age now in November. See?  He's making absolutely no sense.

By the way, as we shiver here in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada, much of the world is pretty warm this week. As the map above in this post shows,  forecasts for the current week we're in does show some pretty cold air over the eastern half of Canada and the northeastern United States.

It also shows it to be vaguely chilly in central South America and in a few areas of Europe. But look at all the orange, which signifies above normal temperatures. The majority of places are quite warm, including western North America, most of Africa and Asia, Antarctica and the Arctic, particularly Greenland.

One week in one year of the world's weather doesn't prove or disprove climate change either. But at least by taking the whole globe into account, it shows that what happens in the Northeastern United States doesn't matter all that much in the grand scheme of things.

I suspect Trump knows all this. He's gaslighting us again, because that's what he does. He sows doubt and division and makes us question reality by inventing "alternative realities"

We really just need to keep relying on the experts and let them inform us. Question the experts, yes. Challenge them. Ask for evidence. Don't take them at their word. But if there's a convincing argument, like there is from the scientists on climate change, we need to pay attention.

The world might depend on it. Meanwhile, somebody really needs to hide Donald Trump's phone.

Nope, Hurricane Center Was Not Trolling President With Tropical Storm Don

Tropical Storm Don fizzled, but that's not a slam
against Donald Trump.

Some people make a lot of connections that aren't there.

Take the late, not so great Tropical Storm Don.  

As noted here, it formed Monday. Yesterday, the National Hurricane Center accurately described Tropical Storm Don as "small" and "not particularly well organized."

Which to many people meant that the National Hurricane Center intentionally named a wimpy storm Don to troll the president and then poke fun at him when the storm did not turn into a big monster.

Tropical Storm Don, by the way, has fizzled out as expected. 

The tweet storms involving the tropical storm and the president will probably continue full force for God knows how long.

Here are the facts: The World Meteorological Organization has committees that come up with the names of tropical systems all over the world, including in the Atlantic basin.

The same tropical storm and hurricane names rotate through, so you get the same names every five years. They come in alphabetical order. Don's first letter starts with "D, " the fourth letter in the alphabet.  It was the fourth tropical storm in the Atlantic this year.

Even though you normally get the same hurricane name every five years, the names of particularly destructive and memorable hurricanes are retired and replaced with new names. That's why you'll never see a Hurricane Katrina or Hurricane Sandy again.

Here's how Don got on the list: In 2005, Hurricane Dennis trashed the Florida panhandle. Dennis was then retired as a name. According to the Associated Press, because Dennis was an English male name, the World Meteorological Society allowed the United States to replace Dennis with another English male name.

Don was chosen. Max Mayfield, the former director of the National Hurricane Center, said nobody had anybody particular in mind when Don was chosen.

By the way, there have been other presidential hurricanes. In 1997, when Bill Clinton was president, there was a Hurricane Bill, which didn't amount to much and stayed far out to sea.

By the way, if the list of tropical storms gets up to the letter "H" in the eastern Pacific, it would become Tropical Storm or Hurricane Hilary.

So we would have been screwed on Twitter no matter who got elected president last November.

Some of the jokes on Twitter about this whole situation were kind of funny, though.

One tweet informed us: "Tropical Storm Don as formed in the Atlantic Ocean and we're predicting it will be spending some time at a NJ golf club by the weekend."

"Tropical Storm Don will tell you how much damage it will do and then fizzle out and blame Hurricane Hillary," said another tweet.

The bottom line is, some people might think President Trump is small and not well organized, but the fact that Tropical Storm Don had those characteristics was coincidental.

Too Many Reasons To Count Why Trump's Withdrawel From Paris Accord Was Dumb

Donald Trump apparently using his fingers to demonstrate
the firepower of his tiny intellect, including in
relations to climate change. 

I've always said the most dangerous people in the world are those who think they are really smart but are instead really dumb.

By withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord Thursday, President Donald Trump proved that point bigly, to borrow a fake word from our Dear Leader.

Heads up: Expect a lot more vitriol from me in this column than you're used to, but I just have to unload.

There are so many things wrong with Trump's "logic" about getting out of the Paris accord that I don't know where to start.

Let's start by pretending that climate change is indeed fake, an falsehood that Trump says is a product of evil Chinese trying to gain economic advantage over the United States, as Trump's paranoia would have it.

I know, I know, climate change is actually real, but go with me here.

By bailing on the Paris Accord, Trump has made the United States less trustworthy on the world's stage, a task he's already been accomplishing anyway.

Since the rest of the world - except the illustrious global leaders Syria and Nicaragua - are on board with the Paris Accord, other leading countries in Europe and Asia are more likely to go it without us on this issue, and anything else that comes up that's important to the world.

This weakens our negotiating position on any number of topics - trade, war, political stability. Trump claims to be this great negotiator, yet he weakened his - our - bargaining position. Nice job, Donald.

"President Trump has turned his back on the world on an issue they care deeply about....This will have repercussions for how other countries respond to the U.S., not just on the climate playing field, but well beyond," said Andrew Light, a senior fellow at the World Resources Institute and a former State Department officials who focused on climate change during the Obama administration.

Speaking of negotiation, Trump claims he will negotiated a newer, better Paris Accord, one that is more advantageous to the United States.

It takes two ( or more) to tango, and already, major countries are saying they're unwilling to reopen negotiations.  What's Donald going to do, talk to himself? Oh yeah, he does that already, at least probably.

Oh, and remember how I mentioned Trump's paranoia about China?  Well, he just handed them a major victory.

As Huffington Post points out:

"'This move from Trump also gives China the chance to "cast themselves as the new champions of globalization,'  says Andrew Small, a China expert at the Marshall Fund think tank.

'Politically, Beijing sees this as a gift-wrapped opportunity to position itself as a responsible global leader at the expense of the United States,' Small said. 'For countries that see climate change as an existential issue - not least the European leaders who are meeting the Chinese PM for their summit this week - closer cooperation with China now becomes a necessity.'"

In other words, Trump is putting the United States out of the loop. And ceding world leadership to countries like China.

Trump claims the withdrawal from the Paris agreement is meant to boost United States business success and job creation.

If that's the case, why did so many major U.S. corporations implore Trump to stick with the Paris accord?  These businesses famously included fossil fuel behemoths like Exxon-Mobil, Shell and Chevron.

PolitiFact had a field day picking apart Trump's nearly fact-free speech announcing the withdrawal from the Paris Accord.

Trump said the pact would create a $3 trillion drop in United States gross domestic product, and we'd lose 6.5 million industrial sector jobs by 2040.

Says Politifact:

"All of these statistics come from a March, 2017 study, prepared by NERA Economic Consulting, that estimates the potential impact of hypothetical regulatory actions necessary to meet the goals of the Paris agreement. The study makes assumptions that gave several economics and environmental professors pause when reacting to the NERA study for ClimateFeedback.org."

I'll say!

The assumptions in the study that Trump apparently bought hook, line and sinker include:

--- That other countries don't make emission reductions in line with the Paris agreement, forcing leading American companies to relocate to other nations.

 -- Industries and static and don't change to adapt to regulations.

--- There is no increase in clean electricity generation compared to a baseline scenario.

In other words, not only does Trump peddle fake news, he also peddles fake studies.

On the bright side, people are starting to get adept at just ignoring Trump, and making end runs around him.

According to Reuters:

"Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg submitted a statement to the United Nations on Monday that over 1,000 U.S. governors, mayors, businesses, universities and others will continue to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement abandoned by President Donald Trump last week.

Bloomberg, who is the U.N. Secretary-General's special envoy for cities and climate change, submitted the "We Are Still In" declaration to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change Executive Secretary Patricia Espinosa."

Of course I'm happy Bloomberg is organizing this, and I'm also glad that here in Vermont, Gov. Phil Scott, a moderate  Republican, said the Green Mountain State will also join the coalition to adhere to the Paris climate accord.

It's still shockingly disappointing though, that the supposed leader of the free world, Donald Trump, can't seem to lead anything. If thousands if not millions of people can get ahead of Trump on issues of great worldwide importance, it's really sad.

The Best Of The March For Science On Earth Day

One of the signs at one of the Marches for Science on Saturday

I get it. The marches for science around the world on Saturday, Earth Day, were not all about climate.

This is a weather and climate blog, so I'm co-opting things a little bit from the scientists.

However, we can't escape the fact that much of the energy from the Marches for Science was a rebellion against science denial, and specifcially, denial of climate change.

Turnout, as expected was great. There were marches in all 50 states and in more than 600 cities around the world.

I'll (mostly) let people smarter than me decide whether these marches will advance activism on climate change, or change people's minds about the issue.

I've heard concerns that marches like  Saturday's are making science political. After all, it seems lately that liberals are tending to go for the fact based stuff and the extreme right (not the moderate GOP) seem to think that any fact that doesn't fit their world view is "fake news."

The climate deniers are the worst offenders with this. I heard somebody quoted this way and it make sense: Science has indeed become political but it's bipartisan. In other words, only the extreme wackos call scientific facts "fake news"

The debate now in climate change and other issues concerning science is do we find conservative or liberal or centrist solutions? These are obvioiusly debates worth having.

I guess I'll just devote the rest of this column to a somewhat more shallow look at the the marches: That means, the most entertaining moments, the weirdest, the most meaningful snapshots.

This was a very common sign at the Marches for Science.

After all, if you're going to engage people in any issue, you want to draw them in. Make them enthusiastic about what's going on.

People think science and scientists are  boring.  They're not. The Marches for Science Saturday I think was the coming out party for knowledge.

Of course, if it's a science march, things change a little bit from traditional demonstrations.

The usual chant at protests is: "What do we want?" "X" "When do we want it? "Now"

This time, the chant was "What do we want?   "Evidence-based science!" 
"When do we want it?!?"   "After peer review!"

As always, people got creative with signs during the marches.

One of my favorite signs was "Science is a cure for bullshit."

One of the saddest signs I saw was "I can't believe I'm marching for facts." Yeah, that is depressing isn't it?

The second-saddest sign I saw was, "Society should worry when geeks have to demonstrate."

Still, people want to stay optimistic. So one sign read, "Think like a proton: Stay positive"

Specifically to climate change: one popular sign captured the urgency of climate change: "Rise up before the oceans do."

Many people carried signs the read "Make Earth Cool Again," in reference to our already climatic-driven overheated plantet.

Another sign referenced President Donald Trump's climate denial and his shyness about revealing his finances: "Climate change is real. Donald'$ Net Worth is Not."  (The dollar sign is not a typo.)

And this gem: "Sticking your head in the sand is not a solution to global warming.  Your ass will still get very hot."

Animals were well represented in the marches. Which is effective. Everybody loves animals. Most people want to protect them. So this is great marketing.

A sled dog at one march carried a sign that read, "Climate change is melting my home."

As with all protest marches, it remains to be seen whether the Marches for Science have any real effect. But at least it puts politicians on notice that people who believe in a fact-based world are a very large constituency.

And they vote.

Welcome Blowback Against False Breitbart Climate Change Story (But Will That Matter?)

This chart from Climate Central shows the reality. (Cick on it to make it
bigger and easier to read. El Nino years (orange bars) are
hotter. The period just after El Nino is cooler (blue bars)
but the overall global temperature trend is up, up, up.  

Over the past week, everybody who has even a smidge of interest in climate change has been piling on the odious Brietbart website, Britain's Daily Mirror and the the U.S. House Commitee on Science, Space and Technology.

The reason: A false story claiming global warming is "over" and that global temperatures are plunging.

The Daily Mirror published it, Breitbart republished and repurposed it, and the so-called House science committee re-tweeted it.

Who cares if none of what they published is true? Breitbart doesn't, but lots of other people do.

Lots of people were quick to draw bullshit on the article. Because, obviously, the article is total bullshit. But that never stopped anyone in this post-fact world.

The Breitbart article is titled "Global Temperatures Plunge. Icy Silence from Climate Alarmists."

The silence from the so-called climate alarmists is probably from banging their heads against their desks too much from dumb "articles" like this.

As always with the climate deniers, the Mirror and Breitbart bullcrap writers cherry picked dubious data to come up with their climate change is over myth.

There are three main sources of satellite data that estimate temperatures in the Earth's lower atmosphere. All three showed a bit of a decline in temperature from early this year to about now.

That mini trend was widely expected by virtually all climate scientists. A strong El Nino came on top of global warming, which sent worldwide temperatures rising to record levels.  El Ninos tend to increase Earths' temperatures, with or without global warming.

El Nino is gone, and so are its effects. With El Nino's influence gone, temperatures have temporarily gone down slightly.

As many, including Bob Henson and Jeff Masters at Weather Underground note, The Mirror and Brietbart are masters at cherry picking data to come up with wildly incorrect conclusions that nonetheless fit their false narrative.

The Mirror and Breitbart used one source of satellite data, RSS, to claim global temperatures plunged by 1 degree Celius this year. RSS had a bigger decline in temperatures than other sources, and there have been problems with RSS data lately. They're working on a fix.

Actually the RSS data showed a bit of a reversal in temperatures as we got into November and showed readings across the globe rose a bit then. But Breitbart ignored that. Not part of the narrative.

Republicans on the now badly named U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology committee, who are into the climate change denial racket, approving retweeted the Breitbart article.

As always, Bernie Sanders had just the right response. He tweeted back to the committee: "Where'd you get your PhD? Trump University?"

Yeah, something like that, apparently.

You should watch The Weather Channel's Kait Parker's glorious takedown of the Breitbart/House Committee bullcrap at the bottom of this post.

Parker's money quote: "Here's the thing: Science doesn't care about your opinion...Cherry picking and changing the facts will not change the future, not the act - note: fact, not opinion- that the earth is warming."

Of course, pointing out how extremely off the mark Breitbart, et al are is nice, but cynical me wonders if it would have any effect.

Trump and many Congressional Republicans aren't going to deal with global warming, especially with all the oil company donations that pour into their campaigns.

Plus, they don't want to upset their all important "base" who have taken the climate denial Kool-Aid.

You'd think the debate on whether climate change would be over and we'd be far into the debate on what to do about it.

But we're in that bizarro fact free world now, so the Powers That Be will just keep going on with their self invented narrative. It's comfortable for them, I guess, but pretty scary for the rest of us.

Here's that Weather Channel takedown that I enjoyed:

Photos, Videos, Fun Factoids Keep Coming In From Blizzard of 2015

Severe coastal flooding today in Marshfield, Mass.
Storm surge flooding and battering waves
are, as expected, turning out to be the
most destructive part of the Blizzard of 2015.

The Blizzard of 2015 continues to rage in eastern New England as of noon Tuesday and will only slowly diminish during the course of the day.

There's mishmash of factoids, arguments, facts, photos and videos that are coming across that are all pretty interesting, so I'll share them with you.

First of all, click on this colored link for a wind field illustration of the storm center off the coast of New England. Do it now, because the storm is still near its peak and will be the most dramatic.

Pretty awesome.

Eric Holthaus at Slate and others have a pretty good argument as to how this storm could be related to global warming. I don't like to pin individual weather systems on climate change, but it does influence things.

From @Phillip586 on Twitter. Snow inundates a Hyde Park,
Massachusetts street today. 

Here's what Holthaus has to say:

"Ocean water temperatures off the East Coast are much above normal right now, as they have been all year. That's helping to boost the amount of moisture the setorm is able to convert into snow via enhanced evaporation. 

But there's an even easier link to climate change: Sea levels in the Northeast have risen by about a foot over the last 100 years or so, about half of which is directly attributable to warming seas and melting glaciers worldwide. 

There's 100 percent certainty, in my view, that sea level rise is making the impact of extreme coastal storms like this one worse."

You wouldn't think so, but since quite a bit of real estate near coastal areas is barely above normal sea levels, increasing the sea level by just a few inches, then pushing the water inland via a storm, can indeed make things a lot worse.

By the way, Massachusetts isn't out of the woods with this. There was a lot of coastal flooding and some structural damage with this morning's high tide.

Some of this morning's reports include 3.5 feet of storm surge water in downtown Nantucket, four  to five feet of water on a street in Hull, and ankle deep water in the rear of the Sandwich, Mass police department building.

Storm surge flooding in Scituate, Mass. this morning.  

Another round of flooding is due with this afternoon's high tide. As I expected, this will be the most destructive aspect of this blizzard. Lots of damage is being done in coastal New England.

The earlier flooding and 24 hours of battering waves have eroded beaches and buffers against storm tides.

Even though this afternoon's storm surge might be just a smidge smaller than this morning's the lack of defenses could make the flooding worse.

No surprise that coastal flood warnings are still in effect for most of the Massachusetts coast.

Here's what the latest National Weather Service/Boston statement on the coastal flooding, issued around 11:45 a.m. today:

TIMING...WITHIN SEVERAL HOURS OF THE LATE AFTERNOON HIGH TIDE. A
  FEW AREAS WERE UNABLE TO DRAIN FROM THE EARLY MORNING HIGH TIDE.
  RENEWED COASTAL FLOODING FROM THE NEXT HIGH TIDE COULD OCCUR AS
  EARLY AS 2 TO 3 PM.

* IMPACTS...FLOODING OF VULNERABLE SHORE ROADS AND BASEMENTS WILL
  OCCUR AGAIN DURING THE LATE AFTERNOON HIGH TIDE. THERE REMAINS A
  RISK OF ISOLATED STRUCTURAL DAMAGE IN THE MOST VULNERABLE
  LOCATIONS. SEVERE BEACH EROSION IS EXPECTED...ESPECIALLY IN SUCH
  LOCATIONS AS PLUM ISLAND...PLYMOUTH...NORTH SIDE OF CAPE COD
  FROM SANDWICH TO EASTHAM...CHATHAM AREA...AND PORTIONS OF THE
  NANTUCKET SHORELINE INCLUDING THE SIASCONSET AREA. TOTAL WATER
  LEVELS SHOULD BE A LITTLE LESS FOR THE LATE AFTERNOON HIGH
  TIDE...BUT WAVES WILL LIKELY BE A FEW FEET HIGHER. WE ARE
  ANTICIPATING IMPACTS FROM THE LATE AFTERNOON HIGH TIDE TO BE
  COMPARABLE TO OR A LITTLE LESS THAN THE MORNING HIGH TIDE IN
  MOST AREAS. HOWEVER...THE IMPACTS ALONG THE CAPE COD NORTH SHORE
  INCLUDING THE SANDWICH...BARNSTABLE...DENNIS AND EASTHAM
  SHORELINE WILL LIKELY BE SOMEWHAT GREATER THAN THE EARLY MORNING
  HIGH TIDE. COASTAL FLOODING AND EROSION IN THE CHATHAM AND
  NANTUCKET AREAS WILL LIKELY BE AT LEAST AS SIGNIFICANT AS WHAT
  OCCURRED DURING THE PRIOR TIDE. AND ALONG THE ENTIRE EAST COAST
  OF MASSACHUSETTS...THE LATE AFTERNOON HIGH TIDE COULD COMPOUND
  ANY DAMAGE EXPERIENCED DURING THE PRIOR HIGH TIDE.

The snow, of course, is still pouring down. The deepest official snow report so far is 30 inches in Framingham, Mass, with many reports of more than 20 inches from Massachusetts, Long Island, eastern Connecticut, Rhode Island and coastal New Hampshire and Maine.

With heavy snow continuing and with Boston already up to 18 inches at last check, the city could break its all time record single storm snowfall of 27.6 inches. And a report of a four foot snow depth from eastern New England is not out of the question by the time this is done.

There continues to be a hue and cry in the media over the fact that New York City did not nearly get as much snow as forecast.

Yes, forecasters should not have so easily dismissed the American computer models in favor of the snowier European computer forecasting models, which up until now have had a better reputation for accuracy (Earned or unearned)

And yes, the media hyped the storm, based on the forecast for New York. But as the Washington Post notes, people are all pissy about this in New York. 

Here's one typical comment on Twitter:

"After NY-based media inundates rest of U.S with blizzard-mania & blizzard becomes bust, no wonder media not trusted and unwanted." 

Since so much of major media is headquartered in New York, the general feeling you get is that since the blizzard didn't happen in New York City, it didn't happen at all.

Tell that to people in Boston, Framingham, Marshfield and Hull, Massachusetts and out in Islip, Long Island.

As to be expected, the least helpful comment about the blizzard and the botched forecast came from Donald Trump, who tweeted: "President Obama, our great leader, wants to declare martial law in New York City as a means of helping out with the 'massive' storm."

Um, is Trump the only person on the planet who thinks Obama wanted to declare marshall law because of the blizzard? Oh I get it. Everything that goes wrong is Obama's fault. And the gays. Always the gays.

Comedian Louis CK chimed in on the storm as well, and he made a good point: Why was the storm called "historic" yesterday when it hadn't even happened yet?  The point being, aren't historic events by definition be things that happened in the past?

I'm a little gun shy at this point of forecasting other storms coming along when this one isn't done yet. As last night's missed New York forecast snows, you shouldn't insist that other big storms are coming

But, lighter snows are likely with a weaker storm due to cross the Northeast Friday, at least as it stands now.

Plus, there's the possibility, JUST the possibility of another nor'easter that could dump many more inches of snow on New England next Monday. That storm certainly won't be as bad as this one, and there's still a very decent chance the Monday storm won't happen at all.

I just want to throw it out there, just so you know in case it does happen.

But we'll have to get through this storm first. Easy for me to say, since so far at my perch at St. Albans, in far northwestern Vermont, I'd gotten no snow until about noon today.

Now, there's a little light snow falling, and there was a report of heavy snow in Montpelier and Morrisville, in central Vermont.

It's gotten windy, too, with gusts to 30 mph and temperatures, not including the wind chill, hovering around 10 degrees. It's a raw, raw, raw day out there.

But at least I won't have to spend the entire day in that weather shoveling three feet of snow. Three inches later today, at most, so that's not bad.

Next some good videos:

Here's what things looked like in Plymouth, Mass this morning:




From Storm Chasing Video, here's Boston early this morning:

"Polar Vortex" Fails To Repeal Global Warming; Does Inspire Stupidity

If your favorite source of science information is Donald Trump or Rush Limbaugh, you probably have some wicked bad misinformation on this "polar vortex" that's freezing the nation's collective tush off.

No Donald, The cold wave
does not mean climate change
is repealed. Did your hairpiece
freeze or something?  

Contrary to The Donald's assertion, the "polar vortex" cold snap does not mean global warming is a hoax. And doubly contrary to our buddy Rush, the vortex itself is not a hoax.

The media has seized on the term "polar vortex," the term for the giant upper atmospheric whirlwind of frigid air that usually hangs out near the North Pole but has oddly descended into the northern United States this week.

Since Rush Limbaugh has never heard of the polar vortex, his conclusion is it has come from the imagination of the "liberal media."

He says: "Do you know what the polar vortex is? Have you ever heard of it? Wel, they just created it this week....They're in the middle of a hoax, they're perpetrating a hoax, but they're relying on the total dominance of the media to lie to you each and every day about climate change and global warm."

Uh, no Rush. The polar vortex has been very familiar to meteorologists and other scientists for many,  many decades. It usually hangs around the North Pole, hence it's name. It's always there, especially in the winter, whirling away as part of the Earth's normal weather patterns.

Sometimes, odd kinks in the jet stream drive the polar vortex out of its home into places like Asia, Europe, or in this case, southern Canada and the United States. Unusual, yes, but not unheard of, and it's something scientists have long known occasionally happens.

The only difference this time is, in the age of social media, people heard meteorologists refer to the polar vortex in their forecasts, shared it like crazy on places like Twitter, Instagram and Vine,  and it became an instant cliche among national news broadcasts.

It's also true this cold snap is pretty intense.   It's the strongest in a couple decades at least in parts of the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic states and Southeast.

However, this polar vortex cold snap is also not unheard of and probably has little or nothing to do with global warming, or global cooling for that matter.

The cold snap is only covering about 2 percent of the earth's surface, so it's not like the whole world is chilled to the bone.

In fact, while we're shivering, there's been strong heat waves going on lately in Chile, Argentina and Austrailia. So the question to Donald Trump is, if a cold snap in the United States signals the end of global warming, does a heat wave in Australia mean it's back?

Though individual weather events, like the cold snap or heat waves ongoing elsewhere in the world might be influenced by global climate change, climatologists caution against reading too much into one weather event.

Like I said, the Attack Of The Polar Vortex  has happened before, and will happen again. Some of the worst cold waves in United States history have been caused by the polar vortex making a southward excursion through Canada into the Lower 48.  Memorable cold snaps in 1982, 1985, 1994, 1996 and 2005 were caused by the polar vortex invading the United States.

Also this cold snap is pretty short lived. New England got a taste of it last week for two or three days before it retreated. Then it attacked the upper Midwest starting Sunday and has spread to the East Coast since.

But it's already starting to warm up in places like North Dakota, which experienced the cold wave first. By the end of the week, most of the nation will have normal or even above normal temperatures.

Other cold waves in history have lasted weeks, not a few days like this one. So don't get too excited about it.

These intense cold waves have actually been getting somewhat less frequent and less intense in recent decades.  On average, United States winters are warmer than they were 50 years ago. But any climate change has not repealed winter. We still get cold waves, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Some climate scientists suggest that since the Arctic is getting warmer faster than the rest of the northern hemisphere, the jet stream is weakening, which makes in meander more, which it turn means you can get more of these weird cold snaps and stronger heat waves.

That might be true, but since this visit by the polar vortex isn't exactly unprecedented, chances are we can chalk this up to the usual back and forth shifts in climate change.  There might be plenty of signs that the world's climate is going off the rails, but this isn't one of them.

So no, Donald and Rush, the science of global warming remains pretty sound, despite your tiresome protestations to the contrary.

It's just that this polar vortex is completely besides the point, and Donald and Rush are too stupid, or too  stubborn, or both, to admit it. Did you both get frostbite to the brain?