Is Climate Change to blame for freak weather around the World.?

Aug 4, 7:22 PM EDT


New study links current events to climate change

By SETH BORENSTEIN
AP Science Writer









WASHINGTON (AP) -- The relentless, weather-gone-crazy type of heat that has blistered the United States and other parts of the world in recent years is so rare that it can't be anything but man-made global warming, says a new statistical analysis from a top government scientist.

The research by a man often called the "godfather of global warming" says that the likelihood of such temperatures occurring from the 1950s through the 1980s was rarer than 1 in 300. Now, the odds are closer to 1 in 10, according to the study by NASA scientist James Hansen. He says that statistically what's happening is not random or normal, but pure and simple climate change.

"This is not some scientific theory. We are now experiencing scientific fact," Hansen told The Associated Press in an interview.

Hansen is a scientist at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and a professor at Columbia University. But he is also a strident activist who has called for government action to curb greenhouse gases for years. While his study was published online Saturday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, it is unlikely to sway opinion among the remaining climate change skeptics.

However, several climate scientists praised the new work.

In a blunt departure from most climate research, Hansen's study - based on statistics, not the more typical climate modeling - blames these three heat waves purely on global warming:

-Last year's devastating Texas-Oklahoma drought.

-The 2010 heat waves in Russia and the Middle East, which led to thousands of deaths.

-The 2003 European heat wave blamed for tens of thousands of deaths, especially among the elderly in France.

The analysis was written before the current drought and record-breaking temperatures that have seared much of the United States this year. But Hansen believes this too is another prime example of global warming at its worst.

The new research makes the case for the severity of global warming in a different way than most scientific studies and uses simple math instead of relying on complex climate models or an understanding of atmospheric physics. It also doesn't bother with the usual caveats about individual weather events having numerous causes.

The increase in the chance of extreme heat, drought and heavy downpours in certain regions is so huge that scientists should stop hemming and hawing, Hansen said. "This is happening often enough, over a big enough area that people can see it happening," he said.

Scientists have generally responded that it's impossible to say whether single events are caused by global warming, because of the influence of natural weather variability.

However, that position has been shifting in recent months, as other studies too have concluded climate change is happening right before our eyes.

Hansen hopes his new study will shift people's thinking about climate change and goad governments into action. He wrote an op-ed piece that appeared online Friday in the Washington Post.

"There is still time to act and avoid a worsening climate, but we are wasting precious time," he wrote.

The science in Hansen's study is excellent "and reframes the question," said Andrew Weaver, a climate scientist at the University of Victoria in British Columbia who was a member of the Nobel Prize-winning international panel of climate scientists that issued a series of reports on global warming.

"Rather than say, `Is this because of climate change?' That's the wrong question. What you can say is, `How likely is this to have occurred with the absence of global warming?' It's so extraordinarily unlikely that it has to be due to global warming," Weaver said.

For years scientists have run complex computer models using combinations of various factors to see how likely a weather event would happen without global warming and with it. About 25 different aspects of climate change have been formally attributed to man-made greenhouse gases in dozens of formal studies. But these are generally broad and non-specific, such as more heat waves in some regions and heavy rainfall in others.

Another upcoming study by Kevin Trenberth, climate analysis chief at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, links the 2010 Russian heat wave to global warming by looking at the underlying weather that caused the heat wave. He called Hansen's paper an important one that helps communicate the problem.

But there is bound to be continued disagreement. Previous studies had been unable to link the two, and one by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration concluded that the Russian drought, which also led to devastating wildfires, was not related to global warming.

White House science adviser John Holdren praised the paper's findings in a statement. But he also said it is true that scientists can't blame single events on global warming: "This work, which finds that extremely hot summers are over 10 times more common than they used to be, reinforces many other lines of evidence showing that climate change is occurring and that it is harmful."

Skeptical scientist John Christy of the University of Alabama at Huntsville said Hansen shouldn't have compared recent years to the 1950s-1980s time period because he said that was a quiet time for extremes.

But Derek Arndt, director of climate monitoring for the federal government's National Climatic Data Center, said that range is a fair one and often used because it is the "golden era" for good statistics.

Granger Morgan, head of engineering and public policy at Carnegie Mellon University, called Hansen's study "an important next step in what I expect will be a growing set of statistically-based arguments."

In a landmark 1988 study, Hansen predicted that if greenhouse gas emissions continue, which they have, Washington, D.C., would have about nine days each year of 95 degrees or warmer in the decade of the 2010s. So far this year, with about four more weeks of summer, the city has had 23 days with 95 degrees or hotter temperatures.

Hansen says now he underestimated how bad things would get.

And while he hopes this will spur action including a tax on the burning of fossil fuels, which emit carbon dioxide, a key greenhouse gas, others doubt it.

Science policy expert Roger Pielke Jr. of the University of Colorado said Hansen clearly doesn't understand social science, thinking a study like his could spur action. Just because something ought to happen, doesn't mean it will, he said.

In an email, he wrote: "Hansen is pursuing a deeply flawed model of policy change, one that will prove ineffectual and with its most lasting consequence a further politicization of climate science (if that is possible!)."

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Do they really need to spend money on a study...I could have told them for free. Talk about the *********** obvious.

The world has gone through many periods of climate change, this is just another in a long line. I have strong doubts as to whether it is anything to do with us, but we may be making it all happen a bit faster.

The Earth is getting ready to rid itself of the blight that inhabits it.....us!! It may not be a worldwide catastropy but slowly and surely many places are becoming impossible to live in. Just look at the heat in America this year and the many floods around the world. How bad will things like that be in 20 years? Many places will be inhabitable...imo of course.

Hi Angelina,

There is no doubt that climate change is affecting Planet Earth, the floods experienced in parts of the world are testament , as is the drought in other Countries which of course in America will seriously affect food output. Then there
are Earthquakes , the Jet stream currently off course and we are told is responsible for the wettest summer in Britain,
again affecting crops .

I think all these Nuclear tests, drilling for Oil etc has something to do with it .



Off topic I am watching the women's marathon, Kenya and Ethiopia in the lead....how come some of the hottest Countries can produce such outstanding athletes???
can produce so many

YES.


Man is killing the planet...the ozone layer is growing bigger, the polar cap is melting and then they wonder why we have floods..


Animals are being murdered for greed, there habitat has been 'raped' , animals are on the brink off extinction....the world has gone mad, children are being abuse and murdered , dogs, cat etc are either abused or bred for there skin or eaton...and not humanely either

God made this world but the devil seems to be taking over....


I hope the next world I come into is better than the last....and justice will mean justice.....I want to live amongst animals as they seem to have empathy with each other.

Many years ago I was on holiday in Goa with my Sons and their friends and one night we were having a drink in one of the Beach Bars and a Guy whose Wife was ill joined our table. He told us then that an Indian had told him the Planets were aligned in a certain way which was a bad sign and Earth would face many disasters over the coming years some the result of Mans interference with nature until ultimately it's population would perish. We thought at the time he was a right gloom and doom merchant but it looks as if the Indian might be right.

(CNN) -- What do the 2010 heat wave in Russia, last year's Texas drought, and the 2003 heat wave in Europe have in common?

All are examples of extreme weather caused by climate change, according to a new study from NASA scientist James Hansen.

"This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened," he wrote in a Washington Post opinion piece meant to accompany the study.










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"Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change."

The study, which was published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looks at the past six decades of global temperatures and finds what Hansen described as a "stunning" rise in the frequency of extremely hot summers.

It compared what is happening now to what was happening between 1951-1980. In those years, extremely hot temperatures covered less than 0.2% of the planet. Now, those temperatures cover about 10% of the land area, the study said.

It dismissed the idea that specific weather patterns are by themselves sufficient to explain today's extreme anomalies. Phenomena like La Nina have always been around, but large areas of extreme warming have only come about with climate change, the study said.

"The odds that natural variability created these extremes are minuscule, vanishingly small. To count on those odds would be like quitting your job and playing the lottery every morning to pay the bills," wrote Hansen.

Hansen directs research at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and is a longtime environmental activist.

Have you seen the flooding in Manila...they are up to their shoulders in it!

I agree with Angelina. I do not think we do planet earth any favours but the earth has always changed throughout the time it has supposed to have existed. The ice age is a prime example. I think these things happen to it naturally. Not great for us but what can we do? I do not think cutting emissions and being all green would cut it to be honest. Whatever we do if it is ready to change it will. IMO of course

I CAN SEE THE POINT OF MAKING EVERTONE BELIEVING gLOBAL WARMING ALL THE FAULT OF US ALL. iTS a good way to make us pay green taxes on fuel and allsorts ,each time i see someone from goverment etc,get on t v and give us the speel ,i think YOU MUST THINK WE ARE ALL DAFT.i BELIEVE THAT A LOT IF WHAT WE CALL PROBLEM,MANY COUNTRYS HAVE NOT USED A LOT OF CARBON AT ALL SO WE MUST BE THE ONES IN WEST THAT DID IT ALL IF WE GO ALONG WITH THAT WAY OF THINKING ,BUT I DONT THINK ITS MAINLY DOWN TO US ,PLANETS DO CHANGE WITH NO HELP FROM HUMANS,YES ONE DAY IN A LOG WAY OFF,IT MAYNOT BE HABITABLE,WE WONT BE HERE SO . JOYCE1938

joyce, good post

The only thing created by man is the fear required to make us passive tax payers.

Its the old chestnut again,like what killed the dinosaurs and then the ice age weather systems come and go as we can witness almost on a daily basis with the British summers.

Think it more likely that HARRP or area 51 has more control over the weather than carbon emissions

Thas funny,i too had haarp go through my mind too,i do think interesting subject can be helped to change weather,there are some who question the sunnami,if that could be caused by oceon shift and could it be helped along by the forces that seem to have a lot of power.its an interesting subject,but not if it will make some people afraid.joyce1938

I do think the changes in our Weather have escalated this Century. It has been said cutting down the Amazon rain forest

has done a lot of damage , but when I was growing up Seasons were identifiable, not so now, just look at this "Summer",

have you ever seen such changing weather?. The worst Winter was in the sixties, since then Winters are milder and the

way we are treating our Planet has had an effect. The latest floods are in the Philippines, severe drought in America,

Tsunami not so long ago , mysterious deaths of dolphins, swans, penguins etc, there has to be a common denominator.

I agree with Lioned and joyce1938 completely