RELATED POSTS ON EVENT ATTRIBUTION SCIENCE:

LINK#1: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/07/10/event-attribution-science-a-case-study/

LINK#2; https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/03/confirmationbias/

LINK#3: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/07/16/the-internal-variability-issue/

ABSTRACT

(1) Extreme weather event attribution post hoc is subject to confirmation bias and data selection bias. (2) The attribution of localized extreme weather events to AGW overlooks the Internal Climate Variability issue. (3) The attribution of selected tropical cyclones or tropical cyclone seasons in a single cyclone basin violates the climate science position on the tropical cyclone issue in Knutson etal 2010 that says that only trends in decadal means of tropical cyclone activity in all six cyclone basins over a sufficiently long time span of 30 years or more can be considered for such attribution. (4) The linked posts provided at the end of this document expose the activism and advocacy priority of climate science in pushing for climate action and the advocacy priority provides the motive for climate science to seek out ways to create fear of AGW with extreme weather events. (5) The use of high variance to compute large confidence intervals and then to use the end of the confidence interval that suits the need of creating the extreme weather fear for AGW is biased and a flawed understanding of uncertainty. Large confidence intervals mean we don’t really know. They don’t mean Oh look how high it could be. (6): A serious flaw in these analyses is circular reasoning, confirmation bias, and advocacy bias that looks for AGW as the only causation mechanism. Other variables are not studied. For example in forest fires forest management practices are overlooked with a single minded focus on heat and dryness attributed to AGW as the only cause of all things bad. (7): There is an assumption in these studies that all bad things that occur during a time of AGW must have been caused by AGW. This assumption is deeply flawed and deeply embedded in climate change impact studies. For example, the same Diffenbaugh that we cite in this work is also the author of the income inequality paper discussed in a related post: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/04/25/inequality/. where he found growing inequality between rich countries and poor countries and since this trend is found during a time of climate change he concluded that it was caused by climate change and rationalized it in terms of hot poor countries and cool rich countries. As shown in the related post cited above, his findings are flawed because his methodology is flawed but this flawed methodology is common in climate science particularly so in extreme weather attribution. (8): Extreme weather event attribution to AGW by climate scientists is not credible in this light.

THE EXTREME WEATHER HYPOTHESIS OF CLIMATE SCIENCE

NBC NEWS AUGUST 2018: Aug. 19, 2018, 4:55 PM +07 / Updated Aug. 20, 2018, 3:27 AM +07By James Rainey. When the heat waves, droughts, wildfires and deluges come — as they seem to with increasing regularity these days — the question inevitably arises: Did climate change play a role? The answer scientists gave for years was that greenhouse gases created by humans likely contributed to extreme weather, but it was hard to definitively tie the warming atmosphere to any single episode. But that cautious approach, repeated in thousands of news reports for more than a decade, has been changing in recent months. Now, scientists say that they will increasingly be able to link extreme weather events to human-caused global warming and to make such determinations quickly, sometimes within days. So when a heat wave beset Northern Europe early this summer, bringing temperatures in Scandinavia into the 90s, a consortium of researchers operating under the name World Weather Attribution whipped together a series of computer simulations. Within three days, the scientists issued a finding that the hot spell had been made at least twice as likely because of human-driven climate change.

CARBON BRIEF: April 15. 2020. Mapped: How climate change affects extreme weather around the world. In the early 2000s, a new field of climate-science research emerged that began to explore the human fingerprint on extreme weather, such as floods, heatwaves, droughts and storms. Known as “extreme event attribution”, the field has gained momentum, not only in the science world, but also in the media and public imagination. These studies have the power to link the seemingly abstract concept of climate change with personal and tangible experiences of the weather. Scientists have published more than 300 peer-reviewed studies looking at weather extremes around the world, from wildfires in Alaska and hurricanes in the Caribbean to flooding in France and heatwaves in China. The result is mounting evidence that human activity is raising the risk of some types of extreme weather, especially those linked to heat. To track how the evidence on this fast-moving topic is stacking up, Carbon Brief has mapped every extreme-weather attribution study published to date. 69% of the 355 extreme weather events and trends included in the map were found to be made more likely or more severe by human-caused climate change and 9% of events or trends were made less likely or less severe by climate change. , meaning 78% of all events experienced some human impact. The remaining 22% of events and trends showed no discernible human influence or were inconclusive. Heatwaves account for 47% of such events, while droughts and heavy rainfall or floods each make up 15%. Of the 125 attribution studies that have looked at extreme heat around the world, 93% found that climate change made the event or trend more likely or more severe. For the 68 studies looking at rainfall or flooding, 54% found human activity had made the event more likely or more severe. For the 61 drought events studied, it’s 61%.

ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND 2020: Extreme weather gets a boost from climate change. Scientists are detecting a stronger link between the planet’s warming and its changing weather patterns. Though it can be hard to pinpoint whether climate change intensified a particular weather event, the trajectory is clear — hotter heat waves, drier droughts, bigger storm surges and greater snowfall. Heat and drought. The dangerous effects of heat waves, including death, occur as a result of both temperature and humidity — especially if those conditions persist for more than two days. With temperature records being smashed month after month, year after year, it’s likely that human-caused global warming is making extreme heat events more frequent. Higher temperatures also boost evaporation, which dries out the soil in summer intensifying drought over many areas. As more evaporation leads to more moisture in the atmosphere, rainfall intensifies. We now know that the rainfall from Hurricane Harvey was 15 percent more intense and three times as likely to occur due to human-induced climate change. We expect to see a higher frequency of Category 4 and 5 storms as temperatures continue to rise. Clouds that can dump a lot of rain are more common in a warmer atmosphere. While scientists aren’t certain about whether climate change has led to more hurricanes, they are confident that rising sea levels are leading to higher storm surges and more floods. Around half of sea-level rise since 1900 comes from the expansion of warming oceans, triggered by human-caused global warming. The rest of the rise comes from melting glaciers and ice sheets. There is more moisture in a warmer atmosphere, which can lead to record snowfall. It may seem counterintuitive, but the increase in snowfall during winter storms may be linked to climate change. There is more moisture in the warmer atmosphere. So when the temperatures are below freezing, snowfall can break records. And scientists are studying a possible connection between a warming Arctic and cold spells in the eastern United States. The idea is that a rapidly warming Arctic can weaken the jet stream, allowing frigid polar air to travel farther south.

CBS NEWS: NOVEMBER 2015; Report: Human-caused climate change exacerbates extreme weather. SAN FRANCISCO– Government scientists said Thursday that 14 of last year’s extreme weather events were made worse by climate change caused by pollution including the 2014 California wildfires, and the cyclones in Hawaii. In a recent development, California continues to feel the effects of climate change. Most years the Dungeness crab harvest in California is bountiful and worth close to $60 million, but this year there may not be any harvest. High levels of toxic algae in the ocean make the crab too dangerous to eat. The widespread algae bloom is because of unusually high temperatures in the Pacific. It’s unbelievably warm. We have never had a warming event like this — the extent of it, the different contributing factors, and how this going to play out this season leads scientists to have huge concerns. Extreme heat events are one focus of the report on the impact of climate change around the world. The study found that in 2014, extreme heat waves, like one that gripped South Korea, were made worse by human-caused climate change which includes things such as car emissions, burning coal and methane gas. The report studied 28 extreme weather events around the world last year & 14 of those — including devastating floods in Australia and New Zealand — were found to be made worse in part by climate change. But the impact of human activity can be complex. In the United States, record snowfall in the Northeast and Midwest was not a result of climate change — rather, just cyclical weather patterns. However, the study says severe wildfires in California are becoming more likely because of global warming. Climate change is causing a lot of unfortunate, disastrous impacts around the world. This is the 4th year scientists have studied whether human activity is at least partially to blame for such things as heat waves, droughts, and wildfires. Over those years, more than half the extreme weather events studied have been linked to human-caused climate change.

STANFORD NEWS: 2020; Influence of global warming on extreme weather events has been underestimated. Analysis shows global warming is intensifying the occurrence of unprecedented hot spells and downpours faster than predicted by historical trends. New approaches for incorporating global warming into extreme weather analysis could improve global risk management. A common scientific approach of predicting the likelihood of future extreme weather events by analyzing how frequently they occurred in the past can lead to significant underestimates with significant consequences for people’s lives. A new analysis shows global warming is intensifying the occurrence of unprecedented hot spells and downpours faster than predicted by historical trends. Stanford Climate Scientist Noah Diffenbaugh found that predictions that relied only on historical observations underestimated by about half the actual number of extremely hot days in Europe and East Asia, and the number of extremely wet days in the U.S., Europe and East Asia. The paper, published March 18 in Science Advances, illustrates how even small increases in global warming can cause large upticks in the probability of extreme weather events, particularly heat waves and heavy rainfall. We are seeing year after year how the rising incidence of extreme events is causing significant impacts on people and ecosystems. One of the main challenges in becoming more resilient to these extremes is accurately predicting how the global warming that’s already happened has changed the odds of events that fall outside of our historical experience. We live in a changing world. For decades, engineers, land-use planners and risk managers have used historical weather observations from thermometers, rain gauges and satellites to calculate the probability of extreme events. Those calculations meant to inform projects ranging from housing developments to highways have traditionally relied on the assumption that the risk of extremes could be assessed using only historical observations. However, a warming world has made many extreme weather events more frequent, intense and widespread, a trend that is likely to intensify. Scientists trying to isolate the influence of human-caused climate change on the probability and/or severity of individual weather events have faced two major obstacles. There are relatively few such events in the historical record, making verification difficult, and global warming is changing the atmosphere and ocean in ways that may have already affected the odds of extreme weather conditions. Diffenbaugh is the Kara J Foundation professor at Stanford’s School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences. He reviewed previous extreme weather event papers that he and his colleagues had published in recent years. He wondered if he could use the frequency of record-setting weather events from 2006 to 2017 to evaluate the predictions his group had made using data from 1961 to 2005. He found in some cases the actual increase in extreme events was much larger than what had been predicted. When he first looked at the results, he had this sinking feeling that his method for analyzing these extreme events could be all wrong. As it turned out, the method actually worked very well for the period that we had originally analyzed. It’s just that global warming has had a stronger effect over the last decade. He also found that climate models were able to more accurately predict the future occurrence of record-setting events. While acknowledging that climate models still contain important uncertainties, the study identifies the potential for new techniques that incorporate both historical observations and climate models to create more accurate, robust risk management tools.

MORE ABOUT PROFESSOR DIFFENBAUGH:LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/06/29/diffenbaugh-2017-extreme-weather-of-climate-change/

NATIONAL ACDADEMIES 2020: Global warming is making some extreme weather events worse. As Earth’s climate has warmed, a new pattern of more frequent and more intense weather events has unfolded around the world. Scientists identify these extreme weather events based on the historical record of weather in a particular region. They consider extreme weather events to be those that produce unusually high or low levels of rain or snow, temperature, wind, or other effects. Typically, these events are considered extreme if they are unlike 90% or 95% of similar weather events that happened before in that same area. Global warming can contribute to the intensity of heat waves by increasing the chances of very hot days and nights. Warming air also boosts evaporation, which can worsen drought. More drought creates dry fields and forests that are prone to catching fire, and increasing temperatures mean a longer wildfire season. Global warming also increases water vapor in the atmosphere, which can lead to more frequent heavy rain and snowstorms. A warmer and more moist atmosphere over the oceans makes it likely that the strongest hurricanes will be more intense, produce more rainfall, and possibly be larger. In addition, global warming causes sea level to rise, which increases the amount of seawater, along with more rainfall, that is pushed on to shore during coastal storms. That seawater, along with more rainfall, can result in destructive flooding. While global warming is likely making hurricanes more intense, scientists don’t know yet if global warming is increasing the number of hurricanes each year. The effect of global warming on the frequency, intensity, size, and speed of hurricanes remains a subject of scientific research. Many factors contribute to any individual extreme weather event. Extreme weather events are influenced by many factors in addition to global warming. Daily and seasonal weather patterns and natural climate patterns such as El Niño or La Niña affect when and where extreme weather events take place. For example, many studies have linked an increase in wildfire activity to global warming. In addition, the risk of a fire could depend on past forest management, natural climate variability, human activities, and other factors, in addition to human-caused climate change. Determining how much climate change contributes to extreme weather events such as wildfires continues to be studied. New scientific approaches make it possible to determine how global warming affected individual extreme weather events. Even a decade ago, it was hard to link a specific weather event, such as a heat wave or an intense rainstorm, with climate changes happening on a global scale. However, climate scientists are getting better at making these kinds of connections, called extreme event attribution. These studies can’t say whether global warming caused a specific event—but they can look at whether the warming climate made an event more severe or more likely to happen. Scientists use computer models to simulate weather conditions with and without global warming and other contributing factors. By comparing different scenarios, they can identify how global warming has affected observed extreme weather events. For example, scientists completed extreme event attribution studies after Hurricane Harvey soaked Texas in 2017 with record-breaking rains of more than 60 inches in some places. They concluded that global warming worsened the flooding and made a Harvey-sized storm at least three times more likely. Understanding global warming’s impacts on extreme weather is important because it can help inform choices about managing risks. For example, if a community knows that increased rainfall from global warming has turned what was previously a “500-year flood” into a “100-year flood” (or more accurately: a flood that had a 1-in-500 chance of happening each year into a 1-in-100 chance of happening each year), it may make different choices about how to manage land, what and where people can build, or whether to build a floodwall.

SKEPTICAL SCIENCE: 2015: WHAT THE DENIERS SAY: There is growing empirical evidence that warming temperatures cause more intense hurricanes, heavier rainfalls and flooding, increased conditions for wildfires and dangerous heat waves. The 30 major droughts of the 20th century were likely natural in all respects; and, hence, they are “indicative of what could also happen in the future,” as Narisma et al. state in their concluding paragraph. And happen they will. Consequently, the next time a serious drought takes hold of some part of the world and the likes of Al Gore blame it on the “carbon footprints” of you and your family, ask them why just the opposite of what their hypothesis suggests actually occurred over the course of the 20th century, i.e., why, when the earth warmed – and at a rate and to a degree that they claim was unprecedented overthousands of years – the rate-of-occurrence of severe regional droughts actually declined.” (source: CO2 Science) WHAT THE SCIENCE SAYS; There are numerous examples of increased extreme weather frequency already being attributed to humans in the published peer-reviewed scientific literature. For example, Pall et al. (2011): “Here we present a multi-step, physically based ‘probabilistic event attribution’ framework showing that it is very likely that global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions substantially increased the risk of flood occurrence in England and Wales in autumn 2000”. Min et al. (2011): “Here we show that human-induced increases in greenhouse gases have contributed to the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events found over approximately two-thirds of data-covered parts of Northern Hemisphere land areas.” Dai et al. (2011): “All the four forms of the PDSI show widespread drying over Africa, East and South Asia, and other areas from 1950 to 2008, and most of this drying is due to recent warming. The global percentage of dry areas has increased by about 1.74% (of global land area) per decade from 1950 to 2008.” Zwiers et al. (2011): “Therefore, it is concluded that the influence of anthropogenic forcing has had a detectable influence on extreme temperatures that have impacts on human society and natural systems at global and regional scales”. Coumou & Rahmstorf (2012): “Here, we review the evidence and argue that for some types of extreme — notably heatwaves, but also precipitation extremes — there is now strong evidence linking specific events or an increase in their numbers to the human influence on climate. For other types of extreme, such as storms, the available evidence is less conclusive, but based on observed trends and basic physical concepts it is nevertheless plausible to expect an increase.”. Hansen et al. (2012): “we can state, with a high degree of confidence, that extreme anomalies such as those in Texas and Oklahoma in 2011 and Moscow in 2010 were a consequence of global warming because their likelihood in the absence of global warming was exceedingly small.”Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center GISS and Scientific Visualization Studio.

Like Hansen et al., Donat and Alexander (2012) found that global warming has made extreme heat waves more likely to occur. “…there is a 40% increase in more recent decades in the number of extreme temperatures defined by the warmest 5% of the 1951–1980 distribution.” Like Coumou & Rahmstorf, Otto et al. (2012) found that global warming contributed to the intensity of the extreme 2010 Russian heat wave, concluding there was “…a three-fold increase in the risk of the 2010 threshold being exceeded, supporting the assertion that the risk of the event occurring was mainly attributable to the external trend.” While it is very difficult to attribute individual weather events to global warming, we do know that climate change will ‘load the dice’ and result in more frequent extreme weather events. The IPCC Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX), also discusses the relationship between human-caused climate change and various types of extreme weather events. For example, the SREX says: “It is likely that anthropogenic influences have led to warming of extreme daily minimum and maximum temperatures at the global scale. There is medium confidence that anthropogenic influences have contributed to intensification of extreme precipitation at the global scale. It is likely that there has been an anthropogenic influence on increasing extreme coastal high water due to an increase in mean sea level.” and “Extreme weather and climate events, interacting with exposed and vulnerable human and natural systems, can lead to disasters.”

On drought, the SREX finds: “There is medium confidence that some regions of the world have experienced more intense and longer droughts, in particular in southern Europe and West Africa, but in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter, for example, in central North America and northwestern Australia.” The SREX also has important conclusions regarding future drought changes: “There is medium confidence that droughts will intensify in the 21st century in some seasons and areas, due to reduced precipitation and/or increased evapotranspiration. This applies to regions including southern Europe and the Mediterranean region, central Europe, central North America, Central America and Mexico, northeast Brazil, and southern Africa.” This conclusion is supported by Dai (2010), for example: “Regions like the United States have avoided prolonged droughts during the last 50 years due to natural climate variations, but might see persistent droughts in the next 20–50 years”

Research by Emanuel (2012), Grinsted et al. (2013), and Holland and Bruyère (2013) concluded that global warming has already led to more intense hurricanes. Elsner et al. (2008) found that: “With the exception of the South Pacific Ocean, all tropical cyclone basins show increases in the lifetime-maximum wind speeds of the strongest storms … Our results are qualitatively consistent with the hypothesis that as the seas warm, the ocean has more energy to convert to tropical cyclone wind. We have probably crossed the threshold where Katrina magnitude hurricane surges are more likely caused by global warming than not.”

Extreme Weather Obfuscation and Misdirection: More frequently we are seeing climate contrarians dispute that human-caused climate change is impacting extreme weather events, often through misdirection by focusing on economic losses associated with extreme weather, rather than the frequency of the events themselves. There is a silver lining in this cloud of obfuscation – climate contrarians appear to be retreating more and more away from the “it’s not happening” and “it’s not us” myths, toward the “it’s not bad” fallback position.

CENTER FOR CLIMATE AND ENERGY SOLUTIONS 2020;

One of the most visible consequences of a warming world is an increase in the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events. The National Climate Assessment finds that the number of heat waves, heavy downpours, and major hurricanes has increased in the United States, and the strength of these events has increased, too. A measure of the economic impact of extreme weather is the increasing number of billion-dollar disasters, which is shown below. The map shows all types of weather disasters, some of which are known to be influenced by climate change (floods, tropical storms) and some for which a climate influence is uncertain (tornadoes).

Billion-Dollar Extreme Weather Events, 2000-2020

Click on any circle to learn about one of the billion-dollar weather events, or any state to learn about billion-dollar droughts, between January 2000 and July 2020. Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center. The Top 10 costliest events are listed at the bottom of this page, along with a description of major U.S. droughts since 2000. NOAA calculates total, direct costs – both insured and uninsured – including physical damage to residential, commercial, and government buildings, material assets within buildings, public infrastructure, vehicles and boats, offshore energy platforms, and agricultural assets, as well as business interruption losses and disaster restoration and wildfire suppression costs. These estimates do not account for losses to natural capital, health care related costs, or values associated with loss of life.

Climate change is expected to worsen the frequency, intensity, and impacts of some types of extreme weather events. For example, sea level rise increases the impacts of coastal storms and warming can place more stress on water supplies during droughts. That’s why many cities, state, and businesses are taking steps to prepare for more extreme weather. A Closer Look at Business Resilience examines how companies are preparing for climate risks and what is keeping them from doing more. It also suggests strategies for companies and cities to collaborate to strengthen climate resilience. It updates the groundbreaking report, Weathering the Storm, Building Business Resilience to Climate Change, which provided a baseline for how companies were assessing their climate vulnerabilities.

Top 10 U.S. Disasters by Cost Since 2000. Event and Date Cost in billions (2020 USD). (unadjusted cost) Fatalities Description

Hurricane Katrina
August 2005 $170.0
($125) 1,833 Hurricane Katrina initially hit as a Category 1 near Miami, Fla., then as a stronger Category 3 along the eastern La.-western Miss. coastlines, resulting in severe storm surge damage (maximum surge probably exceeded 30 feet) along the La.-Miss.-Ala. coasts, wind damage, and the failure of parts of the levee system in New Orleans. High winds and some flooding occurred in Ala., Fla., Ga., Ind., Ky., Miss., Ohio and Tenn.
Hurricane Harvey
August 2017 $131.3
($125) 89 Hurricane Harvey made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane near Rockport, Texas. A large region of extreme rainfall produced historic flooding across Houston and surrounding areas. More than 30 inches of rainfall fell on 6.9 million people (and some areas experienced over 50 inches) based on 7-day rainfall totals. The resulting flooding displaced over 30,000 people and damaged or destroyed over 200,000 homes and businesses.
Hurricane Maria
September 2017 $94.5
($90) 2,981 Hurricane Maria initially hit St. Croix and made landfall in southeast Puerto Rico as a Category 4 and strengthened to a Category 5 storm. The hurricane dropped 37 inches of rain, causing widespread flooding and landslides. The heavy winds caused extensive damage to the island’s agriculture, communication, transportation, and energy infrastructure. The hurricane was one of the deadliest storms to hit the United States, with significant indirect deaths in the storm’s aftermath.
Hurricane Sandy
October 2012 $74.1
($65) 159 Hurricane Sandy caused extensive damage across several northeastern states (Conn., Del., Mass., Md., N.J., N.Y., R.I.) due to high wind and coastal storm surge, particularly in N.J. and N.Y. Damage from wind, rain and heavy snow also extended more broadly to other states (N.C., N.H., Ohio, Pa., Va., W.Va.), as Sandy merged with a developing Nor’easter. Sandy interrupted critical water and electrical services in major population centers and caused 159 deaths (72 direct, 87 indirect). Sandy also shut down the New York Stock Exchange for two consecutive business days, the first time a weather event caused a closing since a major winter storm in 1888.
Hurricane Irma
September 2017 $52.5
($50) 97 Hurricane Irma made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane at Cudjoe Key, Fla. after devastating the U.S. Virgin Islands— St John and St Thomas — as a Category 5 storm. 25% of buildings were destroyed and 65% were significantly damaged in the Florida Keys. Severe wind and storm surge occurred along the coasts of Florida and South Carolina. Irma maintained a maximum sustained wind of 185 mph for 37 hours, the longest in the satellite era. Irma also was a Category 5 storm for longer than all other Atlantic hurricanes except Ivan in 2004.
Hurricane Ike
September 2008 $36.9
($30) 112 Hurricane Ike made landfall in Texas as a Category 2 hurricane. It was the largest Atlantic hurricane on record by size, causing a considerable storm surge in coastal TX and significant wind and flooding damage in Ark., Ill., Ind., Ky., La., Mich., Mo., Ohio, Pa., Tenn. and Texas.
U.S. Drought/Heatwave
2012 $34.2
($30) 123 The 2012 drought is one of the most extensive to affect the United States since the 1930s, affecting more than half the country with major impacts to corn and soybean production, and deadly summer heat causing 123 deaths.
Hurricane Ivan
September 2004 $28.7
($20.5) 57 Hurricane Ivan made landfall on Gulf coast of Ala. as a Category 3 hurricane, with significant wind, storm surge, and flooding damage in coastal Ala. and Fla. Panhandle, along with wind/flood damage in the states of Ga., Miss., La., S.C., N.C., Va., W.Va., Md., Tenn., Ky., Ohio, Del., N.J., Pa., and N.Y.
Hurricane Wilma
October 2005 $25.8
($19) 35 Hurricane Wilma hit SW Florida as a Category 3 hurricane, resulting in strong damaging winds and major flooding across southeastern Florida. Prior to landfall, Wilma as a Category 5 recorded the lowest pressure (882 mb) ever recorded in the Atlantic basin.
Hurricane Michael
October 2018 $25
($25) 49 Hurricane Michael made landfall at Mexico Beach, Fla. as a powerful Category 4 hurricane with devastating winds of 155 mph and storm surge in excess of 15 feet. Mexico Beach was nearly destroyed, while Panama City suffered extensive damage. Michael’s intense winds caused billions in damages to agriculture and forestry far inland.

U.S. Drought Events Since 2000. Date Cost in billions (2020 USD)
(unadjusted cost) Description States
2018 $3.1
($3.0) Many states were affected by extreme drought. Drought conditions persisted in the Four Corners region of the Southwest, causing damage to crops. Ariz., Colo., Kan., Mo., N.M., Okla., Texas, Utah
2017 $2.6
($2.5) Severe drought damaged agricultural crops, including wheat. Lack of feed forced ranchers to sell their cattle. This drought increased wildfire risk leading up to the 2017 wildfires. Mont., N.D., S.D.
2016 $3.8
($3.5) In California, the 5-year drought continued, destroying over 100 million trees. Stressed water supplies in the Northeast and Southeast impacted agricultural production. Ala., Calif., Conn., Ga., Mass., N.H., N.J., N.Y., Pa., R.I., Tenn., Vt.
2015 $5.0
($4.5) Drought conditions continued to affect California throughout 2015, heavily impacting the agricultural sector. Drought conditions improved in Texas and Oklahoma due to several major flood events. Ariz., Calif., Idaho, Mont., Nev., Ore., Utah, Wash.
2014 $4.4
($4.0) California experienced the worst drought on record. Surrounding states and parts of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas continued to experience severe drought conditions. Ariz., Calif., Kan., Nev., N.M., Okla., Ore., Texas
2013 $11.7
($10.4) Drought conditions slowly improved in Midwestern and Plains states but continued in western states. Moderate crop losses occurred across the central agricultural states and the heat caused 53 deaths. Ariz., Calif., Colo., Iowa, Idaho, Ill., Kan., Mich., Minn., Mo., N.D., Neb., N.M., Nev., Okla., Ore., S.D., Texas, Utah, Wash., Wis., Wyo.
2012 $34.2
($30.0) The 2012 drought was the most extensive since the 1930s. Moderate to extreme drought conditions affected more than half the country. Costly drought impacts occurred in central states, with widespread harvest failure. The summer heatwave caused 123 direct deaths. Calif., Nev., Idaho, Mont., Wyo., Utah, Colo., Ariz., N.M., Texas, N.D., S.D., Neb., Kan., Okla., Ark., Mo., Iowa, Minn., Ill., Ind., Ga.
2011 $14.0
($12.0) Drought and heat wave conditions persisted. The majority of range and pastures in Texas and Oklahoma were in “very poor” condition. Heat conditions caused to 95 deaths. Ariz., Kan., La., N.M., Okla., Texas
2009 $4.3
($3.5) Drought conditions persisted across parts of the Southwest, Great Plains, and southern Texas, with Texas and California suffering the most agricultural losses. Ariz., Calif., Kan., N.M., Okla., Texas
2008 $8.6
($7.0) Severe drought and heat caused agricultural losses in areas of the South and West. Record low lake levels also occurred in areas of the Southeast. Ala., Ark., Calif., Colo., Ga., Idaho, Ind., Kan., Ky., Md., Minn., Miss., Mont., N.C., N.D., N.J., N.M., Ohio, Okla., Ore., S.C., Tenn., Texas, Utah, Va., Wash., Wis.
2007 $4.5
($3.5) Severe drought with periods of extreme heat resulted in major crop yield loss, reduced stream flows and lake levels, and caused 15 deaths. Ala., Ark., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kan., Ky., La., Mich., Minn., Miss., Mo., N.C., N.D., N.Y., Neb., Ohio, Okla., Pa., S.C., S.D., Tenn., Texas, Va., Wis., W.Va.
2006 $7.8
($6.0) Severe drought affected crops, caused wildfires and low streams and rivers in the Great Plains and portions of the South and far West. Ala., Ark., Colo., Fla., Ga., Iowa, Kan., La., Minn., Miss., Mo., Mont., N.D., N.M., Neb., Okla., S.D., Texas, Wyo.
2005 $2.0
($1.5) Severe localized drought caused significant crop losses, especially for corn and soybeans. Ark., Ill., Ind., Mo., Ohio, Wis.
2003 $7.1
($5.0) Drought across western and central portions of the United States with losses to agriculture. Thirty-five deaths were caused by the heatwave. Ariz., Colo., Idaho, Ill., Iowa, Kan., Mich., Minn., Mo., Mont., N.D., N.D., N.M., Neb., Ore., S.D., Wash., Wis.
2002 $13.1
($9.0) Large portions of 30 states experienced moderate to extreme drought conditions. Ala., Ariz., Calif., Colo., Conn., Del., Fla., Ga., Idaho, Iowa, Kan. La., Maine, Md., Mich., Miss., Mo., Mont., Neb., Nev., N.M., N.C., N.D., Ohio, Okla., Ore., Pa., R.I., S.C., S.D., Texas, Utah, Va., Wyo.
2000 $7.6
($5.0) Severe drought and persistent heat over south-central and southeastern states caused significant losses to agriculture and related industries. The heat caused 140 deaths. Ala., Ariz., Ark., Calif., Colo., Fla., Ga., Iowa, Kan., La., Miss., Mont., Neb., N.M., Okla., Ore. S.C., Tenn., Texas

(1) RESPONSE TO THE EXTREME WEATHER HYPOTHESIS OF CLIMATE SCIENCE: PART-1: WHAT CLIMATE SCIENTISTS SAY ABOUT THEIR METHODOLOGY

THESE QUOTES FROM CLIMATE SCIENTISTS PROVIDE EVIDENCE THAT FINDINGS OF RESEARCH IN CLIMATE CHANGE ARE MOSTLY THE CREATION OF CONFIRMATION BIAS. 

1. Reporting on climate change means forever being on the hunt for inflection points. Have global emissions peaked? When will the building of coal-fired power plants slow in, say, China? Has Arctic sea ice extent reached a record low?
2. Every time the International Energy Agency (IEA) publishes a fresh report, journalists and analysts dive in to search for such nuggets buried in the data. This week, it released its latest annual “World Energy Investment” report and Carbon Brief’s Josh Gabbatiss rolled up his sleeves and pulled out the key charts for his summary article.
3. Predictably, the Covid-19 crisis has had a dramatic impact on energy investment around the world. This year will see the largest ever fall in both investment and consumer spending on energy, said the IEA. However, the report also reveals various other insights. For example, it shows that, as demand and prices collapse, consumer spending on oil is expected to drop by more than $1tn, prompting a “historic switch” as spending on electricity exceeds oil for the first time.

(2) RESPONSE TO THE EXTREME WEATHER HYPOTHESIS OF CLIMATE SCIENCE: PART-2: COMMENTS ON EXTREME WEATHER RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

RELATED POST: CONFIRMATION BIAS: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/08/03/confirmationbias/

RELATED POST: EVENT ATTRIBUTION SCIENCE: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/07/10/event-attribution-science-a-case-study/

RELATED POST; THE INTERNAL CLIMATE VARIABILITY ISSUE IN CLIMATE SCIENCE: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/07/16/the-internal-variability-issue/ {“Internal climate variability limits the ability of climate science to attribute localized extreme weather events to anthropogenic global warming. Localized means geographically limited and Event means time span limited.“}

RELATED POST: WHAT DOES UNCERTAINTY MEAN? https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/04/22/climate-science-uncertainty/

RELATED POST: THE HIDDEN HAND OF ACTIVISM: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/02/03/hidden-hand/

RELATED POST: ADVOCACY TRUMPS STATISTICS#1: https://tambonthongchai.com/2018/05/06/consensus-science/

RELATED POST: ADVOCACY TRUMPS STATISTICS#2: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/08/25/earth-system-models-and-carbon-budgets/

RELATED POST: ADVOCACY TRUMPS STATISTICS#3: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/04/09/climate-statistics/

RELATED POST: CLIMATE CHANGE AND WILDFIRES#1: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/11/12/climate-change-wildfires/

RELATED POST: CLIMATE CHANGE AND WILDFIRES#2: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/08/21/climate-change-and-california-wildfires/

RELATED POST: CLIMATE CHANGE AND WILDFIRES#3; https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/09/26/global-warming-and-wildfires/

RELATED POST ON TROPICAL CYCLONES#1: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/08/01/tropical-cyclones-climate-change/

RELATED POST ON TROPICAL CYCLONES#2: https://tambonthongchai.com/2020/03/04/agwcyclones/

CONCLUSION

(1) Extreme weather event attribution post hoc is subject to confirmation bias and data selection bias. (2) The attribution of localized extreme weather events to AGW overlooks the Internal Climate Variability issue. (3) The attribution of selected tropical cyclones or tropical cyclone seasons in a single cyclone basin violates the climate science position on the tropical cyclone issue in Knutson etal 2010 that says that only trends in decadal means of tropical cyclone activity in all six cyclone basins over a sufficiently long time span of 30 years or more can be considered for such attribution. (4) The linked posts above expose the activism and advocacy priority of climate science in pushing for climate action and the advocacy priority provides the motive for climate science to seek out ways to create fear of AGW with extreme weather events. (5) The use of high variance to compute large confidence intervals and then to use the end of the confidence interval that suits the need of creating the extreme weather fear for AGW is biased and a flawed understanding of uncertainty. Large confidence intervals mean we don’t really know. They don’t mean Oh look how high it could be. (6): A serious flaw in these analyses is circular reasoning, confirmation bias, and advocacy bias that looks for AGW as the only causation mechanism. Other variables are not studied. For example in forest fires forest management practices are overlooked with a single minded focus on heat and dryness attributed to AGW as the only cause of all things bad. (7): There is an assumption in these studies that all bad things that occur during a time of AGW must have been caused by AGW. This assumption is deeply flawed and deeply embedded in climate change impact studies. For example, the same Diffenbaugh that we cited above is also the author of the income inequality paper discussed in a related post: LINK: https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/04/25/inequality/. where he found growing inequality between rich countries and poor countries and since this trend is found during a time of climate change he concluded that it was caused by climate change and rationalized it in terms of hot poor countries and cool rich countries. As shown in the related post cited above, his findings are flawed because his methodology is flawed but this flawed methodology is common in climate science particularly so in extreme weather attribution. (8): Extreme weather event attribution to AGW by climate scientists is not credible in this light.