Climate data

The NAMAZU SCHOOL OF CLIMATOLOGY:

NAMAZU, giant Japanese catfish former demigod, rock album cover model,  marine  environmental analyst, and Dean of the Namazu School of Climatology

NOAA RELEASES THE 100 YEAR TRACK OF EXTREME WEATHER IN CHART FORM

 My Dear Bipeds:

  Climate changes, that's what it does. But it has recently been revealed that certain elements of publicly funded electronic communications literally conspired to disallow equal time for any dissenting views from the politically correct view that the climate is changing now, dramatically and due to human carbon emissions, particularly those of the United States. The offending organizations maintained that they came to this decision to close avenues of public debate based on a considered opinion by a panel of science "experts". Recently it was revealed that the panel had exactly two members with anything resembling a science back ground , two professional comedians, and a couple of electronic media executives. So whats really happening?  What information can you rely on?

 Anyone who denies that the global climate isn't going down hill in exact accordance with the prognostications of Al Gore is labeled by the media a "Denier".  According to the Gore camp "Deniers" are to be paid no attention. I, Namazu a weather observer of some 3,000 years of experience do not see things progressing in line with the Al Gore model. But I am not a "denier" in this sense. Climate changes, that's what it does.

  It changes over a fairly wide range over relatively stable periods of ten, twenty, one hundred, five hundred, one thousand years and more. It has also , without any help from man changed drastically over night. These overnight changes have occurred in response to meteor strikes, expansive volcanic activity, and similar natural causes. So in the Namazu School we try to focus on the changes we can all make to be prepared to mitigate catastrophic climate change. We simply don't believe that we are in the middle of one right now. 

However,  whether we are or not, now is the time to start working on those changes in housing, transportation, utilities, and agricultural production that will mitigate the drastic changes that will occur the next time there is a big fiery burp from the sun, or a rock the size of Texas hits us from outer space, or the insides of the earth decide to visit the outside in molten form with explosive force. All of these things have happened in the past, and will happen in the future, and there is little if anything that we can do to prevent them. What we have to do is be prepared to endure them. 

 So what can you believe in terms of the misinformation and disinformation floating around the general news media today?

Well here are some facts from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in chart form. This chart tracks extreme weather events from hurricanes and blizzards to droughts and tornadoes, heat waves and cold snaps for the 100 year period from 1910 to 2010. Take a good look at it.

 So in terms of the extreme weather index, 1910 was a worse year than 2010 and the years 1939 through 2010 fell into a range that appears to repeat itself in cycles of a few to five years. The worst years for extreme weather events were in the 1930s and were related to the famous "Dust Bowl" which was a natural drought aggravated by over plowing of the Great Plains. Plain and simply the NOAA Extreme Weather Index for the last 100 years does not support any drastic increase in the incidence of extreme weather events despite Katrina, and the "Monster storm" followed by cold wave  that hit the North East Coast late this Fall. 
 

Global warming, or Global cooling? The official data indicates a little of each. Since 1840 the overall average global temperature went up by about 3/4 of a degree (F).  In the last 16 years it has been falling by a tiny fraction of 1% of a degree (F) annually. No evidence of anything exciting going on there. 

 Ice melt in the Arctic and glacial shrinkage. This is the hardest to explain and can affect sea level and climate. The cause does not appear to be a global rise in atmospheric temperature. But changes in sea currents can cause area sea temperature warming. Volcanic activity can cause glacial shrinkage, and we simply have not been measuring these things over the last 100 years. We have very little base data to tell us much of anything, we don't know if the trend will continue or reverse itself. We simply don't know if this has ever happened before during the present inter-glacial period of about 10,000 years.

 Are U.S. carbon emissions causing the ice melt ?  Probably not.
The U.S. actually reduced carbon emissions by 2% last year though we are constantly criticized for not signing the Kyoto Accords. We have in fact been reducing such emissions annually since the 1970s when we started passing "Clean Air and Water" acts and automobile emission limitation requirements. Meanwhile Canada, a country closer to the Arctic and signatory to the Kyoto Accords increased carbon emissions last year by 4%. Meanwhile China, India, and Brazil are allowed to pollute as much as they want under the accords which place the entire onus for carbon emissions on the Western developed world. If everyone in the European Union junked their cars and used bicycles, lived without electricity, or hot water and went back to the stone age, the total carbon emission reduction would amount to only about 15% of the World total. That would be quickly made up by the rapidly industrializing countries of China, India, and Brazil. 

 In other words the sky is not falling, no rapid climate change is upon us. The United States is already doing more to reduce its emissions than anyone else and we appear to have no influence over the rest of the world in this regard, they just want the United States to pay the clean up bill. The U.S. quite frankly doesn't owe it and you can't clean up while everyone else is still polluting at increasing rates. But one thing we can't predict or change is sudden drastic climate change from a variety of natural causes. It has happened in the past, it will happen again, we just can't know when. So here in the Namazu school we will neither be Chicken Little nor "deniers" but will study how to mitigate climate change regardless of cause of on set, or speed of on set. Mankind's agricultural production, transportation infrastructure, building codes, and economic arrangements must be prepared for rapid, massive climate change or creeping climate change from natural causes, the inaction of our fellow citizens of the world, or any combination of causes. Climates change , that's what they do.

 Buck up bipeds! Start thinking and acting on the facts you can count on which all boil down to this, climates change , that's what they do, and people die as a result unless we start approaching food and shelter security in such a way as to anticipate the probability of both drastic and creeping climate change from any cause. This is something we can do as a nation even if the rest of the world doesn't go along. Join the dialogue of the Namazu School. Who would you trust for useful and accurate climate information Al Gore or a 3,000 year old catfish?

Very Truly Yours,
Namazu