National Climatic Data Center's Jim Kossin: Not fair to say that Sandy was associated with climate change

Kudos to the National Geographic for publishing this assessment by Jim Kossin, atmospheric research scientist in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center:

Could Hurricane Sandy be the result of climate change?

It’s not fair to say it’s associated with climate change. It’s very difficult to attribute an event like Hurricane Sandy to a change in climate because it’s challenging to connect the immediateness of a single event to the time scales that we talk about for climate change. But conveying this to the public is really hard.

Are more hurricanes likely?

The number of very strong land-falling hurricanes has decreased over the last number of years in places like Australia. But they have become more common in the Atlantic—there is no question about it. Researchers seem to agree that there will be an overall reduction in the global number of hurricanes, but the strong ones will get even stronger.

Why is the Atlantic region seeing a rise in hurricanes?

One thing we know is that the climate of the Atlantic has changed since the mid-1980s, becoming warmer and more conducive to hurricanes. Where disagreement lies is what causes it. Some think it has nothing to do with climate change, and a growing body of evidence suggests that it has to do with aerosol pollution—basically small particles of a sulfate, a salt of sulfuric acid. There is this idea that after the Clean Air Act of 1970, pollution decreased and then the sun hit and warmed the water. If that were the case, by decreasing pollution, we would have increased hurricane activity—but that’s a tricky thing to say publicly.

 Compare Kossin's sober analysis with the kind of simplistic propaganda coming from warmists like Al Gore, Michael Mann and Bill McKibben ...

Willam O'Keefe on why it is wrong to blame global warming for hurricane Sandy

As expected, warmists have been quick to use Hurricane Sandy in their global warming scaremongering propaganda. William O'Keefe, Chief Executive Officer of the George C. Marshall Institute puts the issue in perspective:

What we know is that the dire predictions of the past have not come about, although climate advocates will be quick to blame fossil energy use for Hurricane Sandy. The models on which advocates base their faith remain seriously flawed. In a recent discussion about the lack of warming for 16 years, Phil Jones of East Anglia University admitted that we really don’t understand natural variability. If that is not better understood, it is impossible to lay the blame for warming between 1976 and the 1990s, or over the past century, on human activities.

The crux of the human causality argument is that increases in greenhouse gas emissions will prevent more solar radiation to be reflected back to outer space. For that to happen there has to be an increase in atmospheric water vapor. That has not happened. In addition, more recent research has raised the possibility that that the climate pattern observed over the past 30+ years has been the result of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. There also is more robust information on the relationship between solar radiation and cloud formation.

It is unlikely that Congress in the near future will pass any legislation that forces a reduction in fossil energy use. The real danger is that EPA will continue its regulatory onslaught even though CO2 emissions have been falling and according to the EIA will not exceed their 1990 level until about 2035.

It is equally unlikely that international negotiations will be any more productive that past ones. EU nations that have led the charge for another Kyoto-like agreement are moving away from emission reduction actions because their economies are in crisis and will remain in such states for many years to come. These annual climate meetings are nothing more than a way to keep climate bureaucrats and hand-wringing advocates employed.

Read the entire article here