With Regard to the Posting Below: Disasters Are Decreasing!

In spite of forecast after forecast after forecast since 1988, and especially after Katrina in 2005, calling for increasing disasters due to global warming, disasters are decreasing. The graph below was just posted by Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. with data through December.

click to enlarge

As discussed in the posting immediately below, the track record of climate science's forecasts is abysmal. Scroll down for more.

The Global Warming Religion

"I may frequently be wrong, but am never in doubt."

        -- Sir George Jessel

There is a New York Times story today that proclaims more Americans are worried about global warming.

I'm hoping that climate 'scientists' will, one day soon, begin to understand that science is not about polls or popular opinion. Science is about what can be objectively proven. The point I wish to make in this posting is that global warming has more of the characteristics of a religion than a science.

The New Testament (Mark 13:32) quotes Jesus as saying He does not know when the world will end. Only his Father knows. Now, suppose some Christian group (call them Religion A) proclaimed they had figured out the world will end tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and goes. Then, Religion A says they were wrong in their calculations and it will end Monday. Monday comes and goes. Finally, Religion A says, oops, give us one more chance. The world will end a week from Thursday. And, of course, Thursday comes and goes and things are fine. After that record of failed predictions, no reasonable person would believe their end-of-the-world forecasts.

As explained by an online textbook,

"One of the key elements in science is the ability to make and test quantitative predictions."

What brought all of this to mind is that yesterday, Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez told us the world will end in 12 years unless we declare war on global warming.

How seriously should we take her prediction? Is climate science a genuine science that can make reliable predictions or does it have the characteristics of Religion A? Let's see how they are doing:

These are from Instapundit:

● President Obama ‘has four years to save Earth.’

—The London Guardian, January 17, 2009.

● Warming expert: Only decade left to act in time.

—NBC News, September 14, 2006.

● U.N. Predicts Disaster if Global Warming Not Checked:

A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.

—AP, June 29, 1989.

Here is a list from a posting on this blog in 2013:

• "Global Warming Tipping Point Close?"--headline, ClimateArk.com, Jan. 27, 2004
• "Warming Hits 'Tipping Point' "--headline, Guardian, Aug. 11, 2005
• "Earth at the Tipping Point: Global Warming Heats Up"--headline, Time, March 26, 2006
• "Global Warming 'Tipping Points' Reached, Scientist Says"--headline,NationalGeographic.com, Dec. 14, 2007
• "Twenty Years Later: Tipping Points Near on Global Warming"--headline, Puffington Host, June 23, 2008
• "Global Warming: Those Tipping Points Are Closer Than You Think"--headline, WSJ.com, April 29, 2009
• "Have We Reached the Tipping Point for Planet Earth?"--video title, StudioTalk.tv, May 11, 2010
• "Must-Read Hansen and Sato Paper: We Are at a Climate Tipping Point That, Once Crossed, Enables Multi-Meter Sea Level Rise This Century"--headline, ThinkProgress.org, Jan. 20, 2011
• "Earth: Have We Reached an Environmental Tipping Point?"--headline, BBC website, June 15, 2012
• "In spite of the continued released [sic] of 90 million tons of global warming pollution every day into the atmosphere, as if it's an open sewer, we are now seeing the approach of a global political tipping point."--Al Gore, interview with Washington Post, Aug. 21, 2013

So, here we are in 2019 with the world in better shape than it has ever been. The lowest rate of extreme poverty in the history of the world, no world wars, and, in America, record employment, especially among minorities along with a prosperous stock market. The number of major tornadoes is down. Hurricanes are not increasing in number or intensity. Droughts and floods are no more frequent.

If a Christian group had issued 13 (the number of "tipping points" and predictions above) wildly incorrect forecasts as to the second coming of Jesus they would be, rightly, mocked. Where is that accountability for climate 'science'? In fact, its inability to make reliable forecasts, by definition, calls into question whether predictive climate science is a science at all. 

As for Rep. Ocasio-Cortez's 12-year global warming forecast? Don't sweat it!!

A Suggestion to Young Meteorologists

Below is a screen capture of the 6-day ECMWF forecast temperature for the Chiefs - Patriots game played yesterday evening at Arrowhead Stadium. The forecast was for -14°F. [The wind chill was forecasted to be -24°!]

The actual temperature at 6pm was 19°... an error of 31°F. It was a terrible forecast. Had I thought there was even a slight chance that temperatures would have been that cold, you would have read about it here on the MSE Consulting Blog. You didn't because I was highly confident that forecast would be way off.

Why do I bring this up?

Even thought I am retired from weather forecasting, I care deeply about the future of the profession. Based on what I saw in the media, there were many meteorologists who bought into these excessively cold forecasts for the game and were broadcasting them about this time last week.

Advice to young meteorologists: In the wise words of SUNYA Professor Tom Stewart, an expert in how forecasts are made, "more models increase meteorologists' confidence but they do not improve accuracy." Focus on one or two mesoscale models for short-term forecasts and one model for longer term forecasts. Learn the biases of these models. 

I focus on the ECMWF model. Because I knew it over-forecasts temperature extremes, I knew not to believe the extreme temperature forecasts because the other conditions needed to bring Arctic temperatures to Kansas City (solid snow cover across central Canada and the central northern Great Plains, detached Polar Vortex far enough south, etc.) did not exist.

It is impossible to keep track of the biases of numerous models. You'll add a lot more value if you focus on really learning how to use 2-3 of them. Remember: the case for keeping human forecasters in the loop is so they can add value to the output of the models. If all you do is regurgitate the model output, you may, in the long run, be putting yourself out of a job.

While a Blizzard Warning is in Effect For the Northwest Part of Kansas...

...a fiery sky was present over Wichita at 5:55pm.

Should Be Required Viewing on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day

This is a long-form interview -- sadly, something TV news no longer does -- with Dr. King a few months before he was assassinated. I believe everyone who has not viewed it should watch the interview in its entirety.

MSE Creative Consulting: Upcoming Live Presentations

Here are my live appearances the next 30 days.

• East Wichita Rotary Club, Wednesday, noon. 
• Wichita Chapter, International Facility Manager's Association, February 7
• Chasercon, Keynote address & dinner, Hyatt Regency Wichita, February 9. Open to the public.

Hope to come and join us!!

Hurricanes Are NOT Increasing

In spite of what the media and global warming activists would have you believe, hurricanes are not increasing across the globe. As one report states,

Maria. Irma. Harvey. Sandy. Katrina. Andrew.

For coastal communities, the social, economic, and physical scars left behind by major hurricanes are devastating.

While hurricanes are a natural part of our climate system, recent research suggests that there has been an increase in intense hurricane activity in the North Atlantic since the 1970s. 

I could link to many more.

The facts are quite different.

Above is a graph updated through the end of 2018. There is no trend in the number of global landfalls in either mild or strong hurricanes. It is a shame there is so much mis-reporting of this fact.

Thank You, (Unpaid) National Weather Service

The NWS employees are working without timely pay because of the shutdown. Yesterday, they issued a critical tornado warning for Wetumpka, Alabama, which was hit by an upper-end EF-2 intensity tornado. No lives were lost in spite of the serious damage. 

The damage was major along a long path for a January tornado.

Thank you, National Weather Service employees!!

Sunday Fun: Music Theatre of Wichita

If you are a theatre buff, you know about Music Theatre of Wichita. Broadway experts like the late Robert Osborne (host of Turner Classic Movies) and Peter Felichia (Theatremania.com) believe "MTW" (as we call it) is far overdue for the Tony Award for outstanding regional theatre. The quality of MTW's productions? Read a sample review from Felichia here.

All of this leads up to a wonderful interview with MTW's Producing Director Wayne Bryan. The interview was done by KPTS, our PBS station.
Music Theatre's alumni include Broadway legends like Kristin Chenoweth, Kelli O'Hara, Carla Burns and many others.

Wichita is an amazing, undiscovered gem. I have mixed thoughts about that because our city is so special that I wonder if we'd lose some that if we experienced explosive growth. However, with more well-paying jobs than we can fill at the moment, now is a good time to tout our wonderful arts scene.

And, speaking of the region, I'll be cheering for the Kansas City Chiefs this afternoon and evening, so this will be the only posting of the day. 

Wind Power Bites Another State

Wind turbines near Beaumont, Kansas

And, this time it is my home in Kansas. According to the Wichita Eagle,

Here’s why the rates are higher, according to an energy cost analysis by the Kansas Corporation Commission and two days of hearings where KCC officials presented their findings to the state Senate Utilities Committee: The major Kansas utilities, Westar Energy and Kansas City Power & Light, spent billions of dollars in the past 10 years to build or retrofit coal-fired power plants to meet new federal emissions standards.

They’ve also spent hundreds of millions of dollars building wind farms and transmission lines to get the power to market, in order to meet a state mandate that 20 percent of the state’s energy come from renewable sources by 2020. That goal has already been met, although the state Legislature has since repealed the requirement.

Read more here: https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article224627000.html#storylink=cpy

In 2008, Kansas had among the lowest electric rates in the nation. Now, our rates are above average. This is what happens when politicians intervene in the marketplace.

It is even worse when global warming activists, by design, keep people poor and sick:

Modern energy access transforms lives in a myriad of ways. Energy not only powers lights that allow children to do homework and light streets to make them safer, but also the fridges that keep food hygienic and vaccines usable, the technology that brings healthcare and education into the modern age, and allows the economic development that can only be achieved through modern farming, commercial enterprise and industrialization.

By allowing the poor to stop cooking and heating with wood, cardboard and dung, modern energy also helps eliminate indoor air pollution, the world’s biggest environmental killer claiming 4.3 million lives annually.

We should always match the most appropriate fuel for the task. Effective decarbonization will occur when fossil fuels are replaced with reliable (wind isn't), inexpensive power such as third-generation nuclear, fusion or others under development.