This is not to single out Ms Donnelly. Dr Gerard Fleming, its head of forecasting and forecaster Evelyn Cusack have both been at pains in their recent public utterances on the almost unprecedented series of December flooding events to ensure no one could form the impression this latest freak weather is part of any larger pattern, or, heaven forbid, be actually be precisely what we can expect from climate change - Think or Swim Blog.
The above blog is quite clear - climate change is causing the recent floods in Ireland. What it doesn't tell you is that natural variability plays a significant part in events like these. The recent floods are happening because of the El Nino in the Pacific Ocean and changes in the Jetstream. When climate events occur that refuse to comply with Memo's issued by Climate Alarmists, we are told that these particular events are in fact due to natural variations :
But natural climate variability means there are plenty of local or temporary events – such as cold winters – that appear to contradict the warming trend. Some years see smaller pressure differences than normal – a condition scientists call the negative phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO). This causes the jet stream to weaken and to shift south to the Mediterranean, cutting off our supply of mild, Atlantic air and allowing more frequent incursions of cold air from continental Europe and Russia.
Scientists are still investigating what causes the negative NAO that brings us cold winter weather. Studies show an influence on the NAO from El Niño and La Niña – the spreading of warmer- or cooler-than-normal waters across the equatorial Pacific that is known to influence global climate patterns. There's also evidence that low phases of the sun's 11-year activity cycle might influence the NAO and thus bring cold winters to Britain - The Guardian, December 2011.
So Natural Variability is responsible for cold dry weather, but Climate Change is responsible for warm wet weather. Alarmists want to have their cake and eat it. Anyone keeping an eye on the jetstream can tell you that the recent mild December was 100% due to changes in the jetstream that brought warm air from the Equator to Ireland. This is in stark contrast to the past few winters when the jetstream was bringing cold Arctic air.
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| Jetstream brought warm air from the Equator in December 2015 |
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| December 2014 - the jetstream was bringing cold Arctic air to Ireland |
The floods in the Shannon and elsewhere have occurred in the recent past, namely - 1923, 1924, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1938, 1946, 1947, 1949 and 1950. Therefore, serious flooding in Ireland was a one-in-three-year-event from 1920 to 1950.
Its guidance on the IPCC science on emissions and, in particular, the need for ‘Early action…to reduce the chances of dangerous climate change’ is clear and leaves little room for the peddling of dangerous nonsense which, regrettably, still passes for discourse on climate change in parts of our media, most notably RTE’s flagship current affairs programme, ‘PrimeTime’. Its show, broadcast on December 3rd last, under the title ‘The cost of climate change’ featured a studio ‘debate’ so badly skewed and so blatantly misleading that, were it about almost any other subject than climate change, the editor of PrimeTime would by now be busy updating his CV for the 2016 jobs market - Think or Swim Blog.
However, this is what the IPCC actually has to say about flooding :
So Met Eireann are quite correct not to attribute the recent floods and wet weather to the bogeyman of "climate change". If climate change is occurring it will be a slow gradual process over many decades, with very slight gradual changes in temperature and weather. The problem for this theory is that there is not, as any scientist will tell you, a linear link between CO2 emissions and temperature increases. Instead, it is a logarithmic relationship, meaning that most of the warming due to CO2 emissions had already occurred before man discovered how to use fossil fuels.
In summary, there continues to be a lack of evidence and thus low confidence regarding the sign of trend in the magnitude and/or frequency of floods on a global scale - IPCC, 2013, p.112.
And what is the trend for winter weather in recent times ? An analysis done in a previous Irish Energy Blog article shows that in five of the past seven winters (from 2009 to 2015), temperatures were below the long term average and the climate was drier than average.
Unfortunately, those who shout the loudest get heard more than those who use cool and calm scientific analysis (See for example RTE Prime Time programme on December 3rd featuring Ray Bates and Prime Time debate from 2007 featuring Morgan Kelly on the banking situation). So we will probably see more and more of the Irish media and institutions bending to pressure from the hysterical doomsdayers.
I would have expected a genuine green movement to have a policy on world population reduction. I think it is reasonable to say that developed countries are finding it difficult to replace their numbers, while underdeveloped third world countries are producing more children than they need.
ReplyDeleteSo why not offer poor third world people electricity, gas, health care, clean water, sanitation and include in the package advice and help on population control and minding the jungle too? I think we all agree that an ever increasing population is probably unsustainable, particularly for those who believe the warming theory. However, an increasing population does help greens promote the vision of massive migration from all the heat.
What are the Greens top priories? I don't see population control in there at all. Strange!
They claim industry can be run on wind energy, but we know it cannot. So do they.
When I was a young boy, there was still a remnant of the ruling classes, They looked down their noses at people living in local authority houses of whom most were very decent people. There was a rural class structure in Ireland and in Germany which idealised traditional ways of life and position in society. They were best represented by the Blue Shirt movement (Fine Gael) and the NAZI movement (Hitler). It existed in Britain too, but the industrial revolution allowed lower classes rise up. They were accommodated, they shot, hunted, golfed to choice. The existence of Kingscourt's mineral and agricultural resources and the emergence of home grown and international industry in the North East (Gypsum, the Brick factory) and better farming methods changed this here before my eyes.
The children of those council house tenants, the children of those small farmers have now risen to a much more prosperous lifestyle. The Kingscourt class structure is all but gone. Fianna Fail and Labour and a more equality minded Fine Gael, have concentrated on industrial production where progress is measured by the amount of fuel burned and lorry tyres used. The greens want that halted. The NAZI's tried to halt it. Their hatred of the Jews was based on the fact that the Jews were bankers who lent them money. When they asked the money to be repaid, it was a different story. They wanted to hold their land, but they could not make enough money from it. They did not want capitalism.
Slavery, British, Irish, German class ridden societies were founded on rural class structures. Capitalism and off farm industry are what breaks it down. Capitalism allows the bright youth to realise his/her dream without the constraints of class. It has proved to be the best kind of population control ever tried. 2 and 3 child families are the norm in East Cavan, It used to be 7,8,9, and one local woman who died lately had 15. The average family size of her children is 3.
The green agenda aims to drive us back to feudalism and carbon traders, but most important of all is it aims to control energy now. When you control energy, you can limit the march of the lower classes and hold you position. That's was the attitude of the upper class in Kingscourt and that was the attitude of the NAZI's and is now the attitude of the Greens. The population in Kingscourt and Ireland generally is self regulating, just adequate replacement. Same in Germany.
It was doing well, until this Green/NAZI backward looking ideology was adopted by governments. A whole way of political thinking to promote sustainability by all of Ireland’s politicians beginning with T.K, Whitaker and Sean Lemass is now to be dumped for the ideals of the Green party with 2 % of the vote, You can guess who those 2% really are and why the EU refuses to allow assessment of renewables. It' a hidden agenda, pure and sinister.