Cato Institute scholars Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger have produced a layman-friendly yet thoroughly referenced draft report summarizing “the important science that is missing from Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States,” a U.S. Government document underpinning the EPA’s December 2009 endangerment rule, the foundation of all of the agency’s greenhouse gas (GHG) regulations.

Pat and Chip’s draft report, titled Addendum: Climate Change Impacts in the United States, is a sober antidote to the climate fear-mongering patronized by the Obama administration, mainstream media, the U.N., corporate rent seekers, and the green movement. Among the best features are the numerous graphics, some of which I will post here.

Taking these in no particular order, let’s begin with the scariest part of Al Gore’s “planetary emergency”: sea-level rise. Is the rate of sea-level rise dangerously accelerating? No. Over the 20th century, there was considerable decadal variation in the rate of sea-level rise but no long-term trend.

Decadal rate of sea level rise from satellites (red curve) appended to the decadal rate of global sea level rise as determined from a nine-station tide gauge network for the period 1904–2003 (blue curve) and from a 177-station tide gauge network for the period 1948–2002 (magenta). Adapted from Holgate, S.J., 2007: On the decadal rate of sea level change during the 20th century. Geophysical Research Letters, 34, doi:10.1029/2006 GL028492

The UN IPCC Fouth Assessment Report (2007) famously concluded that “most of the observed increase in global average temperature since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” However, recent studies attribute components of the observed warming to other factors. Adding up those contributions, Pat and Chip calculate that greenhouse gas concentrations account for less than half of the observed warming since 1950.

“Observed” global average temperature anomalies from 1950–2010 (red) and “adjusted” global temperature anomalies after accounting for non-greenhouse gas influences from a cold bias in sea surface temperatures, a warm bias in land temperatures, increases in stratospheric water vapor, and revised estimates of the warming effect from black carbon aerosols (blue). The trend through the adjusted temperature anomalies is less than half the trend in the original “observed” data series. [Sources provided in footnotes 67-73 on p. 34.] 

Climate models typically overestimate actual warming, indicating that they overestimate climate sensitivity (the amount of warming resulting from a given increase in GHG concentrations).

During the 15 year period from 1997-2011, the observed rate of global warming as derived from the five major compilations of global average surface temperatures (GISS (red), NOAA (green), Hadley Center (dark blue), MSU satellite—University of Alabama version (yellow) and MSU satellite (Remote Sensing Systems version (light blue) falls out in the left-hand tail of the distribution of model projected trends of the same length (grey bars).

Is the recent Midwest drought evidence that our fuelish ways are destabilizing the climate system? No. There is no long-term trend in U.S. soil moisture such as might be correlated with the increase in atmospheric GHG concentrations.

The Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) shows no trend in the area of the nation experiencing drought or excessive wetness over the period of record that begins in 1895.

In fact, throughout the U.S., soil moisture in the 20th century increased in more areas than it declined.

Source: Andreadis, K.M., and D.P. Lettenmaier, 2006: Trends in 20th century drought over the continental United States. Geophysical Research Letters, 33, L10403, doi:10.1029/2006GL025711

Okay, but as the world warms (and as urban heat islands expand), there are going to be more heat waves, and more people will die, right? Yes and no. “Mortality from heat waves declines as heat wave frequency increases, and deaths from extreme cold decline dramatically as cold air preferentially warms.” Cities with the most frequent hot weather, such as Phoenix, AZ and Tampa, FL, have virtually no heat-related mortality.

 Average heat-related mortality in U.S. urban areas has declined nationwide; subsequent research shows this trend continues into the 21st century. [Sources: Davis RE, et al., 2003. Changing Heat-Related Mortality in the United States. Environmental Health Perspectives 111, 1712–18. Kalkstein, L.S., et al., 2011. An evaluation of the progress in reducing heat-related human mortality in major U.S. cities. Natural Hazards 56, 113-129.]

Is global warming spinning up ever more powerful tropical cyclones? In the Atlantic Basin, there has been no long-term trend in the accumulated cyclone energy (ACE) index (which combines the duration and intensity of each storm into a seasonal total).

Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) index for the Atlantic Basin from 1851 through 2010. There is obviously no relationship to long-term temperature rise or GHG concentrations. Data available at http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/E11.html.

Nor has there been a long-term increase in ACE globally since 1970.

Global hurricane activity as measured by the ACE index has been in general decline since the early 1990s and as of 2011 was near its 40-year low. Source: Maue, R.N., 2011: Recent historically low global tropical cyclone activity. Geophysical Research Letters, 38, L14803, doi:10.1029/2011GL047711

Is global warming altering wind patterns such that more hurricanes are striking the U.S.? There has been no long-term trend in the number of hurricanes and major (category 3-5) hurricanes making landfall in the U.S.

U.S. landfalling decadal hurricane counts reached their maximum in the 1940s. Source: Blake, E.S., C.W. Landsea, and E.J. Gibney, 2011: The deadliest, costliest, and most intense United States tropical cyclones from 1851 to 2010 (and other frequently requested hurricane facts). NOAA Technical Memorandum NWS NHC-6, National Weather Service, National Hurricane Center, Miami, FL, http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/pdf/nws-nhc-6.pdf

Okay, but apart from hurricanes, has the area of the U.S. experiencing extreme weather expanded as GHG concentrations have increased? The National Climate Data Center’s Climate Extremes Index (CEI) plots the ”fraction of the area of the United States experiencing extremes in monthly mean surface temperature, daily precipitation, and drought.” The CEI has increased since 1970 but the current weather regime “clearly resembles that of the early 20th century, long before major greenhouse gas emissions.”

Climate extreme index, not counting tropical storms and hurricanes, 1920-2010. Source: Gleason, K.L., et al., 2008: A revised U.S. Climate Extremes Index. Journal of Climate, 21, 2124-2137.

But surely, tornadoes are more frequent now than ever, and what else can explain this except the increase in GHG concentrations? Actually, it’s the ability to detect small tornadoes that has increased. If we consider just the large tornadoes (F3-F5) that have been detectable for decades, there is no trend.

Number of strong U.S. tornadoes, 1950–2011. Source: NCDC, U.S. Tornado Climatology, 7 March 2012, at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/severeweather/tornadoes.html, visited 11 May 2012.

But tornadoes are killing more people, right? Nope.

U.S. tornado death rate, 1900–2011. Sources: Updated from Goklany (2009a), using USBC (2011); NWS, Hazard Statistics at http://www.weather.gov/os/hazstats.shtml, accessed May 11, 2012; NWS, Storm Prediction Center, Annual U.S. Killer Tornado Statistics, at http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/torn/fataltorn.html, accessed May 11, 2012.

The same holds for mortality rates and extreme weather generally:

For the U.S., the cumulative average annual deaths from extreme weather events declined by 6% from 1979–1992 to 1993–2006 (despite a 17% increase in population), while all-cause deaths increased by 14%. [Source: Goklany, I.M. 2009. Deaths and Death Rates from Extreme Weather Events: 1900-2008. Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons 14, 102-09]

Hurricane damages keep going up and up, but that’s due to the ongoing rise in population and development in coastal areas. When hurricane damage is adjusted for changes in population, wealth, and inflation, there is no long-term trend.

U.S. tropical cyclone damage adjusted for inflation, population growth and wealth, 1900-2012 [Note - I am using a more updated graph than the one appearing in Addendum. Source: Pielke et al. 2008. Normalized Hurricane Damage in the United States: 1900-2005, Natural Hazards Review, DOI: 10.1061/1527-6988, 9:1(29), updated 12/31/2012].

Okay, but warmer temperatures mean more photo-chemical smog and worse air pollution, right? Only if air pollutant emissions stay the same, but emissions have declined on average by 67% since 1980. Further declines are projected as auto fleets and capital stock are replaced by newer, cleaner models.

Despite an increasing population, energy consumption, and economic productivity, U.S. pollution emissions declined by 67% since 1980. [Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Air Trends, http://epa.gov/airtrends/index.html]

Whatever risks climate change may pose to U.S. agriculture in the future, warming historically has not been associated with reductions in crop yield.

U.S. Cotton, corn and wheat yields, 1866–2010 [Source: National Agricultural Statistics Service, QuickStats 1.0 (2010), available at http://www.nass.usda.gov/Statistics by_Subject/index.php?sector=CROPS, downloaded December 26, 2010]

Remember the U.N. Environment Program’s (UNEP) November 2005 prediction that there would be as many as 50 million climate refugees by 2010? Not only did those displaced populations fail to materialize, some of the areas UNEP supposed would be hardest hit by climate change impacts experienced rapid population increases. Something similar is going on right here in the USA. Decade by decade, millions of Americans vote with their feet to live in warmer climates.

U.S census data show that the largest percent increases in population are in the relatively dry and hot Pacific Southwest, the moist and hot southeast Texas, and the Florida peninsula.

But ‘everybody knows’ that global warming is the worst threat facing humanity. Okay then explain this: Why do U.S. (and global) population, per capita income, and life expectancy keep rising along with carbon dioxide emissions?

U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, population, GDP per capita (affluence) and life expectancy at birth, 1900-2009. [Source: Goklany, I.M. 2009. Have increases in population, affluence and technology worsened human and environmental well-being? The Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development 1(3), updated using the Statistical Abstract of the United States 2011, and National Vital Statistics Report 59 (4): 1; CDIAC (2010); GGDC (2010)]

Well, that should be enough to whet your appetite to read Addendum. I’ll conclude this post by reproducing the draft report’s ”key findings.”

Key Findings:

1. Climate change is unequivocal, and human activity plays some part in it. There are two periods of warming in the 20th century that are statistically indistinguishable in magnitude. The first had little if any relation to changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide, while the second has characteristics that are consistent in part with a changed greenhouse effect. (p. 17)
2. Climate change has occurred and will occur in the United States. U.S. temperature and precipitation have changed significantly over some states since the modern record began in 1895. Some changes, such as the amelioration of severe winter cold in the northern Great Plains, are highly consistent with a changed greenhouse effect. (pp. 38–56, 187–92)
3. Impacts of observed climate change have little national significance. There is no significant long-term change in U.S. economic output that can be attributed to climate change. The slow nature of climate progression results in de facto adaptation, as can be seen with sea level changes on the East Coast. (pp. 48–49, 79–81, 155–58, 173–74)
4. Climate change will affect water resources. Long-term paleoclimatic studies show that severe and extensive droughts have occurred repeatedly throughout the Great Plains and the West. These will occur in the future, with or without human-induced climate change. Infrastructure planners would be well-advised to take them into account. (pp. 57–71)
5. Crop and livestock production will adapt to climate change. There is a large body of evidence that demonstrates substantial untapped adaptability of U.S. agriculture to climate change, including crop-switching that can change the species used for livestock feed. In addition, carbon dioxide itself is likely increasing crop yields and will continue to do so in increasing increments in the future. (pp. 102–18)
6. Sea level rise caused by global warming is easily adapted to. Much of the densely populated East Coast has experienced sea level rises in the 20th century that are more than twice those caused by global warming, with obvious adaptation. The mean projections from the United Nations will likely be associated with similar adaptation. (pp. 173–74)
7. Life expectancy and wealth are likely to continue to increase. There is little relationship between climate and life expectancy and wealth. Even under the most dire climate scenarios, people will be much wealthier and healthier in the year 2100 than they are today. (pp. 139–45, 158–61)
8. Climate change is a minor overlay on U.S. society. People voluntarily expose themselves to climate changes throughout their lives that are much larger and more sudden than those expected from greenhouse gases. The migration of U.S. population from the cold North and East to the much warmer South and West is an example. Global markets exist to allocate resources that fluctuate with the weather and climate. (pp. 154–69)
9. Species and ecosystems will change with or without climate change. There is little doubt that some ecosystems, such as the desert West, have been changing with climate, while others, such as cold marine fisheries, move with little obvious relationship to climate. (pp. 119–38, 208)
10. Policies enacted by the developed world will have little effect on global temperature. Even if every nation that has obligations under the Kyoto Protocol agreed to reduce emissions over 80 percent, there would be little or no detectable effect on climate in the policy-relevant timeframe, because emissions from these countries will be dwarfed in coming decades by the total emissions from China, India, and the developing world. (pp. 28, 211)

The wind energy production tax credit (PTC) expires at the stroke of midnight, Dec. 31, unless Congress votes to renew the tax break. A one-year extension would add an estimated $12.1 billion to deficit spending over 10 years. A six-year extension, advocated by the wind industry, could add $50 billion.

The fiscal cliff looms and the national debt already exceeds GDP, but if Congress cared more about the general interest of taxpayers than about the special interests of campaign contributors, the nation would not be sliding towards insolvency.

Whether Congress should renew the PTC or let it expire is the topic of this week’s National Journal Energy Experts Blog. Twenty wonks weigh in, including your humble servant. I heartily recommend the contributions by Sen. Lamar Alexander (R.-Tenn.), Craig Rucker, Phil Kerpin, Benjamin Zycher, Thomas Pyle, James Valvo, and David Banks.

My contribution addresses the environmental side of the debate, in particular the claim that recent extreme weather events demonstrate “just how badly our nation needs to take advantage of our vast wind energy potential,” as one contributor put it.

Below is a lightly edited version of my comment.

* * *

Of all the lame arguments used to sell Americans on the proposition that wind power, an industry propped up by Soviet-style production quota in 29 states and numerous other policy privileges, deserves another renewal of the 20-year-old production tax credit (PTC), the lamest is the claim that the PTC helps protect us from extreme weather.

PTC advocates talk as if Hurricane Sandy and the Midwest drought were obvious consequences of anthropogenic global warming, and that subsidizing wind energy is a cost-effective way to mitigate climate change.

They are wrong on both counts.

Neither economic analyses nor meteorological investigations validate the asserted link between recent extreme weather events and global warming. When weather-related damages are adjusted (“normalized”) to account for changes in population, per capita income, and the consumer price index, there is no long-term trend such as might indicate an increase in the frequency or severity of extreme weather related to global climate change.

A 2012 study in the journal Climate Change  examined 370 years of tropical cyclone data from the Lesser Antilles, the eastern Caribbean island chain bisecting the main development region for landfalling U.S. hurricanes. The study found no long-term trend in either the power or frequency of tropical cyclones from 1638 to 2009. It did however find a 50- to 70-year wave pattern associated with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a mode of natural climate variability.

A recent study in the Journal of Climate similarly found no long-term trend in the strength or frequency of landfalling hurricanes in the world’s five main hurricane basins. The data extend back to 1944 for the North Atlantic, to 1950 for the northeastern Pacific, and to 1970 for the western North Pacific, northern Indian Ocean, and Southern Hemisphere. Among other inconvenient findings: “The U.S. is currently in the midst of the longest streak ever recorded without an intense [category 3-5] hurricane landfall.”

Sandy was not even a category 1 hurricane by the time it made landfall. New York has been hit with more powerful storms at least as far back as the 17^th century. For example, the New England Hurricane of 1938 was a category 3 that killed 600 people. Carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in 1938 were about 310 parts per million (ppm), well below the level (350 ppm) advocated by NASA scientist James Hansen, activist Bill McKibben, and Al Gore as the upper limit consistent with climate stability.

What made Sandy so destructive was the hurricane’s merging with a winter frontal storm to produce what MIT climatologist Kerry Emanuel calls a “hybrid” storm. The usual suspects, of course, were quick to suggest that any such ‘freak of nature’ must be man-made. That is speculation, not science. In Emanuel’s words:  “We don’t have very good theoretical or modeling guidance on how hybrid storms might be expected to change with climate. So this is a fancy way of saying my profession doesn’t know how hybrid storms will respond to climate [change]. I feel strongly about that. I think that anyone who says we do know that is not giving you a straight answer. We don’t know.”

As for the Midwest drought, if it were a symptom of global climate change, then there should be a long-term positive trend in the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI). Instead, as Cato Institute scholars Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger point out, the PDSI from 1895 through 2011 is slightly negative, i.e., the trend is towards a somewhat wetter climate.

But here’s the kicker. Even if one assumes fossil fuel emissions revved up Sandy and the Midwest drought, extending the PTC for another year – or even another six, as advocated by the American Wind Energy Association – would provide no protection from climate-related risk.

Using IPCC climate sensitivity assumptions, Knappenberger calculates that even if the U.S. eliminated all CO2 emissions tomorrow, the impact on global temperatures would be a reduction ”of approximately 0.08°C by the year 2050 and 0.17°C by the year 2100 — amounts that are, for all intents and purposes, negligible.”

The U.S. will continue to emit billions of tons of CO2 annually for decades whether Congress extends the PTC or not. Hence even under IPCC climate sensitivity assumptions, the PTC is climatologically irrelevant and can provide no meaningful protection from extreme weather events.

Extending the PTC for one year could increase the national debt by $12.1 billion. A six-year extension could add more than $50 billion to the debt. As global warming policy, the PTC is all taxpayer pain for no climate gain.

Numerous politicians, pundits, and activists, and even some scientists blame fossil-fuel emissions for the death and devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy. Such allegations are ideological, not scientific.

As noted previously on this blog, when hurricane damages are adjusted (“normalized”) to account for changes in population, per capita income, and the consumer price index, there is no long-term trend such as might indicate an increase in hurricane frequency or power related to global climate change.

Moreover, 370 years of tropical cyclone data from the Lesser Antilles (the eastern Caribbean island chain that bisects the main development region for landfalling U.S. hurricanes) show no long-term trend in either power or frequency but a 50- to 70-year wave pattern associated with the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, a mode of natural climate variability. 

A new study by Jessica Weinkle (University of Colorado), Ryan Maue (Naval Research Laboratory), and Roger Pielke, Jr. (University of Colorado) dumps more cold water on claims that global warming significantly (detectably) influences hurricane behavior.

The researchers examined data on the number and power of hurricanes making landfall in the five main hurricane basins: North Atlantic, northeastern Pacific, western North Pacific, northern Indian Ocean, and Southern Hemisphere. The data extend back to 1944 for the North Atlantic, to 1950 for the northeastern Pacific, and to 1970 for the other basins. The data for all basins is current through 2010.

Here’s what Weinkle, Maue, and Pielke, Jr. found:  

We have identified considerable interannual variability in the frequency of global hurricane landfalls; but within the resolution of the available data, our evidence does not support the presence of significant long-period global or individual basin linear trends for minor, major, or total hurricanes within the period(s) covered by the available quality data. Therefore, our long-period analysis does not support claims that increasing TC [tropical cyclone] landfall frequency or landfall intensity has contributed to concomitantly increasing economic losses.

Figure explanation: Red bars indicate the number of major (category 3-5) hurricanes, blue bars indicate the number of minor (category 1-2) hurricanes.

Pielke Jr.’s blog provides an update for North Atlantic hurricanes through November 2012. Extending the study period to include Hurricane Sandy (which, incidentally, was downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it made landfall) doth not a long-term trend make!

Pielke, Jr. points out some interesting details from the updated study, such as:

• 1971 had the most global landfalls with 30, far exceeding the second place, 25 in 1996.
• 2011 tied for second place for the fewest global landfalls with 10 (and 3 were intense, tying 1973, 1981 and 2002). 
• The US is currently in the midst of the longest streak ever recorded without an intense hurricane landfall. 
• There have been frequent four-year periods with more than 25 landfalling major hurricanes, or more than a 100% increase of what has been observed over the past 4 years. 

Pielke, Jr. concludes: “Anyone who’d like to argue that the world is experiencing a ‘new normal’ with respect to tropical cyclones is simply mistaken.”

But, someone might say, 1970 roughly marks the advent of the “anthropocene,” the era in which fossil-fuel emissions start to mess up the climate; earlier eras had calmer weather. The Weinkle et al. study also contradicts that hypothesis. Pielke Jr. writes: 

There is even evidence in our paper (see our Figure 2) that the period before 1970 saw more intense hurricane landfalls than the period since. Older data from the North Atlantic and Western North Pacific (which together represents 64% of all global intense landfalling hurricanes 1970-2010 and 69% of all hurricanes) indicates that landfalling intense hurricanes in these two basins occurred at a 40% higher rate from 1950-1969 than 1970-2010. There were 9 intense landfalls in 1964 and 1965 in just these two basins, which equals the global record for all basins post-1970.

In a fiery speech yesterday, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) ”calls out” “climate deniers.” In the first half of the speech he goes ad hominem, attacking opponents as “front groups” who take payola from “polluters” to “confuse” the public by selling “doubt” as their product.

First a bit of free advice for the good Senator:

Your team has been playing nasty from day one. It didn’t get you cap-and-trade, it didn’t get you Senate ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, and it’s not going to get you a carbon tax.  

Vilification doesn’t work because biomass, wind turbines, and solar panels are not up to the challenge of powering a modern economy, and most Americans are too practical to believe otherwise.

So by all means, keep talking trash about your opponents. The shriller your rhetoric, the more skeptical the public will become about your bona fides as an honest broker of “the science.”

Okay, let’s examine Sen. Whitehouse’s argument. He accuses skeptics of peddling “straw man arguments,” such as that “the earth’s climate always changes; it’s been warmer in the past.” Well, it does, and it has! Many studies indicate the Medieval Warm Period (MWP) was warmer than the current warm period (CWP). A study published in July in Nature Climate Change concludes the Roman Warm Period (RWP) was warmer than both the MWP and CWP. The Northern Hemisphere was substantially warmer than the present for thousands of years during the Holocene Climate Optimum (~5,000-9,000 years ago). Arctic summer air temperatures were 4-5°C above present temperatures for millennia during the previous interglacial period.

None of this is evidence man-made global warming is not occurring, but Sen. Whitehouse sets up his own straw man by making that the main issue in dispute. What the paleoclimate information does indicate is that the warmth of the past 50 years is not outside the range of natural variability and is no cause for alarm. The greater-than-present warmth of the Holocene Optimum, RWP, and MWP contributed to improvements in human health and welfare. 

Sen. Whitehouse says skeptics also knock down a straw man when they deny extreme weather events prove the reality of climate change. “No credible source is arguing that extreme weather events are proof of climate change,” he states. Again, it’s Sen. Whitehouse who whacks a man of straw. The problem for skeptics is not that people like Al Gore or the editors of Bloomberg cite Hurricanes Katrina or Sandy as “proof” of global warming, it’s that they blame global warming (hence “polluters”) for Katrina and Sandy. They insinuate or even assert that were it not for climate change, such events would not occur or would be much less deadly. As the Senator does when he says climate change ”loads the dice” in favor of events like Sandy and is “associated with” such events.

I freely grant that heat waves will become more frequent and severe in a warmer world (just as cold spells will become less frequent and milder). However, there is no persuasive evidence global warming caused or contributed significantly to the European heat wave of 2003, the Russian heat wave of 2010, the Texas drought of 2011, or the U.S. midwest drought of 2012. A slew of scientific papers finds no long-term trend in Atlantic hurricane behavior, including a recent study based on 370 years of tropical cyclone data. Similarly, a U.S. Geological Survey study finds no correlation between flood magnitudes and atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in any region of the continental U.S. over the past 85 years.

More importantly, despite long-term increases in both CO2 concentrations and global temperatures since the 1920s, global deaths and death rates related to extreme weather declined by 93% and 98% respectively. The 93% reduction in annual weather-related deaths is particularly noteworthy because global population increased more than 300% since the 1920s.

Although weather-related damages are much bigger today, that is because there’s tons more stuff and lots more people in harm’s way. For example, more people live in just two Florida counties, Dade and Broward, than lived in all 109 coastal counties stretching from Texas to Virginia in the 1930s. When weather-related damages are adjusted (“normalized”) to account for changes in population, wealth, and inflation, there is no long-term trend. So although a “greenhouse signal” may some day emerge from weather-related mortality and economic loss data, at this point global warming’s influence, if any, is undetectable.

Sen. Whitehouse dismisses as a “gimmick” skeptics’ observation that there has been “no warming trend in the last ten years” (actually, the last 16 years).  He contends that the 20 warmest years in the instrumental record have occurred since 1981 ”with all 10 of the warmest years occurring in the past 12 years.” That may be correct, but it is beside the point. A decade and a half of no net warming continues the plodding 0.14°C per decade warming trend of the past 33 years. These data call into question the climate sensitivity assumptions underpinning the big scary warming projections popularized by NASA scientist James Hansen, the UN IPCC, and the UK Government’s Stern Review report.

Sen. Whitehouse says ”deniers tend to ignore facts they can’t explain away.” He continues: “For example, the increasing acidification of the oceans is simple to measure and undeniably, chemically linked to carbon concentrations in the atmosphere. So we hear nothing about ocean acidification from the deniers.” Not so. CO2Science.Org, a leading skeptical Web site, has an extensive (and growing) ocean acidification database. Almost every week the CO2Science folks review another study on the subject. Cato Institute scholars Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger also addressed the issue on their old Web site, World Climate Report. They don’t share Sen. Whitehouse’s alarm about ocean acidification, but they do not ignore it. The Senator should check his facts before casting aspersions.

Sen. Whitehouse quotes NOAA stating that the rate of global sea level rise in the last decade “was nearly double” the 20th century rate. That is debatable. Colorado State University researchers find no warming-related acceleration in sea-level rise in recent decades.

Here’s the big picture. Scary projections of rapid sea-level rise assume rapid increases in ice loss from Greenland. In a study just published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists used satellite gravity data to measure changes in Greenland’s ice mass balance from April 2002 to August 2011. The researchers estimate Greenland is losing almost 200 gigatons of ice per year. It takes 300 gigatons of water to raise sea levels by 1 millimeter, so Greenland is currently contributing about 0.66 mm of sea-level rise per year. At that rate, Greenland will contribute 6.6 centimeters of sea level rise over the 21st century, or less than 3 inches. Apocalypse not.

Sen. Whitehouse concludes by castigating Republicans for inveighing against unchecked entitlement spending and the fiscal burdens it imposes on “our children and grandchildren” while turning a blind eye to the perils climate change inflicts on future generations. But such behavior is not contradictory if the risk of fiscal chaos is both (a) more real and imminent than Al Gore’s “planetary emergency” and (b) more fixable within the policy-relevant future.

Here are two facts Sen. Whitehouse should contemplate. First, even if the U.S. were to stop emitting all CO2 tomorrow, the impact on global temperatures would be a reduction of “approximately 0.08°C by the year 2050 and 0.17°C by the year 2100 — amounts that are, for all intents and purposes, negligible,” notes Chip Knappenberger, whose calculations are based on IPCC climate sensitivity assumptions. Similarly, a study in Nature Climate Change concludes that aggressive climate change ”mitigation measures, even an abrupt switch to zero emissions, have practically no effect on sea level over the coming 50 years and only a moderate effect on sea level by 2100.”

Whether under a carbon tax, cap-and-trade, or EPA regulation, the U.S. would keep emitting billions of tons of CO2 annually for a long time. So whatever climate policies Sen. Whitehouse thinks Republicans should support would have no discernible impact on climate change risk. The costs of such policies would vastly exceed the benefits. Rejecting policies that are all pain for no gain is exactly what the custodians of America’s economic future are supposed to do.

Both the blogosphere and the mainstream media have been abuzz with commentary blaming global warming for Hurricane Sandy and the associated deaths and devastation. Bloomberg BusinessWeek epitomizes this brand of journalism. Its magazine cover proclaims the culpability of global warming as an obvious fact:

Part of the thinking here is simply that certain aspects of the storm (lowest barometric pressure for a winter cyclone in the Northeast) and its consequences (worst flooding of the New York City subway system) are “unprecedented,” so what more proof do we need that our fuelish ways have dangerously loaded the climate dice to produce ever more terrible extremes?

After all, argues Climate Progress blogger Brad Johnston, quoting hockey stick inventor Michael Mann, “climate change is present in every single meteorological event.” Here’s Mann’s explanation:

The fact remains that there is 4 percent more water vapor – and associated additional moist energy – available both to power individual storms and to produce intense rainfall from them. Climate change is present in every single meteorological event, in that these events are occurring within a baseline atmospheric environment that has shifted in favor of more intense weather events.

Well sure, climate is average weather over a period of time, so as climate changes, so does the weather. But that tautology tells us nothing about how much — or even how — global warming influences any particular event. Moreover, if “climate change is present in every single meteorological event,” then it is also present in ”good” weather (however defined) as well as “bad.”

Anthony Watts makes this criticism on his indispensable blog, noting that as carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations have risen, the frequency of hurricanes making landfall in the U.S. has declined.

The US Has Had 285 Hurricane Strikes Since 1850: ‘The U.S. has always been vulnerable to hurricanes. 86% of U.S. hurricane strikes occurred with CO2 below [NASA scientist James] Hansen’s safe level of 350 PPM.’

If there’s anything in this data at all, it looks like CO2 is preventing more US landfalling hurricanes.

Data Source: NOAA; Figure Source: Steve Goddard

Cato Institute climatologists Patrick Michaels and Chip Knappenberger put the point this way:

Global warming has to affect “the weather” in the United States, or anywhere else. Big deal. Changing the radiative properties of the atmosphere — which is what increasing carbon dioxide does — must alter the character of weather events as well as the climate. But how much? In reality, the amount of weather related to natural variability dramatically exceeds what is “added on” by global warming. This is obvious from a look at the “Climate Extremes Index” from the National Climatic Data Center …

Source: National Climate Data Center (Note: The graph above differs slightly from the one presented in Pat and Chip’s column because it incorporates NCDC’s tropical cyclone indicator.)

Michaels and Knappenberger go on to observe:

While it is true that this index has risen from a low point around 1970, it is also clear that it merely returned to values observed in the early 20th century. Did greenhouse gases raise the extremes index in the early 20th century? Obviously not.

Hurricanes are certainly less common in New York than in Florida or Louisiana, but if Sandy’s invasion of the Big Apple is evidence of global warming, then global warming has menaced the Empire State for centuries, because hurricanes have hit New York since before the industrial revolution.

Wikipedia has a List of New York Hurricanes going back to the 17th century. The strongest was the New England Hurricane of 1938, a category 3 storm that killed upwards of 600 people.

As I read the Wiki list, the following number of hurricanes have affected New York: 6 before 1800; 23 from 1800 to 1899; 11 from 1900 to 1949; 15 from 1950 to 1974; 21 from 1975 to 1999; and 19 from 2000 to the present (including Sandy). Each storm in the Wiki list is footnoted, usually with a link to the source referenced.

Lest anyone see a greenhouse “fingerprint” in the larger number of hurricanes since 1975, 16 were “remants” of tropical storms. In contrast, only one “remnant” is identified for 1950-1974 and none is identified for 1900-1949. No doubt New York experienced many hurricane remnants that were not identified as such before the advent of weather satellites and hurricane hunter aircraft.

Okay, but what about Sandy’s record-breaking storm surge — is that evidence global warming added extra oomph to the storm’s destructive power?

Anthony Watts posts an illuminating commentary by David Middleton, who compares Sandy’s estimated maximum storm surge with other hurricane surges in southern New England based on Donnelly et al., 2001. Middleton writes:

Hurricane Sandy’s unprecedented storm surge was likely surpassed in the New England hurricanes of 1635 and 1638. From 1635 through 1954, New England was hit by at least five hurricanes producing greater than 3 m storm surges in New England. Analysis of sediment cores led to the conclusion “that at least seven hurricanes of intensity sufficient to produce storm surge capable of overtopping the barrier beach (>3 m) at Succotash Marsh have made landfall in southern New England in the past 700 yr.” All seven of those storms occurred prior to 1960.

The early 1600s were the depth of the Little Ice Age, the coldest century of the past two millennia and possibly the coldest century since the cooling event of 8,200 years ago.

Anthony also posts a commentary by Caleb Shaw, who argues that the 11.2-foot storm surge from the 1821 Norfolk-Long Island Hurricane would likely have surpassed Sandy’s 13.8-foot surge had the same non-meteorological factors been present:

The people of the time reported a tide 13 feet above the ordinary high tide, but the best studies put the peak tide at 11.2 feet. Sandy reached 13.88 feet. . . .Simple arithmetic suggests the 1821 storm’s high water was 2.68 feet lower than Sandy’s. However the interesting thing about the 1821 storm is that it came barreling through at dead low tide. Tides in New York vary roughly 6 feet between low and high tides.

Therefore, to be fair, it seems you should add six feet to the 1821 storm, if you want to compare that storm with Sandy’s surge at high tide. This would increase the 1821 high water to 17.2 feet.

On top of that, you have to factor in the influence of the full moon during Sandy. That adds an extra foot to the high tide. Add an extra foot to the 1821 score and you have 18.2 feet.

Sandy was a category 1 hurricane before making landfall in the Northeast, which means many landfalling hurricanes, including some previous storms striking New York, had much higher wind speeds. What made Sandy a “superstorm” was the hurricane’s merging with a strong winter storm. MIT climatologist Kerry Emanuel calls Sandy a “hybrid” storm:

Hurricanes and winter storms are powered by completely different energy sources. The hurricane is powered by the evaporation of sea water. Winter storms are powered by horizontal temperature contrasts in the atmosphere. So hybrid storms are able to tap into both energy sources. That’s why they can be so powerful.

NASA scientist Roy Spencer provides a similar explanation:

It is basically the “perfect storm” scenario of the chance timing of a tropical cyclone merging with an extra-tropical winter-type storm. Without Hurricane Sandy off the coast, the strong trough over the eastern U.S. (caused by cold Canadian air plunging southward) would have still led to a nor’easter type storm forming somewhere along the east coast of the U.S. But since Hurricane Sandy just happens to be in the right place at the right time to merge with that cyclone, we are getting a “superstorm”.

This merger of systems makes the whole cyclone larger in geographical extent than it normally would be. And this is what will make the surface pressures so low at the center of the storm.

The immense area of the storm is also what enabled the winds to pile up huge masses of water into the big waves that pummeled the East Coast.

Is there a causal connection between global warming and the formation of hybrid storms? Not enough research has been done on this phenomenon to say one way or the other, Emanuel contends:

We don’t have very good theoretical or modeling guidance on how hybrid storms might be expected to change with climate. So this is a fancy way of saying my profession doesn’t know how hybrid storms will respond to climate [change]. I feel strongly about that. I think that anyone who says we do know that is not giving you a straight answer. We don’t know. Which is not to say that they are not going to be influenced by climate, it’s really to say honestly we don’t know. We haven’t studied them enough. It’s not because we can’t know, it is just that we don’t know.

But surely, the magnitude of the damage wrought by Sandy is evidence something is amiss with the global climate system, right? Actually, no, argues hurricane expert Roger Pielke, Jr. in a Wall Street Journal column.

In studying hurricanes, we can make rough comparisons over time by adjusting past losses to account for inflation and the growth of coastal communities. If Sandy causes $20 billion in damage (in 2012 dollars), it would rank as the 17th most damaging hurricane or tropical storm (out of 242) to hit the U.S. since 1900 — a significant event, but not close to the top 10. The Great Miami Hurricane of 1926 tops the list (according to estimates by the catastrophe-insurance provider ICAT), as it would cause $180 billion in damage if it were to strike today. Hurricane Katrina ranks fourth at $85 billion.

To put things into even starker perspective, consider that from August 1954 through August 1955, the East Coast saw three different storms make landfall — Carol, Hazel and Diane — that in 2012 each would have caused about twice as much damage as Sandy.

With respect to hurricane damages, the chief and as yet only discernible difference between recent and earlier decades is that ”There are more people and more wealth in harm’s way.” So there is an ‘anthropogenic’ component, but not the sort about which warmists complain. “Partly this [increase in damages] is due to local land-use policies, partly to incentives such as government-subsidized insurance, but mostly to the simple fact that people like being on the coast and near rivers,” Pielke, Jr. explains.

The upshot for policymakers? Since “even under the assumptions of the IPCC changes to energy policies wouldn’t have a discernible impact on future disasters for the better part of a century or more,” the “only strategies that will help us effectively prepare for future disasters are those that have succeeded in the past: strategic land use, structural protection, and effective forecasts, warnings and evacuations. That is the real lesson of Sandy.”

 New York Times environment blogger Andrew Revkin comes to a similar conclusion:

You can have this endless debate about, “Was this storm our fault?”  But the thing I’ve been trying to write on Dot Earth the last few days is that the impacts of this storm are 100 percent our fault. In other words, we make decisions every day as human beings about where to live, what kind of building codes, what kinds of subsidies for coastal insurance, and that’s where there’s no debate about the anthropogenic influence. The fact that the tunnels filled showed that we in New York City, New York State and this country didn’t make it a high priority to gird ourselves against a superstorm.

Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth bombarded audiences with image after image of hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, forest fires, and drought, creating the impression of a world in climate chaos. Gore blamed the alleged upsurge in extreme weather on global warming, that is, mankind’s sins of emission. One of Gore’s mighty pieces of evidence was a dramatic increase in insurance payments for weather-related damages. As he writes in his best-selling book of the same title:

Over the last three decades, insurance companies have seen a 15-fold increase in the amount of money paid to victims of extreme weather. Hurricanes, floods, drought, tornadoes, wildfires and other natural disasters have caused these losses [An Inconvenient Truth, p. 101].

Gore presented a chart similar to this one:

Seeing is believing, right? The problem, of course, is not merely that correlation (warmer weather/bigger losses) does not prove causation. More importantly, the economic data depicted in the chart have not been adjusted (“normalized”) to offset increases in population, wealth, and the consumer price index.

Consider this fact: More people today live in just two Florida counties, Dade and Broward, than lived in all 109 coastal counties from Texas to Virginia in 1930. Florida’s population grew by more than 17.5% in the past decade alone and today is 48% larger than in 1980. There’s tons more stuff in harm’s way than there used to be. No wonder damages are bigger than in the good old days!

Most studies that “normalize” economic loss data find no evidence of a trend towards more violent or destructive weather. Here, for example, is a chart from a study on normalized hurricane damages by Pielke, Jr et al. 2008:

Figure description: U.S. hurricane damages, 1900-2005, if all hurricane strikes had hit the same locations but with year 2005 population, wealth, and consumer price index.

A study published earlier this year in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (Bouwer, L.M. 2011. Have disaster losses increased due to anthropogenic climate change?) examines 22 previous studies on the oft-asserted link between climate change and weather-related damages.

Here’s what the researcher, Laurens M. Bouwer of the Institute for Environmental Studies in the Netherlands, found:

All 22 studies show that increases in exposure and wealth are by far the most important drivers for growing disaster losses. Most studies show that disaster losses have remained constant after normalization, including losses from earthquakes (see Vranes and Pielke 2009). Studies that did find increases after normalization did not fully correct for wealth and population increases, or they identified other sources of exposure increases or vulnerability changes or changing environmental conditions. No study identified changes in extreme weather due to anthropogenic climate change as the main driver for any remaining trend.

Bouwer concludes:

The studies show no trends in losses, corrected for changes (increases) in population and capital at risk, that could be attributed to anthropogenic climate change. Therefore, it can be concluded that anthropogenic climate change so far has not had a significant impact on losses from natural disasters.

CO2Science.Org has an excellent review of the Bouwer study. On a related issue, World Climate Report reviews a recent study finding no long-term increase in the number of Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes over the past 130 years. The apparent increase in storm frequency turns out to be an artifact of the data, that is, a product of the increase in spatial coverage and accuracy of hurricane monitoring systems.