Climate Disasters are a Result of Global Warming?

Almost everyday, we are told that some natural disaster is a result of global warming and its associated climate change.  Last year, 2014 was declared to be the hottest year ever.  California's drought is supposed to be a direct result of hotter and drier conditions.  When Katrina hit New Orleans, it was all because of global warming.

Logically, if all of the above were true, a place like Los Angeles (almost ground zero for the drought) would be seeing temperature records falling like rocks as the earth continued to warm.  To that point, I present this chart of historical averages and record lows and highs for Los Angeles from Intellicast, who maintains a massive database of historical weather data for many cities in the country:

click on image to enlarge

Contrary to supposed belief, there hasn't been a single-day's temperature record broken for any given month since 1990 when the city's all time high of 112 was established for June.  So, for 25 years, no records have been broken.  Also, the month of December's record high of 92 has stood for 77 years and the hottest 4th of July occurred way back in 1907.

Then, there's New Orleans;  ground zero for hurricane Katrina in 2005:

For this city, there hasn't been a record temperature broken since 1993; and the record for any day in February has stood since 1899.

Neither of these two cities has seen a high temperature record broken since the early 1990's. Either they have been exempt from global warming or, maybe it isn't as worrisome as we have been led to believe.   If 2014 was truly the hottest year on record, then, why were no records broken in any month for these two cities in that year?

It's a little hard to believe that rest of the world was hot while we remained cool in 2014.


References:

Climate Change Has Arrived in California (Op-Ed): http://www.livescience.com/38913-climate-change-has-arrived-in-california.html

Hurricane Katrina and global warming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Katrina_and_global_warming

Intellicast: Los Angeles: http://www.intellicast.com/Local/History.aspx?month=7

One for the Record Books: 2014 Officially Hottest Year: http://www.climatecentral.org/news/record-2014-hottest-year-18502

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Climate Change: Droughts More Severe in California?

By any measure, California's Governor, Jerry Brown, is one of the top climate change alarmists in the nation.  Recently, he has taken aim at Ted Cruz for being a climate denier by saying that he disqualifies himself for the presidency because of his contrary viewpoint on global warming. Brown has even gotten his Energy Commission on the bandwagon.  Their drought website claims that droughts are more severe than ever and now threaten California's water supply.

Well, I lived in Los Angeles in the 1950's and 1960's and the drought then was very severe.  So bad even, that one of the largest lakes in Southern California, Big Bear, looked like this:

Essentially, it was a mud puddle. All those white areas were formerly water.  I know because I was there to see it for myself. Today (actually August 2014), that same lake looks like this:

The fact is, that good water management has kept it from returning to its previous bleak condition. To say that the drought, today, is more severe is simply political bull. 

The real reason that a drought can be seen as more severe today, is population growth.  In 1950, California's total population was 10.6 million people.  Today, it is nearly 40 million (actually 38.3 million in 2013).  So, the rate of water usage is 4 times greater than in the 50's/60's. That's 4 times more people drinking, flushing, showering, and hot tubbing with whomever.

The fact is, that since the 1950's, the California legislature should have been preparing for the next drought instead of spending so much time banning plastic shopping bags and barring animals from mating in public within 1,500 feet of a tavern, school, or place of worship; or all the other crazy things California lawmakers have come up with in the land of fruits and nuts.  Maybe, then, they wouldn't now be scrambling to deal with a drought that isn't waiting at their doorsteps, but is already in the house.

References:

California Energy Commission: Water is a precious resource. A changing climate is resulting in droughts being more severe and pronounced and putting our water supply at risk: http://www.energy.ca.gov/drought/

Climate change threatens California and the world, Jerry Brown: http://www.latimes.com/local/political/la-me-pc-jerry-brown-california-climate-change-20140519-story.html

Big Bear Lake History: http://www.bbmwd.com/lake-history/

U.S. Population by State, 1790 to 2013:  http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.infoplease.com%2Fipa%2FA0004986.html&ei=xckRVdeuFIadgwSksIHYAw&usg=AFQjCNGgS0hWSQHuA8rvSGdJmvg7eCBV0Q&sig2=aLklwuIHjtrxVbPIQVEOfw&bvm=bv.89184060,d.eXY

Dumb Laws in California: http://www.dumblaws.com/laws/united-states/california

Stupid California Laws: http://www.idiotlaws.com/dumb_laws/california/

Al Gore Predicting The Return Of The Dust Bowl Proves His Lack Of Scientific Knowledge

Recently, in front of a Kansas City assemblage of sympathetic global warming believers, Al Gore reverted back to his old and stale "Inconvenient Truth" predictions that global warming will result in rising seas and increased floods, wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, or whatever natural disaster he could possibly think of. Of course, none of this crap that he's been selling for years is even near to being a "Truth" -- Inconvenient or otherwise -- thanks to a flat-lining of global temperatures since 1998.

Always the consummate soothsayer of gloom and doom, Al served up a very special treat for this Kansas audience by stating: “The Dust Bowl is coming back, quickly, unless we act.”  Thus evoking the memories of the 1930's when Kansas and the rest of the Great Plains were hit with drought and, subsequently, massive wind-driven waves of choking airborne dust.

What Al doesn't seem to understand is that Kansas and the Great Plains had always seen droughts in the past; never with such clouds of dust rising into the skies.  But, what made the 1930's so different was the fact that years of mechanized and deep plowing  destroyed the vegetation-bound topsoil which, in the past, had protected the land from turning into dust. Today, thanks to better soil management techniques such as cover crops and crop rotation and surface-only tillage, the days of the Dust Bowl years are very unlikely to ever happen again.

This just proves, once again, that Al Gore is more about being a "fire and brimstone" preacher who paints images of wrath to bring people into the fold, and less about "Truth" and true science.

References:

Al Gore Brings Climate Message To Kansas City: http://www.kansascity.com/2014/02/22/4843012/al-gore-brings-climate-change.html

Dust Bowl: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl

Obama's 'Drought' Ignorance

Desperately needing to strengthen the Democrat's environmental base in advance of the 2014 elections, Obama burned tons more carbon dioxide -- more than you or I would use in our lifetimes -- by flying Air Force One and its companion plane to the West Coast in order to link California's drought to climate change.  There, awaiting the President's arrival, was an entourage of heavy, armor-plated and extremely low-mileage limousines that had been advance airlifted in a  massive gas-guzzling military cargo plane.

Then after surveying some of the dry earth in the area,  the President stepped in front of the cameras and used the California drought as an example of climate change.  He even said that science had predicted it.  After that, his entourage whisked him off to one of the 9 well-manicured and deep-green golf courses in the area that are responsible for using up 17% of all the available water in that county.

Now, it's quite rare that the always-simpatico New York Times would ever take this President to task; but, they did this time.   And, well they should.   This is because he was so off base in linking California's drought to climate change or global warming that even the "Times" couldn't hold its tongue.  As the paper pointed out, computer modeling had never predicted a drought for California.  Instead, the "state" was supposed to have warmer and much wetter weather. Further, the same scientists that didn't see the drought coming, also can't predict when it will end.

Droughts, since the history of time, are an ever occurring fact of nature. Long before the itsy-bitsy carbon footprints of this country's first pilgrims arrived here, there was the Medieval period from 900 to 1500 A.D.  During that time, California had numerous and decades long droughts. In the 1950's, it was so bad that many of the Golden State's natural lakes were mere mud puddles.  The worst drought ever in the recorded history of this country took place during the dust bowl years of the 1930's.  Maybe, this most intelligent President overlooked Steinbeck's Classic "The Grapes of Wrath".

The bottom line is that California doesn't have a climate change problem when it comes to water. They have a population problem. A water usage and planning problem and, an environmental activism problem.

If the state's population was even 10% less than it is today, the drought wouldn't be an issue. The state has not built a single, new water retention facility in the last 30 years.  Yet, during that time, their population has grown by more than 32%.  On top of that, environmentalists have forced California to dump billions of gallons of excess reservoir water into the oceans in an effort to keep a few environmentally protected habitats from being flooded.  Additionally, they have blocked  desalinization of sea water, which would provide an endless source of fresh water, because the process might adversely affect sea life. Fortunately, the state's first desalinization plant is scheduled to go on line 2016.

Once again, the politicization of climate change by using false linkages, makes it less believable.  Though, to an ideologue like Obama, that doesn't seem to matter.


References:

New York Times: Science Linking Drought to Global Warming Remains Matter of Dispute: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/17/science/some-scientists-disagree-with-presidents-linking-drought-to-warming.html?_r=0

Time.com: Scientists fear California's long-ago era of mega-droughts could be back: http://science.time.com/2014/01/23/hundred-years-of-dry-how-californias-drought-could-get-much-much-worse/

Drought In the United States: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drought_in_the_United_States

The Man-Made California Drought: http://naturalresources.house.gov/issues/issue/?IssueID=5921

Desalination isn't the answer to California's water problem: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/nov/13/news/la-ol-ocean-water-desalination-20131112