A report released this week by Environment Missouri suggests climate change could make extreme weather events, such as droughts and storms, more common and possibly more severe.
The report states that research shows the U.S. has experienced an increase in heavy precipitation events, with the rainiest 1 percent of all storms delivering 20 percent more rain on average at the end of the 20th century than at the beginning.
That is called radar, which didn’t exist at the beginning of the twentieth century. Heavy rainfall events are not increasing, we just have much better spatial coverage now. Radar captures the peak rainfall in a region, whereas the odds of a rain gauge catching the peak are extremely low. The Joplin author has convinced himself that heavy rain events are increasing, but it simply isn’t true.
U.S. Historical Climatology Network
The report does not cite any information about the possibility of more tornadoes or the probability of more severe ones, such as the EF-5 tornado that struck Joplin on May 22. The research into climate change and tornadoes is inconclusive, said Ted Mathys, state advocate for Environment Missouri.
Actually, the data is quite conclusive. Severe tornadoes are declining.
state climate of missouri
Stone Mountain GA here:
Here in the sunny south when it rains it pours. My rain gauge (cleverly disguised as a beer mug with a flat bottom) constantly shows different amounts then the radio guy claims. 2011 was a drought year for metro Atlanta but not at my house. It probably evens out eventually but individual locations certainly vary significantly.
It’s like the high or low temperature measurements. If Roswell is the warmest town in the area that’s what they report. If it’s Newnan (50 miles away) that gets reported. My friend and neighbor, Liberal Dave, loves to claim that we have all these 100 degree days (global warming). When I point out that weather.com doesn’t show it he tells me that they are wrong because “everybody knows” it been 100 + for two weeks.
Why do they bother? I mean, how can a group of apparently intelligent people brainstorm ideas, and so consistently come up with the wrong results, when it’s fairly clear for the average layman to see the faults in their findings?
Or do they do it on prpose, thinking that we’re all too dumb to work it out for ourselves. Time after time they end up with egg on their faces, and another dent in their credibility. Astounding.
Surely it’s obvious to all that radar is going to produce a clearer picture of rainfall intensity than a collection of rain gauges can?
Why is it that everything is worse than before, when the accuracy of observation and recording now is so much more sophisticated than it used to be, and so a totally false picture is painted – whether it be tornados, hurricanes, rainfall or sunpots. Of course results now are going to be different.
What does the Justin Bieber fan club think of him this week?