It Hates Us, Precioussssss

From conservative science writer Michael Fumento we note the following series of compliments and high praises:

Chris Mooney is a left-wing writer who specializes in injecting politics into practically any scientific subject you can name. Mooney could make a case that there would be no cavities but for conservatives and the GOP. His latest book is called Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle over Global Warming.

But as Steve McIntyre, the guy who put egg all over the face of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies for overstating U.S. global warming, notes and shows in charts: "At this point, despite a couple of intense hurricanes, 2007 is even quieter thus far than 2006."

....As to Mooney, is it really fair to say a mere two-year stretch undercuts his position? Why not? Despite any statistics he may have to twist, er, offer, the fact is his book is essentially based on just one year, 2005. In fact, but for just two storms - Katrina and Rita - neither his propaganda nor the entire massive push to either blame both recent and future hurricanes on global warming wouldn't exist.

I really like the part about cavities. Hmm...is the GOP anti-fluoridation?

Seriously, though: As I explain in my latest "Storm Pundit" column, McIntyre is looking at the 2007 season using one set of metrics--storm days, hurricane days, and accumulated cyclone energy--according to which it has been quiet out there. But other metrics suggest the year is just above average. It's all about how you slice and dice the data.

In any event, there's no place for comments on Fumento's blog that I can see....so feel free to leave your comments here instead.

More like this

There are inevitably plenty of typos, but after the jump I've pasted in the transcript of my Science Friday conversation with NPR's Ira Flatow about hurricanes and global warming. Callers raised several interesting questions. Enjoy. National Public Radio (NPR) August 24, 2007 Friday SHOW: Talk Of…
In anticipation of the start of hurricane season, today's Science Times had a pair of great articles on hurricanes, global warming, and coastal defenses in the U.S. I have just put up a post at Huffington Post, entitled Risky Scenarios, that comments on the latest Times package. You can read it…
My new book, Storm World, will not be out for another two months yet; it hits in early July. However, the early reviews are coming in from outlets serving the literary and publishing industry such as Publishers Weekly and Kirkus Reviews. And I'm now tremendously pleased to be able to report that…
Well well well. 15 named storms this year after all. The last (um, we think) is in the Caribbean right now, spinning way past the season's official endpoint. Its name is Olga. It started out subtropical, but has since become a fully tropical storm with maximum sustained winds of 50 knots at its…

It's all about how you slice and dice the data.

Man, that is so going to come back and bite you.

I think "US Global Warming" pretty much describes his worldview.

That first sentence from Fumento is funny. You document how conservatives have distorted and abused science to support their positions and Fumento blames you for "injecting politics".

His last paragraph is a prize, too. One nugget of truth, (since you did write about 2005), a bit of fake fairness ("Why not?", indeed), a deniable accusation of distortion, and an unsupported and grammatically borked conclusion.

"overstating U.S. global warming"

What the language is that? You could have "global warming" or you could have
"US warming" but you sure as hell can't have "US global warming". Maybe Fumento
should sign up for an ESL class.

Amazingly enough this water-boarding of the English language doesn't suffice. It would have to read "contiguous US global warming" to make the statement true.

If the US has the "world" series of baseball, why not have US global warming? But on a more serious and related note, carbon emissions from US energy production integrated back over the average atmospheric lifetime of CO2 dwarfs all other contributions. So, yeah, US global warming sort of makes sense.

Heh. Fumento is consistently ridiculous enough to have his own category over at Deltoid. And I have to agree that "U.S. global warming" is both funny and (for Fumento) appropriate.

"Chris Mooney is a left-wing writer who specializes in injecting politics into practically any scientific subject you can name."

I thought that this injection was a specialty of the Bush government. Or that's what I gathered from "The Republican War on Science", anyway. Did I get something wrong...?

By Christophe Thill (not verified) on 05 Oct 2007 #permalink

Fumento doesn't even get McIntyre right. His first column about the GISS adjustment mixed up the concept of "global" with "United States". Several other conservative columnists eager to make a pundit point did the same thing. I couldn't tell if it was deliberate or accidental; if it was deliberate they did a clever job of conflation. If it was accidental then their writing was just plain confused. (Not surprising.)

Courtnix,
Yet arguably the most conservative member of congress not only understands the threats posed by global warming, but the more immediate, potentially catastrophic threat--the immiment arrival of peak oil.

I find it curious that "peak oilers" are quite aware of climate change issues, but the opposite often is not true. I wonder if it is because peak oil so far is generally below the radar of the mainstream media, whether environmentalists believe what the government and big oil have to say on the issue, or whether climate change is considered to be more "sexy" for the eco-ennvironmental crowd and therefore by choice are poorly informed on the subject.

The silence is deafening.

By Eric the Leaf (not verified) on 05 Oct 2007 #permalink

No individual year is ever average. So if "But other metrics suggest the year is just above average" is the best you can do, you're not doing so good.

Unfortunately, there is a small piece of the right that IS still anti-fluoridation. And I have a forthcoming article critical of them, though not on fluoride but on their opposition to mandatory childhood vaccines and their mis- or disinformation on the preservative thimerosal. (That said, libs like RFK Jr. are in the same bed.)

That's called trying to pull the politics OUT of science, not injecting them in. But I will concede that what you do is much more popular and pays far better. People love to be spooked, whether over childhood vaccines or climate. No mainstream publisher would consider for more than five seconds a book saying that global warming is real, as I do believe, but has nothing to do with storms.

Hi Michael,
Thanks for dropping in. Question: If global warming is real, how could it possibly have nothing to do with storms?

Ask any scientist: If the climate changes, then hurricanes pretty much have to change too. The real question is how and how much, and we just don't know at the moment.

Mr. Fumento,

If you're following along, I was wondering if you're ever going to acknowledge the huge mistake you made in the second paragraph of your article "James Hansen's Hacks" --

If you follow the global warming debate, one thing you "know" is that to even call it a "debate" is to whisk yourself away to the land of the Flat Earth Society and Holocaust deniers and to be on the take from Big Carbon. Another is that nine of the ten warmest years recorded in the U.S. lower 48 since 1880 have occurred since 1995, with the very hottest being 1998.

The mistake is that 10 of the ten warmest years GLOBALLY since 1880 have occurred since 1995 -- NOT in the U.S. lower 48.

This link has the NOAA (not NASA) summary of the top 25 warmest years in the United States. You will note that only four (4) years since 1995 rank in the top 10.


The Race for the Title of Warmest Year on Record

Regarding the global temperatures, what you quoted incorrectly also comes from NOAA, according to this article:


Conflicting Claims on Global Warming and Why It's All Moot

An honorable man, Mr. Fumento, would make a public retraction of this error. Your mistake served to set up your subsequent attacks on James Hansen -- had you stated it correctly, the nature of your attack would have had to be substantially muted.

You were not the only one to make this error, as I noted above. You could distinguish yourself by issuing a public retraction.

Oh and by the way; the graph Fumento uses in "James Hansen's Hacks" purportedly showing the Medieval Warm Period was based on a schematic cartoon that only appeared in the first IPCC report. It has no quantitative basis at all.

Perhaps Fumento needs to actually read some of the scientific literature in the field of Tropical Cyclones (Hurricanes) and increasing temperature before he delves into it. I would recommend the following:

Knutson and Tuleya, 2004 (J. Climate 17(18) 3477-3495)

T. R. Knutson R. E. Tuleya 1998 (Climate Dynamics 15, 503-519)

Emanuel 2005 (Nature 436, 686-688) (subscription required)

Hoyos et al. 2006 (Science 312(5770) 94 - 97)

Santer et al. 2006 (PNAS 103(38) 13905-13910)

Webster et al. 2006 (Science 309 (5742), 1844 - 1846)

In short

I've been watching this Atlantic season very closely. The Hurricane heat potential of the tropical Atlantic (in particular the Gulf of Mexico) has been incredibly high. This is consistent with predictions from Kerry Emanual and others.

However, more than one storm this season (Karen is a good example) has been killed off before it had to develop because it encountered a region of strong shear. Strangely enough, Vecchi and Soden (GRL, 2007) have argued that this is a possible effect of global warming. The actual state of the science is far more nuanced than Fumento implies.

Secondly, if you actually READ Storm World, you would realise that it is not arguing that Hurricanes are likely to get more intense/frequency with global warming. It is a laymans introduction to the topic and accurately descibes the debate over Tropical Cyclones and Global Warming. This is one area in science that is highly uncertain, and something the Chris Mooney repeats (almost ad nauseum) in his book.

Thirdly, the North Atlantic is NOT the only tropical genesis region. The Arbian Sea has seen its strongest recorded storm (TC Gonu). The Central Pacific has generated 17 storms this season, with 10 reaching typhoon strength. This is both an above average number of storms, and an above average number of typhoons, and the offical season still has at least a month left (see:http://www.typhoon2000.ph/garyp_mgtcs/may03sum.txt for details on the central Pacific).

All in all, Fumento's post has not provided any evidence for his beat up of Chris and storm world, save Steve McIntyre. It is obvious he does not understand the scientific arguments over tropical cyclones and has mis-characterised the science.

I'm not trying to suggest that the science is settled. far from it. However, it is obvious that Fumento is not up with the state of the art, and I would suggest that without some reading of the relevant literature, he is ill-equipt to comment on it.

Regarding the chart from the first IPCC report, it gets worse. The IPCC incorrectly labeled it "global temperature" of the last 1000 years, when it was, in fact, one scientists (Lamb) best estimate of the temperature of central England. This chart was first published in 1965 and was a moving 50 year average. The chart in the first assessment report was updated with data to 1988.

Still waiting for the audit of that graph.

Chris,

Your question is a non-sequitur. Why DOES GW have to affect storms? It certainly might, but one doesn't logically follow the other. And just as GW will promote droughts in some places and floods in others, if logically GW DID have to affect storms then that allows that it might make them milder. Or it might shift them to different areas. Make up your own list.

But I will say this with authority. Insofar as warming will continue for a very long time regardless of efforts to limit GHG emissions, the smartest thing we can do is to stop using tax dollars to subsidize people (often wealthy ones) to live in areas most likely to suffer during storms. This is NOT a theory.

And oh yeah, I did blow it with that first column in confusing U.S. with global temperatures.