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Even experienced weather forecasters were taken aback by the ferocity of the 2011 tornado outbreak. On its worst day, April 27, more than 120 twisters touched down in the Southeast, doing $4.2 billion of damage and killing 316 people. Now a computer simulation of the day's events suggests that smoke drifting into the United States from fires set to clear farmland in Central America helped intensify the fatal wind funnels. Researchers publishing the finding in an upcoming Geophysical Research Letters hope that meteorologists will begin to consider air pollution a risk factor when making tornado forecasts. "I never expected to...

Heavy rainstorms have become more numerous on Hawaii island over the past 50 years while becoming less frequent in Leeward Oahu and Central Maui, according to a recent study by a pair of University of Hawaii researchers who tie the phenomenon to climate change. By 1960, for example, a storm that dumped 12 inches of rain on the Big Island occurred once every 20 years. By 2009, however, a storm that strong was striking the island every three to five years, the study found, and the "new" storm was pouring down more than 16.5 inches of rain.

The United Nation’s top climate change official Christiana Figueres announced this week that the group is actively working to "intentionally transform" the world's economic development model, a task she called the "most difficult" one the group has ever undertaken. "This is probably the most difficult task we have ever given ourselves, which is to intentionally transform the economic development model, for the first time in human history," UNFCCC Executive Secretary Figueres stated at a press conference in Brussels Tuesday. The "intentional" reordering of the global economy, she told reporters, "will not happen overnight" due to the "depth of the transformation":...

I'm sure, as all good Americans, you too have been pouring over every little detail of the President's latest budget proposal. I’ve basically been doing nothing but that for 4 straight days. Unfortunately, given the current Congressional makeup of selfish bigoted haters Republicans, it has very little chance of becoming law like every other budget he's proposed. Even so, there's one thing that stands out: Climate Resilience Toolkits.. I did a little video to emphasize its most important points. It was originally over three hours long as I found it impossible to winnow the important points down to less than...

Eruptions of volcanoes under the ocean were believed to be slow and steady occurrences that their impact on the Earth's climate cycle has often been ignored under the presumption that they have small influence. Findings of a new study, however, suggest that these ocean floor eruptions could influence the climate cycle of the Earth and that predictive models, including the ones that analyze the impact of humans on climate change, may need to be changed. ... Tolstoy's study aims to determine how often underwater volcanoes erupt and what drives these eruptions. She found that the volcanism of our planet is...

The real issue for Americans is an Obama administration that is imposing regulations based on the utterly false assertion that greenhouse gas emissions must be reduced because of global warming “In short, climate change is not worse than we thought,” wrote Bjorn Lomborg in a recent issue of The Wall Street Journal. He is best known as the author of “The Skeptical Environmentalist” and his skepticism is welcome, but insufficient. First of all, climate change is a very long-term process and always has been. The climate takes decades and centuries to change, largely based on well-known warming and cooling cycles....

It was 8 degrees in Minneapolis on a recent January day, and out on Interstate 394, snow whipped against the windshields of drivers on their morning commutes. But inside the offices of Cargill, the food conglomerate, Greg Page, the company’s executive chairman, felt compelled to talk about global warming. Mr. Page is a member of the Risky Business Project, an unusual collection of business and policy leaders determined to prepare American companies for climate change. It’s a prestigious club, counting a former senator, five former White House cabinet members, two former mayors and two billionaires in the group. The 10...

I have brought my previous study (see here and here) up-to-date by reviewing peer-reviewed articles in scientific journals over the period from Nov. 12, 2012 through December 31, 2013. I found 2,258 articles, written by a total of 9,136 authors. (Download the chart above here.) Only one article, by a single author in the Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences, rejected man-made global warming. I discuss that article here. My previous study, of the peer-reviewed literature from 1991 through Nov. 12, 2012, found 13,950 articles on “global warming” or “global climate change.” Of those, I judged that only 24...

The global warming religion is not above manipulating data to create converts. Just a few weeks ago they were declaring 2014 the hottest year on record, this despite the fact that most of the world actually cooled a touch. Now it has come to light that climate scientists have been manipulating temperature data by adjusting the actual data collected at weather stations across the world. Conveniently these “scientists” always adjust the temperature up. They’ve been doing this throughout South America and the Arctic. They’re even doing it here in the United States. The fraud at this point is undeniable. Which...

When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified. Two weeks ago, under the headline “How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”, I wrote about Paul Homewood, who, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog, had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been...

Despite the ever present wailing from green activists that we are sitting on a “methane catastrophe”, it’s simply business as usual for Earth in the Arctic. Even Dr. Gavin Schmidt of NASA GISS thinks the issue is “implausible”. This study further confirms that the issue is just another emotional overblown green issue of no merit.Methane seepage from the Arctic seabed occurring for millions of yearsFrom the Center for Arctic Gas Hydrate, Climate and EnvironmentMethane gas flares, up to 800 meters high, rise from the Arctic Ocean floor. That is the size of the tallest building in the world, Burj...

The Obama administration looks at climate change as a threat to national security on par with terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and disease outbreaks. President Obama’s national security strategy released Friday updates the previous plan published in 2010, with focuses on Russia, Islamic militants and health. “Climate change is an urgent and growing threat to our national security, contributing to increased natural disasters, refugee flows, and conflicts over basic resources like food and water,” the White House says in the 35-page strategy document. “The present day effects of climate change are being felt from the Arctic to the Midwest. Increased...

Vast ranges of volcanoes hidden under the oceans are presumed by scientists to be the gentle giants of the planet, oozing lava at slow, steady rates along mid-ocean ridges. But a new study shows that they flare up on strikingly regular cycles, ranging from two weeks to 100,000 years -- and, that they erupt almost exclusively during the first six months of each year. The pulses -- apparently tied to short- and long-term changes in earth's orbit, and to sea levels--may help trigger natural climate swings. Scientists have already speculated that volcanic cycles on land emitting large amounts of carbon...

As originally predicted in this WUWT story from Monday, the pineapple express is here according to NASA:An animation of satellite imagery from NOAA’s GOES-West satellite from Feb. 1 to Feb. 4, 2015 captured the movement of a stream of clouds associated with moisture called “The Pineapple Express.” Credit: NASA/NOAA GOES Project, Dennis Chesters The “Pineapple Express” has set up again and is bringing wet weather to the U.S. Pacific Northwest. An animation of satellite imagery from NOAA’s GOES-West satellite from Feb. 1 to Feb. 4, 2015 captured the movement of a stream of clouds associated with moisture that is...

Why is the head of the U.S. Bishops meeting with the White House and the Director of the liberal Center for American Progress? What goals could they possibly share? Is there anything Catholic about that pro-gay, pro-death power group? As the Obama administration tries to position itself as a world leader on climate change ahead of United Nations talks, it's engaging a powerful ally: the Catholic Church. Pope Francis has been moving the Church into a more aggressive posture on climate change, citing the moral need to protect the planet and its citizens. With countries preparing their own climate plans...

Introduction Global Warming (GW) alarmists are in a pickle: no GW, in spite of rising CO2 levels.  True believers are using quasi-religious slogans, like “The End [of the GW pause] is Near” and “Repent [Stop emitting CO2] Before It’s Too Late.” The observed absence of a global-warming trend (often described as “pause” or “hiatus”), beginning around Yr 2000 (or perhaps even earlier) contradicts the results of every IPCC climate model – all of them driven by a steady increase in anthropogenic carbon dioxide; see figure.  This lack of model validation has obvious implications for model-based estimates of future climate. ...

WUWT contributor Dr. Ryan Maue writes on his Twitter feed: Can’t ask for better setup for enormous rainfall totals over NorCal & now linto Bay Area in 5+ days Looking at the model output below, I tend to agree, if the pattern holds. It sets up Northern California for the perfect orographic lifting enhancement in the Sierra Nevada mountain range that will not only provide a bounty of liquid precipitation, but a significant boost to the well below normal California snowpack.Most or northern California will get some benefit from this “super soaker” storm:The Quantitative Precipitation Forecasts show some parts of...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Vermont just replaced its only only nuclear reactor (which had accounted for 71.8% of the state’s electricity production) with fossil fuels obtained from fracking For the past 42 years, Vermont’s only nuclear power plant was responsible for 71.8% of the state’s electricity production. This huge amount of electricity was generated by a single nuclear reactor.Vermont has just shut down this reactor.The replacement energy source for this shut down reactor is shale gas, a fossil fuel whose combustion causes global warming, and which is obtained from fracking.And all this time, I had thought that liberals in Vermont...

Unless you've spent the last few weeks in solitary meditation on a remote island, you couldn't miss the wave ofmedia stories breathlessly proclaiming that 2014 was the hottest year in recorded history. As usual, the coverage was laced with alarm about the menace posed by climate change, and with disapproval of skeptics who decline to join in the general panic. Among those seizing on the news to make a political point was President Obama, who used his State of the Union address to voice disdain for those who don't share his view. "I've heard some folks try to dodge the...

The New York Times has a breathless announcement: Most Republicans Back Climate Action! Except, it's not most Republicans; by the Time's own numbers, it's only 48%, and even that number is very suspect. If they can't honesty portray their own cooked up numbers, how honest can the underlying poll be? This is the classic way that the Left shifts public opinion; they cook up a poll, produce results they like, and then use it as a club to make whatever they want. They can get the results they like either by leading questions, asking unrepresentative samples, or just by plain...