Reposted by NOT MANY PEOPLE KNOW THAT
May 16, 2021
By Paul Homewood
https://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/features/57116938
It is noticeable that the BBC’s latest Climate Check is much more prudent than unusual. There is virtually no attempt to blame global warming for bad weather. The only clue is in the section on the drought in the American Southwest, where they state that some researchers say this is part of a naturally occurring megadrought made worse by climate change.
The video goes on to explain that both the drought and typhoon were caused by La Nina, bringing dry weather to the western United States and wet, stormy weather to the western Pacific.
So let’s take a closer look at both of them.
In this hydrological year, which begins in October, precipitation in the southwest has been very low so far, but still only the sixth lowest in its history:
Much more important, however, are the longer-term trends when talking about megadroughts. The five-year rainfall trend is not as low as it was in the 1950s and early 1900s.
In fact, it has never gone this deep since the turn of the century, cited in the video as the beginning of this megadrought. It is obvious that the megadrought, which lasted from 1942 to 1956, was much more rigorous and drawn out than the current one. All evidence suggests that these megadroughts are regularly occurring natural events.
Climate at a Glance National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) (noaa.gov)
Ryan Maue’s data shows that hurricane activity has been below average globally for the past 12 months:
http://climatlas.com/tropical/
There is always tank-to-tank variation, of course, but it’s far too early in the year to draw any conclusions from Surigae, which hit the Philippines last month.
As is so often the case, the claimed wind speeds for Surigae need to be measured with a pinch of salt as they come from satellite data with the storm in the middle of the ocean. Surigae is claimed to have reached 165 kn or 190 mph, but this is only based on intensity estimates based on operational warnings. However, actual satellite data suggests that wind speeds weren’t much above 140 knots:
AMSU intensity time series
http://rammb-data.cira.colostate.edu/tc_realtime/about.asp#strmfcst
Although the BBC mentions the bitterly cold weather in much of Northern Europe in April, it’s a shame they didn’t mention that it was an unusually calm month for tornado activity in the US. You may remember playing a large chunk of a mill tornado in their March Climate Check, which led to my complaint.
It looks like they are now being more careful not to associate every bit of bad weather with climate change, which they were only too happy to do before. Maybe my complaint made a difference!
https://www.noaa.gov/news/april-2021-was-fairly-dry-and-bit-warm-for-much-of-us#:~:text=April%202021%20was%20much%20drier , Tornadoes% 20in% 20nearly% 20three% 20decades.
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