Heritage

When he was President Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel made this disturbingly honest quote, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.” The hysteria surrounding the latest administration report on global warming implies a variation on that dictum, “Never miss an opportunity to create a serious crisis.” Though many of the crises created or compounded by the administration are real enough, the release of the National Climate Assessment has been hyped (abetted by much of the media) with bogus claims of past, current and predicted climate impacts.

NCA Quote: “Precipitation patterns are changing”
Reality: Precipitation patterns were never constant. Creating a crisis from the normal allows climate catastrophists to point to every abnormal bit of wet or dry as being “consistent with models” that predict one horrible outcome or another.

NCA Quote: “sea level is rising”
Reality: Yes sea level is rising, which it has done since the end of the last ice age. But the frequent claims and predictions of accelerating sea-level rise are not borne out in the data. In fact sea-level rise has slowed recently. One main-stream climatologist says this variation “makes the 21st century of sea level rise projections seem like unjustified arm waving.”

NCA Quote: “the frequency and intensity of some extreme weather events are increasing”
Reality: The latest report on the science from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and analysis provided by the administration’s own National Climatic Data Center conclude that there isn’t a case for extreme weather increases - no significant trends for floods, droughts, hurricanes or tornadoes.

NCA Quote: “In Arctic Alaska, the summer sea ice that once protected the coasts has receded”
Reality: Global warming is supposedly global. Global sea ice (Arctic and Antarctic) is above average and, for this time of year, it is at its highest level in 30 years, which is the third-highest on record.

The authors apparently do not think anybody is checking their statements or they couldn’t possibly think they would get away with this one:

NCA Quote: “It is notable that as these data records have grown longer and climate models have become more comprehensive, earlier predictions have largely been confirmed.”
Reality: The past 15 years have seen the climate model predictions stray farther and farther from actual temperatures (here and here). Last year, prominent climatologist, Hans von Storch, said, “If things continue as they have been, in five years, at the latest, we will need to acknowledge that something is fundamentally wrong with our climate models.” Maybe Professor von Storch needs four more years to be sure the models are wrong, but there are no grounds on which the models can be declared “confirmed.” Instead, the predictions are getting worse and worse.

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Vitter Calls Obama’s Climate Assessment More Political than Scientific

(Washington, D.C.) U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-La.), top Republican on the Environment and Public Works (EPW) Committee, made the following statement regarding the Obama Administration’s National Climate Assessment.

“The Administration’s Climate Assessment suffers from problems similar to those in reports put forward by the IPCC; while intended to be a scientific document, it’s more of a political one used to justify more government overreach.  Definitive policy decisions and regional planning based on far too many uncertainties could hurt our nation’s economic viability and competitiveness. Look no further than the European nations the Obama Administration aims to imitate whose policy decisions led them to economic failure,” Vitter said.

Smith: White House Climate Report Stretches Truth

Washington, D.C. - Science, Space, and Technology Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) released the following statement in response to the White House’s release of its National Climate Assessment.

Chairman Smith: “The White House today released a report claiming that changes in regional U.S. weather can be attributed to manmade climate change. The climate is changing due to a number of factors, including human contributions and natural cycles. But the administration’s report includes unscientific characterizations on the connection between severe weather events and climate change and fails to explain the absence of warming over the last 15 years.

“This is a political document intended to frighten Americans into believing that any abnormal weather we experience is the direct result of human CO2 emissions.  In reality, there is little science to support any connection between climate change and more frequent or extreme storms.  It’s disappointing that the Obama administration feels compelled to stretch the truth in order to drum up support for more costly and unnecessary regulations and subsidies.”

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) was critical of the draft National Climate Assessment, saying that “An overly narrow focus can encourage one-sided solutions, for instance by giving an impression that reducing greenhouse gas emissions alone will solve all of the major environmental concerns discussed in this report.” The NAS has also criticized “the lack of explicit discussion about the uncertainties associated with the regional model projections,” saying that “Decision makers need a clear understanding of these uncertainties in order to fairly evaluate the actual utility of using these projections as a basis for planning decisions.”

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), there is “high agreement” among leading experts that long-term trends in weather disasters are not attributable to human-caused climate change. Hurricanes have not increased in the U.S. in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1900. The U.S. currently has gone over seven years without a Category 3 or stronger hurricane making landfall. Government data also indicate no association between climate change and tornado activity. The data on droughts paint a similar picture. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found that “Climate change was not a significant part” of the recent drought in Texas. And the IPCC found that “in some regions droughts have become less frequent, less intense, or shorter, for example, central North America ...” The IPCC also states there is “low confidence” in any climate-related trends for flood magnitude or frequency on a global scale.