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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse From Rhode Island’s AGW Rant. Boxer chimes in.

Icecap Note: He is not alone. Today, Senator Boxer rang the bell. Morano Statement: “U.S.  Senators Boxer and Whitehouse, and other global warming activists have descended into buffoonery trying to exploit a natural disaster in Oklahoma. Have you no sense of decency, Senators? At long last, have you left no sense of decency or understanding of science?”

Dumbacrat Henry Waxman blamed the tornado, hurricane and fires on CO2 and demanded action. MA Senate wannabe Deadwood Markey and NH Senator Shaheen locally here in New Englandhave been pushing the AGW green (watermelon - green on the outside red on the inside). if they get their way, energy prices will skyrocket and brownouts and blackouts will become common. And $4 gasoline and heating oil will seem like the ‘good old days’. Europe bought the enviro agenda and it almost destroyed their economy with unemployment in Spain rising to 27% and tens of thousands dying all across Europe from 5 brutally cold winters while energy prices rose to levels that made it impossible for them to pay for food and energy. All for the idea that CO2 is behind every extreme weather event even though temperatures have not risen and sea level rises have slowed not accelerated. Scientists in Europe are said to be shocked or dumbfounded that the climate is not following their models. The enviros are in retreat in Europe but on the rise in the US where the demagogue party assumes you have not heard about the failures in Europe or that the Obama green agenda has been a dismal failure at job creation despite the huge subsidies (just as we saw in Europe) has adopted the idea to blame severe weather - explainable entirely by natural cycles - on ‘carbon pollution’.

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US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse From Rhode Island Provides Erroneous Information To American Public in Global Warming Rant
Anthony Watts, WattsUpWithThat

First, I’m sure I speak for everyone at WUWT (and Icecap) when I say that our hearts go out to all the families in Oklahoma affected by the weather tragedy there today.

In the video here US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse states that:

“When cyclones tear up Oklahoma and hurricanes swamp Alabama and wildfires scorch Texas, you come to us, the rest of the country, for billions of dollars to recover. And the damage that your polluters and deniers are doing doesn’t just hit Oklahoma and Alabama and Texas.”

Read more: Daily Caller

If Senator Sheldon Whitehouse did more reading and less ranting, he might know that Continental US Temperature Lower Troposphere (TLT) - 1979 to Present;

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Remote Sensing Systems (RSS) Microwave Sounding Units (MSU) Click to view at source

is currently below average.

US Strong to Violent Tornadoes (EF3-EF5) 1950 to 2012;

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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) National Climatic Data Center (NCDC).  Click to view at source

are below average. US Inflation Adjusted Annual Tornado Trend and Percentile Ranks;

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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Storm Prediction Center. Click to view at source

are currently below average. US Tornadoes Daily Count and Running Annual Total;

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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Storm Prediction Center. Click to view at source

are currently well below average.

US Extremes in Landfalling Tropical Systems 1910 to Present; Annual;

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National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). National Climatic Data Center (NCDC). Click to view at source

are currently below average.

This US Acres Per Wildfire and the Number of Wildfires Per Year graph;

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shows that the number of wildfires have decreased, while the acres per fire have increased.

This is an important distinction as the associated article elaborates:

This graph shows the inverse relationship between numbers and sizes of US wildfires over time. Note the greater number and smaller sizes of fires between the creation of Wilderness in 1964 and the beginning of the modern wildfire era in 1987 and 1988 (with Silver Complex and Yellowstone fires of those years), as compared with the smaller number and greater size of recent fires. One factor may be the shift in USFS policy from rapid suppression to “let it burn,” which has allowed for numerous smaller fires previously extinguished individually to coalesce into larger fires and singular complexes. Evergreen

For reference;

“Forest managers agree that the current fire risk is primarily a combination of two factors “ higher-than-average temperatures and a profusion of fuel, the product of nearly a century of fire suppression policies.”

“Recognizing widespread overgrowth in American forests, in the late 1970s the Forest Service began reintroducing policies of prescribed burning and allowed many smaller, natural fires to burn out on their own, provided they didn’t threaten lives or property. The decision this summer to attack all fires, while not a direct reversal of this policy, does represent a departure from that practice of natural restoration, said Jennifer Jones, a public affairs specialist with the Forest Service. Scientific America

The shift in thinking was formalized in a 1995 statement of federal fire policy, and strengthened in a 2001 revision. The policy recognizes that fire is “an essential ecological process,” and that decades of trying to keep fires from burning have led, ironically, to “larger and more severe” conflagrations because of the buildup of underbrush and other fuel. USA Today

As such, US Forest Fire data is biased by “nearly a century of fire suppression policies” and “the shift in USFS policy from rapid suppression to ‘let it burn,’”, which begin “in the late 1970s”, “was formalized in a 1995 statement of federal fire policy, and strengthened in a 2001 revision.” Furthermore, given that continental US Temperatures are currently below average, it is absurd to blame to recent forest fire activity on Global Warming.

US Senator Sheldon Whitehouse used the tragic weather events in Oklahoma to spout erroneous alarmist Global Warming rhetoric. Mr Sheldon, less ranting, more reading…

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Anthony: Unfortunately, there is shameful precedence for this sort of opportunistic political rhetoric, WUWT readers may recall when the Center for American progress blamed southern conservatives voting record for tornadoes:

Never let a good crisis go to waste: tornado deaths blamed on lawmakers opposed to climate legislation

Posted on 05/21 at 10:22 AM
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