Keep Calm and Carry On

Caution: It is vitally important not to make connections. When you see pictures of rubble like this week’s shots from Joplin, Missouri, you should not ask yourself: I wonder if this is somehow related to the huge tornado outbreak three weeks ago in Tuscaloosa, or the enormous outbreak a couple of weeks before that—together they comprised the most active April for tornadoes in our history. But that doesn’t mean a thing.

It is far better to think of these as isolated, unpredictable, discrete events. It is not advised to try and connect them in your mind with, say, the fires now burning across Texas—fires that have burned more of America by this date than any year in our history. Texas, and adjoining parts of Oklahoma and New Mexico, are drier than they’ve ever been—the drought is worse than the Dust Bowl. But do not wonder if it’s somehow connected.

If you did wonder, you’d have to also wonder about whether this year’s record snowfalls and rainfalls across the Midwest—resulting in record flooding across the Mississippi—could somehow be related. And if you did that, then you might find your thoughts wandering to, oh, global warming. To the fact that climatologists have been predicting for years that as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet, since warm air holds more water vapor than cold.

It’s far smarter to repeat to yourself, over and over, the comforting mantra that no single weather event can ever be directly tied to climate change. There have been tornadoes before, and floods—that’s the important thing. Just be careful to make sure you don’t let yourself wonder why all these records are happening at once: why we’ve had unprecedented megafloods from Australia to Pakistan in the last year. Why it’s just now that the Arctic has melted for the first time in thousands of years. Focus on the immediate casualties, watch the videotape from the store cameras as the shelves are blown over. Look at the anchorman up to the chest of his waders in the rising river.

http://action.350.org/signup_page/connections

They are all talked about on the TV or Internet. That would be a connection.


And I am due beer and travel money and many experiences.

So-and-so from the Weather Channel was saying something to the effect of, “Well, the scientist in me wants to say that you cannot attribute this specific series of tornadoes to ‘global warming’ but…”

due to global climate change. Randomness around an increasing trend line.

I bet we'll have a nice normal year, with only the average amount of mayhem, and 95% of our fellow citizens will forget about this stuff ever happening!

This is the thing, how our minds work.. it's happening more, killing bigger numbers of people, but it's building just slow enough, with enough 'normal' time in between, to lull the average tv-addict back to their Happy Place! It's sooo un-cool to think about junk like last year, or the future. Now's all that matters :party: :dunce:

"...it's happening more, killing bigger numbers of people..." Statements like these are just more doomer hysteria.


US Annual Tornado Death Tolls, 1875-present
http://www.norman.noaa.gov/2009/03/us-annual-tornado-death-tolls-1875-present/




"....It's sooo un-cool to think about junk like last year" Projecting much? I guess it is 'un-cool' to remember that tornado deaths in recent years were BELOW AVERAGE.

http://www.examiner.com/weather-in-jackson/united-states-2010-tornado-death-toll-stands-at-23-surpasses-2009-but-remains-below-the-average

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/online/monthly/newm.html

given 1) that more people live in California and other places with no tornadoes and 2) building safety and warning systems have improved in the last 90 years.

Note also that numbers of people being killed in tornadoes might be going up while the number of people PER CAPITA is going down.

You fail probability forever.

That phrase makes no sense whatsoever. Do you even know what PER CAPITA means?

that Oklahoma is getting slammed right now?

It's un-cool to spin shit like you just did,

Improvements in technology and reporting mean that small tornadoes that in the past would have gone unnoticed are now being counted. The number of serious tornadoes (EF-3 or higher) has actually gone down slightly over the past 40-50 years.