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发帖数: 29846 | 1 Last week a severe storm froze Dallas under a sheet of ice, just in time to
disrupt the plans of the tens of thousands of (American) football fans
descending on the city for the Super Bowl. On the other side of the globe,
Cyclone Yasi slammed northeastern Australia, destroying homes and crops and
displacing hundreds of thousands of people.
Some climate alarmists would have us believe that these storms are yet
another baleful consequence of man-made CO2 emissions. In addition to the
latest weather events, they also point to recent cyclones in Burma, last
winter's fatal chills in Nepal and Bangladesh, December's blizzards in
Britain, and every other drought, typhoon and unseasonable heat wave around
the world.
But is it true? To answer that question, you need to understand whether
recent weather trends are extreme by historical standards. The Twentieth
Century Reanalysis Project is the latest attempt to find out, using super-
computers to generate a dataset of global atmospheric circulation from 1871
to the present.
Anne Jolis, editorial writer for WSJ Europe, has the surprising data on
extreme weather events.
As it happens, the project's initial findings, published last month, show no
evidence of an intensifying weather trend. "In the climate models, the
extremes get more extreme as we move into a doubled CO2 world in 100 years,"
atmospheric scientist Gilbert Compo, one of the researchers on the project,
tells me from his office at the University of Colorado, Boulder. "So we
were surprised that none of the three major indices of climate variability
that we used show a trend of increased circulation going back to 1871."
In other words, researchers have yet to find evidence of more-extreme
weather patterns over the period, contrary to what the models predict. "
There's no data-driven answer yet to the question of how human activity has
affected extreme weather," adds Roger Pielke Jr., another University of
Colorado climate researcher.
We do know that carbon dioxide and other gases trap and re-radiate heat. We
also know that humans have emitted ever-more of these gases since the
Industrial Revolution. What we don't know is exactly how sensitive the
climate is to increases in these gases versus other possible factors—solar
variability, oceanic currents, Pacific heating and cooling cycles, planets'
gravitational and magnetic oscillations, and so on.
Given the unknowns, it's possible that even if we spend trillions of dollars
, and forgo trillions more in future economic growth, to cut carbon
emissions to pre-industrial levels, the climate will continue to change—as
it always has.
That's not to say we're helpless. There is at least one climate lesson that
we can draw from the recent weather: Whatever happens, prosperity and
preparedness help. North Texas's ice storm wreaked havoc and left hundreds
of football fans stranded, cold, and angry. But thanks to modern
infrastructure, 21st century health care, and stockpiles of magnesium
chloride and snow plows, the storm caused no reported deaths and Dallas
managed to host the big game on Sunday.
Compare that outcome to the 55 people who reportedly died of pneumonia,
respiratory problems and other cold-related illnesses in Bangladesh and
Nepal when temperatures dropped to just above freezing last winter. Even
rich countries can be caught off guard: Witness the thousands stranded when
Heathrow skimped on de-icing supplies and let five inches of snow ground
flights for two days before Christmas. Britain's GDP shrank by 0.5% in the
fourth quarter of 2010, for which the Office of National Statistics mostly
blames "the bad weather."
Arguably, global warming was a factor in that case. Or at least the idea of
global warming was. The London-based Global Warming Policy Foundation
charges that British authorities are so committed to the notion that Britain
's future will be warmer that they have failed to plan for winter storms
that have hit the country three years running.
A sliver of the billions that British taxpayers spend on trying to control
their climes could have bought them more of the supplies that helped Dallas
recover more quickly. And, with a fraction of that sliver of prosperity,
more Bangladeshis and Nepalis could have acquired the antibiotics and
respirators to survive their cold spell.
A comparison of cyclones Yasi and Nargis tells a similar story: As
devastating as Yasi has been, Australia's infrastructure, medicine, and
emergency protocols meant the Category 5 storm has killed only one person so
far. Australians are now mulling all the ways they could have better
protected their property and economy.
But if they feel like counting their blessings, they need only look to the
similar cyclone that hit the Irrawaddy Delta in 2008. Burma's military
regime hadn't allowed for much of an economy before the cyclone, but Nargis
destroyed nearly all the Delta had. Afterwards, the junta blocked foreign
aid workers from delivering needed water purification and medical supplies.
In the end, the government let Nargis kill more than 130,000 people.
Global-warming alarmists insist that economic activity is the problem, when
the available evidence show it to be part of the solution. We may not be
able to do anything about the weather, extreme or otherwise. But we can make
sure we have the resources to deal with it when it comes.
Miss Jolis is an editorial page writer for The Wall Street Journal Europe. |
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