Yesterday we reported on a new study by the U.S. Federal Drought Task Force that stated global warming was not to blame for the much-politicized 2012 drought in the Great Plains. As the New York Times notes:
"By contradicting the established and widely accepted theory…that the drought was a palpable and detrimental sign of climate change, the [drought] report grabbed headlines in the American press and prompted sharp retorts from climate change scientists and climate activists."
One of those activists, Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a prominent advocate of global-warming theory, told ThinkProgress that the drought report is "quite incomplete in many respects, and it asks the wrong questions. Then it does not provide very useful answers to the questions that are asked."
Dr. Trenberth went on to say:
"It fails completely to say anything about the observed soil moisture conditions, snow cover, and snow pack during the winter prior to the event in spite of the fact that snow pack was at record low levels in the winter and spring."
In an email interview with the NY Times, Dr. Martin Hoerling, the study's lead author and a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said criticism of his drought report are "welcome but should be based on sound science."
It should also be noted that Dr. Hoerling is a global-warming advocate, and said that not every drought occurring is the result of climate change. Dr. Hoerling explained that "the effects of climate change on the natural variability of weather become less significant over shorter periods of time…or specific locations."
That means that ascribing or at least trying to ascribe climate-change theory to weather events or geographic locations is very difficult. Many scientists believe the statistically insignificant rise in temperature over the last hundred years is because of climatic variability and not man-made CO2.
Dr. Martin Hoerling also attributed the "immediate cause" of Hurricane Sandy to "little more than the coincidental alignment of a tropical storm with an extratropical storm." Sandy has also been used as a political prop to push through climate-change legislation and implement a carbon tax.
“Detracting criticism based solely on not liking the result of scientific findings need themselves to be criticized, however,” he wrote in his email. “Science by assertion is merely pseudo-science.”