Very Bad, But Not a Trend

For John, BLUF:  The issue is the tornadoes that touched down along a 200 mile corridor in the US Midwest, killing over 100 people overnight between Friday night, the 10th, and Saturday morning, the 11th of December.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Meteorologist responds with data after Joe Biden seemingly blames climate change for deadly tornados

From The Blaze, by Reporter Chris Enloe, 13 December 2021.

Here is the lede plus nine:

Meteorologist Joe Bastardi fired back at President Joe Biden for seemingly blaming the devastating tornado outbreak that struck multiple states last week on climate change.

What did Biden say?

When a reporter asked Biden on Saturday whether climate change contributed to the deadly tornados, Biden pointed to climate change allegedly increasing the intensity of storms.

"All I know is that the intensity of the weather across the board has some impacts as a consequence of the warming of the planet and climate change," Biden said. "The specific impact on these specific storms, I can't say at this point."

"I'm going to be asking the EPA and others to take a look at that," Biden continued. "But the fact is that we all know everything is more intense when the climate is warming. Everything. And obviously, it has some impact here, but I can't give you a quantitative read on that."

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell was more direct. During an interview on CNN's "State of the Union," Criswell said the extreme weather "is going to be our new normal."

"The effects we are seeing of climate change are the crisis of our generation," Criswell said.

How did Bastardi respond?

The famed meteorologist accused Biden of weaponizing tornados and shared data showing that severe weather this year has not been as severe compared to previous years.

"Clueless Joe Biden In action again with his weaponization of Tornados. 1) Violent tornadoes not increasing. 2) this year tornados, hail and wind all together near-record low," Bastardi said. "Mindless media should do their dang job and call him on it, I called Trump out on Dorian jibberish." The data Bastardi included, coming from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, directly contradicts claims from Biden and Criswell that severe weather is more intense because of climate change.

Meteoroligist Joe Bastardi?  Yes, Wikipedia has described him as a Climate chsange denier.  That seems a little harsh.  How can anyone, looking back over tens of thousands of years deny climate change?

I do think that President Biden and FEMA Director Criswell took the easy way out, appealing to their base, but the data suggests they were specifically wrong, although there may be some larger climate shift.  If you read the whole article it will suggest this is not a particularly active period for tornados.  Or huriccanes.

Regards  —  Cliff