WARMING: Cliff happens to be right

Climatologist Cliff Harris is right to assert that weather extremes are not a consequence of global warming.

This is one of the few areas of agreement between the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC — see www.ipcc.ch) and the Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC — see www.nipccreport.com).

In 2012 the IPCC asserted that a relationship between global warming and wildfires, rainfall, storms, hurricanes and other extreme weather events has not been demonstrated.

In 2013 the NIPCC agreed, saying that “in no case has a convincing relationship been established between warming over the past 100 years and increases in any of these extreme events.”

The National Climate Data Center reveals that no extreme weather state records have been set in Idaho in almost half a century, despite a global warming over this period. Here are the records (see http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/extremes/scec/searchrecs.php):

Maximum Temperature: 118 deg F, July 28, 1934

Minimum Temperature: -60 deg F, Jan. 18, 1943

Maximum 24-Hour Precipitation: 7.71 in., Nov. 23, 1909

Maximum 24-Hour Snowfall: 31 in., Dec. 18, 1967

Maximum Snow Depth: 182 in., Feb. 20, 1954

Instead of wasting money vainly trying to stop extreme weather events from happening, we need to harden our societies to these inevitable events by burying electrical cables underground, and reinforcing buildings and other infrastructure. Yet, of the about $1 billion that are spent globally every day on climate finance, only 6 percent of it goes to helping people adapt to climate change today (ref: Climate Policy Initiative, San Francisco). This is the real climate crisis.

TOM HARRIS

Executive Director

International Climate Science Coalition (ICSC)

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

EDITOR’S NOTE: Tom Harris is not related to Cliff Harris.