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In your opinion, are there more extreme weather events these days?

In your opinion, are there more extreme weather events these days?

  • Yes, definitely

    Votes: 3 9.4%
  • It seems that way, haven't seen the statistics

    Votes: 10 31.3%
  • Maybe

    Votes: 5 15.6%
  • No, it's just more media coverage makes it seem that way

    Votes: 13 40.6%
  • Al Gore is causing this ;)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Other

    Votes: 1 3.1%

  • Total voters
    32

MyOwnDrum

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More extreme weather in the news. It got me thinking. In your opinion, are there more extreme weather events these days? If so, what to what do you attribute that?
 
I don't know the actual statistics, but my guess is that we have better information technology, so we are made aware of things that we would have had no interest in in the past.
 
No, there's simply more sensationalism in the coverage.

Remember how the 2006 and 2007 hurricane seasons were predicted to be at least 'above average' in severity? Virtually nothing happened. The prediction got all kinds of coverage; the failure of the prediction to come true got nothing.
 
It was the coldest winter I can remember in New Orleans.
 
There's some hard evidence! ;)
Seriously, it was cold. Made me nervous!

The U.S. just experienced its coldest winter in 25 years, according to the National Climatic Data Center. The winter period December - February was the 18th coldest winter in the contiguous U.S. over the past 115 years, and the coldest since 1984 - 1985. It was also a wet winter, ranking 19th wettest. The states experiencing the coldest winters, relative to average, were Texas and Louisiana, which had their 5th coldest winters on record.

Wunder Blog : Weather Underground
 
Nope, and Goob explained it pretty accurately. America and the world in general tends to have a mixture of ADHD and short term memory. Every time something happens now, it's the biggest thing ever ever ever ever ever ever ever. Ever.

San Fran had a pretty doozy of a quake around the turn of the 20th century and a lot of people would bet money (and lose) that any number of quakes that happened in the world in the last few years (including Haiti and Chile) were the worst thing to ever happen.

We're prisoners of the moment.
 
We had less snow than normal in my part of Minnesota and Wisconsin this past winter. It snowed later in the season and melted earlier than normal.

I wouldn't know what caused this though.
 
I think the only honest answer is "Maybe." Unless someone has been accurately and faithfully measuring extreme weather events around the world for many decades (which they haven't), I don't see how anyone could possibly know the answer to this question.
 
Of course not, though I could be convinced otherwise by some actual numbers.

Even if there were an uptick in the number of weather events that caused significant destruction, I'd guess it would be mostly a factor of there being more people living in areas susceptible to such events.
 
Yes, I blame El Nino.

On second thought ever since Danarhea moved to texas.....
 
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We are ostensibly in a more active hurricane cycle right now that is related to El Nino.
 
Here is a list of all the extreme weather for 1600- present.


Here is the source for the image

Trends_in_natural_disasters.jpg
 
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Here is a list of all the extreme weather for 1600- present.


Here is the source for the image

Trends_in_natural_disasters.jpg

You know why that graph is complete bull ****?
Prior to cataloged weather events, people weren't always around all those storms and hurricanes, nor did they even know what a hurricane, etc was.

The majority of the increase in weather phenomenon is mostly because people are there to experience it and we have the tools to detect them.
 
I love how the graph acknowledges that its numbers are absolute garbage, then nevertheless says "How, we must ask, is global warming affecting the frequency of natural hazards?"
 
You know why that graph is complete bull ****?
Prior to cataloged weather events, people weren't always around all those storms and hurricanes, nor did they even know what a hurricane, etc was.

The majority of the increase in weather phenomenon is mostly because people are there to experience it and we have the tools to detect them.

Some food for thought...

We've had seismographs since the 19th century and the technology has only improved since then.

Thermometers have been around for hundreds of years.

We've had radar since the 1940s, which was later improved to better detect weather and became more widely used.

We've had weather satellites since the early 1960s.


I doubt anyone would not know what a drought, tsunami, extreme cold, extreme heat, tornado, flood, wild fire, etc. are when they see one. It is however likely, as you suggested, that many of the extreme weather in the early 1900s was either not witnessed or not reported.

I'd like to see a better break down of this graph to see what it is claiming there is more of as of recent.

Yes, some of the early 1900s data could be ignored with their lack of weather detecting technology. Who knows if they even kept close record of weather in the early 1900s? But I feel our weather detecting capabilities were top notch after the 1960s. I wouldn't be able to confirm if this graph accurately shows the number of extreme weather in our recent history however, so until I see a better explained graph I'm going to ignore it.
 
Some food for thought...

We've had seismographs since the 19th century and the technology has only improved since then.

Thermometers have been around for hundreds of years.

We've had radar since the 1940s, which was later improved to better detect weather and became more widely used.

We've had weather satellites since the early 1960s.


I doubt anyone would not know what a drought, tsunami, extreme cold, extreme heat, tornado, flood, wild fire, etc. are when they see one. It is however likely, as you suggested, that many of the extreme weather in the early 1900s was either not witnessed or not reported.

I'd like to see a better break down of this graph to see what it is claiming there is more of as of recent.

Yes, some of the early 1900s data could be ignored with their lack of weather detecting technology. Who knows if they even kept close record of weather in the early 1900s? But I feel our weather detecting capabilities were top notch after the 1960s. I wouldn't be able to confirm if this graph accurately shows the number of extreme weather in our recent history however, so until I see a better explained graph I'm going to ignore it.

100 years of weather is a terrible way to measure, whether or not, the extremes have increased.

What if 100 years prior to that we had 200 years of extreme weather phenomena?
That would certainly change the results.

It's just really, really stupid for someone to claim we have more extreme weather now compared to...... when?
 
100 years of weather is a terrible way to measure, whether or not, the extremes have increased.

What if 100 years prior to that we had 200 years of extreme weather phenomena?
That would certainly change the results.

It's just really, really stupid for someone to claim we have more extreme weather now compared to...... when?

I agree.:2wave:
 
It was the coldest winter I can remember in New Orleans.

It's global cooling. It's the oil companies fault, too. All that smog drifts out into space and suffocates the sun, cooling our atmosphere. We'll probably all freeze to death. Saw it in a movie once. It's very scary. Animals freeze instantaneously. You're forced to burn books to stay warm. Just awful stuff. Vote Gore.
 
I love how the graph acknowledges that its numbers are absolute garbage, then nevertheless says "How, we must ask, is global warming affecting the frequency of natural hazards?"

That might be global warming in the form of hot air, eh? Generated by mounds of male bovine excrement?
 
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