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Trump calls for some 'good old global warming' as US experiences bad weather Trump's call for some 'good old global warming' ridiculed by climate experts
(about 5 hours later)
He once dismissed it as a “hoax” created by the Chinese to destroy American jobs, but right now Donald Trump is pining for some of that “good old global warming”. Donald Trump once dismissed it as a “hoax” created by the Chinese to destroy American jobs, but on a freezing Thursday night in the eastern US the president found himself pining for some of that “good old global warming”.
While on holiday in Florida on Thursday, the US president wondered whether global warming might not be such a problem after all. On holiday in Florida on Thursday, Trump wondered if global warming might not be such a problem after all.
As severe cold and record amounts of snow sweep across the US east coast, Trump wrote on Twitter that the country “could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against”. As severe cold and record amounts of snow swept across the US east coast, Trump wrote on Twitter that his people “could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against”.
“Bundle up!” he added.“Bundle up!” he added.
In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up! The president was reheating two favourite tropes: the conflation of weather with climate to pour scepticism on global warming, and the supposed cost to the American taxpayer of the Paris climate accord, from which he has confirmed the US will withdraw.
In doing so, he reheated two of his favourite tropes: the conflation of weather with climate to pour scepticism on global warming, and the supposed cost to the US taxpayer of the Paris climate accord from which he confirmed the US would withdraw in June this year. Climate scientists, however, have long warned against using individual weather events to ponder the existence or otherwise of global warming. Weather, they point out, refers to atmospheric conditions during a short period; climate relates to longer-term weather patterns.
Both are well-worn themes of the president’s online repertoire. As far back as 2012 he tweeted: “It’s freezing and snowing in New York – we need global warming.” On Friday, Anthony Leiserowitz, director of Yale University’s project on climate change communication, said Trump’s tweet was “scientifically ridiculous and demonstrably false”.
But climate scientists have long warned against using individual weather events to ponder the existence or otherwise of global warming because weather refers to the atmospheric conditions during a short period while climate relates to longer term weather patterns. “There is a fundamental difference in scale between what weather is and what climate is,” he said. “What’s going on in one small corner of the world at a given moment does not reflect what’s going on with the planet.”
Matthew England, a climate scientist from the University of New South Wales, labelled Trump’s comment “an ignorant misconception of the way the Earth’s climate works”. The extreme cold snap in the eastern US is a rare example of a place experiencing below-average winter temperatures, he said, a point that was neatly illustrated by a map tweeted out by the Weather Channel on Friday.
1) There is a difference between #weather and #climate. 2) Short-term #cold snaps will continue to occur in a warming climate.3) 2017 will likely be a top three warmest year on record for the globe. (Graphic: Univ. of Maine - Climate Change Institute) https://t.co/kzuugeXi80 pic.twitter.com/gueOsp4yvu
Elsewhere, Matthew England, a climate scientist from the University of New South Wales, called Trump’s comment “an ignorant misconception of the way the earth’s climate works”.
“Nobody ever said winter would go away under global warming, but winter has become much milder and the record cold days are being far outnumbered by record warm days and heat extremes,” he said. “Climate change is not overturned by a few unusually cold days in the US.”“Nobody ever said winter would go away under global warming, but winter has become much milder and the record cold days are being far outnumbered by record warm days and heat extremes,” he said. “Climate change is not overturned by a few unusually cold days in the US.”
Or, as David Karoly, a climate scientist from the University of Melbourne said: “It’s winter in the US. Cold temperatures are common in winter”. David Karoly, a climate scientist from the University of Melbourne, put it even more bluntly: “It’s winter in the US. Cold temperatures are common in winter.”
However, Karoly said climate modelling showed cold snaps like the one being felt on the east coast of the US were actually becoming less common as a result of global warming. Climate modelling showed cold snaps like the one in the US were actually becoming less common as a result of global warming, Karoly said, adding that rapid attribution analysis means scientists are now able to look more closely at “classes of events”.
While it’s unwise to draw conclusions form individual events, Karoly said that rapid attribution analysis of climate events meant scientists were now able to look more closely at “classes of events”. That type of modelling for the north east of the US, he said, showed that although there was a great deal of year-to-year variability, the average coldest temperature in December in the region has increased in the past 50 years.
He said that type of modelling for the north east of the US showed that while there was a great deal of year-to-year variability, the average coldest temperature in December in that region had increased in the past 50 years. In any case, the US is already getting that “good old global warming”. 2017 is set to be the third-warmest on record, prompting among other things a climate-fuelled hurricane season in the country’s south.
In any case, the US is already getting a bit of that good old global warming. 2017 is set to be the country’s third warmest on record, prompting, among other things, a climate-fuelled hurricane season in the country’s south. Experts also know climate change is linked to a dangerous pattern of major weather events. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US is on track to match or exceed the previous record year for extreme weather and climate events costing more than $1bn, including wildfires, hurricanes and flooding.
The tweet also revisited Trump’s claim that the Paris climate accord would have cost the US economy “trillions” of dollars. At a rally in Pennsylvania in April to mark his 100th day in office, Trump said “full compliance with the agreement could ultimately shrink America’s GDP by $2.5tn over a 10-year period”. There had been 15 such events by the end of September, compared with 15 for the whole of 2016 and 16 in the record year of 2011.
When he made the statement in April the politically non-aligned website Factcheck.org asked the White House for a source, and was pointed to a 2016 study by the conservative Heritage foundation which found the Paris agreement “will result in over $2.5tn in lost GDP by 2035”. Adam Smith, a climatologist at NOAA, said: “Climate change is playing a role, amplifying the frequency and intensity of some types of extreme weather that lead to billion-dollar disasters.”
While that’s an 18-year period, not 10, Factcheck.org found the accuracy of Heritage’s statements depended on which numbers were used. With Hurricane Harvey devastating Texas and extraordinary wildfires in California, Smith said 2017 was expected to “shatter” the record for the US’s costliest year in terms of weather events. That was 2005, with losses of $215bn from disasters including Hurricane Katrina.
The Heritage study used a carbon tax rate of $36, increasing 3% each year from 2015 to 2035. But other analyses have found that the US would have needed only a carbon tax of $21.22 starting in 2017 to meet its Paris target by 2025. Trump’s tweet also revisited his claim that the Paris climate accord would have cost the US “trillions” of dollars. At a rally in Pennsylvania in April to mark his 100th day in office, Trump said “full compliance with the agreement could ultimately shrink America’s GDP by $2.5tn over a 10-year period”.
When he pulled out of the Paris accord, Trump also said the US would stop contributing to the Green Climate Fund, a United Nations program that since 2013 has seen industrialised countries voluntarily pledge $10.3bn to help poorer nations reduce greenhouse gas emissions and address the effects of climate change. The politically non-aligned website Factcheck.org asked the White House for a source for that remark, and was pointed to a 2016 study by the conservative Heritage Foundation which found the Paris agreement “will result in over $2.5tn in lost GDP by 2035”.
While that is an 18-year period, not 10, Factcheck.org found the accuracy of Heritage’s statements depended on which numbers were used. The Heritage study used a carbon tax rate of $36, increasing 3% each year from 2015 to 2035. Other analyses have found the US would have needed only a carbon tax of $21.22 starting in 2017 to meet its Paris target by 2025.
Leiserowitz, meanwhile, criticised the president’s use of social media. “It’s meant to be red meat for his base,” he said. “They’re the ones most likely to be dismissive of climate change and the most likely to vote in the 2018 Republican primaries – so it’s a warning shot for the GOP members in Congress.”
The global warming tweet, he said, was another attempt by Trump to distract from special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. Climate change is“a zombie issue” Leiserowitz said. “It gets killed over and over by science, but he revives it.”
The president’s tweet was “troll-like”, the scientist said, showing the president “delighting in sparking outrage among [his] opponents”.