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Ten Czechs die as floods hit central Europe


Daily Times
Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:26 UTC
Image
© Agence France-Presse
People look through flood damged belongings in the Czech village of Jesenik nad Odrou on 25 June 2009. Torrential downpours unleashed devastating floods in several central European countries, taking the death toll to at least 10 people amid extensive damage in eastern Czech Republic.
Torrential downpours unleashed devastating floods in several central European countries, taking the death toll on Thursday to at least 10 people amid extensive damage in eastern Czech Republic. The deluge also hit Romania, where four people were injured by lightning during a heavy storm north of Bucharest, with heavy flooding also reported in several regions of Austria, Germany and Poland.

Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer assured reporters in Prague that the situation was "under control" as the national security council met on Thursday. Fischer said the flood had claimed at least nine lives, including five drowned in rising floodwaters as rivers burst their banks, and several were still missing.
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Book

More on the CCSP Report

Roger Pielke, Jr.
Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog
Wed, 17 Jun 2009 21:35 UTC
I took a look at the public review comments on the CCSP Synthesis report released yesterday that were submitted to the CCSP (here in PDF) earlier this year and there are frequent mentions of my work and how it is at odds with the statements in the report. The following comment from Chip Knappenberger and CCSP response are telling (from p. 299).

Knappenberger:
Citation 27 is to Mills, Science, 2005. The Mills paper has come under intensive criticism, largely from Dr. Roger Pielke Jr - another expert in the field of disaster losses. Pielke Jr. published a response to the Mills paper in Science.

It is inconceivable that the authors of the CCSP report don't know of the Pielke Jr. criticisms (after all Evan Mills is listed as a CCSP author) and yet it is equally inconceivable that knowing of them, that absolutely no reference is made to them.

The fact is, is that Pielke Jr. concluded "Presently, there is simply no scientific basis for claims that the escalating cost of disasters is the result of anything other than increasing societal vulnerability." (Pielke Jr., Science, 2005). This is precisely the opposite of the CCSP conclusion. How can such criticism be completely ignored?
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Einstein

Obama's Phil Cooney and the New CCSP Report

Roger Pielke, Jr.
Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog
Tue, 16 Jun 2009 21:03 UTC
Imagine if an industry-funded government contractor had a hand in writing a major federal report on climate change. And imagine if that person used his position to misrepresent the science, to cite his own non-peer reviewed work, and to ignore relevant work in the peer-reviewed literature. There would be an outrage, surely . . .

The Obama Administration has re-released a report (PDF) first issued in draft form by the Bush Administration last July (still online PDF). The substance of the report is essentially the same as last year's version, with a bit more professionalism in the delivery. For instance, the photo-shopped picture of a flood appears to be removed and the embarrassing executive summary has been replaced by something more appropriate.

This post is about how the report summarizes the issue of disasters and climate change, including several references to my work, which is misrepresented. This post is long and detailed, which is necessary to support my claims. But stick with it, or skip to the end if you've seen the details before (and long-time readers will have seen them often), there is a surprise at the end.
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Igloo

More complete BS from alarmists: Global warming caused Greenland snow to be a lot thicker than expected?

Tom Nelson
Tom Nelson
Thu, 25 Jun 2009 20:33 UTC
Global warming plays its part in hampering Greenland trek

Two Greenland adventurers say the effects of global warming definitely hampered their expedition.

Steve Wright and Simon Elmont arrived back in the island last month after their expedition was cut short due to Mr Elmont sustaining an ankle injury.

Mr Wright, from Alderney, told pupils at Melrose School yesterday that because of global warming the snow had been a lot thicker and had made the trek a lot harder.

'When we arrived we were told that this was a global warming year,' he said.
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Evil Rays

Australia: Global warming isn't real, says Senator Fielding


Brisbane Times
Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:25 UTC
Family First Senator Steve Fielding has made up his mind on global warming - there's not enough evidence that it's real.

After talks with the Government and top scientists, Senator Fielding, who holds a crucial Senate vote, has released a document setting out his position.

"Global temperature isn't rising," it says.

On emissions trading, Senator Fielding said he wouldn't risk job losses on "unconvincing green science".

The document was prepared with the help of some of the country's most prominent climate-sceptic scientists.
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Cloud Lightning

Five dead, seven missing as storm whips Philippines


Terra Daily / Agence France-Presse
Thu, 25 Jun 2009 16:22 UTC
Image
© Unknown
At least five people have been killed and seven others are missing as tropical storm Nangka sweeps over the central Philippines, officials said Wednesday.

Packing winds of up to 83 kilometres (52 miles) an hour -- with gusts of up to 102 kilometres (63 miles) an hour -- the storm brought floods, landslides and power cuts across small islands in the centre of the archipelago.

Four fishermen drowned off Alabat island southeast of Manila late Tuesday as they tried to steer their boat to shelter from the approaching cyclone, said Perez municipal police chief Inspector Susan Planas.

Eleven other crew members were rescued but one of them was injured, she said in a telephone interview.
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Magnet

Two strong earthquakes in Vanuatu - Magnitude 5.1 and 4.5


U.S. Geological Survey
Thu, 25 Jun 2009 13:02 UTC
Vanuatu Earthquake 1
© USGS
Magnitude:
5.1

Date-Time:
- Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 06:43:52 UTC
- Thursday, June 25, 2009 at 05:43:52 PM at epicenter

Location:
19.373°S, 169.361°E
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Blackbox

Note to NCDC climate report authors: try using the telephone next time

Anthony Watts
Watts Up With That
Thu, 18 Jun 2009 06:35 UTC
Yesterday I reposted one of Warren Meyers essays on the hilariously flawed GCCI report from NCDC suggesting that the electrical grid is at risk due to increased weather related events affecting electrical systems (Link). The chart looked hinky, turns out it was. One wonders if these guys at NCDC know how to use a telephone, because one phone call is all it took to verify the suspicions Warren had about this graph below being mostly about a change in reporting (baseline) rather than a real trend. His BS detector is very good. Too bad the people at NCDC didn't do some basic due diligence rather than accept the data at face value.

One private citizen and a phone call undid the entire premise of this graph portrayed by the National Climatic Data Center. We need more people like Warren willing to ask questions.

Related: see my report on why tornado trends in general follow this same pattern that duped NCDC and why. (Link) - Anthony
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Magnify

The US Synthesis Report and the Search for Climate WMD

Steve McIntyre
Climate Audit
Sat, 20 Jun 2009 05:41 UTC
Powell Climate graph
© unknown
Colin Powell at the UN

White House advisers greeted the new Climate Change Science Program(CCSP) assessment report like Bush advisers would have greeted a favorable report on WMD. Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said: "It's not just a problem for the future. We're beginning to see the impact on our daily lives." On the left is a picture of senior White House science adviser John Holdren pointing to a graph showing WMD-like impact of climate change on the U.S. electrical grid system, describing the results as follows:
The electricity grid is also vulnerable to climate change effects, from temperature changes to severe weather events.... The number of [U.S. electrical grid disturbance] incidents caused by extreme weather has increased tenfold since 1992. The portion of all events that are caused by weather-related phenomena has more than tripled from about 20 percent in the early 1990s to about 65 percent in recent years. The weather-related events are more severe, with an average of about 180,000 customers affected per event compared to about 100,000 for non-weather-related events (and 50,000 excluding the massive blackout of August 2003).
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Book

GCCI Report: I Am Calling Bullsh*t on this Chart

Warren Meyer
Climate Skeptic
Wed, 17 Jun 2009 05:49 UTC
For this next post, I skip kind of deep into the report because Kevin Drum was particularly taken with the power of this chart from page 58.
weather related electric grid failures
© unknown

I know that skepticism is a lost art in journalism, so I will forgive Mr. Drum. But in running a business, people put all kinds of BS analyses in front of me trying to get me to spend my money one way or another. And so for those of us for whom data analysis actually has financial consequences, it is a useful skill to be able to recognize a steaming pile of BS when one sees it. (Update: I regret the snarky comment about Kevin Drum - though I disagree with him a lot, he is one of the few folks on either side of the political aisle who is willing to express skepticism for studies and polls even when they support his position. Mr. Drum has posted an update to his original post after I emailed him this information).

First, does anyone here really think that we have seen a 20-fold increase in electrical grid outages over the last 15 years but no one noticed? Really?
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