Limbaugh Gate

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_021010/content/01125106.guest.html

The “climate scientist” Rush Limbaugh has claimed that the recent snow storms hitting the U.S are proof that decades of research by real climate scientists is wrong. This would be something to laugh at if it wasn’t for the fact that people by into such misinformation.

“There is some evidence that climate change could in fact make such massive snowstorms more common, even as the world continues to warm. As the meteorologist Jeff Masters points out in his excellent blog at Weather Underground, the two major storms that hit Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., this winter — in December and during the first weekend of February — are already among the 10 heaviest snowfalls those cities have ever recorded. The chance of that happening in the same winter is incredibly unlikely”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1962294,00.html?xid=rss-topstories#ixzz0fFl5DaWx

Denialists like Rush seem to get confused when they hear “global warming”. Climate change is the more accurate description. Changes in the climate system could lead to more freak snow storms. Sure snow storms are expected in the winter but, considering the fact that the recent snow fall appears to have crippled the Eastern U.S, would you want that to become the norm? The Time article goes on to say:

“But there have been hints that it was coming. The 2009 U.S. Climate Impacts Report found that large-scale cold-weather storm systems have gradually tracked to the north in the U.S. over the past 50 years. While the frequency of storms in the middle latitudes has decreased as the climate has warmed, the intensity of those storms has increased. That's in part because of global warming — hotter air can hold more moisture, so when a storm gathers it can unleash massive amounts of snow. Colder air, by contrast, is drier; if we were in a truly vicious cold snap, like the one that occurred over much of the East Coast during parts of January, we would be unlikely to see heavy snowfall.”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1962294,00.html?xid=rss-topstories#ixzz0fFlnkZp2

In other words, heavy snowfall and colder weather don’t go hand in hand. A couple of weeks ago a strong wind and heavy snow fall hit my home region. It was about -6, if I recall, yet the heavy wind and snow made it feel much worse. The next day it was around -15, though it did not feel as cold. The heavy snow and wind can create the illusion of colder temperatures. Maybe Rush doesn’t know about wind chill. The last point from the Time article deals with the issue of those, on both sides of the debate, who confuse weather with climate.

“Ultimately, however, it's a mistake to use any one storm — or even a season's worth of storms — to disprove climate change (or to prove it; some environmentalists have wrongly tied the lack of snow in Vancouver, the site of the Winter Olympic Games, which begin this week, to global warming). Weather is what will happen next weekend; climate is what will happen over the next decades and centuries. And while our ability to predict the former has become reasonably reliable, scientists are still a long way from being able to make accurate projections about the future of the global climate.”

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1962294,00.html?xid=rss-topstories#ixzz0fFmuz7dB

If this is how Rush behaves when it snows in the winter. I’d hate to see what he does if it snows in the summer.