Last week, Paul Homewood wrote about a decline in tornado activity over at WUWT. He introduces the topic by claiming that the downturn in tornadoes debunks alarmist claims of warming making extreme weather worse.
Oddly, Homewood doesn’t link out to any examples of alarmists claiming climate change will make tornadoes worse--probably because such claims don’t exist. Despite deniers constantly claiming climate alarmists ignore uncertainty, the science on tornadoes and climate is actually still unsettled.
What we do know, as good-faith critics have pointed out, is that our greenhouse gas emissions have changed the background climate in which all extreme weather develops. There is some science pointing to an increase in clusters of tornadoes--multiple touchdowns grouped closely together--as the planet has warmed. One study found the opposite of the what the researchers expected, an increase instead of decrease in wind shear, but that’s hardly a sign of the larger scientific community saying climate change will cause more tornadoes.
It’s not like this is hard stuff to find. The 2014 National Climate Assessment chapter on Extreme Weather states right at the start that tornado trends are still uncertain. The UK’s Royal Society similarly states that the tornado-climate link is uncertain. Groups like UCS and C2ES are also cautious in their descriptions.
“We keep being told that weather is becoming more extreme, but as far as tornadoes go it is the opposite which is true,” Homewood writes. That’s not wrong--it’s just that no one is including tornadoes when they’re referencing the extreme weather impacts of climate change. We’re talking about heat waves, droughts, hurricanes, wildfires: big events that can be much more easily observed and modeled than small, fast-moving tornadoes.
Next time you see a denier use the tornado strawman, ask them to point out a few examples of alarmist organizations claiming warming will cause more tornadoes. And when you see them claim that alarmists ignore uncertainty, consider pointing out the broad acknowledgements that tornado science is still unsettled.
There’s not much else you can do about tornado strawmen like Homewood’s. One could try and educate him, since he already seems to have the data at hand. But to actually understand that climate science can be conclusive about some kinds of extreme weather but not others...well, that requires a little more nuance.
Certainly Homewood could wrap his head around it though, if he only had a brain.
Top Climate and Clean Energy Stories: