Newsflash: July Was NJ’s 2nd Hottest Month Ever

Ding Dong the Witch is Dead!

Jim O’Neill of the Bergen Record just connected some of the dots and broke the news blackout!

See: July was NJ’s 2nd-hottest month ever. 

Put this quote in Neon lights in Times Square:

“Those data are completely consistent with our understanding of global warming,” said Alan Robock, associate director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers. “As the average temperature of the planet warms due to human emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, individual locations are expected to follow the trend, but with a large amount of natural variability thrown in.”

That quote is almost as good as Jim Hansen’s take:

“The standard scientist answer is “you cannot blame a specific weather/climate event on global warming.” That answer, to the public, translates as “no”.  However, if the question were posed as “would these events have occurred if atmospheric carbon dioxide had remained at its pre-industrial level of 280 [parts per million] ppm?”, an appropriate answer in that case is “almost certainly not.” That answer, to the public, translates as “yes”, i.e., humans probably bear a responsibility for the extreme event.“

“In either case, the scientist usually goes on to say something about probabilities and how those are changing because of global warming. But the extended discussion, to much of the public, is chatter. The initial answer is all important. Although either answer can be defended as “correct”, we suggest that leading with the standard caveat “you cannot blame…” is misleading and allows a misinterpretation about the danger of increasing extreme events.