From the Daily Caller:
In a Senate hearing Thursday, environmental scientist
Roger Pielke of the University of Colorado said it’s “incorrect” to
claim that global warming is spurring more extreme weather disasters.
“It is misleading and just plain incorrect to claim that disasters
associated with hurricanes, tornadoes, floods or droughts have increased
on climate timescales either in the United States or globally,” Pielke
said in his testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee. “It is further incorrect to associate the increasing costs of
disasters with the emission of greenhouse gases.”
“Hurricanes have not increased in the U.S. in frequency, intensity or
normalized damage since at least 1900,” Pielke added. “The same holds
for tropical cyclones globally since at least 1970.”
Senate Democrats pointed to the increase in extreme weather events
like hurricanes and tornadoes as evidence of global warming. California
Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said that “climate change is real” and
human activities were the cause, adding that people can “look out the
window” to see evidence of it.
“Heat waves, droughts, wildfires and floods — all are now more
frequent and intense,” said President Barack Obama in his State of the
Union address.
Pielke, however, notes that U.S. floods have not increased in
“frequency or intensity” since 1950 and economic losses from floods have
dropped by 75 percent as a percentage of GDP since 1940. Tornado
frequency, intensity, and normalized damages have also not increased
since 1950, and Pielke even notes that there is some evidence that this
has declined.
Pielke noted in his testimony that droughts have been shorter, less
frequent, and have covered a smaller portion of the U.S over the last
century. Globally, there has been very little change in the last 60
years, he said
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