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Did Global Warming Cause Katrina?
A lot of electrons have flowed over Web sites, blogs, and e-mails on this topic -- some merely raising the question while others making a heartfelt, passionate -- and, some would say, overblown -- case that government inaction on climate has been a major culprit in this week's catastrophe.
RealClimate -- a scientist-run blog site -- offers what may be a much more authoritative, if not definitive, answer: "there is no way to prove that Katrina either was, or was not, affected by global warming."
For a single event, regardless of how extreme, such attribution is fundamentally impossible. We only have one Earth, and it will follow only one of an infinite number of possible weather sequences. It is impossible to know whether or not this event would have taken place if we had not increased the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere as much as we have. Weather events will always result from a combination of deterministic factors (including greenhouse gas forcing or slow natural climate cycles) and stochastic factors (pure chance).Due to this semi-random nature of weather, it is wrong to blame any one event such as Katrina specifically on global warming - and of course it is just as indefensible to blame Katrina on a long-term natural cycle in the climate.
It's easy to want to believe otherwise -- to lay the blame for New Orleans' ruin at the feet of all those companies, politicians, and paid-for scientists that have led the United States to be the world's laggards on addressing climate. But that may not be the case. And doing so feeds into the neocons' assertion that those advocating action on climae aren't looking at the science.
My humble opinion: let's take the rhetoric down a notch and focus on the human tragedy at hand.
September 2, 2005 in Climate Change, State of the Art, Sustainability | Permalink
Comments
So we will just continue to sit idly by, because the ice caps are not melting, this summer was not the warmest one on record, ocean surface temperatures were not the highest since manmade recording has begun, last Summer/Fall did not have the most vicious hurrican season on record, and the temperature of the earth has not risen one degree centigrade in the past 100 years.
We will ignore these facts, even though, they are recorded by science.
Regardless of whether one storm can be attributed scientifically to global warming (even though this storm likely is), we know that this type of thing is exactly illustrative of the effects of global warming. So, what not better occassion to raise the issue? How many extraordinary hurricanes are we going to have to sit through before we bring this critical issue to the public forum where it belongs? This is the wrong attitude Joel. We can not afford to ignore the highly likely reasons why this storm occurred. And even if those reasons are not responsible for this specific storm, this hurricane still makes a great example of what the future without change is much more likely to bring.
The time to raise this issue is now and this storm, regardless of scientic guess, provides the perfect opportunity (while a major event of the global warming mold is in the public eye and forum). To squander this opportunity is not only self-defeating, but reckless and irresponsible.
I suggest you and all readers take a look at McKibben's article:
http://grist.org/comments/soapbox/2005/04/21/mckibben-imagine/
Here are some pertinent excerpts:
"Why is that? Well, some of the reasons are obvious. It's way too big, for one. When something is happening everywhere all at once, it threatens constantly to become backdrop, context, instead of event. And in this case, since the context is the natural world that more and more of us have forgotten how to read, the changes seem small.
Conversely, when global warming does attempt to show its teeth, the immediate event is usually overdramatic, so vast that the event itself grabs all the attention, leaving none behind for the motive cause. Four hurricanes sweep across Florida in a summer, which is just the kind of result computer modeling says is becoming more likely. But who has time for computer modeling and carbon when there is Storm Surge and Blown-Over Mobile Home and Waiting in Line for Ice, all of which are a lot easier to take pictures of?
And the dramatis personae are deficient as well, being us. Too many villains can mar a plot as easily as too few, and "starring everyone with a car" is a large cast indeed. We don't much want to be told that we're the problem, primarily because it implies we would have to change some of our ways. "
Posted by: Peter Cutul | Sep 3, 2005 7:03:06 AM
Peter,
No one said anything about sitting idly by. I'm certainly not. That isn't the point.
The point is that the science of this particular linkage is uncertain, and raising it -- esp. in light of respected scientists like those on on the Real Climate site -- feeds into the conservatives' case that we're all a bunch of Cassandras.
There's plenty of other good, sound science to point to that makes the case for dramatic action now, which we should do, loudly and clearly. But Katrina isn't the right case to make.
Posted by: Joel Makower | Sep 3, 2005 10:28:08 AM
I must say I agree with Peter, and McKibben. That Katrina specifically is not verifiably attributable to global warming should not prevent us from using it as emblematic of things to come. If this one did not come from warming, the increased percentage of those coming will have. Joel, in "The Ozone Hole is Shrinking" posted on this site, the incompletely verifiable predictive science of ozone depletion from CFC's, and the policy choice to protect us from the likely worst case scenario was used as an illustrative comparison (and approbation?) for warming. I fully agree with that comparison and approbation. IMHO, we must utilize powerful symbols that grip the public consciousness with all the emotive power we can muster because, by all evidence, that is how our public will be galvinized to make great sacrifice (vis post 9/11 legislation and post Katrina donations). The great irony of a Cassandra analogy is she spoke the truth but was cursed to never be believed. Well, Katrina is a door of perception blown open, if you will, and people are listening. Seize the opportunity. The great tregedy is the undeniable galvanizing climactic events will only come when it is already too late. Use whatever you can justifiably use, and spin it well.
Some propaganda systems harness manufactured fear for promoting war machines. Using supported probabilistic truths to illustrate things to come is excellent argumentation. Maybe it could actually save our lives.
Thanks for the great conversation!
Posted by: Jai | Sep 21, 2005 10:22:25 PM
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