As the U.S.’s two decade war in Afghanistan draws to a close, very few former officials involved in prosecuting it have publicly struggled with the consequences.
An Emerging Branch Of Climate Science Helps Tell Us Whether Climate Change Is To Blame For Specific Weather Events
This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPM’s home for opinion and news analysis. It first appeared at The Conversation.
Extreme rainfall and flooding left paths of destruction through communities around the world this summer. The latest was in Tennessee, where preliminary data shows a record-shattering 17 inches of rain fell in 24 hours, turning creeks into rivers that flooded hundreds of homes and killed at least 18 people.
A lot of people are asking: Was it climate change? Answering that question isn’t so simple.
There has always been extreme weather, but human-caused global warming can increase extreme weather’s frequency and severity. For example, research shows that human activities such as burning fossil fuels are unequivocally warming the planet, and we know from basic physics that warm air can hold more moisture.
A decade ago, scientists weren’t able to confidently connect any individual weather event to climate change, even though the broader climate change trends were clear. Today, attribution studies can show whether extreme events were affected by climate change and whether they can be explained by natural variability alone. With rapid advances from research and increasing computing power, extreme event attribution has become a burgeoning new branch of climate science.
The latest attribution study, released Aug. 23, 2021, looked at the rainfall from the European storm that killed more than 220 people when floods swept through Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands in July 2021.
A team of climate scientists with the group World Weather Attribution analyzed the record-breaking storm, dubbed Bernd, focusing on two of the most severely affected areas. Their analysis found that human-induced climate change made a storm of that severity between 1.2 and 9 times more likely than it would have been in a world 1.2 degrees Celsius (2.1 F) cooler. The planet has warmed just over 1 C since the industrial era began.
AP Photo/John Amis
Similar studies haven’t yet been conducted on the Tennessee storm, but they likely will be.
So, how do scientists figure this out? As an atmospheric scientist, I have been involved in attribution studies. Here’s how the process works:
How do attribution studies work?
Attribution studies usually involve four steps.
The first step is to define the event’s magnitude and frequency based on observational data. For example, the July rainfall in Germany and Belgium broke records by large margins. The scientists determined that in today’s climate, a storm like that would occur on average every 400 years in the wider region.
The second step is to use computers to run climate models and compare those models’ results with observational data. To have confidence in a climate model’s results, the model needs to be able to realistically simulate such extreme events in the past and accurately represent the physical factors that help these events occur.
The third step is to define the baseline environment without climate change – essentially create a virtual world of Earth as it would be if no human activities had warmed the planet. Then run the same climate models again.
The differences between the second and third steps represent the impact of human-caused climate change. The last step is to quantify these differences in the magnitude and frequency of the extreme event, using statistical methods.
For instance, we analyzed how Hurricane Harvey in August 2017 and a unique weather pattern interacted with each other to produce the record-breaking rainstorm in Texas. Two attribution studies found that human-caused climate change increased the probability of such an event by roughly a factor of three, and increased Harvey’s rainfall by 15%.
Another study determined that the western North American extreme heat in late June 2021 would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.
NASA Earth Observatory
How good are attribution studies?
The accuracy of attribution studies is affected by uncertainties associated with each of the above four steps.
Some types of events lend themselves to attribution studies better than others. For instance, among long-term measurements, temperature data is most reliable. We understand how human-caused climate change affects heat waves better than other extreme events. Climate models are also usually skillful in simulating heat waves.
Even for heat waves, the impact of human-caused climate change on the magnitude and frequency could be quite different, such as the case of the extraordinary heat wave across western Russia in 2010. Climate change was found to have had minimal impact on the magnitude but substantial impact on the frequency.
There can also be legitimate differences in the methods underpinning different attribution studies.
However, people can make decisions for the future without knowing everything with certainty. Even when planning a backyard barbecue, one does not have to have all the weather information.
Xubin Zeng is a professor of Atmospheric Sciences and Director of the Climate Dynamics and Hydrometeorolgy Center at the University of Arizona.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Wisconsin Has The Perfect Man To Take On The GOP’s COVID Whackos
University of Wisconsin System interim president Tommy Thompson is a Republican who once served as the secretary of health and human services under the George W. Bush administration. He’s also pretty well known in Wisconsin — he was the state’s longest-serving governor.
And now he’s defying his own party’s state lawmakers — some his former colleagues — to maintain COVID mitigation policies at the school system. Continue reading “Wisconsin Has The Perfect Man To Take On The GOP’s COVID Whackos”
They Seem To Get It
The topline news is that the House select committee on Jan. 6 is targeting the Trump administration in a series of sweeping new records requests as part of its probe. But the more reassuring aspect of this is that they seem to be looking for records beyond the events of Jan. 6 that encompass the entire Big Lie. From our latest piece:
Jan 6 Committee Aims Massive Doc Request Squarely At Trump
The House Jan. 6 Committee sent a vast document request on Wednesday, demanding that eight federal agencies provide information relating to former President Trump’s involvement in the Capitol insurrection.
Continue reading “Jan 6 Committee Aims Massive Doc Request Squarely At Trump”
Secret Service Warned Capitol Police Of Threat The Day Before Insurrection
The Secret Service on January 5 warned the U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) of a threat to commit violence at the upcoming Trump rally in D.C. the next day, which ultimately led to the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection.
Continue reading “Secret Service Warned Capitol Police Of Threat The Day Before Insurrection”
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Two Members Of Congress Flew To Kabul And No One’s Impressed
A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things.
Great Timing, Guys
Two members of Congress went on a junket to Kabul right in the middle of the massive airlift to rescue Americans and Afghans from the Taliban takeover.
- The guilty reps are Seth Moulton (D-MA) and Peter Meijer (R-MI).
- Military and State Department officials were livid, according to the Washington Post.
- A diplomat lambasted the trip as “one of the most irresponsible things I’ve heard a lawmaker do,” and a senior official said it was “as moronic as it is selfish.”
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) didn’t seem to care for the stunt either, reminding members that State and Defense Department officials have asked them not to travel to the region now.
- “Member travel to Afghanistan and the surrounding countries would unnecessarily divert needed resources from the priority mission of safely and expeditiously evacuating America [sic] and Afghans at risk from Afghanistan,” she wrote in a letter.
- Moulton and Meijer insisted that they went there to “to gather information, not to grandstand,” and that they hadn’t taken up room in a plane that actual refugees needed.
- “We left on a plane with empty seats, seated in crew-only seats to ensure that nobody who needed a seat would lose one because of our presence,” they said.
- Let the dunking begin:
Whether it is Haiti or Afghanistan, taking up space in a disaster zone for your own ego helps no one. https://t.co/Unh6HXvZjd
— Sara Jacobs (@SaraJacobsCA) August 25, 2021
What they thought could be gained by pulling this stunt is beyond me ??♀️ https://t.co/zuUm60iyCY
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) August 25, 2021
Biden Sticks To His Afghanistan Withdrawal Timeline
The President won’t be extending his Aug. 31 deadline despite pressure from some lawmakers and officials, saying in a speech yesterday that he was “determined to complete our mission.”
- Whether Biden ultimately decides to extend the deadline “depends on the Taliban continuing to cooperate and allow access to the airport to those who are transporting out and no disruptions to our operation,” he said.
President Biden said that the United States is “on pace” to finish its mission in Afghanistan by Aug. 31, the deadline he set.
70,700 Americans and others who have assisted the United States have evacuated since Aug. 14. pic.twitter.com/POFfHbu2j4
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) August 24, 2021
The House Passes The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act
The effort to revive key elements of the Voting Rights Act passed 219-212, with no Republican support.
- Among other things, the bill would require jurisdictions with a history of racial discrimination to receive federal approval before implementing new voting laws (also known as “preclearance”).
- The bill attempts to counter the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act in the 2013 Shelby case.
- The legislation is almost certainly doomed in the Senate without changes to the filibuster rule. The only GOP senator who supports it is Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK).
Yet Another Insurrectionist-White Nationalist Crossover
The Jan. 6 insurrectionist who is accused of stealing a laptop from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) office during the attack allegedly participated in a neo-Nazi chat room, an investigation by Vice found.
SCOTUS Upholds One Of Trump’s Worst Anti-Immigration Policies
The Supreme Court ordered the Biden administration to comply with a lower court’s ruling to reinstate Trump’s infamous “Remain in Mexico” policy.
Get The Damn Shot
Hospitalization rates for people who weren’t vaccinated for COVID-19 were 29 times higher than for the vaccinated in Los Angeles County in July, according to a new study by the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.
An Actual Voter Fraudster’s Reckoning
GOP operative McRae Dowless, who masterminded an absentee ballot fraud scheme in a 2018 North Carolina congressional election, will be sentenced today after pleading guilty to federal Social Security fraud charges.
- Dowless still faces separate state criminal charges for allegedly ordering his assistants to collect incomplete ballots and fill them out during the 2018 election in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District.
A Ghost Pleads Guilty
A former Florida Senate candidate who ran as a “ghost” candidate in a Republican’s plot to siphon votes from a Democratic rival with the same last name pleaded guilty to election law violations.
And The Award Doesn’t Go To…..
Remember when then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo won an International Emmy for, uh, holding press conferences last year? Well, now he has to kiss that little statue goodbye after resigning in disgrace.
- The International Academy announced that it was “rescinding” the award, and that Cuomo’s “name and any reference to his receiving the award will be eliminated from International Academy materials going forward.”
- In case you forgot, they gave Cuomo the Emmy last November “in recognition of his leadership during the Covid-19 pandemic and his masterful use of television to inform and calm people around the world.”
The difference between me and Andrew Cuomo? Neither of us is governor, but I still have my Emmy(s).
— Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) August 24, 2021
Having A Normal One
Andrew Giuliani, the son of ex-Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, is out here doing … this:
Let’s make New York the SAFEST and CLEANEST state in the world AGAIN! pic.twitter.com/GuMImAxOxL
— Andrew H. Giuliani (@AndrewHGiuliani) August 21, 2021
Did anyone else forget that Giuliani’s running for New York governor? And that he’s a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum board of trustees?
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Oklahoma Man Who Assaulted AP Photographer On Jan. 6 Gets Arrested
The Justice Department announced on Tuesday that an Oklahoma man caught on video pushing an Associated Press photographer over a wall outside the Capitol during the Jan. 6 insurrection was arrested last week. Continue reading “Oklahoma Man Who Assaulted AP Photographer On Jan. 6 Gets Arrested”
FCC Wants $5M Fine Against Wohl, Burkman For Racist 2020 Robocalls
Right-wing hoaxters Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman face a proposed $5 million fine from the Federal Communications Commission for the racist robocalls they deployed during the last election.
Continue reading “FCC Wants $5M Fine Against Wohl, Burkman For Racist 2020 Robocalls”