Environmental activists are blaming global warming for intensifying Hurricane Irma as the massive storm barrels across the South Atlantic towards the Florida coast.
Like Hurricane Harvey, some activists are pointing to warm sea surface temperatures as the culprit behind Irma, which turned into a Category 5 hurricane Tuesday.
Pacific Institute President Peter Gleick pointed to “abnormally high” Caribbean Sea temperatures in advanced of Irma striking any islands.
Some don’t like scientists talking re #climate change during disasters, so before #Irma strikes: Caribbean water temps are abnormally high. pic.twitter.com/JvglgrebEu
— Peter Gleick (@PeterGleick) September 5, 2017
Gleick’s claims were countered by atmospheric scientist Ryan Maue, who called out the environmental activist for fiddling with the color table on the chart to obscure near average water temperatures.
Color table criminal … no white space to delineate near-average.
Also, Hurricane Irma isn’t in the Caribbean. #FakeScience https://t.co/joBytPGJgb— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) September 5, 2017
SST are near normal on expected track … doesn’t really matter b/c Sept climatology of last 300-years is still sufficient for Category 5’s pic.twitter.com/CwtxoWH8vV
— Ryan Maue (@RyanMaue) September 5, 2017
Some climate scientists and activists tried to link Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall in Texas in late August, to man-made warming, but such claims were largely shot down by scientists who looked at the data.
“So Hurricane Harvey developed in an environment in which temperatures were near normal in the atmosphere and slightly above normal in the Gulf,” University of Washington climate scientist Cliff Mass wrote in his blog. “The clear implication: global warming could not have contributed very much to the storm.”
Irma is heading for the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico where it’s expected to bring up to 8 inches of rain and strong 60-mile-per-hour gusts of wind. Irma is expected to be off the Florida coast later this week.
Florida, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands have all declared states of emergencies ahead of Irma. Gleick, however, used the opportunity to declare a state of emergency because of global warming.
Gov. Scott declares a state of emergency because Hurricane #Irma may hit Florida. I declare a state of emergency because of #climate change.
— Peter Gleick (@PeterGleick) September 4, 2017
U.K. environmental writer and activist George Monbiot said Irma should be called “Hurricane Exxon,” and U.S. environmental activist Bill McKibben linked the Hurricane and other disasters to President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord.
Let’s not call it #HurricaneIrma. Let’s call it Hurricane Exxon.
— GeorgeMonbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) September 5, 2017
Houston: slowly draining
LA: on fire
Miami: worrying about Cat5 Irma
Paris: climate agreement would be ‘bad for America.’— Bill McKibben (@billmckibben) September 4, 2017
Read more at Daily Caller
They say that global warming intensified Irma… So, by that logic, the lack of significant hurricanes for the last decade or so demonstrates that there has been a LACK of global warming, and perhaps even cooling has occurred.
C’mon climate leftists, you can’t have it both ways… again.
It sure did’nt take the Green nutcases long did it first we get Harvey now Irma and the Green Nuts start their mindless yammering these wackos will of course blame Trump for pulling america out of the Globalists Paris Accord and they said the same about Katrina the facts is americas deadlists hurricane happned in 1900 in Galvaston Texas long before SUV’s,Back Yard BBQ’s and cars and long before Greenpeace,NRDC,EDF,Friends of the Earth and other Eco-Wacko groups were born