The Fellow di Tuttii Fellows over at Media Matters tweets about yesterday’s tornado in Massachusetts:
Right, this is a normal weather pattern: Twister hits Springfield As Storms Sweep Massachusetts and East Coast; http://bit.ly/mdlXGN
Yes, it is a normal weather pattern.
There’s a site called Homefacts.com that allows you to plug in your city and find out if you’re at risk for a tornado. Here’s the result for Springfield, Mass.:
According to our records, the largest Tornado in the Springfield Area was an F4 in 1953 that caused 1228 injuries and 90 deaths. Springfield, Massachusetts has potential risk of tornadoes.
The site then goes on to list the many tornadoes that have hit Springfield since 1950.
Listen, could climate change be causing tornadoes? Who knows? But as Andrew Revkin wrote the other day, any affect from climate change in minimal when compared with other factors that exacerbate the risk from severe weather. Quoting from Revkin:
It’s fine for Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research to say he feels “it is irresponsible not to mention climate change” when discussing tornado outbreaks. Everyone’s entitled to his or her view.
My response would be that it is irresponsible not to mention the need to reduce inherent and avoidable human vulnerability to tornadoes in the crowding South, particularly in low-income regions with flimsy housing. I saw barely a mention of these realities in recent posts by climate-oriented bloggers on the tornado outbreak.
The same issue has played out in discussions of hurricane trends in a warming world. In 2006, amid persistent scientific debate over the possible role of greenhouse-driven warming in shaping hurricane patterns, 10 leading researchers in the field issued a single statement on vulnerability.
Here’s the relevant section from my story on that effort (which was just about the only coverage of this attempt to find common ground):
Ten climate experts who are sharply divided over whether global warming is intensifying hurricanes say that this question, a focus of Congressional hearings, news reports and the recent Al Gore documentary, is a distraction from “the main hurricane problem facing the United States.”
That problem, the experts said yesterday in a statement, is an ongoing “lemming-like march to the sea” in the form of unabated coastal development in vulnerable places, and in the lack of changes in government policies and corporate and individual behavior that are driving the trend.
Whatever the relationship between hurricanes and climate, experts say, hurricanes are hitting the coasts, and houses should not be built in their path.
I’d love to see a similar statement now from meteorologists, climatologists and other specialists studying trends in tornado zones. Any takers?
Yeah, any takers?
Here’s another map for climatologist Boehlert to ponder that shows the highest risk areas in the U.S. for tornadoes. Imagine that — Springfield is on the border of High Risk/Highest Risk:
Here’s an idea for the Left: Stop politicizing death and destruction to further your policy goals. Thanks!