Flooding in NYC is highly correlated with sewer infrastructure (look at Queens) mdpi.com/2073-4441/9/10…
Honestly, if I am a NY politician, given these facts, all I'd be talking about is climate change
No one in NYC gov't should be surprised by flooding
Hamidi et al 2018. Uncertainty analysis of urban sewer system using spatial simulation of radar rainfall fields: New York City case study. SERRA 32:2293-2308. link.springer.com/article/10.100…
NY and NJ are hotspots for inland flooding from tropical cyclones
NYC days with rainfall >4in 1900 to 2010
A >4in rainfall in one day was a 1 in ~3 year event in NYC
New York City Panel on Climate Change 2010 Report nyaspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.11…
"Extreme rainfall measured at Central Park has
significant year-to-year variation such that no statistically significant trends in extreme rainfall can be
identified (Horton et al., 2015)"
New York City Panel on Climate Change 2019 Report researchgate.net/profile/Jorge-…
The effects of climate change on extreme precip were said to be not detectable in the 2020s, in NYC Panel on Climate Change 2019 Report
So if this week's floods show clear fingerprints of climate change, then the mayor of New York is right to say that this event was unexpected
Interestingly the current NYC Storm Water Resiliency Plan discusses plans for an extreme rainfall event of 3.5 inches falling in 1 hour 9this week say 3.15 in one hour), which it defines with a return period of 100 yrs www1.nyc.gov/assets/orr/pdf…
So there are mixed messages here
A. This week's storm was the result of climate change - in which case policy makers were not warned
B. This week's storm was a ~100-yr flood indistinguishable from natural variability, in which case policy makers were unprepared
Pick one
For politicians, there's obvious incentives to pick A
For activist scientists trying to sell the NYC flood as a reason for broader emissions policy, a collateral effect is to provide cover for politicians who dropped the ball in local NYC flood/stormwater policy & infrastructure
🧵
The percentage of a percentage trick is increasingly common & leads to massive confusion
Here a undetectable difference of 0.01 events per year per decade is presented as the difference between a 31% and 66.4% increase (in the *likelihood* of the event, not the event itself)
The resulting confusion is perfectly predictable
Here is a reporter (NPR) explaining completely incorrectly:
"The phenomenon has grown up to 66% since the mid-20th century"
False
Also, the numbers in the text and figure do not appear to match up
I asked Swain about this over at BlooSkeye
A Frankenstein dataset results from splicing together two time series found online
Below is an example for US hurricane damage 1900-2017
Data for 1980-2017 was replaced with a different time series in the green box
Upwards trend results (red ---)
Claim: Due to climate change!
The errors here are so obvious and consequential that it is baffling that the community does not quickly correct course
The IPCC AR6 cited a paper misusing the Frankenstein hurricane loss dataset to suggest that NOAA's gold standard hurricane "best track" dataset may be flawed
JFC - Using flawed economic loss data to suggest that direct measurements of hurricanes are in error!
We’ve reached the point where an IPCC author is openly rejecting the conclusions of the IPCC out of concern over how their political opposition is correctly interpreting the AR6
The integrity of the IPCC on extreme events is now under attack
The IPCC explains that a trend in a particular variable is DETECTED if it is outside internal variability and judged with >90% likelihood
For most (not all) metrics of extreme weather detection has not been achieved
That’s not me saying that, but IPCC AR6
The IPCC also assesses that for most (but not all) metrics of extreme weather the signal of a change in climate will not emerge from internal variability with high confidence (ie, >90%) by 2050 or 2100, even assuming the most extreme changes under RCP8.5
The US National Academy of Sciences has a new study committee on Extreme Event Attribution
Among its sponsors are the Bezos Earth Fund and Robert Litterman
Who are they? . . .
The Bezos Earth Fund sponsors World Weather Attribution, an advocacy group promoting the connection of weather events w/ fossil fuels in support of press coverage & lawsuits
Robert Litterman is on the board of Climate Central which founded WWA & collaborates on climate advocacy
The fact that a NAS committee is funded by political advocates is crazy enough
But that is not all
On the committee itself are individuals from two climate advocacy groups
One . . . the Union of Concerned Scientists which is working to use attribution to support lawsuits . . .