Did climate change cause Typhoon Haiyan? Yes.
Peter Hart posted on this blog (11/14/13) about the reluctance of corporate media to discuss climate change in connection to Typhoon Haiyan—a trend that we’ve talked about before with regards to extreme weather events (Extra!, 8/11; FAIR Blog, 7/2/12, 11/1/12). (We’ll be discussing it again in the upcoming December 2013 issue of Extra!.)
There’s a phrase that comes up a lot in news reports that do discuss the relationship between climate change and extreme weather that get the connection completely backward. Here it is in the New York Times story (11/12/13) Peter quoted:
Yet scientists remain cautious about drawing links between extreme storms like this typhoon and climate change. There is not enough data, they say, to draw conclusions about any single storm.
And on NBC Nightly News (11/11/13): “While scientists can’t say whether climate change contributed to this particular typhoon, they believe global warming is making storms stronger.”
Here’s Bryan Walsh (11/11/13) on Time‘s website: “The reality is that it remains extremely difficult to attribute specific weather events to climate change.” And Brad Plumer in the Washington Post (11/12/13):
Detecting a clear trend here is difficult, as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded. And it’s even harder to say whether the strength of a single storm like Haiyan can be attributed to man-made climate change.
The reason all these statements are backwards is that attributing particular weather events to climate change is ridiculously easy: Every weather event in the modern world is attributable to climate change. This is because weather is a chaotic system, which is to say it varies wildly based on initial conditions. Once we raised global temperature by a degree Celsius—which is an enormous intervention in the physical world—we irrevocably changed all weather, producing an entirely different set of events than the ones that would have otherwise occurred.
So climate change caused Typhoon Haiyan–in the sense that Haiyan would not have happened in the absence of climate change. Note that this is the most basic and obvious meaning of the word “cause.”
Now, when journalists say that it’s difficult to attribute a particular weather event to climate change, they’re presumably saying something more complicated—perhaps something like “it’s difficult to say whether a similar event could not have happened in the absence of climate change.” Even with Haiyan—a storm more ferocious than any seen before in recorded history (Scientific American, 11/11/13)—you can always speculate that perhaps that record would have one day been broken in a world where people hadn’t altered the atmosphere.
But to talk about “cause” on this level is misleading to news consumers—who I think, when they hear that, really are imagining some storms happening and others not on the basis of climate change. And it’s unhelpful in terms of setting public policy, because it’s defining “cause” in a way that makes it impossible to connect weather disasters to human activity.
It is possible, and important, to compare current weather events with the historical record, and point out how the current pattern differs. But it’s not always easy to say what that pattern is, particularly since the climate change is an ongoing process, with a different average temperature this decade than there was last decade and than there will be next decade. The current weather is not the “new normal”; living humans will never see anything that can be referred to as “normal” again.
Journalists can help clear up this complicated situation by stressing the one thing that we know for sure: We changed the climate, and this is the weather we got as a result.
I get what you’re saying, and I agree with the spirit of it, but I think maybe you’re misunderstanding what the climate scientists are actually saying. No REPUTABLE climate scientist would argue that a major perturbation to the global thermal budget of a coupled ocean-atmosphere isn’t going to have an impact on weather patterns; but it is not possible to demonstrate with any scientific rigor that “Haiyan would not have happened in the absence of climate change.”
I think pushing a reductionist “temps go up therefore storms are ‘worse’ ” is a dangerous way to go about oversimplifying the problem. Also, because climate and weather are, as you point out, such complexly stochastic systems, cause and effect become difficult to parse in any detail. I mean, how are storms getting worse? Areal extent? Rainfall intensity? Maximum Rainfall? Windspeeds? Duration? Some combination of these? Do these changes always occur, or only sometimes.
A more fruitful analogy might be one I’ve heard from a number of climate scientists: it’s like steroids. You cannot point to any single homerun and say with certainty that a player would NEVER have hit THAT ONE homerun without using steroids. BUT you can say that steroid use undoubtedly increased the statistical likelihood that homeruns are going to occur. And that’s the key to actually using climate change evidence, right? The only meaningful way to assess and discuss climate change is through statistics, because that is the only rigorous way to demonstrate the cause and effect you are talking about.
I’m sympathetic to your point, but I think your argument is flawed in a few ways. One is what Eric describes, but I’d also say that you seem to be conflating two factors: i) that global temperatures are up and ii) the cause is man-made (and therefore can and should be addressed through policy).
You begin by talking simply about a changed/warmer climate and extreme weather, but then shift the climate change element to mean climate change CAUSED BY HUMAN ACTIVITY – which are not necessarily equivalent: From ‘…the relationship between climate change and extreme weather.’ To ‘Once WE raised global temperature…’; and ‘…in a world where PEOPLE hadn’t altered the atmosphere.’; and ‘…defining “cause” in a way that makes it impossible to connect weather disasters to HUMAN ACTIVITY.’
While I obviously agree with you that all evidence indicates the climate change we’re experiencing IS in fact cause by human activity, it doesn’t serve your point to equate the two. That’s because the people who disagree with you (and scientists, environmentalists, etc.) don’t dispute the change in temperature; what they dispute is whether it’s to do with our use of fossil fuels and other environment-altering activities, or something like solar activity or natural, long-term cycles, etc. This distinction is crucial to accept your overall argument that we can and should do something about it. Otherwise, no one would dispute your foundational point that the present climate produces present weather events – because that’s utterly trivial.
Again, I accept your conclusions, but if you want to have a persuasive argument based on cause and effect, then you need to have the specific causes and effects you’re talking about clear and explicitly articulated.
The language scientists use is crucial, as it becomes politicized and scrutinized as soon as it is published. I’ve been studying responses by the American public to the science and the evidence shows that science can help but only when it is completely depoliticized. It can happen. Conveying statistics help very little because of error terms and confidence intervals, something which politicians blow out of proportion. Even if most scientists claim that weather is connected to climate change, I predict little policy action until a critical mass of Americans has had a personal experience related to weather, e.g., seeing their home under water, in flames, or blown away. We reward politicians (with re-election) when they get funds for post-disaster recovery but not for preventative measures.
Well something caused it right?Instead of trying to blame people Im going with an old chinese proverb.”A butterfly flaps his wing and the wind blows on the other ends of the earth.”Im going with butterflies.I prepose this government moves to take control of Butterflies within the continental US..Michelle my Belle and her kids can get some butterfly nets and catch those who have broken airspace on the white house lawns.Best news is this winter is supposed to be brutal the world over as we generally cool.That should kill those damn butterflies.
Hey Matt…….What kind of preventative measures do you propose?Are they constitutional or Obama fascism?Carbon taxes?Ha ha ha go pound sand.Taking over the economy?Gues what this country is the only big industrial country that never signed the protocol.And guess who is making ALL countries eat their dust as we clean up????US!!!!Wanna change the world and clean it up?INVADE China.Take over HER economy.That is the only way- as they push far far past us in the crap they are putting into the earth.India next.And they have a finger gesture to tell you what you can do with your theories.So basically you would wreck our economy to show the world how it should be done?Sweet dancing Jesus what a load of……Look things will get cleaner yet with tax breaks for those who do so.But the left is against the recreation of wealth.Prohibitive taxes work on no level.And high taxes inhibit innovation.What is the answer????The market.Those who innovate, and create good products using tax breaks to do so, will thrive.No government over reach and direction.Tax cuts and get the hell out of the way
“Preventative measures” correspond with the particular crisis. Wait for a flood to challenge a suspect levee or repair it beforehand. The difference in terms of economic costs is huge: on average ten times more for post-disaster recovery efforts rather than preventative measures.
So as i said the best preventative measure to stop global warming if it exists in the form the left believes is the invasion of main land China……Um you go first.Ill pass
Personally, I think what should be said is something along the lines of “Did global warming ’cause’ Haiyan? Well, no one can say for sure that Haiyan would not have happened if global warming wasn’t occurring, but it can be said for certain that because of global warming, storms *like* Haiyan are far more likely.”