Florence punishes Carolinas with torrential rain, flooding; 8 dead

Sad to say, the dead count is now at 11.

I thought the story was about Florence, you know the hurricane. I guess, what is turning out to be a very significant weather event, is just the back story. Apparently the real headline is that Trump is a jerk.

To paraphrase Rick James, TDS is a hell of a drug.

It was originally predicted that Florence would be a category 4 when it made landfall. In actuality it was a category 1 at the time it came ashore and quickly weakened into a tropical storm. Although the forecasters got the track correct they failed miserably with the storms intensity. If Florence would have hit as a category 4 it would have been a huge disaster. For some unknown reason it fizzled tremendously.

How did this thread become a pro or anti Trump topic?

I'm blessed that my family didn't have any serous troubles, other than a few downed trees near their house but that wasn't the case for everyone. Fortunately, there're lots of people who put aside their political preferences, to help all those in need!

Its true that I dislike Trump but who on this thread, actually has real faith in ANY politician???

The last time a category 4 hurricane hit the NC coast was in 1954 (Hazel). Global warming must have been much worse back then. I noticed that this story somehow does not mention global warming. Had it been a hurricane similar to Hazel 64 years ago it surely would mention it as all stories on major storms unfailingly do. The truth is that there have been more major hurricanes in the first half of the 20th century than in the second when much more CO2 was put into the atmosphere. I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation for this seemingly inconsistent fact.

Wolfpack, wether you believe in global warming or not, human beings DO have an impact on the environment, and environmental imbalances, can cause changes or instability in the weather patterns. Just because I tended to vote Democrate more often than Republican doesn't mean I agree with all theories of global warming, nor should ones political affiliation be used to assume their every belief.

These extreme weather events are becoming the norm with global warming. I feel sorry for these people but we're all experiencing these extreme weather patterns all over the world. We're going to drive ourselves into extinction if we don't reverse this trend.

@hakma From the article linked below:

The article reports info from a book written by Leighton Steward.

Leighton Steward is a geologist, environmentalist, author, and retired energy industry executive. 

I trust NASA scientists, not 'retired energy industry executives'.

https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/

After the worst of this tragedy has passed, I hope that many in the Carolinas will re-consider their support for government officials who claim climate change is fiction.

Social conservatives (the Republicans haven't been fiscal conservatives in quite some time) can certainly appreciate the need to preserve the planet. These once in a lifetime storms are happening far too often.

Stuart: Wolfpack, wether you believe in global warming or not, human beings DO have an impact on the environment, and environmental imbalances, can cause changes or instability in the weather patterns.

I do believe that the Earths climate changes and that humans impact the environment. Most conservatives do. I just don’t believe the end of the world proclamations from the political Left. Nor do I believe that more Socialism will help improve the human condition moving forward.

Al Gore said the Artic ice would melt completely by 2013. Satellite data shows that the Earth has not warmed in 20 years. There were more intense hurricanes in the first half of the 20th century than the second. There is a concerted effort to inflate the issue for political purposes. These are some of the reasons why you see push back from conservatives.

As of yet I don’t see any unbiased evidence that human actions can cause negative, ‘changes or instability in the weather patterns.’ Keep in mind as well that we only have about 150 years of decent information about the weather.

Humans have a tendency to over react to problems without fully understanding the implications of their actions. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty by our current global economic system. We could easily end up condemning them to poverty and a life of misery and early death by raising their energy costs.

The truth is that there have been more major hurricanes in the first half of the 20th century than in the second when much more CO2 was put into the atmosphere. I have yet to hear a reasonable explanation for this seemingly inconsistent fact.

Just educated guessing here - but the 1st half of the 20th Century there were 2 major World Wars (and a lot more "minor" wars due to colonialism, including Japan) and no real environmental push so soon after the Industrial Revolution fortune of the 2nd half of the 19th Century. Surely had spiked environmental impacts

Satellite data shows that the Earth has not warmed in 20 years.

Could you cite that satellite data?

Because NASA shows: "Seventeen of the 18 warmest years in the 136-year record all have occurred since 2001, with the exception of 1998. The year 2016 ranks as the warmest on record."

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/global-temperature/

And NASA has access to a lot of satellites

Hahaha. Some conservatives think the president isn't involved in relief efforts related to hurricanes because, you know, blah, blah, blah.

Other conservatives deny the impact humans have had/are having in the environment because they think they know more than the scientists. Hahahaha.

Social conservatives (the Republicans haven't been fiscal conservatives in quite some time) can certainly appreciate the need to preserve the planet. These once in a lifetime storms are happening far too often.

Seems like they’re doing that already. Leftists and Globalists keep perpetuating that myth.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/rrapier/2017/10/24/yes-the-u-s-leads-all-countries-in-reducing-carbon-emissions/#aa1d50935355

https://www.insidesources.com/without-paris-agreement-us-leads-world-declining-carbon-dioxide-emissions/

@lost: Could you cite that satellite data?

https://dailycaller.com/2015/07/17/satellites-earth-is-nearly-in-its-21st-year-without-global-warming/

Data for the article from here:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/04/version-6-0-of-the-uah-temperature-dataset-released-new-lt-trend-0-11-cdecade/

If changes in temperature from one year to the next are within the statistical range of error, than there is no change. That is basically where we have been for the last two decades or so.

@lost: Could you cite that satellite data?

https://dailycaller.com/2015/07/17/satellites-earth-is-nearly-in-its-21st-year-without-global-warming/

Data for the article from here:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2015/04/version-6-0-of-the-uah-temperature-dataset-released-new-lt-trend-0-11-cdecade/

If changes in temperature from one year to the next are within the statistical range of error, than there is no change. That is basically where we have been for the last two decades or so.

First off, thanks Wolfpack for citing the data since many people don't seem to cite, which makes discussions harder to place.

OK, that's a long read from Dr. Spencer. From what I gather from his piece, what he really talked about is readjustments of the measurements. Long story short, his temp measurements were revised a bit downward (about 20%) but still shows an overall trend of increasing temp measurements (old trend: +0.140 C/decade, new trend: +0.114 C/decade).

Now, the piece from the Daily Caller. First, what the Daily Caller wrote about themselves: "Founded in 2010 by Tucker Carlson, a 20-year veteran journalist, and Neil Patel, former chief policy advisor to Vice President Cheney" and its media bias (from 2 sources) both show far-right:

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/daily-caller/

https://www.allsides.com/news-source/daily-caller

So we got to note that they're already quite aways from even just around the middle.

OK, with that out of the way, the crux of author Michael Bastasch's argument was about "without statistically significant warming trend" - he admits it's still warming, just not "statistically significant." However, he didn't mention how he arrived at that conclusion - what is not "statistically significant" and what is and how he determined it.

Because Dr. Spencer's original piece didn't mention that the revised numbers --still warming-- are not statistically significant. So I'd like to know the basis how Bastasch determined that - because when it comes to climate, even small numbers can matter (after all, the Paris Accord was only targeting between 1C-2C increase in temperature for the next century - at +0.114 C/decade for 10 decades, that's already at just past that 1C line).

Since Bastasch isn't a scientist, so that determination must had come from somewhere. Otherwise, I'm not certain how he can decide that by himself, particularly without context or calculations for comparison.