Plot Attributes: “Just to…” Weather Event Stories – Watts Up With That?

Opinion by Kip Hansen — July 16, 2024 — 1700 words/6 minutes

Over the past decade, there has been a growing push to link every strong or unusual weather event, no matter how localized, to global climate change. This demand arises from the inability of the IPCC and its thousands of contributors to actually find, “discover” is the word they use, the negative impacts of climate change in the real world, despite more than 40 years of relentlessly dire predictions.

You may have seen this before, but I present it as proof of the above:

Some notes on AR6 WG1 Chapter 12 Table 12.12:

1. ONLY the middle column represents the factual information: “Has occurred in historical times”. This means that the IPCC has not even detect increase/decrease in all others Factors affecting climate (see definition at end of essay) there are white cells in that column. You should ignore the “Emerging by….” columns – both are shown as “at least for RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5” which is considered by many to be Current climate scenarios are unlikely. (And This).

2. Darker colors in the Already Emerged column indicate that the climate driver has been detected with high confidence – but any number in the box is a warning about which region. For example, “Cold Spell” is only detected in “Australia, Africa, and most of northern South America.” Decreases in “Lake, River, and Sea Ice” are only detected in Arctic sea ice.

3. It’s interesting to read the list of things (the white boxes in all three columns) that are still not expected can even be found in 2100 RCP8.5 dystopian land. The vast majority of climate impacts (19 out of 33) are not predicted to “occur” by 2100 even under RCP8.5. Yet almost every day there is a media story telling us that they have already occurred and are “caused by climate change” or “made stronger or worse by climate change” contrary to the IPCC AR6.

So today I ask:

Question: “Why do we read that scientists have determined that [some weather event] has been caused or done Worse than XX% by climate change?”

Reply: Clearly state the source of the plot.

And what is that you may ask? Well, in my opinion Storyline Attribution is simply a “Just like that…” The weather story is used by the climate group to link every weather story to global climate change in some way.

That’s all the story. — “a speculative story or explanation of dubious or unprovable validity offered to explain the origin of something… when no verifiable explanation is known”

Pielke Jr. wrote last week, in Extreme Weather Due to Climate, Part 2::

“The past decade has seen the rise of so-called plot attribution, which now dominates discussion of all severe weather events.

A plot provides a causal explanation for a specific extreme event that just occurred and explains why the event was worse than it would have been without human intervention.

For examplejust from last week:

• The oceans are warming due to human impacts, notably increases in greenhouse gases and decreases in aerosols;
• Warmer oceans are linked to stronger hurricanes;
• Hurricane Beryl was an unusually strong storm for July;
• Hurricane Beryl is thus an example of how climate change is leading to an increase in the number of strong storms.

Recent floods? More moisture. That drought? Less moisture. Floods somewhere and droughts somewhere else? Wavy jet streams. Noisy. Just connect the dots.

A plot that seems plausible for every event is easy to create. I say plausible because the plot approach can eliminate parts of the story that don’t advance the plot, change every event in the story, and ignore events that don’t happen or don’t become extreme. A plot is a storynot science“

What kind of story is this? JFriendst So…the story. Special: “One speculative story or explain about of questionable or unprovable validity given to explain the origin of something (such as a biological trait) when there is no verifiable explanation”.

In these cases, one Just So Story about the origin, cause, and likelihood of a particular weather event, mild or extreme. In the quote from Pielke Jr. above, the four main points, in order, make up the plot attribution.

Now, to be fair, it does seem like there is a scientific version of plot attribution. It is detailed in a report to the United States Congress titled “Is it climate change? The science of extreme event attribution” [.pdf]. Here’s what they said:

“Plot Attribute Analysis

Research using the plot attribution method is to analyze the causes:

It [the Storyline Approach] is a framework based on the analysis of physical processes and is similar to an accident investigation…. The causal chain of factors leading to the initial event is identified and the role of each factor is assessed.

Researchers analyze atmospheric circulation and meteorological models using models and observational data to try to establish the factors that contributed to the event. This analysis includes identifying relationships between factors. For example, a circulation pattern may contribute to extreme rainfall in a study area, and increased water vapor in the air carried by the circulation may be associated with an area experiencing increased sea surface temperatures.

The next step is to estimate the impact of man-made climate on the causes associated with the event—for example, the extent to which human influence might affect sea surface temperatures, which in turn contribute to increased rainfall during an extreme event. Then a statement can be made about the extent to which human influence contributed to the causes of the event.”

How does this play out in the real world, with a real-world example of this “scientific” Plot Attribution? The Congressional Research Service provides an example of a plot (where no human influence was found):

“Researchers studying the record-breaking 2011 drought/heat wave in Texas used a combination of observational data and climate model simulations to examine the specific factors that may have influenced the magnitude of the event. The researchers found that the “main physical process” contributing to the drought/heat wave was an extreme and persistent lack of precipitation during the preceding winter and spring. This lack of precipitation was in turn linked to changes in sea surface temperatures. Because the associated sea surface temperatures were within the range of natural variability, the researchers found no evidence of human influence in their analysis of this extreme event.” [Oops…-kh]

[The analysis referred to in the above paragraph is M. Hoerling et al., “Anatomy of an Extreme Event,” Journal of Climate, vol. 26, no. 9 (2013). Hoerling is a full analysis, and not just a storyline attribution.  It is what a proper attribution study should be, but not what is presented to the media by weather attribution groups today.]

The typical storyline presented to the media, as Pileke Jr. points out, goes something like this in an article from Climate Crisis Propaganada, Inside Climate News About Storm Beryl:

“The storm is expected to increaseHe [Kerry Emanuel] said that as greenhouse gases warm the atmosphere and oceans, they increase the rate of evaporation and heat transfer in a warmer atmosphere that already holds more moisture.

“The greenhouse gas effect can be demonstrated in the incidence of category 3 or 4 hurricanes,” Emanuel said.

When Hurricane Beryl formed in the Atlantic Ocean in early July, hundreds of miles off the Texas coast, it reached Category 4 strength—the earliest Category 4 storm on record. Record-warm temperatures in the Atlantic this year have led to predictions of an extremely active hurricane season.

In the plot that the public sees and hears every day, there is simply no scientific analysis at all, just a plot…just a story…a Just So story. [see real hurricane data detailed, for instance, here.]

And at the root of all good propaganda is a believable story – believable because it’s built around a grain of truth. You can count those bits in the plot above:

1. “Storms are expected to get stronger” – a meme about predicting the climate crisis, so yes, they “predicted” it

2. Popularity, “Warmer air… holds more moisture.” An obvious scientific fact.

3. A fact “earliest category 4 storm in history” [this is as “as far as we know…”-type fact] and is tied to predictions of an active hurricane season.

The real event is Hurricane Beryl, a Category 1 hurricane making landfall in Houston, Texas. Drawing plot The event was “enhanced” by warmer air/warmer seas and part of the [non-existent] The incidence of category 3 and 4 hurricanes is increasing due to greenhouse gases.

And so, they say, Just like that….

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Author’s comments:

Plot Attribution of weather events is ubiquitous in the news feed: even your sports-obsessed neighbor can tell you why we’re having “all this crazy weather.” He hears it every night on the weather report—a catchy catchphrase that’s easy to remember.Just like that” stories that explain everything to him, without any science. The same stories are taught to your child every day in school…

Plot, Just like that plots, which are very common in science today. Biology has a lot of plots, as does theoretical physics. Soft sciences can nothing but That’s all the plot. Feel free to suggest examples….

Thanks for reading.

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NOTE: Opinion essays, sometimes referred to as OpEds, express the opinions of the author. Not the opinions of the newspaper, news agency, radio station, or their owners; in this case, not the opinions of WUWT as an entity, owner Anthony Watts, or any of its affiliated staff and/or other contributors. This opinion essay was written by Kip Hansen, and I am happy to take full ownership of these opinions.

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As promised, here it is. Definition of climate impact factor From IPCC AR6, the topic of the chart above:

FAQ 12.1 | What is a Climate Impact Identification (CID)?

A climate force is a physical climate condition that directly affects a society or ecosystem. Climate forces can represent a long-term average condition (such as average winter temperatures affecting home heating demand), a widespread event (such as frosts that kill warm-season crops), or an extreme event (such as coastal flooding that destroys homes). A single climate force can have harmful effects on one part of society while being beneficial to another part, while other parts are not affected at all. Therefore, a climate force (or a change in it due to climate change) is not always harmful or beneficial, but we call it a ‘hazard’ when experts determine that it is harmful to a particular system.

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