Bad Weather Is No Reason for Climate Alarm

Events such as hurricanes and wildfires are too often blamed on our slowly warming, slightly wetter planet

By Benny Peiser and Matt Ridley. Mr. Peiser is the director of the London-based Global Warming Policy Forum. Mr. Ridley is a member of the House of Lords and the author of many books. Excerpts:

"While the U.S. witnessed record damages in 2017, the rest of the world was actually hit by far fewer natural disasters than usual. On average, the globe suffers some 325 catastrophic natural disasters a year, but last year (through November) they were down to around 250, according to the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the University of Leuven in Belgium. A third fewer people were killed by climate-related hazards, according to the Centre’s International Disaster Database."

"average surface temperatures have dropped by a half degree Celsius since the El Niño peak in 2016, according to the UK’s Met Office, and are now almost back to pre-El Niño levels."

"Though temperatures have increased, the rise is not accelerating and has fallen short of the most authoritative projections. In 1990, the first assessment report of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that temperatures would rise at the rate of 0.3 degree Celsius per decade, equivalent to 3 degrees Celsius (or 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) a century. In fact, temperatures have risen since 1990 at between 0.121 and 0.198 degrees Celsius per decade"

"In August, Harvey made landfall near Corpus Christi as a Category 4 storm, ending a record 12-year period without a major U.S. hurricanes"

"globally the Accumulated Cyclone Energy index—which measures the combined intensity and duration of these storms—is currently running 20% below its long-term average."

"But the number of wildfires in California has actually been declining for 40 years, according to UCLA’s Jon Keeley, a leading researcher on the subject. A review published in 2016 by Britain’s Royal Society documented that the global area burned by wildfires has also declined in recent decades."

"the proportion of the world suffering from abnormally low rainfall has slightly declined since the 1980s"

"the number of major floods in natural rivers across Europe and North America has not increased in 80 years. Globally, too, floods have decreased in recent years."

"The loss of sea ice has no effect on sea level, however, and the rate of decline has been fairly gradual.  

Sea level: According to NASA, global average sea level has changed little since July 2015. The average rise since 1993 has been 3.2 millimeters a year, but there is no obvious sign of acceleration since satellites started measuring sea level 25 years ago."