Sharknado Slams Los Angeles, Media Blames Global Warming |ThinkProgress
Sharknado Slams Los Angeles, Media Blames Global Warming
As the national media reported, the local media blamed this on climate change: Global warming IS the reason
So exclaims a local TV news reporter as a sharknadoa climate-change-abetted windstorm that sucks in an armada of malevolent sharksapproaches the heart of Los Angeles.
Based on my conversations with leading climate scientists, it seems premature at best for a pre-documentary to pre-attribute an individual sharknado to climate change. I examined the climate/tornado link in great detail here and concluded:
When discussing extreme weather and climate, tornadoes should not be conflated with the other extreme weather events for which the connection is considerably more straightforward and better documented, including deluges, droughts, and heat waves.
Just because the tornado-warming link is more tenuous doesnt mean that the subject of global warming should be avoided entirely when talking about tornadoes.
Significantly, Harold Brooks, a senior scientist at NOAAs National Severe Storms Laboratory, told the media this week, There are records of small fish being picked up by waterspouts, but sharks are pretty big and that makes it a lot harder.
This suggests that if there ever is a sharknado, global warming probably played a role in creating convection and winds capable of entraining a significant number of sharks.
This footage underscores that point:
[youtube]iwsqFR5bh6Q[/youtube]
BY JOE ROMM ON JULY 12, 2013 AT 12:25 PM