UW Scientist gets criticized for saying heat wave isn't climate change

[D-train]

Every time there is a cold snap and people say, so much for Global warming all the scientists rush in and say that is weather NOT climate. But this guy dares to say that an event that lasted a few days isn't due to man made climate change and gets eviscerated. Hypocites.

By Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporter
On Thursday, June 24, as the Northwest’s record-shattering heat wave approached, Cliff Mass posted a forecast he found hard to believe. By Monday, temperatures near the western Cascades foothills would exceed 108 degrees and they would reach 104 degrees and higher around Puget Sound.

“The event being predicted is so extreme and so beyond expectations that my natural inclination is to dismiss it,” Mass wrote. “But I can’t.”

His blog succinctly captured the historic event about to unfold in the kind of post that has helped make Mass, a professor at the University of Washington’s Department of Atmospheric Sciences, one of the region’s most influential meteorologists.

After the heat wave, he quickly assumed a far more controversial role as an outspoken critic of scientists who say climate change plays a big role in extreme weather events.

In a July 6 post, Mass declared that without global warming, we “still would have experienced the most severe heat wave of the past century.” In a follow-up post on July 13, he blasted as “profoundly flawed” a World Weather Attribution report by a team of 27 international scientists that concluded the heat wave would have been virtually impossible without human-caused climate change.

His blog posts serve as an online megaphone for Mass, who says it garners some 20,000 views on a typical day, and has received more than a half million views during some weather events.

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His recent posts came at a time when Puget Sound governments and others in our region are scrambling to better prepare for such events. The heat wave contributed to the deaths of at least 125 people, according to preliminary state Department of Health data. And Mass has gotten strong pushback from scientists involved in the report as well as some other climatologists who say his ridicule increasingly makes him an outlier among scientists assessing the impacts of global warming.

The World Weather Attribution researchers, using statistical analysis, estimated the odds of this summer’s heat wave were one in 1,000 in today’s world but would have been at least 150 times more unlikely in preindustrial times. As early as the 2040s, their report said such events could occur, somewhere in the world, every five to 10 years.

In their models, the overall global impact of climate change resembles a kind of loading of the dice that can increase intensity of extreme-temperature events like the Northwest heat wave. In this case, they found climate change intensified the heat by about 4 degrees in the Seattle area to reach 108 degrees, significantly increasing the chances of death, according to a rebuttal document six of the researchers prepared in response to Mass.

Mass’s perspective differs.

He concluded climate change didn’t play a central role in an event largely caused by the natural variability of our regional weather. He notes the temperature soared by more than 40 degrees above the normal high, and climate change added only a few degrees, thus “a record-breaking unique heat wave” would have occurred even without global warming. In his blog, he lays out a golden rule that — based on this analysis — the bigger the temperature surge in an extreme event, the smaller the role of climate change, and accuses the World Weather Attribution report of “misinforming millions.”

Mass says his criticism is grounded in a deep knowledge of the intricate mix of ocean, mountains and atmospheric flows that help to produce Northwest weather, as well as climate models he runs.

Faron Anslow, a climatologist at the University of Victoria and co-author of the report, says he respects Mass’s forecasting abilities but not his climate analysis. He says Mass’s rejection of the report “clearly demonstrates how far out of his element Cliff is here.”

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Nick Bond, state climatologist and a UW professor who co-teaches a course with Mass, said the report team used accepted statistical methods for looking at these types of events. “What they show makes sense to me — that the frequency and intensity of these events is increasing — even if I wouldn’t take as gospel the exact numbers,” Bond said.

Gavin Schmidt, senior climate adviser for NASA, in a series of tweets wrote “some folks keep getting the climate change connection wrong” and referred to Mass.

Schmidt dismissed Mass’s golden rule as “nonsense.”

“And it matters, because if you are someone who is going to make decisions about the future, you need to know this could happen again,” Schmidt, who was not part of the World Weather Attribution team, said in an interview.

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A controversial figure
Mass says he does think climate change — caused by greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuel and other humans sources — is a problem. He is convinced this will result in more frequent heat waves and extremes later this century, and says “mankind should work to reduce emissions.” But he says his research leads him to conclude that in western Washington — due to a weakening of east winds that bring interior heat — these will be less intense than others forecast. And he doubts there will be a repeat of temperatures experienced in this summer’s heat wave in the next few decades.

“I don’t believe we are facing any kind of existential threat,” Mass said. “But it is not a good idea to muck around with the climate of the planet.”

Mass has sometimes gotten into very public disputes with other scientists, such as questioning the findings of a study about mountain snowpack decline in the West. He also has frequently derided the news media — including The Seattle Times — for headlines and reporting he believes overstate the threat of climate change.

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Mass began his blog in 2008, with a large focus on problems in state math education, and since then often has ventured beyond meteorology.

In a March 13, 2020, blog post, he concluded the coronavirus situation “is far less apocalyptic than some are suggesting.” He noted U.S. COVID-19 deaths, at that time, tallied 36. He compared that to 61,000 flu deaths in 2017-18. “Coronavirus is not even in the same league as flu … we did not close down universities, businesses, and more for flu.”

The coronavirus death toll now exceeds 600,000 people.

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Mass, in a recent interview, said “of course it (COVID-19) is worse than the flu,” but stands by his analysis as correct at the time.

Mass also has commented on the impacts of vandalism during protests. In August 2020, Mass, who is Jewish, wrote “Seattle has it(s) Kristallnacht and the photos of what occurred during the past weeks are eerily similar to those of 80 years ago.” Kristallnacht was a pogrom against German Jews and an attack on their property carried out by the Nazis in 1938.

That blog post got a strong backlash, including from his UW colleague, Daniel Bessner, an associate professor of American foreign policy, who told the university’s The Daily: “To compare the destruction of a Starbucks in 2020 to an act that foreshadowed a genocide, reflects not fully thought-out analogical reasoning.” Tacoma-based KNKX dropped a Mass radio segment due to what the station termed a “sensationalized and misleading” comparison.

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Mass, who deleted the reference from his blog, later said he was referring not to protesters broadly but to those who destroyed property.

Mass said his views on the pandemic and the protests were not relevant to his views on climate science.

An isolated view
The World Weather Attribution report that drew fire from Mass resulted from an initiative launched in 2014 to try to provide real-time analysis of extreme heat and other events to assess the role of climate change.

The report said the Northwest heat wave could have been the equivalent of statistical bad luck aggravated by climate change, or there could have been something — beyond overall warming — that made such an event more likely. Their report states that possibility, while not indicated in the models, merits more investigation.

These quick turnaround documents are aimed at capturing media attention while the events are still fresh in peoples’ minds. Anslow notes most of these reports have later passed peer review and been published in scientific journals.

Mass has long been a critic of how climatologists portray the results of probability-based models that analyze climate change.

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In 2017, for example, he used his blog to denounce efforts to link the powerful Hurricane Harvey, which unleashed record rainfall in Texas and caused $125 billion in damage, to climate change. His analysis found human-induced global warming played an “inconsequential role in this disaster.”

In the aftermath of the hurricane, a peer-reviewed study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science found warming since the late 20th century resulted in a six-fold increase in the likelihood of such an event.

Mass said he stands by his analysis. “You would have had a devastating effect no matter what,” he said.

As he responds to the heat wave report, Mass has amped up these attacks. In emails to Anslow, he accuses the team of developing an “attribution science that makes virtually any extreme weather far more likely to occur under global warming.”

Mass says he’s working on a paper to document what he says are “the fundamental deficiencies” of this approach. He said it will be submitted for peer review and publication.

[gil]

Cliff Mass is a solid scientist and seems to like to be a contrarian. Like many brilliant people, he is pretty full of himself.

Just who are you calling hypocrites?

[Mel Bradford]

The UN has declared "Code Red for Humanity"
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nat ... 535699001/

More fast food for the control mongers.

Somehow global warming has to be racist....oh wait
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57235904

[D-train]

Cliff Mass is a solid scientist and seems to like to be a contrarian. Like many brilliant people, he is pretty full of himself.

Just who are you calling hypocrites?

People who say that Cold snaps don't negate global warming but brief heat waves are a sure fire sign that man is destroying the planet.

[Grandma Lynn]

Let's blame Mother Nature!

[gil]

Cliff Mass is a solid scientist and seems to like to be a contrarian. Like many brilliant people, he is pretty full of himself.

Just who are you calling hypocrites?

People who say that Cold snaps don't negate global warming but brief heat waves are a sure fire sign that man is destroying the planet.

Do you really think there are a lot of people who would say BOTH those things? That seems like a stereotype but I don't know anyone like that.

I'm with Cliff Mass in considering climate change a serious issue, but feeling there is WAY too much attribution of various weather phenomena to climate change. (E.g., heat waves, heavy rains, hurricanes, droughts, even cold snaps.) Seeing climate change as the cause of every short term phenomenon clouds the big picture (i.e., increasing global temperatures is a fact) and deflects from being serious about addressing the effects of climate change and (hopefully) doing something to mitigate it.

[auroraave]

The earth's climate has been in a state of constant change since it's inception. That is an indisputable fact. The fact that humans think they have any control over it goes to show how utterly stupid we are. Climate change is a fact - politicians simply use it as a manipulation tool. Remember just a couple years back when 'the narrative' was 'global warming"? When that fell flat and the masses pushed back - the master manipulators who are trying to control how you think - simply rebranded this narrative into "climate change".

How anyone doesn't see this is simply astonishing to me. Is there seriously ANYONE that doesn't see this for what it is? Pure manipulation - and ultimately - to pick your pocket with 'new taxes' etc. This is simply the latest phony narrative shoved on the masses to pass nonsense like the new green deal. Anyone ever read the Paris Climate agreement? All it was was a tool to take American taxpayers money - and technology - and transfer it to someone else. The "Global warming" campaign didn't work, so they just rebranded it. The audacity to think we can control the earth's climate. LMFAO! C'mon, no one can be this stupid, right? It's about MONEY.

Did anyone see the video of the guy from CNN that was secretly video taped while on a tinder date? No I'm not joking. He was bragging about CNN's influence and power. he LITERALLY told his date that the next narrative they were going to be pushing was 'climate change'. You can find the video online, but it's probably been scrubbed from google. Remember Harris blaming the border crisis on "climate change?" It's all a sham to separate you from your money. Nothing else.

Jesus H Christ, wake up people.

[gil]

The earth's climate has been in a state of constant change since it's inception. That is an indisputable fact. The fact that humans think they have any control over it goes to show how utterly stupid we are. Climate change is a fact - politicians simply use it as a manipulation tool. Remember just a couple years back when 'the narrative' was 'global warming"? When that fell flat and the masses pushed back - the master manipulators who are trying to control how you think - simply rebranded this narrative into "climate change".

How anyone doesn't see this is simply astonishing to me. Is there seriously ANYONE that doesn't see this for what it is? Pure manipulation - and ultimately - to pick your pocket with 'new taxes' etc. This is simply the latest phony narrative shoved on the masses to pass nonsense like the new green deal. Anyone ever read the Paris Climate agreement? All it was was a tool to take American taxpayers money - and technology - and transfer it to someone else. The "Global warming" campaign didn't work, so they just rebranded it. The audacity to think we can control the earth's climate. LMFAO! C'mon, no one can be this stupid, right? It's about MONEY.

Did anyone see the video of the guy from CNN that was secretly video taped while on a tinder date? No I'm not joking. He was bragging about CNN's influence and power. he LITERALLY told his date that the next narrative they were going to be pushing was 'climate change'. You can find the video online, but it's probably been scrubbed from google. Remember Harris blaming the border crisis on "climate change?" It's all a sham to separate you from your money. Nothing else.

Jesus H Christ, wake up people.

OK let's talk money and taxes and manipulation. Fossil fuel companies get huge subsidies and tax breaks. That means that WE pay taxes to support their profits. (Which I suppose is a good thing is you own a lot of stock in an oil company, but I think your point was taxes that all of us pay.)

The arguments you made are exactly the points that the petroleum industry has been propagandizing for years. Climate changes all the time yada yada yada. Look at all those cows belching and volcanoes spewing. Gee we can't afford solar and wind. And think of the poor birds! It is a conscious, well organized, well funded, and long standing campaign to influence public opinion. (They learned their tactics from the tobacco companies.)

[D-train]

Cliff Mass is a solid scientist and seems to like to be a contrarian. Like many brilliant people, he is pretty full of himself.

Just who are you calling hypocrites?

People who say that Cold snaps don't negate global warming but brief heat waves are a sure fire sign that man is destroying the planet.

Do you really think there are a lot of people who would say BOTH those things? That seems like a stereotype but I don't know anyone like that.

I'm with Cliff Mass in considering climate change a serious issue, but feeling there is WAY too much attribution of various weather phenomena to climate change. (E.g., heat waves, heavy rains, hurricanes, droughts, even cold snaps.) Seeing climate change as the cause of every short term phenomenon clouds the big picture (i.e., increasing global temperatures is a fact) and deflects from being serious about addressing the effects of climate change and (hopefully) doing something to mitigate it.

Yes! Do you think the scientists discrediting him will say that a week of cold weather this winter means global warming is over????????????

[gil]

People who say that Cold snaps don't negate global warming but brief heat waves are a sure fire sign that man is destroying the planet.

Do you really think there are a lot of people who would say BOTH those things? That seems like a stereotype but I don't know anyone like that.

I'm with Cliff Mass in considering climate change a serious issue, but feeling there is WAY too much attribution of various weather phenomena to climate change. (E.g., heat waves, heavy rains, hurricanes, droughts, even cold snaps.) Seeing climate change as the cause of every short term phenomenon clouds the big picture (i.e., increasing global temperatures is a fact) and deflects from being serious about addressing the effects of climate change and (hopefully) doing something to mitigate it.

Yes! Do you think the scientists discrediting him will say that a week of cold weather this winter means global warming is over????????????

Ha! Doubtful, to say the least!

In all fairness, the scientists taking issue with Cliff Mass are NOT saying that a heat wave "proves" global warming. They said that an event like what we had in Seattle in June (the two hottest days ever recorded here) would be much more likely with global warming. Cliff's argument with them is about their methodology. https://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2021/07/ ... great.html I'm a bit over my head with this, so I'd need to do some serious studying to even begin to opine as to who is correct.