Pirate's Cove

Lots of people, from pundits to scientists, have hit Gore for his comment about “category 6 hurricanes”. Like a good little disciple, Ezra Klein takes one for the team (via Junk Science)

(Washington Post) On Wednesday, I published an interview with Al Gore in which he mentioned that the scientific community was beginning to consider Category 6 hurricanes. The line has attracted some criticism because there are no official plans to add a sixth category to the 1-5 scale. Here’s what I had Gore saying:

If you look at superstorm Sandy on October 29th, the ocean water east of New Jersey was nine degrees fahrenheit above average. That’s what put so much more energy into that storm. That’s what put so much more water vapor into that storm. Would there be a storm anyway? Maybe so. Would there be hurricanes and floods and droughts without man-made global warming? Of course. But they’re stronger now. The extreme events are more extreme. The hurricane scale used to be 1-5 and now they’re adding a 6. The fingerprint of man-made global warming is all over these storms and extreme weather events.

But this was also a segment of the interview in which I remembered struggling to keep up with Gore, and when that happens, some nuance can get lost. (A note on methods: In most cases, including this one, I transcribe these interviews in real time, with a tape recorder as back-up. I also, as is always mentioned in the introduction to the interviews, lightly edit for length, clarity, and redundancy).

He’s out of town and doesn’t have his tape recorder with him, but, hey, he’s perfectly willing to allow Team Gore to helpfully change the quote and publish the article without bothering to check the tape

“The scientists are now adding category six to the hurricane…some are proposing we add category 6 to the hurricane scale that used to be 1-5. “

I’m not sure how that is much better. He’s still claiming that scientists are adding a category 6, which they aren’t. But I guess we’re supposed to think that some are thinking about doing this, according to some un-named people. Gore’s folks go on to further “clarify”

Former VP Gore discussed the destructiveness of climate change–fueled extreme weather as being categorically above and beyond the scale we currently use. To clarify, his original comments regarding hurricane measurements were intended to convey this ongoing consideration by the scientific community.

Except, there has been no increase in “extreme weather”. Certainly not hurricanes nor tornadoes, nor drought or flood. Though I supposed there has been more extreme cold weather events, which are, of course, blamed by Warmists on Mankind’s output of greenhouse gases.