After leading with the terrible toll of deadly “super-cell” storms with tornadoes which struck Missouri and Alabama on Thursday, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric's mind turned to global warming as the potential cause. She asked “CBS News weather analyst” Bryan Norcross, working out of the network's Washington bureau: “Bryan, I understand people have been asking you this all day” -- probably CBS News staffers in the DC bureau -- “Does this have anything to do with global warming?”
Norcross, a “hurricane specialist” for the CBS-owned Miami station WFOR-TV channel 4, rejected the premise: “No, I don't think so. This is just part of this extreme situation we've had this winter -- very warm, very cold -- and so the extreme weather continues and it turns out the United States is just about the only spot in the world that has a lot of these kinds of super-cells, just not normally this time of year.”
Editor's Note (Ken Shepherd | 3/2/2007, 00:44 EST): Given how hot the topic has been on NB of late, I thought I'd throw in a helpful link for our readers from my colleagues at the MRC's Business & Media Institute (BMI). "Climate of Bias," is a clearinghouse for the best coverage on the issue from NewsBusters, MRC, BMI, and CNSNews.com, as well as links to outside resources.
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Comments Policy
global warming
March 1, 2007 - 21:03 ET by DontabNot what you wanted to hear Katie, too bad, get use to it.Real climate specialists are starting to speak out .
Gorbal warming is a sickness , not a science.
Don't you know everything b
March 2, 2007 - 06:23 ET by motherbeltDon't you know everything bad is caused by global warming?? How's this one Katie: "My ratings suck! Does this have anything to do with global warming?"
Liberalism
March 2, 2007 - 09:59 ET by BBallleaperDoes stupidity have anything to do with what comes out of her mouth???? HHHHmmmmmm?
Katie Couric
March 7, 2007 - 01:33 ET by JudithThere was a little girl and she had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead, And when she was good, she was very, very good, and when she was bad, she was horrid--what a simpering sap you are Katie, its nauseating to watch/listen to you. So vapid.
Betcha the perky one was disa
March 1, 2007 - 21:04 ET by EvokeBetcha the perky one was disappointed to say the least.
Why have I heard more AGW SHI
March 1, 2007 - 21:11 ET by Six String SpiffWhy have I heard more AGW SHITE in the past friggin month than we have in the last decade...? Oh wait the human loathing Democrat(ic)s are in control. Seems their priorities are in hand. Terrorism? What Terrorism?
"Do deadly tornadoes have anything to do with GW?"
... Sigh Don't make me take off ma belt!
Sure, I watch the MSM... Through a pair of crosshairs.
Anal Katie
March 1, 2007 - 21:13 ET by acumenQuick Dorothy, throw that bucket of water on her........
Stuck on stupid again.
March 1, 2007 - 21:13 ET by CTSince the Perky-One is past the age of hot flashes one has to assume her fixation on global warming is the eco-lackey’s equivalent of being stuck on stupid.
Carbon Credits Smoke'em if you got'em!
do they ALLOW Ms. Perky to ad-lib?
March 2, 2007 - 02:04 ET by CarpareusThen again CT maybe the hot flashes are causing her to ad- lib. Nhooo... 8D...uh...do uze guys tink dere's any chance she's received any "advisories" regarding ad-libs?- too funny 8!.
Carp
Well, if the U.S. is the only
March 1, 2007 - 21:14 ET by QueenMumWell, if the U.S. is the only place in the world that has a lot of these kinds of super-cells, it must be George Bush's fault. Has anyone ordered a Congressional hearing yet?
"just not normally this time of year".
Seriously, I believe it's the early campaigning for the presidency that's creating these super-cells. Way too much hot air mixing with the cold winter air.
Looks like Karl Rove got his
March 1, 2007 - 21:18 ET by HypocriteHaterLooks like Karl Rove got his weather machine up and running again. Good to see him sticking with the plan cooked up by the evil neo-cons.
No not GW, giant spinning win
March 1, 2007 - 21:19 ET by AtheistRepublicanNo not GW, giant spinning winds of death, very different... they are common in the great plains area, this one is just a bit bigger then average and earlier then normal... nothing extraordinary about it, in fact it is kinda boring.
"...earlier than normal.
March 1, 2007 - 23:43 ET by MikeB"...earlier than normal...", which doesn't mean or imply caused by man. Perky needs to take a freshman level statistics course. In the normal distribution, most of the data points are clustered around the mean. That doesn't mean all of the data points are clustered around the mean. So, there can and sometimes will be cyclonic storms during the time of year we don't normally see them. This doesn't mean that George Bush, or Karl Rove, or Halliburton, or the United States, or mankind caused it, it means that it happened. Sometimes there is no "reason" for it. Or, at least, no discernable reason.
By the way, did the silly twit ask if the recent blizzards were caused by global warming? If she is going to ask it about one unusual weather event, she should be consistent and ask it about all unusual weather events.
"A communist is someone who reads Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx." Ronald Reagan
Details, details, Mike! If
March 2, 2007 - 07:29 ET by motherbeltDetails, details, Mike! If it happens during George W. Bush's presidency, it must be his fault. And don't you know that, according to some of their scientists, cold snaps can also be caused by global warming? Which is why, I think, they changed the term to "climate change"....as if the world's (oh, excuse me, the PLANET's) climate has always been the same, and now it's beginning to change.....
I see Katie, the permanent sc
March 1, 2007 - 21:34 ET by VT Con ManI see Katie, the permanent scowling, botox forehead girl is keeping the drumbeat going on the GW thingy. How many millions does she make spewing this drivel?
I recently wrote an article
March 1, 2007 - 22:26 ET by Jake GonteskyI recently wrote an article summarizing the current state of understanding regarding the relationship between tornadoes and global warming:
Global Warming and Tornadoes: A Primer
In a nutshell: there is nowhere near enough data or computing power to compute any causation.
Global warming fever - catch
March 2, 2007 - 00:34 ET by dahliatraversGlobal warming fever - catch it!!
dahlia...I am! I am!The sun i
March 2, 2007 - 12:05 ET by bigtimerdahlia...
I am! I am!
The sun is out and it is now a whoppin' eight degrees out!
Gotta' love it!
Tornadoes - GW? No Katie Couric
March 2, 2007 - 02:43 ET by Gary HallNo Katie Couric. Doesn't look that way.
The following is a brief summary of tornado highlights from a USA Today article in May of 2005. I highlighted the 1965 and 1974 outbreak, as that is smack in the middle of the last period of global cooling (when the scientists were predicting the coming ice age). Yes Katie, it's been warming up since then, just as it was cooling down prior to then.
The 1925 event on the bottom of the list is difficult to imagine - 689 people killed. I suspect that some 80 years ago it must have been about 0.8 degrees cooler (seeing as the temp has risen 1 degree in the last 100)?
May 1-10, 2003: Record number of tornadoes hit the USA. [Note: one might consider here that this might have to do with modern day record keeping, doppler radar and hundreds of storm chasers running around out in the plains looking for tornadoes]Nov. 10, 2002: Tornadoes from the Gulf of Mexico Coast to the Great Lakes kill 16 people in Tennessee, 12 in Alabama, 5 in Ohio, and 1 each in Mississippi and Pennsylvania. .
May 3-6, 1999: Tornadoes kill 44 people in Oklahoma, 5 in Kansas, 1 in Texas, and 4 in Tennessee.
May 27-28: 1994: Palm Sunday Outbreak. Tornadoes kill 44 people in Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
May 31. 1985: Tornadoes kill 76 people in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
March 28, 1984: Tornadoes kill 57 people in North Carolina and South Carolina.
April 10, 1979: Tornadoes kill 53 in Texas and 3 in Oklahoma.
April 10, 1979: Wichita Falls, Texas, tornado led to safety changes.
April 3 -4, 1974: Super Outbreak, the worst in U.S. history. 148 tornadoes kill 330 people in 13 states – Alabama, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.
April 11 -12, 1965: Tornadoes kill 256 people in Illinois, Iowa, Indiana , Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.
March 18, 1925: The Tri-State tornado kills 689 people in Illinois, Indiana and Missouri.
Gary, you published a very go
March 2, 2007 - 11:59 ET by MikeBGary, you published a very good list there. Additionally, the May 3, 1999 tornado through Moore, Oklahoma City, Del City, Midwest City, and points north had record wind velocity. It was strong enough that for a while they were considering creating a new F6 classification for this tornado. I tried to link a photo of the path of the tornado, but came up with a page not found. If any are curious, you can check out the rogerbondy.com website. The photographer has other photos of this and other subjects for sale. I saw one of the photos of the storm path and asked if there was a flaw in the film because of a long red streak through the picture. It was no flaw, the tornado completely denuded the ground, including the grass, allowing the red clay to show through.
"A communist is someone who reads Marx. An anti-communist is someone who understands Marx." Ronald Reagan
MikeB - Record Tornado?
March 2, 2007 - 13:56 ET by Gary HallMikeB - Record Tornado? Well thanks. The list was just a short one. Courics comments struck me with the sense that once again, she must not have done any real research here, nor any soul searching. She simply has a great desire to connect so much to global warming.
There are a lot of factors here in tornado history and data collection. For starters, there is no data, from say, the year 1323.
As population - developement - spread across the great plains, more and more people came to find themselves in harms way. Documentation of tornado events became possible. When one suggests that a certain tornado or cyclone is the record event - we have to remember that we are only looking at a few years of records. It was more accurately, the record "recorded" wind velocity.
Massive Tornado
March 2, 2007 - 07:58 ET by ecnirPIn Wichita Falls, we had three tornadoes come down simulataneously at the edge of town. They were so close to each other, they merged into one huge tornado. Ripping right through the heart of our city, this monster was one mile wide and tore a 16 mile path of destruction through the heart of the population center. 25,000 people lost their homes, and a miraculously low 44 lost their lives.
"It could happen tomorrow" as they're wont to say on the Weather Channel to scare the bejeezus out of us, but this massive storm happened in 1979, long before freakishly abnormal storms had to be attributed to man-made Global Warming. I guess that one was caused by Global Cooling, but move it ahead three decades and it would have been caused by Global Warming. Just fit the facts into your current template to explain causality you can't comprehend (as if these media idiots think people need explanations for weather).
Massive Tornado
March 2, 2007 - 07:58 ET by ecnirPduplicate
AL GORE
March 2, 2007 - 08:00 ET by PawpawNWas Mr Gore trying to beat the tornadoes when he went around security at the airport yesterday! Wouldn't we all like to know if he asked for this special treatment or some person at the airport offered it. If the later, she should be fired.
This > http://sacredscoop.
March 2, 2007 - 08:34 ET by rimskyThis > http://sacredscoop.com/?p=666 is what AGW is all about.
Blizzard part deux
March 2, 2007 - 09:15 ET by nkviking75I wonder if Katie noticed that the same storm system is giving Iowa its second blizzard in less than a week, with nearly a foot of snow, half of the interstate system closed down, most of the state's schools getting their second day off in a row today, and towering snow drifts. If she had, she probably wouldn't have asked the question.
She no would doubt claim th
March 2, 2007 - 09:22 ET by rimskyShe no would doubt claim that the blizzard was caused by the crazy affects of AGW.. oh, and of course, GWB.
"March 28, 1984: Tornado
March 2, 2007 - 09:27 ET by chessplayer"March 28, 1984: Tornadoes kill 57 people in North Carolina and South Carolina."
And the Perky One would respond; ",,,Aha! But those happened at the end of March!" We have to get used to it. Any unusual weather event anywhere in the world will be linked to global warming.
Well, people, get used to i
March 2, 2007 - 10:17 ET by Tim the EnchanterWell, people, get used to it. They're going to keep flinging this crap against the wall until some of it starts to stick. It ain't about truth, and it ain't about us. It's about political power, pure and simple. I just wish they'd remember that there's an accounting at the end, and act appropriately. Remember Jefferson's quote about the most fearsome thought he had was that God is just.
I'm just glad that my opinion
March 2, 2007 - 10:51 ET by Higgins WRI'm just glad that my opinion of Mr. Norcross remains as it has been. He's a stand-up guy and went over and beyond the criteria for a weatherman during Hurricane Andrew. He provided crucial information and calmed a lot of fears during a very scary and dangerous time in S. Florida.
I'm pleased to see that he is using his expertise to report facts, not sensationalism.
These cretins in the MSM neve
March 2, 2007 - 12:56 ET by Mike1These cretins in the MSM never cease to amaze me. They're so blinded by their beliefs based on their feelings, that they completely ignore facts. Katie, severe weather like we're witnessing right now is caused by two conflicting air masses bumping into one another. In other words, for tornados to form, you need cool air! Get it you dimwit. If there was just warming occuring, you'd actually have very stable weather conditions; no supercells, no tornados, etc. It's amazing that these people get paid the amount of money they do to pontificate such stupidity.
This disciple of AGW is looki
March 3, 2007 - 10:15 ET by dahliatraversThis disciple of AGW is looking for evidence where it doesn't exist while her mentor, Al Gore, describes valid evidence that GW may not be manmade as "bias". Huh. Something doesn't quite jive there - can't put my finger on it ...