On Monday, when talking about the devastating and deadly tornado that ripped through Mayfield, Kentucky, MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell welcomed Penn State's left-wing climate hysteric Michael Mann to explain that President Biden's Build Back Better plan was necessary to prevent such deadly tornadoes in the future.
After some technical discussion on how tornadoes are formed and why they occur where they do, Mitchell asked: "And we've learned by hard lessons how to change construction, the Japanese have learned this as well and other places around the world to deal with earthquakes and to deal with, you know, hurricanes. Look at New Orleans coming back from death and destruction. What do we need to learn about how to build better in the southeast, let's say, and the Midwest?"
Mann replied that the answer was to pass partisan left-wing legislation: "Well, you know, you need to pass Build Back Better because that bill has climate provisions that will address this problem at its, you know, at its core, which is the warming of the planet due to carbon pollution, fossil fuel burning. So that's most important. We can prevent this from getting worse if we act on climate now."
However, Mann cautioned, even that may not be enough to solve the problem:
That having been said, as you allude to, some of these impacts are now baked in. We are going to need to deal with this. That means greater resiliency. That means adaptive measures to help deal with the impacts of these destructive storms. So it's really both. It's adapting to the changes that we're already forced to deal with and preventing it most importantly from getting worse by acting on climate.
Mitchell then concluded the segment by thanking Mann for his expertise and for coming on the show, which was the safe move for her because if she criticized Mann and his work, he might have sued her. In fact, earlier on Monday, Mann called for censorship of those who disagree with him.
This segment was sponsored by T-Mobile.
Here is a transcript for the December 13 show:
MSNBC
Andrea Mitchell Reports
12:12 PM ET
ANDREA MITCHELL: And we've been listening to emergency management officials in Mayfield, and as you can imagine, the combination of generators, winds, and poor audio, it must be very difficult. We will recap all of this for you in a bit. I want to bring in right now Michael Mann, the Penn State professor of atmospheric science and director of the Earth System Science Center there, and author of The New Climate War. Thank you very much Michael Mann for being with us. Let's talk about this historic storm, the context, just how severe these were, how surprising they were, and how warmer temperatures may or may not have contributed to it.
MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, thanks, Andrea. Normally I'd say it's good to be with you, but unfortunately this is a tragedy that we've seen unfold, and some of the stories that you folks covered earlier are just heartbreaking. So what we can say is that we have a very warm planet right now. The Gulf of Mexico is very warm. That means there's a lot more warmth and moisture because the warmer the ocean, the more moisture that comes off of it, and that moisture and heat have been streaming into the southern half of the United States. We had temperatures in the 70s and 80s Fahrenheit over the last week in a large part of the midsection of the country. And so that heat, that moisture provides the energy, the fuel, the turbulence that allows large thunderstorms to form and large squall lines like we saw with this storm.
That's one of the ingredients that you need for a tornado. You need all of that moist energy in the atmosphere, that turbulence and instability that allows you to build large thunderstorms, but you also need spin in the atmosphere, and that happens when you come into contact with the jet stream, and so all that warm moist air is coming into contact with the jet stream. The jet stream is putting spin into the atmosphere. That's the other ingredient. And you put those together, you get the sorts of huge outbreaks that we saw and the trend is very clear. If you look at the data, there is a trend towards these larger outbreaks, these larger tornado outbreaks.
There is a trend towards more intense tornadoes and the one that struck Mayfield, Kentucky, there were winds measured of 300 miles per hour. There was debris that made it 30,000 feet up into the atmosphere. It was a very strong storm. The official ratings haven't come in yet. And so all of these factors are being exacerbated by climate change.
MITCHELL: And you just mentioned 35,000 feet up. I mean, that's where airplanes fly, so it's just unimaginable. The debris was thrown up and you can only imagine what happens when it comes down again. Let's talk about the climate change ingredient in here, and there have been reports that tornado alley is going to be moving east as climate change, global warming affects our country.
MANN: Yeah, that's right. There are large scale changes in atmospheric circulation that tend to redistribute that warmth and moisture, and the jet stream is changing. We know that as well. And those changing characteristics, if you put them together -- and there scientists who have done that -- they've taken into account the projected increase in this warm, moist air, the projected changes in the sheer in the atmosphere that gives you that spin, and what they find, particularly in the winter months we can expect an increase in the factors that generate these huge tornado outbreaks in the south central United States and increasingly in the eastern United States as well.
MITCHELL: And we've learned by hard lessons how to change construction, the Japanese have learned this as well and other places around the world to deal with earthquakes and to deal with, you know, hurricanes. Look at New Orleans coming back from death and destruction. What do we need to learn about how to build better in the southeast…
MANN: Yeah
MITCHELL: … let's say and the Midwest?
MANN: Well, you know, you need to pass Build Back Better because that bill has climate provisions that will address this problem at its, you know, at its core, which is the warming of the planet due to carbon pollution, fossil fuel burning. So that's most important. We can prevent this from getting worse if we act on climate now. That having been said, as you allude to, some of these impacts are now baked in. We are going to need to deal with this. That means greater resiliency. That means adaptive measures to help deal with the impacts of these destructive storms. So it's really both. It's adapting to the changes that we're already forced to deal with and preventing it most importantly from getting worse by acting on climate.
MITCHELL: Michael Mann, as always we really appreciate your expertise. Thanks.
MANN: Thank you, Andrea.
MITCHELL: As we try to get our heads and arms and hearts around this incredible disaster.
