“Did Global Warming Reduce the Impacts of Sandy?”(2012-11-06). This one’s good for a laugh! Anthony Watts wants us to hear Chip Knappenberger’s (not a climatologist) idea that Global Warming “lessened [Hurricane Sandy’s] intensity and impacts”. Thank god for Global Warming! We need more Global Warming!

Chip’s idea came to Anthony’s attention through the Cato Institute (august science council or libertarian hard-liners? You decide.) which proudly offers it’s brand-new “Center for the Disparagement Study of Science”. The CSS, a scientific initiative along the lines of the Derek Zoolander School for Kids Who Can’t Read Good and Want to Do Other Stuff Good Too.

Here’s a summary of Chip’s arguments, which Anthony found so compelling:

• Global Warming only contributed 6″ to the 17.34 ft of flooding (but it was the last 6 inches…)
• No-one can precisely measure the effect of warming tropical storm sources, and besides winds blow in all kinds of directions.
• Hurricane Sandy could have missed!

Wait a minute… Did Anthony just switch from “Global Warming is a Lie” to “Global Warming is Good”? Don’t worry, he’ll switch back next argument. But I did hear somewhere that CO2 is plant food.

Update: Here’s a discussion by actual climate scientists and meteorologists: Yes, Climate Change Contributed To Superstorm Sandy.