Storm Warnings

A few months ago, Al Gore gave a talk to a gathering of scientists during which he presented a slide that showed, he said, how global warming is "creating weather-related disasters that are completely unprecedented." On the advice of some other scientists who said he was confused on the issue, he later dropped that slide from his presentation.

Yet the idea that climate change is making the weather worse has become something approaching a cliché. As it turns out, however, the seemingly increasing frequency of severe storms might be an illusion. Researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have produced a study showing that it might simply reflect better observation and measurement. Another study, from Penn State and analyzing sediment deposits, suggests major storms occurred just as often a thousand years ago as today.

This doesn't disprove the notions that the planet is warming or that humans contribute to the process. But it does leave some egg on the face of climate-change alarmists who, in a phenomenon that has come to be known as "climate porn," get a thrill from viewing any major weather event as a sign of the coming apocalypse.

Some of those alarmists seem to race ahead of scientific evidence as often as climate-change skeptics ignore it whenever they view any mild winter day as "proof" that global warming is a hoax. Maybe both sides should go take a cold shower.