NBC Nightly News Blames Halloween Snowstorm on Global Warming

You knew some major news outlet was going to blame this weekend's east coast snowstorm on global warming.

On Tuesday, the folks on the NBC Nightly News did precisely that (video follows with transcript and commentary):

BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor: Everybody out East said the same thing about this freak snowstorm, `This kind of thing didn't used to happen. This never happened before.' And while that is true, it may also be true that we'll all have to start getting used to this kind of thing over the long haul. That story tonight from our chief environmental affairs correspondent, Anne Thompson.

ANNE THOMPSON reporting: Around the world, it seems like the weather is going to extremes, not just the Halloween snowstorm in the Northeast, but record-breaking flooding in Thailand, 1400 new highs hit in the US just in the month of July, Moscow reaching 101 degrees in the summer of 2010, heat and wildfires consuming southern Australia in 2009.

Dr. GERRY MEEHL: This is the future and we're already experiencing climate change.

THOMPSON: Dr. Gerry Meehl is the senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. He says our warming planet makes extreme weather events more likely as greenhouse gases created by burning fossil fuels, such as oil, gas and coal, alter the climate.

Dr. MEEHL: Just as steroids make the baseball player stronger and increase his chances of hitting home runs, the greenhouse gases are the steroids of the climate system. They increase the chances of record-breaking heat to occur compared to record-breaking cold.

THOMPSON: If the climate weren't changing, the ratio would be one record hot day to one record cold day. Meehl says we saw two record hot days for every record cold day in the last decade, and this year we are on a three-to-one pace.

Heat and little rainfall have parched Texas for the last year, making it, in the words of state climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon, the worst one-year drought in Texas history.

Mr. JOHN NIELSEN-GAMMON (Texas State Climatologist): This is really the first time when climate change--the impact of climate change has manifested itself in a tangible way within the state of Texas.

THOMPSON: Adding to all this, a new study that finds global warming is real and that the science behind it is not impacted by bias, bad data or cities that act as heat islands.

Professor RICHARD MULLER (University of California-Berkeley): The existence of global warming, I think, is pretty much beyond dispute now. I think we have closed the last remaining questions on that.

THOMPSON: Muller's study is getting a lot of attention because it was funded in part by a foundation backed by Charles and David Koch. They are oil billionaires and climate change deniers. Today no one can deny that extreme weather is here to stay. Brian:

WILLIAMS: All I know is this didn't happen when we were kids. Anne Thompson on the change in our weather. Thanks.

All I know is this didn't happen when we were kids.

And that somehow makes it historic.

After all, snow records in this region only go back to 1869. That of course is extremely convenient for the global warming enthusiasts as the rise in temperatures according to this climactic theory begins in 1850.

Funny how that works.

Yet October snows in the northeast though infrequent do occur. As Accuweather reported Monday:

The last time that Central Park recorded measurable snow was on Oct. 21, 1952 when 0.5 of an inch fell. Prior to that, 0.8 of an inch fell on Oct. 30, 1925. [...]

A record snowfall of 6.0 inches was set at Bangor, Maine, on Sunday. This broke the old record of 5.0 inches set back in 1963.

The point being that it does snow in this region in October. I actually have firsthand knowledge of this.

On October 4, 1987, I was scheduled to be married in, ironically, Williamstown, Massachusetts, when an historic snowstorm hit cancelling the nuptials until the following day:


With this in mind, despite what Williams does and does not remember, October snowstorms do happen in the northeast, and we don't have to go back that far to prove it.

One can only imagine what kind of storms hit this region during the Little Ice Age of the 16th through 19th centuries. But since Williams and Thompson weren't alive, and snowfall records began in 1869, weather events earlier than that seem unimportant.

This of course is common for climate alarmists, so we shouldn't be the slightest bit surprised.

In their view, whatever is happening today couldn't possibly have happened before records starting being kept, and therefore all weather events outside "the norm" are considered extreme and therefore proof of climate change.

Quite confirms Bernie Goldberg's point this week about nightshift employees at 7-Eleven having more introspection than today's journalists.

*****Update: Wouldn't it be nice if a news outlet the size of NBC actually looked at the climate history in this region to see when blizzards like this happened in the past? Like in 1925 AND 1930?

Additionally, you know how hysterical NBC was being when one of the leading climate alarmists in the country thought they did a great job!

Noel Sheppard
Noel Sheppard