The Patriot Post® · No, Rains in Southern Plains Not Linked to Global Warming

It’s been an amazing month in the southern Plains, particularly in states like Texas and Oklahoma, where a major atmospheric pattern shift has channeled a steady stream of moisture, leading to record rainfall and, unfortunately, fatal flooding. One good thing we can say about all the rain is it has largely eviscerated the multi-year drought (and some meteorologists say moisture-laden California will see relief soon). But not everyone is celebrating, and, all too predictably, the Leftmedia, which blamed the Texas and Oklahoma drought on global warming, is now blaming our addiction to fossil fuels on exceptional rainfall. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews this week said “climate change contributes to harsh climate conditions like the flooding in Texas and drought in California happening right now.” Huffington Post editor James Gerken posited, “At minimum, the recent downpours in Texas probably offer a glimpse of what certain parts of the U.S. can look forward to in the coming decades.” Tod Robberson of The Dallas Morning News laughably claimed, “[I]t’s amazing how accurate many of [Al] Gore’s predictions have turned out to be.” The Christian Science Monitor asserted that extreme conditions “may grow more pronounced as nature adjusts to climate change.” And according to Think Progress, “Going from one extreme to another is a hallmark of climate change.”

But there’s at least one group of scientists — from a government agency, no less — that isn’t linking the abrupt weather shift to man-made global warming, or at least they’re not being forthright about it. In a report released this week, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center explained, “This type of pattern along with the excessive rainfall anomalies evident over the eastern equatorial Pacific offers a strong clue as to a potential culprit – El Nino. Anomalous rainfall over the eastern equatorial Pacific with alternating areas of above and below normal rainfall extending into midlatides is a classic El Nino teleconnection pattern.” Recall also that last year Martin Hourlong, a NOAA researcher, likewise downplayed the California-global warming link. El Ninos typically bring wet weather to the southern half of the United States, and this one appears no different. It’s not global warming; it’s science.