Our newly reelected President used his Inaugural Address and the State of the Union to advocate that we must take action to combat man made global warming. He said there have been increases in droughts and violent storms. I’m frustrated because those statements are easily proven to be false. Most of the media have once again simply ignored the fact that the President is speaking from beliefs not supported by facts. George Will is one exception. His latest article, which focused on the nonsense of having a State of the Union address, mentions comments about climate change. “Data are unkind to his assertion that climate change is causing storms to become more violent and drought to become more prevalent.” “Hurricane and other tropical cyclone activity are at a three-decade low, and Nature journal reports that globally ‘there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years’.”

I did a bit more searching about the history of hurricanes, and found an article that said the worst hurricane years were 1931, 1936, and 2005. The year 1931 was probably the worst year since it finished just behind 2005 in recorded hurricanes and storms that did not reach the shore were not included in the 1931 data. The worst decade for hurricanes was 1940.

I tried fact checking the President’s assertions on Snopes and found an article by John Coleman. He is a meteorologist who founded the Weather Channel, He labels global warming “…the greatest scam in history.” The article also mentions that “The (recent) cooling trend is so strong that recently the head of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had to acknowledge it. He speculated that nature has temporarily overwhelmed mankind’s warming and that it may be ten years or so before warming returns.”

Just for fun, take a look at the graphs of Arctic Sea Ice News from the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Current sea ice coverage in 2011-2012 strayed quite close to the 1979 to 2000 average. The graph for 2012-2013 shows ice coverage to be slightly higher than 2012-2013, but still less than the 1979-2000 average. I personally will think it to be interesting if some Arctic cold front creates more ice than the historical average. I don’t know what  the sun and Mother Nature have in mind, but I think there is a 50-50 chance it won’t agree with those who are struggling to think of a way to support their doomsday predictions.