Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight website got off to a bad start with the hiring of Roger Pielke, Jr, one of the country's leading tricksters on climate change, who wasted no time by posting a blog Tuesday on the site that claims there is no link between the rising costs of climate disasters and extreme weather fueled by climate change.
Several noted climate scientists took Silver and Pielke to task for this serious error. Since Silver is such a numbers guy, Forecast the Facts thought we'd offer him some to both show the climate connection and offer a little info about his new hire.
2: The number of days FiveThirtyEight was live before Pielke's piece was published.
121,200: The membership of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest general scientific society, which released a report on global warming the same day Pielke's piece went live, which warned of dire consequences without serious action.
6: The number of pages that Obama science advisor and former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, John Holdren, used to debunk Pielke's arguments over the relationship between the severity of California's epic drought and climate change.
80: The percent probability that the record-breaking Russian heat of 2010 was linked to the warming trend, according to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, a conclusion that Pielke attacked.
2010: The year in which Pielke called the global authority on climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "very much an advocacy organization that's couched in the role of advice." Pielke continues to reference IPCC, however.
2010: Also the year Pielke was named in Foreign Policy's 2010 Guide to Climate Skeptics.
5: The number of years since the late and revered climatologist Stephen Schneider said of Pielke, "It is typical of a trickster and a careerist-which is how I personally see him-and so do most of my colleagues these days who I have discussed it with."
1.74: The number times the size of Texas of Arctic sea ice that was lost in 2012, compared with the median ice cover from 1981-2010.
151 The total number of weather/climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2013).
1 trillion: The total cost of these 151 events.
7: Weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States in 2013.
109: Total of people killed in these events.
65.7: Dollars estimated, in billions, to clean up Hurricane Sandy, second-costliest and deadliest hurricane ever to hit the U.S. after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
81: Percent of the US in 2012 that experienced abnormally dry conditions at its peak.
9.2 million: Acreage burned in the 2012 Western State wildfires, the highest annual total in over a decade.
99: Percent minimum probability that hurricane activity has increased in intensity since 1970, according to the IPCC.
90: Percent minimum probability that sea levels will rise in magnitude during this century according to the IPCC.
0: The number of degrees Pielke has related to climate science.
Several noted climate scientists took Silver and Pielke to task for this serious error. Since Silver is such a numbers guy, Forecast the Facts thought we'd offer him some to both show the climate connection and offer a little info about his new hire.
2: The number of days FiveThirtyEight was live before Pielke's piece was published.
121,200: The membership of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest general scientific society, which released a report on global warming the same day Pielke's piece went live, which warned of dire consequences without serious action.
6: The number of pages that Obama science advisor and former president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, John Holdren, used to debunk Pielke's arguments over the relationship between the severity of California's epic drought and climate change.
80: The percent probability that the record-breaking Russian heat of 2010 was linked to the warming trend, according to the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, a conclusion that Pielke attacked.
2010: The year in which Pielke called the global authority on climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "very much an advocacy organization that's couched in the role of advice." Pielke continues to reference IPCC, however.
2010: Also the year Pielke was named in Foreign Policy's 2010 Guide to Climate Skeptics.
5: The number of years since the late and revered climatologist Stephen Schneider said of Pielke, "It is typical of a trickster and a careerist-which is how I personally see him-and so do most of my colleagues these days who I have discussed it with."
1.74: The number times the size of Texas of Arctic sea ice that was lost in 2012, compared with the median ice cover from 1981-2010.
151 The total number of weather/climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (including CPI adjustment to 2013).
1 trillion: The total cost of these 151 events.
7: Weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States in 2013.
109: Total of people killed in these events.
65.7: Dollars estimated, in billions, to clean up Hurricane Sandy, second-costliest and deadliest hurricane ever to hit the U.S. after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
81: Percent of the US in 2012 that experienced abnormally dry conditions at its peak.
9.2 million: Acreage burned in the 2012 Western State wildfires, the highest annual total in over a decade.
99: Percent minimum probability that hurricane activity has increased in intensity since 1970, according to the IPCC.
90: Percent minimum probability that sea levels will rise in magnitude during this century according to the IPCC.
0: The number of degrees Pielke has related to climate science.