On May 21, 2011, a tornado ripped through Joplin, Mo. (Credit: Melissa Brandes/Shutterstock). A storm brews somewhere over the American Southwest (Credit: Paul B. Moore/Shutterstock). Associating natural disasters with climate change -- like some did last week with the massive tornado that touched down in Oklahoma -- is a distortion that has been rattling around for nearly a decade or longer. The most glaring example may be Al Gore’s portrayal of Hurricane Katrina in his 2006 film An Inconvenient Truth. According to Gore, the hurricane was the outcome of unchecked anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions and a harbinger of what’s to come. But he was quickly called out for misrepresenting the science to gain support for his cause. And as the dust settled in Oklahoma, it became clear that 1) the situation sucked, and 2) the science is still out on whether or not there is a concrete connection between global warming and these monster storms. J. Marshall Shepherd, a climate change expert and professor at the University of Georgia was quoted in a May 22 CNN story as saying:
Trends in tornado occurrence over the last 50 years do not appear to have changed in conjunction with more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and patterns of rising temperatures. … There is currently a much better understanding of how climate change increases the risks of droughts, heat waves and precipitation. There are also indications that changing patterns may influence the intensity of hurricanes. But as far as tornadoes: There's just not a lot of information. (“No evidence global warming spawned twister”)
