The Trib Tries (And Fails) Again.

I guess Scaife's braintrust is trying to bolster their case from a few days ago for not to:

...forget all the mounting evidence that disputes man-made climate change and its unrealized predictions.

Too bad it doesn't go so well.

Take a look at this from today's Thursday Wrap:

The bad news for Al Gore is that the U.S. Geological Survey reports no evidence that climate change has led to more severe flooding in the United States over the last century. The good news is that there's still time for Mr. Gore to join the Rapture movement.

The report, called "Has the magnitude of floods across the USA changed with global CO2 levels?" can be found here.

This is what they're using to dispute climate change?  The first paragraph of the introduction reads:

One of the anticipated hydrological impacts of increases in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere is an increase in the magnitude of floods (Trenberth 1999, IPCC 2007, Gutowski et al. 2008). Greenhouse gases change the energy balance of the atmosphere and lead to atmospheric warming, which increases the water-holding capacity of the atmosphere, which in turn, potentially changes the amounts of precipitable water. The resultant warming also changes the form of precipitation (more rain and less snow), changes the timing of snowmelt (Dettinger and Cayan 1995, Milly et al. 2002, Hodgkins and Dudley 2006), is projected to change storm tracks, and may change the frequency and intensity of large-scale ocean/climate conditions such as El Niño/Southern Oscillation; therefore, the idea that river flood characteristics have changed, or will change, as a result of increased greenhouse gas concentrations is reasonable.

Sift all you want through the techno speak and you'll find no trace of climate skepticism in it.  None.  In fact, as Andrew Restuccia of The Hill points out:

USGS scientists warn that the study does not indicate there is no relationship between flooding and climate change. Instead, they say, it underscores the complexity of the issue. The study comes after the United States faced major flooding this year.

But this leads to a bigger issue facing The Trib.  As Restuccia writes:

The study comes just days after a comprehensive study by the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature found "reliable evidence" of climate change, supporting the conclusions of the majority of the world's scientists.

So in its ongoing (though ultimately futile) attempt to undermine the science of climate change, Scaife's braintrust goes with a study about a lack of evidence connecting climate change and flooding across the US (even though the study itself doesn't doubt climate change at all) and it ignores the Koch-funded study that finds that climate change is actually happening.

Tells you everything you need to know about the level if scientific literacy on the Trib editorial board and now far their politics skew their reality.