There was weird weather long before Al Gore walked the earth.
http://www.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_lar...
In South Dakota there was a weird happening. This was before Gore was born.
In Helena Montana in 1878 there was raindrops the size of oranges, according to some, and plenty of them. Helena was virtually washed up. It was a disaster that has never been repeated.
Weird weather has practically always been part of life on earth. Just read the Bible and you can see that.
The sheer amount of different extreme weather events going on simultaneously around the world means this could be the winter when climate change becomes ‘real’ in our minds, after more than two decades of scientists telling us what its impacts would be.
The recent IPCC AR 5 report concluded the climate is changing and there is a 95% certainty that it is caused by our actions - specifically the burning of fossil fuels, deforestation and land use change.
But the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) told Energydesk “No single weather episode can prove or disprove global climate change.” Right, and of course many complicated and interrelated variables are in play, of which climate change might only be one factor.
"Weird weather" is not a scientific term. Scientists would talk about anomalies.
Essentially, for any measurable subset of weather data for which there are records--rainfall, days above a certain high temperature, number of hurricanes, flood height, et cetera--you can look at the historical record, and see how often a given event tended to occur. Let's take floods, for a fairly easy example.
For any given place, you'll find certain flood heights that historically tended to happen about every year, about every 10 years, about every 50 years, and so on. That's what people mean when they talk about a "hundred year flood" or whatever. Now, a "hundred year flood" happening once is not unduly noteworthy. You would expect that to happen, once every hundred years or so, and it won't necessarily happen 100 years from the previous one. But if you see hundred-year floods happening every 5 years, that suggests that there's been a climate change. That what used to be an event that happened every 100 years is now an event that happens twice a decade.
Journalists, or scientists talking to journalists, may talk about "weird weather", because climate is complex. We can't say, as a completely true blanket statement, even something like "Global warming will cause more floods". Because some places will have fewer floods with warmer weather, maybe they'll have severe droughts instead. So, if you say "There will be more floods", people will be expecting more floods even if they're in an area that will see fewer floods.
Also, there are a *lot* of different things that can change in any given area, and it would sound strange, and over-long, to enumerate all of them in a general report about AGW. "Weird weather" covers increased flooding, increased drought, changes in the timing of rainfall (eg summer vs winter rains), changes in hurricane frequency or intensity, more severe snow storms (warmer air holds more moisture), and many other factors, all of which can be caused by global warming.
Oh, that's easy. Anything that you can get a video of on your smart phone qualifies as weird weather. Anything that you've never seen before and can attest to the media that it is unheard of in these parts is weird weather. Anything that there is a record high, low, can't remember there ever, or this is the first time for is weird weather. And they are all caused by Global Warming.
Edit: OR, there is not much justification for all the hype when you look at it objectively, with a little historical perspective. Hurricanes? In spite of the few that were big in the news, there have been normal numbers and actually low intensity in the last decade. http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/Landsea/dow... and http://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-... Tornadoes? 2011 was high, 2014 is low, otherwise normal numbers and intensities. Floods and droughts? Up and down. What's really up a lot is reference to the term Extreme Weather and coverage by downstream media: http://www.mrc.org/bias-numbers/network-...
We're not above linking an opinion piece in this category. Read Matt Ridley: http://www.thegwpf.org/matt-ridley-calls...
Weird weather? LOL! Do you think the earth has a normal weather mode? LOL! It's amazing that "scientific" types think that somehow the earth was formed of the big bang theory and and that there should be a "certain" weather pattern that supports living man. That kind of thinking goes to creationism- not science.
Obviously it is not a scientific term. I think it basically is referring to strange highs and lows that are not within the normal averages for a given season. I do't know what source you are accessing for this info but some scientists may think this, not all though.
It doesn't matter. Weather is so variable that it will be hard to notice changes until they are really big, years from now.
but they fail to have an objective standard of the definition of weird weather. What is the scientific definition of "weird weather"?
