Steve McIntyre, fresh from AGU, has noticed Jonathan Overpeck talking about drought and sea level rise, inferring some newly minted marketing message:

It’s hard not to conclude that Overpeck was attuned to the market and giving them what they wanted. You want sea level – Overpeck had sea level. You want drought – Overpeck had that too. Bob Carter described the session as being like being at an evangelist’s meeting. It hardly seems coincidental that the hot-button issues should have featured so dramatically.

Note to Steve: I was on a panel with Overpeck in the spring of 2003. The main emphasis of his talk was drought and sea level. He’s been talking about drought and sea level for a long time. See, for example, 2000 Years of Drought Variability in the Central United States, with Connie Woodhouse:

The authors’ assessment of the full range of past natural drought variability, deduced from a comprehensive review of the paleoclimatic literature, suggests that droughts more severe than those of the 1930s and 1950s are likely to occur in the future, a likelihood that might be exacerbated by greenhouse warming in the next century.

That’s from 1998. Dr. Overpeck’s been consistent in emphasizing this point for a number of years.