diby Judith Curry
Western Europe is on track for a potential record breaking heat wave. Should any of this be blamed on human-caused global warming?
Details on the European heat wave can be found here: Significant, Prolonged Heat Wave to Blanket Europe Over the Next Week
The meteorological cause of the heat wave is described here: How “Spanish plume” set off a heat wave in the UK. A good graphic of the circulation pattern is here [link].
The Telegraph warns that heat wave could buckle train tracks and melt roads [link]
So what is causing the heat waves? Are they increasing in severity/duration/frequency?
A new paper from Stanford University addresses some of these issues:
Contribution of changes in atmospheric circulation patterns to extreme temperature trends
Daniel E. Horton, Nathaniel C. Johnson, Deepti Singh, Daniel L. Swain, Bala Rajaratnam & Noah S. Diffenbaugh
Abstract. Surface weather conditions are closely governed by the large-scale circulation of the Earth’s atmosphere. Recent increases in the occurrence of some extreme weather phenomena have led to multiple mechanistic hypotheses linking changes in atmospheric circulation to increasing probability of extreme events. However, observed evidence of long-term change in atmospheric circulation remains inconclusive. Here we identify statistically significant trends in the occurrence of atmospheric circulation patterns, which partially explain observed trends in surface temperature extremes over seven mid-latitude regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Using self-organizing map cluster analysis, we detect robust circulation pattern trends in a subset of these regions during both the satellite observation era (1979–2013) and the recent period of rapid Arctic sea-ice decline. Particularly substantial influences include the contribution of increasing trends in anticyclonic circulations to summer and autumn hot extremes over portions of Eurasia and North America, and the contribution of increasing trends in northerly flow to winter cold extremes over central Asia. Our results indicate that although a substantial portion of the observed change in extreme temperature occurrence has resulted from regional- and global-scale thermodynamic changes, the risk of extreme temperatures over some regions has also been altered by recent changes in the frequency, persistence and maximum duration of regional circulation patterns.
Published in Nature [link]
The Daily Mail has an article on this study, excerpts:
For example, the type of summer weather pattern with a northeastern North American high pressure system that keeps it hotter than normal in the eastern U.S. used to happen about 18 days a summer in the early 1980s. It now occurs about 26 days a summer, the study found. ‘There are more of them each summer and on average they are lasting longer and the longest are lasting longer,’ Horton said. That pattern shift is even stronger in the summer in Europe and western Asia, Horton and co-author Noah Diffenbaugh found.
The patterns Horton and Diffenbaugh studied are different from the one responsible for the current southeastern U.S. heatwave, Horton said.
But the weather patterns were the type responsible for heatwaves that killed more than 50,000 people in western Russia in 2010 and more than 70,000 people Europe in 2003, the study said.
Diffenbaugh said the changes could be a result of random chance, or a side effect of climate change and melting sea ice as others have theorized.
See also Noah Diffenbaugh’s youtube discussion of the paper [link].
Because of the short time period of their analysis (since 1979), it is very difficult to attribute any trend in circulation patterns to AGW.
Prashant Sardeshmukh
While in the UK attending the Hoskins@70 event, I heard a very interesting and relevant talk by Prashant Sardeshmukh of NOAA, entitled Extremes and climate change: some roadblocks to detection, attribution and projection. Prashant was kind enough to make his ppt presentation available to me for this blog post (their paper on this is under review).
The first part of his talk addresses the issue of circulation changes. A really important contribution is use of the 20th century reanalysis (going back to 1871), which is described in this previous post reanalyses.org. The findings of their analysis is summarized in this slide:
So only the PWC and AAO have long term trends over the period. Re the AAO, somewhere I spotted an article or presentation about a 300 yr oscillation in the Southern Ocean. At the recent Ringberg Workshop, Mojib Latif’s presentation also mentions Southern Ocean centennial variability. If anyone knows of more info on this, I would appreciate the links.
He then addresses issues related to attributing and predicting temperature extremes:
This issue was previously raised at CE in context of Greg Holland’s analysis How extreme can it get?
It is intuitively reasonable that as average temperatures warm, then the probability and intensity of heat waves should increase. Sardeshmukh writes:
Can we not be reasonably certain that 20th century global warming has resulted in increases of daily warm extremes and decreases of daily cold extremes in most regions of the globe ? Isn’t the mean shift (i.e. the mean warming) a useful guide in this context ?
However, this also depends on changes to the shape of the temperature distribution (skewness and dispersion). Sardeshmukh defines a new index:
In the 20th century reanalysis, the temperatures at the 850 hPa level (nominally 1.5 km above the surface) are more robust than surface temperatures, hence they are used to reflect changes in the temperature distributions:
The diagrams on the right shows that the temperature distribution are both negatively and positively skewed in different regions; consistent with Greg Holland’s analysis, the subtropical regions tend to have negatively skewed temperature distributions.
20th century changes in probabilities of extreme winter temperatures are shown in upper right quadrant. There is substantial regional variability in terms of more versus fewer extreme events. The regional variability looks all over the map; surprisingly the climate model simulations (second row) show similar regional variability.
I’ve stared at a blown up version of the upper right diagram for a long time, trying to make sense of it. Many of the most intense changes (dark blue or orange) are over the ocean. Dark blue over the Arctic Ocean makes sense; warming melts ice rather than increases extreme temps. Dark orange over Alaska makes sense since this is a cold region that has plenty of room to heat up for extremes. Dark blue over the tropical Pacific warm pool makes sense if more warming of this very warm region results in more evaporation rather than extreme warming.
Thermodynamics reasoning can only take you so far; the rest looks like dynamics or land use. The most intense orange blob is in South America; looks like the Amazon, no idea how to explain that one. Most of Europe is light blue, with a big blob of orange over France and Spain. South Asia looks pretty orange, with the exception of India.
Sardeshmukh’s summary:
The fact that changes in extreme anomaly risks cannot be deduced from the mean shiLs alone is not disturbing . . . . but entirely understandable in terms of basic weather dynamics and the Climate-‐Weather connection. Climate Models must adequately represent subseasonal atmospheric variability and its links with longer term changes to adequately capture the changes in the mean, width, and shape of the associated probability distributions. Currently they have difficulty in capturing even the mean changes in many regions. This is a challenge, but also an opportunity.
I find this to be a fascinating study; I hope that someone follows up and uses this methodology to analyze heat extremes using historical surface temperature data.
JC reflections
Bottom line is that the intuitively reasonable attribution of more heat waves to a higher average temperature doesn’t work in most land regions.
Looks like they need more air conditioning in Spain and France and also South Asia.
Does it make more sense to provide air conditioning or to limit CO2 emissions. I vote for more air conditioning in these susceptible regions. A good solution for South Asia is described in this previous post Tactical Adaptation to Indian Heat Waves.
Reblogged this on CraigM350.
I wonder if the first person actually cares that you “reblogged” somebody else’s work that they spend a great deal of time and effort writing so that you could draw hits to your blog? Especially as the first comment.
http://icecap.us/index.php/go/new-and-cool/agw_theory_has_failed_all_tests_so_alarmists_return_to_the_consensus_hoax/
In this vein Hegerl’s new discussion paper is worth a look.
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/10/7/071001
Since for the first time in history, vineyards are flourishing north even of the Bishop’s chilly see, he shoudl take a look at this as well :
http://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2015/06/mark-steyn-and-grapes-of-wrath.html
Russell
Flourishing?
There is the momentum vineyard which hopes to produce the first wine in Scotland since Roman times in 2016
http://www.quora.com/Are-there-any-vineyards-in-Scotland
What other flourishing ones exist? You would think there should be plenty bearing in mind the advances in viticulture, greater wealth, equipment and resources since Roman times.
Tonyb
Both contention and domain name are deceptive.
Typical.
Heat waves this century are on the low side on balance.
Once solar activity approaches my low average value solar parameters and the PDO/AMO transition to a cold phase going forward and remain so ,then we will see if AGW theory stands up or not.
Based on the data thus far I would say not likely.
Scotland – June on track to be coldest in 43 years
How come the other side of the story is so quiet..
It has been chilly in the Northeast USA too. Almost the fourth of July and we have had very little shorts weather.
I can second that; here in “South County” RI we have had maybe 1 day at 80; nights in the 50s finally ended about 2 weeks ago, and most day time temps the past 3 weeks have been no more than 75. Comfortable but cool and the garden has suffered waiting for warmer weather. Spring of 2003 was very similar to this year.
Why is all of this not talked about? I gave just two examples there are more such as Eastern Canada having very cold weather after a brutal winter, Antarctic Sea Ice at or near record highs etc.
UK – June nights coldest since records began?
As of June 17, June was on course to be the coldest month in 24 years – with the coldest nights since records began 105 years ago..
Does anyone in the UK know if that trend continued?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-weather-june-nights-could-5902388#ICID=sharebar_twitter
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcet/cet_info_mean.html
Salvatore
Ulric has provided you with a good link.
May was unusually cool and whilst here in the south west of England I normally turn off the heating the first week of April, this year I frequently turned it on for an hour or so most evenings in May.
The plants in my garden were certainly some weeks behind ‘nomal’. June was also pretty cool and during the first week the heating went on once or twice.
However it has been pretty sunny and whilst cool, both may and June have been very nice months. It turned very hot on 30 th June and on 1 st July. However this warmth was not everywhere in the UK. We had heavy rain today and the temperature has been a very pleasant 20c.
Tonyb
http://web.nersc.no/WebData/arctic-roos.org/observation/ssmi1_ice_ext.png
http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/2015-arctic-sea-ice-maximum-annual-extent-is-lowest-on-record
Despite having what was proclaimed to be the lowest arctic sea ice in the instrument era – we could well have the highest minimum in 9 years.
For whatever reason the arctic sea ice isn’t melting and the volume is higher than last year so it is probable the minimum will be higher than last year.
PA, It looks to me like ocean currents.
Very little ice has been going south through the Fram Strait for the past few months.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticicespddrfnowcast.gif
Dr. Curry commented a while back that ice loss is a combination of melting and drifting.
The global warmers fail to mention that a change in currents can significantly reduce Arctic sea ice.
But your chart seem to show the currents pushing ice out the Fram Strait at about 10 cm/s or about 0.224 mph. While that is slow for most things it is pretty fast for ice. There are times the drift vector isn’t even in the direction of of the Fram strait.
The sea ice didn’t get that much of a free ride in June.
http://www7320.nrlssc.navy.mil/hycomARC/navo/arcticicespddrf/nowcast/icespddrf2015061218_2015061300_040_arcticicespddrf.001.gif
And while I agree that it’s only weather, Canberra, where I live, is having a distinctly cold winter so far, much colder than in the past few years.
don
its only ‘weather’ when its cold, but ‘climate change’ when its hot. Strange that.
tonyb
Also, regional cold is merely regional, regional heat is global. That’s because of…oh, I dunno…Abbott or something.
Mosomoso +1. Climate science is redolent with regional and global attributions of short term data that IMO doesn’t provide any clear trend either way. This begs the question as to the relevance of using global averages at all?
Pro tip on messaging: If you want to get your point across, that global warming does not cause warming, you might want to wait a few months, until after folks in the most populated areas of the world have finished being miserable, occasionally dropping dead and stuff, from the heat, before implying that there isn’t really a problem. Because right or wrong they are going to be thinking there’s a problem.
Also, we live at the surface (now you know!) so that bit about how 1.5 km is better to measure is a bit off. The data may behave better behaved at 1.5, but it is not where we live. At least most of us. We’re down here, Judith. Join us! :)
Hey Greg, guess what. I’m not about ‘messaging’, i’m about trying to understand the climate system and discuss with interested individuals, which isn’t easy in the midst of all this political ‘messaging’ by scientists.
Judith, you blog, and tweet, you are about messaging.
My tweets advertise my blog posts, and I occasionally engage in discussion on twitter if someone pings me. My blog explores controversial issues in climate science, and the myriad of issues surrounding climate change. Other than our understanding of the climate system is far from complete and there are many uncertainties, what the heck is my ‘message’?
I’m not even sure what ‘messaging’ means in your context (googling the word didn’t help). Some funky/trendy thing that green advocates do to urge action? That’s not what I do. I’m interested in engagement and conversation, which involves communicating with the public via the internet.
I googled ‘political messaging’, now i see. That may be what you guys are up to; I do not play these kinds of games with science.
You may not care about the revolution Judith, but the revolution cares about you.
Eli
‘Judith, you blog, and tweet, you are about messaging.”
tweeting IS messaging
unless the subject is MESSAGING, tweeting is not “about” messaging.
let willard talk “about” messaging.
stick to your knitting.
Judith..
You dont understand. With the coming heat wave the messaging pros will be about Framing or contextualizing the event.
Their message will be.
1. This heat wave “fits” the picture we have been drawing
2. the science suggests that things like this will happen more frequently
3. climate change is already happening.
4. We have a chance to act
in short, in the past one had to turn off the air conditioning in meeting
and close the windows to make the future seem more real. The coming heat wave will present the same narrative possibility. People will die, dont let that opportunity go to waste.
You are off message. You are off suggesting that there is some interesting science being done here.. and that science… well its complicated. you are adding twists and turns to the PLOT… or some kinda sub plot that might undermine the approved narative.
in reality, if we expect more heat waves we ought to start by PREPARING for the weather of the past. If we think more heat waves are in the pipeline, then wee also have to acknowledge that No mitigation today will help in the next 10-30 years. Belief in more heat waves demands that we start to adapt today.
But the message is mitigation– so forget that more people will die in the next 30 years and worry about the unborn.
good analysis. More significantly, I am working to be part of a real solution to help now
http://judithcurry.com/2015/06/02/tactical-adaptation-to-indian-heat-waves/
Some people say that writing op-eds is an inherently an act of political messaging.
Some might argue that testifying before Congress at the behest of politicians is an act of political messaging.
well, what is my political ‘message’?
> I’m not about ‘messaging’, i’m about trying to understand the climate system and discuss with interested individuals, which isn’t easy in the midst of all this political ‘messaging’ by scientists.
Some, but not me, might call this stealth advocacy.
Laden’s Message is clear, but illogical. The team’s message around heat waves is clear but illogical.
Global warming is happening NOW, increased heat waves are happening NOW, and in 2100 it will only get worse. So, ignore the problem today,
villify Judith and peter Webster for working on heat wave warning systems, Because… 2100!
Judith’s message is less clear. Its stealthy.. WATCH OUT!!!
So lets play a game
Explain what Judith Stealth message is and support your guess.
Joshua? Willard..
Have at it.. Explain what Judith is advocating.
or ask her.. she is right here.
==> “well, what is my political ‘message’?”
There are few. The primary one is that policies that target mitigation There are others…such as that Obama’s climate change policy targets are ill-advised, that specific politicians have policy objectives that you’re in agreement with, etc.
I’m not saying that your objectives are primarily political as an end unto itself. But the same applies to the other side. Political messaging on the other side isn’t primary political, it is primary focused on advocating for what people think is optimal with respect to climate change policy.
You can’t be non-political within this politicized context, and so it is problematic to then pat yourself on the back for being non-political while advocating and then also criticizing others for advocating.
Also interesting that you passed my comment through moderation only after I made it as generic as I could and then in your response you turned the discussion to be personalized.
Which politicians have policies that I am in agreement with? I can’t think of any.
I have cited chip knappenbergers analysis that Obama’s climate policy would save 0.1C warming by end of 21st century. Did i ever explicitly say it was ill advised? I said it was ineffective at preventing 21st century warming; not the same thing.
==> “Joshua? Willard..”
Given the moderation situation, it’s near impossible to have a direct exchange…
That said…
Broadly speaking, Judith is advocating for adaptation-related policies in lieu of mitigation-related policies (in, IMO, a flawed binary, zero sum game paradigm of mutual exclusivity)…
More specifically, she advocates for a particular hierarchy of funding priorities.
There’s another problem, also, with Judith’s contention that she’s only advocating for integrity which isn’t really advocacy, which is that there is an implication that others aren’t also advocating for integrity to be manifest in climate change policies.
Joshua, any cites for all this? I discuss adaptation policies slightly more than mitigation policies at Climate Etc. Where have are argued for a particular hierarchy of funding priorities? Do you know what advocacy is? It involves forceful persuasion. Can you find anything i’ve written re adaptation, mitigation or funding that is arguable forceful persuasion?
Steven, most, if not all, of her posts are one-sided except for the week in review posts. Can you name a single one that supports the mainstream position and doesn’t attempt to minimize AGW?
–> “or ask her.. she is right here.”
Judith has been asked, and her answers, IMO, are not consistent.
Weather is not climate… unless we say it is.
From Wikipedia:
I think your public speaking, blog posts, and Congressional testimony all fit these criteria. I don’t see anything about being “forceful.”
The only two of these that i do are
• Are inclusive and engaging
• Open up space for public argumentation.
These are not regarded as political advocacy, or according to any legal defn of advocacy
Re political advocacy, I prefer this: How is advocacy defined
http://www.endvawnow.org/en/articles/94-how-is-advocacy-defined.html
j*shua
“Judith has been asked, and her answers, IMO, are not consistent.”
1. You havent shown that
2. Showing that is very hard.
3. Asserting inconsistency is not an argument.
4. TODAYS TOPIC is heat waves.
a) Laden suggests she has a message.
b) you and willard concur that todays post has a political message.
so.. I repeat.
What do you claim Judith is ADVOCATING today?
in todays post..
the one right here..
Joseph
“Steven, most, if not all, of her posts are one-sided except for the week in review posts. Can you name a single one that supports the mainstream position and doesn’t attempt to minimize AGW?”
Sure. but FIRST lets STAY ON TOPIC.
Judith as a POST… TODAY.
Laden suggests that she has a message in this post that is wrong.
J8shua and Willard believe Judith is an advocate.
So.. lets test, experimentally, your ability to read the current post.
Then, when you prove to me you can read we can rehash the past.
Its thursday. Lets see if you can stay on topic
Nearly all of my stuff is within the range of what the IPCC WG reports actually say (and the uncertainties). This of course is not consistent with activist messengers, who go way beyond anything the IPCC says.
J*shua
‘Broadly speaking, Judith is advocating for adaptation-related policies in lieu of mitigation-related policies (in, IMO, a flawed binary, zero sum game paradigm of mutual exclusivity)…”
Huh? broadly speaking?
that is code for “I dont want to discuss the details because the details dont support my case”
But we have a post TODAY.
we can all read it.
We can all see what it says.
Show your Skillz
crap willard isnt up to showing his Skillz on todays post..
Its as bad a “but climategate’
Todays post boys.. Laden pooped on the thread, clean it up or prove his case.
A welcome return of the old Mosher.
Does anyone else get the impression that Dr Curry’s blog gets the 3rd string in terms “challengers”? Josh, Joseph, JCH, even Willard.
I have two theories.
1) The first string is smart enough to stay away from an a** whipping.
2) There is little differentiation between the 1st string and the 3rd.
I’d lean toward #1, but then Greg Laden shows up and pretty much proves #2.
timg
It’s pretty simple.
Willard, Joseph, J*shua all have stupid pet tricks.. similar to “but RC moderation” or “but climategate”
In this case its this simple.
Judith talks about the coming heat wave. She points to some science that
may be in conflict with the accepted storyline.
Laden, swoops in to charge the crime against the agenda.
” If you want to get your point across, that global warming does not cause warming, ”
Now ordinarily good critical readers like J*shua Willard and Joseph,
would point out to Laden that Judith didnt say or imply this……..
ordinarily.
But they cannot be seen correcting Laden.
And so, Eli comes along to turn the conversation on to a topic where they are comfortable– messaging and advocacy.. where they are all on the same page..
And now we get a rehash a re audit of everything about advocacy.
This move is crucial because Judith raises a science question about heat wave attribution ( a tough problem) and tough problems destroy the simple narrative.
Schneider’s dilemma comes to mind.
> Which politicians have policies that I am in agreement with? I can’t think of any.
Working backwards:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/06/15/state-of-the-climate-debate-in-the-u-s/
> what is my political ‘message’?
http://business.financialpost.com/fp-comment/ipcc-climate-global-warming
Willard,
Re: Kill the IPCC……………may I ask what it was that followed that suggestion? I feel quite certain that you know and wouldn’t care to superimpose some sort of advocacy on her w/o a fair indication of “and now………the rest of the story”. But I’ve been wrong before.
Kill the IPCC was about my concern of the adverse impact of IPCC on conduct of climate science. The IPCC is policy neutral by its own charter. How is kill the IPCC ‘political’? It is political only in context of the policy of science.
I found your words to be quite clear: “The IPCC needs to get out of the way so that scientists and policy makers can better do their jobs.
The diagnosis of paradigm paralysis seems fatal in the case of the IPCC, given the widespread nature of the infection and intrinsic motivated reasoning. We need to put down the IPCC as soon as possible – not to protect the patient who seems to be thriving in its own little cocoon, but for the sake of the rest of us whom it is trying to infect with its disease. The precautionary principle demands that we not take any risks here.”
Surely, Willard wouldn’t have wanted to imply anything to the contrary with his choice of snippet, considering his interest in the whole integrity thingy.
> But they cannot be seen correcting Laden.
http://initforthegold.blogspot.com/2015/06/on-laden-vs-revkin.html?showComment=1435610815881#c2698159349663516155
> How is kill the IPCC ‘political’? It is political only in context of the policy of science.
I’ll take that as a yes. It would be tough to dispute, since this blog started as a policy science interface something something. Just using the WP search bar, there are 13 pages of posts by searching for “politics”:
http://judithcurry.com/page/13/?s=politics
There are more than enough material in this list to answer Judy’s question. If that does not suffice, I could use a more powerful search, e.g.:
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fjudithcurry.com+politics+%22I+agree+with%22
First hit:
http://judithcurry.com/2015/01/26/climate-change-as-a-political-process/
Note the title: Climate change as a political process.
Compare with Judy’s “It is political only in context of the policy of science.”
Wow, i read someone’s thesis and liked it.
Mosher:
“What do you claim Judith is ADVOCATING today?”
“Does it make more sense to provide air conditioning or to limit CO2 emissions. I vote for more air conditioning in these susceptible regions.”
Pretty low on the advocacy scale. Seems to me a reasonable question and answer when we consider the economics and relative chances of success. Most of us are advocates. I want my clients to be organized, keep good records and most importantly follow the tax laws. But I suppose it’s about balance. I don’t come on too strong as that’s not going to work. Perhaps successful advocacy occurs when it’s as mild as possible while making the point.
> Wow, i read someone’s thesis and liked it.
Here’s that someone:
http://www.korhola.com/en/erk/
Here’s a quote from a speech about that someone’s thesis:
Someone’s thesis’ title was Climate change as a political process.
What was Judy’s question, again?
***
Now, my turn:
> you and willard concur that todays post has a political message
Where did I concur anything on today’s post?
You are really reaching Willard. I am not a fan of emissions trading.
Is this the old pin the ‘political messaging’ tail on Judith game, again? Can everybody play, or is it just for the trolls?
Mosher –
==> “that is code for “I dont want to discuss the details because the details dont support my case”
Judith’s advocacy is a broad-based advocacy. There are different kinds of advocacy and if she doesn’t specify to very specific policies does not mean that she doesn’t advocate.
And it certainly doesn’t mean that she isn’t “political” or that she engages in “political messaging.”
If someone uses unspecific and relative terms, such as “advocacy” and “forceful,” and then arbitrarily defines them on his/her own terms in order to support a self-serving application, he/she can wall oneself off from deeper examination of their biases.
I would rather see people engage by first defining terms and carefully examining for related biases.
==> But we have a post TODAY.
I wasn’t speaking in reference to the top post and none of my comments were directed to the top post, but to Judith’s subsequent comments.
== “Laden pooped on the thread, clean it up or prove his case.”
I offer no defense of Greg. From what I’ve seen, which isn’t much, he can make some god-awful arguments – on a par, if not often worse, than many of the arguments I see here made by “skeptics.”
For example in his comment above, he suggests that by waiting a “few months,” Judith’s (or anyone’s) messaging would be materially improved? How could a “few months” improve messaging about issues that require risk evaluation over long time horizons? There’s a lot more in such a short comment, but it is irrelevant to the points I made in this thread.
J*shua
Please show some civility and address me as Steven.
“Judith’s advocacy is a broad-based advocacy. There are different kinds of advocacy and if she doesn’t specify to very specific policies does not mean that she doesn’t advocate.”
1, This is not evidence that she does advocate.
2. Again, you say broad based because you have no details.
And it certainly doesn’t mean that she isn’t “political” or that she engages in “political messaging.”
1. Nor does it mean that she is
If someone uses unspecific and relative terms, such as “advocacy” and “forceful,” and then arbitrarily defines them on his/her own terms in order to support a self-serving application, he/she can wall oneself off from deeper examination of their biases.”
1.. Really, you are free to provide evidence. you have not
2. Whether she waves it off or not is NOT THE ISSUE.
3. the issue is you made a claim. without evidence.
I would rather see people engage by first defining terms and carefully examining for related biases.
1. GO ahead. nobody is stopping you
2. THAT is what I am asking U to do
==> But we have a post TODAY.
I wasn’t speaking in reference to the top post and none of my comments were directed to the top post, but to Judith’s subsequent comments.
== “Laden pooped on the thread, clean it up or prove his case.”
I offer no defense of Greg. From what I’ve seen, which isn’t much, he can make some god-awful arguments – on a par, if not often worse, than many of the arguments I see here made by “skeptics.”
1. So explain your reluctance to address his bad argument.
Willar
“Where did I concur anything on today’s post?”
I am taking your silence as assent to Laden’s argument about Judith’s
messaging goal.
Please feel free to excoriate him OFF YOUR HOME TURF
Otherwise I have no good reason to assume that you disagree with him.
> I am not a fan of emissions trading.
So you don’t like emissions trading. That surely means there’s no politician that have policies that you’re in agreement with, Judy.
Wow indeed.
Heh.
“…Of course no one is topping me. ”
No one is stopping me. Where’s John Carpenter when I need him?
> Please feel free to excoriate him OFF YOUR HOME TURF.
I don’t play home, and thought Judy’s was under Don Don’s protection services.
Greg is of no interest to me. Yet another blogger with an attitude. Yawn.
Mr Laden is right about one thing. This devastating heatwave hasn’t happened yet. Of course, it could. If it happened in 1976 and 2003 (or 1868 for that matter) it could very well happen in 2015, especially with all the indicators.
But it hasn’t happened yet.
Never mind. Nowadays we have heatwave in advance, and maybe heatwave in actuality. Under warmism, it’s found best if the projected disaster gets most of the coverage. If the heat isn’t quite so bad as projected, the headlines, red/brown/purple maps, and pics of warped rails (in Australia, but meant for England) have done their promotional business. NZ’s hottest ever day in advance made headlines a couple of years ago. When it didn’t even come close to happening…the subject changed to Taylor Cyrus (or is it Miley Swift?). Still got headlines, right?
As for all that recent white stuff in NZ, it can be be dismissed as “polar vortex leading to enhanced flood risk”. I’m learning!
“Greg is of no interest to me. Yet another blogger with an attitude. Yawn.”
The subject was his bad logic.. not him personally.
weirdly selective. On one hand I swore yu were interesting in things logical and now you tell us its personalities that drives you.
weird.
From his link above:
Odd that. I hung around his (GL’s) blog for a while before he blocked me. Maybe he has the problem typical of leftist radicals, of hating heretics worst who are closest to his position.
“i’m about trying to understand the climate system and discuss with interested individuals, which isn’t easy in the midst of all this political ‘messaging’ by scientists.”
I have noticed that understanding the climate was the early objective of Climate Etc. We all can benefit from climate related discussions. I personally found some discussions merits citing in scientific Journals. I did in one, please see this paper, which references important Climate Etc. discussion:
Anthropogenic and Natural Forcings as Functions of Emission Time
Development in Earth Science (DES) Volume 3, 2015, http://www.seipub.org/des doi: 10.14355/des.2015.03.001 1
I hope to see more scientific discussions on this blog instead of political ones. Otherwise we would be putting the cart before the horse.
Tip on logic: until you can show why the lower temperatures today are worse for the planet than the higher temperatures of earlier eras a thousand and two thousand years ago, stop insulting people with silly claims of unprecedented warming caused by humans.
temperatures weren’t higher 1000 and 2000 years ago
Citation?
You also owe me one for your previous statement about more extremes
Tonyb
nebakhet: “temperatures weren’t higher 1000 and 2000 years ago”
Wrong.
Of course they weren’t!
A winter night in Alaska is now hotter than a summer day used to be in Libya, didn’tcha know?
nebakhet,
Which temperatures and where? How do you know?
Just saying it over and over doesn’t make an unsubstantiated assertion true. This is a Warmist tactic, which still doesn’t work.
Maybe you should offer your services to Steven Mosher. He believes that strong belief can change history. You and he could no doubt cool temperatures 1000 or 2000 years ago – or warm them, if that would suit you better.
It seems that the Earth has cooled over the last four and a half billion years. If you say this shows that temperatures were lower in the past, I might beg to differ, based purely on physics. Maybe you are right. Have you any facts to support your assertions?
Neb
That stuff might work on Huffington Post where they all are subscribers to Weekly Reader but here you have to meet a higher standard.
nebakhet,
You wrote –
“Stop lying. Temperatures were not warmer 1000, 2000 years ago. It’s a lie.”
One might well respond, with as much justification “You are a fool. If your brains were dynamite, you would be unlikely to be able to blow your nose.”
I certainly wouldn’t, of course. I was brought up to refrain from making sport of the less intellectually capable. And you?
Fingers stuck in ears, eyes scrinched shut: “La la la I can’t hear you!”
Greg
Reality check. Colder weather kills more than hotter weather. See:
Mortality risk attributable to high and low ambient
temperature: a multicountry observational study
Look at historic heat deaths.
Current weather extreme variations are minor compared with glaciation!
Our greatest long term challenge: Will we be able to achieve enough global warming to prevent descent into the next glaciation? e.g.
Global warming vs Next Ice Age
Whereas on average during the summer
2003 the share of over‐65s deaths represents 79% of the total deaths in France, it reached 86.5% on
August 12th, i.e. an increase of 9.5%. The share of over‐75s deaths reached 73.1% on the same day, an
increase of 16.5%, and the share of the over‐85s deaths 41.2%, i.e. an increase of 26.8%. Lastly, the share
of over‐95s deaths reached 8.9% on August 12th, an increase of 46%. These distortions in the age
distribution of deaths become greater at older ages. This implies that the excess mortality varied
considerably with age and that it rose as the age increased
The kids went on holiday and left the elderly alone in their houses.
Yep – strong seasonality of deaths from all causes
Greater number of deaths in winter lesser number of deaths in summer.
And it appears as if the body’s immune response is the reason.
The immune response ramps up to defend against bacteria and viruses that thrive in the colder, drier conditions of winter and kill people regardless of the immune response. But that immune ramp up comes at a cost, because it also screws with other things such as C-reactive proteins ( increasing heart attacks ) and interleukins ( cancer suceptibility? ).
So cold kills in lots of ways. Deaths from heatstroke or cold exposure are very few by comparison. In fact, when you examine the causes of death, heat/cold or even all weather don’t even show up! If you’re worried about global warming more than anything on this list, you’re worried about the wrong things. That’s normal, we all do it.
“Pro tip on messaging:”
Pro is short for propaganda.
> Pro is short for propaganda.
I thought it was a shortcut for professional, which may or may not apply to Greg’s blogging with an attitude.
The usage of “protip” is Internet vernacular:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=protip
Protip: pick your own definition.
We are aware of laddy laden’s style, willy. Propaganda. You got nothing better to do? Pathetic.
Click on the link, Don Don.
No need to thank me.
gregladen: Also, we live at the surface (now you know!)
That is a good reason to calculate “climate sensitivity” separately for the surface and other layers of the climate system. I calculated a lower climate sensitivity (mean change in average temp) for the surface than other people have calculated for the TOA, “effective radiating level”, and aggregate atmosphere.
until after folks in the most populated areas of the world have finished being miserable, occasionally dropping dead and stuff, from the heat,
Yeh, we go through this every year: somewhere people die of the cold, and somewhere else people die of the heat. It’s a shame the poor areas do not have as much air conditioning as in Chicago, St Louis, and France. Think how much better off they would all be if they had more electricity from coal-fired power plants!
Pro tip on messaging:
You are a “pro” at “messaging”? Have you tried studying the science? thermodynamics of cloud condensation, maybe? Changes in non-radiative energy transfer at the surface? Causes and magnitudes of climate change independent of CO2? The effects of changes in downwelling LWIR induced in the water surface? The best “message” is that the science should be communicated as accurately and completely as possible, which includes the uncertainties associated with all quantitative and semi-quantitative claims.
quick comment on this: and France.
Excessive deaths in the French heat wave were blamed in part on insufficient air conditioning. But still they compare favorably to the poorer regions of the world.
Greg, how long have you been saying that for now?
How come we’re still waiting for those things to pass?
pro TIp from Greg Laden?
One word.
tallbloke.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/12/20/greg-laden-caves-makes-nice-with-tallbloke/
Now I am not a fan of tallbloke. ask him. But your approach in communication gave him more air time than he would normally get.
Pro Tip?
Stop giving tips.
Pro Logic Tip
‘If you want to get your point across, that global warming does not cause warming, you might want to wait a few months”
If you want to give tips, avoid strawman arguments.
Pro READ HARDER TIP
Laden: “Also, we live at the surface (now you know!) so that bit about how 1.5 km is better to measure is a bit off. The data may behave better behaved at 1.5, but it is not where we live. At least most of us. We’re down here, Judith. Join us! :)”
Judith: “I find this to be a fascinating study; I hope that someone follows up and uses this methodology to analyze heat extremes using historical surface temperature data.”
read harder Greg.
or get off our team.
Most people live in cities on purpose, cities which are warmer typically warmer than the surrounding countryside, especially in summer.
Greg, Dr. Curry, et al. Re: Messaging. It’s as dependent on the recipient as it is on the sender. May be of interest: http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/01/americans-politics-and-science-issues/?utm_source=Pew+Research+Center&utm_campaign=70e3f80913-July_2_2015_Weekly_Newsletter7_1_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_3e953b9b70-70e3f80913-399622865
yes certain recipients see messaging and advocacy for inaction at the drop of the hat.
gregladen | July 2, 2015 at 11:31 am | Reply
“Pro tip on messaging”
From a compleat messaging phuckup. Funny stuff!
GregLaden, who is only about “messaging” trys to lecture Curry. Face it Greg, you’re an ankle biter. It must be frustrating knowing you will likely never rise above that level, but try not to let that lead to criticizing those far more accomplished than you.
As for Eli, who pays attention to silly rabbits.
dont dismiss Eli.
on science he is very good
dont dismiss Eli. on science he is very good
That doesn’t stop anyone from having big cognitive biases.
In fact, to even care about this subject is a good indicator of being a nut job.
Steven,
I don’t necessarily dismiss Eli on the science. I just never see him discussing science at Judith’s blog.
“If you want to get your point across, that global warming does not cause warming,”
Utter drivel as usual.
Stop making stuff up.
Hey Laden, are you bored with beating up Revkin or are you just crusading against anyone who doesn’t fall into line? Is Obama really a denier?
For someone who does nothing but messaging, messaging doesn’t seem to be something you like. Perhaps you should evaluate what you do for a living.
Heatwaves in the US have plummeted since the 1930’s, even as data tampering by NOAA and NASA has exponentially increased.
Tat is for sure Steven. NOAA and NASA data is all manipulated in order to keep AGW theory alive. I will not work.
there are more heatwaves today than at any time in US history
Citations?
Tonyb
“there are more heatwaves today than at any time in US history”
That would appear to be incorrect, given the old age of most state high temperature records.
nebakhet,
The U.S. contains about 5% of the world’s population, and maybe 2% of its surface area.
Why do you think it represents the other 98% of surface? Because you think it does? I’m a bit surprised, to be honest.
The rest of the world might not agree. Have you bothered to check?
Talk is cheap. Cough up the links.
nebakhet – and you know this how?
Yes.
Most state high temperature records are old, some more than a century old.
Marcel LeRoux pointed out at the time of the last French heat wave that most descriptions wrongly attributed heat waves to warm advection from Africa, and I saw it in the press for this event also.
Heatwaves, as LeRoux pointed out, occur from stagnant low level polar anti-cyclones which engender both adiabatic heating as well as increased solar load ( in summer only ). Most can’t get their heads around this. It bears looking to see what happened with this event.
Heat Deaths by Vacation
14,802 people died in France’s 2003 heat wave – mostly due to other people taking vacations, and lack of air conditioning.
In France, Nothing Gets in the Way of Vacation – 2003
A little inexpensive “adaptation” goes a long way compared to trillions on “mitigation”.
David –
That is hitting below the belt. Pointing out the self-absorbed progressives kill more people than global warming could reduce the amount of self-congratulation necessary to sustain that population.
Two articles on SAM for the last millennium
1st blames GW & ozone for recent rise.
http://web.science.unsw.edu.au/~matthew/Abram_et_al_SAM_NCC_2014.pdf
2nd links to the Sunspot integral
http://www.billhowell.ca/Paul%20L%20Vaughan/Vaughan%20140622%20Sun%20&%20SAM%20(Southern%20Annular%20Mode).pdf
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/ch10s10-3-5-6.html
How quickly we forget all of the wrong predictions AGW has made.
They predicted a more zonal atmospheric circulation not meridional which means LESS heat waves, but no one will call them on it.
It puzzles me as to why, but I will not forget.
AGW theory spins everything to make it APPEAR they are correct when the reality is they are dead wrong..
Summer.
A/C gets turned on.
Hot humid air pumped out of homes and offices.
Gets hotter.
A/C gets turned up.
Even More Hot humid air pumped out of homes and offices.
etc
” In Tokyo, a study showed a 1-2°C increase in air temperatures due to AC usage during weekdays (Ohashi et al. 2007)”
http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/505252main_demunck.pdf
Yep, that’s why thermodynamics is such a hot topic. We should repeal the 2nd law – it’s disorderly conduct.
BTW, this is a natural consequence of the trend in urbanization – supposedly good for the environment and more energy efficient – that all the sociologists, city planners, and enviro-whackos are crowing about. I think just about every quasi-scientific rag, er mag, like postScientific American et al has a cover story on this beloved factoid. OTOH, many people prefer the “leafy” suburbs, called leafy for good reason. Though it gets savagely hot where I live, 95 F in the shade here on Tuesday, I have no AC. I planted native deciduous trees all aroun my house. I like to putter around the yard, doting on my native plants and my wildlife sanctuary while watching the numerous birds, butterflies, humming birds, lizards, and squirrels go about their daily lives unaware of the atrocity of the suburb. There are downsides, we have too many pesky raccoons and wood rats and we have to bring the cat in at night because of the coyotes, bobcats, and mountain lions. Yes, we do have lions. We have lions because we have so many deer eating our roses. Go lions.
If you live in the city, don’t walk under the ACs. Watch out for pigeons!
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/RECORD_STATES.png
AGW theory as shown by the data is wrong.
http://patriotpost.us/opinion/19138
More exposure of the fraud of AGW.
Excellent post. Please also see these papers on heat waves –
Gill, E.C., T.N Chase, R.A. Pielke Sr, and K. Wolter, 2013: Northern Hemisphere summer temperature and specific humidity anomalies from two reanalyses. J. Geophys. Res., 118, 1–9, DOI: 10.1002/jgrd.50635. Copyright (2010) American Geophysical Union. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/r-341.pdf
Chase, T.N., K. Wolter, R.A. Pielke Sr., and Ichtiaque Rasool, 2006: Was the 2003 European summer heat wave unusual in a global context? Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L23709, doi:10.1029/2006GL027470. http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/r-310.pdf
Connolley W.M. 2008: Comment on “Was the 2003 European summer heat wave unusual in a global context?” by Thomas N. Chase et al. Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L02703, doi:10.1029/2007GL031171 http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/r-310a-Connolley.pdf
Chase, T.N., K. Wolter, R.A. Pielke Sr., and Ichtiaque Rasool, 2008: Reply to comment by W.M. Connolley on ‘‘Was the 2003 European summer heat wave unusual in a global context?’’Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L02704, doi:10.1029/2007GL031574. http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/files/2009/10/r-310a.pdf
Roger,
Thanks.
I love this blog.
Thanks Judy.
Scott
Big thumbs up for more AC. Just don’t let up on setting ambitious targets for energy efficiency standards. Just shaving 5% off the energy requirements of the average 5000 BTU AC window unit will avoid the need to build thousands of megawatts of additional energy production over a 15-20 year product life cycle Capitalism has a tendency to cut corners and is very short term oriented in general.
I have accepted this all part of natural climate variability. My eureka moment came when I stopped trying to separate the human species from all the rest of the life forms on the planet. Humans weren’t brought to this planet by aliens, they are a natural progression of biological processes that have been modifying the climate for billions of years. If we are able to detect changes in the climate because of the explosive growth of civilization it shouldn’t worry us too much. The only flaw in my logic maybe in underestimating what might happen if we start modifying our DNA and create a race of super intellectual beings that will start manipulating the laws of physics that would alter the natural progression of the planet in some fundamental way. We are getting close to that point now. With the discovery of the CRISPR process (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) the door is open to a brave new world.
http://www.bdlive.co.za/life/health/2015/07/02/the-peril-between-the-lines-of-a-glorified-book-of-life
“Capitalism has a tendency to cut corners and is very short term oriented in general.”
Yes, central planning with its five year plans is much more long term oriented. Just ask the Soviets.
Or ask the poor in modern developed countries, whose standard of living is better than the kings of a few centuries ago, how that short term orientation is working out for them.
North Korea has central planning…so does Cuba.
GaryM,
Where did I say capitalism was bad? Did you ever hear of a company issuing stock options that wouldn’t vest for more than 5 years in the future?
Classic example: GM knew they had defective ignition switches and the fault had been known to GM for at least a decade prior to the recall being declared. Long before the recall began GM redesigned the switch but in order to avoid attracting the attention of the DoT and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration they kept the part number the same so it wouldn’t have to be re-certified. They cut corners and at least 87 deaths have been blamed on the defective switch.
jacksmith4tx,
GM is not capitalism. ‘Capitalism” doesn’t do anything. It is the sum of all the decisions of the capitalists and customers combined.
Capitalists make short term decisions.
Capitalists make long term decisions.
Capitalists are humanitarians.
Capitalists are frauds and thieves.
Capitalists are socialists.
Capitalists are libertarians.
Capitalism is the system that lets all these people make their own decisions; and pay the price or reap the gain. It’s a terrible system, except for being better than all the others.
“Classic example”
And that’s the fault of “capitalism” exactly how?
Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union and other decidedly non-capitalist countries (known for not cutting corners and long term thinking, don’t you know) there were decades upon decades of shoddy housing construction. Result: every time there’s a major earthquake tens or hundreds or thousands of unnecessary deaths are tallied. I just don’t understand how they could keep building that same way, what with all their non-corner cutting. Is that a classic example of the shortcomings of socialism?
Let’s just stipulate that corner-cutting is a known behavior in all corners of humanity, irrespective of political ideology. How about it?
Were these dead Canadian pets victims of capitalism or socialism?
GaryM,
Define the root word ‘Capital’ as an economic model.
Do you know what behavioral economics is yet?
Jack,
Explain how corners are cut in non-capitalist systems. How could it possibly happen? It just doesn’t make any sense. Humans are so noble until they are corrupted by capitalism, right?
You don’t need a definition of any economic model to understand human frailty. People in positions of responsibility cut corners, sometimes, when they can get away with it (or think they can). For a huge variety of reasons. Remember when the Challenger exploded and fell out of the sky? That was a result of someone cutting a corner. You would be hard-pressed to blame that on capitalism. Remember when the Chernobyl accident happened. That was humans cutting corners. Smack in the heart of the socialist utopia.
You really aren’t going to get much mileage going down that road, Gary. There is enough human frailty everywhere that whatever example you bring up an equally horrible example can be shown in a non-capitalist setting. And we haven’t even gotten to the environment yet. There is no stinking cesspool of environmental degradation bigger than the ex-Soviet Untion (unless China manages to outdo them, what with their Herculean efforts of late).
Apologies, Gary. Of course, I meant Jack above.
smith
Let me go out on a limb and take a guess. You probably have a picture of John Maynard Keynes hanging over your bed.
kcom1,
In fact capitalism is such an effective economic model that it can control the destinies of nations. What was the argument to go to an all volunteer army? Was it democratic equality and shared patriotic responsibility or was it a economic argument? My point is American capitalism has become a hybrid political system. Remember the 2012 political slogan “corporations are people”? Why would a politician say that?
cerescokid,
My current favorite economist is Richard Thaler.
Jacksmith4tx:
Thank you for the interesting remarks.
“Some thinkers, such as Werner Sombart and Max Weber, locate the concept of capital as originating in double-entry bookkeeping, which is thus a foundational innovation in capitalism, Sombart writing in “Medieval and Modern Commercial Enterprise” that:
The very concept of capital is derived from this way of looking at things; one can say that capital, as a category, did not exist before double-entry bookkeeping. Capital can be defined as that amount of wealth which is used in making profits and which enters into the accounts.”” – Wiki
I could write on the piece of paper the word Capital, put a number on it and hand it to you. I’d call it the difference between your assets and liabilities. No it doesn’t exist as your bank account does. There are various definitions of capital. I’d say for you it’s your invested money. Somebody has your money and hopefully they are using it wisely and making you more money. But that’s just my way of looking at it. Say I buy a new copier. I have something that has value, and will help me make money. I don’t see that as particularly exploitative of anyone except the poor unemployed carbon paper employee. So if my copier exists, does my capital exist, or did I just make the whole thing up like Sombart and Weber may have indicated? Is my copier a concept? Perhaps. I had no idea accountants had anything to do with Marx. Is it our fault?
Ragnaar,
I thought Niall Ferguson did a good job illustrating the evolution of Capitalism with his book (and film) “The Ascent of Money”.
Wow, “Compound Interest of Money” – what a concept!
“In fact capitalism is such an effective economic model that it can control the destinies of nations.”
Socialism seems to do a pretty good job of controlling the destinies of nations, too. Not always efficiently, but it controls them. So what’s the point?
“What was the argument to go to an all volunteer army? Was it democratic equality and shared patriotic responsibility or was it a economic argument? My point is American capitalism has become a hybrid political system. Remember the 2012 political slogan “corporations are people”? Why would a politician say that?”
Honestly, what does that got to do with anything? The point you made that I was responding to was that capitalism “tends to cut corners”. As if that behavior is a unique signature of capitalism. I posit that it’s a signature of humanity and people with responsibility. I think my point is much more generally true and defensible than yours. It’s probably true of animals, too, actually. My neighbor’s dog was in my house and instead of going around the pile of papers I had on the floor (between two boxes ) she decided to blunder straight through, to my general frustration.
Bonus points if you can find one quote where any politician said “corporations are people” (meant literally, excluding the obvious, implied point that corporations are made up of people). Why would a politician say that? They wouldn’t and didn’t. Well, they might have “said” it in misleading articles meant to fool underinformed people who don’t actually keep up with the news. But that’s a different story.
kcom1,
Hobby Lobby Inc. is a company and not a church but they (not the shareholders) sued the Government on religious grounds against AHC birth control policy. If a company can believe in a god we are in a very grey area. So yeah corporations are people in America.
jacksmith,
So what is the point of mentioning 87 deaths? In case it has escaped you, some 30,000 – 35,000 people a year die in the US from auto accidents. I no longer am up to date on the numbers, but a significant percentage of those involve alcohol. So using the people die argument we should ban the sale and consumption of alcohol. Oops, we already tried that. Didn’t work too well.
So lets just ban private automobiles. Solve two problems at once. Reduce dramatically the number of our fellow citizens who die from car accidents and make a significant reduction in CO2 emissions.
Word of advice – make sure you’ve taken away all of the guns first. Because if you try taking away peoples cars, they will come after you.
“Hobby Lobby Inc. is a company and not a church but they (not the shareholders) sued the Government on religious grounds against AHC birth control policy. If a company can believe in a god we are in a very grey area. So yeah corporations are people in America.”
I’ll ask again, how does this address the issue of whether “capitalism” cuts corners? You keep avoiding that with non sequiturs. That’s the point I responded to initially. I posit that people cut corners in all political and economic systems. And that has bad consequences in all political and economic systems. I’ve given examples. Show me how cutting corners is specific to capitalism.
timg56,
I like guns. Over half of all American that commit suicide choose guns. I don’t hold gun manufactures responsible for selling guns to people who want to kill themselves but if I did worry about such things I won’t find out about it from our government because Congress has banned the Centers for Disease Control from research on gun violence.
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-07-02/quietly-congress-extends-ban-cdc-research-gun-violence
This smells a lot like the recently passed bill “Secret Science Reform Act of 2015” in that it only applies to the EPA and not to any other parts of government like the USDA, Department of Defense or Department of Energy. Is the rest of our government so trusted and reliable that these same rules are not needed anywhere else? Really? Pull my finger…
kcom1.
Let’s compromise. I accept capitalism is a superior economic model.
What can you offer me?
Interesting…I also wonder about the unintended consequences of CRISPR and other similar technologies. I would like to see some progress on prion diseases…
Global Warming, being defined as an abstract average, can’t ‘exacerbate’ anything. Just like the average weight of Warmers can’t make Big Al heavier. He has to hit the dessert buffet line again on his own.
Andrew
+1
Pingback: Marie (@JudithCurry) Antoinette’s solution to #Climate #heatwaves + #EnergyPoverty: “Let them buy air conditioners”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1911_Eastern_North_America_heat_wave
Look at what happened in 1911.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1911_United_Kingdom_heat_wave
Another one in 1911. What is going on? lol.
Firstly, you missed out the breathless Guardian and the BBC headline that yesterday was the Hottest day EVER with the record temperature recorded at Heathrow airport.
Yes, THAT Heathrow Airport the worlds busiest International airport. Incredibly that is where the weather station is-right next to the runway. See link
http://weather.gladstonefamily.net/site/EGLL
Heathrow has grown enormously since being instituted in 1948 (when records began) from an RAF Station (which incidentally many British weather stations elsewhere also originated.)
Incidentally it is not a UK heat wave-it is a heat wave in SOME parts of the UK. Yesterday it reached 21C here in Devon. Today its 20 after heavy rain.
tonyb
I bet it was very hot in the jet exhaust! ;)
climatereason,
The Stevenson screen where I worked was situated close to the Met Office at a joint military/civilian airport.
I think it was placed when aircraft were smaller and piston engined. Maybe the runways were shorter too.
Anyway, at times, the hapless observer taking readings at the screen would be subjected to a suffocating furnace-like blast of jet exhaust from some monstrous military or civilian jet, turning fron the taxiway.
Depending on on meteorological conditions, whether the screen door was open, and a host of other things, the maximum thermometer might show a maximum which wasn’t solely due to natural weather.
I’d be a little wary of maxima recorded at airports. Others may not.
“Does it make more sense to provide air conditioning or to limit CO2 emissions. I vote for more air conditioning in these susceptible regions.”
Regions like South Asia are only responsible for a small portion of accumulated CO2 emissions over the past century. If these regions are susceptible to changes in heat stress and the climatology of severe heat waves due to climate change, then why should they also bear the burden of investing in both air conditioners and the electrical capacity to run them? I can’t think of a more straightforward example of the “Tragedy of the Commons” coming into play.
So the obvious solution is for the world’s historical CO2 emitters to buy the air conditioning and power generation platforms for the developing world… yet, I’d be willing to bet that this solution would be far less popular to many skeptics than reducing CO2 emissions in the first place.
“So the obvious solution is for the world’s historical CO2 emitters to buy the air conditioning and power generation platforms for the developing world… yet, I’d be willing to bet that this solution would be far less popular to many skeptics than reducing CO2 emissions in the first place.”
Don’t be too sure. The world currently spends about 300B$ a year trying to reduce CO2 emissions (mostly a wasted effort). A simple window AC unit will set you back only 100$ these days. This means that we could pay for 3 billion window AC units for what we currently spend reducing CO2 in a single year. You would still need power to run these AC units, but when you’re no longer worried about CO2, you can do this cheaply and reliably with fossil fuels. In my opinion, it’s a great deal.
For starters, I’d love to see an analysis/citation to back up your assertion on how much the world currently “spends” on reducing CO2 emissions. Color me a skeptic on that figure.
You also neglect important costs associated with the air conditioner units. It’s not a matter of just buying them and installing them; they have to be powered. And in South Asia, infrastructure for supplying this electricity can be very hit or miss. It also has the confounding problem that electrical infrastructure tends to fail during heat waves when everyone turns on their units.
Account for the true costs of massive deployment of air conditioners (let and the attendant increase in CO2 emissions associated with that strategy) and then estimate how much such a strategy will cost.
Dam N those people who want reliable electricity who do they think they are! Maybe some of the money wasted on AGW could go to fixing that!
miro6500, I don’t see any reason that “reliable electricity [for the developing world]” and “mitigating climate change” are mutually exclusive goals. You could probably achieve either one more efficiently and effectively if you neglect the other, but there’s certainly a optimum when you operate under both constraints.
Why take the lazy way out and give up when you can solve both your problems for twice the effort? ;)
” I don’t see any reason that “reliable electricity [for the developing world]” and “mitigating climate change” are mutually exclusive goals. ”
That kind of the problem, you don’t see it.
Great Britain, Australia, and the USA expended a tremendous amount of fossil fuels, blood, and treasure to free most of Asia from a brutal invasion and occupation by Imperial Japan. Even our global competitor – China – was invaded and occupied by Japan. Consider the “Rape of Nanking” and the invasion of Manchuria – diplomatic sore points to this day. In protest of the Japanese atrocities, The USA cut off Japan from scrap metal and ….drum roll… oil. In response, in one of the dumbest military and political miscalculations of all time, the Japanese bombed the USA naval facility at Pearl Harbor, thinking the USA would negotiate as a result. They were wrong. The rest is history. We then rebuilt the economies of Japan and parts of Asia and gracefully withdrew. When the people of the Phillipines asked us to leave we did – a decision they now regret.
Even today we purchase many products, free of significant tariffs, from Japan, China, Vietnam, Indonesia, South Korea … the list is too long…and help keep their economies afloat. About 50,000 US soldiers were killed repelling a Chinese and Russian backed invasion of South Korea. Today South Korea is one of the richest and most productive, and democratic, nations on the earth. North Korea is in the dark – totally impoverished and devoid of respect for human rights.
The lush plants of south east Asia can breath some of our CO2 and the people living there can show a little gratitude. You should brush up on your history – Howard Zinn’s won’t do.
“You should brush up on your history – Howard Zinn’s won’t do.”
Your’s won’t do either, since it’s a caricature of the political history of the region over the past century. Really – South Asia should be thanking the West (particularly the US) for their enhanced risk of heat stress related mortality because we came to the region’s rescue from a military aggressor 40-80 years ago?
That’s almost as silly logic as the air conditioner topic du jour.
When you consider the extremes of past years, especially global as in 1878 and 1935, one wonders how climate will ever be controllable. Yet there are those who want to control it, and they have a mainstream media ready to affirm the uniqueness of modern climate. Any extreme is somehow to be construed as new, even though a brief check will confirm otherwise. If you challenge this modern climate exceptionalism, you will be accused of heartlessness, when all other arguments fail.
How can we deal with what’s real when the “solutions” amount to inner-urban hobbyism gone global. A cycleway or solar panel on the other side of the world won’t help Asian droughts and heatwaves. Monsoons fail, and when they fail big time you get this:
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/2979891?
That’s just one horror of 1878 and surrounding years. Check out Northern Brazil, or anywhere beyond cool/temperate zones, in that period. The final toll for China may have been 13 million, while over 5 million died in India. In case anyone thinks it was the fault of some imperialist policy, this ENSO famine extended to Turkey and Morocco.
The heatwave of 1793 in France (the year after Australia’s first recorded swelterer) resulted in an observation of 101.1° F (38.4° C) on July 8 at the Royal
Observatory of Paris and 104° F (40° C) on July 16 at the Observatory to the Navy, also in Paris. No Stevenson screens, but no tarmac either. From this I conclude that 2003’s heat may have been the worst and deadliest, and the coming week may be worse again…but there is not a reason on earth to be sure of that.
No need to plan for a nebulous future of extremes. Just plan for 1878 or the early 1790s. Reportage and theory may be new, the climate is old. What would I do about climate change? I’m pretty certain I’d electrify. And I’d go on a white elephant cull, for sure.
mosomoso, no one is arguing about “controlling the climate.” We can’t and won’t be able to “dial in” a climate state; terraforming is something form Asimov, not Arrhenius.
Furthermore, the issue here isn’t whether or not recent extreme heat events are the worst ever recorded. What we’re concerned about is whether an event which used to happen once every 100 years starts occurring every 5-10 years. Heat waves kill people; the 2003 event in Europe killed an estimate ~70,000 people. When those extreme events start happening every 10 years instead of once ever 100, they become a problem with real life or death consequences.
Daniel, be concerned, but make sure you have great points of comparison and a willingness to compare. Your typical alarmist loves to use comparatives and ignore or deny points of comparison. Things are “hotter”, “worse”, “more frequent”, “more extreme”…but there’s no “than”. The rule of alarmism is that what you don’t know can be discounted and what you can see now in Technicolor and Cinerama must be new with more and bigger to come. Same with causes: the earth is a hot, mushy, liquid-coated ball about which we know too little. It’s a lot to discount, but discount it they do.
NSW’s recent east coast low and its October fires before that were pronounced to be either “hundred year events” or “unprecedented”. The trick lay in ignoring – outrageously! – all the other east coast lows and October fires of similar or even greater severity. The ludicrous claims were allowed to stand by experts and spokespeople who clearly did not want to shatter the mood of alarm. It’s a Paris thing.
But I’m relieved there are some “concerned” who are not hoping to control or dial in a climate. You see, Daniel, there are these glass menagerie types who want white elephants to “reduce emissions” in order to “meet targets” to “stabilise” the climate. Hard to deal with real climate probs when the “solutions” involve whatever is most indirect, costly and speculative. Among the White Elephant Brigades, most peculiar are those guys who went seeding the ocean with dribbles of iron in 2009 and simply didn’t care or notice when El Nino lifted millions of tonnes of iron rich dust from Australia’s newly silted interior and blew it into the Pacific on spring westerlies, an old Nino trick. It’s rather a lot not to notice when you are engaged in a funny ocean pollution exercise with iron-based chemicals.
Rhetorical questions:
Pick a year, any year. Imagine if coastal NSW (of all places!) had a full scale tornado like it did in 1970 or Bangladesh had another cyclone like that of 1970. Is there any doubt that such events would be attributed to you-know-what in either direct (unprecedented) or doublespeak (hundred year) fashion? If the mirror heat emergencies of N and S hemispheres in 1896 were to occur now, would our “spokespeople” and MSM restrain themselves?
Those are definitely rhetorical questions I’m asking above. I have absolutely no doubt. Not even 3% of doubt.
Mosomoso nails it again. Alarmists just have short memories, just ask Tony Brown.
Daniel,
Send me a postcard from where ever it is you are toiling away for the betterment of the poor and down trodden.
Don’t you just love people who look down their noses at the rest of us, because they think it is ok to spend or give away somethiing that isn’t theirs, while at the same time not sacrficing a thing.
timg56, I hope you see the irony in that comment seeing as the developed world are the ones who caused the situation which will lead to increased heat stress in the developing world. There’s as much inequity in any solution to this problem as there is in its cause.
I’ll echo philipcolet’s “Don’t be too sure”, but for a different reason: most foreign aid money actually gets spent in the country of origin. And given the advantages in economies of scale, the actual loss to the country of origin would be reduced (perhaps eliminated) by the advantages of lower future production costs.
Especially for something like gas-powered A/C units. These could be mass-produced, designed for developing world use, and just getting the technology up to speed would probably be worth it for the country of origin.
Unlike the “green jobs” boondoggles, off-grid (gas-powered) A/C would be good, close-to-mature technology which everybody knows it’ll work, and will know whose fault it is if it doesn’t.
Regular jobs for good old regular American Industry. Unless the Chinese get there first.
“Looks like they need more air conditioning in Spain and France and also South Asia.”
…or, import more people from the ME and Africa who already are accustomed to more heat?
Looks like they need more air conditioning in Spain and France and also South Asia. Does it make more sense to provide air conditioning or to limit CO2 emissions. I vote for more air conditioning in these susceptible regions.
What a stunningly lightweight, simplistic, dismissive conclusion from someone who attempts to position herself as the moderate voice of reason and careful science.
Is joke
Lighten up.
Scott
Magmacc – You couldn’t be more wrong. Buying AC is the only rational decision available to an individual. What do you suggest they do? My predictions: you don’t have an effective solution and won’t offer one. Throwing peanuts at the host from the peanut gallery is too easy. I call that cheap shot.
“lightweight, simplistic, dismissive ” aka magmacc
Dismissive, at least. And with good reason.
“and for good reason”
Guess we will just have to take your word for it, since you fail to – you know – provide any reasons.
That’s probably where the lightweight and simplistic parts come into play.
Pingback: Heat waves: exacerbated by global warming? | Enjeux énergies et environnement
Interesting post. To answer your question, I vote for more air conditioning. My bet is that most people will vote with their money by buying AC – that is an example of an individual adapting to change. If people are frightened that more AC means more CO2, then they can encourage the expansion carbon neutral nuclear power. Trying to mitigate climate change by local CO2 reductions is a fools errand, especially considering the prisoners dilemma. No one wins the race to the bottom. I think the CAGWunists are stuck between a rock and a hard place, kinda like the mule stuck between two bales of hay that starved to death cause he couldn’t decide which one to eat.
Twitter is such ‘fun’
Perhaps @CurryJA aspires to be the #MarieAntoinette of #climate disruption? http://getenergysmartnow.com/2015/07/02/marie-judithcurry-antoinettes-solution-to-climate-heatwaves-energypoverty-let-them-buy-air-conditioners/
@thackerpd My company is helping people in south Asia deal with heat waves. http://judithcurry.com/2015/06/02/tactical-adaptation-to-indian-heat-waves/ … What are you doing to help?
Those are cheap shots. The fact that they respond so quickly is evidence of your influence. Let ’em holler…who cares?
Actually AC is a great Adaptation.
Here is the thing Judith.
1. If we believe ( I do ) that there is heat in the pipeline that MUST come out.
2. If we believe that a warmer world will have more heat waves ( i do )
Then, there are TWO questions.
A) what can we do about the heat waves that are destined to come in the next 30 years?
B) what can we do about the heat waves of 2100?
While people die, they never want to talk about A. The evidence from the US? AC saves lives. fans? not so much
Well re #2, it would be a great exercise to repeat Sardeshmukh’s analysis on Berkeley Earth Land data. Focus on US and Europe, where there is a long data record. And compare with land use/urbanization info
ya.. for heat waves I think I would have to use the daily data.
I need to get his paper to look at the methods
email Sardeshmukh (easy to find via google), he might send you pre publication version of paper. I will email you entire presentation, which gives more details.
Steve M –
Why would a world with GMT higher be a degree or two necessarily have more heat waves? I’m willing to listen but I don’t see the scientific principle that leads to this conclusion
Mosh
I think you will be off Sou’s Christmas card list now as well. She has just written an article decrying Judith’s belief in using A/C
http://blog.hotwhopper.com/2015/07/judith-currys-solution-to-extreme-heat.html#more
Tonyb
Of course they don’t want to “talk about A.” They don’t want any talk about technology actually solving problems, because for them the problem is technology itself. If technology can cool down people suffering from heat waves, technology can drag CO2 back out of the air, to neutralize the effects of extra fossil fuels burned to power all those air conditioners.
And there goes their excuse for shutting down the Industrial revolution.
My comment for Sou
Lack of AC is a killer
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/0900683/
O’Neill MS, Zanobetti A, Schwartz J. 2005. Disparities by race in heat-related mortality in four US cities: the role of air conditioning prevalence. J Urban Health 82(2):191–197.
The simple facts are these.
1. heat waves cause death
2. Theory tells us that there is warming in the pipeline.
3. That warming will come out regardless of mitigation.
4. You need TWO PLANS
a) a plan to ADAPT to the heat in the pipeline
b) a plan to mitigate more heat waves beyond those we are destined by physics to see as that heat in the pipeline comes out.
AC is part of plan A. there are other adaptations we can make. we need to make them because– well, black lives matter
“1. If we believe ( I do ) that there is heat in the pipeline that MUST come out.
The average ocean temperature is much closer to 0C than to the 15C which is near the average global air temperature, even with whatever heat the oceans have absorbed. If something is “coming out” by way of motion any time soon, it will, on average, be cooling the atmosphere, not warming it.
2. If we believe that a warmer world will have more heat waves ( i do )
Why? If you define heat waves as a dynamic variation that leads to an increase in temperature, you would have to think you know what the dynamic variations would be ( that’s the part that’s not predictable ).
Now, if the starting average temperature is higher to begin with, I could see that case that the average temperature of the heat wave would be commensurately higher, though that certainly hasn’t happened in the US.
But I don’t see any case for either the frequency or intensity of heat waves to change.
Tony,
Why would you waste time reading anything that woman writes?
She must suffer from a bile gland the size of a hippopotamus.
When the Wall Street Journal asked the great and the good to name the most influential invention of the last millenium, those in more temperate climes were free to choose things like the internet, birth control, the printing press and other fripperies. Lee Yuan Kew got straight to the point, naming air conditioning. The authoritarian leader of Singapore understood that without air conditioning, those in tropical countries could not be as productive as those with more forgiving climes.
This is relevant to discussions about climate change. The United States currently uses more energy for air conditioning than all other countries combined. The U.S.consumes 185 billion kilowatt hours on air conditioning each year.
By 2050, half the world’s population will live in the tropics.
Currently the climate is one factor in keeping them poor.
However, they are getting richer. In 2010 China installed 50 million air conditioning units. This will help them improve productivity and get richer still.
Currently, the Konsensus has introduced a new line of argument into the climate debate. They have de-emphasized the focus on sensitivity of the atmosphere to a doubling of CO2 concentrations, probably because all the new studies show that sensitivity is far lower than the Konsensus has claimed. Now they are just saying we must leave fossil fuels in the ground. It’s about as content heavy as Nancy Reagan’s ‘Just Say No.’
If we leave fossil fuels in the ground we are leaving the tropics and half the world’s people trapped in a cycle of poverty.
I’m not saying ‘drill, baby, drill.’ If we can provide them with nuclear power, hydropower, wind and solar instead I am all in favor of it. But for those who think it is a viable alternative just to not provide the developing world with power you have nothing but my contempt.
It’s hot outside even without climate change.
The magic washing machine
A couple of thoughts on methodological validity. Hortons Naturempaper used ‘self organizing map analysis’ to find changes in some regions but not others. Any purely random scattering will produce some clusters. To identify them on a map says nothing about the underlying process, unless there are many more clusters than attributable to chance. Epidemiology/econometrics 101. Horton’s coarse resolution does not enable such an analysis. Therefore his conclusions seem quite suspect.
The fine print at the bottom of Prashant’s third figure (the mathy one) is important–nongaussian distributions are much more complicated. It is quite likely that things like the intensity and duration of heat waves are non-gaussian, like many other dirtibutions in nature. They follow a poisson or gamma distribution (long tail on one side) with significant skewness and kurtosis. All the standard simple methods for finding statistical significance break down. So I have some doubt about his reaulting maps, which as Judith says make sense in some places but not in many others.
IMO both efforts are interesting, but statistically deficient.
This looks interesting…
GE to take next leap in magnetocaloric refrigeration.
http://techxplore.com/news/2014-03-ge-magnetocaloric-refrigeration-video.html
Quote:
According to GE, the technology can be applied to other heat pump applications such as HVAC and has the potential to impact nearly 60 percent of the average US household’s energy consumption.
Heat waves in summer what a surprise I’m sure it never happened before. Next we’ll be reading about record cold temperatures and winter cold snaps. That never happened before either. Oh wait …
“Recent increases in the occurrence of some extreme weather phenomena have led to multiple mechanistic hypotheses linking changes in atmospheric circulation to increasing probability of extreme events. However, observed evidence of long-term change in atmospheric circulation remains inconclusive.”
The last 20 years have seen an increase in negative NAO, while increased GHG forcing should in theory do the reverse and increase positive NAO. Continental interiors have more extreme heat events with negative NAO, because they become drier. Like Russia in 2010, and the US in 2012. 18,000 years ago there was desert in Central Europe, think how hot that could get in summer.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277379113001145
My point about not being so sure the -nao/+amo correlation will remain during a prolonged solar minimum if it reaches certain criteria. I not saying the correlation will not hold up, but then again it may not. That is what this article suggest.
Well that was a remarkably warm 3 days that omega block caused in the UK, but it takes 5 days to be officially called a heat wave. Should such blocks increase with long term increases in GHG forcing? I doubt it as atmospheric circulation patterns should in theory be less meridional and more zonal.
Though discussion of heat waves without taking account of the short term solar forcing driving many of them, is largely irrelevant.
The Telegraph warns that heat wave could buckle train tracks and melt roads
It’s always “could.”
More than you ever wanted to know about railroad track safety …
TRACK BUCKLING RESEARCH
Compressive forces result from stresses induced in a constrained rail by temperature above its “stress free” state, and from mechanical sources such as braking, rolling friction and wheel flanging on curves. The temperature of the rail at the “stress-free” state is known as the rail neutral temperature (i.e. the temperature at which the rail experiences zero longitudinal force). Initially, the rail’s installation temperature or “anchoring temperature” is the rail’s neutral temperature. Hence, at rail temperatures above the neutral, compressive forces are generated, and at temperatures below the neutral, tensile forces are developed. Track maintenance practices address the high thermal load problem by anchoring the rail at (neutral) temperature of 95-110 °F. This high neutral temperature range prevents the generation of excessively high buckling forces even when the rail temperatures reach 130-150 °F.
http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/50000/50700/50710/Track_Buckling_Research_2003.pdf
The UK just measured its hottest July day which was 36.7 deg C measured at Heathrow Airport which must contain some UHI affect. The previous highest was at Wisley in Surrey in 2006 at 36.5 deg C which is a fairly rural
area. Is it fair to claim the record with a busy airport measurement? Also I’d have thought that highest minimum would be the better indicator of anthropogenic warming. Interestingly Britain’s highest minimum was in Brighton on August 3rd 1990 at 23.9 deg C. Food for thought when it comes to alarmism and indicators of warming.
Sonofmulder
I posted a link showing the exact location of the heathrow weather station. It is subject to so much uhi and represents an airport that has grown so radically since recrds began there in 1948 , that promoting it as a worthwhile or representative temperature matrix seems pointless.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/07/02/heat-waves-exacerbated-by-global-warming/#comment-714455
Tonyb
Tony, more pics.
https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2012/08/30/wmo03772-heathrow/
I dare say the 37C reading in Suffolk in 1808 is hard to verify, though there were a lot of high readings back in July of that year.
Still, if Heathrow can be a good indicator, I’ll believe a primitive thermometer under a tree in Suffolk, or the 38C+ recorded with Glaisher screen in Kent, July 1868…or anything you want me to believe. (Australia’s BoM never met a tarmac it didn’t like.)
Between the predictions !!! and the reality lies the hype.
Last two weeks in London, only two days, highest
temps recorded, 30 and 35 degrees. The rest in 20’s .
10 days less than 25 degrees.
http://www.timeanddate.com/weather/uk/london/historic
Steven,
I wanna play in your “little game” (http://judithcurry.com/2015/07/02/heat-waves-exacerbated-by-global-warming/#comment-714533)
“Looks like they need more air conditioning in Spain and France and also South Asia.
Does it make more sense to provide air conditioning or to limit CO2 emissions. I vote for more air conditioning in these susceptible regions. A good solution for South Asia is described in this previous post Tactical Adaptation to Indian Heat Waves.”
Since she made is so easy and succinct figured I’d have a chance to “score” (but guess that’d be up to Willard as umpire).
The anti science crowd thinks you solve todays problem by focusing on 2100.
we have two problems
Steven,
Like someone once told me, we need to first focus on “yesterday’s problems” (or words to that effect). I found this to be wise council.
According to the World Bank, in 2010 less than 32 percent of the population of Sub-Saharan Africa had access to electricity.
http://wdi.worldbank.org/table/3.7
The population of Sub-Saharan Africa was about 938 million in 2013.
600 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa have no access to electricity today. It’s a fact.
Global Warming may cause some number of excess deaths (what is an excess death anyway?) at some time in the future. It’s a prediction.
Where should we be spending our money today?
For Africa? Contraceptives, mosquito nets, a coordinated effort to slow down corruption and the Congo River dam?
The just finished June was the warmest on record in WA. The one month of the year that I was susceptible to gray, cloudy, rainy weather here in the PNW, which averages 18 days of 80% cloud cover or more (thanks to Cliff Maass), had 5 such days. I believe Memorial Day weekend was the first in the 27 years I’ve lived here that it didn’t rain at all.
This after we experienced a warmer, drier than usual winter. Just what the people touting global warming say will happen. There have been impacts. Was a very poor season for the ski industry. And the utility I work for has seen a hit to revenue. (Unlike most utilities in the west, winter is our primary consumption period, not summer. I think AC penetration is about 4% of households.)
Funny thing is, meteoroligists are fairly certain as to the cause. The NW Pacific ocean warm “blob”, which researchers have said is NOT a function of global warming, has led to the formation of a high pressure ridge which is blocking the usual weather coming off of the ocean into the NW.
So we are seeing the type of weather we’ve been warned about, but it isn’t due to the reason we were said it would be. What’s a person to do? Based on what I see around me – people are enjoying the unseasonably warm, sunny weather. The worriers might be disappointed, but temperatures in the low to mid 80’s, particularly when matched with low humidity, are quite bearable. I chuckle at news stories hyping how hot it is. Sure, compared to normal it is hot for this time of year in this part of the country. But having grown up around DC and spent time living in Georgia and South Caroline, this is a piece of cake.
For sure … It’s the red blob El Nino’s cousin.
Are you anywhere near Chelan, Chief Joseph Dam, or Lacrosse?
All in Washinton, and all have experienced 110 F or better.
All set records for their location, though not for the state.
We are still in the watchful waiting stage, if you ask me. It might be cancer, but it might not. Our models are all but useless as tools of policy, whatever value they may have to scientists trying to work this problem out, which is probably real.
All politicians can do is work to provide as much electricity for poor countries as we can so that they can have hospitals and air conditioning and work toward the development of clean energy through fracking, nuclear, whatever.
None of those policies require a complete understanding of the science.
Pretending that poor countries can get by on renewables is a cruel fantasy.
I don’t think the answer in Spain is air conditioning. I think the trick is to have several electric fans. These June and July heat waves are dry, so they are fairly easy to get around by drinking cold/ice water. Wetting the arms and standing by the fan works very well. The August heat waves are much more humid. And by September 15 somebody throws the switch and we start getting cool weather.
When I worked in the African desert and the high temperature exceeded 40 I had the hardest work shifts start at 7 AM, stop at 11, and restart at 7 pm to midnight. The heat plus humidity in locations like Lake Maracaibo can’t be worked around, it requires a slower work pace, and a lot of ice water.
Cold front.
Paris high today: 89F
Hot again tomorrow, then showers Sunday and seasonable next week.
BTW, 97F tomorrow is consistent with LeRoux:
Cold front passes, cools of then the polar high behind the front allows subsident and solar heating behind the front.
Hot days are NOT heat waves.
Steve M –
I agree. Hot days are not heat waves. Now can you please tell me why we should expect to have more heat waves? Is there some meterological principle you can point to? Is this a supposed output of models? I’m not harassing you, I really want to know.
Hot days are NOT heat waves.
If you examine the records, you will find most if not all state all time high temperature records were set during heatwaves. For CONUS anyway ( and no, CONUS is not the world ), the scarcity of new state high temperature records is not consistent with more frequent or more intense heatwaves.
Here is the sounding from Bordeaux at 0Z on June 30. ( Try the Wyoming sounding site if the link doesn’t work ).
See how the temperature trace ( the one on the right ) and the dewpoint trace ( the one on the left ) diverge at the surface?
That’s a classic example of a subsidence inversion, one which has descended almost to the surface.
Also, notice the winds? The circle at the surface indicates ‘Calm’.
The Spanish Plume appears quite incorrect.
In fact, the ‘Advection Theory’ also appears quite flawed.
Cold(er) air is denser than Hot(er) air – therefore, it is quite difficult for
warmer air to displace cooler air, and if it did, the density difference would mean the advecting air would have to have higher wind speeds. This sounding depicts light and variable winds all the way up to 500mb.
Stagnant polar air masses cause heatwaves.
TE
It seems there are four different types of polar air masses that affect the UK according to the Met office
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/pdf/9/5/No._10_-_Air_Masses_and_Weather_Fronts.pdf
Which one causes the warming?
Tonyb
Gonna have to collect some surface analysis for this event, but the ‘air mass type’ categorizations may not be particularly useful for heatwave.
One irony is, that the more intense ( deeper ) the polar air mass, the more likely to stagnate, subside, and engender sunny skies which lead to heatwaves
LeRoux wrote about ‘Anticyclonic Agglutinations’ by which he meant that polar air masses tend to elongate ( there’s a formula connecting vorticity and air mass height which physically describes why this is so ). When these elongated air masses tailgate on the previous elongated air mass, they both lack energy from gradients and tend to pile up. We see this as the ‘sub-tropical’ highs which are not individual ‘highs’ but really ‘agglutinations’ of low energy air masses at the lowest potential height ( the ocean basins ).
Or maybe it’s complicated and the Spanish Plume has some relevance, aloft anyway.
Here is the visible imagery for June 28th through today.
A vigorous cold front appears to be passing to the north of france, though it’s not clear how much passage there is. June 30 appears quite clear, consistent with the subsidence and on the 2nd, the next front brings clouds and thunderstorms.
However, when looking at the <a href="http://realearth.ssec.wisc.edu/s/k3Rxr "water vapor imagery for the same time, one sees the large area of subsidence elongate ahead of the depicted trough. The water vapor animation is a representation of motion aloft not the surface.
Should note that the hottest day coincides with the lowest water vapor aloft.
This is consistent with subsidence but not forcing from outgoing longwave radiance.
It’s not a Spanish plume. It’s a Moroccan plume. I can tell because we get a lot of fine dust and little weird black strings of dried out vegetable matter.
fernandoleanme,
Are you sure it’s not a nom-de-plume?
And now I really must stop! :-)
This is shown in this graph
Is the slope of the day to day change in temperatures (anomaly) from the max positive change per day to the max negative change per day
https://micro6500blog.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/global.png
This graph is the annual average of today’s rising temp with tonights falling temp subtracted from it.
https://micro6500blog.files.wordpress.com/2015/04/rise_fall-temp-differences.png
Negative values mean it cooled more at night, than it warmed the prior day.
This is based on NCDC GSoD data, code and reports here
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gsod-rpts/
Boy I wished I could edit my stupid typo’s
This shown in this graph of the slope of the average day to day change in temperatures (anomaly), from the max positive change per day to the max negative change per day (approximately from April to October) and the slope of the change from the max negative change per day to the max positive change per day (October to April).
A recent paper by Coumou et al. provides a useful perspective on how changes in atmospheric circulation might be affecting local weather – the frequency, intensity and persistence of continental heat waves in particular. This work elucidates general aspects of the relevant global dynamics, and appears to (at least partially) reconcile some conflicting conclusions of earlier papers.
thx for the link
Coumou et al. what it suggest— is Exactly the opposite of what AGW theory originally preached only to change and spin it when they were wrong as usual. They are full of it.
(10) Alarmists had predicted much lower frequency of the negative modes of the AO and NAO due to warming. The trend has been the opposite with a record negative AO/NAO in 2009/10
Everyone note point 10 of AGW theory wrong predictions.
Increased forcing of the climate should increase positive NAO. The IPCC models predict that increased greenhouse gases will do that. So the real question is why has the NAO become increasingly negative since 1995. Because of the good correlation of weak solar wind episodes and negative NAO at weekly scales, I am convinced that the declining solar wind pressure trend since the mid 1990’s is responsible. If that is so, then it is evidence that solar variability is greatly overwhelming CO2 increases, as more CO2 in theory should have inhibited the increase in negative NAO.
Ulric , that is exactly correct.
So that’s two aboard the Ark of reason. So how come all of the academics are ignoring the increase in -NAO since the mid 1990’s?
If GHG’s were dominating, +NAO should have increased, and the AMO and Arctic should have cooled.
Today they cover their wrong prediction, with some BS over a decline in Arctic Sea Ice ,a result of global warming (which is also wrong and will be proven to be) is now causing a meridional atmospheric circulation, WHICH THEY DID NOT PREDICT.
and you along with them never pointed what I have to keep pointing out.
Increased forcing of the climate increases La Nina, cools the AMO and Arctic because it increases positive NAO, and cools continental interiors as they are wetter with La Nina and a cold AMO. As in the mid 1970’s when the solar wind was both fast and dense. It does not make sense to attribute that surface cooling to aerosols, it is negative feedbacks to increased solar forcing. What does increase then is upper ocean heat content, which gets expressed at the surface when the external forcing next weakens. Much of the surface warming since 1995 is then the reverse of that, with a warming AMO and Arctic, and drying continental interiors as negative feedbacks to a decline in solar plasma pressure causing the increased negative NAO.
By you – I mean the majority of the posters. oblivious to the facts.
Judy Curry – why do you not jump on this issue?
For a summary of why changes in circulations matter so much; see the post
What is the Importance to Climate of Heterogeneous Spatial Trends in Tropospheric Temperatures? https://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2005/07/28/what-is-the-importance-to-climate-of-heteorgenous-spatial-trends-in-tropospheric-temperatures/
Extracts include
“regional diabatic heating produces temperature increases or decreases in the layer-averaged regional troposphere. This necessarily alters the regional pressure fields and thus the wind pattern. This pressure and wind pattern then affects the pressure and wind patterns at large distances from the region of the forcing which we refer to as teleconnections.”
“regional diabatic heating due to human activities represents a major, but under-recognized climate forcing, on long-term global weather patterns. Indeed, this heterogenous climate forcing may be more important on the weather that we experience than changes in weather patterns associated with the more homogeneous spatial radiative forcing of the well-mixed greenhouse gases (e.g see the NASA press release –
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/DeepFreeze/),
But is there a basis for assuming circulation changes that would lead to a change in frequency or intensity of heat waves, wrt to increased GHG forcing?
Most heat waves appear to last one to two weeks over a relatively small portion of the earth fairly infrequently.
It is difficult for me to believe that relatively small variations imposed by RF would be significant, particularly compared with the large variations that occur, for example, from winter to summer anyway. Clearly it’s not just a matter of say pole to equator temperature gradient, because summer pole to equator temperature gradients have always been quite weak. I think the brevity, locality, and infrequency of heatwaves points to smaller scale variation, of which there may be an infinite variety in any RF regime.
South of Lake Erie, the path of the jet stream can make a 20 – 30F difference in temperatures, when it’s out of the gulf in the summer we have heat waves. Now for the last decade or so, there have been far more heat waves, than we had in the 60’s as I remember my childhood, in fact most cars and homes didn’t have air conditioning back then, now also all of them do. If there was a general large scale difference in the area bounded by the jet stream, that would make a significant difference in average temp.
micro
Most people in the 60’s didn’t have color televisions either.
The problem with making a comparison that relies on memory is there is no quality control on memory. You apparently do not remember that in the 60’s AC was offered as an option, not a standard feature. AC for the home was considered a luxury. Must cars in the 60’s also lacked seat belts. Is that evidence cars were much safer and fewer people died in car accidents?
What I remember about weather from the 60’s – it was usually hot and muggy in the summer and a mix of wet damp cold and milder days during the winter, with a snow storm or two and days of clear, below freezing temps. Spring and fall were nice. Oh yeah, there were the ocassional bouts of unseasonable weather.
Pretty much like it is these days.
I remember mild 70-80 degree days and rarely needing air conditioning, slightly warmer than this summer so far btw, all due to where the jet stream runs over head, when it’s south of us we get cool Canadian air, when it’s north of us we get hot muggy tropical air out of the gulf.
This alone would explain the hot 90’s and 2000’s, and cool 60’s and 70’s.
There seemed to bit a bit of discussion previously about “messaging”.
May I suggest that that anyone getting a bit serious and carried away, should attend their local message parlour. For a small extra fee, the nice messagers will ensure you receive a message with a happy ending.
This will restore your equanimity, and prevent you from lapsing into the sin of measurebation, or measuring irrelevant temperatures to a nicety. Mutual measurebation happens all too frequently, even between consenting adults.
Parts of the Earth get hot, sometimes. Parts of the Earth get cold. Overall, the Earth has cooled over the past four and a half billion years. More CO2 and H2O in the atmosphere would seem to be of assistance in re greening the deserts, and lowering their temperatures at least.
Svante Arrhenius hoped that might happen, as do I.
Mike Flynn +100
Aaah, a message with a happy ending. Was my favorite thing about living in SE Asia.
My part of the Earth, Northern New Mexico (USA), continues to be cooler and wetter than the past few years. Not much talk about drought in these parts right now.
Big Al Gore is an expert on messaging and message parlors. He knows a good messaging campaign should have a happy ending.
It is amazing to think he was almost the POTUS, and some think he was cheated out of it!
For me proof that liberals check their brains at the door when talking politics is in how many of them castigated Bush over his “lack” of intelligence, while at the same time lauding that of the clown and the conman who ran against him. If I remember correctly, the clown (Kerry) went to Harvard and the conman (Gore) to Yale. Bush meanwhile earned degrees from both institutions. With better grades than either of the other two.
Of course these are the same people (a group which includes some of my closest friends) who believe our current President is so obviously more intelligent than our previous President based on how much better a speaker he is. They must close their ears when President Obama speaks without the aid of a prepared speach and teleprompter.
A few more AGW theory predictions that are wrong.
1900-2000 surface temperature trend
Model prediction
1.1 to 3.3 C warming if all greenhouse gases are included (IPCC 2001)
Actual measurements
Surface temperature warming of 0.6 C
Comments
Predicted warming is 2 to 5 times greater than observed warming.
Lindzen says it is 4 times too large.
Alternative and additional sources of warming include the sun, UHI and land use changes, soot on snow, and other reasons.
More on land use changes here.
More on the warm bias in surface observations here.
Score
0-1-0
Scoring is won-lost-tie system. A win means models and observations reasonably agree. A loss means significant disagreement. A tie means the models or observations give contradictory results.
Type of prediction
1979-2005 mid-tropospheric warming
Model prediction
About 0.15 to 0.58 C warming per decade (IPCC 2001)
Actual measurements
Between 0.1 and 0.14 C/decade.
“In all cases these trends are positive. The increase in the UAH time series is 0.12 C/decade (0.22 F/decade), 0.14 C/decade (0.24 F/decade) for the RSS analysis and 0.10 C/decade (0.17 F/decade) for the University of Washington. Trends in UAH, RSS and UW data are less than the trend in global surface temperatures, which increased at a rate near 0.18 C/decade (0.32 F/decade) during the same 27 year period.”
Comments
The predicted warming is less than the model warming.
Score
0-2-0
Type of prediction
Surface and mid-tropospheric warming, 1979-2005
Model prediction
Mid-tropospheric warming should be 50-100% larger than surface warming.
Actual measurements
Surface warming is 0.18 C/decade compared to mid-tropospheric warming of 0.12 C/decade, opposite of what theory predicts.
Comments
A discussion can be found here. And here. And here.
Score
0-3-0
Type of prediction
Arctic warming
Model prediction
1.0 to 3.0 C/decade warming (IPCC 1995)
Actual measurements
Temperatures now are nearly the same as they were in 1940, consistent with large oscillations rather than a trend.
Comments
The arctic is probably warming due to ocean currents rather than greenhouse gases.
A trend outside normal variations has not yet happened.
Score
0-4-0
Type of prediction
Animals and plants are migrating towards the poles (Parmesan and Yohe, 2003)
Model prediction
Study claims it provides evidence that climate models are correct.
Actual measurements
Actually the migration rates are consistent with a warming of 0.025 C/decade which is much smaller than models predict.
Comments
These results actually undermine the model predictions and may be an indication that the surface temperature record is overestimating the warming.
Score
0-5-0
Type of prediction
Medieval Warm Period (ca. 1000-1200 AD)
Model prediction
The state of the art GFDL climate model claims the Medieval Warm Period is physically impossible (Stouffer et al., 1994)
Actual measurements
The MWP exists according to borehole temperature measurements at 6000 locations (Huang et al., 1997).
Comments
More discussion can be at http://www.climateaudit.org/index.php?cat=8
Score
0-6-0
Type of prediction
Diurnal temperature range
Model prediction
Originally no change was predicted in the models, but some later models may have a change in DTR.
Actual measurements
Decreasing.
Comments
More discussion here and here.
Score
0-6-1
Type of prediction
Annual cycle of temperature.
Model prediction
0.5 to 1.1 C decrease predicted to have occurred in 20th century.
Actual measurements
0.1 C decrease observed (Mann and Park, 1996).
Comments
Model prediction is 5 to 10 times too large.
Score
0-7-1
Salvetore,
Not sure if I would use anything by Parmesan to make a point. From what I’ve read she is a textbook example of the sort of shoddy science one gets from someone who is an activist first and a scientist second.
It is somewhat ironic – this heatwave, like others, is marked by strong subsidence and a drier atmosphere aloft.
As a consequence, the outgoing longwave radiance is actually anomalously high for such events not anomalously low which is the theorized mechanism of GHG ‘global warming’.
Some of the earlier historical heat wave references initiated my curiosity to search further about was said about climate a century ago. I found an interesting mix of historical articles about warming climate, heat waves et al (below with some excerpts). There’s some interesting observations describing the tremendous amount of glacial melting that occurred prior to the most significant rise of CO2 and warming in the middle of the 20th century. Also intriguing about this period is how global warming was seen as “…a wonderful climatic alteration”. How times have changed. The first article described climate change as natural variability.
Is Our Climate Changing? 1907
Attributes climate change to variability
(By R. De Courcy Ward, assistant professor of Climatology at Harvard University.)
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/71871866?searchTerm=Climate%20warming&searchLimits=
Receding Glaciers. 1917
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/108604130?searchTerm=glaciers%20melting&searchLimits=
Except over a small area, it is gen-
erally understood, the glaciers of the
world are retreating to the moun-
tains. The glacier on Mount Ser-
miento in South America, which des-
cended to the sea when’ Darwin
found it in 1836, is now separated
from the shore by a vigorous growth
of timber. The Jacobshaven glac-
ier in Greenland has retreated four
miles since 1850, and the East glac-
ier in Spitzbergen is more than a
mile away from its original terminal
moraine. In Scandinavia the snow
line is further up the mountains,
and the glaciers have withdrawn
3,000ft. from the lowlands in a cen-
tury. The Araphoe glacier in the
Rocky Mountains, with characteris
tic American enterprise, has. been
melting at a rapid rate for several
years. In the Eastern Alps and one
or two other small districts the glac-
iers are growing. In view of these
facts we should not be too sceptical
when old men assure us that winters
nowadays are not to be compared
with the winters of their boyhood.
North Pole Melting. 1923
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/168839462?searchTerm=glaciers%20melting&searchLimits=
Science is asking these questions
Reports from ‘fishermen, seal hunters,
and’, explorers who sail the seas
around ‘Spitsbergen and the eastern
Arctic all point to a radical change
in climatic conditions, with hitherto
unheard-of high temperatures on that
part of the earth’s surface.
Observations to that effect have
covered the last five years during
which the warmth has been steadily
increasing.
In August the Norwegian
Department of Commerce sent an ex-
pedition to ‘Spitsbergen and Bear
island under the leadership of Dr.
Adolf Hoel, professor of geology in
the University of Christiania, the
object in view being to survey and
chart areas productive of coal and
other minerals. The expedition sailed
as far north as 81 deg. 29 min. N. lati-
tude in ice free water. Such a thing,
hither to, ‘would have been deemed im-
possible.
Seals Disappear.
Seals which used to be plentiful in
those seas, have almost entirely dis-
appeared. It would seem as if the
ocean must have become uncomfort-
ably warm ‘for some of its denizens
which formerly frequented those lati-
tudes, causing them to flock north-
ward towards the Pole.
Fur Clothes Too Warm.
Not only are the seals and polar
bears ‘finding the climate unpleasantly
warm for them, but it is said that the
Eskimos in some localities are com-
plaining and are finding their fur
clothes too warm for them.
…other latitudes will
also experience a wonderful climatic
alteration, and climates all over the
world may become steadily and
gradually warmer.
A Warmer World. 1932
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/23150667?searchTerm=greenland%20%20melting&searchLimits=
SOME great world change is taking
place on the Antarctic Continent.
Its glaciers are shrinking. Comman-
der L.A. Bernacchi, who visited the
South Polar land 30 years ago, says
that the Great Ice Barrier which
fronts the continent with a wall of ice
for 250 miles has receded at least 30
miles since it was first seen and sur-
veyed.
Sir James Ross, who went out on
the earliest Antarctic expedition of the
nineteenth century, and those who fol-
lowed him, left clear descriptions of
this tremendous ice frontage and its
position. It was a cliff 150ft. high and
1000ft. thick. But now it appears to
be continuing its century-long process
of shrinking; and that process may
have been going on for centuries.
Greenland Glaciers Melting. 1940
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/92656067?searchTerm=glaciers%20melting&searchLimits=
Is the Arctic climate becoming more
temperate? Remarkable new informa-
tion, given by the famous Swedish
authority, Professor H. Wilson Ahl-
mann, in a lecture to the Swedish
Geographical Society, suggests that
this may be the case.
A few more; including a couple in the mid 19th century, it’s just a fun read for those:
WORLD GROWING WARMER. 1922
…the world, and particularly
the Northern Hemisphere, is growing warmer. The process, he says, is rather a slow one but it is none the less steady, and of late it seems to have accelerated to some extent. If we possessed records of the weather since the beginning of the Christian era it is certain that the temperature over the whole of Europe and North America would show a startling rise.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/1845493?searchTerm=global%20warming&searchLimits=
CHANGING CLIMATE OF EUROPE.
WINTER BECOMES WARMER. 1926
The climate of Germany and that of central and northern Europe is slowly changing. German physicists predict that the winters in that part of the world are gradually to become warmer and the summers cooler.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/67166266?searchTerm=global%20warming&searchLimits=
Whole Earth Seems To Be Warming Up
1947
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/49326442?searchTerm=Earth%20heating%20up&searchLimits=
South Pole Warming Up.
1906
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/61454507?searchTerm=Climate%20warming&searchLimits=
What is The World
Coming To? 1939
Scientists have confirmed the fact that the Arctic regions around Spitzbergen are warming up at the rate of approximately one degree in every two years.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/69638689?searchTerm=global%20warming&searchLimits
EARTH’S CHANGES.
1885
PROF. M. RAMUS communicates to La
Jfouveilte Jievue an article on the earth and
its changes, the glacial epoch, and the final
disappearance of ice
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/3448483?searchTerm=Earth%20warming&searchLimits=
HOW THE SEASONS ARE BEING
REVERSED. SCIENTIST’S EXPLANATION
1906
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/151831195?searchTerm=global%20warming&searchLimits=
FREAK WEATHER IN LONDON
1943
It was the wettest January for 40
years, yet the warmest day temper-
ature was the second highest for 85
years.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/92620339?searchTerm=global%20warming&searchLimits=
CHANGES OF CLIMATE
1864
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/60557034?searchTerm=Climate%20warming&searchLimit
Thanks for that historical perspective. It is clear the warmists want none of it. To them ancient history was when Ike and Tina Turner were still married. Of course by ignoring past climate, they simply embarrass themselves.
Oh certainly. For pure entertainment value the 1864 essay is a fun read as scientists of the time grappled things we take for granted today; i.e. one theory of the time that the sun may remain hot because of meteor strikes, fun stuff. Obviously our problem today is simply too many meteors hitting the sun:)
Sardeshmukh seems to be playing around the edges. The summer mean surface temperature could easily have shifted four standard deviations by the next century, so a 2-sigma hot summer in the 20th century would then be a 2-sigma cold summer in the 2100’s. It doesn’t matter much how the shape of the distribution changes when you shift the whole Gaussian by 4 standard deviations. Some perspective is needed here.
This just in:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/wp-content/uploads/UAH_LT_1979_thru_June_2015_v6.png
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/enso/monitoring/nino3_4.png
Where I live it was 103F today, so what did I do?
Paid good money to sit in a hot spring at 110F.
Now, I soaked for only an hour and continual exposure to 110F water or even 103F air will kill one. But it’s always been that way and for most of the US, such temperatures, at least occasionally, are a regular occurrence, one that a century ago, people did adjust to.
But, for the interesting part, the usual springs I frequent were closed. These springs drained into a river and one of the sights from the pools is of a school of carp swimming in place where the hot springs pour into the river.
I assumed they were after detritus from the pools but found it strange that they would swim in the warm, albeit diluted water.
Since this place was closed, I went to another which had private pools only. The pool I was in was at 110F and had a single spillway through which one could look. Just outside the spillway I was surprised to see the golden eye of a large frog staring back at me. The frog remained in place for the hour I soaked and presumably for much of the day.
Frogs and carp are ‘cold blooded’ of course, but it is interesting to see creatures other than humans drastically raising their body temperatures, evidently with pleasure ( if frogs and carp feel such things ).
Generally speaking that’s where the fish are. Tributaries to rivers as from the hot springs are where you cast your line. Something about the transition line between the two.
Re the AAO, somewhere I spotted an article or presentation about a 300 yr oscillation in the Southern Ocean. At the recent Ringberg Workshop, Mojib Latif’s presentation also mentions Southern Ocean centennial variability
ML papers here.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0967064514000320
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-12-00281.1
The KCM does not fully address changes in wind forced gradients and (ocean forcing) the constraints to observations where the southern westerlies experiencing variability (and persistence ) greater then recent observations.
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Here is another item on the European heatwave.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/03/europe-heat-waves-climate-change_n_7721284.html
If the probability of these temperature extremes has increased tenfold, it seems reasonable to say that it is 90% probable that each individual heatwave is due to climate change.
Jimd
European heat wave? Hot in parts I would say. Here, only 150 miles from London I had to put on a sweater this afternoon after two pleasantly warm days of around 20C. (that’s not hot even for England!)
Please follow my link above re the ‘record’ heat at Heathrow Airport. The weather station is adjacent to a runway amidst hundreds of acres of concrete!
Records started in 1948 and since then the airport has grown a thousand fold as have the housing estates immediately outside the perimeter fence. Do you REALLY think this is any sort of sensible place to claim a meaningful record?
Since when has huffpost been any reliable sort of guide?
tonyb
JIMD
As I am so kind I have pasted my link below showing the location of the Heathrow temperature sensor. Both May and June were below average temperatures here and it only started to warm up on 30th June.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/07/02/heat-waves-exacerbated-by-global-warming/#comment-714455
It is subject to so much uhi and represents an airport that has grown so radically since records began there in 1948 , that promoting it as a worthwhile or representative temperature matrix seems pointless.
tonyb
I’m watching the 2nd practice of the F1 race at Silverstone England air temp is 72F, track temp is 112F, excellent example of UHI.
Tamino has a critique of sardeshmukh’s analysis, haven’t had a chance to look at closely but have sent the link to sardeshmukh
https://tamino.wordpress.com/2015/07/03/whats-wrong-with-this-picture/
He couldn’t resist a parting shot at you Btw.
But i also wonder if the isn’t a change in distribution of temps from gausian, there sure seems to be one for ocean temps.
well yes that is the point of sardeshmukh’s analysis, there are regions with negative changes in skewness and narrow dispersions. I’ve emailed sardeshmukh, this is holiday weekend in US, so no idea when/if i will get a response
Here is an up to the minute attribution analysis of the current and forthcoming heat wave
http://www.climatecentral.org/europe-2015-heatwave-climate-change
Judith
Together with our dear departed Friend Max I put together some information on Zurich as it closely Matched CET until around 1960.
We found that the weather station had subsequently moved to a much warmer area (from a hill to the plains) AND that Zurich had grown exponentially and had surrounded the new station over the last few decades. Do the researchers know that when graphing the tiny observed change?
tonyb
Dan Kahan has a very interesting post on messaging
http://www.culturalcognition.net/blog/2015/7/3/ambivalence-about-messaging.html
From Kahan’s post:
I myself have become convinced that “messaging” is not relevant to climate-change science communication. Or at least that the sort of “messaging” people have in mind when they do framing studies, & then propose extravagant social marketing campaigns based on them, is not.
For “messaging” to work, we have to imagine either one of 2 things to be true. The first is that there is some piece of information that people are getting “wrong” about climate change & will get right if it is “framed” properly.
But we know that there is zero correlation between people’s positions on climate change & any information relating to it. Or any information relating to it other than “this is my side’s position, & this theirs.” And they aren’t wrong at all, sadly, about that information.
The second thing we might imagine, then, is that a “messaging” campaign featuring appropriately selected “messengers” could change people’s assessment of what “their side’s” position is.
I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it, first, because people aren’t that gullible: they know people are trying to shape that understanding via “messaging” (in part b/c the people doing it are foolish enough to discuss their plans within earshot of those whose belefs they are trying to “manage” in this way).
I don’t believe it, second, b/c it’s been tried already & flopped big time.
I don’t buy it because I’ve been digging in surface data for years now, and I don’t think it says what we’ve been told it says, I don’t buy it because I am a simulation expert, and I know it can’t tell us what we’re told it says, so no framing it better isn’t selling me a sows ear, well except for a chew toy for my dog, she kind of likes them.
Kahan is right. People don’t change their minds when confronted with contrary evidence. I have shown this graph several times.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/gistemp/mean:120/mean:240/from:1900/plot/gistemp/from:1900/mean:12/plot/gistemp/from:1985/trend
Yet the contrarians will say there is a hiatus, and it started around 1998. This despite the latest 30-year trend (in blue) being continuous with the late-century trend (in red) and being completely unaffected by the so-called hiatus. If they don’t even concede that the hiatus possibly could be a temporary illusion due to 1998, they won’t concede anything. The 30-year trend is steady, while the 15-year one is all over the place and should not be used for climate trends. Fifteen years ago the 15-year trend was double the 30-year trend at 0.3 C per decade.
JimD,
How can you not see how convoluted this argument is? “while the 15-year one is all over the place and should not be used for climate trends. Fifteen years ago the 15-year trend was double the 30-year trend at 0.3 C per decade.”
First you indicate using a 15 year trend is not “climate” then you refer to a 15 year trend? What’s good for the goose…………..
You can get a 15-year trend, but what use is it if it is all over the place from one 15 years to the next?
Jim D,
No argument that 15 years in not a good consideration for “climate”. The issue was using that very argument then stating ” Fifteen years ago the 15-year trend was double the 30-year trend at 0.3 C per decade.”
Comes across as an indication that you can use 15 years if it’s supportive of a view, but disallow the use of a 15 year “trend” if it’s not.
My example was to show why it is no good, and it seems to have convinced you. Now talk to the people with the “hiatus” about this and see what you get.
Jim D,
What I’m convinced of is that a hiatus/pause is a change in the long term trend. I’m not convinced it can be so easily eliminated via adjustments as some indicate, nor that it’s an indicator of the end of global warming any more than it’s an indicator of a change to cooling.
While I can agree that a 15 year time segment is not valid on climate scales, it is not any less valid than “hottest year evah” (actually, comparatively it holds more validity) when it comes to a snapshot of near term conditions.
I showed that the 30-year trend is completely unaffected by the “hiatus”, so this is just some self-canceling internal variability rather than a deceleration of any kind. The next El Nino will just continue the 30-year trend while also raising the 15-year trend again as it starts another random oscillation about the 30-year mean.
Jim D,
So which has more validity? The one/two year El Nino associated temperature, the 15 year “hiatus/pause” the 30 year trend, the trend since 1850, or a longer trend?
Some large El Ninos have a major impact on 15-year trends, but hardly any on 30-year trends. Don’t you agree?
I think this answers an as yet unasked question then regarding 1998, but for the life of me I don’t see answers in your reply to any of the actual questions posted.
So presuming the current El Nino began last year it’s effects on the “hottest year evah” should therefore be discounted and presuming (as JCH is convinced) this year will be even warmer then it too should be discounted? Do I understand correctly?
I haven’t been talking about hottest year evah, only how 30-year trends are more steady than 15-year trends. I could also mention we had the hottest decade ever, but hottest years have less meaning than that. You can take the last running 12 months on GISTEMP and it could be the hottest 12 months ever, if that matters so much to you.
JimD
Heatwave? THIS is a heatwave!
“1252 very hot and dry summer, very wet autumn heat of the sun so great that all the earth became dry no fruit grew on trees. At end of harvest there was great flooding breaking bridges mills and houses adjoin the rivers
Matthew paris notes in most of march and the whole of the months of april and may the ground was burnt up by the sun the wind continuing from south west north or east. The sun rose up to its solstitial culmination and its immoderate and intolerable heat so burned up the earths surface and multiplied its warmth that the herbage withered away. Moreover the heat continued into the night and generated flies flea and other injurious pests.
He also writes in april may june and july heat and drought prevailed intolerably without beneficial sprinkling of rain or dew. Meadows were stripped of their grass, plant foliage withered. According to john de taxter ‘this year many died from the excessive heat of the summer. There was much thunderstorms.
Robert of Gloucester noted in 1270 ‘in the year of grace 1252 the summer was so dry and hot that even until this day there has been none hotter .
1253 dry summer and wet autumn with in spring and summer a prolonged drought. Flooding in autumn which dried up after the feast of St Michael happened in spring (drought) contrary to the nature of the season, for at the time of the equinox with the whole weather moderate there is customarily peace in the elements.”
Brooks and Glasspole believe 1252 and 1253 to be the driest of which we have any historical account; see Meteorological magazine 63 1928, page 4.
tonyb
tonyb, sounds like 1976 doesn’t it. These things happen, perhaps ten times more often now. A thousand-year event may become a 100-year event.
Jimd
Ten times more often? So in the forty years since 1976 they should be cropping up pretty regularly? They aren’t.
Anyway, that anecdotal account is by no means uncommon. As you can see it happened two yars running. Lots of other examples. Just trying to demonstrate that such wrather is nothing new.
Tonyb
tonyb, that is not the way you calculate it. How many standard deviations was 1976 above the mean? From that you can get a better idea of the changed frequency.
People don’t change their minds when confronted with contrary evidence.
Do you include evidence contrary to your opinions?
Here’s your deceleration:
http://climatewatcher.webs.com/Trends30.png
Stands to reason, the mid-twentieth century cooling trend ended some time around 1975, to the peak 30 year rebound warming trend was for the 30 years ending around 2005 and trends have decelerated since.
What happens going forward is of interest to us all but a matter or speculation.
Even in 30-year trends, solar irradiance variations can modulate the GHG trend by about 10%, which may be one thing we see here.
==> “Do you include evidence contrary to your opinions?”
Evidence related to whether people change their minds (on controversial and polarized topics where they are “identified”) when confronted with contrary evidence is pretty one-sided.
Reading Kahan would be a good place to start if you’re interested.
I think it is official now that 2014 was El Nino free… all ENSO neutral.
Once June is in, the 6-month anomaly for 2015 so far would be at least .758C. Thta’s up .078 over 2014. SO is 2015 likely to be warmer than 2014. Yea, it is. The real issue is 2016. If the El Nino aligns, 2016 could be hotter than 2015.
Wouldn’t that be pause killin’ hilarious… three warmest years in a row. Lol. Oh but 38% in 2014. The lost are lost. That’s why they call them lost.
“Even in 30-year trends, solar irradiance variations can modulate the GHG trend by about 10%, which may be one thing we see here.
So, what portion of the late 20th century warming was due to anomalously high TSI?
TE, TSI seems to have been declining since 1950, so its contribution to the warming is more likely negative for 1950 through 2015.
Jim D: “tonyb, sounds like 1976 doesn’t it. These things happen, perhaps ten times more often now. “
Oh no they don’t.
We haven’t seen anything like 1976 since 1976, never mind ten times as often.
Why on Earth do you lot keep making stuff up?
It’s a mystery…
Judith
I’ve just found the research I did with Max. Zurich started recording in 1864 and was notably warmer at the start of this period than it was in 1880. Why would the researchers have omitted this period?
Tonyb
Presumably they wanted a common start date for all of their cities, maybe others didn’t go back that far? Or maybe going back further was ‘inconvenient’ for their story line
tonyb,
Do you have that graph still?
Scott
yes i would be interested in the graph, i will tweet it to all the people excited by Myles Allen’s attribution analysis
Scott
I have emailed them to Judith. Many of the old temperature stations are on my site here;
http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/index.html
tonyb
Tamino’s argument is essentially a quibble about how heat waves are defined, there are various definitions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_wave
For the heat wave forecasts that my company provides to the energy sector, so they can anticipate high energy demand, we define heat wave in terms of the standard deviation above the climatological mean for that location (we use 1.5 standard deviations for the energy demand applications, whereas sardeshmukh used 2 standard deviations). For our heat wave forecasts in Ahmedabad India, we use specified temperature thresholds. Other definitions are tied to a specific temperature increment, e.g. 5C above daily average.
Sardeshmukh’s analysis uses two different baseline temps: one prior to 1950 and the other post 1950, and then calculates deviations from those means. His whole point is that the standard deviation and skewness changes can dominate, resulting in fewer large excursions from the mean.
The SD definition makes most sense for a global analysis, IMO
If you are using a past climatology, like 1951-1980 to forecast the heatwave frequency, you are making a first-order mistake by not accounting for the shift in the mean. The summer temperatures over most continental areas have shifted by a standard deviation since then, and will continue to shift at a similar rate into the future. This trend has to be accounted for in some way when you do the probabilities. It is likely the dominant factor and leads to results like heatwaves becoming ten times more likely that climatecentral are finding.
Heat stress is related to a deviation beyond what you are adapted to. What is defined as a heat wave in UK would be regarded as moderate in India.
The climate central analysis is not robust (i started to say not useful, but it is clearly useful for certain ‘messaging’. Refer to this previous post
http://judithcurry.com/2012/09/21/workshop-on-attribution-of-extreme-events/
If the temperature is shifting by a standard deviation every few decades, you don’t get use to it, and are always trying to catch up. It is like sea level in that regard. Planning ahead is needed accounting for trends. If the past is a guide, it is the trend from it.
I am with little yimmy, on this one. People can’t adapt to heat that changes that fast in the span of a few decades. That’s why nobody has moved from up North to Phoenix, Tuscon, Tombstone, Austin, Shreveport,
Alamogordo, Waco and other hot places down there in the uninhabitable scorching hot places in the Southland. All those people living in Miami Beach who have Crown Heights accents are faking it.
If you lived on agriculture you might have a different perspective. More a/c just doesn’t cut it.
Jim D. None of your assertions are factual.
It isn’t that hard to adapt to a different temperature regime. The US retirees are a case in point.
As far as agriculture, there are always different cultivars and crops. Since crops are grown from Alaska to Brazil any farm in between can adapt to a change in temperature.
Claiming people and agriculture can’t deal with minor change of a few degrees when the typical change in, say Gaithersburg, Md, is 100+ degrees Fahrenheit over the course of a year, is beyond absurd and is just making things up.
There will always be some unhealthy people who don’t adapt to temperature extremes well. They exist everywhere from Indiana to India. Unless natural selection is a desired outcome accommodation needs to be made for them. There will always be some days that strenuous outdoor is activity is unwise, hot climates have a siesta at midday for a reason.
PA, you need to read the conversation. It is on whether heatwaves are increasing and how much should we consider climate change when planning for them? As a given, a heatwave is a bad event, otherwise people would not be worrying about them. The same decisionmaking can go for agricultural and water resource planning. Consider the trend or no? Some say ignore the trend, just adapt to and plan for yesterday’s climate.
You need to work on your story, yimmy.
You have to be joking.
Well, since 1900 the temperature has more or less steadily gotten warmer.
Assuming 295 PPM in 1900 the current 400 PPM has induced 1.05 W/m2 of warming or about 0.28°C. There is 0.24°C of CGAGW. The rest is natural. Further the daytime effect of CO2 is only about 0.19°C (most of the effect is at night when the CO2 level is higher).
What the global warmers don’t seem to understand is CGAGW doesn’t really exist – it is virtual warming.
Since obviously most of the warming is natural, any current “record” heat waves are mostly due to natural influences. Since the LIA preceded the current time it is almost inevitable that we would be warmer – there really weren’t a lot of options for the temperature to change from the coldest period of the interglacial.
More natural warming with more energy is going to provide more opportunity for temperature variation. Without responsible (non-activist) attribution studies to apportion causation between the various forms of UHI, natural warming, and GHG it is hard to tell if or how much to get worried about heat waves.
About the only thing to do about “extreme heat waves” is to have contingency plans in place. After all the people 60 miles south had to deal with your “extreme heat waves” 75-80 years ago with no air conditioning.
PA,
“(most of the effect is at night when the CO2 level is higher).”
There is zero sign of an effect of Co2 on night time cooling since 1940.
micro6500 | July 3, 2015 at 7:54 pm |
PA,
“(most of the effect is at night when the CO2 level is higher).”
There is zero sign of an effect of Co2 on night time cooling since 1940.
Well, any lushly vegetated area has a CO2 level of around 200 PPM at 1:00 in the afternoon (LST – local standard time). At that point the plants stops growing until the CO2 level rises significantly.
So I am kind of dubious that the “zero effect on nighttime cooling” is correct since most if any CO2 effect has to occur at night when CO2 is high. If we assume the minimum temperature is a proxy for nighttime temperature that is easy to refute.
http://appinsys.com/globalwarming/DTR_files/image006.jpg
Low temperatures (night) have been much more anomalous than high (daytime) temperatures.
“Low temperatures (night) have been much more anomalous than high (daytime) temperatures.”
I’ve taken the NCDC global summary of days data set, and for every station that records a minimum of two days in a row, calculated day time rising temp (Tmax-Tmin) then subtracted that nights falling temp (Tmax – following day’s Tmin), then subtracted Tfall from Trise (Trise -Tfall) for stations that record +360 samples per year, from 1940-2012 69 million daily samples, the overall average is negative, 50 of 74 years are negative, 30 of the last 34 years are negative. If you round to a single decimal place it’s 0.0F +/-0.1F for data that is +/-0.1F
So, there no sign of Co2 in nightly cooling since 1940.
Curiously the positive years are all during the cold 50’s and 60’s, and the negative years have been the warm years.
The problem with the graph is (as far as I know) the measurements are all in a calendar day, I calculate it based on the ~24 hrs from sunrise to the following sunrise.
I’ve taken the NCDC global summary of days data set, and for every station that records a minimum of two days in a row, calculated day time rising temp (Tmax-Tmin) then subtracted that nights falling temp (Tmax – following day’s Tmin), then subtracted Tfall from Trise (Trise -Tfall) for stations that record +360 samples per year,, from 1940-2012 69 million daily samples
There is one fly in the ointment. I am aware of a number of days when the minimum occurred during the daytime. So this computation is at best a proxy. But, that aside, lets see what your computation does in practice.
We’ll take a high low high combination and see what your algorithm does:
60 40 70 Tr-Tf = 10.
After GHG global warming as a nighttime effect
60 42 70= Tr-Tf = 10.
The overall average is negative, 50 of 74 years are negative, 30 of the last 34 years are negative. If you round to a single decimal place it’s 0.0F +/-0.1F for data that is +/-0.1F So, there no sign of Co2 in nightly cooling since 1940. Curiously the positive years are all during the cold 50’s and 60’s, and the negative years have been the warm years.
You are measuring a artifact. I am just not sure what artifact. The first and last days of the year should be the only ones that have an effect on the computation.
The problem with the graph is
I don’t see how your computation achieves anything.
If you did (∑ (Tr+Tf)/2)/365 (except for leap year) at least you would have the average day/night differential. I don’t believe that a summation of Tr or Tf would give a statistically different result but it wouldn’t hurt to check.
If the average day/night differential is shrinking either the nights are getting warmer or CO2 has a daytime cooling effect.
Jim D: “If the temperature is shifting by a standard deviation every few decades, you don’t get use to it”
Funny thing, when I go travel to places a great deal hotter than a standard deviation, I get used to it in a few days.
catweazle, yet the Texas drought 2011, Russia firestorms 2010, the European heatwaves were 3-sigma events in summer temperatures that became more than ten times more likely due to that shift. Interesting to learn things like that, isn’t it. You get some respect for shifting distributions. It’s not the mean, but the tail that gets you.
PA:
“Well, any lushly vegetated area has a CO2 level of around 200 PPM at 1:00 in the afternoon (LST – local standard time). At that point the plants stops growing until the CO2 level rises significantly.”
So on a daily scale warm sunny days are going to reduce the insulation when it matters and cool cloudy days will retain it. Both temperature extremes are softened.
” cloudy days”
Cloudy days have far more dwir than clear skies.
LST – landing ship tank
Nice move with that fat tail story, yimmy. I can see they are starting to waver. Another whopper like that and you will have them converted. Your work is almost done here.
Pingback: Mitigation + Adaptation required re #climate: heat waves require clean energy + a/c …
The heat wave issue or extreme weather issue goes against what AGW theory originally predicted but hardly no one has the guts for lack of a better word to call them on it.
You can reduce heat stress by digging basements.
I have a 12v solar fan and 12″ flexible duct that blows basement floor air on the computer desk upstairs, for about a 30 degree F temperature drop, but haven’t used it for years owing to moderate summers.
Digging basements costs money. Lots of money
Eli
It is becoming very fashionable in London and setting celebs against celebs as each ruin the peace of the neighbourhood For several years by installing underground libraries, pools and spas. Nothing to do with climate though.
Tonyb
Climate Reason: There was a great article in the New Yorker a couple of weeks ago about the most expensive house in London
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/01/house-of-secrets
here people dig out basements to make them legal to rent (aka English basements)
In this part of the US (NE Ohio) +90% of the homes have basements. Even the 100 year old 1,000 Sq ft ones.
https://twitter.com/curryja/status/617012177505947649
No polician and no policy were harmed during the making of this tweet.
Human civilizations have developed for hundreds of thousands of years, but notable advancement took place during the Mesopotamian era.
But summers in general were warmer than today, and because sunshine was so much more intense during Northern summers, and since much of heatwave heat comes from dynamics which increase sunshine, heatwaves were necessarily much worse for thousands of years during the very time civilization advanced.
http://www.cesm.ucar.edu/experiments/cesm1.0/diagnostics/b40.mh6ka.1deg.003/atm_1281-1300-b40.1850.track1.1deg.006/set5_6/set5_JJA_TS_c.png
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/01/25/warming-trend-pdo-and-solar-correlate-better-than-co2/
It is so clear cut that a CO2 temp. correlation does not exist.
What an interesting thread indeed. Pity, though, that people who should know better can’t understand the application of frequency estimates and any variation outside of the sigma must be indicative of something. The physicists go to 5 sigma whereas it seems the climatologists are happy with one or two.
Still, one of the better reads here at CE in a very long time.
Yikes, the twits really have their knickers in a knot over this post. They are also objecting to Cliff Mass’ post (which i think is pretty good)
http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2015/07/why-is-northwest-so-warm.html
“Here is a thought to keep in mind: the more extreme the weather anomaly, the less likely it is to be caused by human-induced (anthropogenic) global warming. The current situation is mega extreme in terms of our temperatures. The reason this aphorism makes sense is that global warming due to increased greenhouse gases should warm the earth in a progressive, slow way—not in huge jumps.”
> Yikes, the twits really have their knickers in a knot over this post.
One of them:
https://twitter.com/jim_bouldin/status/617072471548690432
As far as human discomfort during heatwaves is concerned, many many more people suffer from UHI than from AGW.
For the sake of humanity, let us beat our wind turbines into air conditioners.
Prashant Sardeshmukh responds to Tamino’s critique:
The critic of our study is mistaken on all counts.
1) Contrary to his suspicion, we did correctly define the temperature extremes with respect to the same fixed temperature threshold in both periods at each geographical point. The formula in the math slide, which is for shape preserving changes of the distribution, is also for exceedances beyond a fixed threshold.
2) As already noted at the bottom of the math slide, “the situation gets even more complicated for non-Gaussian distributiions whose changes are not shape preserving”. And indeed they are not shape preserving for daily temperature. There were changes from 1901-1925 to 1981-2005 in both the skewness and kurtosis (a measure of tail heaviness) at most points on the globe, including the Indian ocean point discussed by the critic. I had mentioned these changes in my talk, but not shown them to save time, as the main point of the slide showing the change in daily temperature extremes from 1901-1925 to 1981-2005 had already been made. This was that the global pattern of the change in extremes does not look anything like that of the mean shift, and this is not surprising given the fractional changes in standard deviation. The point of this slide was not that one could deduce the numerical value of the change in the extremes from only the changes in the mean and standard deviation, but that the changes in standard deviation were clearly important, and opposed the changes in the mean in many regions.
When using a fixed threshold, the change in the mean should be the first-order term in the change in the probability of exceedance especially as the change gets to the size of standard deviations as it is in the current climate. The rest is probably just window dressing.
well sardeshmukh’s study argues that this is NOT the case
Thus dismissing all of non-linear dynamics with an ign0rant arm-wave.
Completely in contrast to Hansen’s “Perceptions” paper where a 3-sigma hot summer defined in the 1951-1980 baseline has become twenty times more likely than it was back then and that is mostly explained by the shift in the Gaussian by about a standard deviation.
“Completely in contrast to Hansen’s “Perceptions” paper where a 3-sigma hot summer defined in the 1951-1980 baseline has become twenty times more likely than it was back then and that is mostly explained by the shift in the Gaussian by about a standard deviation.”
Which a change in the area defined by the jet stream, as guided by the oceans multi decade long state could completely account for with no extra forcing what so ever.
If it is from Co2, you would expect a careful review of daily warming vs nightly cooling would be more than effectively 0.0F, but it’s not, in fact if you carry the significant digits out the average since 1940 is negative.
Turns out the warming is global implying a forcing change, and the predominant positive forcing change is from GHGs. It’s that simple.
Great, do you have an explanation for warming from 1910-1940, and also the warming since the 18th century?
partially solar, partially GHGs
Oh, I just thought of the mechanism that would change the distribution as temps go up.
Rel humidity and nightly cooling. In the winter and spring most of the time rel humidity doesn’t get to 100%(at least in Ohio ), but going into summer almost every night rel humidity maxes out, that is definitely a nonlinear response to temp.
I have graph from my weather station, and you can see rel humidity track temps, until summer, and there you see it driven into the 100% line, until fall where it drops off the limit.
“Turns out the warming is global ”
Maybe, or maybe it the liberal use of making up data where it was never actually measured.
And btw, how do you know it’s “global”, all of the temp series are a global product, that does mean the warming is global, only that the estimated temperature is warmer than the estimates temperature of the past.
If it was global, would you agree it must be the forcing and therefore must be us?
“If it was global, would you agree it must be the forcing and therefore must be us?”
Probably, no.
It could be us (if it was global ), but doesn’t have to be us.
Jim D: “If it was global, would you agree it must be the forcing and therefore must be us?”
No, of course not.
Let me get this straight. So the whole surface and deep ocean are warming, and you say it doesn’t have to be net forcing? Or it has to be net forcing, but that doesn’t have to be us?
stay tuned, post on ocean heat content coming tomorrow.
AK, if you shift a Gaussian by a standard deviation, it is going to take a pretty dramatic change in shape to make that not the leading factor in the change of the tail probabilities. That’s all I am saying. No acknowledgement of that from anyone yet.
Yet another straw man. Looking back to Prashant Sardeshmukh’s original response:
How non-shape preserving can a distribution be? Assuming it is well sampled, it is going to look essentially the same. That’s why my first impression was that Sardeshmukh was just playing around the edges of the main shift, or perhaps using a period where he could ignore climate change itself.
This question doesn’t even seem make sense. A distribution can have a shape, but “shape preservation” would AFAIK be a quality of the transform (in response to a perturbation such as “forcing”.)
Same issue with not making sense. Are you talking about the transform or the shape?
The climate can be (tentatively) defined as the basin of attraction within which the weather (as a point in n-space) moves. There seems to be a common misconception that the statistical distribution of any single metric for a hyper-complex non-linear system can be regarded as Gaussian. It shouldn’t be. The default assumption should be that it’s not. That logic applies both to “global averages” and specific points.
Similar logic applies to a transform due to the “forcing” effect of something like well-mixed greenhouse gas changes. The actual activity of that “forcing” at any point depends on the temperature, absolute humidity, and cloudiness of every point in the air nearby, as well as the Sun’s position at the time. All except the last of which are actually internal to the system.
There’s absolutely no plausible reason (other than laziness) to assume that the actual effect of such forcing on a hyper-complex non-linear system would preserve the shape of the distribution of that single metric.
I get the impression you have not looked at what Sardeshmukh did, or did not follow it. It was all about shapes of distributions changing, and he thought it was significant in some way that I did not understand in the context of large trends.
JimD, Which standard deviation are you comparing to what metric? Most of the recent “global” warming is above 40N, over land and in winter. The daily standard deviation in that region at that time of year is pretty large. June in Europe would have a smaller SD when it is wet and larger when it is dry. So unless CO2 is causing “sticky” pressure systems, it likely isn’t causing temperature extremes other than a fairly small bump in the June mean.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/g20150703_2132_21479_6.png
June SD
http://climexp.knmi.nl/data/g20150703_2132_21479_1.png
January SD using Berkeley
Here is the link.
http://climexp.knmi.nl/getmomentsfield.cgi
Land/water use is a more likely culprit than CO2.
“Most of the recent “global” warming is above 40N, over land and in winter. ”
I live @N41 W81, this last winter was as cold as I remember, we had a -22F morning.
I followed on a high level. It’s your mixed-up terminology I can’t follow.
That’s right, the “shapes of distributions” changed, from one period to another. One theory being that they changed in response to a “forcing”. Such as GHG increases.
The point is, he’s saying that the distributions are not Gaussian, and their shape is not preserved during the transformation over time. (Perhaps induced by GHG’s.)
What this means, AFAIK, is that if the change was induced by GHG’s, there’s no reason to assume that higher means (temperature or whatever) will result in a greater proportion of instances on one end of the curve being past some arbitrary cut-off.
You might say: “if it isn’t a Gaussian distribution, all bets are off.” Not really all, of course, but quite a few assumptions that work for a Gaussian distribution don’t once that assumption is voided.
captd, Hansen used the seasonal average June-July-August. The standard deviation is up to a degree, and the warming since the baseline has shifted it by a standard deviation in many land areas already. He also showed that both the past and current distributions are symmetric and almost Gaussian. Nothing unusual happening in the shapes, so I am not sure what Sardeshmukh is talking about.
Jim D: It was all about shapes of distributions changing, and he thought it was significant in some way that I did not understand in the context of large trends.
What ever it is that is raising the temperatures is having differential effects in the left-hand tail, the right-hand tail, and the middle. It is not a simple change in location, as would occur if a fixed constant were added to each measurement.
https://micro6500blog.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/relhumidity_withtemps.png
Matthew Marler, let’s take the example of what happens to a 2-sigma extreme when the mean shifts by 2-sigma. Now the extreme upper 2.5% event has become a 50% event in the middle of the distribution. When the bulk of the distribution has shifted over your tail, it doesn’t matter what the tail did.
“So the whole surface and deep ocean are warming,”
We do not know this. The data on oceans is nothing like as robust as for the atmosphere.
If what you say is true, then I have made a grave mistake. But perhaps you can understand my skepticism that an increase in mean by a full standard deviation, combined with an increase in standard deviation, would accompany no change in the probability of exceeding a fixed temperature threshold.
If you will share with me the data you used for that grid point in the Indian Ocean, I can confirm your results with my own eyes. Upon doing so, I will publish on my blog a prominent, unambiguous admission of my error. But until I see it with my own eyes, I remain skeptical.
Contact Prashant Sardeshmukh, his email is on this page.
http://cires.colorado.edu/about/organization/fellows/prashant-sardeshmukh/
I will email you his full presentation
You will find that Sardeshmukh, Compo and Pendland are extremely competent scientists and statisticians
Judith
It is good to see Tamino show up here and accept he may be wrong but naturally wants definitive evidence. I hope that whatever the results it will be posted here so we know the final chapter of this intriguing narrative.
Tonyb
I will certainly keep track of this. The exchange on twitter has been nutso (note Tamino isn’t on twitter)
Bottom line is that the intuitively reasonable attribution of more heat waves to a higher average temperature doesn’t work in most land regions.
And how intuitively reasonable is it to attribute more heat waves to the unchanging average temperature – the plateau (‘Pause’) – of the last 18 years ?
Punksta,
/sarc on
No, no no! You purely don’t understand! There will be more heat waves, and also more cold snaps, due to global warming.
Combined with more floods, more droughts, more and less wind, more ice here countering less ice there, it is obvious that the average will result in a pause.
When the missing heat comes out of the pipeline, it may well decide to hide somewhere else, in a fit of pique! Things have changed. Global warming doesn’t mean that temperatures increase, any more.
No rise in temperatures only means the global warming has entered a new, and extremely dangerous phase, because it can’t actually be found. Your friendly neighbourhood Climatologist will assist you to understand, for a large fee and no responsibility.
I hope this helps.
/sarc off
Judith,
Part of the high temperatures over here in (western) Europe this week no doubt is related to a dry spring (April, May en June have been dry, for evidence, see NOAA CPC), resulting in low soil moisture which typically enhances maximum temperatures. But other than this week, 2015 has been more than typical with temperature anomalies no different or even somewhat below the average anomaly for the last 20 years or so. I guess everybody has already forgotten about the unusual June ground frost which shattered some records.
In 2013 a paper was published showing that most of the warming in western Europa after 1980 is related to rapid warming in the 1980s, with no significant trends before and after 1978-1988 and an apparent jump in the temperature in 1987-1988 explaining most – if not all – of the warming. I say “apparent” because variability in circulation patterns played a crucial role in this “jump”.
http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=33658
Causes of the 1980’s warming in Europe are unclear, previous papers suggested that long term circulation changes could not have played much of a role, but we know that air quality increased dramatically in Europe in the 1980s (in particular sulfur dioxide). There has also been a strong decrease in the occurrence of fog over Europa over the same period accompanied by an increase in incoming solar radiation (Vautard et al., 2009, Nature GEO), which might also be related to improved air quality, the latter a pure speculation from my side.
Cheers, Jos.
Hi Jos, thanks for this link
From the “never happened before” department,
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/12/081217192739.htm
“Notable differences can be observed between the frequency and duration of droughts – we find rainy periods and droughts at the same time in different parts of the Iberian Peninsula and also differences between northern and southern parts,” points out Santisteban.
The combined analysis of this drought information and of atmospheric pressure at sea level – carried out by researchers from the UCM, the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain, and the University of Barcelona – shows that periods of frequent droughts coincide with positive phases of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), which produces prolonged anti-cyclonic conditions in the Azores.
Domínguez-Castro, Fernando; Santisteban, Juan I.; Barriendos, Mariano; Mediavilla, Rosa. Reconstruction of drought episodes for central Spain from rogation ceremonies recorded at the Toledo Cathedral from 1506 to 1900: A methodological approach. Global and Planetary Change, 63(2-3) Sp. Iss. SI: 230-242 SEP 2008
http://www.godutch.com/newspaper/index.php?id=474
“Dutch records show that the year 1540 was one with an even hotter summer than the heat wave year of 2003. “This Europe-wide heat wave lasted for seven months, harvests were destroyed and thousands of cattle died, leading to wide spread famine and death.The Rhine dried up and it was reported that people could walk upon the Seine riverbed in Paris without getting their feet wet.”
https://sites.google.com/site/medievalwarmperiod/
“The most striking aspect of the period of American climate, between the 2nd and 16th Centuries, is the incidence, extent, prevalence, duration and severity of droughts, throughout the Americas; particularly – but by no means exclusively – over western and central regions of the Americas.
These droughts often lasted for a decade or longer and have been dubbed meagadroughts. Two droughts, in California and Patagonia, each lasted for well over 100 years and have been described as epic droughts.”
Well, how to these reports of European temperatures square with temperature chronologies? Has anyone compared the written accounts with the nature derived chronologies to validate them (validate the nature chronologies, not the written records)?
Is your point that more CO2 and warming, or the natural millennial cycles are reducing variation? Or something else?
A world with more meridional jet stream tracks leads to more extremes such as those observed.
Longer, more meridional tracks produce more clouds from greater air mass mixing which leads in due course to system cooling.
Causation explained here:
http://joannenova.com.au/2015/01/is-the-sun-driving-ozone-and-changing-the-climate/
I looked at individual station data in California to confirm that the state has been experiencing the warmest average annual temperatures on record and that claim appears to be true for average, average highs, and average lows in 2014.
But when I broke out daily records by season, I got a different picture. The average of MAX temps in the typically-hottest periods continues declining in 2014, while MAX was high during the rest of the year and MIN was high overall. Although average was highest on record in 2014, variation was less extreme.
The only Califoria stations where yearly extreme maximum temperatures are trending higher have increasing population density, with few all-time records since 2000 even there. Examples:
• Downtown Los Angeles. 98-years of data. All-time record high: 113°F in 2010. Trend in extreme maximums: +0.362°F/decade.
• Los Gatos. 113 years of data. Record high: 114°F in 1961. Trend: +0.145°F/decade.
• San Diego Lindberg Field. 75 years of data. Record high: 111°F in 1963. Trend: +0.110°F/decade.
Compare those trends to rural stations and to Los Angeles Int’l Airport right next to the Pacific:
• Davis Experimental Farm. 104 years of data. Record high: 116°F in 1925. Trend: &minus0.269°F/decade.
• Ojai. 104 years of data. Record high: 119°F in 1917. Trend: −0.330°F/decade.
• LAX. 70 years of data. Record high: 106°F in 1988. Trend: −0.239°F/decade.
When indoor air conditioning increases, maximum local outdoor temperature increases. The rise in extreme high temperatures in Los Angeles seems to track the long-term increase in peak summertime electricity usage. So, while increased use of air conditioning would make those able to afford it more comfortable indoors, it would likely make the local outdoor temperature even hotter, making indoor air conditioning even more expensive.
Formatting error correction. Davis Experimental Farm trend is −0.269°F/decade.
The global warming effect from CO2 should be highest in the off-season and at night when CO2 is highest.
There isn’t a mechanism to justify claiming that the elevated CO2 will make the summer/daytime periods significantly hotter. That is when CO2 is lowest.
” The global warming effect from CO2 should be highest in the off-season and at night when CO2 is highest.”
The issue I have with this is, that exactly when the outgoing lwir is the lowest, consider snow cover ‘ s BB spectrum at 15u when the snow is pretty much any temp below 32F.
http://www.webexhibits.org/causesofcolor/images/content/revised-graph-curves.gif
Once you get below the visible light range water and snow are basically black.
I’ll look around and see if I can find some winter/summer studies of CO2 in a green area.
It is nice to say that snow has a high albedo – but the ground isn’t always white and the absolute humidity is much lower in winter.
Water vapor blocks (preoccupies) some of the CO2 absorption wavelengths which reduces the CO2 effect. Under dry conditions changes in CO2 have a much greater effect.
http://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Caryl_11.png
There is a claim that the effect of CO2 is pretty minimal at over 5% humidity. Also that at 10% or greater humidity downward IR is constant.
http://s9.postimg.org/recefss1b/CO2_Forcing_at_SPRC_Feldman_2014.png
Not sure about all this but there isn’t much warming effect from increasing GHG at noon in the summer.
If you have an IR thermometer, you should get it out, it doesn’t pickup Co2, but it does seem to get water vapor.
I have a cheap weather station , and with it you can see the cooling rate, then with the IR thermometer you can see how the ground temp changes, how clouds alters cooling, how humidity effects cooling. The max cooling happens at dusk, is modulated by humidity. It cools till sunrise, or as soon as rel humidity gets up over 80 -90% the rate slows again. You can see how cold the 8-14u ir band is looking up to space, air temps follow ground temps, on clear dry nights grass and snow will cool below air temps, puddles will freeze without air temps dropping below freezing, same with frost. Grass and snow trap air, just like insulation does.
Now with cool dry air Tsky can be 90-105F colder than the ground.
But when the ground is below below freezing there isn’t much in the way of emitted lwir, clouds on the other hand are anywhere from 20 – 30F colder than the ground for low heavy clouds, to 80F colder for high thin clouds.
Then you can compare day time warming to the following nights cooling, there isn’t a lot of room for an affect from Co2, lots of effect from water vapor, not so much with Co2.
Tamino has checked and found discrepancies between his calculations over a limited area and those presented here. Next up Sardeshmukh.
Eli
Thanks for posting this. Hope others here pick it up and discuss. The data seems very sparse to me and whether the necessary statistical gymnsatics can be performed on such material seems doubtful to me.
Tonyb
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“Western Europe is on track for a potential record breaking heat wave. Should any of this be blamed on human-caused global warming?
“Details on the European heat wave can be found here: Significant, Prolonged Heat Wave to Blanket Europe Over the Next Week…”
It’s only a few ago we were discussing a record heatwave which was yet to happen, likely to peak this Wednesday. I was checking the Madrid forecast for Wednesday and it indicated some very hot weather, high 30s. For Paris, some summer warmth, 24 today, maybe some rain to annoy the Tour later, and only 21 now forecast for Wednesday. Rome has been hot, and the forecast for Wednesday is now 34C.
I am not denying there is presently high heat in parts of Europe or that heatwave conditions will not apply somewhere over the next few days. I just think we need to stay on this because of an emerging trend whereby the forecast of climate disasters is taking precedence over what actually happens. If this week’s weather was big news before it happened, surely it should stay big news as it is happening. But that’s not how it works, as we know from the NZ record heat which never happened.
The other problem is emphatic reportage of warmth only. Recent and lethal cold waves on the sub-continent are obscure, while the terrible heat of recent weeks which has been leaving scientists baffled etc etc has made global headlines. (The freakish summer snow in parts of Russia now is okay to report because it is freakish, and can no doubt be attributed to you-know-what.)
This is not a criticism of prudence on the part of meteorologists and public authorities who have to deal with emergencies. If there was just the chance of 1976 or 2003 European conditions recurring this week, then we shouldn’t mind that an alarm has been raised. And Wednesday may yet prove to be a very bad day for some in Europe.
I just think that once an alarm has been raised about a future period we should stay on it till the period has past. And if this week’s heatwave did have an element of stunt in it, we should find that out.
Before we are condemned to an appropriate circle of hell, let’s know the full extent of our heedlessness and negligence, as opposed to our sheer fatigue over beat-ups.
Mosomoso
Not as hot as the prolonged heat wave of 1540 topped and tailed by almost equally intense heat for some years either side. Collectively probably the warmest 10 years in the last 700 years although the mid 1300’s and the 1730’s probably ran it close.
Tonyb
Mosomoso
Europe burning up?
Just caught the late night BBC weather forecast for Wednesday. In our area it is supposed to be around17c on Wednesday with a touch of frost in Scotland with temperatures in the east around London peaking at around 22c.
Mind you, we never thought of ourselves as part of Europe.
Tonyb
Tonyb, I discovered, while trying to get an Irish passport to make myself European, that I am one quarter Pom. (My Irish grandfather was taken to Cork as an infant but was born in England. So no passport!)
I couldn’t work out which quarter to cut off, so I have decided to just live with my Englishness. You’ll forgive me, however, if I don’t join the Barmy Army or shed a tear over your next Ashes humiliation. It’s already been quite an adjustment for me.
On the other hand, in view of Eurocracy, the Euro and Eurovision, I quite understand your reservations about Europe as a collective. Try to love the parts, as I do.
My mistake: I read the forecast as applying to this week (it was already Wednesday in Oz when the Gawker said the heatwave would start on Wednesday, and it was Friday here when I read Judith’s post. But I should have been on to that, so the mistake is mine and serious.)
Paris did top 100F on Wednesday. After that, it was just hot. Rome was all low 30s C, so just hot. Madrid actually got slightly cooler post-forecast, but got up to 38C over the week, but that’s not rare, Spanish plume or no Spanish plume. London managed 37C on the Wednesday but then quickly slumped to mid-20sC.
I could go on, but I guess it’s time to change the subject to Miley Swift again. Oh, the humanity!
Mosomoso
Yes, it Was hot in some placess last week as you will remember that we talked about the merits of claiming a hottest ever record that was recorded at the words largest international airport, heathrow.
Just had the latest computer modellng for the ashes and England will score 1237 for 2 declared. The models are highly robust and in effect, infallible.
Tonyb
Not to beat a dead horse, but the silence from Sardeshmukh is silence.
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