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Norman at 06:00 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Albatross @ 134 "AGW is about considering the body of evidence, and the evidence does show a marked increase in extreme heat, extreme precipitation and drought." Does the evidence really show this? Here is a report on British Columbia long term climate... There were some very big fires in the past. British Columbia drought history. Here is one with droughts across North America. In the text they explain that the causes of drought in North America were also responsible for Global Climate patterns (more rain in some areas droughts in others). From this study it states there were much worse droughts in the past than today. They also have graphs at the end of the article which show 1000 years of droughts. I would challenge you to find an increase in frequency of droughts today as compared to the long 1000 year history. 1000 years of drought record for North America. Have not found data on the Heat waves of the past. I know in the US there were plenty in the 1930's decade. This report on the Missouri river has a graph of the drainage from the entire Missouri river basin since 1900. If you remove maybe three years from the graph (anomalous high peaks, there is no upward trend but there are clear wet and dry cycles). 2011 was a super wet year but anomalies happen. If this event would happen for a few years then I would totally agree with most posters. The point of this graph is please show where moisture is increasing. This is not just a small local area, it covers serveral square miles and should contain a clear signal of moisture increase or decrease to be considered extreme. Missouri River Basin drainage data. -
KR at 05:54 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
thepoodlebites - "How do you separate warming from natural climate variability and CO2 rise?" See the post and references here. The rest of your post belongs on the Extreme weather thread; it's off topic in this one. -
Dikran Marsupial at 05:51 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Looks like it will be an excellent resource, perhaps it might be worth submitting a version to somewhere like Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, so that it has the added advantage of having been peer-reviewed? -
DaneelOlivaw at 05:51 AM on 30 June 2011ClimateBites.org -- A communicator's toolkit to complement SkS
Very interesting. I'll take a look the next time I'm writting some rebuttal or explanation on my blog. -
thepoodlebites at 05:48 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
#37 skywatcher How do you separate warming from natural climate variability and CO2 rise? How do you know that most of the warming is from CO2 rise? I still think that climate sensitivity is lower than model predictions, based on current observations. I'm reading Jeff Masters post, an interesting collection of weather events. Snowmageddon? Negative AO and El Nino. The moisture plume for the Feb. 6, 2010, storm stretched from the eastern Pacific, all the way up the U.S. east coast. And from what I read, the 2010 Russian drought was an episode of atmospheric blocking, all within the realm of natural climate variability. What about the tornado outbreaks this spring, was all that from global warming too? -
John Hartz at 05:43 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
By coincidence, the following post popped up on ScienceBlog.com today: Climate Change Makes Some Chemicals More Toxic to Aquatic Life The blog is about a new paper published in the journal Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management. -
Stephen Leahy at 05:40 AM on 30 June 2011ClimateBites.org -- A communicator's toolkit to complement SkS
wow that's great - now I don't have to steal from my old articles -- it's a a whole new playground...yea! (and I will be happy to share some of my educational 'toys')Response:[DB] Added missing equals sign to URL tag.
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KR at 05:37 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Norman - I believe that is because your last post was various thoughts on damage per Richter number and distance, rather than observed frequency of 'extreme events' recorded by the insurance industry. I'm not surprised you didn't receive a direct reply to that. I don't believe that the number or strength of earthquakes have increased over time, although population spread and (in the other direction) building codes have affected the damage thereof. As I stated earlier, you can use observed 'extreme events' from earthquakes to scale population and construction effects out of other extreme events. -
John Hartz at 05:34 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Kudos to Doug Mackie, Christina McGraw, and Keith Hunter for taking this on. Out of curiosity, where are the University of Otago and Clark University located? -
Norman at 05:31 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
KR @ 129 I have been debating the earthquake point with Tom Curtis. My final post on it was at 94. Tom Curtis did come up with good arguments but I did not see a comment to my final response to his points. -
KR at 05:24 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Camburn - Acidification is the correct terminology, describing something changing pH towards the acid end of the scale, a reduction in pH value. On a side note, it's only 'basic chemistry' until the pH drops through 7.0! :) -
Camburn at 05:19 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Actually, to make this easier to grasp one should use the proper terminology. The ocean is alkaline with a PH slightly over 8.0, and co2 reduces the alkalinity. Basic chemistry. -
stefaan at 05:10 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
This article of Easterbrook is similar to this chinese article Periodic oscillations in millennial global mean temperature and their causes in which they just keep combining solar cycles and some marine influences untill they find a more or less good fit for the temperatures the last 1000 years. Of course by adding enough cyclic events you can fit any curve (probably in 2030 they will publish an article with maybe 20 cycles to fit the temperatures) but the link between correlation and causality becomes unexisting. -
John Hartz at 05:04 AM on 30 June 2011ClimateBites.org -- A communicator's toolkit to complement SkS
Kudos to Tom Smerling & Don McCubbin for creating ClimateBites. It is indeed a nice supplement to SkS. Let's grow the synergistic impacts by continuing to coordinate our efforts. -
skywatcher at 04:40 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
#36: climate sensitivity to doubled CO2, I wasn't entirely clear about that. So far we have most of about 0.8C due to a 35% CO2 rise, with more in the pipeline, so well in that ballpark for 2-4.5C rise. More info at Climate sensitivity is low. More info about climate disruption at Jef Masters' recent post - extremes of heat (high temperatures), drought (more evaporation) and flood (more available water vapour) appear to be increasing as predicted, and all this after relatively modest warming of 0.7C to present. I'd call that disruption when it causes food (wheat) prices to spike, as well as the obvious damage caused, and it's only expected to get worse with continued warming. -
Tor B at 04:35 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
Quote: "... So there is an intermediate organic molecule that is neither a nutrient for plants (dissolved salts), nor food for bacteria. My measurements showed that the sea is awash in this mysterious substance that I named slush. In fact the biomass in slush is far larger than all life on Earth combined. Reader please note that this is a very serious omission by mainstream science, and cannot be disproved!" link Mainstream science to the rescue! -
Humanracesurvival at 04:34 AM on 30 June 2011ClimateBites.org -- A communicator's toolkit to complement SkS
Checkout http://www.rockettheme.com/ for the best cms templates and http://jomsocial.com if you like to offer your user facebook walls and such. If you need help contact me at http://climateprogress.net -
Rob Honeycutt at 04:23 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
studentnigel.... You might try actually reading the article posted here from Dr Masters before you comment. Under the heading: "Global tropical cyclone activity lowest on record" he clearly makes statements that are consistent with Dr Maue's paper. -
thepoodlebites at 04:20 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
#23 skywatcher What observations are you referring to? The UAH satellite record is showing +0.2C per decade since 1980. How is 2-4.5C rise related to current observations? And what exactly are you talking about with the term "climate disruption"? -
dana1981 at 04:17 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Eric - this 'apples to apples' comparison is what was done in the post."Between 2000 and 2010, Easterbrook's 1945-1977 scenario (which we call "Easterbrook A") projected a cooling of approximately 0.19°C, versus a cooling of 0.38°C over this period in his 1880-1915 scenario (Easterbrook B). The observed temperature change from 2000 to 2010, on the other hand, is approximately 0.12°C warming, according to the Wood for Trees Temperature Index, which is the average of the four main temperature data sets (HadCRUT3, GISTemp, RSS, and UAH)....In short, over the first decade of his global cooling projections, Easterbrook has already been wrong by between 0.3 and 0.5°C."
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Eric the Red at 04:09 AM on 30 June 2011Climate half-truths turn out to be whole lies
Kevin, The difference between GISS and CRU is not that great. In fact, the trend since 1880 for both is ~0.6C / century. In your plot, CRU has a higher slope than GISS. The shapes are the same, and the overall statistics are similar, but show slight variations during specific timeframes due to data analysis. -
Albatross at 04:05 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Way up thread people were asking about the source of Trenberth's much quoted 4% increase in atmospheric moisture. The science behind this statement was published in a paper by Trenberth et al. (2005) in Climate Dynamics. If one looks more closely at the stats. it turns out that is estimate of 4% may be on the conservative side. -
Eric (skeptic) at 04:04 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
#127, Sphaerica, it's a false dichotomy to be either in favor of climate action or to be callously "opening another beer" while watching disasters on TV. The main reason is that I, and perhaps Norman, feel that we can best help people cope with disaster by helping them increase their resilience. A few policy changes would help like emptying out the dams in April and May rather than hoping for a slow melt of record snows. Norman and I both realize that disasters will happen regardless of any actions we take on climate. For example natural blocking weather patterns have played a role in many disasters. Even if the frequency of those disasters is increased, that doesn't really change the cost of preparation. The magnitude of the disasters is the obvious potential long term concern. I could certainly be accused of being callous about that potential threat, but it is one abstract threat of many. -
Tor B at 04:03 AM on 30 June 2011Ocean acidification: Coming soon
I'm so glad this series is coming! Ocean Acidification (OA) may be the biggest short-term threat we face in relation to anthropogenic climate change (ACC). I attempted some internet research a few weeks ago on the chemistry of OA, and the first blog I came to was decidedly bogus (a denier’s paradise with “un-disprovable” made-up facts that prove – with formulas – OA isn’t happening). I’m not the only one who needs help. OA is my number one reason why geo-engineering from space (decreasing solar gain and allowing increased CO2 emissions) would be total foolishness. -
Eric the Red at 04:02 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
michael, I was following the links, and using the projections in the report referenced - 2008. Going back to the older projections, he projected ~0.15C temperature decline from 2000-2010 (based on eyeballing figure 3). The 60-month moving average from CRU has fallen 0.05C since then, while GISS has increased by a similar value. When making comparison, it is nice to compare apples to apples. -
Albatross at 04:00 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
StudentNigel @131, Your posts adds nothing to the thread-- in fact it smacks of trolling/baiting. Regardless, you are also making the mistake of citing one source about one weather phenomenon and because that papers makes the case that a particular weather phenomenon is not on the increase you seem to be falsely concluding that all extreme weather phenomena are not on the increase. AGW is about considering the body of evidence, and the evidence does show a marked increase in extreme heat, extreme precipitation and drought. -
Albatross at 03:52 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Sphaerica @88, Like your thoughts and insights on this (yes, early days indeed), and the analogy is great. Thanks for that. -
DSL at 03:19 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
studentnigel, what do you make of Maue's work? What does it mean to you and your understanding of climate? What do you take from it? -
studentnigel at 03:06 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
More extreme weather recently? This post from Florida State seems to have a contrary view. http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/ -
michael sweet at 02:39 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Eric: We need to start Easterbrook at his 2000 prediction. Why do you give him tie first eight years when he has been wrong for free?? If you always choose the most optomsitic prediction, and then let them correct it when they are wrong, it will always look OK. -
dana1981 at 02:33 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Riccardo - I agree. When I say "good projections", I mean projections which are based on sound physics, not projections which are necessarily spot-on. We'll be looking at some projections from studies in the 1970s which may not be perfect, but which we can learn from, because unlike Easterbrook's, they were based on sound physics. Eric - I'm pretty sure Hansen's Scenario B projection (made in 1988) was closer to reality in 2010 than Easterbrook's projections (first made around 2000). But it's true that Hansen was "wrong" in the sense that his climate model was too sensitive. Had his model sensitivity been about 3.4°C as opposed to 4.2°C for 2xCO2, he would have been "right". You can't say that for Easterbrook - his fundamental approach is wrong. -
Kevin C at 02:16 AM on 30 June 2011Climate half-truths turn out to be whole lies
Hmm... This should be something which could be tested without too much difficulty. If stations are being extrapolated over too large a radius, then working with a subset of the data should make things much worse. So take something like clear climate code and throw out a lot of the stations. In fact they did exactly that here, throwing out all but 440 stations. It's noisier, but shows the same basic shape. Nick Stokes goes further with TempLS and produces a global land and ocean reconstruction from only 60 land stations, chosen only on the basis of geographical distribution and longevity, by introducing a proper Vorenhoi area weighting term (compare GISS vs TempLS60):
Maybe I've overlooked something, but I don't at the moment see how you can get that good an agreement if the temperature record is being biased by poor sampling and over-extrapolation.
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Dan Olner at 01:42 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Reading the last para on using stats... I'm reminded of hearing a talk from a meteorologist on early weather prediction methods. They were entirely statistics based - and completely rubbish. The history of meteorology has been all about understanding the mechanisms better, leading to increasingly accurate forecasts. I wonder if anyone out there could do a little comparative history? Relying on Easterbrook's methods would be like going back to statistics-based meteorology for predicting the weather. (i.e. it doesn't work...) -
Dikran Marsupial at 01:33 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Eric, a fairer comparison would be to compare Hansen's projections (which is an estimate of only the forced response of the climate without natural variability) with ENSO-adjusted temperatures (which give a better indication of the forced response by attenuating a major component of the unforced response). E.g.:
If you do that, you will find that Hansens projections appear better and Easterbrooks rather worse, as I suggested.
IIRC Easterbrook produces his projections in exactly that manner. Using such a daft way of making the projection should give pause for thought to anyone taking him seriously. His basic prediction is basically that there will be some unspecified cooling, but he makes that rather vague and unsubstantiated prediction look more scientific than it is by drawing some scientific looking plots. Sadly in doing so, he gives a hostage to fortune and voila his projections are demonstrated to be wrong. It would have been better if he had simply hand drawn his projection (c.f. the famous Lamb medieval warm period plot used in the first IPCC WG1 report).
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Eric the Red at 01:14 AM on 30 June 2011Climate half-truths turn out to be whole lies
Sky, The correlation may increase at that point. The question is whether they are valid now. As I stated previously, the correlation is poor during the summer. How accurate is the GISS extrapolation out to 1200 km, when the maximum summer correlation is only 500 km? -
Eric the Red at 01:11 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Dikran, Considering that ENSO was largely in positive, El Nino territory up until the end of 2007, followed by the negative La Nina for two years, and then an El Nino in 2010, it looks as if ENSO would favor warming until the 2011 La Nina. http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/enso/mei/ Are there significant differences in Hansen's error bars compared to Easterbrook's. Easterbrook appears as if he just copied and pasted past temperature changes into the future. -
Eric the Red at 01:00 AM on 30 June 2011Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
Sky, That is one parameter. I agree that the calculated September Arctic sea ice volume does show accelerated loss since 1979. That has not been shown in either Septmeber or March sea ice area, which are displaying linear trends (see above). Based on the most recent observations, there is no reason to believe that 2011 will not fall on or near that trendline. -
Chris G at 00:59 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Adelady, Thanks for the link to the SciAm article; I was thinking to make the same link. Trenberth has an interesting quote in the story. I wonder if the remark was based on work already published, or to be published some time in the near future. Regarding your concern over the Pine Island Glacier, I have some musings, but I wonder if we could get someone like MSPelto or yourself to draft an article for this site. My musings are along the lines that I've been thinking of the limiting factor of the PIG retreat being more related to outflow and ice viscosity, but if there is melt-water rolling to the surface, then that limiting fact might be made moot. If that is what is happening, then the limiting factor might become how much saline water can flow into the underneath of the PIG. I can't guess what that limit is because the less saline water flowing to the surface will create a conveyor flow for new, higher saline water to flow into the underneath part. If the PIG is undermined enough, the ice above would loose its support and a fairly rapid calving front would develop. If such a situation occurs, previous estimates of the rate of retreat to expect, if they were constrained by ice flow dynamics, could be seriously shy of the mark. And that would imply that the rate of sea level rise... The article could be titled something like, "When the PIG Flies". (Or has that been used already?) -
KR at 00:48 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Norman - "Munich Re report ... shows weather related disasters are increasing in frequency. The article I linked to that Tom Curtis responded to in post 55 states that with normalized data they cannot determine if disasters are actually increasing at this time. ...More people and more wealth could be the cause." It's well worth looking at the change in earthquake disasters (which should be pretty independent of climate change) versus the change in weather disasters. Weather disasters are increasing considerably faster, well above the 'people and more wealth' effect on earthquake accounting. In other words, use the earthquake rates to normalize the weather rates to actual change in weather extremes. All in all, though, this is really a side topic. It seems quite possible that climate change is increasing the severity of weather events, but that's going to take a lot of data (and hence time) for a trend to emerge from the noise. I consider it much more worthwhile to examine changes with higher signal to noise ratios, such as tracking ice retreat, ocean heat content, global temperatures, growth zones, etc. -
Dikran Marsupial at 00:47 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Eric the Red One difference would be that the behaviour of ENSO over that period would mean that one would expect the observations to be below Hansen's projection, as it would tend to partially mask the forced warming. The flip side of that is that it makes Easterbrook's projection appear even worse. However, if you want to ask whether they are wrong, you need to look at the error bars on the projections. Hansens projections match up to the observations fairly well if you take into account the uncertaintes in the model output and the observations. -
skywatcher at 00:38 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Seeing as there is no alternative theory to the well tested, verified, physically solid theory of climate that represents the state of the science, the 'winner' is already in the bag. Losers will be ones who believe in fake numerology and hopecasting that has no basis in physics, like Easterbrook's projections. -
Norman at 00:36 AM on 30 June 20112010 - 2011: Earth's most extreme weather since 1816?
Sphaerica @ 127 Sorry the 500 year for extreme events (to filter noise) was from Camburn. We are not one and the same. He lives in North Dakota and I live close to Omaha, Nebraska. The question I am asking is one of historical perspective and it does not come from watching disater from the news. So far the Munich Re report is the most used source of data on this thread. It shows weather related disasters are increasing in frequency. The article I linked to that Tom Curtis responded to in post 55 states that with normalized data they cannot determine if disasters are actually increasing at this time. There is not enough information to determine if the weather has become more extreme. The Munich Re report is about disasters. More people and more wealth could be the cause. I am still seeking a report of providing that weather events are becoming more extreme. As I posted earlier, I do not think the human race should not take action on energy needs. Seeking alternative forms of energy is a great idea and I am in favor of it. These extreme weather posts have an interest for me as I have already been researching the topic countering so many claims that it is all HAARP. I have been looking for historical trends before this thread was put up and I will continue looking. -
skywatcher at 00:34 AM on 30 June 2011Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
You're looking for an acceleration of Arctic sea ice melt, Eric? It's in the data, see Polyak et al or whatever data source that goes back 30 years or more! And it's not just due to extreme years in 1996 and 2007 either. So there's no need to wait and see if 2011 continues the acceleration... -
Eric the Red at 00:30 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
CB, Since 2000, Easterbrook has been low by about the same amount that Hansen has been high. Are they both wrong? -
skywatcher at 00:28 AM on 30 June 2011Climate half-truths turn out to be whole lies
#43: ...not true, see Table 2 of the article you linked. one single month has a correlation distance as small as 300km, due to the energy consumed by melting ice; two other summer months are 500km, and all others are >=900km. Hardly 'no correlation', as you claim. 300km or 500km is non-trivial, and of course for 9 months of the year there is no problem at all. What you don't state is the reason why the correlation distance is lower in summer - it's because the energy present is being used to melt ice, and so high land temperatures means more rapid sea ice melt. The summer correlation coefficients will increase once all the arctic ice has melted... -
DSL at 00:28 AM on 30 June 2011A journey into the weird and wacky world of climate change denial
Ahh - it's probably waiting moderation. -
Eric the Red at 00:27 AM on 30 June 2011Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
sky, While I agree that the assertions are over-simplistic, the question was what changes would not be reversible if temperatures decreased? Alpine glaciers, sea ice, etc. has advanced and receded many times during the past millenia as temperatures have increased and decreased. The issue is what changes that have happened to date (not sometime in the future) are not reversible. Sphaerica, That is a tough question to quantify, but I will try. Since some predictions of solar minimum and cold PDO claim that temperatures will decrease until 2030, I will use that timeframe. If temperatures and Arctic sea ice revert to 1980 levels by then, then I would be fairly confident that the changes are all natural. Conversely, if temperature rise significantly prior to then, and is accompanied by acceleration in sea ice decline, sea level rise, glacial loss, flooding, etc..., then I would gladly abandon all skepticism. The timeframe would depend upon how fast the previous effects are changing - acceleration, or lack thereof would be the key. Arguing the "other side" is a matter of perception. Since I argue for both natural and manmade cause, I am on the "other side" of those who argue for one or the other. Remember, I have taken neither of the two aforementioned positions. -
DSL at 00:26 AM on 30 June 2011A journey into the weird and wacky world of climate change denial
It appears justmeint is uninterested in critical engagement, Dikran. I think your response has been deleted from her blog. Pathetic. -
CBDunkerson at 00:15 AM on 30 June 2011Lessons from Past Climate Predictions: Don Easterbrook
Eric, given how wrong Easterbrook has been since 2000 I'd say 'the winner' (aka reality) already has been determined. -
CBDunkerson at 00:12 AM on 30 June 2011Websites for Watching the Arctic Sea Ice Melt
Arctic sea ice decline, Greenland ice loss, Antarctic ice loss, sea level rise, and ocean acidification are all progressing faster than most past projections showed. I'd include other less directly measurable factors such as 'extreme weather events' and 'species impacts' as also proceeding faster than most predicted, but as these can't be shown on a simple graph they aren't as clear cut.
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