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Comments 51 to 59 out of 59:

51. Clyde at 04:41 AM on 11 July, 2012
    skywatcher 44 What is causing that increase? As of today the peer reviewed papers say it's mother nature. I got hammered on another subject here for not providing peer reviewed papers to back up my point. You & others are not using peer reviewed papers to make your case. You are speculating & making assumptions. The Hansen paper & NOAA say (taking your word on what Hansen's paper says) extreme heat waves are likely to become increasingly frequent in the region in coming decades. Neither paper is 10 years old, so their not saying the recent heatwave in America or the 2010 Russian heatwave were caused by GW. Are you still confident that Texas and Russian heatwaves have nothing to do with climate change? I never said nothing. See reply to skywatcher. For the media & weather folks on TV to say the recent heatwave (which wasn't as bad as the one's in 1930 & 1950) in America was caused by GW is misleading the public.
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52. Rob Painting at 06:04 AM on 11 July, 2012
    Clyde - please explain how the papers you cited earlier disentangle the effects of global warming from natural variability. You see I've read the NOAA paper in detail and it does no such thing. Global warming has been affecting weather patterns in some way for well over a century - the Dole paper compares weather patterns in a narrow region in 2010 influenced by global warming with weather patterns from an earlier periods also influenced by global warming. Hardly the basis for distinguishing natural variability from global warming. Insofar as singular events vs. increased record-breaking warm extremes - this concept is explained in the SkS links provided to you earlier - global warming increases the probability of record-breaking warm extremes. Note the analogy I provided in the basic version of the blog post on the 2010 freak Russian heatwave. If the average temperature increases, as in a warming climate, then it is only logical that the chaotic weather fluctuations will lead to increased record-breaking warm extremes. Accordingly, you are unlikely to find climate scientists attributing singular heatwave events to global warming, but likewise they should not attempt to attribute them to natural variability - there is always an element of both involved. Rather, what can be said is that global warming dramatically raises the odds of heatwaves & record-breaking heat. The analysis by NASA scientists Hansen, Sato & Ruedy shows that this is now a historical fact.
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53. Composer99 at 06:17 AM on 11 July, 2012
    Clyde: You appear to be ignoring shifting baselines in your objections to other posters' comments. Variable natural phenomena (such as blocking events) as well as variable temperature oscillations are occuring simultaneously with a rising temperature trend. But the rising trend is still there and still counts for something. In addition you appear have misunderstood Hansen's paper. It quite clearly shows that increased extreme heat events are happening now. Several maps in the paper, for example, quantify global June-July-August temperature anomalies (expressed as temperature anomalies and as standard deviation anomalies) for the last few years (I believe the latest year is 2011) relative to a 1951-1980 baseline. In fact, I do not see any essential conflict between your links & Hansen's paper. Global warming doesn't cause heat waves to magically happen on their own. The other proximal causes are still required. The Schneidereit et al paper from Monthly Weather Review links the Moscow heatwave to a blocking high event. Fair enough. One wonders, though, just what the heatwave would have been like in 1951 or 1980 given the information provided by Hansen. The NOAA press release notes "Knowledge of prior regional climate trends and current levels of greenhouse gas concentrations would not have helped us anticipate the 2010 summer heat wave in Russia". Again, this is entirely reasonable. Even knowing the powerful relationship between chronic cigarette smoking and various illnesses (lung cancer, emphysema, &c.) at the population level, we cannot anticipate which individual smokers will be so affected and which will not. But that does not invalidate the relationship. Taking your claim that the recent heatwave in the eastern US is not "as bad as the one's in 1930 & 1950" at face value, one wonders just what the heatwave would have been like in the absence of a long-term temperature trend since then.
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54. John Hartz at 09:17 AM on 11 July, 2012
    Some facts for Clyde (and others) to ponder: Thanks in part to the historic heat wave that demolished thousands of high temperature records at the end of June, temperatures in the contiguous U.S. were the warmest on record over the past twelve months and for the year-to-date period of January - June, said NOAA's National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) on Monday. June 2012 was the 14th warmest June on record, so was not as extreme overall as March 2012 (first warmest March on record), April (third warmest April), or May (second warmest May.) However, temperatures were warm enough in June to set a new U.S. record for hottest 12-month period for the third straight month, narrowly eclipsing the record set just the previous month. The past thirteen months have featured America's 2nd warmest summer (in 2011), 4th warmest winter, and warmest spring on record. Twenty-six states were record warm for the 12-month period, and an additional sixteen states were top-ten warm. Source: “U.S. experiences warmest 12-month period on record—again” , Dr Jeff Masters’ WunderBlog, July 9, 2012
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55. skywatcher at 09:32 AM on 11 July, 2012
    Clyde #52:

    "The Hansen paper & NOAA say (taking your word on what Hansen's paper says) extreme heat waves are likely to become increasingly frequent in the region in coming decades. "

    Clyde, you really need to actually read the paper (I don't think it's paywalled) before claiming to know what they say. Even read the SkS summary I pointed you towards - it has the key figures. Hansen et al show that increasing extremes are already happening. Not in the future, but now. In the real world, they've been increasing over the past few decades. I read somewhere that the blocking event that caused the most recent US heatwave wasn't the strongest such event on record (ie central pressure not so high etc). One wonders how high the temperatures could have got had the block been even stronger...
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56. Clyde at 14:39 PM on 11 July, 2012
    What some of you are saying - GW is happening therefore its the cause of extreme weather events happening now. No matter what happens, floods, drought, heatwave,freak snow storms etc etc it will be blamed on GW. We have always had extreme weather events. We will continue to have them. Again I'm not saying GW had no no part in the heatwaves. Both papers i linked to said mother nature was the main cause of the Russian heatwave. What we are (as far as i can tell) disagreeing on is how much was mother nature responsible for vs how much GW was. The American heatwave is yet to be determined. An examination of the 20th century climate of North America reveals that the decades of 1920s and 1930s, known as the Dust Bowl years, witnessed perhaps the most extreme climate over the Great American Plains and elsewhere. Did GW cause that too? Nobody has shown any proof that the Russian heatwave or the one America just had was caused by GW. They speculate & make assumptions that GW did. It will take year[s]? before any proof is provided that GW caused the American or Russian heatwave. IMO it would be nice if those reporting such things would wait on the evidence. ------------------------------------------- [-Snip-] Conclusion: “Earth’s Temperature” appears to have increased during the last several decades, but there does not appear to be any evidence of rapid or extreme warming. Claims and insinuations that recent temperatures and weather in the Continental US are caused or related to “Global Warming” are not supported by the observational data. --------------------------------------- That's why we don't rely on indvidual scientists or individual papers to draw conclusions about climate change. The only way to get an accurate picture is through the work of many scientists, peer reviewed and scrutinized over decades and tested against multiple lines of evidence. [-Snip-]
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    Moderator Response: [DB] Link to fake-skeptic website snipped. Pedantry snipped. Bad html fixed.
57. Clyde at 14:44 PM on 11 July, 2012
    Thanks to all for a civil discussion on the subject. It's obvious we disagree on the subject. No hard feelings on my part, hope theres none on yours. Look forward to my next "adventurer" here. [-Snip-] Have a nice day
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    Moderator Response:

    [DB] "Look forward to my next "adventurer" here."

    When you do return, please better adhere to the comments policy when constructing your comments. Also, links to supportive sources should be made to the peer-reviewed papers published in respected journals, not to fake-skeptic websites.

    Off-topic snipped.

58. skywatcher at 16:56 PM on 11 July, 2012
    One of Clyde's parting shots classically illustrates the problem here:

    "We have always had extreme weather events. We will continue to have them."

    It illustrates a fundamental disconnect here, and Clyde is not the first to have this disconnect. There's a complete refusal to contemplate the observation that extreme events are truly on the rise, even when it is pointed out directly. Clyde was pointed at #30 to a paper and shown a figure that actually showed the weakness of his above statement, specifically that heatwaves are increasing in frequency and intensity across the globe. Yet Clyde showed no sign of acknowledging the existence of such data that shows that extreme heat events have been observed to increase in our warming world. And there's evidently a failure to see the difference between the increased likelihood of certain extremes happening, and the impossible task of precisely attributing to AGW the formation of an individual high-pressure cell which leads to a climate extreme, repeated in his final comments. These are very different things. It's chaotic weather that throws the punches. How hard those punches are is determined by the state of the climate. A warmer climate will generally drive more intense 'heat' punches, 'drier' punches, and more intense 'wet' punches. And that wet stuff in winter can mean more intense 'snowy' punches. There are fewer 'cold' punches, as recorded in low temperatures. Where and when those punches fall is driven by the weather, but you cannot ignore the climate influence. If you do, you might make the mistake of thinking you're going into the ring with Mr Bean, but actually find it's Mohammed Ali that's in the other corner! The best analogy there is the smokers and lung cancer connection. Smoking brings a clear increased likelihood of cancer, but attributing each individual cancer growth ('weather') to tobacco smoke is very difficult indeed. Does Clyde think there's little or no connection between smoking and cancer? I doubt it. I suspect we'll see plenty more people who appear to have a strong desire not to want to see the increasingly obvious impact of a warming climate and intensifying hydrological cycle. How long will the disconnect remain? Until the next 3-sigma event comes knocking on their door? Will it be (in America) when every last Dust Bowl record has tumbled, even the ones that remain after a load were tumbled by the recent US heatwave? Do we have to wait, like a bunch of boiling frogs, for the next round of even greater/more frequent extremes?
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59. Rob Painting at 17:11 PM on 11 July, 2012
    Clyde @ 57 - Only in a warming climate does the probability of record-breaking warm extremes increase. In a stationary climate, i.e no long-term warming or cooling, the probability of record breaking actually decreases with time. That you seem hung up on the false notion that extreme heatwaves always happen simply underscores that you do not understand this concept. And it is obvious you have not bothered to read the SkS pages you were referred to. Repeating debunked information, as you have, is deemed to be "sloganeering." Genuine discussion is encouraged, but sloganeering is unwelcome and contravenes the comments policy. I suggest you familiarise yourself with it before commenting further. Learning requires a willing participant.
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