Friday
Jan222010
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Weather is climate
Jan 22, 2010 Climate: Statistics At least according to Matt Briggs, statistician and fellow of the American Meteorological Society.
Sure is cold out there, unusually so. By “unusual,” I mean the temperature is on the low end of the observed temperatures from previous winters.
Of course, we don’t have any more than about 100 years of reliable measurements, so it’s possible that the freeze we’re experiencing now isn’t as unusual as we suspect. But, anyway, it still sure is cold.
If you recall, a lot of global warming models predicted it would be hot and not cold, and to risk redundancy, it sure is cold. Does this dissonance between the models’ predictions and what is actually happening mean that those models are wrong?
No. But it sure as ice doesn’t mean that they are right.
Reader Comments (13)
This 'weather is not climate' meme is at best an over-simplification. A cold spell such as we've just had will affect the month averages quite a lot; it will be noticeable even in the year average, and this in turn will affect the rolling averages used in showing what the 'climate' is doing. So in reality weather IS climate. A trend will take a long time to show through, and can't be identified by obeserving one or two particulalry hot or cold days, but day by day those numbers will roll together and form the picture of climate.
Is it just me or do other people have problems with the idea of a global average air temperature.
1) The temperature in one place varies a lot between day and night and from one month to another.
2) Temperature varies a lot from lace to place - think minus 40 in antartica and plus 40 in Saudi.
3) Most of the climate's energy is in the oceans - not the air.
Climate is made up of weather, much like a forest is made up of trees.
I moved to a mild California climate after leaving Silly Con Valley 10 years ago. So far, I have had to shovel my drive way twice in the first eight years where I now live in California, none in Co Kerry. So far this year I would have shoveled my driveway twice and will do it a third time today. My neighbor in Co Kerry informs me that I would have had to shovel snow (first time he remembers) if I had been there last week of so.
So going by the Snow Shovel Index, we are having a colder climate. I argue that the SSI is a more valid index as I have done it personally and not modeled it on a computer with a bogus program.
@ Jack Hughes
You are in good company, James Hansen has expressed his doubts on the Surface Air Temperature. You can find a link in this article:
http://jennifermarohasy.com/blog/2008/11/the-absurdity-of-a-reliable-average-global-surface-temperature/
I've always wondered where this meme of weather != climate comes from, at what point weather becomes climate and at what point we can stop making fun of weather predictions and start a global panic over climate predictions?
What is the fundamental property of the biosphere that allows such an absolutist separation of weather & climate?
Can anybody enlighten me.
K.
Jack - I have had the same thought. And of course if the temperature in a really cold place goes up by 0.5 - it's still really cold - and ice remains - erm - ice.
Jack, useful or not "Global Average" air temperature is a scam. You are correct that the oceans are the real heat sinks of this planet. As I once wrote in a song, they're "deeper than the sky is high, and down there its always night". They have 10 times the heat capacity of our atmosphere yet a significant portion never receive atmospheric heat. Thus in terms of maintaining thermodynamic balance, they dwarf any perceived effects of the air getting a little warmer. So, yes, of course this is a worthless figure.
The bigger point though is that this would only matter if this measure was actually even accurate or credible. In truth its a scam. It is now becoming public knowledge that 90% of Canadian weather stations are not included in determining this figure, and many Russian stations have been meavily manipulated to fit some predetermined outcome. So whether or not it is of any significance empirically, in practice this value is a scientifically worthless fraud.
I seriously question your point that the seas have 10 times the heat capacity of the air. My guess, given that there is so much more mass of water than air is many times that number. What you need is the total mass of water and air on this planet and the specific heat of each, corrected for their relative densities.
It is an interesting problem, but I will leave it to others as I am retired.
Perhaps we can get Dr. Phil Jones to work it out on his computer.
Keith C wrote:
I'm a relative newcomer to the "climate wars"; but, from what I've read, my guess would be that it originated with the "AGW brains trust" who are in close contact with key persons in the MSM. They had to have some way of dismissing the fact that their predictions were so far off the mark, don't you think? Might even have been dreamed up by those who decided that "climate change" should replace "global warming" in the hopes they could .... uh .... hide the decline?!
"Sure is cold out there, unusually so. By “unusual,” I mean the temperature is on the low end of the observed temperatures from previous winters."
A false premise that is true only if you ignore the parts of the globe that are unusually warm.
"If you recall, a lot of global warming models predicted it would be hot and not cold"
And a strawman. GLOBAL warming models have no pretension to predict the temperature in Brigg's LOCAL area for any particular winter, just a long term warming trend, which is indeed seen.
So Briggs provides a false premise and a strawman, and no actual stats - real impressive. But well up to the usual standard I have come to expect from the 'sceptics'.
@ Frank O'Dwyer
From my understanding of the article in question the basic point is that recent weather conditions in the northern hemisphere neither proves or disproves AGW. Thiis is because climate models deal in probability not certainty. A heatwave in December or a snowstorm in July would not prove or disprove either POV for the same reason.
However Matt Briggs does make the point that recent conditions are more consistent with a "business s usual" model as opposed to a warming model.
K.
Some goober on a forum I read was trying to tell me that climate means 20,000 years or longer. On the same forum someone told me about their theory that water stores energy when it forms ice, and when ice melts it releases that energy. Oh my god that forum is full of fools.
KeithC
"However Matt Briggs does make the point that recent conditions are more consistent with a "business s usual" model as opposed to a warming model."
If that is indeed the point he is making he is still wrong.
Notice also that he forgot to provide any actual data, any analysis or indeed any support at all.