Bishop Hill Guardian in sensible comment shocker
Feb 12, 2014 Climate: WG2 Take a look at Nicola Davies' article about the floods and the recent Met Office/CEH report. This is rather level-headed stuff, with none of the wailing and gnashing of teeth that usually accompany the paper's utterances on the subject. Here's the conclusion:
Is climate change ultimately the cause?
It is not possible to link the current floods definitively to climate change. "In terms of the number of storms there is scant evidence that has been increasing due to climate change so far," said Scaife. "[But] we do expect that winter rainfall is likely to increase in the future." This is in part down to a warming planet. "As the air warms it can hold more water."
That seems to me a scientifically supportable case. I wonder how much more water the air can hold if it's, say, 2 degrees warmer?
Reader Comments (138)
Not banned yet
You'll find them all in the supporting references for AR5, confidence limits and all. Since a full list would contain thousands of papers its a bit beyond my capacity here.
The thirty climate change parameters are my private list of things to watch, which have changed, are changing or which may be expected to change. I can put up the ( longer) list if you wish, though the supporting references would again be too big.
I can't start or contribute to a discussion thread since I'm unregistered. Say No To Fearmongers picked up my name, so I lack confidence in site security and am reluctant to register.
Not really. It's just that the cycle time for the latitudinal meandering of the jetstreams is about 60 years. The UK is suffering the same type of weather as in 1947, which is an interesting coincidence. Try this excellent paper by Lambeck et al, written when climate science was still unsullied by activists and politics:-
http://gji.oxfordjournals.org/content/46/3/555.full.pdf
Feb 12, 2014 at 4:12 PM | Paul_K
=============================================
And 60 years if the full AMO cycle, I believe. Which suggests that the oceanic cycles play a huge part in warming and cooling, and far outweigh the effects of CO2, does it not?
Emily: You're obfuscating again. AFAICT (just checked) you don't have to be registered to set up a discussion thread (you can see many that are started by unregistered users) and you certainly don't need to be registered to comment.
1) The imbalance of insolation over outward radiation continues.
Feb 12, 2014 at 7:25 PM | Entropic man
==================================================
Is that so? Hmm
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/analysis-finds-noaa-satellite-data-is.html
http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/12/agw-falsified-noaa-long-wave-radiation-data-incompatible-with-the-theory-of-anthropogenic-global-warming-2/
EM,
I like your argument, it's a nice use of what they call legal fiction:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_pleading
You say my dog bit you?
1) My dog doesn't bite.
2) My dog was tied up that night.
3) I don't believe you really got bit.
4) I don't have a dog.
EM - I checked too, and Harry is right - no registration required.
To save you the trouble I've started the thread for you - all it needs is a captcha response to post. Looking forward to seeing all your material in one easily referenced location instead of spread across several threads.
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/discussion/post/2291989
If the warmer air can hold more water and it's uniformly warmer then shouldn't more water stay in the air rather than falling out of it? Just a thought.
I thought the difference in temps between each year for the last decade was only 0.06 degrees...well within the margins of error for each year. BUT according to EM this is proof temps are still rising?
Mailman
Feb 12, 2014 at 3:03 PM | Patagon
You may live somewhere where there aren't any clouds but most of don't. :)
I cannot help but wonder what knowledgeable people are to do when a species like Homo sapiens is confronted with a colossal planetary emergency that it appears to have induced. Do human beings not have an original, overarching obligation or perhaps an absolute duty to warn of such a dire situation? What honor should be bestowed on first rank scientists and other esteemed professionals in possession of well-established science who pose as if they “see no truth, hear no truth and speak no truth” regarding known causes of the clear and present danger while mainstreamed, false (preternatural, pseudoscientific) knowledge is deliberately allowed to stand unchallenged as if it represented the best available science?
Ecological Science of Human Population Dynamics
http://www.panearth.org/
I should have said "air is not always saturated",
But again, the maximum value of saturated water vapour pressure is not the key to determine precipitation.
Morocco is much warmer and much drier than Britain, Patagonia is colder and much wetter. So the simplistic relationship does not work.
So th3e answer is "no": Climate change has paid no roll in the flooding of land irresponsibly left vulnerable to flooding by radical ineffective environmental policies. the rest is eyewash. Speciulaiton about future flooding is a cheap distraction from the reality of preventable flooding today.
If, by that, you mean that temperatures will either go up or go down then it's almost impossible to be wrong.
What about Antarctica? That is industrial-strength cherry-picking, to put it politely. Anyone can do it.
FWIW, Using the RSS satellite temperature data from woodfortrees, and simply entering the "from" date as 1999, 2000, ....to 2013, I can create 11 annual series/plots that show a declining linear trend.
Say what? Try taking some water with it EM. If only one day, one hour, or one second, 17 years ago was above trend then it must revert to the [defined] trend before the 17 year record finishes.
The most saturated air I have ever encountered was not in the tropics - it was in the mountains in the form of mist. It was about 9C, and the mist was so dense that I could barely breathe without a scarf over my mouth and nose to filter out the water vapour. Quite scary - it was like drowning on dry land.
The over-simplification inherent in the Met Office statement is an embarrassment to science.
Embarrassment to science - Aye but worse, the Met Office, they, and the effluvia it verbally excretes are an embarrassment to every right thinking true Brit'.
The Arctic - erm................... is WARMING?!
FFS.
It's confirmed, you are a comedienne.
The Arctic - erm................... is WARMING?!
Feb 13, 2014 at 12:54 AM | Athelstan.
Yes.
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/full/10.1175/1520-0442(2003)016%3C2067%3AVATOAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2
Why is EM so anti-science as to doubt what Trenberth and Jones and the others in the climatocracy agree on: the pause?
It is almost as if he recognizes a challenge to his faith but is going to play any counting game possible to deny the problem is there. Let's not, for instance, admit that the polar regions are actually quite small in terms of surface and so do not account much of the energy budget. Or that the emerging picture of a dynamic arctic makes the entire AGW sturm and drang on ice pack look more and more foolish. Instead. EM has to deny what the scientists are now reluctantly admitting, because for the AGW true believer it is not actually about the science at all.
I thought rain happened because the air got colder, not warmer......
"...during the twentieth century (when positive and negative phases of the LFO nearly offset each other) the Arctic temperature increase is 0.05 ± 0.04°C decade−1, similar to the Northern Hemispheric trend (0.06°C decade−1)."
Sorry EM, you do contribute a lot to this site, but I'm not sure how they're measuring temperature in the Arctic from the paper. AFAIK there are no thermometers up there and the satellites can't measure above 80 degrees. Also the Danish Meteorological Institute shows no warming since 1958, but to be fair I don't know how they're measuring either.
Any ideas?
G,
I'm assuming they use the temperatures captured at Svalbart (please excuse the spelling:) and then through various statistic methods so complex that only someone with the brain power of Michael Mann could ever understands then smooths these temperatures over the arctic wastelands.
Either that or Eric Stig did some research up there akin to his monumental triumph that was his last paper in Antartica.
Mailman
Geronimo,
What do we know about the Temps in polar regions, more specifically the Arctic basin and north Pole? Well, as you point out, actually not very much.
Alarmists though, are given to making sweeping generalisations based on nuanced equivocation and best guess computer modelling. Thus to generalise, in making a statement like, "the Arctic is warming" is really just codswallop. Referencing an area where the sun goes down for half a year, where the sun is continuously below the horizon from mid September to mid March is equivocating - say if the Temperature is - 45º as compared to - 44 ºC - just statistical shades but to call it "warming" is some stretch.
The measure of sea ice extent is an imperfect pointer to trends in atmospheric temperatures but fair enough - it is a pointer, though what is going on beneath the surface, ie, oceanic currents is probably a greater determinant in sea ice expanse.
Remote sensing, 20 or 30 sea buoys and stuff measured during the WWII and cold war - gives us background noise but no definitive trends can be identified, or until mankind puts the money together to properly attempt to measure T's in the Arctic and then the problem is - where to stick your measuring apparatus - in a somewhat frozen ocean - it's easier to measure temperatures on a 'permanent' icecap at the other end of the earth.
So, what do we know - not a lot and lots of bad guesses but realists steer away from making sweeping generalisations and leave that to the wingnuts of alarmism.
Mind you, it's bloody cold up there!
;¬)
What future is there for the Guardian if it starts advocating sensible policies? Is global warming threatening the Guardian that we all know and love?
Another Guardian shocker.....
Shocked I tells yer...
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/13/climate-change-policy-britain-at-risk-ed-davey-environment-secretary
I know I've arrived late in the day...Sorry...
EM - that Polyakov paper was published in 2002, the Arctic has been cooling for the last 10 years - Alaska certainly:
The First Decade of the New Century: A Cooling Trend for Most of Alaska
http://www.benthamscience.com/open/toascj/articles/V006/111TOASCJ.pdf and http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0442%282004%29017%3C4045%3ATETWIT%3E2.0.CO%3B2
Canada Nunavut Arctic cooling since 2010, graphs for 10 stations - http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2013/03/21/nunavut-canadas-arctic-temperature-falling-from-8c-to-12c-per-decade-for-last-3-years/
Much of the 20th century Arctic cooling has come from NOAA and GISS adjustments, e.g.:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/01/25/another-giss-miss-this-time-in-iceland/
GISS - USHCN data adjustments for UHI - "Dr. Ruedy of GISS confessed in an email that “[the United States Historical Climate Network] data are not routinely kept up-to-date, and in another that NASA had inflated its temperature data since 2000 on a questionable basis. “NASA’s assumption that the adjustments made the older data consistent with future data…may not have been correct”, he said. “Indeed, in 490 of the 1,057 stations the USHCN data was up to 1 C degree colder than the corresponding GHCN data, in 77 stations the data was the same, and in the remaining 490 stations the USHCN data was warmer than the GHCN data.” "
- http://ncwatch.typepad.com/media/2011/07/nasa-adjusts-observed-temperature-data-to-fit-their-climate-models.html
GISS adjusting Arctic temps - http://notrickszone.com/2012/03/01/data-tamperin-giss-caught-red-handed-manipulaing-data-to-produce-arctic-climate-history-revision/
climate fraud temperature adjustments, Dr Roy Spencer - most of warming in USHCN dataset from adjustments - http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/13/warming-in-the-ushcn-is-mainly-an-artifact-of-adjustments/
see also http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/30/spencer-shows-compelling-evidence-of-uhi-in-crutem3-data/
and GISS comparitor - http://stevengoddard.files.wordpress.com/2010/10/1998changesannotated.gif?w=500&h=355
There's also UHI which is much more significant in high Arctic settlements than temperate zones, and up to 6C or more on winter days e.g.
UHI study Barrow, Alaska - http://www.cas.umt.edu/geography/documents/Hinkel_etal_2003_winter_UHI.pdf
"Removing UHI distortion – the elephant in the sitting room" guest post on Digging in the Clay - (Jan 28th 2011) http://diggingintheclay.wordpress.com/2011/01/28/removing-uhi-distortion-the-elephant-in-the-sitting-room-part-1/
Temperatures in Iceland - as originally published (Iceland Met Office) http://icelandweather.blog.is/blog/icelandweather/entry/1249149/
and the climate fraud extends to sea level adjustments also - Envisat Sea level data adjustment - http://www.real-science.com/sea-level-rise-retroactively-triples-at-envisat-overnight + blink graph - http://oi41.tinypic.com/2en2e6f.jpg
Global sea ice is doing fine -
global sea ice graph - http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/global.daily.ice.area.withtrend.jpg
glacial recession - been happening since end of LIA, e.g. Glacier Bay info map - http://soundwaves.usgs.gov/2001/07/fieldwork2.html or Greenland Jakobshavn Glacier retreat 1850-present image and NH temperature graph - http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4139/4753025383_5c34f3dd93_b.jpg
Oh and your claim that NH snow cover has declined is also bollocks:
http://notrickszone.com/2013/01/04/northern-hemisphere-snow-cover-sets-all-time-december-record-9-million-sq-km-more-than-32-years-ago/ source - http://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/chart_anom.php?ui_set=1&ui_region=nhland&ui_month=12
or http://www.climate4you.com/SnowCover.htm#Recent%20northern%20hemisphere%20snow%20coverhttp://moe.met.fsu.edu/snow/ (scroll down for graph)
Athelstan,
I'm sure it's just a slip on your part but the sun only stays below the horizon from mid-September to mid-March at the North Pole alone. At the Arctic circle it only stays below the horizon on one day (mid-winter solstice).
Oops.
Hunter
"When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?"
John Maynard Keynes.
Lapogus
Rather than linking to WUWT or other propaganda sites, could you please give links to the original papers. I prefer to read the primary source, without the spin.
EM
I didn't want to point this out before but you've just quoted Keynes. The stated difference in TOA radiation as measured by satellites is 0.6 +\- 0.4 W. The estimation if surface change was I believe 0.6 +\- 17W. I remember you said they were exactly the same.
They are not the same.
Take the 0.6W with a 0.4 W error. That's quite a large inaccuracy. I'd bet that in reality the error is around 0.6 but they couldn't state that as it would mean no change. If the error was 0.02 W then it would be more credible. Even 0.1 would be good. Otherwise it looks like a wooly estimate.
Let's take the 0.6 W with 17 W error. First off this is incorrect. This should be 0 +\- 20 W according to standard error practice (1sf). What this says is they really haven't got a clue. 20W is greater than 5% of the total outgoing budget.
Take the two together and add in some experimental judgement based on experience and there is no difference in the TOA radiation balance. The errors in values do not justify or make a strong case that there is a difference. You need better accuracy.
That's how a scientist or engineer approaches it. We err on the side of caution. Experience tells us that. To say the values are the same is semantics. A bit like saying Bristol is 170 miles +\- 10 miles away from London according to one measurement. London is 40 miles +\- 500 miles wide according to another. So Bristol is actually in London.
The correct answer is you need to get the errors in the second measurement to the same order of magnitude before comparing. Otherwise you are assuming something.
I'm sure this will fall on deaf ears though.
@jeremypoynton
Jeremy,
If you are still tuned in, there is no doubt that the oceanic cycles play a large role in warming and cooling. The jury is still out on whether their effects outweigh CO2 or not. On many measures, it is sufficiently close to 50/50 that I am not prepared to make a call yet. Of more interest to me at the moment is that at the time of Lambeck's papers in the 70s and 80s, there was a raft of very serious papers on the subject of orbital effects on climate. This appears to be forgotten science. I don't attribute any ill motivation to anyone for this. Orbital effects appear to have been dismissed or treated as negligible by climate scientists on energetic grounds, and my own sums would support the view that the energy transfer is too small on its own to explain the amplitude of the climate fluctuations. I now firmly believe that they were wrong to do so, and that the ocean cycles themselves are a direct result of the momentum flux and heat delivered into the climate system as a result of these orbital forcings. The amplification mechanism is, however, complex, and I am still working on it.
EM,
I started off as an AGW believer. The information changed and I changed to keep up. I am now a skeptic. You are the one who relies on old, disreputable out of date and unproven claims. You are a true believer, a fundamnetlist, a climate creationist, immune to fact or reason.
Cheers,
@ Feb 12, 2014 at 10:04 AM | Neil Hampshire
Neil, thanks for the link ... but I come to a different count ...
14
8
13
can you check yours ?
to me, it's kind of logical ...
"cold winter" means for UK - or Belgium, where I live - that our winter weather is determined by the anticyclone of Siberia ... cold, but dry ... since the weather is coming from over land ...
"milder winter" means that our winter weather is determined by some Azorian (atlantic) cyclones, which bring wet weather from over the Atlantic Ocean ...
Hunter
Curious tactics. How do you expect to convert me by insulting me?
Of course warmer air can hold more water vapour. But surely the point is that it 'keeps hold' of it - as long as it's still warm?
The water vapour doesn't condense/precipitate of the warm air - not until it cools again. And judging by the amount of precipitation, the air has cooled a lot lately!
Yes, but does warmer air hold more water vapour in practice?
I refer to my post above about mountain mists, and drowning on dry land. I have in the meantime googled around a bit, and discovered that my experience is not unusual. People have died as a result of encountering mountain mist, which is only just short of putting your head into a bucket of water.
Just to be irritating, I also refer to heatwave conditions in Australia, which is a significant landmass. It is hottest when bone dry westerly and north westerly winds blow. We have just had a couple of weeks of this.
While the theory of heat=humidity is all very nice in the models, as in every other year here, the highest temps are accompanied by very low humidity.
What is wrong with these people?
johanna,
When there are hot winds in Australia, isn't it usually because they are blowing out from the dry, hot interior? They would capable of 'picking-up' water as vapour if they could, but there is neglibible water out there in the interior to be picked-up. Furthermore (as someone out your way has pointed-out) the Heat Capacity of dry air is low and it does not take much energy to make it hot.
I would have thought that your hot dry winds will sooner or later pass over the ocean where they will start absorbing water-vapour (but getting less hot in the process).
J Calvert N (love your moniker, BTW) - my point is purely pragmatic. The models assume that heat=humidity. In the real world, that is rubbish.
That is all.