Via Eurekalert, a press release about projections of “Melting Marches” from the Heidi Cullen frozone team who says loss of freezing zones is “worse than we thought”. Minnesotans for Global Warming say “YES!”.
New Climate Central projection map shows local and national retreat of freezing temperatures in March
PRINCETON, NJ. On the last day of the month, Climate Central has just published an interactive animated map showing what we might expect in Marches to come as the climate warms. Developed by Climate Central scientists, the map uses special high-resolution projections covering the Lower 48 states to show where average March temperatures are expected to be above or below freezing each decade this century. The map also compares projections under a low, reduced carbon pollution scenario versus a high one that extends current trends.
Under the high scenario, Climate Central’s work shows majority or complete loss, by the end of the century, of these freezing zones in every state analyzed. Minnesota, Montana and North Dakota would lose the most total below-freezing area, while seven other states, from Arizona to Wisconsin, are projected to lose all they currently have. A table on the group’s website lists details state by state.
The projections promise earlier starts for gardeners, farmers, and golf enthusiasts. At the same time, they would mean earlier snowmelt. In the American West, early snowmelt years have already been linked to drier rivers and forests later in the summer, and very much higher wildfire activity – projected to intensify with further warming. Scientists also expect challenges for irrigation supplies and cold-water stream life like trout.
“These maps imply future changes the research community is only beginning to appreciate,” said Climate Central scientist Dr. Ben Strauss.
Climate Central is a nonprofit group of journalists and scientists dedicated to communicating the best and latest climate science.
So is there any scientific validity to this or is it simply that somebody got a new power point tool they wanted to play with?
That is, is this anything more than “if my theory is correct, then this is what will happen”?
It would be interesting to have the past 80 years (1930-2010) similarly mapped as comparison. They probably to not have good records so they can only model the future and not show what happened in the past.
If the weather cannot be predicted with ANY degree of accuracy a mere one month in advance, then how does one pretend to declare what the weather will be 80 years hence?
Into what set of crystal gonads do those prognosticators gaze?
So is this another April Fool’s?
if not, why even pay attention to some group of clowns who claim to “know” what things will be like in the 2090’s? They’ve got as much credibility as Pachouri does.
I give up.
What is the basis for these projections?
A) Their best guess?
B) The fondest hope?
C) Reality…who could possibly know?
wws (20:55:07) :
I too thought that maybe they’d just screwed up on the time of release. (In the UK an April fools joke has to be before midday.)
These people are just living on a different planet.
DaveE.
Ed Patterson (20:53:25) :
It would be interesting to have the past 80 years (1930-2010) similarly mapped as comparison. They probably to not have good records so they can only model the future and not show what happened in the past.
Oh dearie me, Ed, Climate Change Science has done away with the need for past records. Anyway, don’t you know that modeling the future is the absolute best way to predict the past?
BTW, is Climate Central a subsidiary of Comedy Central?
This March was well above average here in southern Minnesota. I don’t recall hearing a single complaint.
And we should have any confidence in these models because?
Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Tell this to my friends in North Dakota who never got their garden going this past year because of continued cold temps all summer long. LOL!
“On the last day of the month, Climate Central has just published an interactive animated map showing what we might expect in Marches to come as the climate warms.”
Here we go again. The authors of the above statement merely assume, without proof, that the climate will warm. There’s not a shred of evidence to support the contention that global temperatures will warm next year, next decade or next century. It’s pure speculation based on computer models that have been manipulated into a state of exhaustion.
Are the Climate Central scientists (who are “dedicated to communicating the best and latest climate science”) unaware of the fact that the IPCC’s predictions of rising temperatures have gone awry — that, in fact, temperatures have been flat or falling for over a decade despite steadily rising CO2 levels, which would imply a negative feedback from CO2? Are they also oblivious to the fact that hundreds of thousands of radiosonde measurements have failed to find the pattern of upper trophospheric heating predicted by the IPCC?
The theory of CAGW, weak from the start, has been falsified again and again. But these experts natter on about warming temperatures as if they were a foregone conclusion, regurgitating talking points from the officially sanctioned charlatanism practiced by the likes of Jones, Mann and Hansen.
The elites behind the CAGW money-making scam are deadly serious. They and their hopelessly lazy and gullible mouthpieces in the mainstream media will continue to push the climate-scare campaign until they have frightened the world into accepting a global cap-and-trade system that will make all of them (bankers, brokerage houses, politicians, NGOs, energy companies) fortunes. Trillions of dollars are at stake. They won’t “go quietly into the night.”
The True Believers (Lenin called them “useful idiots”) won’t be satisfied until the landscape is awash with ugly windmill farms from sea to shining sea, and the common folks are putt-putting around in electric cars and lighting their homes with new-fangled mercury-filled lamps that are too dangerous to throw in the kitchen trash.
While a cabal of oligarchs gets fabuously rich from carbon-offset trading, the rest of us poor souls will have to content ourselves with sitting around the dinner table, eating by candlelight and griping about the latest round of rotating black-outs announced by the Ministry of Energy.
The American people are unaware of the disaster awaiting them if the U.S. government agrees to massive CO2 reductions through the imposition of cap-and-trade restrictions and carbon taxes.
A dangerous game is afoot. There is much at stake.
Here’s a more accurate prediction for March – –
With the ever-lengthening college basketball season,
“March Madness” will be completely in April by 2090.
100% Alarmism in support of a political ideology that is based on 100% Alarmism.
That’s how houses of cards are made.
I just wonder if by then they’ll still be saying “Two thousand Ninety” or “Twenty Ninety”
Semi OT: France’s Lysenkoism?
In France, IPCC vice-president Jean Jouzel, now directly working under the Prime Minister, and many state climate studies scientists, often involved with IPCC had enough of being increasingly questioned on TV screens during debates and in bookstores.
So a message had to be sent said Jouzel.
The French media have had a reputation of being pro-warmist, a grip that Climategate and Copenhagen started to loosen. Among their contradictors, former Minister and polemist Claude Allegre, a geochemist Crawfoord recipient and the director of the IPGP, geophysicist Vincent Courtillot, specialist of Earth geomagnetism. Although Courtillot published at least 6 papers in peer reviewed journals in the last 5 years, both have published recently vulgarization books, Allegre being the most aggressive “the climatic imposture”… Courtillot’s, as usual, is much more moderate -he has been called the Temperate Climate Sceptique- and keeps the high road. Courtillot never referred to anything linked to climategate. Although both books have drawn criticisms -a documented one by Delaygues for Courtillot’s chapter on climate for instance, criticism well relayed in the pro-warmist media, Allegre’s has been a lightening rod and for some reasons since casual mistakes, approximations were made and curves redrawn -to the ire of researcher H. Grudd-. Clearly a weakness when one pretends to denounce imposture.
Yet the state scientists released a petition against both men, both Academicians, asking no other than the French Minister of Research, i.e. the financier of all French research, to support their employees and the official climate science in France and to bring the two men to accountability for their fast selling books that according to Valerie Masson-Delmotte LSCE did not pass the peer reviewed system…
http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/home/2010/04/climat-400-scientifiques-signent-contre-claude-all%C3%A8gre.html
Courtillot responded briefly in a RTL radio interview that he refuted all accusations leveled against him and could not believe that now, in France, one could be censured for its scientific opinions. More to come as a debate at the Academie of Science on climate science will take place in the near future at the demand of the Minister.
The timing of this petition coincides -of course-with the exoneration of Phil Jones, Jouzel UK IPCC colleague and email “comrade”.
On a funny note and no April fool’s joke, Gavin’s signature is on the petition!
Ah yes, Heidi Cullen, “Climate Expert”
http://www.climatecentral.org/about/people-bio/heidi_cullen
If I womp up a model that shows a new ice age coming, can I make projections and get funding too? I can make a model say anything I want, so just let me know what will ‘sell’ and I’m “good to go”…
“enough detail to make different projections for places as close as ten miles apart. This is important because people want to know climate forecasts for the specific places they live, work and visit”
Wow, people want to know climate forecast now, not weather and these guys make it for the next 80 years and within 10 miles. Maybe with more funding it will even be 5 miles soon?
But it means already
– my city, or one I want to visit
– in any year between today and 2090
they know all about it’s climate already. Morning, afternoon, evening.
Should I be impressed? Yes I am.
But wait, their work is useless:
German climate change cancellor adviser Schellnhuber has predicted that the planet Earth will “explode” in 2050, because world population has reached 9b then and in case they all want decent quality of life.
It can’t get more stupid from here … but maybe I am wrong.
yawn. Another in a stupefying rerun of the same old story.
Statistic A from the last 80 years shows decreasing frost lines in March, so run that line with a ruler and season with “worse than we previously imagined”.
Therein lies the problem.
The models are wrong.
In the 1840’s, rivers in Cascadia went to historic low flows or dried up due to lack of precipitation, rain or snow. It was much colder then out West.
In the 1860’s, deluging rains hit and temperatures went up. In the 1870’s, some areas saw temperatures soar to levels not seen since, go really dry, and all without any help from C02.
The models assume that wamer climate is a drier climate. They forgot to check to see if a warmer climate can also be a wetter climate.
4 possibilities in real life, in the models there are only two.
Result: Models are pre-crippled.
E.M.Smith (21:56:52) :
Certainly. Models are able to do whatever you desire them to do. What do you want the model to say? Moon is hollow and showing signs of cracking? Sierra Nevada is set to tilt a 5th time and pour buring lava into the Sacramento Valley?
As long as you promise to waste as much money as possible and make dire predictions that can only be solved by a one world government.
Sure. You can do that.
But I’d rather you didn’t. I’d prefer to see you get big funding to rescue the history of climate and put all the rural stations back online, and we’ll come join your new research unit.
O my daughter, o my ducats! On the one hand, I’d like to see Roger Miller’s old character, Frazier Ossoff, go visit those guys. On the other, I think the world actually needs to get a bit warmer. Looking back through history; “golden” ages generally seem to come during warm periods while cooler times are characterized by famine, plague, and barbarian invasions.
This quote just says it all;
“” Because climate models make projections only at a broad regional level, we used established methods (see technical explanation) to add fine, local detail to these future climate estimates — enough detail to make different projections for places as close as ten miles apart. This is important because people want to know climate forecasts for the specific places they live, work and visit; and we all know that even nearby locations can be quite warmer or cooler, wetter or drier than each other.
We also allowed for the fact that year-to-year changes can go in either direction — that is, even if the trend is toward warmer temperatures in general, a given year might be colder than the one before. So to reveal trends more clearly, the temperature shown for a given year at each map location is actually the average of projected temperatures for the same month in ten consecutive years around and including the focal year.
It is important to remember that climate model outputs are always projections and never predictions; we can use them to anticipate general trends, but never to foretell the exact temperature or precipitation at a particular place and time.””
They have done what I do by generating detail in the fine scale by using fine detailed input. My assumption is that the patterns I have found repeat at a base level, that if compared to the future / present time, and any shift in the background bias (warming or cooling) is a finding to be studied.
What they have done is assume a background bias of warming and making the detailed data contouring shift by the preconceived biased of warming they expect.
What they will get are errors that don’t fit the bias, what I will get is the real changes that are happening, with out a preconceived bias, that we can learn from.
http://research.aerology.com/aerology-analog-weather-forecasting-method/
I suppose that if one assumes that feedbacks are strongly positive and the models are correct, this is one possible future. A few too many assumptions though for my delicate sensitivities.
I like this so much I’ll never support anything to “stop” global warming. This is great, if only global warming were true.
What a load of cobblers.
Dr. Heidi Cullen? ’nuff said to tell me this is junk. I can barely watch the Weather Channel now that she’s not spewing her opinions there.
Pretty pictures!
Look me up in 80 years, and then we can discuss whether they are accurate enough for me to give a crap about what they assert.
I’m having a hard time taking on responsibility for climate conditions in 2090. To be honest, I’ve already given up on fighting ivy in my back yard which I think I can lay at the feet of the British who brought the damn stuff in. So much for old world/last world thinking about what the next generation might prefer.
I think the folks who are around in 2090 are going to have to deal with the world they get – pretty much like I did coming up. The problem is actually quite weird – we can’t fix the climate we have but we’re all hell-bent to fix the climate we leave behind. Stoopid!
What will those who inherit that climate think of our stewardship of climate and what we calculated they’d prefer? My bet is the Brits would prefer more succulents and less moss just as they do today. Hello – there’s a reason we take our vacations to summery places. Nobody thinks “hell, Maud, let’s do that dreary summer cottage thing in north Scotland – I do love a good grey fog.”
How about: Hold m’beer, dood – I figgered out what the world needs and I’m going to fix the climate.
I think its too late for me but I would so love to have a MWP in my lifetime here in Seattle. I might even dress the part. I promise not to sing.
Gavin can tell you, “Climate forecasts do not have any skill below the continental level.” Will he tell these folks? I doubt it.
So I guess the largest North American snow extent (2010) occurred during a “no freeze” period?
“bring the two men to accountability for their fast selling books that according to Valerie Masson-Delmotte LSCE did not pass the peer reviewed system…”
Now the reality of the modern version of the “peer reviewed system” of pseudoscience is becoming clearer, in case anyone missed it.
Yes indeed, it is Lysenkoism.
Back on topic, “what we might expect in Marches to come”… or might not.
Close enough to pass the current “peer reviewed system,” especially with the nice colorful map. Some cute little Easter bunnies on it would have been nice for the holidays. And surely it must be catastrophic that so many snowshoe hares are still white after the snow melted.
Here is a plot of Minnesota average March temperature 1970-2009 (the CO2 influenced period according to the IPCC models).
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/MN_March.jpg
The blue line is 32 F – there is a declining number of years with March above freezing – the opposite of what these alarmists project.
(Data graphed at the NOAA NCDC site (http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/cag3/state.html)
It just proves there’s still money and fame to be made off global warming hysteria. When I see even a single party make some serious money off “global cooling”, I’ll know the tide has irrevocably turned. The new theme among tarnished promoters of CO2 abatement is “AGW insurance”. Their revised line is that we should take economically harmful actions against fossil fuels and in favor of ruinously expensive “renewables” as a hedge against the “possibility” that AGW theory is anywhere near correct.
If folks buy into that new line, I may go into the “asteroid strike” insurance business and use a premium schedule parallel to the “AGW insurance” argument. For $10 million a year, I’ll write you an “asteroid strike” policy for a face amount of $100 million and I’ll have no problem finding underwriters willing to back that bet.
In the spirit of the day that’s been filled with so much silliness, permit me to add this little touch …
This proves it … there are too many men in the field of climate science with their minds hard-wired to think in linear terms. That may be fine for building a railroad and laying the tracks in a straight line from point A to point B, but the climate system doesn’t work in such a fashion. Let’s get more women in the field and employ some of that female circular thinking to handle the chaos of the climate.
What’s the climate going to be like in 80 years? Hell, I’d like to know what the weather’s going to be doing in 8 hours! It’s no fun going to bed not knowing that the area’s going to be socked in with dense fog at morning rush hour with a 30 mile commute. Oh, that’s right – that fog warning was issued all right – at 4 am; lot of good that does.
Or making plans to do yard work and the day turns chilly & rainy when it was supposed to be mild & partly cloudy.
Right, I know – weather’s not climate; climate’s the average of weather over a period of time, usually 30 years. So, if the weather forecasts keep being wrong so often, then the sum of all those wrong weather forecasts make for a wrong climate forecast.
My own model shows 2090 nearing the end of another cold half cycle, assuming 1998 wasn’t the end of the Holocene.
Looking forward to it. 🙂
Orbiting into an ice storm in space – did it happen and could it happen again:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1262904/Prehistoric-hailstorm-triggered-1-000-year-freeze-Earth-wiped-animal-species.html
I bet everything I will ever have that the climate in the 2090s will be almost identical to the one we have now regardless of steps we take naturally or forced to the strong arming of politicians.
Why o why are these projections that predict any changes in future weather patterns always headlined as something like
“worse than we thought”
Earlier snow melt leads to drier rivers and forests earlier in the year, astounding, never thought of that one.
Dr. Cullen was dropped by The Weather Channel as part of the NBC cuts. However, to some extent the pro Global Warming stand has continued there. But, lo and behold, yesterday TWC actially included a brief debate of climate change by two meteorologistfs. I was unable to stop my work and turn up the volume. Did anyone here happen to see it?
This page examines March data for a couple of stations that are in the area that is frozen in March in the 2010s and unfrozen in the 2090s according to the Climate Central map.
http://www.appinsys.com/GlobalWarming/MN_March.htm
There is a declining number of Marches above freezing in recent decades – contradicting the Climate Central alarmists who are apparently trying to hide this decline.
Mike McMillan (00:07:41) :
My own model shows 2090 nearing the end of another cold half cycle, assuming 1998 wasn’t the end of the Holocene.
I can’t get my model to show anything beyond 21 December 2012 — it just sits there and pouts.
For crying out loud. even if they could come up with this junk-science, which of the 21+ General Circulation Models were used to obtain this computer output? Were the GCMs chosen based on which produced heating in the central plains of the US?
Some of these Bozos (that means clowns) believe that the GCMs can give regional future climate changes, regional warming, cooling, drought, and flooding.
What does it mean when 8 models shows warming in the central plains of the US, 7 models show no change, and 6 models show cooling? This is all pure junk-science.
@ Alan Cheetham (00:34:34) :
T H A T . I S . A W E S O M E !
hahaha
I’m sorry, but when I read Climate Central I mistakenly thought it was Comedy Central. My mistake, but perfectly understandable.
Some of the “breaking news” beside the interactive map MUST be April Fools.
Surely.
Mustn’t they?
Please?
Bill Tuttle (00:46:40) :
I can’t get my model to show anything beyond 21 December 2012 — it just sits there and pouts.
I’ve got a hotel reservation in Merida for then, nice little place, simple rooms, used to be a monastery or somesuch. Should be plenty of tour buses headed out to Chichen Itza. Don’t wear blue jeans.
“Worse than we thought.”
So this is the state of climate science?
A scaremongering statement about a scenario which projects a trend founded on a possibility based on unproven theories.
I can predict the results of every Climate projection caused by global warming (in Britain). Summers will be hotter and drier and winters will be milder and wetter.
Presumably something similar could be said about North America.
I’ve put this link in before but it’s always worth a laugh. (Come 2020 I’ll remeber this)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/climateexperiment/whattheymean/theuk.shtml
The BBCs “climate change experiment”
899 (20:53:36) :
If the weather cannot be predicted with ANY degree of accuracy a mere one month in advance, then how does one pretend to declare what the weather will be 80 years hence?
Into what set of crystal gonads do those prognosticators gaze?
They don’t. They claim to predict the climate not weather. Given that you don’t seem to know the difference but honour us with your comments anyway, I’d guess [snip].
Dec. 2006
” The Weather Channel’s (TWC) Heidi Cullen, who hosts the weekly global warming program “The Climate Code,” is advocating that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) revoke their “Seal of Approval” for any television weatherman who expresses skepticism that human activity is creating a climate catastrophe.”
http://wx-man.com/blog/?p=500
I have nothing nice to say.
Claude Harvey: “If folks buy into that new line, I may go into the “asteroid strike” insurance business”
Claude, you clearly don’t understand the psyche which underpins this clap-trap. This is a remodelling of “original sin” the judeo-Christian concept that every sin shall be punished.
The way it works is through a combination of guilt and cultural preconceptions. By convincing people we are “guilty” of CO2 … and so tapping into our basic judeo-Christian cultural preconceptions, we are COMPELLED by our ingrained preconceptions to believe that their will be a negative outcome.
Late me explain in more detail. Everyone hates cars … even car drivers hate other cars that clog up the road. They pollute, they are noisy and they kill. Link CO2 to this “evil” of civilisation and the cogs in our brain inevitably believe we will be punished for this “evil”.
If e.g. you were to link CO2 to something positive … like living … children, childbirth, things that our judeo-Christian culture sees as positive, then we do not see these as “evil” … if anything they are “good” and to be encouraged.
The other great thing about global warming as a scam, is that you can extremely easily associate with our judeo-Christian “hellfire & damnation”.
So back to your insurance scam. Asteroids would be completely useless, because there is no way to tap into our guilt complex.
if I were trying to invent a scam, I’d take something we all like but dislike, something we all want, but know we don’t like others doing: mobile phones on trains, alcohol(drug)-use, sex. Next I would find some tenuous argument to link our normal (harmless) activity with the harm.
E.g. I’m sure many people would be receptive to the idea that alcohol consumption pre-pregnancy led to alcohol and drug use by their kids. This also has the Global Warming advantage of taking decades to disprove, opening up a huge gap between the initial scare (where the money is made) and the final conclusive proof it is BS.
I went to Climate Central for details. They seemed elusive.
They cite a hundred sources for their data and the studies they used and improved down to a ten mile projections
But AFAI can tell the refinement amounted to interpolation and the crucial input temperatures were the average of 16 climate models projections for 2090.
Looking at their sponsors and references etc. leads to a web of international organizations likely to be shells. Several of them say they are trying to help the UN meet its UN Millenium Goals.
This began to remind me of a very common technique. Ten people create a hundred organizations with ten members each. The hundred organizations issue papers and findings which primarily cite material and studies from the other ninety-nine. And they all heartily endorse each other.
About the UN. Since the UN Millenium Goals were themselves set based upon projections the whole thing becomes circular.
It is quite impressive. And the findings are robust.
Or are they baloney. I get those two words mixed up.
Climate Control may be doing good work. Their web of associates may be doing good work. But it looks as if nothing they say can be checked. It all seems a quagmire.
Has this stuff even been peer reviewed? If it has then I’d start to worry.
“Climate Central is a nonprofit group of journalists and scientists dedicated to communicating the best and latest climate science.”
Sounds like they’ve exceeded their mandate somewhat.
2090 looks nice. Is there any way we can speed up the process? I’ll be dead by then, and I’m getting tired of the cold weather.
McMillen 01:28:43 Aye, there will be plenty of tour buses heading out to Chichen Itza that day. But will they return?
Chichen Itza. That was my first good look at a Pre-Columbian site. And even then – was it 1973, can’t remember – large parts were cleared and beautifully maintained.
Hope you enjoy your 2012 trip. Wear a mask. It might fool the spirits.
Seeing drivel like the prediction for March 2090 above I fully expect see the Obama administration creating a new government agency called The Office of Climate Prophets.
Twenty years ago, I was startled by the lack of quality of kids accepted by various universities, kids who had struggled to achieve mediocrity in my senior high school classes. I know a number of them became climate scientists! They still struggle to achieve mediocrity!
Mike McMillan (01:28:43) :
Should be plenty of tour buses headed out to Chichen Itza. Don’t wear blue jeans.
Khakis only, and no personal adornment — other than a HEEDS
http://www.submersiblesystems.com/
for unfortunate contingencies…
“LarryD (21:23:14) :
And we should have any confidence in these models because?
Garbage In, Garbage Out.”
Larry, you seem to have forgotten. The warmaholics have redefined GIGO. When it comes to their models GIGO now means Garbage In, Gospel Out.
“They don’t. They claim to predict the climate not weather. Given that you don’t seem to know the difference but honour us with your comments anyway, I’d guess [snip]”
Here’s the problem Tom, Climate (whatever that is) usually has a range that goes beyond the synoptic scale. One cannot predict the “climate” with any degree of accuracy for areas below the synoptic scale -at least the so-called GCM cannot. Climate scientists predict ranges of possible temps on a global scale. It use to be that the time scales were usually marked by centuries, not decades; and these were global averages, not regional or synpotic scale.
But today’s Alarmists have shortened the time window to seasonal variations, and the physical scale down to counties. Yet, not one climate scientist (or thier models) can predict changes in atmospheric or oceanic oscillations (and some of these oscillations do have phase changes that go out beyond the magical 30 year window). If they cannot do even that, how can they with a straight face predict “climate changes” for areas on a much smaller scale and a much longer time period?
It is the Alarmists who are now in the weather forecasting business. Perhaps you should give them a call.
JP (03:59:11) : Here’s the problem Tom, Climate (whatever that is) usually has a range that goes beyond the synoptic scale. One cannot predict the “climate” with any degree of accuracy for areas below the synoptic scale -at least the so-called GCM cannot.
While that is certainly the case for earlier coarse resolution GCM’s there is no reason in principle why it should be true of modern GCM’s with sub-synoptic scale resolutions – provided the factors that determine those climatic scales (e.g. surface inhomogeneities like elevation, changes in surface characteristics, albedo etc.) are included.
By the way – the best definition of the ‘climate’ of a GCM is via an ensemble average
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensemble_average
which in principle has all scales. Since the real atmosphere consists of a single realization, one then has to do some work to relate it to ensemble averages. This gets fairly technical so I won’t get into it.
Studies like these, and other more familiar GCM simulations, are all based on the assumption that if we look at temperature datasets covering a sufficiently long period, say a couple of decades, the signal becomes bigger than the noise, and a trend shows up. Once a trend has been identified then the next assumption is that it can be extrapolated into the future.
Lubos Motl has written an interesting article on reference frame that criticises the first assumption.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/03/self-similarity-of-temperature-graphs.html
The conventional, climate science view, is that the shorter a temperature graph is, the more noise to signal there will be. As we zoom out to larger and larger time scales, and as the signal becomes larger relative to the noise, we would expect the longer time scale graph to look very different to the short time scale. A good analogy would be a graph of the DOW Jones stock market index compared over 5 years and 100 years. Over the shorter period we see huge swings and little trend. Over 100 years however, the great bear markets look like tiny dips in an otherwise continuous upward trend.
Lubos has taken central England temperatures since 1659 and randomly created 100 graphs covering all different time scales, with the longest being 128 times greater than the shortest. These are vastly different timescales and the graphs should look very different – but they don’t. Lubos challenges the reader to guess which graphs represent the longest and which the shortest. The point is – they all look the same.
According to Lubos, “One implication of these facts is that if you can get a (modestly) statistically significant trend by looking at 16 years – their annual mean temperatures – it doesn’t mean that this statistical signifance proves that the “trend” is anything else than noise. Such “trends” are actually omnipresent at all time scales and virtually all of them that you can see in my homework are noise – and their extrapolation has always failed.”
JP (03:59:11): Climate scientists predict ranges of possible temps on a global scale. It use to be that the time scales were usually marked by centuries, not decades; and these were global averages, not regional or synpotic scale.
False. See the Köppen classification as an example of ‘old time’ climatology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Köppen_climate_classification
Well due to this type of Fantasy report you how have the following in preparation, the Robin Hood fund.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/mar/28/un-climate-change-meeting-london
To quote
“The prices we pay for our goods do not reflect one key cost: the damage that their production does to the planet’s climate system,” said Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the LSE. “We need to find ways to extract payment from those who cause that damage and then use that money to fund developing nations so that they can protect themselves from the worst effects of global warming.”
“Tom W (04:38:00) :
[…]
By the way – the best definition of the ‘climate’ of a GCM is via an ensemble average
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ensemble_average
which in principle has all scales. Since the real atmosphere consists of a single realization, one then has to do some work to relate it to ensemble averages. This gets fairly technical so I won’t get into it.
”
Clouds still don’t work. Influence of aerosols still unknown. Humidity still parameterized.
Do not forget that no one has ever been tested for accuracy in generating a computor model that is 80 years out. It is like measureing the distance to the moon with a 12 inch ruler.
I think the year 2090 was chosen with care, as there is unlikely to be anyone of us around then, who read the original prophecy.
I am sure if I increased temperature at a regular rate of one degree per decade I could achieve the same sort of result. But why should I do that, unless I had an ulterior motive, such as demonstrating ‘a need’ to raise taxes to supposedly fund a cure for my scientifically unsupported hypothesis.
It all comes back to the alarmist argument of: i) We are really good at forecasting weather tomorrow – true, ii) we are not so good at forecasting weather in two week’s time – true, but iii) we are really good at forecasting climate in 50 years time – ?1?!?
We are being deluged with this sort of nonsense. The problem is – as in any fascist or communist society – if you hear the same BS often enough, you begin to believe it, especially if your job depends on you demonstrating that you believe it.
This is one of Wendy Schmidt (the activist wife of Google’s founder) pet projects and should be taken in same grain as pronouncements from Greenpeace, Al Gore and the rest of the kool aid drinkers
The report from the Minnesotans For Global Warming is that we had a very mild March here, well above normal. It’s practically spring by our standards. We had mid70s the last two days. All the snow is off the ground around the Twin Cities, and the woods and swamps are chirping, croaking, and buzzing happily.
Of course, this doesn’t mean we might not have a snowy April! Last year we had several inches of snow the first week of May, and Duluth had a big ‘un. Minnesotans will tell you –usually pretty quickly if you’re a visitor– that August is the only month guaranteed to not snow here.
“Tom W (04:56:11) :
[…]
See the Köppen classification as an example of ‘old time’ climatology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Köppen_climate_classification
”
Looks rather more trustworthy than the pile of junk that is IPCC AR4.
I predict that there will be fewer financial supporters of Climate Central this year and in the decades to come. Dr. Strauss may be fooled by AGW models, but they don’t fool all those who contribute to non-profits.
Re: Mike Haseler (02:30:04) :
“So back to your insurance scam. Asteroids would be completely useless, because there is no way to tap into our guilt complex.”
You make a good point, Mike, but you’re wrong about the “no way” part. I’ll precede my “asteroid insurance” offer with a study showing that every individual who ever suffered a direct hit by an extraterrestrial object was masturbating at the time. I’ll use tree rings from fossilized, asteroid-flattened forests as my irrefutable data base and tease out the “man-made” signal with sophisticated statistical manipulations. By the time I’m finished rolling out that fog bank the guilty throng will be begging for coverage.
To put this in perspective, we can go back to NOAA’s winter forecast for 2009-2010. In late summer/early autumn they predicted a dry, warm winter for much of the United States, including the region where I live. It was, in fact, completely wrong. We experienced below-normal temperatures for Decemeber through February and set a record for total snowfall in February. Interestingly enough, it was Joe Bastardi of Accuweather who correctly predicted this region’s winter weather conditions. Bastardi is now predicting a much colder 2010-2011 winter–and possibly the coldest “since the early to mid 90s–as the weakening El Nino completely fades away later this summer.
Time will tell who is right and who is wrong, but based on Bastardi’s track record, I’m NOT putting my money on Climate Central.
Tom, excellent idea. However, the devil is in the detail in that finding the single realization within the ensemble average requires accurate selection of all factors that determine those climatic scales. And while a number of them may be known (elevation and surface characteristics) or predicted accurately (solar cycles and others that stretch out to the Milankovich and beyond), some are so unpredictable (volcanic erruptions and asteroid impacts come to mind) that selecting accurate factors that give the proper realization is perhaps unobtainable.
But certainly an interesting area of research and the eventual ability to predict all factors is certainly a justifiable quest of science.
“…scenario extending current trends”
Paging Wipp & Ward.
http://commons.bcit.ca/physics/rjw/pers/womenrun.htm
Can someone answer me why people fear the idea that cold freezing weather may be going away? Each winter everyone is anxiously anticipating the warm weather of spring and summer so they can enjoy the outdoors and some people can start gardening.
People literally celebrate in the streets the first warm day when you don’t need to wear a jacket and you can wear t-shirts and shorts.
We are mammals and need warmth. Inthe winter nobody laments the coming of the warm spring and summer. So why do we lament a warming globe? These nuts are sad that there won’t be freezing weather in March. Most people are happy when there isn’t freezing weather..
It’s just fear mongoring that changes will be bad for us.
Tom W (04:38:00) :
“While that is certainly the case for earlier coarse resolution GCMs there is no reason in principle why it should be true of modern GCMs with sub-synoptic scale resolutions provided the factors that determine those climatic scales (e.g. surface inhomogeneities like elevation, changes in surface characteristics, albedo etc.) are included.”
The real problem is that the equations being solved are highly coupled and non-linear, meaning that there are no guarantees that a solution (numerical or otherwise) is even possible for a given set of initial and boundary conditions. We don’t even know if the problem being solved well-posed, mathematically.
Unfortunately, some groups like NASA GISS are so sloppy in the documentation of their algorithms that one doesn’t even know what equations their codes are even solving – much less boundary and intial conditions, coupling with other models, etc. (they probably don’t know either – and they don’t appear to care)!
“…they do not instill fear, but hope…”
Dave Wendt (21:17:04) :
This March was well above average here in southern Minnesota. I don’t recall hearing a single complaint.
Yes, and yesterday (4/1) here in Rochester the high temperature was 82F (about 35F above average). Not only were there no complaints, but I saw people out jogging in shorts, biking and playing golf. They seemed to be quite happy.
Our March was over 7F above normal (so, it appears we don’t need to wait until 2090) and farmers were able to get out in the fields and harvest corn that they couldn’t get to because of the wet October. I doubt any of them are complaining. In fact, I’d bet that vast majority of people would prefer to see the warmer climate shown in the maps. Right now farmers would be out planting if they thought it wasn’t going to freeze in late April (but they won’t because they know better).
On the flip side we also had a record number of days this winter when the temperature failed to reach 40F … close to 80 days.
Please:
a) “very much higher wildfire activity”
b) “much higher wildfire activity”
c) “higher wildfire activity”
d) “more wildfires”
With 60% fewer words, the last beats the first in impact as well as clarity.
Here in Austin, the number of weeks without freezing temperatures has been higher than average for the four years that I’ve lived here, with first frost coming early and last frost coming late. In ’07 we had a lengthy ice storm in April; in ’09, we recorded the coldest-ever temperature for the month of April. So, we seem not to have gotten the memo.
On the other hand, we had a nice family dinner at an East Side eatery the other night where they grow their own vegetables right in the center of Austin. The winter garden prospers in the significant urban heat island and would not be possible at my home closer to the outskirts of town. By the way, the airport temperatures are frequently more than ten degrees colder than those at the station of record — which is Camp Mabry, alongside one of our two largest highways.
I find it disturbing, if not surprising, how some warmists appear to be rooting for disaster and the concomitant rise in their own importance.
With all due respect Ms. Cullen,
It is not a good idea to regale the public with wildly speculative projections 80 years into the future,on a climate system that is chaotic in the long run.
You and others of your AGW believing camp need to get over the absurd infatuation of using computer modeling runs and then speculate on them and in time treat like it is valid data.When actually there is no verification OR real data to use for such foolish speculations.
I really wish you would go to a treatment center and get weaned off on the absurd reliance on climate models for your propaganda reporting.It is damaging science AND your credibility as a credentialed climatologist.
STOP IT!
Extrapolating is my hobby too:
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/extrapolating.png
I make it a point to stop reading any further if an article includes the phrase “worse than we thought”. It is my spam filter.
a) “very much higher wildfire activity”
b) “much higher wildfire activity”
c) “higher wildfire activity”
d) “more wildfires”
With 60% fewer words, the last beats the first in impact as well as clarity. – Kevin
I think that they were going for vagueness or trying to impress us by shear word count.
I am thoroughly convinced that those who use models to “see” what the future holds are akin to those who read the last chapter of a mystery novel first. They do not want to wait their entire life time to see what really happens, they want to “know” NOW! Most understand that they will die before any of their predictions come to pass so they want to be “proven” right now so they can be heros in their own minds.
Aside from that, I only wish the warming would continue as they say it will. Perhaps then we won’t get so many retirees down here in Florida.
The weather forecast for four days from now is usually wrong. The forecast for 80 years from now will certainly be wrong.
But people can make a good living from making these computer forecast models. It doesn’t matter if they are right or wrong.
It’s easy being green.
But we should listen to Sarah Palin—-“Drill, baby, drill!”
Though seemingly a 1st.april joke, better leave it to GW BELIEVERS BLOGS, WUWT is expected to present, instead, the most probable scenario about the consequences of the current solar minimum.
Earlier melts in the continental US are associated with drier forest *in today’s climate*
Earlier melts in a warmer climate may not maintain this association. A warmer climate could result in a longer spring and wetter Western US.
Get back to us when you have usable cloud and water vapor models.
From Richard Holle
“”It is important to remember that climate model outputs are always projections and never predictions; we can use them to anticipate general trends, but never to foretell the exact temperature or precipitation at a particular place and time.””
“They have done what I do by generating detail in the fine scale by using fine detailed input.”
Bucky Fuller’s magnum opus, Synergetics, starts out with this definition:
“Synergy means behaviour of whole systems unpredicted by the behaviour of their parts taken separately.” (Synergetics 101.01)
It seems to me a great deal of the ‘climate projection’ work is based on a belief that whole systems do /not/ behave differently from their constituent parts. How many times have we heard that “CO2 trapped in a an irradiated bottle heats up”? As if a tiny closed system is somehow representive of a complex open system. I have always been mystified at excessive simplicity like this. Such an experiment basically makes a claim implicit in finite element analysis: if we understand everything from First Principles, we can predict complex system behaviour. Fuller’s point is that entirely new behaviours emerge. This is hardly news.
Much of the climate debate seems to be between people of two approximately definable world views: they largely accept or reject synergistic behaviours. This prediction of the spring thaw in 80 years falls into the latter category.
Lip service acceptance of synery often precedes a claim for a First Principles argument without a twitch of the eyebrow!
Well, nice map. That settles it for me. Excuse me while I run wildly screaming “the sky is falling!!!!” and “We’re all gonna die!!!!”
Back in reality world, the U.S. feds have decided to give Dr. Hansen some more money to play with. 62% more, probably for the great works he’s done so far. http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/04/01/nasa-planning-billions-climate-research/
sigh
“Climate Central is a progressive funded group of journalists and activists with PhD’s dedicated to communicating the best and latest climate propaganda.”
My post should say “In Austin, Texas, the number of weeks with freezing temperatures has been higher than average for the four years that I’ve lived here.”
Frank K. (05:48:38): We don’t even know if the problem being solved well-posed, mathematically.
This is true of the equations of fluid mechanics in general and the subject of acoustics, plasma, physics, aeronautics, etc. Don’t you find it strange that no one is attacking those subjects, only climatology?
The lack of a proof of well-posedness does not mean the equations are not well posed. In fact the incredible success of the Navier-Stokes equations in many different areas suggests there is a high probability that they are.
Frozone…heh, heh.
This is no more credible than a review by members of a religious movment declaring an alleged relic to not obnly be real, but to contain magical powers.
JohnH (05:14:27) :
…you now have…the Robin Hood fund.
“We need to find ways to extract payment from those who cause that damage and then use that money to fund developing nations so that they can protect themselves from the worst effects of global warming,”[said Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the LSE.]
Send those extracted payments *today*, folks, to
The Fund For Protecting Third World Nations From Gaia Damagers LLC,
c/o Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change
Attn: Bob Ward…
As usual when ice goes up as in DMI, Arctic-roos.org disappears for a few days and then comes back with “re-adjusted” downwards ice areas. Check it yourselves.. happens every time…. what a joke!
Tom W:
“This is true of the equations of fluid mechanics in general and the subject of acoustics, plasma, physics, aeronautics, etc. Dont you find it strange that no one is attacking those subjects, only climatology?”
“The lack of a proof of well-posedness does not mean the equations are not well posed. In fact the incredible success of the Navier-Stokes equations in many different areas suggests there is a high probability that they are.”
However, Tom, climate models are NOT just solving the conservation equations for mass, momentum, energy, species, etc. They have a myriad of sub-models (e.g. ocean circulation, turbulence, radiation, clouds, land effects etc.) all of which are coupled to the basic equations of fluid mechanics. Then there are all those BCs. Even in “basic” fluid mechanics applications, there are lots of “simple” problems which can be very difficult to solve numerically – how about transition to turbulence on an airfoil at high angle of attack? Anyway, if you demonstrate to me that the mathematical problem as defined by the differential equations (and that means all of them, not just the “Navier-Stokes” equations) and initial/boundary conditions used in modern climate models are well-posed and solvable numerically, that would be wonderful. Take your time…
After that, we can talk about the numerical stability of the time-marching scheme, advection discretizations, dissipation, error accumulation, leap-frog methods…
“Tom W (07:51:15) :
Frank K. (05:48:38): We don’t even know if the problem being solved well-posed, mathematically.
This is true of the equations of fluid mechanics in general and the subject of acoustics, plasma, physics, aeronautics, etc. Don’t you find it strange that no one is attacking those subjects, only climatology?”
They work well when the underlying mechanisms are representative of what happens in the real world. This is not so in climate science.
1) The influence of aerosols is to this day guesswork and the modelers fine-tune their guesses to improve their hindcasting which is nothing but curve-fitting.
2) the spatial resolution of GCM’s is not sufficient to model cloud formation realistically as this happens on small spatial resolution. Cloud formation is thus parameterized, again, guesswork, see 1).
3) I don’t think they even attempt by now to realistically simulate changes in humidity. Or maybe they try but still fail. Given that H2O is way more important as a GHG, this results in a completely failed simulation.
DirkH (05:17:56) :Clouds still don’t work. Influence of aerosols still unknown. Humidity still parameterized.
Not quite sure what you mean by ‘don’t work’. The point is that the effect of omissions/deficiencies of GCM’s can be TESTED by comparing their statistical properties with those of the real atmosphere. It turns out that they do incredibly well giving a certain level of confidence in the results.
Living in Michigan, this looks awesome. I don’t see a problem. Maybe if I hold onto my house for another 50 years, it’ll be worth something …
DirkH (08:15:12) :
I don’t think they even attempt by now to realistically simulate changes in humidity. Or maybe they try but still fail. Given that H2O is way more important as a GHG, this results in a completely failed simulation.
Think again. In addition to three-dimensional temperature, pressure, density and wind fields, the GISS model for example, has an explicit three-dimensional humidity field.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/modeling/gcms.html
“DirkH (08:15:12) :
[…]
humidity. Or maybe they try but still fail. Given that H2O is way more important as a GHG, this results in a completely failed simulation.”
I must be sounding very cross. Let me put it this way: The situation climate simulation as a science is in is comparable to the situation of AI in the 60ies. There was a lot of euphoria that real soon now we would have thinking machines. Then came the crash; funding was cut in the 70ies when it became obvious that no significant progress was made.
But today, we have wonderful machines like Google or Wolfram Alpha that do really useful things and retrieve or compute information for us better than anything else in humans history. (Enter “1 furlong in yards” in Google for instance, or go to wolfram alpha and enter “largest airplane”)
What happened?
After the big pipe dreams of government sponsored projects evaporated, some people sat down and thought “How can we still make money out of this and deliver a useful service?” and things like search engines, Googles pagerank algorithm (and some Eliza-like trickery for the unit conversions) and whatever makes Wolfram alpha tick were created. Little things really, but working.
The same might very well happen to climate science and GCM’s. All the bravardo about the GCM’s will evaporate when the funding runs out – we are past the hype and into the crash.
There is a pattern here: Hype-Crash-Steady growth.
JohnH quotes;
“The prices we pay for our goods do not reflect one key cost: the damage that their production does to the planet’s climate system,” said Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change at the LSE. “We need to find ways to extract payment from those who cause that damage and then use that money to fund developing nations so that they can protect themselves from the worst effects of global warming.”>>
Perhaps it is time to accept both the prognostications and the solutions proposed by the AGW crowd. Both the temperature record and the models show tropical temperatures to be pretty stable with slight increases and temperate and arctic regions to be highly variable and with much larger increases. Based on the logic in the quote above, and the facts on the ground we arrive at the following:
1. The ill effects of global warming will be borne by the temperate zones
2. The bulk of developing countries being in tropical zones, they are already protected from the bulk of the changes from global warming
3. As the developing countries are desperately poor they need continued assistance from the developed countries to ensure their food supply continues, disaster relief is delivered, vaccines are produced and distributed and many other things that are produced in the temperate zones and so are threatened by global warming.
Therefor, for the good of the world, taxes should be collected from developing countries in tropical zones and re-distrubuted to the sources of production in developed countries in the temperate zones. This will allow developed countries to put programs in place to protect themselves from the worst effects of global warming, and continue to produce enough extra food and other products to provide as hand outs to developing nations in tropical zones.
Of course, this does not provide a solution in regard to the corrupt governments in the developing countries scooping up the hand outs for themselves while their populations starve, or of corrupt UN officials slicing a cut off the top for themselves when distributing them (remember Oil for Food?) but it does ensure a continued world wide food supply.
As the countries with the lowest standards of living will stand to benefit the most from continued production in developed countries, of course they should be taxed the highest. Countries with the most proximity to the poles should be paid the most in transfers.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada and Russia’s Vladimir Putin have already considered this plan, and are organizing a meeting with Iceland, Norway, Finland, Denmark and the Governer of Alaska to discussed the plan. The United States other than Alaska was specifically excluded on the basis that the continental United States does not fall into the required latitude zones to be eligible for benefits, and some states may actually fall into the taxation zones. (Several commentators have suggested that this is simply posturing on Canada’s part and is a reaction from Canada’s foreign minister having been hit by Hillary Clinton with her purse at the G8 summit just before she asked for more troops for Afghanistan)
In the southern hemisphere, Australia has said that the plan has merit, though Chile is threatening action at the UN based on their own formula which classes the entire country at the same latitude as its most southern tip. Argentina has meanwhile indicated that they may drop their claim on the Falklands in return for a land swap in northern Ireland.
Speculation that this mechanism could be used in a similar fashion to resolve middle east peace negotiations by swapping both population and land were dashed when both sides instantly claimed Antarctica as their traditional homeland.
Asked about the likelihood of global warming coming to fruition in this manner, both Harper and Putin replied “Yes, we remain optimistic”.
“Tom W (08:24:08) :
DirkH (05:17:56) :Clouds still don’t work. Influence of aerosols still unknown. Humidity still parameterized.
Not quite sure what you mean by ‘don’t work’. The point is that the effect of omissions/deficiencies of GCM’s can be TESTED by comparing their statistical properties with those of the real atmosphere. It turns out that they do incredibly well giving a certain level of confidence in the results.”
Dumb luck.
Tom W:
Yes, and that certain level would be approaching zero. GCM’s do not demonstrate predictive skill. Taking the ensemble of 50 odd models and saying the observed state is in there somewhere is not useful. Almost any future state can be found in one of the models. The error range is too wide to have any value. If you could pick one model with reasonable error ranges and demonstrate some predictive skill over a decade you might have something. Right now it is nothing.
Tom W (08:33:13) :
“It turns out that they do incredibly well giving a certain level of confidence in the results.”
The operative word here being “incredible”
From Webster’s dictionary:
incredible (adj.) – 1. not credible; unbelievable 2. seeming too unusual or improbable to be possible.
Tom W (08:24:08) :
Bull! You can’t discount a dominant feedback and with a little hand waving say its all good.
“Tom W (08:33:13) :
DirkH (08:15:12) :
I don’t think they even attempt by now to realistically simulate changes in humidity. Or maybe they try but still fail. Given that H2O is way more important as a GHG, this results in a completely failed simulation.
Think again. In addition to three-dimensional temperature, pressure, density and wind fields, the GISS model for example, has an explicit three-dimensional humidity field.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/modeling/gcms.html
”
From the page you’re linking to:
“They also consider, often in parameterized form, the physical processes within the boxes, including sources and sinks of these quantities. ”
A physical process “considered in parameterized form”? Well, i did say that they parameterize things they don’t know to improve their hindcasting. Sophisticated curve-fitting. Thanks for the confirmation.
I see that everyone conveniently forgets the temperatures just a few weeks ago which were far below freezing across most of the country.
Arizona probably hasn’t forgotten. Forecast was for snow yesterday. And today, the Grand Canyon is freezing (0C).
Arctic ice is not disappearing! 30yrs of GW has not significantly altered Arctic sea ice extent maximum… 1 of 2 important indicator reports!
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
March (month end averages) NSIDC (sea ice extent)
30 yrs ago
1981 Southern Hemisphere = 3.7 million sq km
1981 Northern Hemisphere = 15.6 million sq km
Total = 19.3 million sq km
Record Arctic minimum extent year (Sept 2007- 4.28 Mkm2).
2007 Southern Hemisphere = 4.1 million sq km
2007 Northern Hemisphere = 14.6 million sq km
Total = 18.7 million sq km
Last yr.
2009 Southern Hemisphere = 5.0 million sq km
2009 Northern Hemisphere = 15.2 million sq km
Total = 20.2 million sq km
This yr.
2010 Southern Hemisphere = 4.0 million sq km
2010 Northern Hemisphere = 15.1 million sq km
Total = 19.1 million sq km
Northern Hemisphere Plate
Southern Hemisphere Plate
1979-2000 Southern Hemisphere Mar. mean = 4.3 million sq km
1979-2000 Northern Hemisphere Mar. mean = 15.7 million sq km
Total Feb. mean = 20.5 million sq km
“Think again. In addition to three-dimensional temperature, pressure, density and wind fields, the GISS model for example, has an explicit three-dimensional humidity field.”
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/modeling/gcms.html
Interesting that Tom W. links to one of the worst of the GCMs…
Much better choice here (they even document what they do, unlike GISS)
Frank K. (08:14:11) :Anyway, if you demonstrate to me that the mathematical problem as defined by the differential equations (and that means all of them, not just the “Navier-Stokes” equations) and initial/boundary conditions used in modern climate models are well-posed and solvable numerically, that would be wonderful. Take your time.
Since the Navier-Stokes equations haven’t been shown to be well-posed, it is hardly surprising that the equations used in GCM haven’t either. Once again you complain about an issue that applies equally to acoustics, aeronautics, etc. Why don’t you hassle acoustical and aeronautical engineers?
Let me repeat; The simulated flows can be tested by comparing them with real atmospheric flows. The comparisons suggest that the imperfections that you want to use to dismiss the models are of secondary importance.
Tom W;
Not quite sure what you mean by ‘don’t work’. The point is that the effect of omissions/deficiencies of GCM’s can be TESTED by comparing their statistical properties with those of the real atmosphere. It turns out that they do incredibly well giving a certain level of confidence in the results.>>
Yes, we think that the omissions/deficiencies cancel each other out and so arrive at a good approximation. On that basis I could select a dozen different sets of omissions/deficiencies that arrive at a good approximation for the tiny time period of detailed (but incomplete) climate data, and still have a good approximation.
X=4
A-B=X=4
If I assume that A=8 and B=4, then my model yields X=4 and so is correct.
If I assume that A=1000 and B=996, then my model yields X=4 and so is correct. I may have been able to measure X=4, but if I have millions of variables that collectively define it, and I know that some of them are wrong, then any assumptions about any of them are valid either for a brief moment in time, or are correct by a matter of chance in the range of infinity to one.
Interesting that Tom W. links to one of the worst of the GCMs…
Yep, even the worst GCM does what DirkH claimed they didn’t.
“Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad”
jeez (08:44:16) :
Yes, and that certain level would be approaching zero. GCM’s do not demonstrate predictive skill. Taking the ensemble of 50 odd models and saying the observed state is in there somewhere is not useful. Almost any future state can be found in one of the models>>
Oh I don’t know. They got the entire history of earth out of one tree didn’t they?
“Frank K. (08:49:52) :
[…]
Much better choice here (they even document what they do, unlike GISS)”
Very interesting. Now lets look at this page in that documentation:
http://www.ccsm.ucar.edu/models/atm-cam/docs/description/
They describe how fractional cloud coverage and humidity and whatnot are working in their cells… Hmm. This sounds all pretty weather-like to me. So wait… They simulate weather (of course, using the right parameters to have a good hindcasting 😉 ) to arrive at long term climate predictions, right? Was it not said that beyond 3 days we can’t forecast weather very well? And has it not been said that, well, weather is difficult to forecast but climate, no problem, just do an ensemble of simulations and you have it? For 100 years into the future?
Now if there is not already a name for a unit of bogosity, i would suggest “Hansen” for it.
I think the simulators are doing a very interesting thing here, but it’s not suited to predict the future climate. It’s very interesting stuff, it’s only used for a purpose it can’t fulfill.
davidmhoffer (08:55:10) :Yes, we think that the omissions/deficiencies cancel each other out and so arrive at a good approximation.
No, we DEMONSTRATE that certain models with deficiencies/omissions do a good job in reproducing the more important statistical properties of the atmosphere.
“Tom W (08:58:34) :
Interesting that Tom W. links to one of the worst of the GCMs…
Yep, even the worst GCM does what DirkH claimed they didn’t.”
What did i say? Hmmm… let’s look it up, shall we?
“Humidity still parameterized.”
What does the link you gave say:
“They also consider, often in parameterized form, the physical processes within the boxes, including sources and sinks of these quantities. ”
Do you see a contradiction? I don’t. But it’s a minor point. I learned that they actually do attempt to model humidity, thank you for that. I am also optimistic that they have already fine-tuned their parameterizations to hindcast the last 10 years of non-warming.
“Let me repeat; The simulated flows can be tested by comparing them with real atmospheric flows. The comparisons suggest that the imperfections that you want to use to dismiss the models are of secondary importance.”
Errr…are we talking about “climate” here or short term weather phenomena? If the latter I would agree, if it’s the former, then that is called a “hindcast” – in my 20 year’s of experience with high end industrial CFD, knowing the answer beforehand has always led to superb results (after tuning the models, of course).
Climate modelers (some, not all) appear to suffer from what I call the “flat plate” syndrome. The belief is that if a CFD code can predict the correct shear stress distribution on a flat plate, then surely it should get the same level of accuracy when you solve for the flow over a 747 aircraft. I mean were solving the same equations and all, right? You know, those well-posed Navier-Stokes equations. Right? Likewise, GCM hindcasts appear to held up as the gold standard in numerical climatology, such that if one can get a good “result” from a hindcast, then surely using the same methods to calculate the climate 90 years into the future will yield a similar level of accuracy. So much so that I can generate press releases, receive Nobel prizes, scare the public, impress my colleagues on the “Weather Channel”…
DirkH (09:02:20) : Very interesting. Now let’s look at this page in that documentation:
http://www.ccsm.ucar.edu/models/atm-cam/docs/description/
They describe….
“This page” is the table of contents of a document with 7 chapters and 3 appendices. So once again nobody has a clue what you are talking about.
Sorry,
Total Feb. mean = 20.5 million sq km
Should read Feb mean = 20.0 million sq km – GK
Oh the horrors of a longer growing season! AH!!!
I wonder if they “modelled” it by taking later weeks in the month and into April as their basis i.e. for March 2020 use the avg map for the first week in March up to the present, 2030, the second week avg, ……2090, the current avg last week in April. If one were going to do modelling, this would seem like a good way to do it. It also shows the arbitrariness of the model.
I too write fiction as a hobby I just don’t publish it on my professional web site or present it to my clients. It is baffle gab like this that gives my profession a bad name. Foolishness like this deflects attention away from the real problems and concerns faced by society.
“Tom W (09:21:03) :
[…]
“This page” is the table of contents of a document with 7 chapters and 3 appendices. So once again nobody has a clue what you are talking about.”
Sorry, i didn’t realize they’re using frames.
I meant to point to
“4.5.2 Description of the macroscale component”
Tom W (09:06:03) :
No, we DEMONSTRATE that certain models with deficiencies/omissions do a good job in reproducing the more important statistical properties of the atmosphere.>>
LOL. do you read your own arguments? If you DEMONSTRATE that CERTAIN models with deficiencies/omissions reproduce statistical properties of the atmosphere, all you have demonstrated is that if you throw enough darts in random directions, one or more of them will hit the bullseye. Then you want to leap upon on it and announce AHA! THIS ONE IS RIGHT!
All you have done is taken a random selection of darts, chosen the one that hit the bullseye, and announced it as accurately knowing where the bullseye is. The problem my friend, is that the bullseye called climate keeps moving, the factors that drive it have varying cycles, interactions, influences that are poorly understood, and if “certain” models got it right for a short period of time, then that is a testament to the number of models number being large enough that one of them got a hit.
If I buy every possible lotto ticket number, I am guaranteed to win the lotto. That doesn’t mean I knew what the winning number was in advance. When “certain” models get it right for 100 years or so, then I might be prepared to consider your argument.
I stopped watching the Weather Channel because of the regrettable Heidi Cullen’s shrill alarmism and arrogance (any meteorologist who disputes AGW should have their AMS certification stripped). I started watching TWC again but recently, Cantore was doing a piece on Barrow Alaska and started discussing the effects of AGW on the Arctic so I’m done with TWC, again. At least Mark Mancuso landed at Accuweather.
davidmhoffer (09:41:10) :
LOL. do you read your own arguments? If you DEMONSTRATE that CERTAIN models with deficiencies/omissions reproduce statistical properties of the atmosphere, all you have demonstrated is that if you throw enough darts in random directions, one or more of them will hit the bullseye.
False but given that reasoned argument is obviously not one of your strengths, I’ll leave it at that.
DirkH (09:11:03) :What does the link you gave say:
“They also consider, often in parameterized form, the physical processes within the boxes, including sources and sinks of these quantities. ”
Do you see a contradiction? I don’t.
Yep. You said the humidity was parameterized. Not so, although sub-gridscale SOURCES and SINKS of humidity are parameterized. A quantity and its sources and sinks are not the same thing. Subgridscal sources and sinks of heat are also parameterized but no one would say the temperature is parameterized.
MIke O (08:25:27) :
Living in Michigan, this looks awesome. I don’t see a problem. Maybe if I hold onto my house for another 50 years, it’ll be worth something …
I concur. Being from the UP of Michigan I am truly thankful for climate change else I am under several thousand feet of ice. If the freeze line heads north I will be literally a happy camper. (love camping) Not everyone on the earth thinks warmer temperatures are a bad thing. If only.
Frank K. (09:12:06):Errr…are we talking about “climate” here or short term weather phenomena? If the latter I would agree, if it’s the former, then that is called a “hindcast” – in my 20 year’s of experience with high end industrial CFD, knowing the answer beforehand has always led to superb results (after tuning the models, of course).
You apparently worked only on relatively simple problems. ‘Superb results’ are indeed almost guaranteed when the number of tuneable parameters is of the same order as the number of degrees of freedom of data you are trying to simulate. Such studies are worthless.
Definitely not the case for GCM’s…where the number of degrees of freedom of the output is vastly greater than the number of tuneable parameters.
Frank K. (09:12:06) : Climate modelers (some, not all) appear to suffer from what I call the “flat plate” syndrome. The belief is that if a CFD code can predict the correct shear stress distribution on a flat plate, then surely it should get the same level of accuracy when you solve for the flow over a 747 aircraft.
This is kind of meaningless until you specify the Reynolds number of two simulations. If they are the same then the computational effort for a given level of accuracy would be the same.
“Tom W (10:27:20) :
[…]
Yep. You said the humidity was parameterized. Not so, although sub-gridscale SOURCES and SINKS of humidity are parameterized.”
Why do i think of the sentence “Don’t look at the man behind the curtain” now…
“I see that everyone conveniently forgets the temperatures just a few weeks ago which were far below freezing across most of the country.”
And I see that many forget that the average temperature of the ENTIRE Southern Hemisphere was the HOTTEST ON RECORD in 2009.
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2010/01/13-02.html
Hey Anthony, does this game play on X-box? Sounds like a fun game, I mean climate science.
Tom W;
False but given that reasoned argument is obviously not one of your strengths, I’ll leave it at that.>>
Certainty that your opponent has no credible argument of offer is established when the opponent resorts to insulting intelligence instead of offering additional explanation or rebuttal. You would have been better to not answer at all than to resort to insults.
This modeling the big melt reminds me of the story published by the Independent newspaper 10 years ago about snowfalls in the UK to become a thing of the past.
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/snowfalls-are-now-just-a-thing-of-the-past-724017.html
Polar 5 found it to be thicker than expected in 2009.
http://www.awi.de/en/news/press_releases/detail/item/research_aircraft_polar_5_finishes_arctic_expedition_unique_measurement_flights_in_the_central_arc/?cHash=e36036fcb4
Why was the ice so resistant to disintegration in the last two Septembers?
http://www.ijis.iarc.uaf.edu/en/home/seaice_extent.htm
“You apparently worked only on relatively simple problems. Superb results are indeed almost guaranteed when the number of tuneable parameters is of the same order as the number of degrees of freedom of data you are trying to simulate. Such studies are worthless.”
This statement makes no sense at all…have you done any computational analysis, Tom?
“This is kind of meaningless until you specify the Reynolds number of two simulations. If they are the same then the computational effort for a given level of accuracy would be the same.”
You can make the Reynolds numbers the same if you want. Go ahead and compute the drag coefficient for the 747 Tom and tell us what you get…
Tom W (11:08:02) :
And I see that many forget that the average temperature of the ENTIRE Southern Hemisphere was the HOTTEST ON RECORD in 2009.
The article says “…in the modern instrumental record…”
Which means “in the last thirty years.”
joe (11:22:47) :
Hey Anthony, does this game play on X-box? Sounds like a fun game, I mean climate science.
Yup, but if you’re the AGW side, you have to memorize the starting screenshot and play the rest of the game with your eyes closed.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am not Anthony, but I *have* stayed at a Holiday Inn managed by a gentleman named Tony.
irkH (0 2 04 2010)
Now if there is not already a name for a unit of bogosity, i would suggest “Hansen” for it.
According to the Jargon file, the unit is the microLenat.
John Coleman (00:32:59) :
Dr. Cullen was dropped by The Weather Channel as part of the NBC cuts. However, to some extent the pro Global Warming stand has continued there. But, lo and behold, yesterday TWC actially included a brief debate of climate change by two meteorologistfs. I was unable to stop my work and turn up the volume. Did anyone here happen to see it?
===========
I’m assuming this is THE John Coleman of KUSI/TV, if so, i want to say thanks for your efforts towards climate sanity.
I get better info. here, so i didn’t bother watching the TWC “climate debate”.
I’m sure it would’ve just been “weather is not climate” BS.
Bill Tuttle (12:15:18): The article says “…in the modern instrumental record…” Which means “in the last thirty years.”
Wrong. The modern record begins in the 1850’s.
The last decade was the warmest on record, according to a report issued Thursday by the World Meterological Organization. The United Nations’ agency findings echo the recent findings of NASA’s
Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which concluded the period from 2000 to 2009 was the warmest since modern temperature record keeping began in the 1850s.
http://views.washingtonpost.com/climate-change/post-carbon/2010/03/last_decade_warmest_on_record.html?hpid=smartliving
DirkH (11:03:42) : Why do i think of the sentence “Don’t look at the man behind the curtain” now…
Because you are incapable of admitting you are wrong?
“Tom W (15:25:04) :
[…]
Because you are incapable of admitting you are wrong?”
Oh, Tom, yes i was wrong when i assumed that they still work with a constant humidity. And thanks for pointing out what the state of the art is now! I surely value your input, and this is not a joke!
Still, i have the feeling that their parametrizations allow for a lot of leeway… we will see whether the predictions will materialize.
Frank K. (11:54:34) :This statement makes no sense at all
I see. So you can’t understand that the more tuneable parameters you introduce the more you can control the output? Can’t make it any simpler than that.
Go ahead and compute the drag coefficient for the 747 Tom and tell us what you get…”
No need there are plenty of other people already doing it….
“The state-of-the-art in CFD drag prediction was recently assessed by an international workshop on the subject….
….
While this indicates that the industry as a whole is closing in on the ability to compute accurate absolute drag levels, in general, the errors are not to the level desired by aircraft design teams.”
http://aero-comlab.stanford.edu/fatica/papers/jameson_fatica_hpc.pdf
Tom W;
Wrong. The modern record begins in the 1850’s.>>
Wrong. The instrumental record starts in the late 1800’s. The MODERN instrumental record begins in 1979.
Further, just what is the hang up over “the warmest decade” anyway? We’ve been in a warming trend since the 1700’s. If I put $10,000 into a savings account every year for 10 years, that’s some significant savings. If I put ONE dollar into the account every year for the next ten years, each year is a RECORD new account balance. The last 10 years are insignificant, but they are still records. The warming of the last 20 years or so is insignificant, but sure, have a record or two if you think it that important.
Further, the instrument record is for the lower reaches of the atmosphere. The long term temperature of the earth is determined by the amount of heat in the atmosphere, land mass, and oceans compared to their mass. With ocean heat content dropping, and ice and snow extent increasing, it is blatantly obvious that the planet is in a cooling trend, and atmospheric temperatures will follow the ocean and land masses (which outweigh atmosphere by thousands to one) whether they like it or not.
Sharon (21:14:47) :
“modeling the future is the absolute best way to predict the past?”
============================================
That’s great !!!
davidmhoffer (16:30:24) :” Wrong. The instrumental record starts in the late 1800’s. The MODERN instrumental record begins in 1979.”
When people keep repeating the same thing over and over without even attempting to offer evidence, it’s a good bet to assume they have none.
Here’s another link that says the modern temperature record begins in the 19th century
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20100121/
So that makes GISS and the Washington Post.
In fact if you google “modern temperature record” you get a bunch of hits and a cursory examination indicates that those that define when the record began invariably place it the 19th century.
“Further, just what is the hang up over “the warmest decade” anyway?”
I think the idea is that if there is warming, the most recent years will tend to be warmer…plus or minus a little stochasticity.
Further, just what is the hang up over “the warmest decade” anyway? – dave
This bugs me also. Some decade has got to be the warmest decade on record if such a thing can be said to exist.
davidmhoffer (16:30:24) :”With ocean heat content dropping, ”
Obviously. The heat content of the ocean.
http://i48.tinypic.com/14e6wjn.gif
Gee…it was cooling in the early ’60’s too which explains why it is much hotter today.
Get serious…
Tom W (11:08:02) :
And I see that many forget that the average temperature of the ENTIRE Southern Hemisphere was the HOTTEST ON RECORD in 2009.
Except NZ and a substantive part of the subantarctic convergence ocean to the east where the anomaly was -0.225.
But as both HADCRU and GISS use a spherical cow (idealized geometry where the earth is a equal sphere in longtitude and latitude) and this reduces the surface area by 5mk^2 missing areas around the IDL this would be expected,
Tom W (20:33:59) :
davidmhoffer (16:30:24) :”With ocean heat content dropping, ”
Obviously. The heat content of the ocean.
http://i48.tinypic.com/14e6wjn.gif
Gee…it was cooling in the early ’60’s too which explains why it is much hotter today.
Get serious…>>
Here’s the surface temperature record. Look, omigosh, ocean heat content dropping in the 60’s followed by temp drops. Omigosh rise in OHC followed by rise in temps. Omigosh flattening out of OHC recently followed by flattening out of the temps.
http://knowledgedrift.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/500px-instrumental_temperature_record_svg.png
Your attempt to argue the drop in OHC while ignoring the corresponding drop in temps seems a bit “designed”
As for your references to “modern” instrumental record sufficient googling will yield any start date you want. a lot of satellite data started to be available around 1979 which is why you will find everything from hurricane intensity to ozone holes to sea ice extent referencing data starting in 1979. Here’s a couple of examples.
http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/tropical/global_running_ace.jpg
http://nsidc.org/data/seaice_index/images/daily_images/N_stddev_timeseries.png
Tom W (15:22:17) :
Bill Tuttle (12:15:18): The article says “…in the modern instrumental record…” Which means “in the last thirty years.”
Wrong. The modern record begins in the 1850’s.
The “modern record” may have begun in the 1850s, but the “modern instrumental record” — which is what your linked article was addressing — began in 1979.
You’re welcome.
“You’re welcome.”
Sorry but I don’t thank people who keep making the same unsubstantiated claim over and over without evidence. I ignore them.
“Here’s the surface temperature record. Look, omigosh, ocean heat content dropping in the 60’s followed by temp drops. Omigosh rise in OHC followed by rise in temps. Omigosh flattening out of OHC recently followed by flattening out of the temps.”
My point wasn’t that there was no relation (lagged or otherwise) between global temperature and ocean heat content. My point was that BOTH signals involve a low frequency warming trends plus noise. The fact that the ocean heat content noise is correlated with the global temperature noise surprises no one
“Your attempt to argue the drop in OHC while ignoring the corresponding drop in temps seems a bit “designed”
The drop is high frequency noise the kind that has occurred many time in the past.
[snip]
“Deniers” is not acceptable here. ~dbs, mod.
Montreal temperature yesterday 25 C, THATS NINE DEGREES CELSIUS or SIXTEEN degrees fahrenheit above its previous record.
Must be all that global cooling…
Tom W (08:06:51) :
“You’re welcome.”
Sorry but I don’t thank people who keep making the same unsubstantiated claim over and over without evidence. I ignore them.
Care to substantiate *your* claim that we had data from satellites 100 years before anyone ever launched a satellite?
The modern *instrument* record — which you insist on reading as the modern record — uses *satellite* data.
The article which you so breathlessly pointed to was about *satellite* data.
You’re welcome anyway.
Tom W (08:57:45) :
Montreal temperature yesterday 25 C, THATS NINE DEGREES CELSIUS or SIXTEEN degrees fahrenheit above its previous record.
Must be all that global cooling…>>
West Palm Beach just reported its coldest Jan-Mar on record and Miami Beach just recorded its coldest March on record.
http://weblogs.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/blog/2010/04/report_south_floridas_winter_w.html
That is no more indicative of warming OR cooling than is a record high in Montreal on a single day. Really, start reading the articles here with the intent to learn something. I started out a long time ago right where you are now, and having having learned that mutch of what was taught as fact was just misdirection, exageration, or just plain wrong, I started to wonder why that was.
Yo, Tom — lookee what I found in the NOAA link your Science-dot-com article cited.
“While middle tropospheric temperatures reveal an increasing trend over the last three decades, stratospheric temperatures (14 to 22 km / 9 to 14 miles above the surface) have been below average… January-December 2009 was the 17th consecutive year with below-average temperatures (an anomaly of -0.53°C/-0.95°F), the eighth coolest year on record. ”
So, even though the Southern Hemisphere — at a .49C increase — was evidently burning like a rain forest being cleared to plant palm oil trees, the average global temp was — cooler.
And, just for the record, three decades equals thirty years.
You’re still welcome.
Bill Tuttle :”While middle tropospheric temperatures reveal an increasing trend over the last three decades,”
The three decades refers to the increasing trend not the length of the record.
Some people are unteachable, I suspect [snip] is one of them.
Tom W (16:07:46) :
Frank K. (11:54:34) :This statement makes no sense at all
“I see. So you can’t understand that the more tuneable parameters you introduce the more you can control the output? Can’t make it any simpler than that.”
No Tom – your sentence has nothing to do with calculating flow field solutions with CFD methods. You sound confused… have you done any CFD before? Perhaps not, so I can understand your confusion.
“No need there are plenty of other people already doing it….”
“The state-of-the-art in CFD drag prediction was recently assessed by an international workshop on the subject….
“While this indicates that the industry as a whole is closing in on the ability to compute accurate absolute drag levels, in general, the errors are not to the level desired by aircraft design teams.”
I am familiar with the DPW (I have seen the papers, the meshes, and solutions), and that is about an order of magnitude below what is required to computed the entire 747. Do they have jet engines in the nacalles? No. How about calculating forces during dynamic turning, or pitch up/down maneuvers? No. The wind tunnel models they are simulating are very simplified versions of the real thing.
Anyways, I look forward to YOUR solution to the 747 problem. You can at least show us your mesh and tell us what turbulence model you plan to use…
“That is no more indicative of warming OR cooling than is a record high in Montreal on a single day.”
I was being sarcastic.
By the way this the same davidmhoffer who offered a ONE MONTH reduction in arctic sea ice cover (a regional phenonenon) as evidence for global cooling?
Tom W (08:46:14) :
[snip]
“Deniers” is not acceptable here. ~dbs, mod.
But ‘alarmist is? That’s what I like, objectivity.
REPLY: “alarmists” has no purposeful connotation, such as the connection to “holocaust deniers” which is why the term is used: to make people who disagree with you look like some sort of evil fringe.
Don’t like it? Tough noogies – Anthony
Tom W (11:15:56) :
The three decades refers to the increasing trend not the length of the record.
What we have here — is a failure to communicate.
One. More. Time.
The Science-dot-com clearly stated it was the “modern INSTRUMENTAL record” — meaning *satellite* data — not (now read very carefully, Tom) the “modern record.” The NOAA article also referred to *satellite* data.
Now, if you keep insisting that the modern *instrumental* record extends back to the 1850s, I’d like you to explain where NASA’s sub-Equatorial ground stations were located, and which routes the thousands of GISS clipper ships took while they were cruising the South Atlantic and South Pacific taking temperature measurements and e-mailling the info back to Goddard.
Some people are unteachable, I suspect [snip] is one of them.
One more reply from you insisting that we had exact knowledge of the temperature of the entire Southern Hemisphere in the 1850s and I’ll concede your point — some people are, indeed, unteachable.
Bill Tuttle (09:11:19) : “Care to substantiate *your* claim that we had data from satellites 100 years before anyone ever launched a satellite?”
Nope, given that I never made such a claim.
Ooooh. Manners.
You’re welcome, Tom.
“The Science-dot-com clearly stated it was the “modern INSTRUMENTAL record” — meaning *satellite* data ”
As I said repeating an unsubstantiated claim adds nothing to its credibility.
Let’s try a different tack. Forget about the terminology. My original point was the new records being announced referred the temperature record going back to the 19th century.
Why do I believe that? Because THAT’S WHAT THE PRESS RELEASES SAY…
For example
“Geneva, 8 December 2009 (WMO) – The year 2009 is likely to rank in the top 10 warmest on record since the beginning of instrumental climate records in 1850, according to data sources compiled by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO). ”
http://www.wmo.int/pages/mediacentre/press_releases/pr_869_en.html
In fact it turned out to be number 5.
The current nominal ranking of 2009 places it as the fifth-warmest year since the beginning of instrumental climate records [in 1850],” Mr. Baddour said yesterday.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=34188&Cr=wmo&Cr1=
NASA has just announced that the period from January 2000 through December 2009 has been the hottest decade since record-keeping began in 1880.
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/temp-analysis-2009.html
Last decade the warmest since records began in 1850
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/past-decade-the-warmest-since-records-began-in-1850-20091208-khqv.html
You will note that different groups use somewhat different starting dates…that’s because they restrict their attention to dates for which reliable global averages can be calculated. The differences are due to differing definitions of ‘reliable’.
Tom W (11:42:33) :
Bill Tuttle (09:11:19) : “Care to substantiate *your* claim that we had data from satellites 100 years before anyone ever launched a satellite?”
Nope, given that I never made such a claim.
Ah — you *do* pay attention to sarcasm.
Tom W (11:29:22) :
“That is no more indicative of warming OR cooling than is a record high in Montreal on a single day.”
I was being sarcastic.
By the way this the same davidmhoffer who offered a ONE MONTH reduction in arctic sea ice cover (a regional phenonenon) as evidence for global cooling?>>
If the only way you think you can score points is to misrepresent what others have said, then you already know the answer and you are being deliberately obtuse. Several people have provided very good information to you, along with detailed explanations. They have volunteered THEIR time to help YOU. They haven’t lied to you, they haven’t twisted your words around, they have instead provided information and the links to the relevant data so you could see for yourself. Yet you continue with invective, sarcasm, and misrepresentation, and not a shred of evidence to back up your claims, or further explanation to clarify a point that may have been misunderstood.
Who are you trying to fool? Me? Or yourself?
Here’s why I used the reductio ad absurdam:
Tom W (20:12:56) :
davidmhoffer (16:30:24) :” Wrong. The instrumental record starts in the late 1800’s. The MODERN instrumental record begins in 1979.”
When people keep repeating the same thing over and over without even attempting to offer evidence, it’s a good bet to assume they have none.
Here’s another link that says the modern temperature record begins in the 19th century
Note that we’ve all been drawing your attention to the phrase, “modern instrumental record” — which was the exact phrase used in the original article — which you kept reading as the “modern temperature record.
You’re welcome.
Tom W (12:07:59) :
“The Science-dot-com clearly stated it was the “modern INSTRUMENTAL record” — meaning *satellite* data ”
As I said repeating an unsubstantiated claim adds nothing to its credibility.
Okay — you *do* realize that you just said that the entire article which announced that 2009 temps in the SH were the warmest *evah* was based on an unsubstantiated claim, don’t you?
Let’s try a different tack. Forget about the terminology. My original point was the new records being announced referred the temperature record going back to the 19th century.
But the article you used to back up that statement was speaking about *satellite* data, and was specific about that.
Why do I believe that? Because THAT’S WHAT THE PRESS RELEASES SAY…
How nice. I have a framed press release on my wall back home announcing that I’d been killed in a helicopter crash off the coast of Nicaragua.
Don’t believe NASA, don’t believe GISS, don’t believe the World Meteorological Organization, don’t believe the Sydney Morning Herald, don’t believe the Washington Post…
You MO is clear.
I’m done.
Frank K. (11:54:34) :”I am familiar with the DPW (I have seen the papers, the meshes, and solutions), and that is about an order of magnitude below what is required to computed the entire 747.”
I get the feeling that you don’t really understand what they are doing….they are using turbulent closure (i.e. parameterization) schemes in an attempt to REDUCE the computational requirement needed in direct simulations.
“Do they have jet engines in the nacalles? No. How about calculating forces during dynamic turning, or pitch up/down maneuvers? No. The wind tunnel models they are simulating are very simplified versions of the real thing.”
That wasn’t really the purpose of my post. My point was that using modified models with tuneable parameters is quite common in CFD studies, turbulence closure models being a case in point.
Tom W wonders why we don’t believe NASA/GISS, or the newspapers that parrot what GISS reports. Here are a few reasons:
click1
click2 [takes a while to load]
click3 [satellite & HadCrut show flat to declining temperatures, but GISS shows rising temperatures – after their adjustment]
click4 [GISS “revised” temps]
click5
The “adjustments” GISS makes always show increased warming over the actual raw data. What are the odds, eh?
Smokey (14:18:04) :”The “adjustments” GISS makes always show increased warming over the actual raw data. What are the odds, eh?”
A claim that seems to be contradicted by your first link
http://gallery.surfacestations.org/main.php?g2_itemId=50890
Tom W (13:52:12) :
Don’t believe NASA, don’t believe GISS, don’t believe the World Meteorological Organization, don’t believe the Sydney Morning Herald, don’t believe the Washington Post…
You didn’t believe the NOAA announcement that 2009 was *cooler* worldwide, and consistently avoided addressing the original point that your original link was to an article based on *satellite* data. GISS is badly compromised, NASA admits its data is less accurate than CRU’s, and the Washington Post has been a left-leaning propaganda rag since the 1970s.
You MO is clear.
My MO is to get people to address statements they’ve made and clarify them when there is an obvious conflict between what they originally said and what they said further down the thread.
Cheers.
Tom W (14:27:59),
If you notice, the earlier temperatures are artificially reduced, while current temperatures are not.
The resulting graph shows a steeper rise in temperature over time.
Tom W. (again)
“That wasn’t really the purpose of my post. My point was that using modified models with tuneable parameters is quite common in CFD studies, turbulence closure models being a case in point.”
You should have said that in the beginning rather than obfuscating the issue with confusing and meaningless points.
Still, I await your 747 simulation Tom (which is certainly easier than simulating the climate). Let us know when your solution converges…
Smokey. Scrap my last post.
Link 1: A single station out of thousands. By itself proof of nothing.
Link 2: Modification leads to a slight increase of the warming trend
Link 3: GISS is high by comparison and an outlier. Perhaps significant perhaps not. The period is too short to take the trend calculations seriously
Link 4 Another single station. By itself meaningless
Link 5: Not particularly convincing…if only because the early period temperature anomaly of -.5 around 1890 was eliminated completely between 87 and 07 so as to reduce the trend.
Tom W (13:52:12) :
Don’t believe NASA, don’t believe GISS, don’t believe the World Meteorological Organization, don’t believe the Sydney Morning Herald, don’t believe the Washington Post…
You MO is clear.
I’m done>>
..and with that scathing remark, he clasped his hat firmly upon his head, wrapped his cloak of indignation about him, and strode off firmly down the path in order that he find new, more receptive disciples to bring his message of doom and destruction to. He paused only once, to take a detour around an advancing glacier that cut across his path. He stopped, looked at it in rightous anger, and said “I guess you can’t read newspapers. Don’t you know that you don’t exist?”
The glacier offered no response. “Thought so,” said Tom to himself, “and now I have proof.”
As he stalked off, the glacier continued its silence. But with Tom’s back now turned, it slowly… began to advance…
Tom W (14:45:02),
We could have glaciers down to the equator, and you would still find reasons to believe in catastrophic AGW.
I know this won’t convince you either, but since your critique repeatedly mentions just a “single station”…
click
“I know this won’t convince you either, but since your critique repeatedly mentions just ‘a single station’…”
Smokey (14:55:43) : Are you seriously suggesting that the fact that you can find TWO stations out of THOUSANDS that confirm your suspicions means something?
“I know this won’t convince you either, but since your critique repeatedly mentions just ‘a single station’…”
Nope that link doesn’t convince GISS is biased either, especially since it’s just comparing Nov raw data with July raw data. Nothing to do with GISS.
Tom W (15:02:19) :
“I know this won’t convince you either, but since your critique repeatedly mentions just ‘a single station’…”
Smokey (14:55:43) : Are you seriously suggesting that>>
After stating clearly that he was “done”, Tom W returns. Pointing at the glacier he just stepped around, he asks “can’t you see that that glacier does not exist? Have you not read the reports from the newspapers and MET and GISS saying it is not there? Will you believe them or your own eyes?”
What will happen next? Will the glacier advance, slowly engulfing Tom as he points and proclaims it does not exist? Or will he be saved by hot air that melts the glacier before it gets to him? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode due in 2025 where Tom will be heard to exclaim “just because it is getting colder dsoesn’t mean that it is not global warming, just look at the polar bears their population has tripled again, at this rate they will soon be extinct!”
John Coleman (00:32:59) :
Dr. Cullen was dropped by The Weather Channel as part of the NBC cuts.
And yet Heidi started at Climate Central before the take-over, and the films she makes are still shown at the Weather Channel.
Frank K. (14:43:07) : “Still, I await your 747 simulation Tom (which is certainly easier than simulating the climate). Let us know when your solution converges…”
You seem to think that because a problem can’t be solved in its full complexity then nothing can be said. This is demonstrably false. It even impossible to describe simple gas in equilibrium in its full complexity because the trajectories are chaotic and impossible to predict very far into the future. Very few people who would claim that the problem of a simple gas in equilibrium is intractable however.
The mere fact that you can’t simulate the airflow around a 747 to your satisfaction does not mean that it is impossible to predict certain features of the climate.