By Steve Goddard
Dr Pielke’s excellent post gave me an idea. NASA said :
Not all parts of the Russian Federation experienced unusual warmth on July 20–27, 2010. A large expanse of northern central Russia, for instance, exhibits below-average temperatures. Areas of atypical warmth, however, predominate in the east and west. Orange- and red-tinged areas extend from eastern Siberia toward the southwest, but the most obvious area of unusual warmth occurs north and northwest of the Caspian Sea. These warm areas in eastern and western Russia continue a pattern noticeable earlier in July, and correspond to areas of intense drought and wildfire activity.
Looking at the NASA image, it is clear that more land is below normal temperatures than is above. So I generated the map below, which flattens all areas of above and below normal temperatures.
It turns out that the map has 43% more pixels which are below normal than above normal. The map is not a perfect equal area projection, so the 43% is not a precise number. But it does give a feel for the fact that the Moscow heat wave was just weather.
According to NCEP, Moscow temperatures are about to come crashing down.
Funny how the MSM books the story as AGW. I am not sure that reality trumps perception. I can just hear the refrain, we must act now to control these horrible events and secure the future of our children.
Joe Bastardi says the heat in Russia and Europe is from El Nino reversing:
2:15 video
http://www.accuweather.com/video/475291522001/european-summer-fits-with-the-analogs.asp?channel=vbbastaj
Piers Corbyn had forecast the heat in Russia but not by using global warming climate models but by using solar activity, the phases of the moon, and magnetic activity around the earth :
4:32 video
Some areas are warmer than normal while others are colder than normal. This proves that global warming is real!
All I know in England is that I am contemplating putting on socks and shoes – and it’s August, not the middle of flipping winter. I’m going to Cornwall tomorrow and am having a helluva time deciding what to pack- the winter dressing gown is definitely going. Brrrr. (The one good thing is that it has been raining so I am not too worried about the veg patch dying while I’m away.) A definite feel of autumn in the air. Is that weather or climte?
“Earlier this year astrophysicist Mike Lockwood of the University of Reading, UK, showed that winter blocking events were more likely to happen over Europe when solar activity is low – triggering freezing winters (New Scientist, 17 April, p 6). Now he says he has evidence from 350 years of historical records to show that low solar activity is also associated with summer blocking events (Environmental Research Letters, in press). “There’s enough evidence to suspect that the jet stream behaviour is being modulated by the sun,” he says. Blackburn says that blocking events have been unusually common over the last three years, for instance, causing severe floods in the UK and heatwaves in eastern Europe in 2007. Solar activity has been low throughout.”
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727730.101-frozen-jet-stream-leads-to-flood-fire-and-famine.html
It’s important to note that while there are weather forecasters who were able to be fairly specific in forecasting the heat in Russia global warming did not forecast it or the heat in New York or the flooding in Pakistan and China. Global warming just says it’s going to get hotter and disasters are going to happen. Global warming paints with a broad, generalized brush. That leaves a door wide open to then say that any heat or disaster anywhere in the world is caused by global warming, regardless if the world overall is warming or cooling. Right now the world overall is cooling.
Record heat has always happened in the earth at any given location and at any given time. And disasters like flooding has always happened in the earth.
“Is this the end of the world? No, this is the world. And I think it’s time we knew it.”
~Michael Crichton
1:35 video of Michael Crichton talking about normal occurrences in the earth
Susan Brooks Thistlewaite of The Washington Post has it covered. It’s not “Global Warming” because the planet stopped getting warm. It’s not “Climate Change” because that’s not scary enough. The proper term is “Global Weirding” because the weather is different all over the place.
The crash began the next week (28 July-4 Aug) for “eastern Siberia toward the southwest” :
http://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/Search.html?size=full&palette=rgb&format=JPEG&w=&h=&ssn=&ssw=&sse=&sss=&datasetId=MOD_LSTAD_E
That’s the most current week they have and it’s the day anomaly but the night anomaly is less ‘extreme’ . They have individual days more recent than 4 Aug but they’re messed up. (You can zoom and pan the image on the above link but you have to zoom first.)
I think that the map may be a “latitude/longitude” projection.
In which case the pixels essentially DO represent equal areas.
Went through this using the NEO maps for incoming/outgoing and balance radiation 4 years ago. (Now you can do the “averaging” work with a Java App.)
Max
The current jet stream map for Northern Asia matches very well with the current NASA/temperature mapping
http://www.wunderground.com/global/Region/AS/2xJetStream.html
It would be worth capturing and adding to the post (before it changes).
Steve, thanks for your analysis!
The ongoing fires near Moscow are interesting, apparently Stalin ordered vast areas of wetlands drained, resulting in the dry peat areas that are presently on fire. I haven’t been able to find verification of this and it might be an urban legend, but considering all the environmental damage that the Soviets caused, I think it is plausible.
Whatever happened to “Weather is not Climate” ????
AAiM, thanks for that video of Piers Corbyn. I knew he was mad, but I had never seen him in action. Can’t we just start every single article on WUWT with all those Youtube videos you keep on linking to?
Wife and I have been traveling some, to the Wash. Coast, Grey’s Harbor, etc for early/mid August. It seems we are a bit cool. The locals in Aberdeen/Houquiam are c
complaining about how cold and nasty it’s been -even with the Nino spike, the ocean’s
cold. In Coos Bay, a troller friend I keep up with agrees. Good for the Salmon,etc
however…
My wildland fire buddies are still waiting for the big project fire-so far not happening-yet. this is the National Inter-agency Co-Ordination Center:
http://www.nifc.gov/fire_info/nfn.htm
very quiet this year….
And in addition to the cooling in Moscow, Kazakstan, which has seen persistant cold waves, will get even colder.
Here’s an idea that might be interesting. How about re-do the map above (or maybe a golbal map? with the colour bars reversed so that the cooler parts are red and the hotter parts are blue. Then lets compare them to see which appears to be the “hottest” That might be a beter way to identify the bias in interpretation? Just an idea.
Is there a link to NASA high resolution temperature anomaly maps like the one for Russia?
In response to a reader request a few weeks ago, I predicted that Chelsea would win the Premiership again this year.
Anyone want to take me up on that bet today?
It’s truly amazing, that once again, the GCM’s got it backwards, yet Piers and Joe nailed it.
As early as 1918 Soviet engineers drained swamps to supply peat for electrical power stations. That approach was abandoned in the late 1950s, after natural gas was discovered in Siberia, but the bogs were never reflooded, though the authorities are currently weighing the idea.
The irrational crowd says CO2 drives this. That means the temps can’t drop unless CO2 drops. Joe Romm already polled his pals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/13/world/europe/13russia.html?_r=1
Off topic, but can anyone direct me to a discussion about the ‘failure’ of the NOAA-16 satelite and its implications on NOAA’s reported temperature data?
Come on Steve, this isn’t graduate level stuff. You cant just count warm/cold pixels and make a claim about the overall temperature trend. You have to weight each pixel by its relative color — right now you’re treating pixels that are +12 the same as -1 pixels, and vice versa.
Amino Acids in Meteorites says:
August 14, 2010 at 2:37 pm
“Is this the end of the world? No, this is the world. And I think it’s time we knew it.”
~Michael Crichton
=========================================================
I’m still trying to figure out how more water and a longer growing season is a catastrophe.
Gunther the day you’ll forecast weather as well as Piers, we’ll add you in our favs.