Update and brief review below by Ryan Maue…
From Reuters Alert Net: Colder winters possible due to climate change-study
* Colder winters possible in northern regions
* Shrinking sea ice causes airstream anomalies
* Finding does not conflict with global warming
BERLIN, Nov 16 (Reuters) – Climate change could lead to colder winters in northern regions, according to a study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research on Tuesday.
Vladimir Petoukhov, lead author of the study, said a shrinking of sea ice in the eastern Arctic causes some regional warming of lower air levels and may lead to anomalies in atmospheric airstreams, triggering an overall cooling of the northern continents.
“These anomalies could triple the probability of cold winter extremes in Europe and northern Asia,” he said. “Recent severe winters like last year’s or the one of 2005/06 do not conflict with the global warming picture but rather supplement it.”
h/t to WUWT readers e.c cowan and Michael P.
Ryan Maue Update: It took me some doing to find this study in the Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres. The study is fine as constructed, but why is this worthy of a press release?
This study employs a climate model to determine the sensitivity of the atmospheric circulation to sea-ice concentration. The ECHAM5 model is used with T42 spectral resolution (that is 2.8×2.8 degree longitude/latitude spacing !!!) and 19 vertical levels. This is about the model setup of NCEP’s operational weather forecasting models in the 1980s. Six “simulations” (or scenarios) were performed of 100 years duration with differing sea-ice concentration in the Barents-Kara (B-K) sector. Their results are therefore 100-year averages obtained from the simulations.
The conclusions are not conclusive at all but very equivocal in nature. This is contrary to the press release. Since European winter climate is strongly controlled by a host of climate modes such as ENSO, NAO, AO, PDO, etc., their study cannot include the non-linear interplay between the actors and their sea-ice concentration scenarios. This is a very idealized experiment with results that are very preliminary when it comes to relating to the true atmosphere. There is no analysis of the 2005/2006 winters to determine if indeed the sea-ice mechanism was responsible for the cooler winter.
The study’s conclusions with respect to future climate change are very speculative to say the least. This is the case with many of these types of climate scenario experiments. Step one is to find a phenomenon that goes against the AGW consensus: here it is a cold winter in the Northern Hemisphere. Step two is to construct an experiment which explains the phenomena in the context of AGW. Step three is to connect step 2 to step 1 and issue a press release containing facts not in evidence.
Is there no end to the chicanery of these AGW pushers.
How can cooler Winters in the Northern Hemisphre be an indicator that the climate is warming?
As a minimum, it defies common sense.
I suppose the question goes something like this: If we get colder winters in the north, where all the ice is, then that should lead to more ice. More ice would lead to warmer winters, at which point the ice melts again, and we get colder winters again.
Doesn’t that sound like a natural cycle?
Or does the ice somehow not increase during those colder winters, due to global warming?
(Insert suitable onomatopoetica for losing one’s mind here.)
Time for a stiff drink, with ice.
OK then, do models show that some of the heatwaves in Europe have been due to global cooling and argue against AGW. Or is absolutely everything one way – every !%#@& wether event indicative of global warming? I can’t take this any more.
Oh wait, of course, no change in temperature will also support AGW – after they finally put the Solar Cycle 24 cooling trend into the models.
Oops – I should know how to spell ‘weather’ by now.
What more do they want, this is perfect — the Arctic was supposed to heat the most now it’ll be cold and offset that problem. Then the cold air will create more ice and then we repeat, repeat, repeat. Voila, climate feedback!
If warmer winters supplement it (recall “snow will be a rarity predictions), and colder winters supplement it (the current claim), it isn’t a scientific theory because it isn’t falsifiable.
No doubt this will be followed by a Climate Change Study explaining that colder summers are also possible
I would love to comment on this, put I just plugged in a logic algorithm using the above formula, and blacked out half of the great state of Ohio. Not electrical grid black out, I mean the sheer power of such double thinking logic (warm=cool) caused half the state to pass out without even knowing why. This is the same logic that would get me financed for a mansion. Oh wait…
“Climate change could lead to colder winters…”
How nearly every single study, paper and article in support of global warming always uses such confident and concrete claims to support their findings is always refreshing.
I am not one to pay much attention to press releases or brief new articles; usually they contain more opinion and misinformation than anything else. I will make an exception here. Having lived all of my life in the northern hemisphere and most of it in the north part of it, my experience indicates that cold winters are the norm. It is the ones not cold that are anomalous. The position of the polar jet has more to do with La Niña then anything else. This is more dreaming then reality or perhaps the author is overly fond so some social drug or herbs.
While we are at it, who wants frozen cheese on their nachos? Because the warm cheese is just nasty.
Its official – the team are madder than the hatters of old – perhaps they have eaten way too much swordfish.
And white is black and black is white…
So how come they never said earlier this year that warmer summers don’t conflict with global cooling?
And the lower global temperature in 2011 will also be caused by global warming…
This is precisely why the term ‘global climate disruption’ has been coined, so that any observed phenomenon can be blamed on human activities such as development, particularly of the capitalist kind.
I can’t help ruminating that the urge and eventual necessity to pin all manner of supposed evils on a pre-chosen scapegoat group is an ideological stance with an unhappy history.
Give the guy a break, will ya? If showing everyone how stupid he is means he gets handed a large bundle of taxpayer dollars then a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do.
Zis isht hardly surprzing! As you have been tolt, .. should you die of hypothermia it is obviously because of globl warwmink! (I know nothing … nothing)
The low quality of science at the Potsdam PIK is explainable with its mission:
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research
Without an AGW scare, they would just loose their reason to exist.
Many still remember the shocking poor quality of Rahmstorf et al 2008. Despite the damage done by this paper it has not been retracted.
Needless to say, that these people advise the German government and institutions such as Deutsche Bank.
What took them so long! This was so predictable. These people do it with such a straight face. Another sign of how desperate they are getting. The devoted will be comforted by this nonsense. Sigh!
Brrr…
Damn global warming.
Now I have to invest in more thermals.
I once had a propane refigerater that worked like that— when the burner turned on the inside got cold. But, since this works on water, amonia and hydrogen under pressure, I doubt that the atmosphere works like that.
Excellent news. Let them keep digging, until the tops of their heads are no longer visible.
The general public is way too sensible to fall for this stuff. As the punters in the northern hemisphere shiver away this winter, they will be thrilled to hear that the reason why heating is becoming more expensive is to prevent it from getting colder, except when it’s getting hotter.
I am looking forward to similar explanations for the recent breaking of the drought (on a spectacular scale) and a very cool Spring here in Australia. I am really, really looking forward to that …
Joining Torgeir in a drink, to celebrate. Give ’em enough rope etc.
Is this the fightback?
No they just lost their marbles !!!
Updated the post with a very cursory review. This type of study should never receive a press release…