The 2010 Summer Heat Wave of Western Russia
Reference
Dole, R., Hoerling, M., Perlwitz, J., Eischeid, J., Pegion, P., Zhang, T., Quan, X.-W., Xu, T. and Murray, D. 2011. Was there a basis for anticipating the 2010 Russian heat wave? Geophysical Research Letters 38: 10.1029/2010GL046582.
Background
The authors write that “the 2010 summer heat wave in western Russia was extraordinary, with the region experiencing the warmest July since at least 1880 and numerous locations setting all-time maximum temperature records.” And as a result, they say that “questions of vital societal interest are whether the 2010 Russian heat wave might have been anticipated, and to what extent human-caused greenhouse gas emissions played a role.”
What was done
In broaching this question, Dole et al. used both climate model simulations and observational data “to determine the impact of observed sea surface temperatures, sea ice conditions and greenhouse gas concentrations.”
What was learned
The nine U.S. researchers determined that “analysis of forced model simulations indicates that neither human influences nor other slowly evolving ocean boundary conditions contributed substantially to the magnitude of the heat wave.” In fact, they say that the model simulations provided “evidence that such an intense event could be produced through natural variability alone.” Similarly, on the observation front, they state that “July surface temperatures for the region impacted by the 2010 Russian heat wave show no significant warming trend over the prior 130-year period from 1880-2009,” noting, in fact, that “a linear trend calculation yields a total temperature change over the 130 years of -0.1°C.” In addition, they indicate that “no significant difference exists between July temperatures over western Russia averaged for the last 65 years (1945-2009) versus the prior 65 years (1880-1944),” and they state that “there is also no clear indication of a trend toward increasing warm extremes.” Last of all, they say that although there was a slightly higher variability in temperature in the latter period, the increase was “not statistically significant.”
What it means
“In summary,” to quote Dole et al., “the analysis of the observed 1880-2009 time series shows that no statistically significant long-term change is detected in either the mean or variability of western Russia July temperatures, implying that for this region an anthropogenic climate change signal has yet to emerge above the natural background variability.” Thus, they say their analysis “points to a primarily natural cause for the Russian heat wave,” noting that the event “appears to be mainly due to internal atmospheric dynamical processes that produced and maintained an intense and long-lived blocking event,” adding that there are no indications that “blocking would increase in response to increasing greenhouse gases.”
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Review reprinted from co2science.org
See also: Final words on the 2010 Russian heat wave from AGU: weather, predictable
and:
NOAA finds”climate change” blameless in 2010 Russian heat wave
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I have one simple question, do any of the climate models predict more frequent negative arctic oscillation that leads to higher pressure over the poles as the world warms and larger north south oscillation in the polar jet? I thought I had read somewhere that the GCM models predicted exactly the opposite (but I can’t find the reference).
The only thing I would quibble with is their use of “mostly”. The accompanying commentary clearly indicates it was entirely natural.
It’s not entirely clear from a first reading of this, but this is another review of the April 2011 paper covered by that April WUWT page, Final words on the 2010 Russian heat wave from AGU: weather, predictable which I guess didn’t have quite the final words. 🙂
This doesn’t prove/disprove the larger context for what climate change science it telling us.
Short of saying “It ain’t caused by global warming”, they don’t say “it ain’t caused by global warming”. So does this paper actually say anything, beyond being hesitant to skewer the non-hypothesis altogether? It seems to imply, frankly, that despite evidence to the contrary, the ACC signal is buried in there somewhere. Um…c’mon guys, just spit it out!
Just in time for the heat wave in the Southern US. The counterpart this time is 10-15 degrees below normal in the PNW.
model simulations provided “evidence that such an intense event could be produced through natural variability alone.”
Model simulations are evidence? Ouch. At least they backed it with observations.
Many of us recall the NYT’s front page piece in the fall of 2010 speculating as to whether the R. H. W. was caused by global warming. Of course they did everything but definitively assert that it was. I recall one scientist who said in the piece, “I can’t prove that it was, but my gut sure says it was.” Or words to that effect.
A peer reviewed paper was published some months later (not sure if the same one as this) which came to the conclusion that the heat wave was in fact a natural phenomenon. Just weather.
I wrote a couple letters to the Public Editor asking why the answer now that we have it concerning the cause of the heat wave, is not at least as important as the question. If not, then why ask it in the first place? Of course my letters were ignored.
The only possible conclusion for a fair-minded person is that it’s fine and dandy for the NYT’s to publish rank speculation if it supports the AGW case, but emphatically not ok to publish actual facts when they do not.
.
Al’s going to have to modify his video coming in Sept now to show that this was a natural event vs. CAGW…maybe not….
“implying that for this region an anthropogenic climate change signal has yet to emerge above the natural background variability.”
Translation
“Damn, we still can’t find this missing heat”?
Bottom line: given the difficulty of ‘proving a negative’, this data does prove ‘positively’ that if there is an AGW effect, it is *immeasurably* small over the past 130 years.
1972 : Record Heat And Drought In Moscow
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/1972-record-heat-and-drought-in-moscow/
Seems like they’re finding more events that just somehow, can’t be tied to CAGW.
That NOAA CSI team also found that last blizzard wasn’t tied to CAGW either.
When someplace has a “streak” going for a heatwave, it’s front page news, and proof of a warming world.
But when Dallas went through a period where temps never went above 80 degrees (from Oct 20 2009 to Mar 30, 2010 – a total of 161 days) , the MSM doesn’t pick it up?
And the record of 166 consecutive days is 91 years old (that would make it 1919 or so).
Marble Bar, Austrailia still has the world’s record of CONSECUTUIVE days over 100 (160 days, back in ’23/24).
If we’re “loading the dice”, and going to see more extreme weather due to GW, why havent these long term records been tied or exceeded?
rbateman said on July 13, 2011 at 10:18 am:
Here in central Pennsylvania we seem to have finally emerged from a long cool wet season that took the place of our normal Spring. A few weeks back it was so cold late at night I could see my breath outside. Normally around the spring there are lots of potted garden plants for sale, as in small tomato, pepper, and other vegetable plants. That would have been a few months ago, planting starting roughly around mid- to late-April. Well, if those small plants were out this year I somehow completely missed it. The neighbors across the street had their garden lot tilled and cleared months ago, they’ve even gone over it to knock out the weeds. They finally gave up and planted some things about a month ago, presumably fast-growing stuff to match the short growing time available.
Now we’re getting some warmer days, a few around 90°F. Yesterday was rather oppressive with high temps and humidity, “air you can wear,” today’s not much better, thus OMG IT MUST BE GLOBAL WARMING!!!!!!
When you say the paper was “peer reviewed”, I take it the peers were not the East Anglia clique.
Interesting that a pretty large swath of Russia has not increased in temperature at all in more than a century. Looking over the contintental USA figures, there is precious little to see there either, except at airports in cities. It seems Auz is not heating nearly enough to make up for anything like a whole continent somewhere else. It certainly isn’t warmer on average in Antarctica. Africa seems to be cooler! There has been a little bit of warming over Northern Canada but not enough to cook the books for the whole world.
So,where is all the hot air that is supposed to be averaging 0.7 C warmer all over the world in the past 100 years? Washington? Copenhagen? Hell, it must be bloody hot somewhere all the time – I wonder where? Perhaps 42°26’04″N and 83°59’05″W.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/13/peer-reviewed-paper-2010-russina-heat-wave-mostly-natural/#comment-699488
Crispin,
Do not forget the oceans.
There was already a critical contribution on “Klimazwiebel” in Germany to that topic which used similar arguments like in the paper above – that atmospheric circulation anomalies explain the heat wave while these anomalies are not becoming more frequent in the future – according to models.
So why should the heat wave be attributed to anthropogenic forcing?
http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.com/2011/03/freddie-schenk-zum-hot-summer-of-2010.html
I wonder why no discussion followed on Klimazwiebel?
Obviously these researchers are paid by Exxon.
2011, Western US:
CPC 6-10 AND 8-14 DAY OUTLOOK DO KEEP US COOLER THAN NORMAL SO AT THIS TIME A HEATWAVE IS NOT IN THE CARDS ALL OF THE WAY INTO THE FINAL WEEK OF JULY.
Last year’s and this year’s snow in Brazil, yes Brazil, is only natural. It’s just the damned weather and I wish Warmists would stop the alarm.
Just in case a Warmist wants to challenge me on snow in Brazil:
2010
http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100827/full/news.2010.437.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/07/21/brazil.dead.penguins/index.html#fbid=IIUufT-MKyq&wom=false
http://en.mercopress.com/2010/08/05/snow-in-brazil-below-zero-celsius-in-the-river-plate-and-tropical-fish-frozen
2011
http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=701008&publicationSubCategoryId=200
Oh, I forgot Bolivia and
ChillyChile. ;>)http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/chilly-in-chile-south-america-hit-by-freak-cold-snap/19583528
http://sify.com/news/cold-wave-kills-six-million-fish-in-bolivia-news-international-kielkdaieea.html
Amazing how quickly a paper is accepted by “skepticks” when they believe it reinforces their worldview. Where is the skepticism?
In my region of NSW, according to BOM’s own site, every single monthly maximum record, bar one, was set between 1910 and 1919. The exception was August, which had its record heat in 1946 or (maybe it was ’47).
I’ve got a copy of it somewhere on my computer, just in case someone decides to “adjust”.
What conclusion should a sensible fellow draw from all that? That one should draw NO conclusion.