From the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) more instituitional worrying turned press release leading up to the upcoming WMO report. I wonder where they get the increase in hurricane intensity from? Apparently they’ve never seen Dr. Ryan Maue’s ACE graph discussed recently in the GRL journal: “Historical global tropical cyclone inactivity (Editor’s Highlight):
And then there’s the report of a weather station in Germany that got more rain than ever before in 2002, which is just frightening on a decadal old scale isn’t it. Gosh. Loaded dice, that’s the ticket.
Weather records due to climate change: A game with loaded dice
The past decade has been one of unprecedented weather extremes. Scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany argue that the high incidence of extremes is not merely accidental. From the many single events a pattern emerges. At least for extreme rainfall and heat waves the link with human-caused global warming is clear, the scientists show in a new analysis of scientific evidence in the journal Nature Climate Change. Less clear is the link between warming and storms, despite the observed increase in the intensity of hurricanes.
In 2011 alone, the US was hit by 14 extreme weather events which caused damages exceeding one billion dollars each – in several states the months of January to October were the wettest ever recorded. Japan also registered record rainfalls, while the Yangtze river basin in China suffered a record drought. Similar record-breaking events occurred also in previous years. In 2010, Western Russia experienced the hottest summer in centuries, while in Pakistan and Australia record-breaking amounts of rain fell. 2003 saw Europe´s hottest summer in at least half a millennium. And in 2002, the weather station of Zinnwald-Georgenfeld measured more rain in one day than ever before recorded anywhere in Germany – what followed was the worst flooding of the Elbe river for centuries.
“A question of probabilities”
“The question is whether these weather extremes are coincidental or a result of climate change,” says Dim Coumou, lead author of the article. “Global warming can generally not be proven to cause individual extreme events – but in the sum of events the link to climate change becomes clear.” This is what his analysis of data and published studies shows. “It is not a question of yes or no, but a question of probabilities,” Coumou explains. The recent high incidence of weather records is no longer normal, he says.
“It´s like a game with loaded dice,” says Coumou. “A six can appear every now and then, and you never know when it happens. But now it appears much more often, because we have changed the dice.” The past week illustrates this: between March 13th and 19th alone, historical heat records were exceeded in more than a thousand places in North America.
Three pillars: basic physics, statistical analysis and computer simulations
The scientists base their analysis on three pillars: basic physics, statistical analysis and computer simulations. Elementary physical principles already suggest that a warming of the atmosphere leads to more extremes. For example, warm air can hold more moisture until it rains out. Secondly, clear statistical trends can be found in temperature and precipitation data, the scientists explain. And thirdly, detailed computer simulations also confirm the relation between warming and records in both temperature and precipitation.
With warmer ocean temperatures, tropical storms – called typhoons or hurricanes, depending on the region – should increase in intensity but not in number, according to the current state of knowledge. In the past decade, several record-breaking storms occurred, for example hurricane Wilma in 2004. But the dependencies are complex and not yet fully understood. The observed strong increase in the intensity of tropical storms in the North Atlantic between 1980 and 2005, for example, could be caused not just by surface warming but by a cooling of the upper atmosphere. Furthermore, there are questions about the precision and reliability of historic storm data.
Overall, cold extremes decrease with global warming, the scientists found. But this does not compensate for the increase in heat extremes.
Climatic warming can turn an extreme event into a record-breaking event
“Single weather extremes are often related to regional processes, like a blocking high pressure system or natural phenomena like El Niño,” says Stefan Rahmstorf, co-author of the article and chair of the Earth System Analysis department at PIK. “These are complex processes that we are investigating further. But now these processes unfold against the background of climatic warming. That can turn an extreme event into a record-breaking event.”
Article: Coumou, D., Rahmstorf, S. (2012): A Decade of Weather Extremes. Nature Climate Change [DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1452]
Weblink to the article once it is published: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE1452
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Sigh, my rebuttal still stands: Why it seems that severe weather is “getting worse” when the data shows otherwise – a historical perspective
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in Australia, we now have the full lunatic ravings of the leader of The Greens leader, Bob Brown to ponder!
Bob Brown delivers the 3rd annual Green Oration
Fellow Earthians,
Never before has the Universe unfolded such a flower as our collective human
intelligence, so far as we know.
Nor has such a one-and-only brilliance in the Universe stood at the brink of
extinction, so far as we know.
We people of the Earth exist because our potential was there in the Big
Bang, 13.7 billion years ago, as the Universe exploded into being.
So far, it seems like we are the lone thinkers in this vast, expanding
Universe.
However, recent astronomy tells us that there are trillions of other planets
circling Sunlike stars in the immensity of the Universe, millions of them
friendly to life. So why has no one from elsewhere in the Cosmos contacted
us?…
Surely some people-like animals have evolved elsewhere. Surely we are not, in this crowded reality of countless other similar planets, the only thinking beings to have turned up. Most unlikely! So why isn’t life out there contacting us? Why aren’t the intergalactic phones ringing?
Here is one sobering possibility for our isolation: maybe life has often evolved to intelligence on other planets with biospheres and every time that intelligence, when it became able to alter its environment, did so with catastrophic consequences. Maybe we have had many predecessors in the Cosmos but all have brought about their own downfall….
http://greensmps.org.au/content/news-stories/bob-brown-delivers-3rd-annual-green-oration
>In 2011 alone, the US was hit by 14 extreme weather events which caused damages exceeding one billion dollars each
Quietly ignoring the fact that the same weather could have happened 500 years ago but would have gone unrecorded; and had that weather happened 100 years ago, while they might have been recorded, there wouldn’t have been a billion dollars worth of infrastructure in the way. Reports like this only show the good news of how rich we now are as a species, and nothing else.
Ironically, in preparation for my AMS tropical talk ( Abstract: “New normal? Historical context of recent global tropical cyclone inactivity”) in Jacksonville next month, I was updating my graphics and saw that the current 24-month tropical cyclone frequency number of 141 is the record lowest (since at least 1970).
Please see my website for the updated global Tropical Cyclone activity graphics through the end of February 2012. March has only seen 2 tropical cyclones so far, but the South Pacific looks promising for a couple developments during the next week at least according to GFS. The tropical cyclone research community is well aware of the cyclical nature of global tropical cyclone activity & the current 6-year global decline, which reached record low levels only 2-years ago. I have published a paper in GRL last year which discusses this: (Maue 2011, GRL)
http://policlimate.com/tropical/
Global tropical cyclone ACE:
Global tropical cyclone frequency (hurricanes > 64 knots, tropical storms > 34 knots): hurricanes and tropical storms for the entire globe are still very much below average.
http://blog.sme.sk/blog/560/284762/blockingjuly.jpg
Hovemueller diagram, showing frequency and strengths of blocking events, shows no correlation whatsoever with any background warming or whatever. fail.
Feels like exhaustion is the tactic; it’s never ending. Perhaps though, it’s merely their Maginot Line.
I tried to get data on lightening discharges as I thought it would give me an idea of NOT how much potential energy was being displaced but how measurement would actually fall in line observed Solar activity indicators.
Is there a black project going on?
I recall last year had the longest period on record without a tropical cyclone developing, nearly 50 days.
Does anyone have a link. Google was no help.
Secondly, clear statistical trends can be found in temperature and precipitation data, the scientists explain.
This kind of deceptive obfuscation from scientists annoys me. If you are arguing that AGW causes more extreme weather events, then tell me about trends in extremes, not trends in averages. Unless its a sound statistical argument, such as, a change of x in the average will result in a y change in the number of extreme events.
This is about perception not reality – if we say something often enough the general populace will believe it to be true, even if it isn’t. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story.
PIK. There’s a surprise.
If the temperature won’t play ball, scare people about biblical weather wrath.
All roads lead to Rio. This is just part of the machine.
Conveniently the BBC seems to have a documetary in it’s Horizon strand that’s all ready to go on this very subject.
It’s to be shown tomorrow http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01f893x
And it’s called “Horizon: Global Wierding”.
The hurricane chasers are there as well.
A spooky coincidence?
ThenPIK link is to the homepage. The loaded dice press release is at
http://www.pik-potsdam.de/news/press-releases/wetterrekorde-als-folge-des-klimawandels-ein-spiel-mit-gezinkten-wurfeln
From the Wikibloodypedia that does get some things right from time to time:
One wonders how many ships have been washed 15 miles inland in the last 50 years. People were still talking about The Great Storm 200 years later!
At last someone – Coumou – has clearly shown that humans are responsible. Read carefully:
“14 extreme weather events… caused damages [sic] exceeding one billion dollars each.”
Humans are definitely responsible for buildings, currency, insurance companies… It’s a fair cop.
We (I) love Ryan Maue. (In the most Platonic sense.)
Hurricane Wilma happened in 2004? It must have been a long lived Hurricane, since it went over me in Nov. ’05.
I wonder where they get the increase in hurricane intensity from?
From “An Inconvenient Truth v 1.0” — before Uncle Al removed the slide…
The Pompous Git says:March 26, 2012 at 12:32 am
quote The Great Storm of 1703 [] Observers at the time recorded barometric readings as low as 973 millibars (measured by William Derham in South Essex),[unquote
I remember 947 mb on a slide at a met briefing in about 1967, Cranwell, Lincs. Windy but not apocalyptically so . Mind you, we didn’t go flying.
JF
If any of you ever lived in an area such as Australia which was hit by the worst floods in half a century only to be followed by the worst cyclone in a nation’s history, all of it in the space of a month, and then watched as the same supposedly once in a lifetime flood “continued unimpeded for virtually two years”; you too might be convinced that a slightly more pro-active spirit was required from those who constantly say there is no climate warming while all the time they do little else but play with themselves as well as viewing …and posting… the same useless charts ….OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN .., reading the same measure of a bottle of water or watching the same barometers raise and lower..
Is that all you think there is to climate warming or is that the only piece of science you can understand?, or at least pretend to understand.
What at the end of the day do you know except for the crap you feed each other? Just reading this one blog alone it seems to me like all of you believe America and Europe are all there is to the entire world .. why don’t you go out there and see for yourself the damage that is occurring world wide; perhaps you haven’t had many stronger cyclones lately but here in OZ we been having just as many as before except now they pack a wallop more powerful than all the BS to be found in this site and I assure you, it would take a lot to beat the crap to be found around here.
There is not one city in our entire country that hasn’t felt the more than incredible and NEVER ENDING effects of Global Warming in all their incredible strengths and all the while guys like you on this site continue to suck your thumbs and saying .. “It ain’t happening, it ain’t happening”.
No kidding, I been reading many of the blogs on this site for over a year now, and I’ve also read many of the comments, and I don’t know what is worse, the dork who runs it or the fools who read the stuff and pretend that they too are climate scientists.
I suppose you all go to your friends on weekends and tell them how busy you all been advising the world that the present situation is not as dangerous as it seems … bla, bla. bla.
The pole has melted, [http://wattsupwiththat.com/reference-pages/sea-ice-page/ . . try this link . . kbmod] the arctic is leaking methane all over the place, the rains have come down by the bucketful for years and the storms … Oh those wonderful storms which obviously none of you have ever lived through .. they sure are strong lately. Just where have you been all this time? Is it possible that you are all hiding under your beds and playing the fiddle while Rome burns to the ground?
Neros … all of you … nothing but Neros.
Wake up to yourselves, get out there and take a look around and stop pretending with yourselves, see the world as it is, people and not as you wish to believe it to be.
“At least for extreme rainfall and heat waves the link with human-caused global warming is clear, the scientists show in a new analysis of scientific evidence in the journal Nature Climate Change.”
says the article
Last year I had an article here detailing some of the changes in climate over the past few centuries.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/01/a-short-anthology-of-changing-climate/
Since then I have been to the Met office and researched thousands of weather events for my article ‘The long slow thaw’ which compared the climate reconstructions of Michael Mann and Hubert Lamb.
http://judithcurry.com/2011/12/01/the-long-slow-thaw/#more-6022
We seem to have a collective disdain for what our ancestors tell us about the weather of the past, preferring computer models using strnge proxies rather than first hand contemporary accounts by people whose everyday life was fundamemtally affected by the weather.
Perhaps the readers of WUWT need to chip in to a fund in order to provide key players in climate science with some of the classic books that put our climate into the historic perspective many scientists seem to lack.
I nominate;
‘Climate history and the Modern World’ and ‘Historic storms of the North Sea, British Isles and Northwest Europe’ both by Hubert Lamb, whose son incidentally is an MP and has just been given overall responsibility to act as the British Government link with the Met office.
tonyb
So this is (yet another) story about lies, damned lies, and statistics?
It seems that very few people grasp that statistics is, at its core, about correlation, which could be very nicely re-phrased as ‘look-i like-i’, which is to say: “that dog looks a lot like a cat, therefore it IS a cat.” Where the problem is that statistics CANNOT be used, ever, in differentiating between anything at all – it is all pure numbers, and trying to move beyond that limitation is, as far as I can tell, actually irrational.
It is very simple to draw ‘trend-lines’, build ‘distributions’, etc, where MEANING is implied, but where there actually is none. I’m not sure how to explain what I mean properly, and I’m sure there is a proper set of multi-syllable words for it, but let me try:
Take global temp: a trend-line is drawn. What is assumed is that there is an underlying ‘equation’ with T as a variable, and that the trend-line is approximating it. (Alternatively, that is not even assumed… but then you is a dumb-ass, poking a stick into a pile of entrails, while high on crack. I mean, what would be the point?!) But is this true? Piece-wise, highly non-linear, anyone? What should be done, is to properly map out all the underlying (highly non-linear) equations, and fit-determine the variables from there. But of course, that is an impossible goal.
(Um, the above is valid for the real-world, not for such pure-abstracted thought-spaces like psychology. GIGO.)
This is the single greatest flaw in statistics (that I am aware of), namely using raw mathematical equations, and having ZERO idea what the variables are, or what they mean, or even if they have meaning, or if they are linked to ANYTHING real, at all.
(The second greatest flaw is that it takes a statistician to be ABLE to practice statistics: too much mathematical detail – tests, exceptions, conditionals, etc. etc.)
Just because an equation happens to follow a lot of data-points, does NOT mean that its variables, operators, etc have ANYTHING to do with ANYTHING real.
If there is a better description for this, a more formal one, I would really like to know about it. I tried to point out something like this to a committee the other day, and was treated to what one could only call derision. “But of course we can all do statistics, we do it all the time. Statistics is mathematics, it is science, and we have been using it for decades. There is no problem.”
More from Australia:
It’s going to be warmer than we thought…..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-03-26/scientists-may-have-underestimated-climate-change/3913288/?site=melbourne
The paper comes just three days after the World Meteorological Organisation published its latest Status of the Global Climate Report, which found that 2011 was a year of climate extremes and the 11th warmest year on record.
The journal has also published a paper which states that extreme weather events over the past decade have increased and were “very likely” caused by man-made global warming.
You will laugh when you read this one. These guys are Clowns.
“……Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany argue that the high incidence of extremes is not merely accidental…..”.
All they have here is a high incidence of non sequiturs.
The PIK:
basic physics – check
statistical analysis – major FAIL
and computer simulations – compound FAIL, compounded
Ryan Maue – WIN!
Quote: “It´s like a game with loaded dice,” says Coumou. “A six can appear every now and then, and you never know when it happens.
But now it appears much more often, because we have changed the dice.”
Who will think of the children’s children?
http://www.archaeologydaily.com/news/201203028004/Ancient-Arabic-Manuscripts-Help-Scientists-Reconstruct-Past-Climate.html
Writings from the Islamic Golden Age in 9th or 10th century Iraq revealed unusual weather patterns, say researchers.
Scientists have been able to reconstruct abnormal climate patterns that occurred during the 9th and 10th centuries in Iraq by examining and analyzing ancient manuscripts written by Islamic writers during the Islamic Golden Age.
“Climate information recovered from these ancient sources mainly refers to extreme events which impacted wider society such as droughts and floods,” said Domínguez-Castro.
“However, they also document conditions which were rarely experienced in ancient Baghdad such as hailstorms, the freezing of rivers or even cases of snow.”
260ppm.
How did they do it?
Loaded dice? Climate science? Taxes?