More of the “extreme events” meme…
From the AGU weekly highlights
Regional models expect drier, stormier western United States
Key Points
- Statistically significant increases in western US future extreme winter precipitation
- Eight dynamically downscaled GCM simulations show generalized agreement
- Spatial pattern of changes in mean precip. is different than that of extremes
As American southwestern states struggle against ongoing drought, and the Northwest braces for a projected shift from a snow- to a rain-dominated hydrological system, climate researchers strive to provide precipitation projections that are fine grained enough to be of value to municipal water managers. Estimates derived from large general circulation models show that in a warming world, water availability in the western United States will be increasingly dictated by extreme events.
However, such large models tend to lack necessary detail for the small-scale interactions and topographic influences that dominate daily changes in local precipitation. To convert the broad predictions of global models into practical predictions, Dominguez et al. used an ensemble of regional models, set to fit within the projections of general circulation models, to estimate future winter average and extreme precipitation for the western United States.
The authors find that for the years 2038–2070, winter average precipitation in the southwestern states would be 7.5 percent below 1979–1999 levels. They also find, for the entire areal-averaged western United States, a 12.6 percent increase in the magnitude of 20-year-return-period winter storms and a 14.4 percent increase for 50-year winter storms. In some regions, like southern California and northwestern Arizona, this increase in strength of 50-year storms was pushed as high as 50 percent. Though the temporal and spatial granularity of the regional climate models is much improved over that of general circulation models, workable and useful measurements for hydrological engineering and water management design will need ever-better estimates of future rainfall patterns.
Source:
Geophysical Research Letters, doi:10.1029/2011GL0507624, 2012
Title:
“Changes in winter precipitation extremes for the western United States under a warmer climate as simulated by regional climate models ”
Authors:
- F. Dominguez, E. Rivera, and C. L. Castro
- Department of Atmospheric Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, USA;
- D. P. Lettenmaier
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Abstract:
We find a consistent and statistically significant increase in the intensity of future extreme winter precipitation events over the western United States, as simulated by an ensemble of regional climate models (RCMs) driven by IPCC AR4 global climate models (GCMs). All eight simulations analyzed in this work consistently show an increase in the intensity of extreme winter precipitation with the multi-model mean projecting an area-averaged 12.6% increase in 20-year return period and 14.4% increase in 50-year return period daily precipitation. In contrast with extreme precipitation, the multi-model ensemble shows a decrease in mean winter precipitation of approximately 7.5% in the southwestern US, while the interior west shows less statistically robust increases.
Embroidering the narrative, part 1266.
Speaking of narrative:
“And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed — if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ ” — George Orwell, 1984
IPCC says it all.
They might be happier if they moved to Mars or Venus, where the weather would suit them better.
Houston, this is IPCC Mars, the WeatherGrinch has landed.
“Models say…. .”
‘Nuff said.
If the IPCC AR4 GCMs do not demonstrate any skill in forecasting near term global conditions, how are any results based on these models to be of any use whatsoever?
My understanding is that the latter decades of the 20th century were unusually wet in the SW. A change to drier times would be a return to more ‘normal’ times. Unfortunately, we populated places like Colorado and New Mexico from the 70s on.
Someone correct me, if I’m wrong.
But don’t these models lack any “skill” when applied regionally?
(Not that they have any “skill” when applied globally!)
This really seems to be a “look over here” trick for the Warmists, since the models just aren’t cooperating with higher temperatures.
How sad is it to think that these guys are now most likely celebrating the occurrence of disastrous weather events.
After enlarging their ‘ensemble’ maps to a legible size, it looks like the prediction is for wetter times (blue) in most of the west, with a couple of spots drying out. WTF?
Who could care less what the climate models consistently predict? Are they any good at hindcasting the hydrological cycle of the region under analysis? If the answer is no, the next question to ask is, why does this sort of stuff get published?
Maybe California can buy all those mothballed Australian sesalination plants they built in response to the dire drought predictions of yesteryear.
Roger Pielke Sr has had some interesting history of the hydrology of the southwest. In the twelfth century there was a megadrought that lasted decades. Mother nature has tougher tricks up her sleeve than anything the models can dish out.
So the modeled precipitation will by 7.5% below what 1977-1999 levels, the modeled precipitation for that range or the observed precipitation for those years? Because the AR4 models were about that much below the observed precipitation increases when simulating 1977-1999. So it should be no surprise they are that low in 2038-2070, unless the documented diagnostic issues have been specifically addressed.
Well maybe, but that would Mann was right (I suppose it is always possible he is correct occasionally, but definitely not in regards to the MWP) and there was no MWP.
Just about every study indicates the MWP period was co-incident with higher precipitation in the US south west – more heat means more evaporation and that usually means more rainfall.
As per usual, these models ignore the historical evidence.
So bottom line: another example of grant generated BS.
Also, the usual predictions of doom and gloom take place long after most of us are in our boxes.
Hate to disappoint them on “drier”.
Century trend for California precip:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=pcp&month=9&year=2011&filter=12&state=4&div=0
Looks slightly wetter, but not meaningful.
Century trend for Oregon precip:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=pcp&month=9&year=2011&filter=12&state=35&div=0
Slightly wetter.
Century trend for Wash precip:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=pcp&month=9&year=2011&filter=12&state=35&div=0
Unquestionably wetter.
Odd, innit? These “experts” love to use linear extrapolation when it’s obviously wrong, but when linear extrapolation actually gives a pretty clear picture, they totally ignore it and decide the trend must run against the data.
The only consistent thing about experts is that they are 100% wrong 100% of the time.
The east to switch to a colder warmier climate with drought induced wetness.
As American southwestern states struggle against ongoing drought…
Dam California! Dam it all to hell!
What I know about the climate could be written on a postcard. So on a warming world the main temperature increase is at the poles thus the temperature gradient from the equator to the poles is reducing resulting in less wind and a more settled climate.
When a world cools the main cooling is at the poles with increasing temperature gradient resulting in increased wind and more extreme climate events.
What to believe?
Maybe I’m negative mood this bright, sunny morning in gorgeous New England, but this post is rubbing me the wrong way.
I can buy the southwest’s attention to the possibility of a long period of drought, but I haven’t heard much from the northwest’s bracing. There’s enough variability in annual snowfall that I think it would be hard to distract the population from other issues like population, highway congestion, the historic earthquake that could happen any time, the tsunami that would likely result, and just when is Mt. Ranier going to erupt next?
Hmm. I’m sort of tolerant of calling model output “data,” but I’m having trouble with the concept that comparing multiple runs produces “statistically significant” data. Ultimately it’s the algorithms expressed in the code that produce the results, and by making multiple runs to reduce the noise, what you’re left with reflects on the algorithms, not the numbers.
Ah well, being an OS software engineer, I tend to deal with deterministic code, and statistically significant performance data. Perhaps the OS folks in Redmond are a different breed. 🙂
Perhaps that’s what Joe Romm had in mind with his permanent drought in the SouthWest.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/romms-permanent-drought/
Oh, it’s not just a model, it’s a multi-model ensemble! Well, that makes all the difference…..
As the doom was gloomed long before there were models of it, is there just the faint possiblity that the models are full of confirmation biases?
As the climate is now cooling, and much more cooling is expected in the near term, can we use the modelled outputs to predict that the opposite effect, 7.5% wetter conditions in the SW, will actually be the coming experience?
What goes around come around. If the models are statistically correct, making falsifiable predictions, then Arizona can expect more rain in the years to come.
The empirical evidence contradicts the model, so some above think. No problem. We will just build a fire and hold the modellers feet to it while discussing the virtues of computational fluid dynamics.
“….As American southwestern states struggle against ongoing drought, and the Northwest braces for a projected shift from a snow- to a rain-dominated hydrological system, climate researchers strive to provide precipitation projections….”
They lost me right there. I see a shift back towards the 1960’s and 1970’s with an INCREASE in blocking by pushing the climate zones more towards the equator. The Russian heatwave of 2010 and the All-Time Snowfall Records Fall Across Western Oregon & SW Washington are examples. If you watch the jet stream over the USA every day like I have for the last couple of decades you could have seen the change for yourself.
Ten years ago, the weather for my area (North Carolina) were what I saw coming from the west. Now we see more weather coming from the south, north or even east as the jet streams forms Rossby waves
I am just a farmer/scientist with a keen interest in the weather patterns that bring the rain to my fields. I can certainly see the shift in weather patterns as part of my daily study. Correct perdiction means the differnce in making or losing money in my business. I do not have the luxury of fudging data for the “Cause”
Estimates derived from large general circulation models show that in a warming world, water availability in the western United States will be increasingly dictated by extreme events.
What do they show for a cooling world?
I agree with their model, which is equivalent to saying that the PDO is going into a negative phase, and the earth as a whole will be cooling:
http://www.appinsys.com/globalwarming/PDO.htm
local effects of negative PDO:
Northwestern North American spring time snow pack and water year (October-September) stream flow Above average with negative PDO
Winter and spring time flood risk in the Pacific Northwest – above average with negative PDO.
For the Southwest:
http://www.climas.arizona.edu/sw-climate/pdo
“Decreases in winter precipitation associated with negative PDO conditions and intensified La Niña conditions could, for example, put stress on the urban water systems of the Southwest. Even moderately drier-than-normal conditions could have serious effects in some sectors. For example, CLIMAS researchers have documented that ranching operations in the Southwest are highly sensitive to climatic conditions. Forest fire management is another area crucially influenced by climatic conditions and trends.”
Having worked with AQMD and ARB, I see this as an opportunity to depopulate California and the Southwest. This is what the regulators want anyway. AQMD wants to totally eliminate NOx emissions and is willing to shut down all businesses in the SoCal area to do just that. With no commerce, there are no jobs, and with no jobs, there is no need for people, and with no people, there is no need for water and irrigation. That will reduce the burden on the Colorado Aqueduct, and more water will flow south. Back to Nature. When do we start? OOOOps, forgot about tinsel town. They will need their own supply of water and weather modification programs to make sure they live in luxury while the region is transformed into the Green Paradise that they always wanted it to be.
Sounds familiar. The UK Wet Office has similar regional forecasts. Some areas will have more rain, some areas will have less rain. Some areas will have more drought, some areas will have less drought. Some areas will have more storms, some areas will have less storms. AND on & on it goes, HIWTYL! 🙂
As usual the modelers depend upon the models instead of emperical research. Several researchers such as Tsonis, McCabe and Betancourt have shown that drought in the American West is closely tied to the AMO and PDO. Also tree ring research in the Southwest shows that during the Medieval Warm period, the climate was wetter but during the cooler times of around 1150 and after 1300, increasing drought was a factor in the movements of the Anasazi from their ccenters like Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde. The models assume a homeogenous response to changes in global temperatures in the West instead of the complex Dance between monsoonal flow, PDO, AMO and sunspot activity that is shown in the real world record of the past.
Models that can’t get the big things right, are now being fine tuned so that they won’t get the small things right either.
I’ll report in with my assessment of this paper in 2050.
———————-
Meanwhile, the PDO folks have nailed the weather for this spring in the Great State of Washington – cool with more precip – both liquid and solid. And I’m getting tired of it.
I mean honestly, how arrogantly delusional do you have to be to think you can predict regional rain patterns in the years 2038–2070??? The mind simply boggles at this.
It appears that they have made at least two mistakes in their analysis, which calls into question their conclusions. First, they are spatially “improving” faulty models. Second, they are using normal statistics in their analysis of extremes. Extreme values have an extreme value distribution: not a normal distribution. Twenty and fifty year cycles are too short to properly establish probabilities and statistical significance on extreme values.
Before taking seriously regional models, go to Roger Pielke Sr’s website and read what he has on regional models. His website is on the right sidebar under “lukewarmers.”
“this increase in strength of 50-year storms was pushed as high as 50 percent”.
This is in the period after 2038, compared to the 1979-1999 period.
SInce were 40% of the way from that earlier period to the forecast period, I assume this means that we must already be seeing a significant increase in storm strengths, surely at least 15-20% by now.
So where are they?
Analog years and decades beat the hell out of models in forecasting, hindcasting and probably even bait casting. This is well known by climate scientists. That they don’t include this “control” group in their “tomes” (and I say that disparagingly because that is what research articles have become), speaks to the bias they bring to their efforts. Bad form. Very bad form.
These people are predicting drought in a desert. How … impressive.
I expect these to have the same stunning degree of success as the predictions of drought in Queensland.
How did that turn out, again?
IPCC+AR4+GCM=GIGO
Humm, wouldn’t that make them 17.48-year and 42.8-year storms, then? (extraneous significant digits left in for humourous purposes)
If the GCMs say the west will be dry, we better buy flood insurance in SoCal. Maybe I should buy a boat.
The modellers are like kids in the arcade with their video games. They sit there and play with the controls that manipulate images on a screen. And they imagine they are dealing with some kind of reality. But they really have no understanding of reality and what it will bring in the future.
Problem – Lack of monies
Four Step Solution:
1) Define a ‘potential crisis’
2) Market the ‘potential crisis’ into a “real crisis”
3) Propose “the only solution to the ‘real crisis’ ”
4) Get funding for ‘the solution’ from the “Political Intelligentsia”
Solution – more monies [problem solved].
Useful technique for the following:
1) Climate Research
2) Solar CMEs
3) Oil
4) Not enough Nukes; Too many Nukes.
5) Endangered Species; Species too be endangered.
6) Not enough Slaves; too many Slaves.
7) Works everywhere on anything – promote FEAR.
lol, droughtflood is striking again! Undoubtedly due to the warmcold.
The desperation in these dire proclamations are becoming palpable.
In the paraphrased words of the fictional Dr. McCoy……. “it’s worse than dead….. it’s brain is gone.”
These projections have been made for the years 2038–2070, approximately 25 to 60 years from now; few people now living will be alive to see the the results or to care.
These projections indicate winter average precipitation in the southwestern states would be 7.5 percent below 1979–1999 levels (which included a very wet winter ENSO year). In an area where the average annual precipitation varies from ~4 in. per YEAR to 20 in. per YEAR how much difference will 7.5% less WINTER preciptation really make?
You mean the guys who cannot tell me if it will be raining or sunny 2 weeks from now, are telling me what the weather will be like in 25 years?
And I am supposed to believe them?
Really?
Really?
Really????????
The largest desal plant in the Western Hemisphere is coming online this year in Carlsbad, CA. The solution is drought proof.
Maybe the dopes in Northern CA will catch a clue?
If I live right in the middle of the drier and stormier parts does that mean my climate is just right?
I have just started to wade through the EPA type proposed regs in the USA Federal Register with comments closing today. link ~ http://www.regulations.gov/#!searchResults;cs=0;dct=N%252BFR%252BPR;rpp=25;po=25 I just glanced at a couple and suggest a thorough reading then commenting as appropriate.
While doing so I came across something about Changes in Hydric Soils Database Selection Criteria When it comes to the US bureaucracies I have a really suspicious mind. We already know that “evidence” can be “manufactured” by changing data sets or criteria. Given what has been done to the Temperature Data base I am a bit suspicious especially given the above paper. Changing the collection of “Wet Soil” data could be really useful if you want to show evidence of shifts to “drier stormier” weather. Remember the new re-branding is ‘global weirding’
Hydric Soils ~ USDA definition
Here is the suggested changes. Perhaps one of the geologists can comment on whether the changes are a useful political propaganda weapon.
The statement “These changes do not cause any hydric soils to be added or deleted from the list.” Just does not make sense in the context of the beginning of the summary, “has updated the criteria to select map units components “
….I guess
If you throw enough predictions out there….people are more inclined to remember the ones you got right
Ric Werme says:
I can buy the southwest’s attention to the possibility of a long period of drought, but I haven’t heard much from the northwest’s bracing.
Two lousy winters in a row and a ‘year without summer’ kind of changed the mood from ‘oh no global warming’ to ‘global warming…how I so miss you’.
So regardless of the outcome, they can take credit for it. Pretty shifty devils, if you ask me.
The west has been cooling since the mid 1980s.
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/westcoast-cooling-overlayed-on-google-maps/
http://sunshinehours.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/west-coast-has-been-cooling-since-1983-2/
RockyRoad says:
March 30, 2012 at 7:58 am
So regardless of the outcome, they can take credit for it. Pretty shifty devils, if you ask me.
____________________________________
It is called politics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJG75FJkjr8&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Models … Right and I believe the models why?
No really weather prediction is doing great if it is accurate to 5 – 10 days out. I’ve watched the predictions and results shift just 24 – 48 hours out as a weather system doesn’t act as predicted. Either speeding up or slowing down or even going some other direction. And I’m supposed to believe that computers models can accurately predict what the weather {because storm patterns are weather,} will be doing 26 – 68 years in the future?
Really?
You got to be kidding me.
We get most of our moisture here from “extreme events” now, so what’s the big deal. I guess it’s gonna get extremer. Really impressive how these models that have so far predicted nothing correctly, even on a gross scale, can make such specific, detailed, predictions.
THE BOY WHO CRIED WOLF
… “There really was a wolf here! The flock has scattered! I cried out, “Wolf!” Why didn’t you come?” An old man tried to comfort the boy as they walked back to the village.
“We’ll help you look for the lost sheep in the morning,” he said, putting his arm around the youth, “Nobody believes a liar…even when he is telling the truth!”
Climate model predictions on regional scales are even wronger than their global predictions. Even global warming scientist stand-ins acknowledge that. What do Dominguez, Rivera, Castro and Lettenmaier want to accomplish, set a new record in charlatanery? Test what they can get away with?
“To convert the broad predictions of global models into practical predictions, Dominguez et al. used an ensemble of regional models, set to fit within the projections of general circulation models”
1000 For K-1 to Fit
1010 If K=Fit go to 3000
Otherwise referred to as pretzel logic. You take the output of a GCM, of which we know none that have predictive skill, then use that to feed input to regional models (see Pielke, Sr.) which are “set to fit within the projection of GCMs”
2000 K=K+1
2010 Go to 1000
3000 Call sub: “Nice steaming bowl of…”
4000 END
Just for the record; NE and North Central Texas (think: DFW area) is out of ‘drought’ classification. Other parts of the state may not be so lucky, however. http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/
Most of the US Corps of Engineers ‘lakes’ (reservoirs) upon which we depend for our drinking water in our area are at, or above, ‘conservation’ (normal) pool elevation fortunately:
http://www.swf-wc.usace.army.mil/reports/fish.htm
A couple reservoirs, like POSSUM KINGDOM west of Ft. Worth are a few feet low yet, on the order of 5 feet presently.
We are sitting in a pretty good position for the summer, especially considering we can add a few more feet to most of these reservoirs with expected rains the next couple of months before our ‘summer’ starts (June). Now our worry is electricity supply (if the summer turns out to be really hot)!
.
I have a friend who has told me of the extensive evidence of shifting precipitation due to global warming. So I decided to check it out. Haven’t done too much yet, but have looked at part of California and what I have found is decidedly not alarming. (Click on name above.)
Now it is possible that there could be future massive shifts and changes in precipitation over the next 68 years than we have seen in the past 90+, but it would take more belief in models than I can muster . . .
Aren’t there really only three possibilities ?
No change.
Wetter.
Drier.
They have a 33% chance in their prediction of being correct.
Sunshine…Lollipops… or Rainbows. Pick one.
These would be the same models that had Brisbane spend billions on desal plants just before the dams overflowed…
Funny that historically, SW US drought coincided with times of global cooling while global warmth brought wet conditions. In the desert, daytime surface temps during periods of low humidity are higher then periods of high humidity. Humidity DRIVES surface temperature. The temperature does not drive humidity. And as for all that non-sense about increased transpiration … desert plants do not behave anything like the temperate forest flora that the moonbat researchers use for their ill conceived models. The soil fungus’s alone jealously store huge amounts of water. One more thing, the desert gets half of its rain via violent weather events. Always has, always will.
BTW, perverting my homeland unique environment so that it can be used as propaganda is a particular peeve of mine.
“[…] climate researchers strive to provide precipitation projections that are fine grained enough to be of value to municipal water managers. […]”
Ask the Aussie water managers how the models worked out for them.
/jaundiced-eyed grumble
Craig Goodrich says:
March 30, 2012 at 9:03 am
These would be the same models that had Brisbane spend billions on desal plants just before the dams overflowed…
________________________________________
But Craig, those models worked perfectly. Just consider the take home profit for the desal plant top dogs.
One more thing: Remember that “Record” SW drought the news kept yammering about a few years back? Seemed like every news show had to do a story on it for weeks. Well, it was not close to being a record, that was set during the early 70’s with 168 days of no rain!
So, they predict it’ll be drier except for those times when it’ll be wetter — and were (presumably) paid to produce said prediction.
I want a job like that…
I also have a problem with the “ensemble of models” concept.
If “model A” is the correct one, why bother to mix it up with other models that give different outcomes which are obviously wrong, since they are different from the correct one? If you mix a bottle of fine wine with 5 bottles of vinegar you will waste your bottle of fine wine.
And If none of the models are right. Why do they expect to obtain a correct answer by averaging a bunch of wrong models? No matter how many bottles of vinegar you can mix, you will never get fine wine out of the mix.
Drier and stormier…not good
Craig Goodrich says:
March 30, 2012 at 9:03 am
These would be the same models that had Brisbane spend billions on desal plants just before the dams overflowed…
==========
The dollars are cheap today and the desal plants will pay off down the road. In the best of times it makes sense to prepare for the worst of times but the logic doesn’t need to be based on lies about Global Warming and inferior tech solutions.
It turns out that its cheaper to use desal than it is to transport water around California. Building desal plants next to energy plants makes it even cheaper but Australia decided to use wind power for the desal energy source so your basically screwed.
Live and learn I guess…
[ Estimates derived from large general circulation models show that in a warming world, water availability in the western United States will be increasingly dictated by extreme events. ]
So build some more dams……..even the government could complete some by 2038.
Hey, let’s ask the Anasazi about climate change.
http://www.learner.org/interactives/collapse/chacocanyon.html
[These would be the same models that had Brisbane spend billions on desal plants just before the dams overflowed.]
The Army Corp of Engineers must have borrowed your models for the Missouri River flood of 2011.
Pamela Gray says:
March 30, 2012 at 6:56 am
“. . . and probably even bait casting.”
I saw what you did there!
If the researchers did more bait casting they might better understand the environment.
The three great lies:
(1) Yes, I’ll respect you in the morning.
(2) Vote for me and I’ll ….
(3) The models say …
Tim Clark says:
March 30, 2012 at 9:37 am
[These would be the same models that had Brisbane spend billions on desal plants just before the dams overflowed.]
The Army Corp of Engineers must have borrowed your models for the Missouri River flood of 2011.
###
Don’t blame the Army Corp of Engineers. Blame the Democrat who diverted funds to subsidize poverty that should have gone to doing what the Army Corp of Engineers had been saying needed to be done for FORTY years!
Eventually, the forecasts are going to reduce to “the climate is going to get wetter and drier in a warming world”.
DesertYote says:
March 30, 2012 at 9:49 am
Don’t blame the Army Corp of Engineers. Blame the Democrat who diverted funds to subsidize poverty that should have gone to doing what the Army Corp of Engineers had been saying needed to be done for FORTY years!
=========
GOT That Right!!!
New Orleans is a perfect example of misplaced trust and the need for trusted Engineers.
“As American southwestern states struggle against ongoing drought, and the Northwest braces for a projected shift from a snow- to a rain-dominated hydrological system, climate researchers strive to provide precipitation projections that are fine grained enough to be of value to municipal water managers. ”
What BS. First, since there is no “shift from snow to rain” occurring & no one is “bracing” for any projected shift.
And how the heck does one “brace” for a projection anyway? What does that look like? Are water managers having bracing meetings? Who knows.
Of course their is no shift or bracing underway at all.
The real tell here is “climate researchers strive to provide projections of value”. That underscores that there is no current value in anything they are projecting.
Municipal water managers are not using their projections for anything.
So should they stop wasting money on endless and useless projections? Why no of course. No no no. The Climateers call for MORE uselessness.
“Though the temporal and spatial granularity of the regional climate models is much improved over that of general circulation models, workable and useful measurements for hydrological engineering and water management design will need ever-better estimates of future rainfall patterns.”
What a mouth full. This reminds me of Lubchenco’s asinine claim a few years ago that climate models were robust enough to predict wind patterns 100 years from now and that such predictions would help officials site wind farms. That is too stupid as no one in their right mind would site a wind farm according to future wind.
These acts of concocting usefulness from the useless to justify the more uselessness are no more than self interested money grubbing ploys to prop up an elitist’s charade of
purpose and merit.
Well, didn’t the Anasazi abandon the American SW because of, well, this exact type of a climate they talk about here? That was right around 1000 to 1125 CE wasn’t it? Uh-Oh! I steeped in it now, that would be during the Medieval Warming Period the IPCC still feels was localized. I’m in trouble now! That means this type of warming happens in cycles. As the consensus points out, that didn’t happen so….well, actually, I don’t know what this means anymore.
DesertYote says:
March 30, 2012 at 9:49 am
Blame the Democrat who diverted funds to subsidize poverty that should have gone to doing what the Army Corp of Engineers had been saying needed to be done for FORTY years!
In NOLA, the Ninth Ward boss got a statue dedicated to hisself for “plussing-up” social programs using funds earmarked for levee maintenance.
Then Came Katrina and the levee collapsed.
Interesting coincidence.
theduke says:
March 30, 2012 at 7:16 am
“The modellers are like kids in the arcade with their video games. They sit there and play with the controls that manipulate images on a screen. ”
I’m with theduke on this. Playstation game with worthless forecast put 25-60 years in the future, comfortable away. They know their model do not “forecast” any such variation as the history have seen them, the MWP, the roman warming, the LIA, as they do not know what have caused these, playing with aberrations like farting megafauna to cause the holocene warming, humans to kill them and cause the Younger Ddryas, Gengis Khan and the conquistadores to cause LIA.
This is such a pseudo science, we need to organise a prize, like an “scam-oscar” for the best CAGW scam work.
No, I mean really.
I agree John. These greenies spend way too much time on concrete. I’d bet good money that they go days and even weeks without stepping on grass. They should have all been sent to Wallowa County to help out during all-night calving sessions. Then the during the day they could have worked on the irrigation ditches that need yearly cleaning. And if they are worth a damn, they will have the energy to go fishing at the end of the day, eat a bit and catch some shut eye before the next round of calving. Or they could get on a horse and provide round the clock watchful eyes to keep the wolves away.
Maybe then they would not have the energy to continue to screw things up.
The Anazazi left the Southwest to get away from idiot prognosticators who claim to resolve future rainfall amounts to half a per cent. Does anybody else remember eighth grade science?
Tim Clark says:
March 30, 2012 at 9:36 am
So build some more dams……..even the government could complete some by 2038.
Optimist. They wouldn’t even have the Environmental Impact Statements completed by then…
Take a look at this list of dams in California.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dams_and_reservoirs_in_California
Then sort by date. ONE since 2000. Four in the 1990s. Four in the 80s.
Then check out the population growth.
If your population skyrockets in a relatively dry climate, you need to build more dams!
Dr. Bob says:
March 30, 2012 at 6:13 am
Having worked with AQMD and ARB, I see this as an opportunity to depopulate California and the Southwest. This is what the regulators want anyway. AQMD wants to totally eliminate NOx emissions and is willing to shut down all businesses in the SoCal area to do just that. With no commerce, there are no jobs, and with no jobs, there is no need for people, and with no people, there is no need for water and irrigation. That will reduce the burden on the Colorado Aqueduct, and more water will flow south. Back to Nature. When do we start? OOOOps, forgot about tinsel town. They will need their own supply of water and weather modification programs to make sure they live in luxury while the region is transformed into the Green Paradise that they always wanted it to be.
——-
Your scenario will only work on Southern Cal. There is no AQMD in Nevada, Utah and Arizona and those states will be happy to take the refugees and the water. Mexico still won’t get much. Nevada has even run ads in California to entice business away. They want the river water for developing southern Nevada, Las Vegas in particular. Arizona will slurp up anything left over.
California also has another problem, and that is they are more than broke, and there is no one to bail them out. They may already be way past sustainability, and driving their tax base away isn’t going to help. Carbon regulation is going to accelerate that, all for a problem that likely doesn’t exist. California hasn’t yet figured out that old adage about being careful what you wish for…
But we already know regional models have zero predictive power even in hind cast. Good thing this is online becuase it sure would be a waste of paper.
Drier stormier – perfect description of the 1970s and 1980s (other than the 82 – 83 El Nino).
Description of the time since is wet and cold (with the exception of the SE extremities of “The West” namely NM and TX)
That would be the Global Weirding
Meanwhile in the REAL world cold and snow are dramaticallyincreasing. I.E. right now records continue to be set…numerous record March snowfall records and total season snowfall records are being broken across North American ski areas.
For instance Mt Rainier has received 10ft of snow over the last 3 days, and 8ft more are forecast for the next 3 days.
Anyone who lives where it snows will tell you it has been getting colder and snowier…much snowier!
“Eight dynamically downscaled GCM simulations show generalized agreement”
Ummmm, eight times zero is still zero! Data, please…
peterhodges says:
March 30, 2012 at 11:34 am
Meanwhile in the REAL world cold and snow are dramaticallyincreasing. I.E. right now records continue to be set…numerous record March snowfall records and total season snowfall records are being broken across North American ski areas.
Not those in the Northeast, except for maybe record lows.
Phil. says:
March 30, 2012 at 12:03 pm
peterhodges says:
March 30, 2012 at 11:34 am
Meanwhile in the REAL world cold and snow are dramaticallyincreasing. I.E. right now records continue to be set…numerous record March snowfall records and total season snowfall records are being broken across North American ski areas.
“Not those in the Northeast, except for maybe record lows.”
Good point! That was so last year!
Maybe one of them was using this model…
http://www.scholastic.com/kids/weather/sim/game.htm
Try it yourself… then write a paper.
This is one of the three papers I wrote about two weeks ago as so bad as to have been published by The Onion. The models simply cannot replicate todays precipitation or the current 50 year recurrence–and yet the authors went forward and somehow the peer reviewers looked the other way.
Keyboard “scientists” making predictions without ever getting their feet wet in real world research. I should trust that why?
Dear Doctors
Give us a five year forecast, I dare you.
Partly to mostly with a chance of…?
The “struggle against ongoing drought” in Texas…
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HOUSTON/GALVESTON TX
445 PM CDT THU MAR 29 2012
…NEW MONTHLY RAINFALL RECORD ESTABLISHED AT COLLEGE STATION…
ANOTHER 0.10 INCHES OF RAIN HAS BEEN RECORDED SO FAR TODAY (AS OF 4
PM) AT EASTERWOOD FIELD IN COLLEGE STATION (CLL). THIS BRINGS THE
MONTHLY RAINFALL TOTAL TO 8.66 INCHES WHICH IS A NEW MARCH RECORD
FOR CLL. THE PREVIOUS WETTEST MARCH OCCURRED IN 1926 WITH 8.03
INCHES.
THE YEARLY RAINFALL TOTAL IS NOW 20.74 INCHES WHICH IS THE SECOND
WETTEST START TO A YEAR IN RECORDED HISTORY…TRAILING ONLY 1991
(20.79 INCHES).
AT COLLEGE STATION…2012 IS ALREADY WETTER THAN ALL OF 2011. LAST
YEAR…CLL ONLY RECEIVED 19.01 INCHES OF RAIN.
David Corcoran said on March 30, 2012 at 7:15 am:
Simplify everything. Buy a house boat, park it on your land on its trailer, hook up all utilities with flexible connections with disconnects, live on it. Then you’re covered for normal floods, moderate tsunamis, and the sometimes urgent need for SoCal residents to flee wildfires when you simply hook it up to your pick-up truck and take it with you. Your documents, possessions, and appliances, already packed up in transportable form.
The fun part will be finding a long-enough telephone pole and planting it deep. That’s to mark your property and you’ll use it as a mooring when Hansen’s 30-meter sea level rise happens. Will also be handy in the event of massive surging mega-waves after ocean impacts of asteroids and multiple simultaneous Antarctic ice shelf collapses. Gotta be prepared, eh?
models that can…walk the catwalk
models that can’t forecast weather
models that can’t forcast weather…forecast climate
Woot Benjamin
There is set of historical records that tabulates Southern California rainfall and rainfall proxies (e.g. Mission crop records) from 1769 to 1930: “Rainfall and Stream Run-Off in Southern California Since 1769” by H. B. Lynch, August 1931, for the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California. The report is available on-line at
http://cepsym.info/history/RainfallStreamRunoffSoCA_since1769.pdf
and
http://books.google.com/books/about/Rainfall_and_stream_run_off_in_Southern.html?id=sJMJAQAAIAAJ
CA Department of Water Resources developed a correlation between the “Lynch Index” in the report and the overlapping precipitation record for a Los Angeles gage to develop a continuous 230 year precipitation record from 1769 to 2000. The slope of the linear regression through the data is very close to zero.
The Foreward and Summary of Conclusions are informational and even inspiring: “California has always had its climate, but has had rain gauges in any large number for only about fifty years. A few series of measurements go back to the time of the discovery of gold; not one antedates that period. California history previous to that era, however, when carefully studied, yields an amazing amount of data to take their place. For many reasons, the early history of California is known in a detail, and with an exacitude approached in but a few other places. It is a fascinating, and intensely human subject, and in the documents which form its sources, along with the usual matters of interest to the formal historian, there is unfolded the story of weather conditions here for the eighty years of recorded history prior to Marshall’s discovery of gold, with a minuteness which cannot be appreciated until it has been gone into thoroughly.”
“Times of drought and of plenty are pictured from many different points and in many different ways, but they never form an inconsistent story.”
“1. There has been no material change in the mean climatic conditions of Southern California in the past 162 years.”
“3. The twenty-eight year period of rainfall deficiency which ended in 1810 was about as severe as has been the present one to date, and much more protracted.”
“4. The period of rainfall surplus from 1810 to 1821 was more intense than anything in the past forty years. It seems to have been about as intense as was that between 1883 and 1893.”
“5. The period of rainfall deficiency which lasted from about 1822 to 1832 was more severe than has been any occurring since.”
“6. The period of rainfall deficiency which commenced in 1842 and lasted until 1883 was much longer than any other of which we have record. It was not so acute, however, as some others, both earlier and later. It was broken by a period of normal rainfall, but was without any periood of excess rainfall to balance the deficiency.”
“The Spanish missionaries arrived in California in May, 1769, in a period of excess rainfall.”
So I ought to expect heavy rains, massive flooding, and cold weather here in California, then?
I’d like to put a smiley on it, but given their track record, and inversion seems more accurate…
Someone spent money to find out something that was already evident?????? Again??????
“Abstract
Changes in total solar irradiance can be linked to changes in regional precipitation. A possible mechanism responsible for this linkage begins with the absorption of varying amounts of solar energy by the tropical oceans which creates ocean temperature anomalies. These anomalies are then transported by major ocean currents to locations where the stored energy is released into the atmosphere, altering atmospheric pressure and moisture patterns that can ultimately affect regional precipitation.”
http://ks.water.usgs.gov/waterdata/climate/homepage.ijc.html#HDR0
Feedback mechanisms
Former senior CSIRO scientist, Dr Ken McCracken, who has expertise in solar and cosmic ray physics, says the new research shows that climate feedback mechanisms can have a very significant effect.
He says Arblaster and colleagues’ research shows there is roughly a two and half fold amplification of the sun’s energy.
“It’s a bloody big effect,” says McCracken, who is now affiliated with the University of Maryland in the US.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2009/08/28/2667549.htm
Ya know, if these folks that publish this stuff would spend as much time reading literature as they do modeling they might learn something.
http://tenaya.ucsd.edu/~dettinge/PACLIM/Yu02.pdf
Record rainfall for March here in Portland: http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/rainfall-records-set-in-oregon-1/63533
fyi.