Guest essay by Dr. Norman Page
Most climate warming alarmists have recently realized that it is now counterproductive to attribute every and all extreme weather events (even cold snowy winters) to global warming and try to project a judicious objectivity by applying the cliché “weather isn’t climate” to both sides of the climate wars. In fact weather is an almost instantaneous slice through the climate space-time phase space and certain patterns will occur more frequently on a cooling rather than a warming world.
The basic principles are very simple. On a cooler Earth the temperature gradient from the tropics to the Arctic Circle is steeper.
![FS_km5000.sm[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/fs_km5000-sm1.jpg?quality=83)
This increased gradient creates instability and the jet stream swings further North and South as opposed to its more West – East path during warmer periods. According to the season, blocking highs may develop with colder, drier, air penetrating further South and warm moist air reaching further North. There can be enormous temperature and humidity contrasts in the narrow boundary between these masses as warm air is sucked in from the Gulf. Conditions along such a boundary are ideal for developing the wind shear necessary for the tornado swarm development seen recently in Oklahoma.
The blocking highs also push hurricanes to the east so that hurricanes like Sandy are more likely to occur.
Note that Sandy was not a powerful Hurricane in fact it came ashore as a tropical storm. The big storm surge was the result of its long path over open water while a real cooling signal was seen in the development of blizzard conditions in the NW quadrant. This classic weather pattern is shown for today 6/02/13 in Figs 1 and 2 and occurs more often during a cooling phase of the PDO and is often triggered by an E Pacific La Nina cooling, as seen in the 6/01/13 SST anomaly map Fig 3 (h/t to The Weather Channel).
It is worth noting that the pattern seen in Fig 1 is also ideal for steering any Atlantic Hurricane which develops this season in a Sandy type direction.
Fig1
Fig2
Fig3
By contrast on a warmer world tropical SSTs are higher EL Ninos more common and more powerful category 4 and 5 hurricanes e.g. Katrina and Gilbert can develop. Their path is more E-W so that they more frequently hit the Gulf Coast or even Central America.
More generally, a cooling earth is a drier earth because the winds pick up less water vapor from the cooler oceans. In the USA the cool waters off the West Coast (Fig3) will lead to more generalized droughts in the Center, West and SW and when combined with more frequent late and early frosts and snows food crop production will be threatened. What rains do come will paradoxically come from storms leading to flash flooding further restricting food production. In California itself the south will be dryer with more forest fires while in the North more of the rains will come as snow so that increasing snow pack will ameliorate the overall dryer conditions.
Most of the ideas expressed above were included in the post “”30 Years Climate Forecast” in June 2010 on my blog at http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com and revisited in June 2012 in the post “30 Year Climate Forecast -2 year update.”
There has been no net warming since 1997 with CO2 up over 8%. The SSTs show a cooling trend since 2003.
The problem with the IPCC and MetOffice Climate models is that, apart from the egregious structural errors in the specific models, (assuming that CO2 is the main driver when it clearly follows temperature and adding water vapor as a feedback onto CO2 to increase the sensitivity) climate science is so complex that the modelling approach is inherently incapable of providing useful forecasts for several reasons; for starters the difficulty of specifying the initial conditions with sufficient precision. All the IPCC model projections and the impact studies and government policies which depend on them are a total waste of time and money.
The only useful approach is to perform power spectrum and wavelet analysis on the temperature and possible climate driver time series to find patterns of repeating periodicities and project them forward. When this is done it is apparent that the earth entered a cooling phase in 2003-4 which will likely last for 20 more years and perhaps for several hundred years beyond that. For the data and references supporting this conclusion check the post “Climate Forecasting Basics for Britains Seven Alarmist Scientists” and several earlier posts on Climate Forecasting and Global Cooling especially “Global Cooling – Climate and Weather Forecasting” from 11/18/13.
Here is a summary of the latest forecast based not on the particular events referred to above but on the data and references linked in the series of posts on the climatesense-norpag site.
It is not a great stretch of the imagination to propose that the 20th century warming peaked in about 2003 and that peak was a peak in both the 60 year and 1000 year cycles. On that basis the conclusions of the posts referred to above were as follows.
- Significant temperature drop at about 2016-17
- Possible unusual cold snap 2021-22.
- Built in cooling trend until at least 2024
- Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2035 – 0.15
- Temperature Hadsst3 moving average anomaly 2100 – 0.5
- General Conclusion – by 2100 all the 20th century temperature rise will have been reversed,
- By 2650 earth could be back to the depths of the little ice age.
- The effect of increasing CO2 emissions will be minor but beneficial – they may slightly ameliorate the forecast cooling and help maintain crop yields.
- There are some signs in the Livingston and Penn Solar data that a sudden drop to the Maunder Minimum Little Ice Age temperatures could be imminent – with a much more rapid and economically disruptive cooling than that forecast above which may turn out to be a best case scenario.
How confident should one be in these predictions? The pattern method doesn’t lend itself easily to statistical measures. However statistical calculations only provide an apparent rigour for the uninitiated and in relation to the IPCC climate models are entirely misleading because they make no allowance for the structural uncertainties in the model set up. This is where scientific judgement comes in – some people are better at pattern recognition than others.
A past record of successful forecasting is a useful but not infallible measure. In this case I am reasonably sure – say 65/35 for about 20 years ahead. Beyond that, inevitably, certainty must drop.
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Sediment cores in Lake George and other places in Australia indicate Australia’s SE is drier during colder periods, supporting the above. The alarmists at the Climate Commission and others say the opposite, that Australia’s SE will get drier under global warming, based on a short period of sampling and associated modelling in the late 20th century-early 21st century (the short period itself is ambiguous in this regard, showing little overall trend), yet they also say one cannot use short term periods to make long term projections. They also use sediment cores at other times, just when it suits them. Selectivity anyone?
Other government scientists then use this hotter-drier SE model to cut water from irrigators (not even being required under the Water Act to examine social impacts), build desalination plants, cancel potential dams, and so on, so it isn’t just academic fluff. If it gets colder and drier, they might be on the right track, by accident.
A more believable scenario.
Very interesting take on the question.
Thanks for the links, too. A fair bit to catch up on.
“By 2650 earth could be back to the depths of the little ice age”
Should that be 2150?
The warmer weather suits me fine, I hope you are wrong.
“Note that Sandy was not a powerful Hurricane in fact it came ashore as a tropical storm.”
Depends where it came ashore. Sandy hit Cuba as a category 3 hurricane, Jamaica as a category 2. The approach of Dr Page seems a little parochial on this matter.
More generally, a cooling earth is a drier earth because the winds pick up less water vapor from the cooler oceans.
I’d say the opposite. What drives ocean evaporation is the temperature differential between ocean surface and near surface atmosphere temperature. With solar insolation constant (in fact it will increase in a colder world), a cooler atmosphere will cause more ocean evaporation, and hence a wetter world, or at least wetter land surfaces. I’m talking perhaps a decade time span here.
It all comes back to clouds once again. We need a increase in clouds to decrease solar energy input into the tropical/subtropical oceans, in order to get a colder world. Or a decrease in clouds to get increased radiative cooling in the temperate to Arctic zones. Of course, these effects reverse at night. So, alternatively we need relative changes in day to night clouds.
So, it comes down to cloud increase/decrease in areas where there is a net energy gain/loss from solar insolation vs outgoing LWR.
In Australia, and in all likelyhood much of the rest of the world, daytime clouds have been decreasing, while early night time clouds have been increasing.
http://www.bishop-hill.net/blog/2011/11/4/australian-temperatures.html
The cause is decreased anthropogenic aerosols.
Dr. Page
Making predictions could be a risky enterprise, however calculating extrapolations from existing long term trends may be less so.
Global temperature record isn’t sufficiently long to do such extrapolation with a reasonable accuracy, but using the CET regional set of data gives far more reliable scenario:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NV.htm
Observing that there is a good correlation between global and the CET, it can be speculated that if such correlation is extended in the future than a drop in the global anomaly can be hypothesized.
Another sensible article explaining what weather does, it’s just basic meteorology, something those wedded to CAGW need to get back to, too many heads buried in the sand of the next pay check. Must say though, it is one forecast that I hope is wrong, but the signs are not good.
Regards
Keith Gordon
Evaporation is function of vapor pressure, not of temperature.
Here in Aus on SBS news tonight, one of the Oklahoma tornado broke all records. It was the widest ever at 4.5km wide.
Shouldn’t that be “… to the west …”?
The aspect that Norman misses is that the temperature gradient from equator to pole can vary BOTH from:
I) Warmer SSTs pushing the tropopause up at the equator or cooler SSTs at the equator allowing the tropopause to sink at the equator AND
ii) A warmer stratosphere above the poles relative to the temperature of the stratosphere above the equator pushing the tropopause down above the poles or a cooler stratosphere at the poles relative to the temperature of the stratosphere above the equator allowing the tropopause to rise above the poles.
The former is dependent on global cloudiness and the amount of solar energy able to enter the oceans.
The latter is dependent on the mix of particles and wavelengths from the sun varying so as to differentially affect the stratospheric temperatures above poles and equator. The solar effect is greater above the poles hence different amounts of change above poles and equator.
The precise gradient of tropopause height between equator and poles affects jet stream behaviour and climate zone positioning and thus global cloudiness and the amount of solar energy able to enter the oceans to fuel the climate system.
The changing gradient allows the weather systems to slide to and fro latitudinally beneath the tropopause which affects global cloudiness and albedo.
The global climate system is comprised of a polar / equator see-saw in tropopause height between the equator and each pole in each hemisphere.
That is the mechanical process which adjusts the throughput of solar energy as a negative system response to all forcing elements including GHGs once the basic system energy content has been set by mass, gravity and ToA insolation.
As yet, I haven’t found a real world observation that fails to fit that scenario.
Norman said:
“This increased gradient creates instability and the jet stream swings further North and South as opposed to its more West – East path during warmer periods”.
I don’t think that is what the evidence tells us. The meridional jets (more swings North and South) seem to occur when the system is cooling (correct) but it is then that the gradient seems to decline (not increase). The reason being that more meridional jets both allow faster cooling at the equator as air is moved away more effectively and more warming at the poles as air from nearer the equator is advected in more often and for longer periods.
It is well established that more zonal jets result in a larger equator / pole gradient because the stronger zonal flow isolates the polar interior which then becomes colder.
Instead, I have previously suggested this:
When the sun is active the sun reduces ozone most above the poles cooling the stratosphere and raising the polar tropopause which gives a positive AO and shrinks the polar air masses at the surface.
At the same time the more poleward zonal jets result in reduced global cloudiness and more energy enters the oceans through the wider subtropical high pressure cells.
The entire global circulation shifts poleward becoming more zonal in the process and the system warms.
That gives an increased gradient during a warming spell.
When the sun is inactive the sun allows more ozone to form above the poles warming the stratosphere and lowering the polar tropopause which gives a negative AO and expands the polar air masses at the surface.
At the same time the more equatorward meridional jets result in increased global cloudiness and less energy entering the oceans through narrower subtropical high pressure cells.
The entire global circulation shifts equatorward becoming more meridional in the process and the system cools.
That gives a decreased gradient during a cooling spell.
That way round the theory fits observations.
Extremely difficult to grant this any credibility.
If warming ‘peaked’ in 2003 why have there been two years with record breaking temps since?
The decreased temperature differential between the tropics and the poles with warming because of polar amplification of AGW has increased extreme weather because the jet stream gets destabilised with a lower temperature differential causing it to meander. Theoretically the storms that form around the jet stream will be weaker because of the warming poles, but they are carried further north and south by the meanders.
When tropical storm Sandy came ashore it may longer have been a hurricane, but the associated storm surge was around a foot higher than it would have been before AGW cause sea level rise.
‘Predicting’ the weather from frequency and power analysis of records based on derived ‘cycles’ of which the is less than three full cycles of data to define the speculative frequency is little better than looking at chicken entrails.
At least with that method you can eat the chicken afterwards.
Norman Page writes: “By contrast on a warmer world tropical SSTs are higher EL Ninos more common and more powerful category 4 and 5 hurricanes e.g. Katrina and Gilbert can develop. Their path is more E-W so that they more frequently hit the Gulf Coast or even Central America.”
This is confusing. Katrina formed and dissipated in August 2005. According to the ONI index…
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/ensostuff/ensoyears_1971-2000_climo.shtml
…ENSO-neutral (not El Niño) conditions existed then.
Gilbert formed and dissipated in September 1988, during strong La Niña conditions.
Additionally, by including El Niños in that sentence, you’re contradicting well-established El Niño-hurricane dynamics. El Niños suppress hurricane development by creating greater wind shear in the tropical North Atlantic. Bill Gray wrote his first paper about that in the 1960s.
The one thing that the Alarmism is not providing that is important is time. While I have more faith in Dr. Page’s predictions than in anything coming from the “team”, the fact remains that as their forecasts go farther and farther afield, their rhetoric becomes more violent and threatening. Actions are but one instigation away.
Margaret Hardman says:June 5, 2013 at 1:39 am
“Note that Sandy was not a powerful Hurricane in fact it came ashore as a tropical storm.”
Depends where it came ashore. Sandy hit Cuba as a category 3 hurricane, Jamaica as a category 2. The approach of Dr Page seems a little parochial on this matter.
Total projection, due to “it came ashore” meaning on the continent, not an island.
Margaret Hardman says:
June 5, 2013 at 1:39 am
The approach of Dr Page seems a little parochial on this matter.
——————————
Uh oh, school ma’am’s here again, now lecturing us on the “fact” that Cuba and Jamaica are part of the continental United States and, if you don’t think so, you’re parochial.
That aside Margaret, is this a passive aggressive attempt to say that recent carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere cause increased hurricane activities and strengths ?? If so, please show the data you are working with.
izen says:
June 5, 2013 at 4:05 am
When tropical storm Sandy came ashore it may longer have been a hurricane, but the associated storm surge was around a foot higher than it would have been before AGW cause sea level rise.
————————————————————-
Please show the scientific data associated with this conjecture
Izen said:
“When tropical storm Sandy came ashore it may longer have been a hurricane, but the associated storm surge was around a foot higher than it would have been before AGW cause sea level rise.”
IWhat?
t was an unusually high tide, dude. Not AGW sea level rise.
Make some more things up why don’t you?
“On a cooler Earth the temperature gradient from the tropics to the Arctic Circle is steeper.”
Why?
Réaumur:
Can’t speak for anyone else, but in my observation the entire mechanism creates a relatively stable temperature in the equatorial region. It’s there that we should look to disprove CO2-caused global warming anyway. No matter how much insolation or whatever else changes, all that ends up happening is more heat is transferred away from the tropics. The only place to go is poleward.
As I’ve said before, reduced arctic sea ice is NOT an indication that catastrophe is imminent, it’s simply an indication that the system is working right, moving heat to where it can more easily be radiated away (especially in each hemisphere’s respective winter, where energy is free to radiate continuously to outer space without any additional solar load slowing it down).
Therefore, on a cooler world, the equatorial regions will retain their relatively stable temperature, but less excess heat is moved toward the poles. There, cooling becomes increasingly effective, and some really, really cold airmasses begin to settle. Eventually they need to wobble away from the pole, and when they do they collide with that warm, moist air wandering out of the tropics.
The result is more intense weather, as the extremes collide.
@- philincalifornia and RobRoy
Who question the scientific reality of recent accelerating sea level rise.
http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/briefs/gornitz_09/
The current phase of accelerated sea level rise appears to have begun in the mid/late 19th century to early 20th century, based on coastal sediments from a number of localities. Twentieth century global sea level, as determined from tide gauges in coastal harbors, has been increasing by 1.7-1.8 mm/yr, apparently related to the recent climatic warming trend. Most of this rise comes from warming of the world’s oceans and melting of mountain glaciers, which have receded dramatically in many places especially during the last few decades. Since 1993, an even higher sea level trend of about 2.8 mm/yr has been measured from the TOPEX/POSEIDON satellite altimeter. Analysis of longer tide-gauge records (1870-2004) also suggests a possible late 20th century acceleration in global sea level.
The global land ice mass balance continues to be very negative with accelerating loss of ice from glaciers and icecaps. If cooling was really starting since 2003 then someone needs to tell all the melting glaciers, ice caps and the summer Arctic sea ice….
From Huffington Post in re OKC tornado:
“A 2 1/2-mile wide tornado would not look like a tornado to a lot of people,” Smith said, explaining that the twister would not have a tapered funnel and would instead resemble a dark cloud hanging below the horizon.
Er, how does one see a cloud hanging *below* the horizon?
@- Eustace Craunch
“Er, how does one see a cloud hanging *below* the horizon?”
Same way you see a ship appearing from below the horizon. The upper parts are visible before the lower parts which are revealed only as it gets nearer?