Like this one:
![britainAR[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/britainar1.png?resize=640%2C486)
Image from NOAA ESRL
From the Institute of Physics
Atmospheric rivers set to increase UK winter flooding
The prolonged heat wave that has bathed the UK in sunshine over the past month has given the country an unexpected taste of summer that has seemed to be missing in recent years.
However, a new study published today, 24 July, in IOP Publishing’s Environmental Research Letters, has provided warnings that will chime with those accustomed to more typical British weather.
According to the study, winter flooding in the UK is set to get more severe and more frequent under the influence of climate change as a result of a change in the characteristics of atmospheric rivers (ARs).
ARs are narrow regions of intense moisture flows in the lower troposphere of the atmosphere that deliver sustained and heavy rainfall to mid-latitude regions such as the UK.
They are responsible for many of the largest winter floods in the mid-latitudes and can carry extremely large amounts of water: the AR responsible for flooding in the northwest of the UK in 2009 transported 4500 times more water than the average flow in the River Thames in London.
The researchers, from the University of Reading and University of Iowa, found that large parts of the projected changes in AR frequency and intensity would be down to thermodynamic changes in the atmosphere, rather than the natural variability of the climate, suggesting that it is a response to anthropogenic climate change.
To reach these conclusions, the researchers used simulations from five state-of-the-art climate models to investigate how the characteristics of ARs may change under future climate change scenarios.
Firstly, they used the climate models to see how accurately they could simulate the ARs that occurred between 1980 and 2005. The five models did this successfully and were deemed capable of projecting how future ARs will develop under different scenarios.
The models were then used to simulate future conditions under two scenarios – RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 – that represent different, yet equally plausible, scenarios for future increases in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere. They projected changes that would occur between 2074 and 2099.
Each of the five models simulated an increase in AR frequency. For the RCP8.5 projections, which represents stronger increases in greenhouse gas concentrations than RCP4.5, there was a striking level of consistency in the magnitude of change in AR frequency – all models showed an approximate doubling of the number of future ARs compared to the simulations for 1980 – 2005.
The models also projected an increase in intensity of the ARs, meaning an AR impacting the UK in the future is projected to deliver more moisture, potentially causing larger precipitation totals.
Lead author of the research, Dr David Lavers, said: “ARs could become stronger in terms of their moisture transport. In a warming world, atmospheric water vapour content is expected to rise due to an increase in saturation water vapour pressure with air temperature. This is likely to result in increased water vapour transport.
“The link between ARs and flooding is already well established, so an increase in AR frequency is likely to lead an increased number of heavy winter rainfall events and floods. More intense ARs are likely to lead to higher rainfall totals, and thus larger flood events.”
From Wednesday 24 July, this paper can be downloaded from http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/3/034010/article
Ah.. so UK is in for a dry spell !
All this research is pointless. UK weather can be forecasted deterministically: it’s the opposite of whatever the Met Office predicts.
We stopped having hot summers for as long as they kept promising “BBQ weather” year after year. Then they met in mid-June 2013, told the world no more British heat for a decade, and lo and behold on perfect cue we got the hottest and driest July in ages.
The heatwave is now going to end, after some poor soul was quoted saying it was going to last a month. And it started raining in 2012 as soon as the Met Office became sure the drought was here to stay.
I say, this is a major achievement. Not even the astrologer is able to be wrong all of the time. All that public money spent in Met Office supercomputers, well spent indeed!!
“To reach these conclusions, the researchers used simulations from five state-of-the-art climate models ”
Better buy plenty of sun tan oil and get the swimming trunks out then.
@omnologos – well put – I couldn’t have done better.
All this tax money spent to determine what will happen in a warming climate! must have some ace computer models, a Sinclair Z80 or older!
The UK put a boat out to sea in 1912 and proclaimed it to be unsinkable.
Omnologos – But the cheeeldren we have to think about, we need a bigger much better super computer to tell’s yuz we woz right all along yesterday – I do see how it works now – Simples.
Of course to be called science it must testable and falsifiable, and we only need to wait until between 2074 and 2099 to test their model.
What, pray tell, “thermodynamic changes in the atmosphere” did they find between 1980-2005, correlated with ACC, of course, to use as the independent variable when projecting the dependent variable, AR? They were smart enough to predict changes starting 62 years from now; well beyond the professional life of any researchers involved.
We have moved on a long way from those ignorant souls of the Middle Ages who believed the Earth was flat and was held up by giant tortoises.
And holding up those tortoises were more tortoises.
In fact it was tortoises all the way down.
With our greatly advanced knowledge of today we know they were very wrong.
It’s not tortoises that the world now rests on.
It’s climate models, all the way down.
Cry me an atmospheric river.
Jim Steele – How the holy…. – They really are extracting the urine.
I suspect that gravity has a much larger role in climate than previously suspected.
Do the orbital parameters 1,12,28,37,48(9) mean anything? Does the series next = round(previous *1.3371) starting from one and Power have any of the above.
And why if I use the above simple piece of maths above can I guess precisely right this months UAH figure of 0.3c (go check if you do not believe me).
They base their analysis on presumed increase in water vapor but even Trenberth has shown that global water vapor is tied to the frequency of El Ninos and in Europe “The main region where
positive trends are not very evident is over Europe, in spite of large and positive trends over the North Atlantic since 1988.”
In accord with the El Nino connection Vonder Haar,T., et al., (2012) (Weather and Climate Analyses Using the New NVAP-Measures Global Water Vapor Dataset. Weather and climate analyses using improved global water vapor observations. Geophysical Research Letters, 39, L15802, doi:10.1029/2012GL052094.) show water vapor is declining since 1998.
Where, precisely, are the headwaters to these atmospheric rivers? Oh wait, I know, they’re in the grant offices. And, years ago those rivers started out as little trickles. And, as the self serving warnings ensued, those little trickles of money turned into rivers of money. Now, they’re virtual torrents of money. Interestingly, water usually puts out fire, but these are very special rivers indeed, because they burn through money.
Our money.
So they took an ensemble of models, tuned them to hindcast the available record, then fed them the output (“plausible” projections) of other models. And we should have confidence in this why?
I think the way to make this kind of research more sporting is impose the requirement that in order to publish publicly-funded climate research that “projects” some result, you must put up a bond for 50% of the funding amount, which is then forfeit if your projections fail. Who would be crazy enough to offer such a bond? Why the university sponsoring the research of course.
If putting your money and mouth together behind the same claim is too burdensom, then just put a disclaimer as part of the abstract, which must be included in the press release:
There. Now everybody knows where they stand.
The concept seems like such a sensible analysis of real weather patterns, then they started mumbling about the model deities punishing England for CO2…
Until all of the code, data and all runs are released for general consumption, I remain unconvinced. Omnologos has a far better proved method of weather planning in England.
Just as a new prince is born the long summer heat wave ends in violent storms – extreme weather, an omen…and the Met were the first to take notice? The old methods always worked better than their super computers.
I wish the Met Office would stop predicting barbeque summers and the like, and give up and go home so that competent meteorologists can do the job.
Just wonder what the possibility is that the missing atmospheric hotspot will never materialize. What if the extra water vapor in the atmosphere is simply carried along air currents (looks like the Gulf Stream to me in your picture above) to a place where it can fall out? What does that mean for snowfall and ice potential in the winter time if Arctic air meets up with the “extra” vapor? Of course. Increased albedo, or a natural coping mechanism likely not accounted for.
The Met Office has had its Tiljanders upside down for some time now.
The council inspector who checks to see if you have a hose pipe in use is finding it difficult to walk from house to house with his flippers on.
A remarkable number of recent WUWT headline posts involve climate and weather modeling and models to a greater or lesser extent.
Understandable considering our host’s background and business interests in weather forecasting.
What has become striking over the last few months at least is when reading all the commentor’s posts, there is an fast increasing level of cynicism being expressed through increasingly biting commentator’s sarcasm about climate models and climate modelers.
This cynicism seems to run right across the board covering not only a wide spectrum of science lay persons but also highly qualified professional people particularly from the engineering sciences and even from what i can glean from the comments, many non climate scientists who regularly comment on WUWT.
All of which spells deep long term troubles for the climate modeling community as it becomes increasingly obvious that their predictions are continuing to fail in nearly every single aspect.
It is becoming very apparent that the climate modelers in their hubris have badly over reached their ability to make any worthwhile predictions for the future global climate or any sectors of that climate.
Unfortunately this changing public attitude towards climate modeling has not yet penetrated the thick hides of the highly grant supported and closeted climate modeling community .
Climate modeling and modelers will invariably pay a severe price sometime in the near future for this overweening hubris.
The best advice the climate modelers could now follow would be;
When you find yourself in a very deep hole, stop digging.
.
And perhaps it is time for climate modelers to take on some humbleness and take on board that well known saying from Niels Bohr, the famous pre WW2 physicist who is quoted as saying ;
” Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.”
“The researchers, from the University of Reading and University of Iowa, found that large parts of the projected changes in AR frequency and intensity would be down to thermodynamic changes in the atmosphere, rather than the natural variability of the climate, suggesting that it is a response to anthropogenic climate change.”
*
I understood that the response to anthropogenic catastrophic warming climate change weather weirding disruption poisoning – was supposed to be hiding deep in the ocean. That’s why we can’t find it. That’s why there’s been no warming for about two decades. Isn’t that what the “climate scientists” have told us?
Either it’s in the ocean and not toying with us out here, in which case, there is no response to it in the atmosphere, or it’s not in the ocean, in which case – where’s the warming?
It’s another example of making the claim that anthropogenic catastrophic warming climate change weather weirding disruption poisoning – influences everything while still managing to hide away the dreaded heat that was supposed to trigger all these events in the first place!
This CO2 stuff is amazing!
forget summer in the UK – and head for Fiji instead. read for details:
23 July: Brookings Institution: Elizabeth Ferris: Bringing Together Disaster and Climate Change Networks: Historic Meeting in the Pacific
I recently participated in the Joint Meeting of the Pacific Platform for Disaster Risk Management and the Pacific Climate Change Roundtable July 8-11th in Nadi, Fiji which marked the first ever attempt to bring together different regional networks working on climate change and disasters. It was a rich and eye-opening experience to be present in this gathering of several hundred people representing governments, regional bodies galore, international organizations, academics, NGOs and civil society groups…
It is now generally accepted that one of the consequences of climate change will be an increase in the severity, intensity and unpredictability of weather-related disasters. And yet in most regions, there are separate networks of international and regional organizations working on climate change adaptation and on disaster risk management. On the surface it makes sense to bring these networks together: surely everyone can agree that one of the ways to adapt to the effects of climate change is to reduce the risk of disasters. How can risks from disasters be considered separately from risks posed by climate change? …
But just as the effects of climate change are being felt first in the Pacific, perhaps the Pacific is also leading the way in dealing with the administrative and political obstacles that prevent a more holistic approach to these issues. It’s too early to tell whether these attempts will be successful, but it was a privilege to watch a small part of the process.
http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2013/07/23-disaster-management-climate-change-pacific-meeting-ferris
I couldn’t even read all of this.
My Bullshat detector was going wild.
On it’s face this is so unbelievable it almost hurts. The authors appear to have supplanted the jet stream with an entirely invented phenomenon.
Place your bets that none of this will ever be shown to have any merit at all.
Label me a….skeptic.
omnologos: thanks for the discussion of the MET. You had my wife rolling with laughter
According to the study, winter flooding in the UK is set to get more severe and more frequent under the influence of climate change as a result of a change in the characteristics of atmospheric rivers (ARs).
This part raised my eyebrows, but I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt, and continued reading. I figured maybe the basis for the forecasts are actual observations of ARs.
To reach these conclusions, the researchers used simulations from five state-of-the-art climate models,/b> to investigate how the characteristics of ARs may change under future climate change scenarios.
I stopped reading at this point since they’re talking about Worlds of Make-Believe.
NOAA, that bastion of indelible facts, has a very interesting web site dedicated to AR study that is worth a read. But follow the axiom that that which is not BS can be educational. ARs are not the jet stream, for example, and ARs are verifiable. Somewhere is an animated all-world view of ARs and if you watch it several times it validates Willis’ tropical heat engine ideas. And it supports an idea of mine that tremendous amounts of energy are pumped out of the tropics as water vapor.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/psd/atmrivers/
Yet another “dry lab”, devoid of any experiment or observation.
All the CMIP5 models were tuned in some way, almost certainly including to the TOA radiation flux, adjusting various parameters (aerosol forcing, e.g.) within some bounds until they got a statistically “skilled” hindcast. Then they were used to project the future.
Of course, there’s no way to know whether the tuned models actually got the underlying climate dynamics correct. That’s just assumed because, after all, the models got that lovely statistical hindcast.
Statistically skillful hindcast + incorrect dynamics = nonsensical non-physical forecast. That’s climate modeling today. But it gets headlines, and everyone has the deep satisfaction of making earth-shaking pronouncements. Who needs the Sibyls when oracular climate modelers abound?
lol Guess we’d better brace ourselves then.
Of course, when any flooding does arrive the BBC will take their cameras to the nearest location where houses have been built on a floodplain, and then blame it all on global warming. Dipsticks.
So, with simulations from five state-of-the-art climate models and much fiddling of the data, the Met has managed to predict the past
Models: Actually having used computer models for engineering design, project management, financial management, tax planning, financial planning and human resource management and other things since the 60’s, I have great faith in computer models. But they have to produce useable, testable, and verifiable results. Otherwise they are just wasting time and electricity. AR’s are real. In western North America we have all heard of the “Pinapple Express”. It’s worth developing forecasting models. But for some reason I am thinking one, two, five, and ten year time horizons that can be measured/verified would be a lot more useful than looking at something that will occur long after most of us are dead.
Or maybe that’s the point?
“To reach these conclusions, the researchers used simulations from five state-of-the-art climate models to investigate how the characteristics of ARs may change under future climate change scenarios.
Firstly, they used the climate models to see how accurately they could simulate the ARs that occurred between 1980 and 2005. The five models did this successfully and were deemed capable of projecting how future ARs will develop under different scenarios.”
Is that like “Pull my finger”?
Probably a Scam to enable the Insurance companies to offload All flood coverage onto the new scheme proposed by the Government, Who will argue about it, it has academic backing 🙂
“…To reach these conclusions, the researchers used simulations from five state-of-the-art climate models to investigate how the characteristics of ARs may change under future climate change scenarios….”
But first they tested all the climate models to find five that did what they wanted.
tom konerman says: “The UK put a boat out to sea in 1912 and proclaimed it to be unsinkable.”
Pshhh! It is now.
I see the UK branch of the Phil Pockets Institute has been going into overdrive again…
Luckily the Brits are now going to enjoy dry winter weather until the Met Office next predict dry winter weather. This could be built into a Larson of the Far Side cartoon.
This is right out of De. Seuss: “Ooblek, ooblek is our cry! More than that we know not why”. Courtessy “Bartholomew and the Oobleck”, a 1949 book by Dr. Seuss. Why aren’t these people ashamed of themselves? I guess grant dollars assuage a lot of grief.
Sorry UK guys, that ship was a technology disaster and bad judgment but Piltdown man was just the same kind of fraud 🙂 Mea Culpa, we in the Netherlands have recently had our Diederik Stapel affair, that was a big hit too 🙂
And while they’re patting themselves on the back, hearing the cheers of their co-modelers, collecting awards and signing up for grants, they are immune to the gales of laughter at their ridiculous claims.
Oh no, we the unbelieving wicked will see, oh yes we shall see, when it comes to pass, yea verily.
Meanwhile, I highly recommend examining the entrails of a sacrificed goat for a more accurate picture of the future.
Yes, this “study” is a load of crap. The very concept of forecasting such trends in any credible manner is ridiculous.
Firstly, they used the climate models to see how accurately they could simulate the ARs that occurred between 1980 and 2005.
Entirely based on models? The ones that can’t get anything else right and they don’t know why? Strike 1.
What happened to the data since 2005? No mention of getting things right after the hindcast period? Did we lose the data from 2006 on? What is the excuse for not comparing to actual data for the following 7 years? Strike 2.
Predictions so far out that they cannot be verified except by people who for the most part aren’t even born yet? Strike 3.
Wanna know the funny part? No one is even throwing balls at them! They are swinging at empty air, hoping nobody will notice.
“……the researchers used simulations from five state-of-the-art climate models……” They’ll come on in the same old way and Mother Nature will see them off in the same old way. It seems to me that GCM’s are the modern version of the philosopher’s stone – and sought after for much the same reasons. What was it that Einstein said about insanity?
They sound very like schoolchildren building fantasies from ignorance.
Streams of enhanced humidity are a routine occurrence in the approaches to Western Europe and result from humid air being drawn up from the tropics on the southern side of the jet stream.
When the globe is warming the streams of humidity move poleward and when it is cooling they shift equatorward.
Larger deposits of rainfall tend to occur when the globe is cooling because it is then that more frequent high pressure blocking cells tend to keep the flows static for longer periods of time.
Total global humidity doesn’t seem to be changing significantly.
This is just alarmist hype.
Atmospheric rivers and floods have been covered here at WUWT before although I could not find the post. This was when the USGS came out with the ArkStorm Scenario:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2010/1312/
The hypothetical storm depicted here would strike the U.S. West Coast and be similar to the intense California winter storms of 1861 and 1862 that left the central valley of California impassible.
Wiki has an entry on the storm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Flood_of_1862
They say this:
“We show that North Atlantic ARs are projected to become stronger and more numerous in the future scenarios of multiple simulations from five state-of-the-art global climate models (GCMs) ”
which is just a recycling of the earlier proposition that AGW will result in a stronger zonal (west to east) flow of air in the middle latitudes. Previously AGW theory associated the faster more zonal flow with more poleward jets which would have put the flow more often north of the UK, hence the past expectations of a hotter, drier Mediterranean type climate in the UK.
In reality, since 2000 the flows have become more meridional and have sunk equatorward which is the opposite of the earlier expectation but which has caused more cool air and rainfall over the UK in summer and colder drier winters rather than their suggestion of wetter winters.
Their proposals have already been proved incorrect by real world events since 2000.
John F Hultquist:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/02/12/atmospheric-rivers-key-to-extratropical-water-vapor-transport/
Why not 2014 to 2039?
That would be initially testable within the working lives of the researchers.
Don’t they want to know if they are right?
There’s a huge problem with their conclusion that it’s the result of man made global warming.
The climate has not warmed in 17 years, therefore if it’s temperature-related we should have experienced the same AR effects throughout this period. We haven’t, therefore it’s natural variability.
I do wish academics would look at history before making their pronouncements.
The UK is currently in a highly benign climatic period. The weather was FAR worse prior to 1850 and more especially in the LIA periods
1228 inundations of rivers in Dec Jan and Feb –in Worcester- such that no one then living had ever seen the like in their time
1229 severe winter ‘unusually bitter, waters so frozen horsemen could cross upon the ice, great snow afterwards earth covered for several days.’
1231 March to October hardly any rain anywhere in England-great drought
1233 wet summer from 23 March with great inundations of rain through the whole summer destroying warrens and washed away the ponds and mills throughout almost all England. Water formed into lakes in middle of the crops where the fishes of the rivers were seen to great astonishment and mills were standing in various places they had never before been seen.
1233-1234 severe frost from Christmas 1233 to Feb 2 1234 destroying roots of trees to four foot down then rest of year very unseasonable
1234 third unseasonable year
Wet weather in autumn choked the seed and loosened it.
1236 great floods in Jan, Feb and part of March that no one had seen the like before. Bridges submerged, fords impassable, mills and ponds overwhelmed and sown land meadows and marshes covered. Thames flooded palace of Westminster so small boat could be navigated in the midst of the forecourt. And folk went to their bed chambers on horseback
Followed by dry summer with intolerable heat that all lasted four months. Deep pools and ponds were dried up and water mils useless.
1237 great rains in February, fords and roads impassable for 8 successive days
Turbulent year stormy and unsettled
1238 great floods in many parts probably December
Cloudy and rainy in beginning until spring had passed then the drought and heat were beyond measure and custom in two or more of the summer months. Great deluge of rain in the autumn that straw and grain became rotten and an unnatural autumn which is held to be a cold and dry season gave rise to various fatal diseases.
1239 very wet weather continually from Jan to March, it has continued for four months without intermission.
tonyb
The usual water vapor increase in a warming world despite NOAA showing the opposite. EOM.
:” the AR responsible for flooding in the northwest of the UK in 2009 transported 4500 times more water than the average flow in the River Thames in London.”
can somebody help me out on this one?
Is this just another pathetic attempt to keep the green gravy train rolling?
Significant AR’s occurred in 1980 and 2005 and the next significant ones are predicted for 2074 an 2099?
All based on models and the figures above show the intellectual level these people have reached any decent researcher, if the figures were true, would have rounded up but of course this is indecent research. Boys with toys ( computers) who think the grown ups don’t understand their silly little games.
omnologos makes a valid point.
When reality shows that a prediction is always wrong, it means that the prediction is based on incorrect theoretical model.
In science we call this a systematic error and no amount of tinkering or re-runs will cure the problem.
I hate it when the IPCC climate scientists make up new words, like Forcings, or misunderstand the meaning of an established one, like Feedback, or create a new nonsense term like Atmospheric River. “Water vapor plume” is much more descriptive and carries much less false implications with it. Their “Atmospheric Rivers” don’t exist; they want to create the illusion that they know something when they don’t, and use their imaginary Atmospheric Rivers to explain away whatever comes their way. Despicable failures.
That model runs were consistent merely shows they share the same flawed postulated mechanisms.
Wayne Delbeke says:
July 23, 2013 at 8:22 pm
Wayne, the pineapple express is not quite the same thing and is very unpredictable until a few days before. The express is a secondary low forming on the periphery of a major low over mid-northern canada. Because said low is in the outer reaches of the low it’s speed is powered by the jet and te winds around the low.
‘projected changes ‘ are the best type of changes for you can always claim their ‘going to happen ‘ even while reality shows them to be BS , becasue there is a never ending supply of ‘going to’
In a warming world…..?
These deniers just don’t get it, do they?
Because of the Jet Stream, rain in England often means sunshine in Iceland, and sunshine in England rain in Iceland.
The recent weeks have been unusually wet here in south Iceland, while they have enjoyed the sun in Britain,
Now we have enjoyed a few sunny days after weeks of heavy rain. The jet stream foracast indicates that we may expect more sunny days here in the north.
http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=jetstream;sess=
The dear Wet Office have of late been most pronounced in their observations of what the Jet Stream is or is not doing, in their meteorological musings, all done with an air of eminent knowledge! One tiny wee flaw…….they never seem to answer the obvious question, “What causes the jet stream to shift then?” As to the post above, well somebody said it ages ago, “X-Box 360 Lara Croft Fantasy World!”, only t seems to be getting worse! 😉
Please would these ‘scientists’ explain why a run of severe floods happened in the 1870s, since clearly they could not have been caused by AGW?
Please would those who believe in weather as a Fourier system of amplitudes and beats also explain why there cannot be a cyclical nature to ARs, just as there are to many other weather phenomena????
It can’t be cyclical because that would be caused by nature, and nature is good. And since floods are bad they can only be caused by humans, and we all know humanity is evil.
Bwwahh-hah-ah-ah!!!
“Scientists Discover Rivers in th Sky over England Four Times Larger Than The River Thames”
The joint paper was prepared by the University Of Rowing and University of Idiots. Their chief spokesman Professor Worsel Gummidge said this opens up all sorts of possibilities and with more grants we believe that by 2090. Olympic water sports will be taking place on these Rivers.
Bryan says:
July 24, 2013 at 12:01 am
omnologos makes a valid point.
When reality shows that a prediction is always wrong, it means that the prediction is based on incorrect theoretical model.
In science we call this a systematic error and no amount of tinkering or re-runs will cure the problem.
All you need is an invertor!
I suggest that 2013 in England is going to be warmer then 2012, and then we are going to have 3 colder years and a bit warmer one to follow.
How do I know that?
Because it happened about 270 years ago 🙂 🙂
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET1690-1960.htm
climate science is LOL.
According to the study, winter flooding in the UK is set to get more severe and more frequent under the influence of climate change as a result of a change in the characteristics of atmospheric rivers (ARs).
_______________________________________
Sorry, but that is nonsense.
The problem with our last three very cold winters in the UK, is that the jetstreams moved south into the Med, leaving the UK anticyclonic, cold and dryish conditions (there was a large snowfall in 2013, when a low tried to push into the Scandinavian anticyclone but was pushed back).
Thus the predicted ‘river of moisture’ (which created out traditionally wet winters) will probably benefit North Africa more than the UK – as it did during the Roman period when the province of Mauritania (N Africa) became a significant grain-growing area and very wealthy indeed (the biggest Roman bath in the Empire was/is in Tunisia). Although it has to be said that the recernt perennial poverty of that region (ie: over the last thousand years) has as much to do with the revised and regressive politics and economics of that region, as it does with the climate. (nb: The Christian Byzantine nations of N Africa all fell to ‘another regime’ back in the 8th – 9th centuries, and the region has never recovered from that tragedy.)
Thus the recent trend for the UK (if three years can be called a trend), has been towards dryer winters. I cannot find any historical averages. But I think you will find that for Jan-Feb-Mar, there has been a significant bias in the UK towards higher pressure, more easterly winds, and colder temperatures.
.
Bob says: July 23, 2013 at 7:05 pm
Omnologos: thanks for the discussion of the MET. You had my wife rolling with laughter.
_________________________
But the really sad thing about Omnologo’s levity (July 23, 2013 at 5:17 pm) is that everything he said is perfectly correct. Now that s a worry.
Or is it?
I was just thinking, perhaps the Med Office is not staffed by astrologers, but by ‘rain-dancing’ witch doctors who can really influence the weather. But these meteorological shamans are out of favor with the gods of climate, and so the gods always do the exact opposite of the rain-dance being performed. Thus all we need to do is get the Met Office to predict cold, wet summers for the next 20 years, and we shall have perfect summer weather. Job done…
Do I need a /sarc??
.
Didn’t the Met Office predict wetter UK summers? They say no and that the press had misinterpreted their hogwash.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/stand-by-for-another-decade-of-wet-summers-say-met-office-meteorologists-8663024.html
Remember the forecasted cooler, wetter summers for the UK? The results are in – the longest UK heatwave in 7 years! LOL. See Belcher from the Met Office ducking and diving, weaving and skirting.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2372011/UK-heatwave-2013-It-wet-How-Met-office-expert-convinced-heatwave-blip.html
Flooding in the UK has nothing to do with extra rain rather the increase of building on flood plain, increasing runoff, and the Environment Agency’s quiet admission that river dredging has been stopped due to lack of money.
If anyone takes the time to read Philip Eden’s excellent book on British weather will learn that past storms have exceeded those of today. All flash flooding areas have repeatedly experienced flash flooding with past events killing more people.
This report seems to be one of cherry picked data.
The empirical evidence suggests negative feedback from atmospheric H2O. All this threatening water in the atmosphere is just going to undo what CO2 has wrought. No worries.
I rather wish I had made an album of all the plaques showing the flood height since about 1600 that are in just about every seaside and riverside town in the UK. I used to be fascinated by them years ago but in those days of 35mm every picture had to be thought over because of the cost.
I also wonder how many of the floods are wholly or mainly caused by the trolleys dumped from bridges if the one that was cleared by the sub aqua club my work colleague belonged to is typical.
A.D. Everard says:
July 23, 2013 at 6:47 pm
“Either it’s in the ocean and not toying with us out here, in which case, there is no response to it in the atmosphere, or it’s not in the ocean, in which case – where’s the warming?”
Poltergeist warming. Only the effects can be seen, not the warming.
Worth remember that was only in the second world war that they relased there was even a ‘Jet Stream’ in the first place , what causes it to move it they still do not know . Although I wouldtake a good bet its bound to be ‘the fault of golbal warming’
Steve Oregon said “On it’s face this is so unbelievable it almost hurts. The authors appear to have supplanted the jet stream with an entirely invented phenomenon.”
I agree with that and other commenters that the authors seem to lack a basic understanding of weather. These types of authors make up new terms or pervert old ones in an attempt to ascribe real world meaning to some speculative or downright erroneous dynamics within climate models. This is an age-old problem from the earliest climate models that showed some real world effects, but could not be validated in any way:
“Look, it’s generating a monsoon!” says one incredulous researcher about a model.
“Great, let’s run it into the future to see what will happen to monsoons!” says another.
The key to the error in this study is when they refer to thermodynamics as in “A sensitivity analysis was also employed to determine the thermodynamic contribution to future AR changes.” The “AR” (or jet stream as Steve points out) is not driven by thermodynamics, but atmospheric dynamics, a much more complex physics. One consequence is that atmospheric dynamics are controlled by factors that are not resolved in climate models (e.g. clouds) or not in climate models (e.g. solar spectrum). Also the “AR” cannot manifest in rainfall without lift at the receiving end.
These researchers are like many other contemporary climate researchers being paid to look at current weather and attempt to attribute “extremes” to global warming regardless of facts or history. They appear to not have read the prior work of climate modelers that say the opposite, that one effect of global warming may be that the jet streams increase in velocity and move poleward. Thus the “AR”s and other extremes may become less frequent.
Are there any grants available other than Garbage Grants?
But they told us to expect colder, more snowy winters. It must be true because it was reported in the Independent! /sarc
Warm air holds more water than cold air. If the atmosphere warms…more rain…otherwise less rain. Pretty simple.
Firstly, they used the climate models to see how accurately they could simulate the ARs that occurred between 1980 and 2005. The five models did this successfully and were deemed capable of projecting how future ARs will develop under different scenarios.
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uh duh…..those same models missed the “pause”
How about seeing how well the models simulate current conditions
“To reach these conclusions, the researchers used simulations from five state-of-the-art climate models to investigate how the characteristics of ARs may change under future climate change scenarios.”
MODELS? The same ones which are coded to include the effects of the human induced global warming theory. OF COURSE they got that result. The computer is programmed to produce that result.
It is worthless and the scientific output from it is worthless and so the entire theory of “atmospheric rivers” has no basis in fact until it can be measured in the real world.
That is not experimental data, it is a manifestation of the theory and nothing more. now the only way to validat the “Atmospheric rivers” is to wait and actually measure the atmosheric transport of water. A model is NOT scientific validation or verification of a theory. Incomplete, or to use their proper name, flawed models do not produce experimental data outputs. They produce elaborate descriptions of the theory.
In both OZ and England in the recent past AGW was the cause of ever lasting drought.
Now it would seem that endless sky rivers are inundating our countries caused by AGW.
AGW was also the reason that we would have no snow season and no skiing.
Now AGW is the cause of more snow.
Dear me, now the missing heat is hiding in .001 of degrees in the deep ocean.
I can only conjecture but these climate experts seem some what misguided.
Their position changes with the wind to cover their posterior, not a good look for some one professing to be scientific.
Sometime in the early 21st century global warming science devolved into current events modeling and real time prognosis and automated PR releases. It was subsequently recast with an old term and called the weather.
George Lawson says:
July 23, 2013 at 11:55 pm
:” the AR responsible for flooding in the northwest of the UK in 2009 transported 4500 times more water than the average flow in the River Thames in London.”
can somebody help me out on this one?
My BS meter pegged on that one too. I equate it to their use of units of measurement such as “Manhattans” or “Hiroshimas”, and relying on peoples’ ignorance of numbers generally in order simply to shock and scare, rather than educate.
I agree Climate Change is happening and is showing up in the U.K. first.
Just one little fact: it is not caused by “anthropogenic climate change” [“ACC”]; it is caused by the changes in the reduced Solar output especially in the Ultraviolet spectrum.
The well documented reduced Solar output [look at the reduced area under the curve of Solar Cycle 24] will have the following effects:
1) Less trade winds [ reduced Solar input, reduced Hadley Cell strength]
2) Less Indonesia, Gulf of Mexico ocean bulge [pile up of water caused by the trade winds].
3) Less ocean current warmth and flow [monitor the reduced Gulf Stream].
4) Less heat being transferred to the North and South Poles [less energy available from the Sun].
5) More cold and wet weather for England and Northern Europe [Hadley cell size reduction, Gulf Stream reduction].
6) More movement of the Jet Stream toward the Equator [Hadley cell reduction].
7) More flawed model output from East Anglia [models based on CO2 with no Solar forcing].
8) More flawed publications showing that “ACC” is the cause and the heat is “hiding”.
Oh, how smart that heat is!!!! It is able to outsmart all of those PhD climate scientists…
Don’t worry, this came out today.
CIA wants to control the weather, climate change
Global warming is over, the CIA is going to fix it.
that’s as funny as Obama being president
“suggesting that it is a response to anthropogenic climate change”
The UK is safe, then, because we are not altering the climate and the climate is not warming. That was really easy.
What warming? Where is it? Aaahh Hiding in the deep ocean LOL
Atmospheric rivers, is not the same thing as prevailing winds? And as I understand it it was a change in prevailing winds that change the Sahara from a jungle to a desert, it sure was not caused by .anthropogenic climate change way back then.
I’m a little curious about this “AR” theory, because it seems to contradict what the Met office have to say regarding winters becoming colder and dryer due to climate change.
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/04/11/climate-change-colder-winter-met-office-chief-scientist-_n_3059116.html
Copied this from the BBC Web page Posted it up on Bishophill .More for the US Spectics .Goggle BBC I player stream it from the search bar “Stephen Sackur Hardtalk Alaska”
“Watch part one of Stephen Sackur’s HARDtalk on the Road (climate change) on Thursday 25 July 2013 at 10:30 BST on BBC Two
Part two of HARDtalk on the Road (salmon and mining) is broadcast on Tuesday 30 July 2013 at 10:35 BST on BBC Two”
Usual BBC Climate Change propaganda drive (The ice is thinning in the Arctic conveniently don’t mention the Antarctic filmed it in summer etc) . Worth checking out on BBC Iplayer site tomorrow.
They missed the following sequel from the study: “… and the river shall bring forth frogs abundantly, which shall go up and come into thine house, and into thy bedchamber, and upon thy bed, and into the house of thy servants, and upon thy people, and into thine ovens, and into thy kneading troughs: and the frogs shall come up both on thee, and upon thy people, and upon all thy servants”.
We’ve been here before, surely: Exodus 8 v3?
Predictions of 2074 to 2099???????
We can’t be worried about a prediction of 71 years from now if we can’t say about anything a little sooner that would indicate the later prediction had some merit.
What about 2014 to 2074, or is that a typo?
We have one of these AR’s during the wet summer last year.
l was following it on the fulldisk satellite image. lt was a long band of cloud and rain that started off in the eastern Pacific moved NW and joined the Polar jet in the north Atlantic. lt was one factor that gave the UK its very wet spring/summer last year. To give you some idea of what they are talking about take a look over on BBC weather page and have a look at the “Rain contrasts with drought in China” video.
P.S. There is a cloud formation worth watching that is moving across the mid Atlantic at the moment. lt looks like it may develop into something as it tracks across the Atlantic.
Stephen Richards on July 24, 2013 at 1:22 am
Well I may be wrong but NOAA uses the”Pinapple Express” as an example of an AR and I believe it was similarly referenced in the 2011 article in WUWT. I think the joining of highs and lows in pumping action has been known for a very long time (all my life anyway).. Right now there is one dumping rain over Klawock Alaska all the way to Prince George BC, you can see it on the weather satellites AND the NOAA moisture forecast. Nothing new but the name. I think there is some good science here. In fact, the recent flooding in Alberta was predicted by the weather models but no one realized the damage impact (or admitted to it). But they did send out warnings several days in advance. I think that is remarkable. The forecasters told us what was going to happen and many people were shocked to discover the forecasts to be correct. That, is the other side of the coin. We get so used to ignoring forecasts and weather warnings that we can lose everything. Now Alberta is going to have to spend 5 or 6 billion moving folks off a known historical flood plain and probably drought proofing downtown Calgary. And yet we knew 100 years ago that these areas flood during torrential rains as reported in the turn if the century nespapers. But all the grant grifters are blaming it on Global Warming. I won’t write that off, but it hasn’t exactly been warm I. This part of the woods this year and there is still lots of snow on the nort slopes of the mountains. So, it was most likely a low stuck between two highs for several days, just as the weather forecasters said and predicted and advised that a large amount of moisture was coming at us.
A lot of people will get (have gotten) on the AGW band wagon. But they have incentives. They want the government to pay them for their houses; insurance companies want to escape liability and raise rates…. ad infinitum. We like to be able to blame someone else for our folly. It’s a human condition. And AGW is a great scapegoat. No individual is looted out and you can avoid taking direct responsibility. I don’t know much about AR’s except what I have read. But I sure ’nuff have watched lots of interaction twixt highs and lows and in the winter, I know where the powder flows. Have a great day.
Do these models hindcast the catastrophic AR floods in California during the cold 19th century?
In 2006 Reading University closed its Physics department due to lack of funding.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2006/sep/29/highereducation.education
In the same year Reading University opened the Walker Institute which would provide it with more government funding. (In the UK, pseudo science attracts more funds than real science).
http://www.walker-institute.ac.uk/about/index.htm.
The university used to be known as a leader in estate management, including most aspects of agriculture, but the College of Estate Management separated from Reading University in 2010. This has left Reading University with precious little about which to claim excellence but it does boast:
“Meteorology at Reading is world-renowned for its pioneering research on weather, climate and earth observation. The status of our dynamic and productive research environment is reflected in the long-standing presence of staff from the UK Met Office, and major elements of the NERC funded National Centre for Atmospheric Science (NCAS) and the National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO). We are also part of the Met Office Academic Partnership. Our Department is a major part of the University’s Walker Institute for Climate System Research. We also work closely with the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) located close to the University. ”
The Walker Institute is run as an adjunct of the Met Office:
“Julia became Met Office Chief Scientist in February 2009. Before joining the Met Office she was the Director of Climate Research in NERC’s National Centre for Atmospheric Science, at the University of Reading, where she is still a Professor of Meteorology. In 2006 she founded the Walker Institute for Climate System Research at Reading, aimed at addressing the cross disciplinary challenges of climate change and its impacts.”
Is it really surprising that a post doc research scientist has produced a paper, based on climate models rather than data, which forecasts that yet more disasters will be caused by CAGW? After all unless the Walker Institute keeps producing scary science fiction how will Professor Sligo justify the grants?
UK winter rainfall is highly thermodynamic, warmer = wetter, but the intensity and frequency of events are completely determined by short term external forcing. There is very little climatic trend in the UK, apart from Scotland.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/actualmonthly/16/Rainfall/England.gif
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/actualmonthly/
@chris Edwards says:
“All this tax money spent to determine what will happen in a warming climate! must have some ace computer models, a Sinclair Z80 or older!”
They used a Commodore 64 and GeoBASIC.
“And the Nobel Prize for Comedy goes to ………………”
Steve Oregon says:
July 23, 2013 at 7:02 pm
I couldn’t even read all of this.
My Bullshat detector was going wild.
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It wasn’t just me then
When are these guys going to run out of ideas the list seems endless
They’ve cried wolf far to often now, that when they do come up with something that we should be paying attention to, no ones going to believe it.
Are these ”rivers” actually jet streams which do help move weather systems around?