Heat, Not Just Rainfall, Plays into New Projections
Increasing heat is expected to extend dry conditions to far more farmland and cities by the end of the century than changes in rainfall alone, says a new study. Much of the concern about future drought under global warming has focused on rainfall projections, but higher evaporation rates may also play an important role as warmer temperatures wring more moisture from the soil, even in some places where rainfall is forecasted to increase, say the researchers.
The study is one of the first to use the latest climate simulations to model the effects of both changing rainfall and evaporation rates on future drought. Published this month in the journal Climate Dynamics, the study estimates that 12 percent of land will be subject to drought by 2100 through rainfall changes alone; but the drying will spread to 30 percent of land if higher evaporation rates from the added energy and humidity in the atmosphere is considered.
An increase in evaporative drying means that even regions expected to get more rain, including important wheat, corn and rice belts in the western United States and southeastern China, will be at risk of drought. The study excludes Antarctica.
“We know from basic physics that warmer temperatures will help to dry things out,” said the study’s lead author, Benjamin Cook, a climate scientist with joint appointments at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. “Even if precipitation changes in the future are uncertain, there are good reasons to be concerned about water resources.”
In its latest climate report, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that soil moisture is expected to decline globally and that already dry regions will be at greater risk of agricultural drought. The IPCC also predicts a strong chance of soil moisture drying in the Mediterranean, southwestern United States and southern African regions, consistent with the Climate Dynamics study.
Using two drought metric formulations, the study authors analyze projections of both rainfall and evaporative demand from the collection of climate model simulations completed for the IPCC’s 2013 climate report. Both metrics agree that increased evaporative drying will probably tip marginally wet regions at mid-latitudes like the U.S. Great Plains and a swath of southeastern China into aridity. If precipitation were the only consideration, these great agricultural centers would not be considered at risk of drought. The researchers also say that dry zones in Central America, the Amazon and southern Africa will grow larger. In Europe, the summer aridity of Greece, Turkey, Italy and Spain is expected to extend farther north into continental Europe.
“For agriculture, the moisture balance in the soil is what really matters,” said study coauthor Jason Smerdon, a climate scientist at Lamont-Doherty. “If rain increases slightly but temperatures also increase, drought is a potential consequence.”
Today, while bad weather periodically lowers crop yields in some places, other regions are typically able to compensate to avert food shortages. In the warmer weather of the future, however, crops in multiple regions could wither simultaneously, the authors suggest. “Food-price shocks could become far more common,” said study coauthor Richard Seager, a climate scientist at Lamont-Doherty. Large cities, especially in arid regions, will need to carefully manage their water supplies, he added.
The study builds on an emerging body of research looking at how evaporative demand influences hydroclimate. “It confirms something we’ve suspected for a long time,” said Toby Ault, a climate scientist at Cornell University, who was not involved in the study. “Temperature alone can make drought more widespread. Studies like this give us a few new powerful tools to plan for and adapt to climate change.”
Rainfall changes do not tell the whole story, agrees University of New South Wales researcher Steven Sherwood, in a recent Perspectives piece in the leading journal Science. “Many regions will get more rain, but it appears that few will get enough to keep pace with the growing evaporative demand.”
The authors have made all their data and calculations public available on a supplementary website.
“The study is one of the first to use the latest climate simulations to model the effects…” Oh, another model. That’s all right then.
You have to twist yourself into a pretzel to understand that more rain means more drought.and warming causes cooling.
It’s known the MWP was warmer than it is now. Surely the weather of the time was
reasonably well documented, along with crop yields, floods, droughts and all those
other cool things global warming is supposed to cause …
Why isn’t the historical record being closely scrutinised?
Hmm…I see it all more clearly…
More wet/dry/hot/cold/drought/flood/night/day/VC and bar…..That and our cheeldren just won’t know what snow is either.
Oh God, the polar bears too……….
I get to say “It’s even worse” first….
“The study is one of the first to use the latest climate simulations to model the effects of both changing rainfall and evaporation rates on future drought. “
As someone said, the output of an unvalidated model is an illustration of somebody’s hypothesis; it is not observational data. Regarding runs of unvalidated computer models as ‘experiments’ seems to be one of the characteristics of so called ‘climate science’ that is not regarded as acceptable in other fields.
Even if models can reproduce past climate, this is not (as is often claimed) validation of such models. It is the fallacy, recognized at least since early 1970’s in research on pattern recognition systems, of ‘testing on the training data’. If a model could not successfully reproduce past climate then it would obviously be a complete failure. However, reproducing past climate does not confirm the correctness of the model and its ability to predict future climate reliably – notwithstanding such claims by the UK Met Office.
I can produce a simple spreadsheet model that reproduces past climate with complete accuracy but which has no capability whatever of predicting future climate.
P.S. ……………..
“First, I asked Stephen Belcher, the head of the Met Office Hadley Centre, whether the recent extended winter was related to global warming. Shaking his famous “ghost stick”, and fingering his trademark necklace of sharks’ teeth and mammoth bones, the loin-clothed Belcher blew smoke into a conch, and replied,
“Here come de heap big warmy. Bigtime warmy warmy. Is big big hot. Plenty big warm burny hot. Hot! Hot hot! But now not hot. Not hot now. De hot come go, come go. Now Is Coldy Coldy. Is ice. Hot den cold. Frreeeezy ice til hot again. Den de rain. It faaaalllll. Make pasty.”
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100222487/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-we-have-to-trust-our-scientists-because-they-know-lots-of-big-scary-words/
For me this is consistently the funniest pi**-take I have ever seen over many years now….
I also would like to draw attention to the little little caption under the main pic…..Icing on the cake.
“The study is one of the first to use the latest climate simulations”
Rubbish in, Rubbish out…
It is April fools day…
Admad says:
April 1, 2014 at 12:49 am
“The study is one of the first to use the latest climate simulations to model the effects…” Oh, another model. That’s all right then.
_______________________
Beat me to it.
I like the ‘fire’ burning on the horizon in the US corn belt picture at the top.
Clearly this is what we are to expect when denialists are met with the wrath of the climate gods for not taking seriously the teachings of the climate model bible.
We must pay penance and bow down before the lords of the IPCC.
Reblogged this on We have no Secrets and commented:
Third of the earth? How does one human fathom? Impossible to truly know.
I dont know why they keep talking about what will happen in the warming world, temperatures are not going up!
use the latest climate simulations
Oh. Never mind.
Is this an April Fool’s joke?
If the surface evaporation increases, won’t that just draw more water from the subsurface?
Bring it on, I have a lot of laundry to dry.
Sad had the new IPCC has gotten everyone panicked about the future a again. I see a lot of chatter amoung my friends and elsewhere that we are all doomed. Yet nobody is talking about selling their cars and having the power company shut off their electric, so deep down they mustn’t really believe it, mustn’t care, or think it’s someone else’s problem.
So the land will dry out more quickly than the extra rain falls. How does that work? Will there be an ever growing lake in the sky. I always thought what goes up must come down.
THE STUDY, THE FIRST TO USE THE LATEST CLIMATE SIMULATIONS…..
That remark trashes the entire report.
When will they ever learn that climate models and simulations at this stage have nothing to do with the real world.
We’re recycling BS again. I’m getting bored.
At the ever present risk of becoming an utter bore……………………Pocket Oxford English Dictionary, 1925:Simulate/Simulation, feign, pretend, to have or to feel, wear the guise or act the part of, counterfeit, having the appearance of, shadowy likeness or mere pretence of unreal thing! Don’t shoot the messenger, I didn’t use the words, they did!!!!!! Just saying. 🙂 AtB. (BTW, how are you Colonials getting along without us? Doing ok? Muddling through?)
BNenjamin’s basic physics seems not to include the laws of thermodynamics. Funny that.
Why should warm be dry ?
http://youtu.be/8ADbax8Dk0Y
(http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2014/03/01/a-letter-from-john-holdren-regarding-roger-pielke-jrs-statements/) :
“Similarly, long-term trends (1925–2003) of hydrologic droughts based on model derived soil moisture and runoff show that droughts have, for the most part, become shorter, less frequent, and cover a smaller portion of the U.S. over the last century (Andreadis and Lettenmaier, 2006). The main exception is the Southwest and parts of the interior of the West, where increased temperature has led to rising drought trends (Groisman et al., 2004; Andreadis and Lettenmaier, 2006).”
Hasegawa et al. 2013., Drastic shrinking of the Hadley circulation during the mid-Cretaceous Supergreenhouse (http://www.clim-past.net/8/1323/2012/cp-8-1323-2012.pdf). In this work it was found that as a result of a strong warming, instead of Hadley circulation has developed Farrell circulation – a warm temperate climate zone – with dominant maritime climate (in this climate the number of areas with periodic and constant drought, drastically decreases).
(http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6006/957.abstract) Jaramillo (2010, – 28 coauthors): “Temperatures in tropical regions are estimated to have increased by 3° to 5°C, compared with Late Paleocene values, during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM, 56.3 million years ago) event.”
“There is no evidence for enhanced aridity in the northern Neotropics. The tropical rainforest was able to persist under elevated temperatures and high levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, in contrast to SPECULATIONS that tropical ecosystems were severely compromised by heat stress.”
“We know from basic physics that warmer temperatures will help to dry things out (…)”
– again we can clearly notice that the atmosphere physicists know very little about climate change …
I wonder if they ran the model to predict conditions during the Jurassic period ?
ie: inputs of CO2 = 3000ppm, Temp = 22 Deg C.
Killing 2 birds with one stone:- Desalination plants ,thousands of the buggers on coast lines everywhere ,water transported to dry areas .
Over (a very long) period of time , sea levels fall and more arable land is produced ,deserts turned into gardens.
Should it ever become necessary I am pretty sure that man can adapt to just about anything ,well apart from being bored to death by warmista ballerinas doing the dying swan.
The world’s surface has warmed since the LIA. We have had the ‘fastest rate of warming evahhhhh!’ and ‘unprecedented heat and all that!. So what have we OBSERVED during THIS ‘experiment’?
It must be April’s fool as even the CAGW are not so silly. Above article:
“the study estimates that 12 percent of land will be subject to drought by 2100 through rainfall changes alone; but the drying will spread to 30 percent of land if higher evaporation rates from the added energy and humidity in the atmosphere is considered.”
Vs:
“Deserts actually make up 33%, or 1/3rd of the land’s surface area.”
Read more: http://www.universetoday.com/65639/what-percentage-of-the-earths-land-surface-is-desert/#ixzz2xd89BGSQ
So if drying spreads to 30% land, we would less desert area in future, than we have currently.
And of course with irrigation, deserts can be good places to grow crops- ie, California.
Deserts aren’t problem but rather it is idiots that are against building dams which is the problem.
When glaciers covered much of the Northern Hemisphere during the last ice age (approximately 15 thousand years ago) areas of desert were larger and drier than they are today. This makes sense, since much more or the earth’s water supply was locked up in the ice sheets. During the Holocene optimum (approximately 5000 years ago) when the earth’s climate was warmer than today, large parts of what is now the Sahara desert was covered with shallow lakes and grasslands. That also makes sense, since the polar areas were covered by less ice than today, which means there was more water unlocked and circulating in the atmosphere. So, here we have two data points — much colder in the past, more desert; warmer in the past, less desert. You’d think by this point that even your typical science journalist with even a nodding acquaintance to what the earth’s climate history was over the last 15000 years could see how mistaken this study is.
Every day is April Fools day with the alarmists.
“According to NASA, ‘Between 1982 and 1999, 25 percent of the Earth’s vegetated area experienced increasing plant productivity—a total increase of about 6 percent,’ says Ramakrishna Nemani, the [NASA] study’s lead scientist.” — from a 2003 NASA article, “Global Garden Gets Greener”
What happened between 1982 and 1999? Why, just about all of the warming we’ve experienced to this point. So while — yet again — actual observations show one thing, the warmies get out a model that shows the exact opposite and claim it as the truth.
Do they ever look out the window to see if it’s raining or not?
They will need to explain how the math works here. It’s usually my default position because it often explains the basic facts and logic better than anything else.
In this case, water vapor cycles through the atmosphere each 9 days. If water evaporates from a surface somewhere, on average it will rain out somewhere else 9 days later.
The climate models project that warming will increase water vapor levels by 23% by the year 2100. That means rainfall is also going to increase by 23% (or maybe only 22% if the 9 days changes to 9.1 days in a warmer world).
If rainfall is going to increase by 22%, how can any place on the planet end up dryer? I’m sure one can contort themselves into thinking there will be more droughts but it is not accurate. It is completely inconsistent with what the theory is about.
The last time the Earth was 1.0 degree warmer, the Saharra had trees and lakes. The last time it was 2.0C warmer, 10 million years ago, there was so much rainfall, that the entire planet was forested with virtually no desert or grassland.
It’s not a real science. It’s a religious-type movement.
all these cries of doom and yet one of the biggest problems in the west is obesity and wastage of food thrown away and for the future a population that will hit 9 billion half or this being African, there stories of doom are so disjointed.
There is nothing today that has not happened in the last 2000 years but lots has happened that has not happened in the last 100 years.
No1 100 -150 year droughts over the last 1000 years.
The story carefully states that the study excluded Antarctica where, as we all know, there will be vast new areas of virgin farmland.
I suspect some Aussies staked out a bunch last Christmas.
But, but I thought more moisture in the air was the big positive feedback that turned the extra CO2 GH effect into the CAGW supercharged death killer gas mix.
This is just getting toooo confusing.
Its like Occupy Global Warming. Lots of light and movement but no science just the science communications industry twerking for the msm.
… Warming Climate May Spread Drying to a Third of Earth, Says Study
Warming – WHAT WARMING!!??
Seeing single digit temps in the Dakotas this morning, and teens in Minnesota, and Montana, and as far south as Nebraska! … Warming my you-know-what!
.
By 2100 the only thing certain is that people will look back at all this and laugh at how silly we were.
People imagined droughts spreading around the world, crops withering while temperatures soar, they will laugh. As it turned out, it was the exact opposite. A slightly warmer world has given us a little more precipitation and together with the higher co2 concentrations, arid regions have greened, vegetation is abundant and crop yields have continued to increase.
Worth seeing what is really going on with the Sun, because it is unusual in the scale of the known measurements.
http://oi58.tinypic.com/2q0o7fa.jpg
AFRICA, warmth and drying?
Their dynamic inter-cell interactions are screwed up. They have their pressure gradients and flows backwards. Water content in the air is static and an averaged number used thus the model is not dynamic to the heat and water relationship.
This is nothing more than a “tweaked” linear model. The model appears to be intentionally designed to go upward, period!
One word sums it up; Garbage!
re: jones says April 1, 2014 at 1:10 am
… “Here come de heap big warmy. Bigtime warmy warmy. Is big big hot. Plenty big warm burny hot. Hot! Hot hot! … ”
Very funny piece; thanks for sharing!
.
These arnt studies. You should stop calling them that. Scientific studies require empirical evidence. These are more akin to fictional short-stories.
Hmm… 70% of the Earth is covered by water. That is more than 2 thirds! If the remainder dries up we are doomed!
As the magnetic current solar activity correlates with forecasts NASA? Where are the paralyzing magnetic storms?
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/Ap.gif
AUSTRALIA
Such was the magnetic activity in September 2005.
http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/aviation/index_files/20050915_kp.gif
In the “silver lining” dept.:
I started playing golf in 2004 and as I became aware of the El Nino cycles of the 1990’s I wished I’d started a decade earlier. Having seen the last couple of years and the projections based on observations I’m thinking “Dang! I’ll be playing golf – outside – about two months of the year and driving my motorcycle maybe three!”
But this report, oh sure it’s April Fool’s day and what an April Fool’s day it is in Halifax with freezing rain, ice and snow…, but this report gives me hope. A vapor perhaps, ephemeral maybe, but I could be playing golf all year round – with waaay bigger bunkers mind you – but hey that little white ball doesn’t care and neither will I.
Okay, back to reality and maybe a second morning cup of coffee. …as you were.
“the drying will spread to 30 percent of land if higher evaporation rates from the added energy and humidity in the atmosphere is considered.”???
Pardon my physics, but HIGHER humidity means LOWER evaporation rates!
re: ren says April 1, 2014 at 5:01 am
… Where are the paralyzing magnetic storms?
Do you work in the power generation, transmission or distribution industry?
.
Whoever chose the cornfield picture at the top of this post obviously is following the Al Gore policy of threat-by-carefully-chosen-photo but is obviously totally unable to tell the difference between a cornfield recently harvested and a cornfield ravaged by drought.
“It confirms something we’ve suspected for a long time,”
That the answer came before the model is no surprise but “confirms,” how does that work?
“We know from basic physics that warmer temperatures will help to dry things out”
Okay actually I believe temperature differential in comparison to humidity and direct sunlight dry things out. Access to large bodies of water etc… Second. If this were to be true that it wold ‘dry things out faster’ then that would lead to more cloud cover, this in turn would lead to more rain and less sunlight striking the earth etc. you know basic physics stuff… Right?
In the warmer weather of the future, however, crops in multiple regions could wither simultaneously, the authors suggest.
What is exactly causing the “extra warmth” anyway?
My observations reveal that usually a high pressure ridge/ Omega block in the atmosphere usually are the atmospheric phenomenon associated with droughts. Just look at he pacific NW. A large blocking high over has produced ‘record’ warmth and drought in that region.
Same thing happens on the high plains. A high forms over Texas and does not move for weeks.’
They all need to go back and define where the extra warmth came from and why.
_Jim
I want to open the eyes of those who look and do not see.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/stratosphere/strat_a_f/gif_files/gfs_t100_nh_f00.gif
So weak magnetic field of the sun abolish all models.
Their cherished Warmist ideology is in trouble, and they know it. So, they are doing the only thing they know how, in a desperate effort to prop it up, and that is to follow the infamous Stephen Schneider (of Stanford) 1988 edict (I’ve bolded the key part):
“On the one hand, as scientists we are ethically bound to the scientific method, in effect promising to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but – which means that we must include all doubts, the caveats, the ifs, ands and buts. On the other hand, we are not just scientists but human beings as well. And like most people we’d like to see the world a better place, which in this context translates into our working to reduce the risk of potentially disastrous climate change. To do that we need to get some broad based support, to capture the public’s imagination. That, of course, means getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This “double ethical bind” we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both.”
That final line, “I hope that means being both” has, I guess, sometimes been left off when the quote is being used, and to Schneider’s twisted way of thinking, it somehow makes everything he said before alright. It most certainly does not. What he’s essentially saying is that he hopes scientists don’t have to lie, which would be the only scenario where they could be both effective and honest.
So, here we have “scientists” dutifully offering up scary scenarious, truth be damned, in order to capture the public’s imagination and continue to be “effective”.
These are not scientists at all, but mouthpieces for the Cause.
I wonder if they have taken into account the overuse of the Ogallala Aquifer. This has been in use for farming in the USA since it was discovered. It is expected that it will be emptied out eventually, when that happens there will be a drought, man made? Yes, AGW ? No
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer
re: ren says April 1, 2014 at 5:25 am
I want to open the eyes of those who look and do not see.
Maybe you are not aware that industry is already ‘aware’ (of the potential impact of geomagnetic disturbances on a ‘modern’ society)?
For instance, see: the
PJM Manual 13, Emergency Operations page 51, titled “3.7 Geo-Magnetic Disturbances” as to how power transmission ops (operations) would handle this.
In any case, the ‘public’ needs to be prepared for a variety of disasters, both man-made and natural, including tornadoes, earthquakes, wild-fires, floods, etc., depending on where they live and the time of year. All this falls in the category of being prepared (part of the BSA motto – no?)
Various people with different skills can also ‘help out’ by being prepared to help in different ways, including emergency communications, via ham radio, for instance, something I have been involved with a different levels from time to time (via Radio Amateur Civil Emer. Service, and Amateur Radio Emergency Service® (ARES) with skywarn wx spotting).
Maybe this is something you might (or should) look into?
http://www.arrl.org/emergency-communications-training
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While doing my searches I cam across this little nugget. It must play havoc with the models.
and this
Booga-booga.
Ooga-booga-booga.
Exactly! Bingo! They keep telling us it’s the hottest evaaaaah since 1975. Unprecedented global temperatures blah, blah, but they keep it restricted to the distant future. They will argue that these changes will take time BUT they keep telling me that the changes are happening now, it’s there for everyone to see. Funny that.
And Godzilla could grow out of a little island lizard exposed to radiation and attack New York, too.
Since temps have not done anything unusual, dangerous or unprecedented, I think we can file this bit of poorly written climate porn in the waste can, that has long been over flowing with hype, fear, and deception just like this bit of rent seeking tripe by Benjamin I. Cook,Jason E. Smerdon,
Richard Seager, and Sloan Coats.
Here is what the IPCC faces. It has to make decisions between which models to cherrypick and which ones don’t fit the story of gloom.
The scientific references in this thread show that the study in the post above proclaims a familiar message. Even though warming hasn’t caused drought in the past, and is not causing it now, we are certain it will cause drought in the future. Science Fiction, anyone?
Wow. Parts of the Midwest could be subj to drought the study says! I mean, that’s never happened before. 😒
Anthony, I got to admit that I’m getting pretty tired of you always banging on about Climate Change. Have you ever stopped to consider for one moment that the warmists may be correct? At any rate some of us have got some real problems to worry about. Following Scotland’s independence referendum is September, I wouldn’t discount a war between the former UK (FUK) and Norway over oil rights:
Cameron Warns Norway over Shetland Land Grab
He heat will shrivel the tropical forests. We are dooomed I tells ya!
Higher evaporation rates from higher humidity? How does that work?
Here in the tropics, we get 80 to 100% humidity most of the year. I don’t find that it helps to dry my clothes on the line.
Holy cracked mud Batman!
It just show you that you can cherry pick what you want to back your claim. The IPCC is a political organisation charged with cherry picking for the desired results.
I find it interesting that once again the DATA shows an opposite trend for the last 30 years–11% more vegetation, more drought-resistant plants. Why is it that the dire projections are based on the inflated feedbacks of the GCM crew, while the DATA continually slaps them in the face.
http://www.livescience.com/37055-greenhouse-gas-desert-plants-growing.html or
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50563/abstract (Paywalled)
Of the risk projections in the WGII report, it looks like increased stress on fresh water supplies and frequency/severity of forest fires are the only categories with moderate current risk. Future dire situations rely on the projects from the models. Of course, we make policy decisions based on “conservation” that exacerbate the two current risk categories.
Keep up the good fight.
What dopes. More CO2 increases water efficiency and drought resistance in plants.
Following up on the study linked by Jimbo, the problem with the IPCC conclusions,IMO is the assumption that the biosphere does not adapt to the increased rainfall. Warming and hotter works very well on this planet … see the tropic belts. Plant species flourish that trap the excess water and reduce the amount of water lost through evaporation.
Even if we assumed the physical models were “getting it right” for a sterile planet (lets assume it, these are reasonable outcomes), they are still just modeling a dead Earth. It’s unfortunate that in an impact statement, worried about the impact of climate change on plants, the role of plants in regulating the climate have been ignored.
Rememberng a past description of a very verdant (paradise) very warm Earth, how do these folks explain that?
Well, climate studies as such are never retracted, so this one will live happily ever after alongside others that predict something else. As for evaporative drying, I am sure it might happen … but: there are plants that are actually well adapted to that, e.g. plants that get their water “out of thin air” alone. Now I’m not saying these will be the future staple foods nor that wheat will be genetically reengineered to condense water from humidity. But I doubt that this story will have any more half-live as any other predictions (q.v. the IPCCs careful reconsideration of the extinction horror scenarios).
beng, “More CO2 increases water efficiency and drought resistance in plants.”
Absolutely. Plant stomata become smaller in a higher CO2 environment, which reduces transpiration losses. Plant response to higher CO2 levels is discussed here.
See also this:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TuwAtfBk6NI?feature=player_detailpage&w=640&h=360%5D
A cooling climate is the real dryer-outer! Evaporation declines and the moisture there is snows out.
How can ‘more California’ be a bad thing? 😉
Surely we already have 30% dry country.
Univ of NSW, launchers of the Ship of Fools.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2014/01/12/ship_of_fools_in_the_antarctic_121200.html
Another Ship of Fools day joke.
“We know from basic physics that warmer temperatures will help to dry things out,” said the study’s lead author, Benjamin Cook
Yes, except in the UK, where warmer temperatures in accordance with basic physics means increased rainfall, clogged rivers and flooding. It is all down to increased warmth you see. It makes it impossible to dredge.
You don’t believe me? Ask anyone in Somerset, its been so hot its been impossible to dredge for the last 20 years. That’s why its been flooding, that and basic physics meaning that warmer temperatures help wet things right through.
They have still not learnt how to model clouds and their influence on the climate. Until they do, all modeling is futile.
Here are my thoughts on th upcoming earth day:
http://lenbilen.com/2014/03/29/in-preparation-of-earth-day-2014-cause-of-climate-change-is-still-up-in-the-air/
“May”, “Could”, “if” escape IPCC keywords..In Ireland we say “If mee aunt had b###s she’d be mee uncle”. Typical warmist drivel
Wake me up when global warming arrives to Canada. I fear I may be dead and gone before it ever comes.
Fascinating how higher temperature can dry out soil, yet not evaporate more moisture from the oceans to increase rainfall. How come during the higher temperatures of the Jurassic the dinosaurs are shown standing ass deep in a swamp.
What goes up must come down.
One good way of creating a drought situation of course, would be to chop down rainforest in order to grow crops for biofuel, in order to cut down use of the dreaded “fossil fuels”. But man could never be that stupid.
More water in the air, coupled with higher CO2 which makes plants use water more efficiently leads to more drying. The premise is so stupid it has to be an April fools joke.
Nothing could make a more drying earth than the return of continental ice sheets in North America and Eurasia.
Published this month in the journal Climate Dynamics, the study estimates that 12 percent of land will be subject to drought by 2100…
And me stupid thought since schooltime, that already 30% of landmass are deserts.
Tsk, tsk, tsk…
Who funds them for that nutty study?
So exactly how does CO2 “trap” heat?
Why isn’t the historical record being closely scrutinized?
It was. H.H. Lamb’s book, “The Climate History of the Modern World” goes into this in great detail. The bottom line, yes there is drying in some areas like in western North America, but North Africa and the middle east benefit. Ever wonder why the desert region of what is now Israel an the Levant was called “the land flowing with milk and honey”? Well that was the climate there up until about 2800 years ago.
The driest place on earth at the present time is Antarctica. I think the authors of this paper are a bit confused about some very basic concepts.
In Californiaenvisaged in the heavy rainfall this week. Are you prepared?
Is this with or without an amplification of greenhouse effect by increased water vapor?
Ok, now for the last 10 years at least we have the most up to date and current climate data from all over the global, is there even one model that explains what has happened in the last 10 years? In this current model, if I input the data starting in 2004, will it give me the results year by year until now? If not, the model is not relevant. Where in any field could you make a prediction for future events, say physics, or chemistry or medicine, not get the same results and be taken seriously? Can you imagine running a model for a new drug that differs from actual experience then giving it to people, or a chemical process in a plant that differs from the actual result? They call that science?? That’s why this is still a debate, and no, the science isn’t settled. Being able to repeat something and it proving to be useful and true is the hallmark of a Theory becoming a law. If you have a law for gravity, and every time you calculate where an object will be in space and time, and it isn’t, it isn’t a very good law is it?
Bring something more to the table than a shaman’s guess of the future, otherwise let’s go back to breaking bones to see which way they crack. Save us a ton of money.
From the article:
“It confirms something we’ve suspected for a long time,” said Toby Ault, a climate scientist at Cornell University, who was not involved in the study. “Temperature alone can make drought more widespread. Studies like this give us a few new powerful tools to plan for and adapt to climate change.”
Brilliant. Why would anyone think that temperatures would increase without changing any other factors that could mitigate the consequences of “temperature alone”?
Off-topic but interesting,
The kids over at Skeptical debunking have been hacked again. This time it was their “Widget” site.
The Delphic Oracle in ancient Greece had a better batting average than today’s computer models forecasting climate change… and no, the Oracle did not try and forecast climate… even people living back 3,500 years ago knew better than to try and prddict something more fickle than even their gods.
Hale cycle modulates hydrology but NOT evaporation
WJR Alexander et al. found strong evidence for the 21 year Hale solar modulating runoff in the Southern African region with data extending > 100 years. However, he found that there was NO corresponding variation in evaporation. See WJR Alexander et al., Linkages between solar activity, climate predictability and water resource development* JOURNAL OF THE SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTION OF CIVIL ENGINEERING, Vol 49 No 2, June 2007, Pages 32–44, Paper 659
Alexander provides all of his massive hydrology data collection on CD for the asking. Alexander, W J R 2006. Climate change and its consequences – an African perspective. Technical report, 474 pp (available on CD).
Further verification and validation is needed of IPCC models and projections against historic data.
Temperature is never alone. It always causes things, like higher humidity, which reduces drying. Higher humidity causes more rain, which prevents drought.
Basic physics, and basic data, both of which our alarmist rent seeking friends seem to stay away from as much as possible.
the one to watch is agriculture for how the climate is effecting us.
http://www.thecropsite.com/reports/?id=2753
“Increasing heat is expected to extend dry conditions to far more farmland and cities by the end of the century than changes in rainfall alone, says a new study.”
The Malthusian expectations were sorely disappointed before. Both the revolution in crop varieties brought about by Norman Borlaug, and the mass production of tractors increased yield on farmland so that an acre of land can now produce 5 times what it once did; also, 2/3s and the land was no longer being used to feed the horses and oxen because of the mass manufacturing of gas driven tractors.
EC Stakman found over 300 varieties of rust which migrated between Mexico and Canada each year. With the control of rust, scab, smut, blight, and countless other pathogens, our land is prosperous.
The progressive scientists have never forgotten this spoiling of their “expectations.” If politicians listen to these progressive scientists, then water restrictions, legislation, and anti-agricultural activists will fulfill the water shortage prophecies for them.
April Fool!
Cosmic radiation increases. The current shape of the polar vortex on 100 hPa.
http://oi60.tinypic.com/noiwhv.jpg
Yet another computer model prophesies doom within a century. Short enough time to scare, long enough to avoid ever being tested.
Basic physics? What happens to a world covered 75% with water as it warms? More water in the atmosphere? I guess that makes the oceans dryer. I’m confused.
Climastrology physics and regular physics. Never the twain shall meet.
@ ren, 1, 2, 3, 4, ,,,
The post is about land, heat, and rainfall in the future, that is– will drought in the years near 2100 be a serious problem to the peoples of Earth?
You have linked (with no reasons given with respect to the post) to at least 5 colorful images that have no explanatory information with them:
Sunspots (whose count?), Ap index, K index for mid-Sept-2005, Current Temp. above the North Polar region, and uSv/hr at 15km above the Northern Hemisphere.
The colors are nice but as far as I can tell none of these has anything to do with the topic and, further, what they do have to do with I cannot tell. This suggests to me that the name of the noble son is ren:
From Shakespeare’s Hamlet, 1602:
LORD POLONIUS
This business is well ended.
My liege, and madam, to expostulate
What majesty should be, what duty is,
Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?
But let that go.
Martin A says:
April 1, 2014 at 1:10 am
Nailed it. This “study” should be called computer assisted speculations about drought.
The safest forecast is a very long range forecast. Nobody of today will be alive to verify it.
Who has time to Debunk this Alarmist Counter??
http://4hiroshimas.com/
Anthony I think you need to make one also, there is so many things that can be put on one.
The ‘climate change’ they talk about is clearly based on ‘global warming’. A phrase they shyed away from when it was clear that global warming was not happening. With no warming for seventeen years; the Arctic and Antarctic ice melt not happening; the polar bears growing in numbers; the coral reefs not disappearing as forcast; one of the coldest winters of the the Northern Hemisphere on record, which was not forcast by the ‘team’; the seas not warming or rising as the ‘team ‘ forcast; Viner’s “our children will not see snow in a few years” forcast in 2000, proving to be wrong etc. etc. Can anyone please tell me on what climatic conditions the IPCC base their doomsday forcasts, and what right do they have to scare the world into spending £$ billions on mitigating a problem that clearly does not exist? Forcasts that lead to gullible students like Cook,Smeardon and Seager coming up with the laughable studies like this one, that are so readily torn to shreds when the historical record, empirical record, and simple physics are applied to their papers.
Joe R says:
April 1, 2014 at 7:27 am
So exactly how does CO2 “trap” heat?
****
CO2 can not trap heat.
What it can do is absorb energy and release said energy back into it’s environment.
What the environment does with said energy is another topic.
….. …
See Frank Wentz (RSS) et al.
One deg. C Temperature rise (global surface) produces a 7% increase in Total global evaporation, Total atmospheric water content, and Total global precipitation. This is experimental data, not terra-flop models.
I is not inconceivable, that total global (precipitable) cloud cover wouold also increase by something of the order of 7%; given that clouds are often observed to be present, during events of precipitation (of water) from the atmosphere.
There are no reports of clouds being present when it is raining cats and dogs, or frogs, and fish.
When rainfall increases, in intensity and longevity, the ground becomes more porous, and that water propagates to deeper layers, where it is immune to evaporation due to local surface temperatures. Surface drying is usually a consequence of inadequate watering; not of excessive watering.
And that phony picture of destroyed crops, is actually of a farm area where the crop has already been harvested. In California, that dried material would next be set on fire, to reduce the material to ashes, that can be carried back into the soil, as useful nutrients for the next crop.
Zeke wrote:
>>> The Malthusian expectations were sorely disappointed before. Both the revolution in crop varieties brought about by Norman Borlaug, and the mass production of tractors increased yield on farmland so that an acre of land can now produce 5 times what it once did; also, 2/3s and the land was no longer being used to feed the horses and oxen because of the mass manufacturing of gas driven tractors.<<<
In what kind of a crazy world is Paul Ehrlich and his ilk so worshipped and adored by the scientific community – and Norman Borlaug's achievements are largely ignored?
…why? because Borlaug was a scientist who actually cared about the human race. Many of these CAGW scientists, in my personal opinion, are rooting for increased human suffering – to advance their careers – instead of trying to reduce human suffering, like Borlaug did. Misanthropes.
_Jim says:
Jim, we might be reduced to smoke signals.
Totay’s Department of Water Resources California Water News carries an article about a joint media presentation by Pacific Institute and NRDC:
http://mavensnotebook.com/2014/03/31/this-just-in-pacific-institute-the-nrdc-hold-media-call-on-californias-drought-hydrology-not-environmental-restrictions-are-the-reason-for-the-low-allocations-plus-how-the-state-can-prepar/
This just in … Pacific Institute & the NRDC hold media call on California’s drought: Hydrology, not environmental restrictions, are the reason for the low allocations, plus how the state can prepare for droughts in the future
Maven, Maven’s Notebook
Earlier today, the Pacific Institute and the NRDC held a media call in anticipation of the final snow survey tomorrow. During the call, Peter Gleick, director of the Pacific Institute, discussed the science and hydrology of the drought, Doug Obegi, staff attorney with the NRDC discussed the allocations and how water is used in California, and Steve Fleischli with the NRDC discussed actions the state and its residents could be taking to address the currnet drought and prepare for future ones.
The only thing at its tipping point is my patience for the volumes of stupidity that are being published in climate journals.
Seems to me, that even if they are right (which I doubt) the solution would be to build more dams to catch the extra rainfall. Its a win-win, more hydroelectricity and more water for irrigation and people. Why does EVERYTHING always have to be DOOM AND GLOOM with these guys? Always the pessimist they are.
The study is one of the first to use the latest climate simulations to model the effects of ……..
Stopped reading after reading that. 😱
Frodo says, “Borlaug was a scientist who actually cared about the human race. Many of these CAGW scientists, in my personal opinion, are rooting for increased human suffering – to advance their careers – instead of trying to reduce human suffering, like Borlaug did. Misanthropes.”
Borlaug was a true scientist. The goal of science is to bring new powers and appreciation to human life, according to Bacon. It is not to count molecules, analyze “risk,” and reverse advancements. What these environmental activists are practicing is not science.
Borlaug also cared about the natural wild. By utilizing the land most effectively, the wild areas are not needed for foraging and hunting. High yield grains, beef and dairy cattle, and chickens provide all that is needed to raise healthy kids, without having to take up twice to five times as much land, or catch small wild animals. That is why Norman Borlaug worked so hard to bring his crops to Asia, Mexico and Africa. He was shocked at the environmentalists who opposed him, and who attacked his funding, in order to keep these agricultural advancements (new strains, chemical fertilizers, and pest control) out of Africa.
As Adam Smith said, it is the scourge of “well-intentioned” governments that turn nature’s temporary droughts into a prolonged famine and dearth.
Jim Happ says:
April 1, 2014 at 6:55 am
“What goes up must come down.”
No, Jim. What goes up stays up. Newton’s Fourth Law of Evaporation.
New paper finds mid-Holocene, which was warmer than the present, led to a wetter, “green” Sahara Desert
http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/JCLI-D-13-00690.1
What really dries things out fast is direct sunlight. When it rains during growing season, you see plants go through a growth spurt. Not to mention CO2 increases growth. So don’t bigger plants shade more soil?
Also, when the soil dries we get cracks everywhere. If there is more rain after a dry spell, a bunch of it gets absorbed deep before it has any chance of evaporating. In marginal areas prone to long times between rain, that extra absorption should be good for replenishing the ground water, which in turn allows more irrigation, more plants, more shaded soil.
I think it would be hard to program such things into a model.
All you people falling for such an obvious April Fool prank. You missed the punch line at the end: “The authors have made all their data and calculations public available on a supplementary website.”
(not sure if /sarc is appropriate here…)
Jimbo, how/where do you find all these wonderful abstracts?
By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half…” Life magazine, January 1970.
Get a good grip on your long johns, cold weather haters–the worst may be yet to come. That’s the long-long-range weather forecast being given out by “climatologists.” the people who study very long-term world weather trends…. Washington Post January 11, 1970
Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor “…the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born,” Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970.
In ten years all important animal life in the sea will be extinct. Large areas of coastline will have to be evacuated because of the stench of dead fish. — Paul Ehrlich, Earth Day (1970)
“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind. We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” – Barry Commoner Washington University Earth Day 1970
“(By 1995) somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Look magazine, April 1970.
“By the year 2000…the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America and Australia, will be in famine,” Peter Gunter, North Texas State University, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.
Convection in the Antarctic Ice Sheet Leading to a Surge of the Ice Sheet and Possibly to a New Ice Age. – Science 1970
“In the next 50 years fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuel will screen out so much of the sun’s rays that the Earth’s average temperature could fall by six degrees. Sustained emissions over five to 10 years, could be sufficient to trigger an ice age.” – Washington Post – July 9, 1971
“By the year 2000 the United Kingdom will be simply a small group of impoverished islands, inhabited by some 70 million hungry people … If I were a gambler, I would take even money that England will not exist in the year 2000.” Paul Ehrlich 1971
New Ice Age Coming—It’s Already Getting Colder. Some midsummer day, perhaps not too far in the future, a hard, killing frost will sweep down on the wheat fields of Saskatchewan, the Dakotas and the Russian steppes…..Los Angles Times Oct 24, 1971
The latest computer generated climate simulations say “no”, again. No rain that is. Well, Eastern Australia is now enjoying a record wet season with rivers and dams full. It looks like yet another Global Warming prediction fail. They need to start shouting louder.
John F. Hultquis
In this madness is the method.
Hamlet.
Meanwhile in the real world.
They could easily have found a stock photo of drought ravaged corn for their cover photo. Instead they just used a picture of corn stubble left after what was probably a record harvest.
‘If” a mini ice age or full glacial will arrive, it is true there is less evaporation and less rainfall in some regions. Nothing to do with heat, tropical regions naturally being more humid get more rain.
Our oceans provide the most evaporation, and galactic sub atomic particles help form more cloud and rain. Sun activity can of course deflect these. Should water freeze there is no evaporation, i.e. more glaciers and polar encroachments. The monsoon areas might shift?
Production for profit, for amassing wealth in few hands and let billions of humans starve, accelerates climate deterioration!
I wonder just what kk16085 does for self sustenance; of course using NOTHING made available by ANY for profit entity ??
So we now have seven of those billions of humans; how many of those seven billions died in the most recent 30 year climate cycle due to starvation caused by “for profit” entities ??
Benjamin Cook et al
Farmers don’t dance for rain. Modern agriculture depends on man-made irrigation. In very warm climates, water at the surface evaporates but most rainwater penetrates the soil and become groundwater. Excluding glaciers, groundwater accounts for 98% of fresh water. Only 2% are in the surface including lakes, rivers and swamps. Increasing rainfall replenishes the groundwater. This is a common source of water for irrigation.
Assuming severe global warming, the permafrost in Siberia, Northern China, Mongolia, Canada, Alaska and Greenland will melt and the land will become productive. These regions will have a golden age of agriculture.
“Warming Climate May Spread Drying to a Third of Earth, Says Study”
Don’t these fools know that over 70% of the earth is covered in WATER? That we have a continent completely covered in ICE? Not to mention vast parts of mountain ranges (as well as Greenland) also covered in ice?
So they are saying the entire world (not covered in water and ice) is going to be a giant Sahara desert….
They owe me a new clean computer monitor and key board….