This recently published Max Planck Institute paper claims that seasonal temperature variability across the world has been affected by “climate change” what they DON’T do as far as I can tell, is determine whether this is simply natural variation, or driven by some other forcing, such as CO2 or solar forcings. The headline on Eurekalert reads:
Climate change alters the ecological impacts of seasons
‘We describe, for the first time, changes in temperature variability across the globe. We’ve had a long discussion about changes in the mean temperature. It has been ongoing for over 30 years,’ says George Wang.
But then, in the press release, they add this totally unnecessary B-movie poster line “The findings show that no place is safe from climate change. “ This scare tactic amounts to nothing more than an exercise in Tabloid Climatology™.
Here is the PR:
Climate change alters the ecological impacts of seasons
If more of the world’s climate becomes like that in tropical zones, it could potentially affect crops, insects, malaria transmission, and even confuse migration patterns of birds and mammals worldwide. George Wang, a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany, is part of a research tandem that has found that the daily and nightly differences in temperatures worldwide are fast approaching yearly differences between summer and winter temperatures.
Only recently, the UN Climate Summit came together in New York to further address the necessary measures to protect the Earth from a dramatic climate change. It has long been recognised that an increase of the average temperature will cause rising oceans and thus flooded landscapes. Particularly, regions close to the coasts are endangered. While it is well known that climate change has increased average temperatures, it is less clear how temperature variability has altered with climate change.
Postdoctoral fellow George Wang, from Detlef Weigel’s Department for Molecular Biology at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, has now examined this issue in more depth.
He realized that existing climate measures did not provide enough information to predict the life history responses, such as hatching, hibernation, or flowering of organisms. Together with his partner Michael Dillon, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Zoology and Physiology, University of Wyoming, USA, he started to analyse climate conditions since records began to be kept.
“We describe, for the first time, changes in temperature variability across the globe. We’ve had a long discussion about changes in the mean temperature. It has been ongoing for over 30 years,” says George Wang. “It’s very clear mean temperatures have shifted across the globe. It’s less clear if the variation in temperature has changed.”
For example, the variability in temperature could potentially mean bugs survive for a longer period in non-tropical regions. The result could be increased crop damage from pest insects or spread of diseases, such as malaria transmitted by mosquitoes.
In addition, plants in temperate regions are adapted to use temperature to tell the season. This is how they know when to produce flowers and fruits. As daily temperature cycles become more extreme, it becomes harder for plants to behave appropriately to the season. Therefore, plants might produce flowers too early or too late, and so there might be some years where certain fruits never appear.
Wang is first author of a paper, titled “Recent Geographic Convergence in Diurnal and Annual Temperature Cycling Flattens Global Thermal Profiles,” that was published last Sunday (Sept. 28) in the online edition of Nature Climate Change. Dillon is the paper’s co-writer. The monthly journal is dedicated to publishing the most significant and cutting-edge research on the science of climate change, its impacts and wider implications for the economy, society and policy.
Wang and Dillon first estimated global spacial variation in the mean temperature and in temperature cycling by analysing more than 1 billion temperature measurements from 7,906 weather stations that sampled from the period of Jan. 1, 1926, through Dec. 31, 2009. Analysis of monthly and yearly averages of daily temperature extremes reveals that daily and annual minimum and maximum temperatures have increased across the world since 1950. The scientists then estimated global changes in the magnitudes of diurnal and annual temperature cycles from 1975-2013.
The research was “very computationally intensive”, as Michael Dillon points out. The researchers had to use computer clusters on two continents, with the majority of the work performed on the cluster at the MPI for Developmental Biology. They also used a new mathematical technique to describe how temperature changes from day to night, and winter to summer, thus characterizing the variability of temperature over the globe.
According to this, the changes have been most dramatic for places closest to the poles and far from oceans. “In these places, warmer winters — decreasing the difference between summer and winter — and hotter days — increasing the difference between day and night — mean that the range of temperatures, which organisms experience over a few days, is closer to the range of temperatures they experience over an entire year. These patterns are strongest in Canada and Russia, but occur even in Germany,” explains Wang. “For example, in Wiesbaden, in 1992, the average difference between day and night was 1.2 degrees, while the average difference between summer and winter was 24.8 degrees. In 2012, the day/night cycle was 5.2 degrees, while the summer/winter cycle was 18.9, so the daily temperature variability is now much more similar to the yearly variability. Compare this to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, where the day/night difference is about 4.3 degrees and the summer/winter difference is about 6.7 — it has not changed very much.”
The range of diurnal temperature cycling (DTC), meaning the change in temperature from the daytime high to nighttime low, was lowest at the poles, intermediate at the tropics and was relatively small close to large bodies of water and at lower elevations, according to the study. The range of annual temperature cycling (ATC), meaning temperatures for any given location will go through a regular cycle on an annual basis, was lowest at the tropics and increased toward the poles.
“For these temperature zones that we historically think of as having lower daily variations relative to the annual variations in temperatures, what we found in these zones is that the ATC has not changed much in the last 30 to 40 years,” Michael Dillon explains. “But, the DTC has gone up considerably. If the annual is constant and daily temperatures increase, areas outside the tropics will become more tropical. This idea of convergence could be a really important thing.”
The findings show that no place is safe from climate change. “Most people are rightly concerned about sea level rise, but feel that this will not affect them if they don’t live next to the ocean. We find that places far from the oceans will have be biggest changes in daily and seasonal temperature variability, because they are far away from the buffering effects of oceans”, says Wang. Therefore, there would be no places immune from effects of climate change, and this would have consequences on crops, parasites, and disease.
Contact: Dr. George Wang
=========================================
The paper:
Recent geographic convergence in diurnal and annual temperature cycling flattens global thermal profiles
Warming mean temperatures over the past century1 have probably shifted distributions2, altered phenologies3, increased extinction risks4, 5, and impacted agriculture6 and human health7. However, knowledge of mean temperatures alone does not provide a complete understanding either of changes in the climate itself or of how changing climate will affect organisms8, 9, 10, 11. Temporal temperature variation, primarily driven by daily and annual temperature cycles, has profound effects on organism physiology8, 9 and ecology12, yet changes in temperature cycling over the past 40 years are still poorly understood1, 13. Here we estimate global changes in the magnitudes of diurnal and annual temperature cycles from 1975 to 2013 from an analysis of over 1.4 billion hourly temperature measurements from 7,906 weather stations. Increases in daily temperature variation since 1975 in polar (1.4 °C), temperate (1.0 °C) and tropical (0.3 °C) regions parallel increases in mean temperature. Concurrently, magnitudes of annual temperature cycles decreased by 0.6 °C in polar regions, increased by 0.4 °C in temperate regions, and remained largely unchanged in tropical regions. Stronger increases in daily temperature cycling relative to changes in annual temperature cycling in temperate and polar regions mean that, with respect to diurnal and annual cycling, the world is flattening as temperate and polar regions converge on tropical temperature cycling profiles.
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You know what makes us safe from climate change? The same thing that has made us safe from weather variations for thousands of years, the same thing that has permitted humanity to spread to every climate across the globe. The application of our intelligence; a healthy dose of preparation, and above all technology. You’d think we’re a race of giant hamsters the way the press goes on about climate change. Of course, in their heart of hearts that might well be the view held by the climate con men who propagate this sad joke.
I’ll tell you what place is safe from climate change, my place is safe from climate change and is likely to remain so while my wits and resources hold out.
Mark Bofill writes [October 9, 2014 at 6:47 am]
You’d think we’re a race of giant hamsters the way the press goes on about climate change.
—————————————————————————————————————————–
More like pigeons. Ever since B.F. Skinner’s work with operant conditioning, leftist have become
convinced that human nature is completely malleable. You can train people to do anything with
the right stimulus. They got a lot of the public ‘conditioned’ to think CO2 = global warming that
few question the ‘settled science’ (TM). Then you subtly change the wording to ‘climate change’
and they still think CO2 is the culprit for every outbreak of bad weather, never mind there are all
sorts of other forcings and natural variations.
“The application of our intelligence; a healthy dose of preparation, and above all technology.” There is an old saying I heard in Umea, Sweden, “There is no such thing as bad weather; only bad clothes.” They’d know.
It is worse than we thought. We are all going to die.
“We are all going to die.”
Wasn’t that always true?
Not for vampires.
Valar morghulis
You know nothing, John West. Winter is coming.
Well yes it was true, but now that climate scientists claim we can manipulate the global climate, let’s go for the whole salami and claim that we can mainipulate death itself.
Not so for Elvis.
If global warming doesn’t happen, what will stop the Others?
OMG! I didn’t know that! I am glad the awarmists told me.
But if these chaps are right we should get less extreme weather due to the reduced temperature gradient. Warmists want to win both ways.
No, no.
It COULD be worse than we thought. We COULD all die.
Change makes things different — film at 11.
From the abstract: “… the world is flattening …” I thought they accused us of be Flat-Earthers.
“For example, in Wiesbaden, in 1992, the average difference between day and night was 1.2 degrees”
Woah! Only 1.2 degrees? Something is wrong here, that is too small.
Yeah, way too small. The difference where I live can be as much as 40f between night and day.
I believe they probably meant the change in the diurnal. But STFW? Longer growing seasons? I detest these people
Exactly. I would bet the house that no place outside the tropics could make that claim….. And having lived in the tropics I doubt that is true even there
Model reanalyses and observations says other models are unreliable. You decide.
This is classic cherry picking
There were a number of days in the winter of 1992 when the difference between Tmax and Tmin were in the range of 1 to 2 deg C. This mostly happened on cold overcast days. A quick look at the record shows that this was far from the norm.
http://geodata.us/weather/show.php?usaf=106330&uban=99999&m=2&c=Germany&y=1992
Speaking of cheery picking…”Wang and Dillon first estimated global spacial variation in the mean temperature and in temperature cycling by analysing more than 1 billion temperature measurements from 7,906 weather stations that sampled from the period of Jan. 1, 1926, through Dec. 31, 2009. Analysis of monthly and yearly averages of daily temperature extremes reveals that daily and annual minimum and maximum temperatures have increased across the world since 1950.”
————————————————————————————————————————–
They started their data in 1926, hum? Does this mean that monthly and yearly averages of daily temperature extremes reveals that daily and annual minimum and maximum temperatures have NOT increased across the world since 1926?
It is helpful is to use continuously active stations for the duration of the study, not easy on global level. The US record shows that the 10 year period from 1936 to 1946 produced the greatest number of record highs and lows.
Damn!
They pay people to do such work?
Amazing.
Pay me to do a study on changing times of sunrise and sunset and the impact on the length of each day.
“Pay me to do a study on changing times of sunrise and…”
Let me know if you need any code work done to “homogenize” the results.
My Big Oil checks aren’t covering the heating bills.
Then you can pay me to do a hands on analysis of wave size and strength, I’ll use a 9′ mal (for all my equiptment).
Not they pay…
We pay
If the physically meaningless mean temperature DIDN’T change over time, I’d be concerned (but not a concerned scientist).
I hope they had the odd tea break during their 30 years dicussion!
LOL George Lawson
And with all that hot air spouted for 30 years, no wonder they can find evidence for temperatures increases.
Talk shop Heat Islands only, I suggest.
Auto
“If more of the world’s climate becomes like that in tropical zones, it could potentially affect crops, insects, malaria transmission, and even confuse migration patterns of birds and mammals worldwide.”
…and if frogs had wings…!
but IF pigs had wings we be in even more trouble…
reading mikewaite’s reply below I had suddenly the picture in front of my eyes what this would mean for the wind turbines…
Given that so many wind farms around the British coast and in the North Sea are in the migration paths of many bird species there will, in a few years time, be no migrating birds to worry about .
Another success for the environmentalists .
I was thinking more along the lines of those massive solar mirror arrays that are zapping birds out of the sky like the Death Star frying rebel x-wing fighters. The sole reason that’s occurring is because of mankind and
Global CoolingGlobal WarmingClimate ChangeClimate Disruption as well.That would be a good idea for further research.
Sorry, I was referring to the bird mortality.
A lot of words to say ‘we done yet another model exercise which has once again , thanks to the ‘right asumptions ‘, told usits worse than we thought .
Its long be clear academic standards in climate ‘science’ have been poor , do we now add lazy to the list of abilities to make a good climate ‘scientists ‘ ?
“Wang is first author of a paper, titled “Recent Geographic Convergence in Diurnal and Annual Temperature Cycling Flattens Global Thermal Profiles,”’
“If more of the world’s climate becomes like that in tropical zones,” Which has small Diurnal and annual temperature cycling.
“We describe, for the first time, changes in temperature variability across the globe.”
What they are saying is that there is a smaller difference in the diurnal temperature record, the daily Highs and Lows are coming closer. They are exactly right, but the reason is the thermometer record and the moving of the record to more coastal areas.
The Ocean and areas close to the ocean have a higher average temperature and less diurnal variation. This paper is just documenting the migration of the thermometers.
I should add and the weighting and homogenization based on coastal thermometers.
and UHI which does exactly that…
They make it up as they go along.
Jeez. These guys should up-grade their air conditioning system.
Lol yea, they better not step outside, they’ll step right into a changing climate. Ah, it’s bright outside… /snark
“For example, the variability in temperature could potentially mean bugs survive for a longer period in non-tropical regions. The result could be increased crop damage from pest insects or spread of diseases, such as malaria transmitted by mosquitoes.”
It could also mean more food for birds and small mammals and an increase in wildlife. In fact, this is more likely than the litany of apocalyptic outcomes being brandished about, since malaria is not spread by warm weather but by poor sanitation, and most insects don’t eat crops, and those that do can always be dealt with by spraying or planting GM crop varieties.
Why is the glass always half empty with these guys?
Not only is the glass half empty, but our newest reanalysis indicates that it was probably full at some point in the past and therefor must have a leak. Projecting this trend into the future we find that soon the glass will be completely empty. It’s Worse Then We Thought!
The question is not whether said glass is half empty or half full, but that your bartender is cheating you.
It took them nine whole words to get to the first weasel word. Stunning.
These people have found that the difference between day time and night time temperatures is increasing in inland locations. This seems to be counter to the normal claim that increased ‘greenhouse gases’ will reduce this difference due to an increase in nighttime temperatures.
To conclude that their finding shows that the effect is natural would presumably be asking too much of them.
Exactly, they find that cold, dry places have a wider variation in diurnal temperatures than warm, humid places.
And then they find that the variation of diurnal temperatures in the cold, dry places is increasing.
That disproves the increasing humidity from AGW idea.
That disproves the expected positive feedback.
This paper disproves newsworthy manmade climate change.
Honestly, I wouldn’t trust their discoveries. Let alone that it proves anything.
We can run, but we can’t hide. It is indeed worse than we thought (how much worse remains to be seen).
You see ‘The research was “very computationally intensive”. So it can’t be wrong, regardless of the facts.
And don’t forget it used some newly discovered math.
Oh come on. They’ve just learned that when you subtract a smaller number from a bigger number you get another number. Once you know that along with Tmin and Tmax you’ve got a ticket for the tax paid gravy train as long as you can show the new number you got changes… ’cause Nature didn’t change at all until evil Mann’s CO2 came on the scene.
sea level rise (SLR):
2.8 mm/year
2.8 cm/decade
28 cm/century.
let’s call it a foot a century.
That’s not drastic. It’s well explained by natural warming continuing since the end of the LIA, i.e. thermal expansion and glacial ice melt. 25-30cm/
Can we do anything to stop it? Highly unlikely
Would holding CO2 emission caps to say 450 ppm slow SLR? Extremely unlikely
Would holding CO2 emissions to 450 ppm devastate national economies, thus limiting ability to adapt? quite likely.
Reasonable course of action: adapt to 1 foot/century sea level rise and stop worrying about the anthropogenic CO2 non-problem.
Furthermore instead of the hundreds of billions of dollars, pounds, and euros wasted on discredited “Climate Change”, we could have spent more resources on controlling viral hemorrhagic fevers that really do threaten our society with economic breakdown..
More reasonable course of action: Don’t expect any chaotic trend to be linear or extend into eternity.
Reblogged this on CraigM350 and commented:
We can also play the variablity cherry picking game…
“Temperature wise, 2013/4 was far less extreme with far less variability. From mid November until the beginning of March the mean values varied by only ~7 degrees Celsius compared to ~12 degrees for 1876/7.”
Rainfall that winter was remarkably similar to Met Office PR queen Julia Slingo’s ‘extremely unusual’ storms of 2013/1, the difference being only ~16-26mm.
http://craigm350.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/the-great-global-weirding-of-18767/
On the other side of the Atlantic there is this observation made in the Bighorn Mountains in Wyoming for the 6th January 1877
“Unusual heat followed by snow. In the evening there was snow and hail driven by a cruel wind.“
http://images.library.wisc.edu/History/EFacs/SetPerAmerInd/Victor/reference/history.victor.i0061.pdf
So Max Planck is reduced to echoing derivative disreputable rent seeking tripe.
The oxymoron of so-called global warming being rebranded as ‘climate change’ is on full display: Climate always changes. Since climate is experienced as weather. No place on Earth is safe from weather. Nor has anyplace ever been safe.
As far as the tropics moving north, there is no evidence of this. It is just cheap posing by over employed flunkies.
All because of a few 1/10ths of a degree change in the ambiguous, meaningless metric known as global temp. Idiot alarmists
suck agin!!
CO2….the magic gas that can change the climate and weather….without changing the temperature
Ho hum… More dire predictions by models. Yawn…
This is so disappointing. A travesty really. Now I’m really afraid.
They are telling us that our Climate has us surrendered and there is no escape.
I hate it when that happens.
This sucks. It’s like finding out that your blankie is useless against the boogieman.
We’re kinda stuck now.
Our only out is to deny the boogieman exists.
Hey that’s where they want us. Denying Climate itself exists.
We’re surrounded alright. By morons, charlatans and scoundrels.
“No place in the world is save from garbage like this ” -that sounds better.
So sad, yet so true.
Is Ed Wood a climatologist now? Lol.
Hilarious.
The whole “climate science” enterprise has moved so deep into embarrassing that I feel sorry for real climate scientists (if there actually are any).
Mad magazine could not have done a better job of it.