Claim: Ocean warming leads to stronger precipitation extremes

Recent event underlines importance of study by German and Russian scientists

Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)

This image shows simulated precipitation (over 24 hours from 6 to 7 July 2012) of a model run using observed sea surface temperature (a) and (b) using a colder SST representative of the early 1980s). The black cross marks the town of Krymsk, the thin black lines are height contours with a distance of 150 metres. Credit GEOMAR
This image shows simulated precipitation (over 24 hours from 6 to 7 July 2012) of a model run using observed sea surface temperature (a) and (b) using a colder SST representative of the early 1980s). The black cross marks the town of Krymsk, the thin black lines are height contours with a distance of 150 metres. Credit GEOMAR

That the temperatures on our planet are rising is clear. In particular, the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide continue to warm the atmosphere. The effects of global warming on the hydrological cycle, however, are still not fully understood. Particularly uncertain is how the strength of extreme summertime thunderstorms have changed, and how it may change in the future. In coastal regions neighboring warm seas, the sea surface temperature can play a crucial role in the intensity of convective storms. The Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean have warmed by about 2 C since the early 1980s. Russian and German scientists investigated what impact this warming may have had on extreme precipitation in the region.

“Our showcase example was a heavy precipitation event from July 2012 that took place in Krymsk (Russia), near the Black Sea coast, resulting in a catastrophic flash food with 172 deaths”, said Edmund Meredith, lead author of the study. “We carried out a number of very-high-resolution simulations with an atmospheric model to investigate the impact of rising sea surface temperatures on the formation of intense convective storms, which are often associated with extreme rainfall”, Meredith continued. Simulations of the event with observed sea surface temperatures showed an increase in precipitation intensity of over 300%, compared to comparable simulations using sea surface temperatures representative of the early 1980s. “We were able to identify a very distinct change, which demonstrates that convective precipitation responds with a strong, non-linear signal to the temperature forcing”, Prof. Douglas Maraun, co-author of the study added.

At the end of June 2015, the nearby Olympic city of Sochi experienced an unusually intense precipitation event. Over 175 mm of rain was recorded in 12 hours, showing the relevance of the scientists work. “Due to ocean warming, the lower atmosphere has become more unstable over the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean. We therefore expect that events like those in Krymsk or Sochi will become more frequent in the future”, added the Kiel-based climate scientist.

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July 14, 2015 12:51 am

Well it seems plausible. Warmer sea means more precipitation on nearby lands. Sounds right.
But thirty years is not a lot of data to make a rule from.

Anne Ominous
Reply to  M Courtney
July 14, 2015 2:30 am

M Courtney:
It’s not just that. It’s the chosen period for the comparison.
There is little doubt it was cooler in 1980. In fact, if I recall correctly, it was cooler in 1980 than it was in 1965. The point being: we know the warming happened, but this isn’t evidence it was caused by CO2. It’s merely a correlation between local temperature and precipitation. Which, by the way, is a completely expected result, and has pretty close to nothing to do with evidence for or against AGW.
It is interesting that a warming trend correlates with increased precipitation, just as anticipated. This is EVIDENCE that the warming + precipitation link may be true. Observation, meet one of the better aspects of warming modeling. But it is zero evidence of most of the others.
I don’t think anyone disputes that warmer temperatures will bring more humidity.

Leonard Lane
Reply to  Anne Ominous
July 15, 2015 10:18 pm

Well maybe yes and maybe no. Global warming alarmists say ocean surface temperatures are rising. But, fewer hurricanes in last decade or so. Hurricanes are heat engines. Where is their fuel?

johnmarshall
Reply to  M Courtney
July 14, 2015 3:28 am

But it was based on model runs and ONE event at Solchi on the Black Sea coast. The Black Sea is a relative shallow sea prone to summer heating but not relevent to the main oceans. The model runs were based on observed sea temperatures but not observed precipitation levels. These must have been available so why not use them? Cherry picking I presume.

RWturner
Reply to  johnmarshall
July 14, 2015 10:39 am

Why use data and observations when you can simulate it. Simulating things helps us believe in global warming, amen.

Mike
Reply to  M Courtney
July 14, 2015 4:31 am

I don’t see any mention of data. What they have looked at is model output not data.

Simulations of the event with observed sea surface temperatures showed an increase in precipitation intensity of over 300%, compared to comparable simulations using sea surface temperatures representative of the early 1980s. “We were able to identify a very distinct change, which demonstrates that convective precipitation responds with a strong, non-linear signal to the temperature forcing”, Prof. Douglas Maraun, co-author of the study added.

All that this “demonstrates” is what has been built into the climate model. NOTHING MORE. Whether or not the resulting 300% is any more realistic than modelled rise in temperatures which is about double ground truth values is totally ignored.
The text reproduced here is presumably a press release, but our host again fails to give the source, despite slating those producing press releases for not providing a link to the paper.
Goose, gander, etc.

Pkreter
Reply to  Mike
July 14, 2015 5:39 am

just search “Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel”. Reference enough.

ferdberple
Reply to  M Courtney
July 14, 2015 6:24 am

take 10 coins and toss then in the air. On occasion, 10 heads will fall back to earth. Are these due to global warming?
On occasion some years will be wetter than others, some will be drier. The longer you collect data, the more likely you are to observe an extreme event.
Centuries ago, the increasing frequency of extreme events with increasing length of observations has been blamed on witches, the evil eye, immoral behavior. The solution; human sacrifice.
Today, in this enlightened age, scientists now blame this effect on the sin of burning fossil fuels. Human sacrifice is again the solution of choice.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

skorrent1
Reply to  ferdberple
July 14, 2015 4:45 pm

Of course 10 heads in a row is due to AGW; as are more storms, more droughts, more snow, less snow, and fewer honey bees!

MarkW
Reply to  M Courtney
July 14, 2015 4:53 pm

Especially since there has been no warming during almost 2/3rds of that time.

george e. smith
Reply to  M Courtney
July 14, 2015 7:29 pm

Whew ! it was only a simulation.
Gee they had me going there for a while, I really thought they might have done some science.

hunter
July 14, 2015 12:59 am

So the alarmists use one weather event and that proves the idea of a CO2 apocalypse, but if skeptics point out that over ~150 years storm, drought, flood etc. are essentially unchanged we are cherry picking.
Got it.

July 14, 2015 1:01 am

thank you for reblog and copy this very interesting piece

Editor
July 14, 2015 1:03 am

Another modeling study…this time of precipitation.

Stephen Richards
Reply to  Bob Tisdale
July 14, 2015 1:16 am

And the models perform worse for precipitation than any other parameter. Admitted by climate modelers

DD More
Reply to  Stephen Richards
July 14, 2015 9:28 am

Notice what else the admitted to.
That the temperatures on our planet are rising is clear. In particular, the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide continue to warm the atmosphere. The effects of global warming on the hydrological cycle, however, are still not fully understood. Particularly uncertain is how the strength of extreme summertime thunderstorms have changed, and how it may change in the future.
As to “how it may change in the future”, since They wrote the model, Their model will not tell them anything they do not already know. Boys, your talking to yourselves

petermue
July 14, 2015 1:04 am

That the temperatures on our planet are rising is clear.
No.
Temperatures have continuously decreased by ~0.3°C since the holocene optimum.
Actually we’re at the lowest temperatures since that time.
Hypothesis debunked.

knr
July 14, 2015 1:17 am

That the temperatures on our planet are rising is clear.
Actually if you where sit down and define what is required for this statement to be valid form a scientific sense, regards range of measurements, accuracy of measurements , historic trends etc , otherwise know has the standard approach for science , you conclude its far from clear.
Instead what we have is what can be called ‘better than nothing ‘ otherwise know has ‘guess work’ if intelligent guesswork that suggest that within certain limits there has been increase in temperatures but by how much and why still remains ‘unclear . I think it is more then fair enough to ask , is that really good enough ?

max
Reply to  knr
July 14, 2015 9:31 am

Note that some papers include a throw away line to get accepted/pal approved when they actually include some useful data. Some scientists are actually honest and some reviewers are very dense. I’ve had rebuttals to CAGW printed in our local newspaper using only AGW data to rebut their arguments. An example was Cook’s claim that most Arctic melted every year to rebut their claim that melting sea ice would flood cosatal cities.
Max

AP
July 14, 2015 1:36 am

They assume a lot of stuff is “clear”. Well it doesn’t feel warmer to me. This winter is brutally cold.

D. Cohen
July 14, 2015 1:52 am

How about the hypothesis that rising temperatures just means more rain? Then there will be fewer deserts globally because, among other things, less water is permanently tied up inside glaciers. (Although the overall global climate will become wetter, some relatively small areas may become drier, like California). This warmer-means-wetter hypothesis is confirmed by the geological record, with evidence for a wetter Sahara during the Holocene optimum (5000 to 6000 years ago) of the current interglacial period, and hyperarid conditions in the Sahara and the Near East during the height of the preceeding glacial period (when large glaciers covered much of the Northern hemisphere). Has anyone noticed that all the hype about “desertification” as the Sahara spread south during the 1960’s and 1970’s has stopped? This happened because the Sahara has started to shrink from the 1980’s to the present with warmer global temperatures.

Eyal Porat
July 14, 2015 1:53 am

This is so unscientific it makes the mind boggle:
“Our showcase example was a heavy precipitation event from July 2012 that took place in Krymsk (Russia),…”
How on earth can a “showcase” of one, isolated, freak weather event show a trend?
In Israel during the 1990’s was one of the worst rainfall event recorder – between 300-400 mm in 24 hours! Never to be repeated yet since.
How does this show ANYTHING at all about weather patterns here?
If anything, extreme rainfall has been declining in this region in the last few decades while sea temp rising.
So what to make of it? Could this phenomena be regional?
Come on guys! This is science, not fiction!

Paul
Reply to  Eyal Porat
July 14, 2015 4:10 am

“How on earth can a “showcase” of one, isolated, freak weather event show a trend?”
In climate “schience”, just extrapolate a single point, the trend can be anything you want it to be…publish, print, collect.
What’s not to like?

TomRude
Reply to  Eyal Porat
July 14, 2015 7:48 am

Finally a sane comment. Indeed, not a word on the weather conditions.

Charles Nelson
July 14, 2015 1:55 am

That the temperatures on our planet are rising is clear.
I stopped after that.

July 14, 2015 2:09 am

How does the back radiation from CO2 and water vapour cause the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean to warm by 2 deg C since the 1980s? Particularly as there seems to be increased evaporation which must mean more latent heat of evaporation removed from the sea surface.

Admad
July 14, 2015 2:18 am

“This image shows simulated precipitation … of a model run…”
Well blow me down, it’s models all the way down.

asybot
Reply to  Admad
July 14, 2015 9:17 am

I stopped after “simulated”, what happened? oh, a model run, thanks ahmad.

Nylo
July 14, 2015 2:41 am

It’s already accepted by almost anyone that a warmer world is a wetter world, the water cycle speeds up. So greater precipitation extremes are to be expected. What is NOT to be expected is the greater droughts that they tell us that will happen at the same time, in spite of the world being wetter as a whole.

John Peter
Reply to  Nylo
July 14, 2015 5:58 am

I doubt that “the world being wetter as a whole”. I would rather think that there might be an ongoing re-distribution of water in various forms between oceans, rivers, under ground, reservoirs clouds ongoing rain around the world and snow/ice. Please tell me where additional water is coming from? The moon, Pluto or where?

Fernando (Brazil)
Reply to  John Peter
July 14, 2015 11:01 am

Pluto’s MODEL CMPI 5
http://i.imgur.com/yF53aYh.jpg

george e. smith
Reply to  John Peter
July 14, 2015 7:33 pm

The oceans.

John Peter
Reply to  Nylo
July 14, 2015 6:01 am

I can also add that sea ice is increasing world wide and there is evidence that more snow is being deposited in Greenland. Antarctica is not smelting so in actual fact it could be argued that the world is getting dryer as more water is tied up in ice and snow.

Nylo
Reply to  John Peter
July 14, 2015 8:49 am

When I said a wetter world I meant more water content in the atmosphere in particular. Relative humidity is expected to stay about the same which, the atmosphere being warmer, means greater absolute humidity. This is what the famous water vapour positive feedback refers to, which may or may not be countered partially, totally or greater than totally by the clouds feedback. Whether it ends up happening or not is another story, but it is, as I said, generally accepted, not in dispute.

george e. smith
Reply to  John Peter
July 15, 2015 3:44 am

How ironic is that ? Steel I wouldn’t place any significance in that Greenland snow story.
Remember that the lost squadron was found 65 or so years later buried under 160 some odd feet of compacted snow/ice.

JP
Reply to  Nylo
July 14, 2015 6:39 am

It may be accepted. But, it is not necessarily true. Especially in the tropics and subtropics. The MWP was not necessarily a wetter period for the world. Decadal and centennial long droughts were common in portions of Africa, the Desert Southwest of the US, large swaths of Central and South America, Asia, and the Pacific Ocean.

Leonard Lane
Reply to  Nylo
July 15, 2015 10:29 pm

But Nylo, CAGW can do anything. It can cause hotter temperatures, snowstorms, dying butterflies, floods, droughts, decrease in this and that and increase it these and those. Global warming has been stated to cause everything the climate warming alarmist can think of and others they will think of in the future. Superman was stronger than a freight train and faster than a speeding bullet. But he is an unimaginative sissy compared with global warming alarmists.

July 14, 2015 2:56 am

That the temperatures on our planet are rising is clear.

I dispute that statement. The post started off with that unsupported assertion. We don’t even know what the average temperature is on planet earth now with any real certainty and we darn sure don’t know what it was 100 years ago.
We can be pretty sure that the planet warmed some coming out of the Little Ice Age (and yes that existed “Dr.” Mann) but we don’t have any reliable metric to ascertain whether the planet is still warming or if the cooling has begun.

Gamecock
July 14, 2015 3:01 am

“very-high-resolution simulations”
A fake of the highest quality.

July 14, 2015 3:02 am

Weak DT during warm periods has proven difficult to reconcile with climate model results, [attribution is difficult] inspiring related puzzles known as the ‘‘equable climate problem’’ and the ‘‘low gradient paradox’’ (Huber and Caballero 2011).”
… cite in this paper: Ocean Heat Transport and Water Vapor Greenhouse in a Warm Equable Climate: A New Look at the Low Gradient Paradox, (Rose, 2013).
Shah-Hossein et al. (23.12.2013, http://www.schweizerbart.de/papers/zfg_suppl/detail/57/81545/Coastal_boulders_in_Martigues_French_Mediterranean_evidence_for_extreme_storm_waves_during_the_Little_Ice_Age ):
“The boulders occur up to 100 m [!] inland from the present shoreline [!] …” “Dating of the boulders shows age ranges that correspond to the Little Ice Age (LIA), thus suggesting a relationship between their deposition and the high storm frequency that characterized the LIA.”
Trouet et al., 2012. (http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S092181811100155X):
“Such an increase in cyclone intensity [in LIA] could have resulted from the steepening of the meridional temperature gradient as the poles cooled more strongly than the Tropics from the MCA into the LIA.”
Goosse et al., 2011. (http://www.pages-igbp.org/download/docs/NL2011-1_lowres.pdf):
“… wetter summers are found during the 13th and 14th centuries, in parallel to the global onset of the LIA, and may have added to the widespread famine in northern/central Europe in that period … […]”
I particularly like this conclusion: “The thermodynamic contribution is robust and well understood, but theoretical understanding of the microphysical and dynamical contributions is still being developed.” (Precipitation Extremes Under Climate Change – P. A. O’Gorman, 2015)
Despite this, the authors commented work, already they “all know” and “threaten”…

Sandy In Limousin
July 14, 2015 3:13 am

Paul Homewood has done a couple of posts recently on rainfall in England (not the UK as a whole).
here on flooding in the Windsor area (near Heathrow and the Queen’s place outside London)
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/a-history-of-floods-in-windsor-2/
and England in general.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/englands-wettest-decade-the-1870s/
Although not global they make interesting reading when compared with the Met Office’s predictions of death by drowning.

Enginer
July 14, 2015 3:14 am

Many of us have maintained that the warming that so excited the Alarmists (or was used as a justification for wealth transfer) was only a return to the normal warmth of the Holocene. It looked obvious to us, before the Hockey Stick, that we were only coming out of the Little Ice Age. That being said, we need to concentrate more on comparing today’s climate/weather with records from the Medieval Optimum. Yes?

RACookPE1978
Editor
Reply to  Enginer
July 14, 2015 6:34 am

Engineer

It looked obvious to us, before the Hockey Stick, that we were only coming out of the Little Ice Age. That being said, we need to concentrate more on comparing today’s climate/weather with records from the Medieval Optimum. Yes?

Those “records” are very hard to specifically quantify as specific numbers – no instruments at that time.
More importantly, the Medivial Warming Period was – as today’s Modern Warming Period will likely be! – spread out over a 200-300 year broad maximum. So broad over so long a time even today we cannot point to a “paek” but a long period of generally warmer temperatures than today, with individual temperature drops during the whole time.
And that is for areas where people wrote things down! North America? Asia? Australia? Antarctica? Africa? South America?
Of all of those areas, only the people in China, India and limited areas of Central America (Maya – who died out on the peninsula, and were then somewhat “replaced” across central Mexico by the Aztecs) and South America (Inca) left consistent records in stone (central, south America) or writings (China, India). No measurements anywhere until the CET in England began during the Little Ice Age, even across the centuries of China’s bureaucracies.

knr
Reply to  RACookPE1978
July 14, 2015 8:35 am

True hence the need for ‘problematic ‘ proxies , but with such wide error bars can you really make good scientific judgements, as is claimed , or are in in-effect taking a good guess ?

Walt D.
July 14, 2015 3:33 am

In particular, the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide continue to warm the atmosphere.
Is this true? The data would suggest that the rapid increase in CO2 emissions, particularly from China has occurred over a period where there has been little change in atmospheric temperature. We don’t even know how CO2 emissions from burning fossil fuels increase the total CO2 in the atmosphere.

ulriclyons
July 14, 2015 4:03 am

“Due to ocean warming, the lower atmosphere has become more unstable over the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean. We therefore expect that events like those in Krymsk or Sochi will become more frequent in the future”, added the Kiel-based climate scientist.”
The short term solar effects on the North Atlantic Oscillation dominate summer atmospheric circulation patterns. It wasn’t warm seas that made the NAO so negative during summer 2012.

JP
Reply to  ulriclyons
July 14, 2015 6:33 am

Mountainous areas like Sochi tend to create narrow inflow channels that flow uphill. This added life coupled with light veering winds aloft are enough to cause heavy downpours and flooding. The dynamics are the same in Colorado during the summer months.

Ivor Ward
July 14, 2015 4:06 am

I’m bored. This is no reflection on mine genial host, Mr Watts, who continues to post the best that comes out of academia related to climate.
With a life long interest in meteorology and climate stretching back to my youth in the west of England where we actually had weather changing on a daily, if not hourly, basis and a stint in the Navy as a met officer I used to really look forward to the latest research being released.
From listening to the “beeps” from Sputnik 1 in 1957 to listening to Kennedy ( A Democrat no less!) in 1961 declaring that man would be on the moon by the end of the 60’s. Getting a hand held calculator and ditching the log tables and slide rule; the floppy disc and the walkman; writing my first Amstrad computer program where the stars fell out of the sky; Concord/Concorde; GPS replacing Decca, RDF and Loran. The 747. The International space station . Microsoft Windows and Apple in the 80’s; cell phones. I could go on but now you are bored too. All these were the work of the boffins…..proper scientists and engineers from the great Universities and Corporations.
So what have we had in the 21st century. Effing Facebook, Twitter and Youtube. Worst of all the Segway to compete with the Sinclair C5 as the most ill conceived mode of transport to rear their ugly batteries.
All we get now is endless computerised jiggery pokery. Not a new thought from Academia in years. No ambition to create great moments in History.
An endless mind curdling whiny tirade about the evils of humanity from the very people who perpetrate those evils. Where are the great minds? Where are the Scientists? Where are the people who have ideas and chase them relentlessly to fruition.
Please save me from the mind numbing, blood curdling mediocrity of the endless succession of anally retentive geeks who are creating these boring waffle fests that pass for science these days and give us back the visionaries and the adventurers.
[Or more bread and circuses for the easily sated masses? .mod]

Reply to  Ivor Ward
July 14, 2015 4:18 am

Google is remarkable. General knowledge available at the stroke of a key – a universal library.
With a Babel Fish being built.
There is still progress being made.
As for academia. Well, yes, there is a problem.
Everything is diverted to stamp-collecting of proteins, speculation about many dimensional geometries and of course, the effects of trace gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
At least the first is real science – if very dull.
But you can guess that somewhere someone is doing something remarkable that hasn’t hit the airwaves yet. Like the work that Coxeter did on symmetry up in Canada.
It was going on in the mid-20th century and no-one thought it was cool enough to go mainstream. But it was. And there will be other things today.

Steve P
Reply to  M Courtney
July 14, 2015 8:15 am

“And there will be other things today.”
Like NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft at Pluto:
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/docs/CJ4CQIkVEAEaAnw.png-large.jpg
NASA

george e. smith
Reply to  M Courtney
July 14, 2015 7:41 pm

Steve P,
If that is a true photograph of Pluto, how dare those churls say it is NOT a planet.
I think we need to clamor for re-instatement.
That’s a planet.
g

Steve P
Reply to  M Courtney
July 15, 2015 7:41 am

george e. smith
July 14, 2015 at 7:41 pm
Agreed George, especially when Pluto is seen with its large moon Charon:
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1507/PlutoCharon01_NewHorizons_1080.jpg
Family portrait, Pluto with moon Charon
Photo: NASA
But the best definitions change according to the needs of users. Isn’t that the way it works?

Reply to  Ivor Ward
July 14, 2015 7:52 am

There are lots of really cool stuff being developed, but with the back drop of the picture you painted.
Medical technology that is amazing
3d Printers that will soon be able to make more than plastic models
Spaceships
Production performance cars and motorcycles that are faster handle better and get 30 mpg than anything from the peak of the performance cars in the 60’s.
Supercomputers that you can carry in your pocket, Terabyte hard drives
There is great stuff happening, unfortunately many are so disconnected from what it’s taken humanity to get here that they want to tear it all down, though they are never the problem, it always someone else.

george e. smith
Reply to  micro6500
July 14, 2015 7:44 pm

My perfectly ordinary Subaru Impreza gets 50 mpg at freeway speed , when the traffic and diamond lanes let me drive at freeway speed.
So nuts to your 30 mpg cars.

Reply to  george e. smith
July 14, 2015 8:01 pm

Yeah, but will it catch my car when I pass you at 170 or more ?? 🙂

Owen in GA
July 14, 2015 4:14 am

Let me get this straight: Global warming will cause the water to bunch up in some places and neglect others. This must mean that air and sea circulation patterns will get very zonal and that the water vapor will be sucked into narrow foci. Otherwise it will just rain more everywhere, and what is defined as an “extreme rain event” now will just be a Tuesday afternoon.
I don’t get the hysteria here. Adapting to higher daily rain and spotty drought is simply a matter of capturing runoff and designing systems to store it. It is a simple investment in infrastructure and a little civil engineering. We’ve been doing this since Roman times at least and probably as far back as Babylonian times. Also, I seem to recall deaths to flash flooding being reported more often in pre-industrial times than now. Climate scientists need to study a little history and stop thinking the world started when they discovered the grant gravy train.

Editor
July 14, 2015 4:31 am

What is undoubtedly clear is that modern, fossil fuelled, developed economies are in a much better position to cope with floods than in the past (except when we build on flood plains of course!)

July 14, 2015 5:16 am

Hmmm, Sochi – you mean the place where there’s been massive construction and terraforming in preparation for the recent Olympics?
Any chance some of the measured warming was UHI effect?
Taylor

July 14, 2015 5:20 am

I grow weary of all these false assertions. The first few sentences of the post. It’s enough to make me weep at the stupidity or deliberate lies of so many people calling themselves scientists.

Ralph Kramden
July 14, 2015 5:27 am

In particular, the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide continue to warm the atmosphere
I wanted to test this to see if it’s true or a lie. I put the UAH version 6.0 global temperature data in a spreadsheet. The trend line slope is zero for the last 18 years and 4 months. No global warming whatsoever.

Bruce Cobb
July 14, 2015 5:55 am

“This much is clear” is a big tell that some big porkies are coming.

Warren Latham
July 14, 2015 5:57 am

Anthony,
Perhaps you would care to contact the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR) and suggest to them that they can now afford to donate their GRAVY TRAIN MONIES to a worthwhile, scientific place … such as WUWT. (Just a nice thought).
Regards and thanks,
WL

Realist
July 14, 2015 5:58 am

“…the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide continue to warm the atmosphere”
Not according to satellites.

JP
July 14, 2015 6:28 am

Ignoring that this “study” was little more than model simulations of a single weather event on a tiny slice of the globe, anyone who has studies weather realizes that the supply of water vapor is not enough. There are tropical islands in the Pacific surrounded by the largest source of water on earth that are virtual deserts.
The Black Sea is not in the tropics. And while the summer time temperatures often go above 40 deg C, the Crimea and surrounding areas in the Ukraine often dip below -10 deg C. Winter snow squalls accompanied by very cold temperatures are not unusual. In other words, the northern shores of the Black Sea are influenced by a dynamic mid latitude weather pattern as much as they are influenced by the sub-tropics. And to experience such meso-scale phenomenon as thunderstorms, or sub-synoptic scale thunderstorm complexes all rely upon some dynamic in the atmosphere to kick them off. Whether it is low level convergence aided by a high level outflow channel, or an upper level short wave trough, the story is the same: the atmosphere needs a some mechanism to set these storms off. And in a globe that is warming, those mechanisms are fewer than when the globe is cooling.
Large scale precipitation events during the summer months (like what the US is now seeing) occur when cold air masses are dense enough to penetrate into the subtropics. Of course, there are other phenomenon, like the MJO, that play a role too.

Berényi Péter
July 14, 2015 7:11 am

Due to ocean warming, the lower atmosphere has become more unstable over the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean.

Except neither the Black Sea nor the eastern Mediterranean are oceans.
The other thing is, at Sochi winters are way more rainy than summers. And guess what? The Black Sea is colder in wintertime. I have arrived at the latter proposition by an extensive modelling study, so there can be no doubt about it.

1sky1
Reply to  Berényi Péter
July 15, 2015 2:56 pm

Indeed, that’s far from any true ocean. Furthermore, the century-long station data in the study region show virtually trendless temperatures, albeit with a strong multi-decadal oscillation.

July 14, 2015 7:52 am

AGW theory has called for more droughts now it is more floods. AGW theory says nothing about nothing.
A more meridional atmospheric circulation pattern is going to give greater precipitation amounts along with a greater temperature gradient between the equator and poles.

Bruce Cobb
July 14, 2015 7:57 am

“Ocean warming” must have caused Boston’s record-breaking snows this past winter. A 75-foot tall “snow mountain” has just now finally disappeared.

Richard of NZ
Reply to  Bruce Cobb
July 14, 2015 2:35 pm

But the claim is that a dry spring retarded the melting of the ‘mountain” which is contrary to the premiss of the paper under discussion.

July 14, 2015 8:04 am

Several things to consider but with certainty, there will be more rain and heavier rain events………..all things being equal when you have a warmer ocean and warmer atmosphere. This is basic meteorology. Warmer air holds more moisture, warmer waters contributed more moisture.
The observations clearly confirm this. Our planet has more low level moisture than it did 30 years ago. One can see the effect on temperatures too. The vast majority of warm records have been coming from record high minimums vs far fewer record high maximums. This is exactly as you would expect with air that has more water vapor(more humid/higher dew points).
However, the greater warming taking place at higher latitudes has caused a change that relates to the extreme events which contribute greatly towards excessive rain events.
The meridional temperature gradient has been weakened. This is what give the atmosphere energy for many extreme events……..mid latitude cyclones and jet streams for instance(which in turn causes extreme events like severe storms/tornadoes).
So there could be an offsetting element related to this but that is unclear. An important element would relate to “blocking” type patterns that stall out and result in the same place being effected for a longer period of time with one kind of weather vs a more progressive flow pattern that results in that weather being of shorter duration.
We know many of the jet streams are weaker with global warming(high latitudes) and we get less extreme types of some weather in high/middle latitudes. However certain jet streams(like those related to an El Nino for instance) and stalled jet streams may be enhanced by global warming, in which case, the added moisture from the warmer ocean and atmosphere would amplify the excessive rain element of events.
This is not to say that one side should only count the bad things associated with the beneficial warming of higher latitudes. In fact, though the excessive rain events increasing are legit here, almost everything else, based on authentic, objective science, including meteorology/climate and biology associated with increasing the beneficial gas, CO2, has made a positive contribution (massive in the realm of photosynthesis) to life on earth.

July 14, 2015 8:23 am

THis seems to be from the department of the obvious. Warm water results in more evaporation, resulting in more clouds, resulting in more rain. I thought everyone know that already…

July 14, 2015 8:30 am

Re: Ocean warming stronger precip 7/14/15:
First sentence: That the temperatures on our planet are rising is clear.
The first sentence is incompetent, especially without specifying a time period, to say nothing about the contrary data over the last 1.5 decades.
Second sentence: In particular, the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide continue to warm the atmosphere.
The science behind the 2d sentence is incompetent. This former conjecture, since shown invalid, implies that increases in CO2 causes the atmosphere to warm. That model requires one to show that the CO2 leads the warming. The paleo record shows it lags. That requirement is the scientific principle of causality underlying causation. (Note: sometimes these two words are reversed in usage.) Without saying more, that would be a mere statistical statement. However, an underlying law of physics applies, Henry’s Law of Solubility, which for CO2 in water says that warming causes the oceans to release CO2 into the atmosphere. If the 2d sentence were correct, climatology would have invalidated Henry’s Law, a most improbable occurrence.
The rest of the discussion seems to be about regional phenomena, but the title of the article presumably is an observation about global climate.
Nothing here, folks. Keep moving.

alacran
Reply to  Jeff Glassman
July 14, 2015 9:47 am

With regard to the competence in “Kiel”, I think of famous Prof. Mojib Latif, the “After 2007 no snow-man”! I suspect a complex connection with the increasing temperature gradient between the tropics and the cooling polar regions.Seems to be “clearer” than the warming “Mumpitz”!(=ridiculous nonsens, pronouced “moompits” – oo -short as in -book-)

vounaki
July 14, 2015 9:02 am

How soon can we plant the Sahara?

RWturner
Reply to  vounaki
July 14, 2015 10:47 am

According to my model it is already a lush deciduous forest.

Zeke
July 14, 2015 9:40 am

“At the end of June 2015, the nearby Olympic city of Sochi experienced an unusually intense precipitation event. Over 175 mm of rain was recorded in 12 hours, showing the relevance of the scientists work. “Due to ocean warming, the lower atmosphere has become more unstable over the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean.”
The “relevance of the scientists’ work” was not demonstrated at all. The relevance of our drainage and sewage engineers was demonstrated! For example, a wastewater treatment system installed in Nebraska soon after being constructed handled a historic rainfall event and the water and sewer was flushed safely away from the city. This testing also struck Bazalgette’s sewer in London soon after it was constructed, as it was deluged nearly to the capacity designed by the genius engineer.
This article should only demonstrate to us all once again, not the “relevance of the scientists’ work,” but the relevance of the wastewater engineers’ work in the US and other countries who have given us indoor plumbing and sewer to every home.
It underlines the relevance of the work of people who worked behind the scenes to destroy cholera and safely handle sewage and drainage. Water, sewage and electricity to all homes should surely be considered as fundamental to any definition of civilization. And any real education should include a basic understanding of these extraordinary accomplishments by very ordinary people. Thank you to engineers and drainage experts who have done their jobs so well that we do not notice them.

RWturner
July 14, 2015 10:43 am

And it just so happens that their “showcase” area has no easily accessible weather records. How convenient.

Louis Hunt
July 14, 2015 11:32 am

“The Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean have warmed by about 2 C since the early 1980s.”
They had some heavy rainfall, which they imply has never happened before, but has the 2 degrees of warming been “catastrophic”? Has it caused a mass migration out of the area? Or have there also been some positive effects that have outweighed the negative and kept people from leaving? While it’s important to understand the possible negative effects of a warming climate, isn’t it also important to understand the positive effects? Otherwise, how can we know whether a warming climate isn’t a net-positive for most areas of the planet? I have a feeling that is the last thing they would want to learn from climate research.

Celeste Z deBetta
July 14, 2015 11:46 am

catastrophic flash food ???
Pizza maybe?

Ron Clutz
July 14, 2015 11:53 am

In the IPCC summary they claim that rising CO2 will cause rising temperatures that will cause disruptions in precipitation, resulting in dry places getting drier and wet places getting wetter. But the issue of where the rain falls is complicated and do not follow that simplistic assertion. Yes, the rain comes from oceans evaporating, but which land gets the rain has much to do with the biotic pump, as explained by A. M Makarieva et al:comment image?w=1000&h=956
Forests are the key factor, and biofuel policies are hurting, not helping.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/here-comes-the-rain-again/

kim
Reply to  Ron Clutz
July 14, 2015 12:00 pm

And they call the Wind Makarieva.
=============

Ron Clutz
Reply to  kim
July 14, 2015 12:02 pm

Blast from the past–Kingston Trio

John F. Hultquist
Reply to  kim
July 14, 2015 9:52 pm

Ron Clutz,
In 1958, I think, The Kingston Trio “covered” a song from the 1951 Broadway musical, Paint Your Wagon. The title was They Call the Wind Maria.

JJM Gommers
July 14, 2015 12:50 pm

It must be a result of certain prevailing wind conditions, this is the only low level area where wind can pass, from there to the east the Caucasus mountains gradually rising up. This area is a kind of a throttle valve for the wind like the Mistral in France. Black Sea is always warm in summertime and I passed Krimsk on my way to Anapa in 1999 for holidays in july. Last year I tried to spent holidays on the Crimea but due to bad weather and the small ferry with long waiting times I got stuck . Besides these bad weather conditions are not unusual for that area.

David Cage
July 14, 2015 11:32 pm

Using the logic of the climate scientists that correlation means cause and effect, on a course I went on the pupils were asked to find the best correlation with the most stupid cause and effect. Someone proved that aids was caused by sales of Toyota land cruisers in Harare.
More plausible is that more extremes of precipitation is actually caused as predicted by one climate scientist in the late sixties by clean air. If I remember correctly he showed with quite simple equipment that because rainfall started when moisture coalesced round dirt particles, clean air meant that higher moisture levels were needed before we got that rainfall so when it did occur it was far heavier.

Coeur de Lion
July 15, 2015 2:00 am

I loved what Ivor Ward had to say. Getting up for morning stars was a wonderful experience, particularly in the Pacific. And one could get a bacon and egg sandwich from the galley after the calculations, with a bit of luck.

Bryan
July 15, 2015 6:44 am

Weather buoys routinely measure wind speed and have done for some time.
They are isolated from cities by and large.
If there was an increase in global near surface temperature one would expect this average wind speed data to show a steady rise.
As far as I know this issue has never been pushed by alarmists.

Pamela Gray
July 15, 2015 2:58 pm

hmmm. A model, tuned to the observed conditions present before the rainstorm, then allowed to run to see if the rainstorm would happen. And this points to an anthropogenic driver how?
“Extreme Precipitation in an Atmosphere General Circulation Model: Impact of Horizontal and Vertical Model Resolutions”
Sorry, I have not found an open access pre-print…yet.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EGUGA..1711485M

Pamela Gray
Reply to  Pamela Gray
July 15, 2015 2:59 pm
Pamela Gray
Reply to  Pamela Gray
July 15, 2015 3:00 pm
Pamela Gray
Reply to  Pamela Gray
July 15, 2015 3:37 pm

Drat. Links don’t work. But I have found a related article regarding the model setting that should be used to determine whether or not extreme precipitation events can be modeled. I will keep looking for the other.
https://oceanrep.geomar.de/26044/1/jcli-d-14-00337.1.pdf