Not finding any, Gore airbrushes in hurricanes for his new book

19 11 2009

Al Gore’s new book had a problem – no big hurricanes since Katrina to put in the book to look “threatening” to the USA. Any imagined link between hurricanes and global warming has evaporated.

Solution: the artists airbrush.

Ryan Maue, hurricane expert from Florida State University writes:

Anthony,

Not a lot of hurricanes here

The cover opens and closes half and half — so you only see one hurricane…as in the press release photo or the one on  Amazon.

But this is the real picture sequence from the book which I looked at Borders today and took cell-phone pictures, original (before the retouching by some “artist”) Note all of the Arctic ice and the size of the Florida Peninsula…
and the final product: Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 209 Comments »

Categories : hurricanes, politics, ridiculae

More on the record high-low temperature debacle

15 11 2009

U.S. Record Temperatures—A Closer Look

From World Climate Report:

high-low-thermometerA new paper that is soon to appear in the journal Geophysical Research Letters finds that across the U.S. daily record high temperatures are being set at about twice the frequency of daily record low temperatures and that this ratio—number of record highs to the number of record lows, has been growing larger over the past 50 years.

The popular press seems to be particularly taken with this finding, although headline proclamations fail to disclose important details of the actual findings reported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research’s (NCAR) Gerald Meehl and colleagues.

Although you can hardly blame the press, because the NCAR press release did much to lead them down this muddy path.

Meehl et al. find that the reason more daily maximum temperature records are being set than daily minimum temperatures records is because there are fewer than expected daily lows records being set, not because there are more daily high records than expected. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 40 Comments »

Categories : records, weather

Little Ice Age thermometers – History and Reliability

14 11 2009

Little Ice Age thermometers – History and Reliability

Guest post by TonyB

How reliable are The Little Ice Age thermometers ?

The Little Ice age thermometers project is an attempt to compile instrumental readings from 1660 that predate the era of modern ‘global temperatures’ as recorded by Hadley (1850) and Giss (1880). These datasets are accessed from a graphic through this link;

http://climatereason.com/LittleIceAgeThermometers/

LIA Thermometers

The project will examine the reliability of these historic datasets as a means for climate researchers to gaze into our past to see if there are any lessons for the present. In this respect many of those individual stations found to date will have been included in the Cru datasets that are not readily accessible to those outside selected members of the scientific community. In order to examine these records and place them into context with Hadley/Cru and Giss, the author has produced three separate but interlinked articles as follows;

Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 68 Comments »

Categories : climate data, measurement, records, weather, weather_stations

NCAR: Number of record highs beat record lows – if you believe the quality of data from the weather stations

12 11 2009
SurfaceStationsReportCover

click for PDF

I’ll have a lot more on this study later, but for now just a short rebuttal.

I believe this study is hopelessly flawed due to the fact that the authors take the data from the weather stations at face value without considering bias due to measurement error or siting error, both of which are rampant in the US surface station network.

Read my report at left.

While not all situations with poorly sited weather stations affect trends, a weather station like this one at the University of Arizona’s parking lot in front of the atmospheric science department is represenative of the kinds of problems that would lead to an increased number of new high temperature records set.

 

Tucson1.jpg

Above: official USHCN weather station, in the parking lot, Atmospheric Science Dept. University of Arizona, Tucson. Photo: Warren Meyer

 

Plus then there’s the error problem. For example we saw this summer that Honolulu set new record highs, but they turned out to be in error. The kicker is that NOAA let the records stand anyway! The problem is that a number of climate stations are at airports. Watch this NWS employee say on record that these airport weather stations are “placed for aviation purposes…not necessarily for  climate purposes.”

So take this NCAR study with a grain of salt, since the authors did not address any of these issues.

From NCAR: Record High Temperatures Far Outpace Record Lows Across U.S.

BOULDER—Spurred by a warming climate, daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental United States, new research shows. The ratio of record highs to lows is likely to increase dramatically in coming decades if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to climb.

“Climate change is making itself felt in terms of day-to-day weather in the United States,” says Gerald Meehl, the lead author and a senior scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The ways these records are being broken show how our climate is already shifting.”

temps

This graphic shows the ratio of record daily highs to record daily lows observed at about 1,800 weather stations in the 48 contiguous United States from January 1950 through September 2009. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 120 Comments »

Categories : records, weather, weather_stations

NCDC: October USA – temperature 3rd coldest on record, wettest ever on record

11 11 2009

From the NOAA National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), State of the Climate, National Overview, October 2009:

asos-oct2009-nocities

Temperature Highlights – October

  • The average October temperature of 50.8°F was 4.0°F below the 20th Century average and ranked as the 3rd coolest based on preliminary data.
  • For the nation as a whole, it was the third coolest October on record. The month was marked by an active weather pattern that reinforced unseasonably cold air behind a series of cold fronts. Temperatures were below normal in eight of the nation’s nine climate regions, and of the nine, five were much below normal. Only the Southeast climate region had near normal temperatures for October.
  • Statewide temperatures coincided with the regional values as all but six states had below normal temperatures. Oklahoma had its coolest October on record and ten other states had their top five coolest such months.
  • Florida was the only state to have an above normal temperature average in October. It was the sixth consecutive month that the Florida’s temperature was above normal, resulting in the third warmest such period (May-October).
  • The three-month period (August-October) was the coolest on record for three states: Nebraska, Kansas, and Oklahoma. Five other states had top five cool periods: Missouri (2nd), Iowa (3rd) , Arkansas (5th) , Illinois (5th) and South Dakota (5th) . Every climate division in Kansas (nine) and Nebraska (eight) recorded a record cool such period.
  • For the year-to-date (January – October) period, the contiguous U.S. temperature ranked 43rd warmest. No state had a top or bottom ten temperature value for this period. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 127 Comments »

Categories : climate data, records, weather

Lightning: a new tool for accurately measuring the sun’s rotation when sunspots are not present

11 11 2009
Patterns of Lightning Activity

Patterns of Lightning Activity

This is one big surprise. Moments of serendipity are some of the best quotes of science: “Hmmm, that’s odd”. As an amateur radio operator myself, I find this study fascinating. If you want to know more about VLF radio, see the NASA online VLF radio receiver link below.

http://www.spaceweather.com/audio/inspire/spherics_big.jpg

Sferics, short for "atmospherics", are impulsive signals emitted by lightning. Sferics are caused by lightning strokes within a thousand kilometers or so of the receiver. The dynamic spectra of sferics are characterized by vertical lines indicating the simultaneous arrival of all audio frequencies.

Learn more (and listen to the signals) at NASA’s INSPIRE online VLF radio receiver. – Anthony

From Tel Aviv University: A Lightning Strike in Africa Helps Take the Pulse of the Sun

 

TAU discovers an accurate tool for tracking solar rotation

Sunspots, which rotate around the sun’s surface, tell us a great deal about our own planet. Scientists rely on them, for instance, to measure the sun’s rotation or to prepare long-range forecasts of the Earth’s health.

But there are some years, like this one, where it’s not possible to see sunspots clearly. When we’re at this “solar minimum,” very few, if any, sunspots are visible from Earth. That poses a problem for scientists in a new scientific field called “Space Weather,” which studies the interaction between the sun and the Earth’s environment.

Thanks to a serendipitous discovery by Tel Aviv University’s Prof. Colin Price, head of TAU’s Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science, and his graduate student Yuval Reuveni, science now has a more definitive and reliable tool for measuring the sun’s rotation when sunspots aren’t visible — and even when they are. The research, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research – Space Physics, could have important implications for understanding the interactions between the sun and the Earth. Best of all, it’s based on observations of common, garden-variety lightning strikes here on Earth. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 114 Comments »

Categories : Science, lightning, solar

Watching Ida – back to a tropical storm

8 11 2009

BUMPED, UPDATED:

TS Ida, once hurricane Ida and a Cat 2 storm last night, has now fallen apart.

To help you keep an eye on it, I have the satellite imagery here along with animated loops.

Animate this image: Loop it >>>

Here’s the latest advisory and trajectory map from the National Hurricane Center:

Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 39 Comments »

Categories : hurricanes, weather

Chilled Kiwi’s: Coldest October since 1945

7 11 2009

From the weather is not climate department, it seems that the USA is not the only country experiencing an October cold snap.

http://www.christchurchnz.com/media/1007616/Bus_mountains_snow.jpg

Bus tour to the mountains. Undated image from: christchurchnz.com

Coldest October in 64 years

LATEST: It will come as little surprise to most New Zealanders that the country shivered through the coldest October in 64 years.

In its climate summary for the month, the Niwa said the average temperature nationwide was 10.6degC _ 1.4degC below average.

Such a cold October has occurred only four times in the past 100 years, the last time in 1945. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 47 Comments »

Categories : records, weather

October 2009 3rd Coldest for US in 115 Years, What about the Upcoming Winter?

7 11 2009

Guest post by Joseph D’Aleo AMS fellow, CCM

NCDC has compiled the October temperatures and it ended up the 3rd coldest in 115 years. As we have shown it was cold over almost all the lower 48. Indeed only Florida came in above normal. There is no [NOAA/NCDC] press release out yet but it should be interesting.


Enlarged here

October with a mean of 50.8F was behind only 1976 with 50.7F and 1925 with 49.4F. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 45 Comments »

Categories : climate data, records, snowfall

October’s significant chill – take your pick on descriptors

5 11 2009

October, a time for great pumpkins, but not higher US temperatures this time around.

http://www.coyoteblog.com/photos/uncategorized/pumpkin1.jpg

Image: Warren Meyers Coyote Blog

In our last climatic episode from NCDC we had: NOAA: September Temperature Above-Average for the U.S.

The average September temperature of 66.4 degrees F was 1.0 degree F above the 20th Century average.

This month’s NOAA climate press release hasn’t been issued yet, but it will be interesting to see what they say about it.

In the meantime, using the NCDC database, you can come to your own conclusion about what October 2009 was like and if it matches what the upcoming October climate press release will say.

Have a look at this: Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 172 Comments »

Categories : climate data, records, weather

NASA grant to create Mars weather forecasts

4 11 2009

From a Texas A&M Press Release

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA11418.jpg

Mars, Image: NASA JPL

Is there such a thing as “weather” on Mars? There are some doubts, considering the planet’s atmosphere is only 1 percent as dense as that of the Earth. Mars, however, definitely has clouds, drastically low temperatures and out-of-this-world dust storms, and Istvan Szunyogh, a Texas A&M professor of atmospheric sciences, has been awarded a NASA grant to analyze and forecast Martian weather.

Mars is the most Earth-like planet we know, but it is still quite different. For example, it is much colder on Mars.

The south pole of the Earth is covered by water ice, but the south pole of Mars wears a dry ice (frozen carbon dioxide) cap. In winter, the temperature at the poles can dip to -140°C (-220 degrees Fahrenheit), which is so cold that even carbon dioxide freezes.

“Planet-encircling Martian dust storms, which occur every two to four Mars years, can cover the whole planet with dust for months,” notes Szunyogh, who is working with colleagues from the University of Maryland and the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, N.J., to forecast Martian weather.

Why care about weather on Mars? After all, nobody lives, works or goes to school there. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 55 Comments »

Categories : forecasting, space, weather

Arizona gets some interesting new minimum high records

29 10 2009

From the “weather is not climate department”….whether it is cold or snow, long lived records keep falling, and recently in large numbers.

Today, new “minimum high” records fell in a traditionally warm southwest state.

Flagstaff, and Prescott, Williams, and Winslow Arizona all significantly bested the old records set on this date. Here’s the outlook map from the NWS Flagstaff:

flagstaff_forecast

Forecast map from NWS Flagstaff, AZ

And here is the NWS record event report: Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 72 Comments »

Categories : records, weather

Tornados and global warming link – “just not there”

28 10 2009

We’ve contended many times before that severe weather and global warming are not linked. Here’s a new essay on the issue.

Tornado Hunter

The "Tornado Hunter" from XKCD - click for original

From CO2 Science

Tornados — Summary

Climate alarmists typically claim that global warming will lead to both more frequent and more intense stormy weather; and in terms of their ferocity, tornados rank pretty high on the scale of societal concern. Nevertheless, they have mostly been studied, in this regard, together with several other types of storms, as is the case with the majority of the papers discussed in this summary.

In a major review of “temporal fluctuations in weather and climate extremes that cause economic and human health impacts” — as they titled their study of the subject — Kunkel et al. (1999) analyzed empirical data related to historical trends of several different types of extreme weather events and their societal impacts. This work revealed, in their words, that “most measures of the economic impacts of weather and climate extremes over the past several decades reveal increasing losses.” However, they found that “trends in most related weather and climate extremes do not show comparable increases with time,” suggesting that “increasing losses are primarily due to increasing vulnerability arising from a variety of societal changes, including a growing population in higher risk coastal areas and large cities, more property subject to damage, and lifestyle and demographic changes subjecting lives and property to greater exposure.” Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 34 Comments »

Categories : Alarmism, tornadoes, weather

The “cold war” hits home – October in like a lion, out like a fridge

25 10 2009

It’s not looking good for the coming Halloween. Button up those trick or treaters. Fall, we hardly knew ya. Here’s a roundup of interesting cold weather events in the last week. Check out the forecast graphic at the bottom of this story.

http://icecap.us/images/uploads/Oct1-19.jpg

From Bill Steffen, WOOD-TV.

October 22nd. A weather station in Berchtesgaden National Park in Bavaria has recorded the coldest temperature ever in Germany during the month of October. The thermometer dipped to -24.3C or -11.7F.  Clear skies, calm winds and fresh snow was the perfect combination for the record chill.   The city of Augsburg, Germany has been 9.3 degrees colder than average during the past week. Prague in the Czech Republic is supposed to be in the mid 50s at this time of year. They had 3 days with temperatures stuck in the 30s and even picked up some snow flurries.

…

From CBS-TV in Chicago:

October Cold Snap Sets 82-Year Record Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 105 Comments »

Categories : records, weather

Cold start to fall continues, 252 more low temperature records set in the USA this week

23 10 2009

More new record lows, lowest max temperature, and snowfall this week. The new low records outnumber the high records. There were an impressive number of Lowest Max Temperature records set also, 1129.

USA_records_1017-1024-2009

Source Hamweather climate center and NOAA/NWS

Here’s a listing of the record events by category: Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 78 Comments »

Categories : records, weather

Where are the Hurricanes Mr. Gore?

23 10 2009

By Alan Caruba, Warning Signs

That god among men and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Al Gore, told us in “An Inconvenient Truth”, his Oscar-winning documentary, that we had to brace for increasing numbers of hurricanes as the result of global warming.

So, where are the hurricanes of 2009, Mr. Gore?

The hurricane season that runs from June through October is about to end with nothing more than one weak to borderline moderate tropical storm that hit Florida’s panhandle, but there have been NO hurricanes.

So, where are the hurricanes of 2009, Mr. Gore?

Trying to predict how many hurricanes there will be each year is probably fun, but is a highly risky undertaking. I have a lot of friends among the meteorological and climatological community, men of science, but I always cross my fingers for them when they take a run at it.

This year, Bill Gray of Colorado State, perhaps the best known among the hurricane forecasters, thought there would be at least 7 hurricanes of which 3 would be major. Weather Services Inc. agreed with Dr. Gray and, over at Accuweather, the prediction was for 8 hurricanes of which 2 would be major.

NOAA and the National Weather Service do not predict hurricanes, but as political as well as scientific entities they have a very bad track record of trying to confirm Al Gore’s global warming claims.
Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 106 Comments »

Categories : hurricanes

If a hurricane dies in the middle Atlantic, does it make a sound?

20 10 2009

Desperate de jour – trying to locate unreported hurricanes prior to the satellite era by looking through old seismometer records in an attempt to prop up the imagined “global warming equals more hurricanes” connection….which we know doesn’t exist and has been debunked time and again. Most recently is was falsified  yesterday with FSU’s ACE graph, showing hurricane levels at a 30 year low.

Seismograph

From a Geological Society of America press release:

Seismic Noise Unearths Lost Hurricanes

Boulder, CO USA – Seismologists have found a new way to piece together the history of hurricanes in the North Atlantic – by looking back through records of the planet’s seismic noise. It’s an entirely new way to tap into the rich trove of seismic records, and the strategy might help establish a link between global warming and the frequency or intensity of hurricanes.

“Looking for something like hurricane records in seismology doesn’t occur to anybody,” said Carl Ebeling, of Northwestern University in Evanston. “It’s a strange and wondrous combination.”

The research is attempting to address a long-standing debate about whether the warming of sea-surface waters as a result of climate change is producing more frequent or more powerful hurricanes in the North Atlantic. It’s a tough question to answer. Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 45 Comments »

Categories : earth, hurricanes, paleoclimatology

A cold start to fall: over 4500 new snowfall, low temp, and lowest max temp records set in the USA this last week

18 10 2009
Click for a larger image

Click for a larger image

The Record Events map depicts the official National Weather Service records recorded for the defined date(s) or time period, which includes record high and low temperatures, record high minimum temperatures, record low maximum temperatures, record daily rainfall and record daily snowfall. Source: Hamweather Climate Center and NOAA/NWS

Record Events for Sat Oct 10, 2009 through Fri Oct 16, 2009
Total Records: 6257
Rainfall: 859
Snowfall: 297
High Temperatures: 369
Low Temperatures: 785
Lowest Max Temperatures: 3473
Highest Min Temperatures: 474

While there are way too many lowest maximum temperature records set to list here, the record lows and the snowfall records are listed below.
US Low Temperature Records 10-10 thru 10-18 2009 Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 212 Comments »

Categories : records, weather

Early start to winter ≈20% of USA is covered in snow already

14 10 2009

While early autumn snowstorms aren’t uncommon in US weather history, they tend to be quick affairs that melt off quickly in a day or two. This however is a bit different in that we have a significant portion of the northern Midwest plains and northern Rockies are snow covered and it is not quickly dissipating, in fact it is increasing. Since October 10th the coverage has increased from 13.2% of the USA covered by snow.

This map below is from NOAA’s NOHRSC National Snow Analysis page.

nsm_depth_2009101305_National

Here is the accompanying table and discussion:

October 13, 2009

Area Covered By Snow: 19.9%
Area Covered Last Month: 0.0%
Snow Depth
Average: 0.7 in
Minimum: 0.0 in
Maximum: 728.8 in
Std. Dev.: 2.1 in
Snow Water Equivalent
Average: 0.1 in
Minimum: 0.0 in
Maximum: 403.4 in
Std. Dev.: 0.4 in

By way of comparison, here is the October 13th USA snow cover for the last few years:

2003- .7
2004- .3
2005- 1.7
2006- 3.7
2007- .3
2008-12.7
2009-19.9

What is also interesting is the 6 year trend of snow depth on this date.

USA_snow_depth_oct13

2003- 38.2 in
2004-322.6 in
2005-456.9 in
2006-223.2 in
2007-458.1 in
2008-600.6 in
2009-728.8 in

You can watch the snow cover advance in the animation they provide: Read the rest of this entry »


Comments : 239 Comments »

Categories : snowfall, weather

NOAA: September Temperature Above-Average for the U.S.

13 10 2009

The September 2009 average temperature for the contiguous United States was above the long-term average, according to NOAA’s monthly State of the Climate report issued today. Based on records going back to 1895, the monthly National Climatic Data Center analysis is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides.

The average September temperature of 66.4 degrees F was 1.0 degree F above the 20th Century average.  Precipitation across the contiguous United States in September averaged 2.48 inches, exactly the 1901-2000 average.

August 2009 statewide temperature ranks.

High resolution (Credit: NOAA)

U.S. Temperature Highlights

  • Below-normal temperatures across parts of the south and Northeast were offset by record high values in the West and above normal temperatures in the Northwest and northern tier states resulting in a higher average temperature for the contiguous United States.
  • Both California and Nevada experienced their warmest September of the 115-year record. Additionally Montana and North Dakota posted their third warmest, Idaho its fourth warmest, Utah fifth warmest, Minnesota sixth warmest, and Oregon registered its eighth warmest.
  • On a regional level, the West experienced its warmest September on record. The Northwest and West North Central experienced their sixth and eleventh warmest such periods. Below-normal temperatures were recorded in the South and Northeast. Read the rest of this entry »

Comments : 68 Comments »

Categories : Climate News, climate data, weather

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