A guest post by Mike Smith, CCM and AMS Fellow.
The Midwest floods were rolling downstream last week, setting river stage records in Iowa, bursting levees on the Mississippi, and causing thousands to be displayed from their homes. Billions have been lost in damaged and destroyed property and 24 lives lost.
In the midst of this tragedy, the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) and the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) tried to capitalize on heightened public interest with an attempt to gain headlines by tying these tragic events to “global warming.”
The EDF proclaimed: Did Humans Cause the Midwest Flooding? In the piece, EDF’s James Wang writes, “Another element [of the Midwest floods] may be global warming, which increases the probability of extreme weather events like torrential rain.” NCDC, a part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, headlined, Extreme Weather to Become More Common. The respective headlines can be found at http://environmentaldefenseblogs.org/climate411/ and www.noaa.gov/ .
This is fear mongering, not the advancement of science. And, it detracts from NOAA as a whole because its National Weather Service performed heroically – with its field staff working long hours coping with the floods and accompanying tornadoes and severe thunderstorms.
It is unseemly to work to score public relations points when people are losing their homes, their crops, and their lives.
And, it leaves us to ponder a key question: Does the science justify tying the Midwest floods to Global Warming? My answer? An emphatic “no.”
In explaining its contention EDF says, “Global warming intensifies the ‘hydrological cycle’ – the process in which water evaporates into the air, forms clouds, and then rains back down on the Earth.” While that contention that global warming intensifies the hydrologic cycle is itself speculative (for reasons outside the scope of this posting), the fact is a given tornado or rainstorm responds to weather, not climate, conditions.
EDF author James Wang goes on to say, “Global warming doesn’t fully explain the catastrophe in the Midwest, but it likely [emphasis mine] plays a role.” The contention that “warming” is linked to catastrophic Midwest floods is relatively easy to test. Here’s how: What were the temperatures during this and similar floods in the region?
When the atmosphere creates weather it is responding to the conditions that exist in the lower atmosphere at the time of the event – temperatures, pressures, humidity, etc. From a weather perspective, what is the trend of global temperatures in the lower atmosphere when the intense rainstorms were created? Anthony Watts provides this graph of satellite-measured lower tropopsphere temperatures:
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/rss_may_081.png
As these figures demonstrate, lower tropospheric temperatures (the part of the atmosphere where weather is generated) have reverted to the levels of 11 years ago after a period of rapid cooling over the last year and a half. In addition to RSS, the other three measures of world temperatures reveal the same cooling pattern: http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:1997/to:2009/offset:-0.146/plot/gistemp/from:1997/to:2009/offset:-0.238/plot/uah/from:1997/to:2009/plot/rss/from:1997/to:2009 . As Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. has previously discussed, the oceans (the more important indicator of global temperature change) have not been warming in recent years and have actually cooled slightly. The “warming” conditions explict in the EDF claim and implicit in the NOAA release do not exist.
As a clue as to what temperature temperature pattern, if any, might really be associated this year’s floods, compare the temperature drop depicted on the RSS graph from January, 2007 to May, 2008 with the drop during months 150 to 170. This cooling is widely attributed to the June, 1991, (month 149 on the graph) eruption of Mt. Pinatubo. That explosive volcanic eruption spread particulates into the stratopshere, shading the earth and cooling the lower atmosphere. A period of extremely heavy rains began in the Plains and Midwest in months 169 and 170 (depending on location) that lasted well into summer resulting in the Great Flood of 1993 in many of the same areas that were in flood last week. In both cases, temperatures were far lower than in the peak year of 1998.
Why might Midwest flooding be linked to rapid cooling? Here is some “educated speculation”: Oceans lose heat more slowly than land. The Gulf of Mexico is the primary source of the low-level moisture that feeds weather and storms in the Midwest. A warm Gulf can provide large amounts of moisture. However, over North America, temperatures have been unusually cool (c.f., Anchorage sets record for latest ‘first 70° temperature’ of the year, story from June 20, 2008, http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/20/anchorage-sets-new-record-for-latest-high-temp-day/ ) and, from June 6, 2008 NCDC provides further evidence in its “U.S. Has 36th Coolest Spring on Record” (www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080606_ncdcspring.html ). The accompanying map reveals the Midwest was colder than normal. By contrast, the Gulf Coast states were considerably warmer. Texas was warmer than normal with “normal” temperatures in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. These states’ temperatures were strongly influenced by the warm Gulf air flowing over on them its way north to the Midwest.
Basic meteorological principles indicate that persistent cold air to the west and north and warm, moist air to the south and east is a recipe for frequent intense thunderstorms. This pattern was certainly in evidence during spring 2008. The map accompanying NOAA press release shows this pattern in more detail: www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/images/03-05Statewidetrank_pg_final.gif . Higher numbers equal warmer temperatures. Note how it was warm in Louisiana (70th) and progressively cooler with each state to the north: Arkansas (31), Missouri (26), Iowa (24), and Minnesota (23). The Northwest was extremely cold with Oregon reporting the 15th coldest spring since records began. This is an ideal pattern for frequent thunderstorms with heavy rains.
If last week’s Iowa flooding and world temperatures are linked in the way the EDF contends (i.e., higher world temperatures result in more Iowa flooding), there would have been record flooding in Iowa in 1998. While June, 1998 was wet in southern and eastern Iowa (www.cpc.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/regional_monitoring/palmer/1998/06-20-1998.gif ) major flooding approaching the scale of 1993 or 2008 did not occur.
The record Midwest floods of 1993 and 2008 occurred after periods of rapid cooling. The warmest year, 1998, did not have Midwest floods anywhere near the magnitude of those in 1993 and 2008. It is my judgment the attempt to link the 2008 floods to Global “Warming” is completely unjustified.
Mike Smith is a certified consulting meteorologist and a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society and the opinions stated above represent his personal point-of-view. He is CEO of WeatherData Services, Inc., an AccuWeather Company, based in Wichita. AccuWeather’s global warming blog can be viewed at: http://global-warming.accuweather.com/ .
See the report for yourself.
http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080619_climatereport.html
Looks like the Atlantic hurricane season is now about toget underway http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at200892_sat.html#a_topad
Last season was a strange one, if it hadn’t been for the high wind shear could have been devastating (two catagory 5 made landfall, umprecedented,and one became a hurricane from a tropical depression in 24 hours,again unprecedented.) Anthony, I don’t agree that there is no link between tropicalstorm intensity and global warming, increased temperatures would also increase wind (which also cools SST). This wind shear can ‘kill’ off hurricanes before they get started as happened a few times last year. You also say that
“The number of F2-F5 tornados has not followed predictions of increases either, though we have better reporting.” But hasn’t this year been one of the worst for tornadoes?
Sorry, Norm, but that report only talks about “what ifs”, not definites. There’s zero evidence that weather events have become more extreme or more frequent over the last century. The busiest North Atlantic Hurricane season on record is still in the late 1800s, even with all our advanced detection techniques and naming of storms which wouldn’t have been named, or even detected, 50 years ago. If you look back and the last 3 years’ predictions of hurricane seasons (how dismally they failed to predict), and still believe that report, well, all I can say is I hope the Kool-Aid tasted good.
Show me some observational proof, not output from computer models.
So Jeff I suppose that predictions by NOAA, which can’t be verified by “observational proof” (because they are predictions of the future) don’t hold any water with you? I guess computer models aren’t to be trusted in your world. Well my friend let’s just see what the next ten years has in store for the good ol’ U.S. of A. Talk to me ten years from now when crops have failed and massive storms have devastated the country. You can observe that.
Look at last years hurricane predictions and get back to me.
Well, then, simply provide some scientific proof of observed warming causing more and powerful hurricanes and you’ll be a rich man. So far the evidence hasn’t materialized, except in computer models.
Mike Keep (15:56:19) :
“Last season was a strange one, if it hadn’t been for the high wind shear could have been devastating (two catagory 5 made landfall, umprecedented,and one became a hurricane from a tropical depression in 24 hours,again unprecedented.)”
And a bunch of storms made it up to hurricane status for just a day and faded away. Don’t forget that some of last year’s “problems” were due to Saharan dust. Sun would warm the air, not the ocean, so SSTs were depressed and the atmosphere more stable. I don’t know if that’s repeating this year. Atlantic hurricanes are an awful, awful thing to try to correlate with global warming. The big increase starting with 1995 has much more in common with busy periods in the 1950s and 1930s. It will be interesting to see what happens now that the Pacific Decadal Oscillation has flipped negative. That will bring more La Ninas, and those tend to have less windshear.
” “The number of F2-F5 tornados has not followed predictions of increases either, though we have better reporting.” But hasn’t this year been one of the worst for tornadoes?”
Yes, but it’s not like 1974, is it? A Google search for tornado 1974 reports over two million pages. 1974 was during the last negative PDO phase, so it’s not too surprising that this year has a lot of tornadoes.
Do you remember the winter of 75/76 when the Ohio River froze and coal barges couldn’t deliver coal to Ohio power stations? Industry and schools shutdown for a couple weeks, although Amish schools stayed open. How about Boston harbor freezing over? That hasn’t happened recently.
Norm, they’ve been making the same predictions for 30 years now, and none of it has come to pass. So no, they don’t hold any water with me. It’s like the Doomsday predictors. Their predictions fail, so they make up new ones. Oddly, they can’t provide anything solid, it’s always a nebulous “likely”, “may”, “could”, etc, ad nauseum.
The models aren’t to be trusted as predictive devices, period. They can be used to test hypotheses, but should never be used as a valid source of data, since there’s no way the climate can be accurately modeled with the knowledge we currently have. For the same reason an aircraft manufacturer wouldn’t fly a plane without wind tunnel testing first, as opposed to simply relying on aerodynamic modeling programs.
How about this, Norm. Pretend we’re ten years ago and you had said the above. No net waming during that time. Unpredictable hurricanes seasons (abnormally low), now a cold snap across much of the NH. Would you still expect me to keep waiting for something that clearly isn’t happening? Sorry, I have a brain.
Sure, ONE of the worst, not necessarily THE worst. So nothing unprecedented has occurred. When was the last one? Right around the last PDO shift in the mid-late 70s. So, it would seem the temperature differences meeting in the middle of the country are what cause these supercell storms, and not global warming. They’ll happen when it’s cool just as they will when it’s warm.
Also, we’ve been keeping track of these things an extremely short time, and can detect them better now than even 20 years ago. I’d bet, but can’t prove, that there were worse outbreaks that no one ever saw, before there were methods to detect them without being there.
Norm K (16:38:24) :
“I guess computer models aren’t to be trusted in your world.”
Sure they are, its just GCMs (Global Climate Models) that we don’t trust. Show me one that handles clouds well and it might be worth paying attention to. It would help if models were initialized with real weather data so they’d have a believable starting point, though that’s a bit of a cheap shot, I’m sure you’d agree. And of course, the controversy about the climate forcing ratio GCMs use needs much more study.
“Well my friend let’s just see what the next ten years has in store for the good ol’ U.S. of A. Talk to me ten years from now when crops have failed and massive storms have devastated the country. You can observe that.”
A lot of people here fear exactly that. Some think we’re heading into a repeat of the Maunder Minimum and the Little Ice Age that went along with it. I hope you’re watching for sunspots as much as we are. The solar minimum is 1 or 2 years overdue and every month makes more people here wonder “Is the Sun dead?”
It’s not just a USA problem – we have only 3% or so of the Earth’s surface, so the planet as a whole has about 33X our problems. overall, we’re much worse prepared for global cooling than resumed warming.
Spend some time here reading, you really need to learn more about the big picture and this is about the best place in the English speaking world to learn.
I agree with a lot you say Ric, I was just making the point that last years Hurricane season was extra-ordinary. A number of storms each year make hurricane status for a day before weakening every year, that is not unusual, but the events I described have not happened before. Global warming CM’s predicted a greater probability of extreme weather events and this year has been no exception as you in North America have been experiencing, you can’t take any one event in isolation but put them together…..
This year could be an extreme year for Hurricanes, SST’s of the west coast of Africa are 2-3 degrees above normal and dust levels are normal. The -ve PDO should result in less wind shear so more storms should develop, I hope I,m wrong though.
An interesting picture this from the North Pole http://psc.apl.washington.edu/northpole/WebCam1.html,
plenty of surface water…and will the camera soon sink!
[…] to Mike Smith for alerting us to this article (and for his insightful weblog “Midwest Floods and Unjustified Climate Change Fear Mongering” on Watts Up With That on this […]
Norm K.
I’m sure you are well-intended but I URGE you to read this summary of what the report actually says: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001462what_the_ccsp_extrem.html#comments .
The report’s science is nothing like the press release or the press coverage.
Now, go look at the temperature graphs posted nearby. Again, I will say referring to the present time: “What warming”?
Mike Smith
[…] http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/06/22/midwest-floods-and-unjustified-climate-change-fears/ […]
Yay! Interesting…
I stopped reading this after awhile because of the flawed science and thinking involved. I give you props for actually taking the time and brainpower to try and debunk global warming. It’s good to have opposition and constant willingness to make scientists prove their theories with evidence and explain themselves better. That’s what science is all about. I find it interesting, though, that you’re actually a “certified” meteorologist. Where you got your certification remains unknown but my guess is that it wasn’t from a top research institution (or top anything, for that matter).
Global warming is somewhat of a misnomer. The average GLOBAL temperature is expected to increase by a degree or two (ºC) in the next century. However, not every place on the planet is going to experience warming. The term conservatives like to use, “global climate change” is better suited.
In relation to what you’re talking about… there is good evidence which shows the Midwest has experienced (over the last 100 years) an OVERALL increase in precipitation along with an overall increase in temperature. Furthermore, there has been an increase in 1-day rainfall events that equaled or exceeded 2 inches. Yes, there are areas that have experienced a decrease of these extreme rainfall events but again, the overall trend is increasing.
I would explain more but unfortunately I have my own research to do (which is the reason I stumbled upon this post in the first place). Cop-out? Sure, you can call it that, but I think your underlying knowledge of weather and climate is not up to snuff. But that’s just what my “liberal education” is telling me.
Hi Shelley,
You say,
“I find it interesting, though, that you’re actually a “certified” meteorologist. Where you got your certification remains unknown but my guess is that it wasn’t from a top research institution (or top anything, for that matter).”
My meteorology (including courses in climatology) education came from the University of Oklahoma. My certified consulting meteorologist (CCM) status can easily be verified by going to the American Meteorological Society’s web site: http://ametsoc.org/memb/ccm/ccmhome.html
In order to become a CCM (in the early 80’s when I achieved certification), one must have had at least a bachelor’s degree in meteorology, five years or more of experience in applied meteorology, character references, pass an open book examination in applied meteorology, write a meteorological paper, pass a closed book meteorology test and pass an oral examination by the CCM board. After all of that, your name was published and anyone had 90 days to object to your certification as a consulting meteorologist. I hold CCM certificate #364.
You can verify that I am a Fellow of the American Meteorological Society here: http://www.ametsoc.org/memdir/fellowslist/get_listoffellows.cfm . The AMS states, “Article III, Section 6, of the AMS Constitution provides that those eligible for election to Fellow shall have made outstanding contributions to the atmospheric or related oceanic or hydrologic sciences or their applications during a substantial period of years.”
I have been honored with the Society’s Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Advance of Applied Meteorology, which can be seen here: http://www.ametsoc.org/awards/index.html#past .
Shelley, you add, “I think your underlying knowledge of weather and climate is not up to snuff. But that’s just what my “liberal education” is telling me.”
I obviously cannot speak to your ‘liberal education’ because you don’t post under your full name so I do not know what your background might be. That said, the scientific point you make about the 2008 Midwest floods does not apply. You say, “In relation to what you’re talking about… there is good evidence which shows the Midwest has experienced (over the last 100 years) an OVERALL increase in precipitation along with an overall increase in temperature. Furthermore, there has been an increase in 1-day rainfall events that equaled or exceeded 2 inches.”
This is not what I was talking about at all. Certain agencies (including NOAA, which should know better) were attributing this particular flood to global warming. My piece debunked that. I made no comment, one way or another, regarding the climatology of heavy rainfalls in the Midwest.
Just came across this posting and decided to link to it (belatedly, but it’s still timely). Thanks.
http://www.c3headlines.com/2009/01/climate-warming-scientists-too-quick-to-blame-2008-us-floods-on-global-warming-climate-scientist-cre.html