One of the most vocal criticisms I get is when I write about weather events around the globe. For example one commenter, “beaker” recently wrote this criticism to my story about Denver setting two new record low maximum temperatures on consecutive days, breaking one record that stood for 118 years:
“Why is this site so obsessed with short term extrema? All this will do is reinforce crackpot opinions on long term climate change on the basis of irrelevant weather noise.”
In a nutshell he’s saying “weather is not climate”. We all understand that. I always make sure that I tag such entries as “weather” and not “climate change”. It’s not the first nor will it be the last time I get criticized for talking about weather events on a blog that focuses mostly on climate change. As I pointed out though, weather is in fact my career, so I reserve the right to talk about it.
To his credit, “Beaker” was gracious in acknowledging that he was not specifically referring to me as a “crackpot”. It is true that any single weather event can’t be linked to climate change, and even in periods of a year, linking even a collection of weather events to long term climate change is problematic. And yes, as “Beaker” points out, can be fodder for “crackpots”. Tim Flannery and Al Gore come to mind as people that use specific weather events to point out “climate change”.
Take for example Hurricane Katrina, long the poster child for climate change, yet several studies have shown that there is no trend linking global warming to increased hurricane activity. Thus naming specific storms as linked to climate change is just not supportable. Senator (and former presidential candidate) John Kerry recently said that a tornado outbreak in the USA was attributable to “global warming”, when in fact it is related to the La Nina pattern in the Pacific.
There seems to be no dearth of prominent people willing to connect weather events with climate change. But these are often politicians, celebrities, and book pushers. They stand to gain from attention, even if the words they say are not based in fact, so it is not surprising.
Along those lines, this is a bit more troubling. I’d like to share this graphic, which is titled on the published page: “Figure 1.1 Geographical distribution of notable climate anomalies and events occurring around the planet in 2007“.
Click for a larger image
I apologize for the quality of even the large image, as it was scanned from paper.
Here are some of the “climate anomaly” events listed on the graphic:
- Northeast U.S.A/Southeast Canada – Major winter storm (Feb) Around 300,000 people affected
- Hurricane Felix (Sep) Max winds 270 km/hr – Second major hurricane in the 2007 season
- Uganda (Jun) Heaviest rainfall in 35 years
- China – heaviest snowfall in 56 years (Mar)
And the source for this graphic listing those “climate anomalies”?
This “Special Supplement to the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Volume 89, Number 7, July 2008, page S14”:
Click for a larger image
I find it odd that I get criticism when I talk about weather events and the oft repeated maxim “weather is not climate” yet here we have the premiere meteorological organization doing exactly the same thing – pointing out extreme weather events. Yet, they don’t even mention the word “weather” in the context of the graphic, preferring the more worrisome but less accurate label of “climate anomalies”.
At least I have the good sense to tag the sort of entires I make on this blog about record events, significant storms etc. as “weather”. Sadly AMS just wraps it up in a supplemental journal boldly titled as “State of the Climate in 2007 “. If I did such a thing, noting all the weather events I’d posted on during the year and titled it “State of the Climate in 2007” I’d be villified in comments for doing so:
“Anthony – what are you thinking? Weather is not climate!”
But in this case, it’s the AMS, so that makes it all OK I guess.
“Climate is what you expect, weather is what you get” – Robert Heinlein
Ireland, normally green from summer rains, has had a bit too much this year. Nearly a month’s rain fell in just a few hours on Saturday afternoon causing rivers to burst their banks in counties Antrim, Down and Londonderry. Belfast’s new motorway underpass was under 20 ft of water. There is no ‘dry spell’ in sight.
Pictures and news story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7567374.stm
Video report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7566433.stm
Weather isn’t climate, but climate is weather, over time. Short term matters when added all up to create a long term trend. So why any fuss in either direction? There’s no catastrophe happening either way.
It’s like a restaurant with only a couple of tables occupied. At first you can understand what your tablemates are saying, but as the place fills up everybody raises his voice to be heard above the din. With the ‘climate’ discussion’ everyone now is yelling to be heard. Content is lost; volume is everything.
Weather and Climate differ in time frame. We can’t predict weather more than a few days in advance (a few hours in Colorado) but that doesn’t mean we cannot predict climate in the furure. The problem with long term predictions is in using short term inputs. Enough input (correctly measured) and you might get reasonable results.
As Anthony has demonstrated with the surfacestations project, we don’t have really good data, the models are hopelessly inadequate, with a huge number of variables that are poorly understood. Admitting that doesn’t make good press.
“If it doesn’t sell newspapers, we won’t print it.”
Looking at the diagram, it does indicate anomalies that are contrary to the AWS catastrophism promulgated by the Bali Conference. For example, there is the reduced incidence in tropical cyclone activity noted in the southern hemisphere. So perhaps, the weather doesn’t support Al Gore …
Anthony,
[Apologies for being off-topic – I can’t seem to find your contact info.]
A recent commenter on ClimateAudit posted a link to an article about the guy who has been recording official temperatures in Ashland, VA, since 1955. One comment he made is this: “Most of the weather stations throughout the country have switched to remote sensoring,” said Newell. “They are not as accurate and tend to inflate the high temperatures.” … “The remote sensors will give you a reading of 98 degrees when in fact it is only 92. This happened just the other day.”
Link
I was more than a little surprised – what is your take on this?
REPLY: While I agree that the electronic sensors deployed by NWS/NOAA have resulted in a positive bias overall, I’m also skeptical of the magnitude of bias he expresses, because he apparently doesn’t have an MMTS electronic unit. Here is the NCDC equipment record for his station:
Begin Date End Date Equip Type Equipment
Mode Priority Equipment Name Phenomenon Elevation Serial
Number Data
[ 1990-06-01 ] 9999-12-31 PRCP SRG PRIMARY STANDARD RAIN GAGE PRECIPITATION — — COOP SOD
TEMP MXMN MAX-MIN THERMOMETERS TEMPERATURE
[ 0001-01-01 ] 1990-06-01 PRCP UNKNOWN PRIMARY UNKNOWN PRECIPITATION — COOP SOD
TEMP TEMPERATURE
I think I’ll contact him to get a look.
This is a bit off topic but here is another researcher who thinks we’re in for another little ice age. http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A//www.milenio.com/mexico/milenio/nota.asp?id=651680&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=es&tl=en
This is a computer generated translation from Spanish so its a little tough to read.
No explanation is needed when the site looks at weather v. climate. And whatever period, be it a day, decade, or century, a writer chooses to discuss is up to the writer.
And varied topics are fine. It is your site and your life. Have you have signed some covenant with the AGW Society to speak only as they approve? Perhaps the IPCC sent you a rule book?
As long as the writing and arguments are clearly and honestly expressed there is no harm is making interesting excursions off the official big science path.
When you started with Stevenson Screen experiments a year or so ago the same objections were made. Critics said that your observations were meaningless and improper. They weren’t academic or government science. The bureaus knew their data was collected properly. And besides they knew exactly how to adjust it anyway.
This is available at:
BAMS-89-7-StateoftheClimate
Anthony, there is the old latin saying: quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi.
‘What is allowed to Jupiter ( number one god of ancient Rome), is not allowed to any crackpot (actually bullock)’.
It is the American Meteorological Society doing this. Apparently now meteorology is not weather.
Weather makes climate, but are we too obsessed with both now? Are extreme weather events more frequent or just more frequently reported (and linked to climate change one way or other)?
Good post. It’s hard to inform the public when outlets like the AMS can’t even get it right.
Anthony,
I wasn’t sure where to put this, but an article has popped up on Drudge quoting Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera from the National Autonomous University in Mexico who is predicting that in ten years, the earth will enter a little ice age, lasting 60 to 80 years. He states that this cooling will be caused by decreased solar radiation.
Here’s the URL, and I apologize in advance for it’s length.
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.milenio.com%2Fmexico%2Fmilenio%2Fnota.asp%3Fid%3D651680&hl=en&ie=UTF8&sl=es&tl=en
Anthony,
Without context, it is hard for me to draw much of a conclusion about this graphic. However, note that it says “climate anomalies and events”, not just “anomalies”. And, it shows things like “Global tropical cyclone activity: Below average activity”. So, it seems to be just a general summary of the climate in 2007…I don’t see any specific attempt to blame everyting on global warming.
[One confusion is also that the word “climate” is used in lots of different ways; the “climate prediction center” of NOAA does forecasts that range from 6-10 days out to maybe a year. However, this is often a different context in which climate is talked about in terms of global climate change, when one is looking at changes over decades…and not so much interested in fluctuations on shorter timescales.]
One hallmark of AGW promoters is the prediction that any unusual weather phenomena is caused by AGW. So, too much precipitation, too little, too hot, too stormy, all are signs and portents of AGW. Yes, a single weather event does not a climate make, but it’s fun to see events that tweak the pomposity of pseudo-intellectuals like Gore, since they insist on using other weather events as “proof” of their dogma. Besides, I think a lot of people who follow this blog would agree, weather is interesting.
“. . .irrelevant weather noise.” I spy a disconnect here. Weather events or anomolies are what make long term climate trends. To view weather events as simply “noise” ignores the large, white elephant in the room. One weather event does not make a trend, but many over time do. We get it, Anthony.
The warmers play up every single warm climate anomaly so if the public is going to receive a balanced view of “weather and climate reality”, we should be playing up the extreme cold events as well.
If fact, someone, should be recording record highs and record lows across the planet so we know if there are real trends developing or not.
It’s merely an AMS publishing anomaly.
They forgot to include the Packers-Giants NFC Championship game as a climate anomaly.
On second thought, I’d just as soon forget that game. Never mind.
Joel Shore,
The first paragraph of the abstract begins:
The combined land and ocean surface temperature in 2007 fell within the 10 highest on record, …
and the second paragraph begins:
The globally averaged concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2) continued to increase in 2007, having risen to 382.7 ppm …
I see a specific attempt to link the state of the climate to global warming.
Off topic but I saw where accuweather.com global warming site showed july as being the fifth warmest since 1880 .Thanks to Anhony at wattsupwiththat for showing about missing data at many stations throughout the U.S. for many years how can we trust anything that AGW people say.
OT but it is an interesting paper. They put in their AGW disclaimer though.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080819092017.htm
This is off topic but may be of interest to some. Read the exchange in the comment section on the value of climate models.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/08/17/monckton-debates-global-warming-desmogs-littlemore
Here’s a link to all (well maybe not all) events which are attributed to CO2 Drives the Climate Theory”.
http://www.numberwateh.co.uk/warmlist.htm
I got 109,000 hit when I did a search for ‘events blamed on CO2 induced global warming’.
All based on a theory that doesn’t match reality.
I’m still looking for that HOT SPOT. Meanwhile the oceans have cooled, co2 still lags, temperature has been flat and water vapor not doing their positive feedback thing.
Just blame it on co2 induced global warming.