Guest post by Steven Goddard
“April comes in like a lion, and stays that way.”
The University Of Colorado in Boulder and nearby Colorado State University are hotbeds of climate science activity. Famous climate names from both sides of the AGW aisle like NCAR, NSIDC, the Pielkes, Bill Gray and Chris Landsea are associated with these universities. Earlier this extended winter WUWT reported on one forecast by a CU geography professor :
University of Colorado-Boulder geography professor Mark Williams said Monday that the resorts should be in fairly good shape the next 25 years, but after that there will be less snowpack – or no snow at all – at the base areas
No doubt that a geography professor would have the correct skill set to be making ski forecasts 25 years in the future, and that 25 years from now the climate will make a radical switch. It appears that Dr. Williams forecast is correct so far, as Colorado is getting lots of snow.
Wolf Creek Ski Area has received more than 11 metres of snow this winter, and has 118 inches of snow on the ground. (That would be 2.9972 metres deep, using the Catlin tape measure.) Unfortunately, people may be unable to get to most of the ski areas because Interstate 70 is shut down – due to too much snow.
Ahead of the current storm, all of the snowtel sites in Colorado were reporting normal snowpack.
| RIVER BASIN | PERCENT OF AVERAGE | ||
| Snow Water | Accum | ||
| GUNNISON RIVER BASIN | 109 | 108 | |
| UPPER COLORADO RIVER BASIN | 112 | 109 | |
| SOUTH PLATTE RIVER BASIN | 98 | 97 | |
| LARAMIE AND NORTH PLATTE RIVER BASINS | 103 | 105 | |
| YAMPA AND WHITE RIVER BASINS | 113 | 109 | |
| ARKANSAS RIVER BASIN | 107 | 99 | |
| UPPER RIO GRANDE BASIN | 104 | 107 | |
| SAN MIGUEL, DOLORES, ANIMAS & SAN JUAN | 95 | 10 | |
One popular AGW theory of convenience is that warming temperatures bring more snow. As can be seen below, this might not be an adequate explanation.
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/hprcc/MonthTDeptHPRCC.png
Of course, weather is not climate and the earth has a 50/50 chance of “tipping” in the future – due to reaching some mythical CO2 threshold.
On a more urgent note, a US Navy researcher from told the Beeb that projections of an ice free Arctic by 2013 may be “too conservative.”
“Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,” the researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California, explained to the BBC. “So given that fact, you can argue that may be our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.”
(This California based researcher did not accompany the Catlin expedition on their -40C Arctic camping trip this spring.)
Polar Bear pondering how cap-and-trade may brighten it’s future?
If you want to save the ski industry and the polar bears, you might want to consider sending Al Gore some money – and please quit producing so much of that dangerous pollutant CO2. However, absolutely do not try to apologize to the bears in person. Skiing is much more fun and generally safer than swimming with polar bears, as this woman visiting the Berlin Zoo found out.
PHOTO: WWW.TELEGRAPH.CO.UK
I just don’t know how to get to any ski areas without making lots of CO2.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Tom P (14:29:20) :
However, we now reach the nub of the issue. What might have contributed to this long-term warming, and do the possible causes have the necessary power to produce the warming we have seen over the last century?
So, in other words, if not C02, what could have caused the warming? Good question, Tom! Now you’re putting the ol’ thinking cap on, and thinking like a scientist instead of an ideologue.
Now, if only you were truly interested in an answer. Ay, there’s the rub – because, as an ideologue, you obviously aren’t interested – it was simply a rhetorical question, after all.
And so it goes.
Tom P, it would be pretty hard to determine the presence or absence of a cycle with a period so close to the length of your data set (but I think when they say 30 years, they mean a cycle whose period is actually 60 years-and that would be super impossible to see in the satellite “window”). But 2009 ain’t over yet-it has barely begun. And when the effect of the 2009 La Nina finally kicks in, the recovery from the 2007 one will abruptly end. The next decade, or even five years, should prove very interesting indeed…
Tom P 14:05:51 and 14:29:20
Well, the trend of the temperature rise since the end of the Little Ice Age has been fairly constant, and the curve of CO2 rise only takes off in the last half of the last century. I don’t think the underlying trend is explained. Whatever is the cause is the same sort of thing that varied the temperature from the Roman Optimum to the MWP, through the Little Ice Age and to the present. There is no evidence that CO2 caused those temperature swings. And yes, whatever caused those temperature swings has the power to show the warming we had in the last century.
RW at 14:09:50 Now you are just being silly. I don’t think that I’m using that kind of analysis, and I don’t think you are being very serious in the pursuit of truth.
============================
“RW (14:09:50) : Very clear to see, isn’t it? Completely undeniable.”
There you go again. Another cherry orchard. Any plot of data that varies in a range significantly larger then the trend can be cited as showing a rising trend or a falling trend depending on where you set the endpoints.
In regard to the 4 charts linked in your last post, both a rising or a falling trend can be drawn in each one based on where you start. How about a Century plot which although rising slightly during that period shows a series of rising and falling trends in a neat cyclical pattern. This can be seen in a chart I posted earlier and repeatedhere.
But to get a climatic perspective, how about a look at the whole Holocene period? This Holocene chart spans about 10,000 years in a period in which CO2 was persistently lower than today ranging around 280ppm if you believe Callendar’s data and others who support him. It’s clear from this chart that the current warm period and the other most recent warm spells were progressively cooler than the Roman Warm Period or the Holocene Climatic Optimum (a strange appellation were this period unfavorable for human and vegetative development).
BTW, here in the Northeast, every summer has been warmer than the previous winter. Do you detect a trend here? Every Dec-Jul monthly chart shows an uptrend. It must be global warming. Oh, did I forget to show your the Jul-Dec charts? Sorry about that. (/s)
After we got married almost 30 years ago my wife’s parents moved to Evergreen CO. I was a skier, my wife wasn’t. I figured we would go to Evergreen in the spring and she and her folks could play with the kids and I could go skiing. When out oldest was 1 we went out in March. We got snowed into the house. I learned why my wife never went to visit her mother. It was my last ski trip.
OT (sorry, but no relevant recent threads and I thought this would be of interest): this week’s Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1166352)
“Atlantic Forcing of Persistent Drought in West Africa.” Quote from abstract:
We find that intervals of severe drought lasting for periods ranging from decades to centuries are characteristic of the monsoon and are linked to natural variations in Atlantic temperatures. Thus the severe drought of recent decades is not anomalous in the context of the past three millennia….
2009 has been almost as warm as 1987, and only half a degree cooler than 1998. That troubles me. Clearly the earth is heating out of control.
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/uah/from:1987/plot/rss/from:1987
Tom P
As a concept, you are correct, but just how do you measure that temperature when you are talking about a planet?
Due to measurement errors of many possible kinds, for a scientific concept to be useful you need to have a specific definition to bind it too.
Whether you are talking about the the unit of length called a Meter:
(It was redefined in 1983 as the distance traveled by light in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second.)
The meter was originally intended to equal 10-7 or one ten-millionth of the length of the meridian through Paris from pole to the equator. However, the first prototype was short by 0.2 millimeters because researchers miscalculated the flattening of the earth due to its rotation. It was then re-defined according to the standards of the time, and will possibly be redefined as we gain precision in measuring length.
In measuring time in seconds, we are specifying it as an interval compared to the atomic vibrations of a specific atom:
(The time needed for a cesium-133 atom to perform 9,192,631,770 complete oscillations. )
At one time it was defined by a specific pendulum design.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Riefler_clock_NIST.jpg
All though there might be agreement in the sciences that the “concept” of an average temperature of the earth, may have merit, and in an approximate sense, can be discussed, it has no definition and recognized way for it to be measured.
Since there is no “standard measurement” it is not repeatable, and thus is not a scientific value. At the very best, when referring to the “earths average temperature” they are simply making educated guesses at what this value should be. My guess is no better than Hansen’s unless we can document why and how we chose that measurement process and state with some level of confidence what the inherent measurement errors are for that process and methodology. Then we need to get a widely accepted agreement and from that time on (until it is again redefined as our understanding improves) all calculations regarding the earths temperature should use the widely accepted standard.
I can tell you my property line is x feet long, but with out knowing how I measured it you have no clue at all what precision that measurement is, even though I attach multiple digits past the decimal point, they are meaningless.
I might have paced it off. My average pace length is about 27 inches but it varies according to the steepness of the terrain. Assuming I make no counting errors, and the ground is flat, my estimate of the length of my property line by pacing is probably no more accurate than 13.5 inches +/-. If I measure it with a high quality surveyors fiberglass 100′ tape and do not exert too much tension on it so as to stretch the tape, my precision might drop to +/- a few inches. If I use survey quality GPS with a short residency time at each bench mark my precision drops to plus or minus a centimeter or so. If I measure that distance with laser interferometry my accuracy drops into the wave length of light range.
When it comes to measuring temperatures, a good analog to the earth would be human body temperature. Did you measure the persons temperature with an oral thermometer, a rectal thermometer, or one of the IR thermometer that read the temperature via the ear canal?
If you measured it with an oral thermometer, did you follow good practice and keep the thermometer under the tongue long enough for it to stabilize, did you “shake it down” first so it had not preexisting bias, did the patient eat hot or cold food recently or just finished running a marathon?
What is the analog “good practice” and “repeatable method” for measuring the earths average temperature. Please cite the international agreement when this process is published.
Until then, the “average temperature of the earth” is a “conversational convention” not a defined standard and in scientific terms has no meaning.
Larry
Ellie in Belfast-one would think that, by logical extension, that would mean Atlantic temperatures are also not unprecedented. Of course Keigwin showed that in 1996, so we’ve kinda known that for a while now. Still, for the drought connection it is interesting in its own right. Similar connections of PDO and AMO have been shown with precipitation in the US.
http://junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Sargasso.html
Noted the comment about the French Alps above. This article talks of how the Alps and Pyrenees have also been revived with fresh snowfalls as well. Also talks of snowfalls in over high ground in Algeria and Tunisia plus other extremes of weather in other locations about the world. Actually presented in a neutral manner which is refreshing. 🙂
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/weather/article6115931.ece
Canada geese finally flew over my house on Aprl 17th, a month and a half late
Larry,
“What is the analog “good practice” and “repeatable method” for measuring the earths average temperature.” Please cite the international agreement when this process is published.”
I’d look at the UAH satellite methodology to start with to see how they determine a global temperature. Here’s a starting point:
Christy, J.R., R.W. Spencer, and W.D. Braswell, “MSU Tropospheric temperatures: Data set construction and radiosonde comparisons.” Journal of Atmospheric and Oceanic Technology. 17,1153-1170, 2000
Steven,
“2009 has been almost as warm as 1987, and only half a degree cooler than 1998. That troubles me. Clearly the earth is heating out of control.”
…very drole. But taking you seriously for a second, do I detect an unspoken shift in position? You seem remarkably reluctant to come out and support the many posters who claim we’re now in a cooling trend.
Tom P,
The only near-term cooling trend I have ever noted is the past six or seven years and perhaps the past ten. I have no idea if that is climatologically significant.
However, I do know that it is not what the IPCC predicted.
Tom P 16:48:45
Please follow aurbo’s first link in his 15:37:00 comment. It is likely that we’ll be cooling for another 20 years. Sure, we are early in the trend.
==============================================
Kim,
“Well, the trend of the temperature rise since the end of the Little Ice Age has been fairly constant…”
There’s general agreement (both Lohle and Mann for instance), that the LIA reached a minimum of about half a degree colder around 1600. It took three centuries to warm up by half a degree by 1900, with more than a further half a degree of increase in the last century. I therefore disagree the trend has been constant.
“…and the curve of CO2 rise only takes off in the last half of the last century.”
which is when most of the last hundred years’ heating took place.
“There is no evidence that CO2 caused those temperature swings.”
There is a strong correlation, though.
Squidly, E.M., Adolfo, Carsten:
That’s a good enough response for a start.
I’ll post a reminder or two starting a couple of weeks before the first weekend in July for those that wish to participate in the first WUWT Barbeque.
Given the inspiration of the Catlin Arctic Survey, the objective of the day will be to do what we enjoy doing (food and fun with family and friends) and gather some useless data.
I really think the key data will be for all of the participants to dig random depth holes, all at random locations around the world, and measure them with random degrees of accuracy. That data can then perhaps be sent to Mann to aid him in proving there was no LIA and that Antarctica is warming.
The grill temperatures are just a bonus. All those weather stations with Stevenson screens near the barbeque grills were absolutely WORTHLESS for telling us the correct temperature for the ideal hamburger, hot dog, or steak. Now we’ll have some good solid data to go on.
kim, honestly, I have a hard time believing your crystal ball is any better than anyone else’s, so while your prediction may turn out right, you are frankly way too certain about it (as are those who make very different claims).
Steven,
A quite reasonable position on short term trends – it would be good to have less discussion of weather and more of climates.
However, it’s not so obvious the IPCC projections are so awry:
http://landshape.org/enm/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/liite5_paivitetty_rahmstorf.jpg
kim,
The plot you refer to seems to be demonstrating a correlation with US, not global climate.
More record cold and snow last week in the USA :
http://mapcenter.hamweather.com/records/7day/us.html?c=maxtemp,mintemp,snow
Tom P-have you been following Lucia’s posts on whether Model predicted trends are being fulfilled? She is pretty pro-AGW but says that at the moment they aren’t doing so hot (excuse the joke):
http://rankexploits.com/musings
She has discussed it in a ~lot~ of posts, so I would probably just post asking for a quick summary of her findings so far re: recent trends.
Tom P,
I’ll see your alarming chart and raise you a more valid comparison: click1
In fact, the IPCC is no more accurate than the inaccurate computer models that its alarmism depends on: click2 [chart by Bill Illis]
You see, the IPCC is composed 100% of political appointees who have their marching orders. That’s why they make alarming predictions that don’t pan out: click3
But you can believe in them if you want to.
Claude Harvey (19:16:25) :
“One popular AGW theory of convenience is that warming temperatures bring more snow. As can be seen below, this might not be an adequate explanation.”
No! No! You’re several iterations behind! “Man-made Global Warming CAUSES global cooling!”
Ayup. Socialist SF writer Kim Stanley Robinson talked about this while terraforming Mars for his trilogy. Chaotic thrashing is what its called. Now, the fact that none of the agw climate models make even the remotest attempt to touch chaotic systems math, the gridding is a sleazy way to avoid it, don’t let it stop them from trying though.
Guys, images 1 and 3 are absent in this thread; both are docs.google.com addresses:
http://docs.google.com/File?id=ddw82wws_1883j37dnf9_b
http://docs.google.com/File?id=ddw82wws_191t4qwpwgn_b
Google is not being your friend.
Also, when clicking on the images Google informs me of a situation thusly:
Gents, we’ve been ‘found out’. 😉
.
.