It has often been said that “Weather is not climate”, but ultimately it provides the only meaningful way to verify climate models. Did the climate models predict the cold, snowy weather which has been seen across much of the US?
According to NOAA, October was the third coldest on record in the US, with almost every state showing temperatures from one to ten degrees below normal. Some Parts of Colorado received record snowfall during October, starting the first week of the month.
Image from HPRCC – University of Nebraska at Lincoln
With a few days left, it appears that December is headed for a repeat, with temperatures ranging from one to fifteen degrees below normal. (Note that the color scale is different from October, now the greens show more negative departure, even South Texas is at -6F)
Image from HPRCC – University of Nebraska at Lincoln
Temperatures for the rest of the month are forecast by NCEP to be below normal for almost the entire country, so it is unlikely that the map will change much before New Years Day.
So let’s compare the complete Autumn temperatures vs. the forecasts from NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. In August, CPC forecast that most of the US would have above normal temperatures from October through December, and perhaps more importantly did did not predict that any areas would have below normal temperatures.
As you can see below, their prediction was largely reversed from what has happened. Most of the country has seen below normal temperatures during the same period.
Image from HPRCC – University of Nebraska at Lincoln
So my question is – if the climate models can’t reliably predict the next three months, what basis do they have to claim their ability to forecast 100 years out? It is well known in the weather modeling community that beyond about three days, the models tend to break down due to chaos.
We have all heard lots of predictions of warmer winters, less snow, animal populations moving north, drought, dying ski resorts, etc. But did anyone in the climate modeling community forecast the cold, snowy start to winter which has occurred. If not, it would appear that their models are not mature enough to base policy decisions on.
On the other side of the pond, The Met Office forecast 2010 to be the warmest year ever, as they last did in 2007. On cue, the weather turned bitter cold immediately after the forecast and it appears that the unusally cold weather will continue at least through mid-January. As in 2007, the Met office 2010 forecast is not getting off to a good start:
http://wxmaps.org/pix/temp4.html
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“Global Warming” -> “Climate Change” -> “Extreme Weather” … you need to keep up with the labels we are using these days. Just remember, whatever bad happens, it is caused by you not paying your carbon tax.
Climate models are stochastic models, the like populations models that I use in population biology studies and classes. This means that you may run the model 20 times or 500 times with the same parameters and each run provides somewhat different results. This also means, for example, that a population may show a short term decline, even though the average predicted value is positive. The more runs and the longer the runs, the closer the model predictions are to the deterministic long term average. This kind of modeling incorporates uncertainty and shows how a range of variability is not only consistent with the models, but is predicted by them.
For example, even though the estimated population growth rate is positive, there may be a 30% chance of a dicline over the first 10 years. There would also be a significant chance that the population will increase at a higher than predicted rate.
An added note–the finite logistic equation for populations shows true chaotic behavior at very high population growth rates. This is a nice demonstration of chaos for students. However, there is not good evidence for chaotic population dynamics in nature. There is a large qualitative difference betweeen high variability on the one hand and chaos on the other.
In orther words, chaos seems to be more a theoretical construct than something that can be found in nature.
>>An interesting thing to consider is the albedo effect of having snow so far south. Even in southern places like Mississippi, where the snow usually melts away fairly swiftly, having snow cover for a few days must reflect a lot of sunlight which usually would be absorbed. Also snow cover enhances night-time radiational cooling, and low temperatures often drop by ten degrees or more.<<
I find the albedo effect very interesting. Even though I do not believe co2 is a problem, I am annoyed by the urban heat effect. I am very sensitive to heat and dread when I have to sit in a parking lot in the summer. I remember even as a child (and that was quite a while ago- a time when children were allowed to walk around barefoot) learning to walk on the white lines at the cross walk so that I would not burn my feet on the hot black top.
I think that it would be very effective to paint all parking lots white. Even paint the tops of building white. Why not go even further, paint car roofs and hoods white. ( I remember two-tone cars. I think it would look very stylish. ) It would not only keep your car cool in summer, thus reducing your need to run your air conditioner while parked or in traffic, it would also, in general make cities more pleasant.
A few trees in parking lots and cities would not hurt either.
I think this small effort would have a big result at little cost. Much better than cap and raid.
Funny that the ‘author’ of this article failed to mention November, only October and December;
“The average November temperature of 46.5°F was 4.0°F above the 20th Century average and ranked as the 3rd warmest based on preliminary data.”
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=national&year=2009&month=11&submitted=Get+Report
Of course, the global trend is more important that cherry-picking any one nation;
The combined global land and ocean average surface temperature for November 2009 was 0.60°C (1.08°F) above the 20th century average of 12.9°C (55.2°F). This is the fourth warmest such value on record.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/?report=global&year=2009&month=11&submitted=Get+Report
I think I will now turn to Accuweather for weather forecasting and climate predictions. Joe Bastardi seems to have a pretty good sense of reality.
The comments on the Denver Post article have taken on a distinct tone of anger. I think that many of the proletariat are starting to realize that they have been lied to.
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_14066987
Rob,
I don’t anyone is claiming a single weather event determines climate. Are you always this sensitive?
However, the general public may very well look a a series of events and make a judgement. Not much anyone can do about that.
I think the two Departure from Normal Temperature graphics (Oct and Dec) show a clear attempt to hide the temperature decreases by changing the scale used in Dec. To be fair and unbiased NOAA should have used the same scale in Dec that they used in Oct. Are they going to use a different scale each month now to maximize the similarity of the graphs in the future?
Rob Vermeulen (00:33:22) :
“Climate can simply be defined as a statistical average of weather events, over relatively long periods (30 years seems to be what the world meteorological organization considers as long enough).”
And that is part of the problem with what they (WMO) consider *average*. Their 30 year period is too short of a time to take into effect longer period oceanic cycles (mainly PDO, AMO…others?) which have major impacts on sensible weather which, over long periods of time, is reflect in climate.
I would think a much better averaging period needs to be around 60-80 years to take into account full cyclic swings (numerous El Ninos/La Ninas, several sunspot cycles & at least one full PDO/AMO).
Jeff
Thanks to Frank K. (20:40:51) for the temp maps.
Interestingly enough, every temperature forecast for Ohio is in the normal range–neither above or below normal. However, I don’t need a NOAA scientist to tell me that this December has been colder and snowier than most in recent memory. A few days ago, local weather forecasters noted that December’s temperatures for central Ohio are running about 5 degrees below normal.
Paul Vaughan (19:49:13) :
“You must’ve been away in November!”
No. Just outside of Vancouver! It has been much dryer (and cooler) at the eastern end of the Fraser Valley. My monthly precip amounts are down for every month going back to September last year.
More in a few minutes. I have chores!
The alarmists have been consistently wrong in their 5 and 10 year predictions for 30 years. They have always been too high. Why should their short term predictions be any better? How often can someone cry “wolf” before they’re ignored?
Just ask the “Chicken Littles”, if its warmer than normal its AGW, if its colder than normal its AGW and if its normal its AGW. AGW causes extreme weather conditions like the lack of any major hurricanes this year. Its great to have everything go your way.
This piece http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/09/decadal-predictions/ is relevant to this post.
This is an Interesting posting, sorry if it has already been shown.
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/manmade.htm
Like Joe Wilson, I have had it with liars and when NOAA changes color for temperature graphs on a monthly basis, they should be called “liars” — loud and clear. None of this “they aren’t being fair and balanced”; $#!^, they are lying for political and ideological purposes. Throw the bums out!!! And I mean end their jobs and fat salaries and fat bonuses and fat retirements.
John McCain — for whom I voted as the much, much, much lesser of two evils — said “totally disrespectful — [there’s] no place for it [the truth]” to Joe Wilson’s “You lie” when Obama’s claimed that undocumentated immigrants would not be covered in the healthcare bill.
For Hope and Change, we must support only those who know a lie when they see and hear one, are ready to proclaim it, and are prepared to act for “truths”. Thank you, WUWT.
Showing temperature maps that cut off at Canada is a little wierd. Is there a way of hacing a continuous map?
REPLY: Yes, we can have the USA annex Canada, then NOAA will cover it. – Anthony
A number of comments appear to be from people who didn’t read the entire article.
October, November, December is the “last quarter of the year” and was below normal in most of the US.
http://www.hprcc.unl.edu/products/maps/acis/WaterTDeptUS.png
Alessandro,
You do have a point. However, NOAA’s winter forecast (initially made last summer) missed significant changes in both the artic and Atlantic SSTs. They overplayed ENSO, and didn’t factor in the PDO. And, as usual, thier long term forecasts were way too warm.
If NOAA’s climate models cannot predict accurately major changes in teleconnections (in the short term), how can it forecast climate changes with any precision 30 years out? Could it be that our major public scientific organizations weight thier predictions on the warmside? If NOAA was a private firm, it would have lost its paying customers long ago.
I just forwarded this to Matt Drudge:
Headline: NOAA & MET Office Missed Coldest/ Snowiest Winter On Record
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/12/27/our-current-weather-a-test-for-forecast-models-december-shaping-up-to-be-one-of-the-coldest-on-record-in-the-usa/
Wanna bet that it makes it onto his website? Or at least something like it?
Pamela Gray (18:46:22) :
{Their] predictions are based on what is typical of El Nino conditions (I recognize the map). They do not take into consideration the AO, which they should.
Their, I fixed it for you. 🙂
They also rely on “trends,” and probably more so on “trends” than on El Nino. That is to say, they start (somewhat oversimplified) with “trends,” and then if El Nino/La Nina conditions exist, they try to factor those in also.
The “trends” have been killing their forecasts. Okay, enough of the quotes, what trends do they use? It is something they call Optimal Climate Normals (OCN), which they describe in the following manner:
“OCN – THE OPTIMAL CLIMATE NORMALS METHOD PREDICTS T AND P ON THE BASIS OF YEAR-TO-YEAR PERSISTENCE OF THE OBSERVED AVERAGE ANOMALIES FOR A GIVEN SEASON DURING THE LAST 10 YEARS FOR T – AND THE LAST 15 YEARS FOR P. OCN EMPHASIZES LONG-TERM TRENDS AND MULTI-YEAR REGIME EFFECTS. ”
Sorry for the caps, but I cut and pasted from their web page describing their forecast tools, and it is in all caps.
These trends are compared to the 1971-2000 climate normals. So if an area has trended warmer, then they work that into their forecasts. Which is killing the accuracy of their forecasts, because the past couple of years have been cooler than normal, but it will be some time before that is picked up in their 10 year “optimal climate normal” trend line.
If I have the time, I’ll write up a more detailed look at just how poorly their forecasts have failed over the past 2-3 years. And I think it is primarily because of their use of these so-called “optimal” climate normals.
sustainableloudoun
“The average November temperature of 46.5°F was 4.0°F above the 20th Century average and ranked as the 3rd warmest based on preliminary data.”
Only the 3rd warmest on record? That’s a pretty flimsy El Nino we’ve got there. 1998 kicked it’s ass. There’s no surprise in getting a warm month in the middle of an El Nino. The real ‘watts up’ is the cold December.
kadaka (20:24:20) : That is not cherry picking but planting cherries. (presumably in a greenhouse with CO2 added).
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8432460.stm
News from the Met Office, you know, the one that predicted a very mild winter for the UK.
There is nothing sinister about the NOAA color schemes or maps.
They only have twelve colors to work with, which means only six colors for below normal regions. December has some very cold anomalies (-18 F) so each color necessarily represents three degrees. In October they only needed two degrees per color.