The December 2009 and year 2009 University of Alabama at Huntsville lower tropospheric MSU temperature data is available. Thanks to Phillip Gentry and John Christy for alerting us to these figures]. I have several comments following the figures.
This data shows why the focus needs to be on the regional scale and that a global average is not of much use in describing weather that all of us experience.
The news media seem to continue to avoid this perspective. For example, in the article Snow, ice and the bigger picture
excerpts read
“Rather than seeking vindication or catastrophe in this cold snap, now is a good time to remind ourselves that weather, like death and taxes, will always be with us. Spectacular regional swings in temperature and precipitation, sometimes lasting for months, often emerge from the natural jostlings of atmosphere and ocean. By themselves, none of these prove or disprove a human role in climate change.”
“What’s different now is that climate change is shifting the odds towards record-hot summers and away from record-cold winters. The latter aren’t impossible; they’re just harder to get, like scoring a straight flush on one trip to Vegas and a royal flush the next.”
“If you’re craving a scapegoat for this winter, consider the Arctic oscillation. The AO is a measure of north-south differences in air pressure between the northern midlatitudes and polar regions. When the AO is positive, pressures are unusually high to the south and low to the north. This helps shuttle weather systems quickly across the Atlantic, often bringing warm, wet conditions to Europe. In the past month, however, the AO has dipped to astoundingly low levels – among the lowest observed in the past 60 years. This has gummed up the hemisphere’s usual west-to-east flow with huge “blocking highs” that route frigid air southward.”
“Handy as it is, the AO describes more than it explains. Forecasters still don’t know exactly what sends the AO into one mode or the other, just as the birth of an El Niño is easier to spot than to predict.”
See also the post at Dot Earth by Andy Revkin titled Cold Arctic Pressure Pattern Nearly Off Chart
The obvious response to these claims is that if we cannot predict weather features such as the Arctic oscillation or an El Niño under current climate, how can anyone credibly claim we have predictive skill decades into the future from both natural and human caused climate forcings? The short answer is that they cannot.
The article concludes with the text
“If this winter tells us anything, it’s that we’ll have to remain on guard for familiar weather risks as well as the evolving ones brought by climate change.”
This admission implicitly recognizes the focus on the reduction of vulnerability that we wrote about in our paper
Pielke Sr., R., K. Beven, G. Brasseur, J. Calvert, M. Chahine, R. Dickerson, D. Entekhabi, E. Foufoula-Georgiou, H. Gupta, V. Gupta, W. Krajewski, E. Philip Krider, W. K.M. Lau, J. McDonnell, W. Rossow, J. Schaake, J. Smith, S. Sorooshian, and E. Wood, 2009: Climate change: The need to consider human forcings besides greenhouse gases. Eos, Vol. 90, No. 45, 10 November 2009, 413. Copyright (2009) American Geophysical Union.
The media, policymakers and others should recognize this evidence of our incomplete understanding of the climate system. We will continue to have surprises such as we have seen this winter.
Stephen Wilde,
Your discussion of sun activity as a cause of AO is interesting. Can you offer a mechansim as to why an inactive sun allows a slower energy loss from the upper atmosphere?
Smokey (11:10:42) :
“There is something fishy about throwing out 3, 9 and 15 years without giving the citation.”
Nothing fishy at all. That’s when the IPCC predictions were made: http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/resource-2592-2008.07.pdf
“The IPCC’s predictions have failed miserably.”
That’s a little difficult to square with the actual data:
http://img13.imageshack.us/img13/811/ipccprojections.png
Mann O Mann 09:50:40
Thought experiments are a nice way of simplifying systems to gain insight, but need treating with caution. If your bucket with a hole in it is set up with the mean water level slightly below the top of the bucket, the system works as you describe until a random blockage of the hole allows some of the water to spill over the edge and carry some of the blocking material with it. This is a crude analogy for increased albedo due to cloud formation reducing the effect of steadily increasing material input and effectively limiting its impact on water height. I strongly suspect that the earth has an in-built limiting mechanism for temperature, dominated by the remarkable properties of H2O in all its physical states and salinities. Of course my mod. of your analogy is also just another analogy and equally capable of being over-simple.:-)
“Tom P (10:50:00) :
Hardly record-cold globally:”
Tom, I find that impossible for me to agree with, no matter what they say.
Since global temps are an average, the amount of heat it would take to “average”
this amount of cold out, would have been disastrous.
And would be all over the news about people literally baking to death.
al (03:51:41) :
why are mercator style projections used in these maps – would an equal area projection not be better?
I like the Dymaxion Projection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_map
Vincent (11:46:22)
An extract from an article of mine should answer your query. In that article I considered this SABER report:
http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/AGU-SABER.html
“Sunspots unleash solar flares that create a ripple effect well beyond Earth.
But when that energy flow does reach Earth the atmosphere reciprocates by
ejecting radiation as a cooling effect to maintain the planet’s energy balance.
That cooling response creates the expansion and contraction of the upper
atmosphere.”
The article refers to ripples. That
reminds me of ripples caused by wind across an ocean surface. The
stronger the wind the larger the ripples and they can become large
waves. The presence of waves increases the ocean surface area so
that loss of energy to the air via evaporation and radiation increases. If
a more disturbed flow of energy from the sun causes ripples or even
waves in the boundaries between the layers of the upper atmosphere
then it will provoke a larger surface area at each boundary and
increase the rate of radiation to space.
I have assumed that that CO2 was storing energy over long periods – say on the order of weeks or months.”
CO2 storage is at best minutes and may in fact be as little as milliseconds.
Energy storage on our planet is water and earth. The theory being that CO2 acts like the silvering in a thermos bottle retarding the radiative flow of heat.
The theory understates convection. Or what I like to call:
http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2007/08/big-heat-pipe-in-sky.html
Steve Fox (11:14:34)
Yes it would explain more rainfall in the north of the Sahara. Instead of the Mediterranean climate moving north as suggested by AGW the mid latitude jets are now targeting the Mediterranean and their effects flowing over into North Africa.
The same latitudinal shift has occurred in the southern hemisphere as witness the drought problems for some Peruvian farmers. The rain bearing systems have moved away to the north of them.
With regard to the mechanism see my reply to Vincent and if you can stomach the full detail please see this article here:
http://climaterealists.com/attachments/database/The%20Missing%20Climate%20Link.pdf
Marc77 wrote: “MET Office UK pretends the Cold is just a UK anomaly…”
They must think we don’t have an internet or news programmes. There is also the record snow in Korea and China. People have died of the cold in Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. (These are above average on the Met office map!).
Also cold in Colombia:
http://www.colombianews.tv/news/1810-saturday-early-morning-newscast
And in Spain:
http://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/17513/temperatures-fall-to-2c-on-the-coast
And in Turkey:
http://www.todayszaman.com/tz-web/news-197443-101-cold-weather-strong-winds-batter-turkey.html
son of mulder, M. Simon, thanks for the responses – very helpful. Anxious to read your heat pipe analysis M.
Mann O Mann (09:50:40) : Bucket Thought Experiment
Ronaldo (11:58:45) :
How about adding a natural unknown factor?
Rust, enlarging the hole = GCR’s?
What we seem to be seeing is a large redistribution of tropospheric heat energy with mid latitude regions cooling but equatorial regions remaining warm.
In the process of that redistribution the air circulation patterns have shifted substantially equatorward but that in itself is merely an extension of the changes that should have been apparent to all observers of weather and climate since 2000.
Applying my general climate description I would say that the following is the likely explanation:
i) Generally a latitudinal shift in the air circulation patterns is ocean driven and since about 2000 the PDO has been trending to the negative phase so that gives a basic background cooling effect.
ii) In contrast the Arctic Oscillation that controls the size and position of the polar high pressure systems is driven by a combination of the speed of the hydrological cycle as dictated by the rate of ocean energy release and the speed at which the stratosphere can radiate energy to space which is driven by variations in the turbulence of the flow of energy from the sun. The SABER satellite results appear to show that the rate of loss of energy to space is greater when the sun is active and less when the sun is less active.
iii) At present the quiet sun is reducing the rate of energy loss to space and the stratosphere is warming. At the same time the 2009 El Nino has been pumping energy faster to the stratosphere. The combined effects have both been supplementing one another to increase the flows of energy up into and downward out of the stratosphere to enhance the size of the polar high pressure cells and push them equatorward against the counter pressure from the El Nino.
iv) The result is cooling mid latitudes but warming equatorial and more polar latitudes.
If this setup continues then the cooler mid latitudes will progressively cut off the flow of warmer air to the poles and cooling will become more general.
If you have a look here you will notice that the ice from Greenland has nearly reached Iceland.
If this pattern keeps up, one might, in theory, be able to walk from Iceland to Greenland in a couple of weeks.
It’s obvious our “climate experts” need to get over GHGs. The keys to forecasting this winter were out there as early as last summer. I heard a few private forecasters say last August that the European forecast models for Dec through Feb resembled the analogs from 1975-1978. While, they didn’t publish thier actual seasonal forecast, it was apparent that those people who actually get paid for accuracy were considering a snowy, cold NH winter. What compelled the European models to predict a situation where the AO plunged in December is anyone’s guess.
I for one would like to see what those models have for this summer. If the analogs remain close to 1975-1978, than we could see a rather scorching summer (If my memory serves me correctly, the UK had a record 1976 drought, and the summer of 1977 saw many heatwave induced brown outs).
It appears that ENSO passed its zenith in December. With ENSO go neutral, the positive AMO on the wane, and a persistent negative AO/NAO, 2010 should be quite interesting weather wise.
Thanks for posting, but it would be more useful if you also said what was on the map and the vertical axis of the diagram. It’s something about deviation of something from some kind of average temperature, but what? (I don’t actually mean to be snarky, but how else do I note that the diagrams need labelling?)
An elegant way of proposing that no matter under how much snow or ice we are, the Al Baby´s Gospel won´t be defeated!.
wedding photographers in Orlando, Florida (04:35:21) : “what are all of these global warming enthusiasts going to do when the earth keeps dropping in temps?”
a) shout louder
b) spew more spittle when they rant
c) tell more and bigger lies
d) ask for more government money
e) blame everything on Big Oil
f) resort to violence
There is a basic flaw in the Gurdian article referenced and it is in this one statement, namely,
“What’s different now is that climate change is shifting the odds towards record-hot summers and away from record-cold winters. ”
If the source of their data for this statement is only the last 20-30 years, when the natural planetary cycles were in the warm mode , then the statement may have some merit. However if one goes back 30 years further back and includes the cooler years of 1950’s to 1970’s when the planetary cycles were in the cool mode and when we had many more colder winters then an entirely different picture emerges . To assume that the next 30 years will be like the past 30 years is at the heart of what is wrong with the AGW science . That is why the current cold spell is a complete surprise[ or a black swan as some would call it] to the global warming movement but entirely predictable and actually predicted by people like Professor Don Easter brook and Professor William Gray and others on this web page . There will be many more such cooler winters over the next 30 years . Even the current cool winter is far from over for Europe, Northern Asia and the UK where the cold winter will likey extend to spring in my opinion . Past climate history shows that a strongly negative AO in December is often an indication of and extended or continued relatively high negative AO well into spring [ April ]and some times as late as May and even to June although at a less negative value ] If the AGW supportes do not learn from this winter about how flawed their science is , then there will be many more such cool winters in the coming decades to learn from.
JP (13:01:20)
You are correct in noting that the UK can get hot dry summers when the jet stream is well north or well south of the UK.
The present setup however is that the jets are over or close to the UK during the summer months and to the south during the winter months.
There is always a basic seasonal component to the latitudinal position of the jets.
If the El Nino fades and the sun gets a little more active as it recovers from a low minimum then both those changes should serve to make the AO less negative because it is the quietness of the sun and the current El Nino that are responsible for the strongly negative AO.
However the less negative change to the AO will not be accompanied by much of a warming effect globally because it will be accompanied by La Nina type oceanic conditions.
The strong ‘blocking’ pattern should remain because the East / West vigour of the jets is usually a feature of El Nino plus a positive AO which permits acceleration of energy through the whole system from sea surface to stratosphere and thence to space.
If such a blocking pattern continues into next summer then the large north / south movement of air masses will continue with parts of the northern continents favoured by persistent winds from the south becoming anomalously warm or hot.
That will not be a sign of a resumption of warming overall. If the oceans are generally negative and the jets are not forced into a more poleward path then the background global trend will still be slow cooling.
Just for the record this was my prediction for this winter as issued last August:
“The jets are still well south of us and if that persists into autumn and winter then of course there will be greater influence from cold high pressure over Europe and Greenland.
The matter of precipitation amounts depends on where the main battleground is between cold and warm air. No two years are the same and last winter was unusual. The cold spells were very immobile. Large chunks of cold air were dumped on us for weeks at a time with little movement and relatively little snow despite a couple of notable falls.
For the coming winter I think that, instead, we will get more occasions when the battleground is over southern UK or northern France and Germany with more snow over wider areas than we have had for many years. However so much depends on day to day variability of the precise positions of all the weather systems that I realise I am a bit out on a limb there. Nevertheless I think it a higher likelihood than for many years past.
I’m also unsure what the balance will be between northerly and easterly flows which give very different weather types. The chance of a return to prolonged south westerlies is low but it could happen depending on the synoptic situation over USA.
Last winter also showed a change from the previous two winters when cold plunges over the USA distorted the jets and gave us persistent warm wet south westerlies so we did not then share in the general slow cooling trend.
I think that the overall global trend is still moving towards a colder regime but only slowly. The position of the jets in both hemispheres still indicates overall cooling. We seem to be getting increasing cold weather reports in winter in both hemispheres despite the current absence of a strong La Nina so the effect of the previous one seems to be persisting.
Meanwhile ENSO is less negative than it was but the anticipated EL Nino seems to be stuttering. I would say that overall the rate of cooling in the air will slow down a bit thanks to the extra energy flow into the air from the less negative ENSO but remember that if the sun is weak it will not fully replace the energy lost from ocean to air via the warmer SSTs so there remains a general background loss of energy for the system as a whole.
So, (gulp!) UK coming winter cooler than recently and likely to further reduce the warming trend of the 1975 to 2000 period. Not necessarily back down to the longer term average but well on the way with an outside chance of a memorable winter.
More snow than we have been used to but generally drier than average in the north and wetter than average in the south.”
Thus far that gives me a 2 – 0 score against the Met Office because I called the previous winter correctly as well.
Harold Blue Tooth (15:29:08) :
“There is also lower activity in the earth’s own magnetic field. A band going over Brazil and out over the Atlantic toward Africa of earth’s magnetic field is weak, and weakening.”
There are some indications that there may be a loose correlation between geomagnetic field and climate change. South Atlantic magnetic anomaly is well known to navigators. Having few minutes to spare, I have constricted diagram of evolution of the SA anomaly during the last 400 years.
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/SA%20mag%20anomaly.gif
Some other magnetic anomalies can be found here:
http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/GandF.htm
just look for appropriate link.
Re: Tom P (Jan 9 11:53),
“Nothing fishy at all. That’s when the IPCC predictions were made:” LinkToColoradoEduHere
And:
“That’s a little difficult to square with the actual data:”
However:
The Colorado link is to “Correspondence” as a “To The Editor” (perhaps to Roger A. Pielke, Jr) by © 2008 Nature Publishing Group, with reference to nature geoscience | VOL 1 | APRIL 2008 | http://www.nature.com/naturegeoscience.
Although no data is given on the linked Correspondence, there are citations of individual articles in IPCC Working Group I reports in 1990, 1995, 2001 and 2007. There are also links to what I assume is data. These include GISS and Met Office as well as UAH and MSU.
Finally, the Correspondence originates from the Nature Publishing Group. I must consider the source despite the risk of being accused of an Ad Hominum attack.
Tom P (10:39:52),
“The IPCC’s predictions have failed miserably. That means their models are wrong. But since the IPCC is composed of 100% political appointees, whose highly paid jobs depend on their predicting catastrophic global warming, then that is the prediction they will make. As we see from all the evidence, the IPCC is not permitted to predict that global temperatures will fall. And it is a travesty.”
Not only are the models wrong, but the Climategate document and the ‘Harry’ code shows there is a strong possibility they ‘bent’ the data to fit the prediction better. Perhaps the only honest one out of the bunch was Tom Wigley, who admitted in the email that he couldn’t understand why climate observation didn’t match predictions, “Where’s the warming?”
I just checked the pattern of summer temperatures in North America as further evidence that the referenced article was wrong in stating that the trend is to warmer summers
Both in Canada and Contiguous US the summers are not getting warmer, in fact they are getting cooler since 2006 as more of the colder natural cycles kick into the cool mode [PDO, AMO,NAO, AO]
Canada ‘s summers have cooled almost 1 degree [0.9] C since 2006 and 2009 summer was 27 th warmest in the last 61
Contiguous US summers have cooled 2.48 degree F since 2006 and 2009 was 44 th warmest in the last 114 years
I am fed up with the cold.
Climate is made up of weather, so if we get the normal sort of weather variability, then I contend climate is the same
The weather in UK consists of mild wet winters and warm damp summers with the occasional dry hot summer and cold winter. Nothing has changed in my life time, the weather continues to disappoint.
The Guardian article is a joke!
The MET Office sold its soul to the IPCC/AGW/ climate change lobby long ago. Through CRU and Hadley it provides the temperature regimes that the IPCC relies upon. In July 2006 Robert Napier was appointed as its chairman – his previous post was head of WWF-UK: ’nuff said!