Is March In The Upper Midwest Losing It’s Freeze? The actual data doesn’t seem to support Climate Central’s recent claim.
Guest post by Steven Goddard
Yesterday, WUWT discussed an article on future regional temperature modeling from Heidi Cullen et. al at Climate Central claiming that most of the upper Midwest will no longer be freezing in March by the year 2090 – as a result of increases in atmospheric CO2 content. This was based on averaging the output of 16 different climate models. Here’s the image included in their press release:
Caption: In blue: projected areas with average March temperatures below freezing in the 2010s (above) compared to the 2090s (below), under a high carbon emissions scenario extending current trends. Click image for an interactive map
As you can see below, CO2 has been increasing rather steadily for the last few decades, particularly the last 30 years. No dispute there.
Source: Scripps Trends in Carbon Dioxide
If Climate Central’s press release theory were correct, we would expect to have already seen an increase in March temperatures, and an increase in number of years above freezing. Below is a graph of NCDC March temperatures for Wisconsin since 1979.
The orange line is the mean and the red line is the freezing line. Note that not only is there no trend towards a warmer March, but the standard deviation is high (3.67) and the range is also large – about 15 degrees difference between the warmest and coldest March.
Source: NCDC Wisconsin March Temperature data
Even so, the 100 year graph of March temperature in Wisconsin seems rather flat also.
The next graph is the number of years above freezing per decade. As you can see, there were fewer years above freezing in the last decade than there were in the 1980s.
Minnesota shows the same patterns – no warming and high variability. The number of years above freezing has also decreased.
NCDC Minnesota March Temperatures
And here is the 100 year March temperature graph, like Wisconsin, pretty flat:
Like Wisconsin, it seems there have been less days above freezing in recent decades:
Conclusion: Based on the NCDC data, there is no evidence that increases in CO2 over the last 30 years have affected March temperatures in the north central region of the USA or moved the freeze line north. Once again, we see a case of scientists trusting climate models ahead of reality.
More on Climate Central:
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UPDATE:
Here is Minnesota and Wisconsin with five different trend lines for different start years.
In order to highlight the lack of correlation between year and March temperature, I also made a scatter diagrams:
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From a longer essay about models (retreadresources.com/blog): We must treat our models as hypotheses. When they fail the smell test, toss them out or re-calibrate and revise. If the re-calibrated model fails to support the thesis then the thesis must be seriously questioned. The most important point here is support. Models are models, they explain and sometimes predict but they do not produce data. Models prove or disprove nothing, indicate is possible, suggest is probably but define or prove impossible. If models did anything more then suggest, every general would win every battle. Models are not and can never be reality, that is a logical impossibility. The best they can do is provide a pale reflection of it. Model results are just information, not measured data. They form part of our information base, they are not knowledge and they can never impart wisdom.
I have looked at Climate Central in the past now I know why I never went back simply propaganda masquerading as science. dennis
Facts are stubborn things.
Although I’m no ‘climate scientist’ those charts look absolutely average to me. Dah, wheres’s de warming George?
I think the term “Scientist” needs to be restricted to refer to only thous who actually employ the “Scientific Method” in there work.
I’m from northern Minnesota. March has seen significant warming in the past 115 years, but that peaked during the 1980s. Since, March has been somewhat cooler, and if you single out the 1975-2009 period, the month is cooling at a rate of a half degree fahrenheit per decade. Locally, the only time March was above freezing in recent decades was in 2000. March 1973 was also above freezing. March tends to be warmer than average during El Niño winters. El Niños were particularly common from 1980-2000… of course the number of warm Marches was higher.
During the same 1975-2009 period, the month of May has cooled at a rate of 1.56˚F per decade. Will this trend continue? Will May be 15.6˚F colder in 2075 than it was in 1975? Doubtful considering by that point April would be, on average, several degrees warmer than May. May during El Niño years tends to be cooler as the El Niño tends to weaken during this time and the northern jet buckles, sending cool air down from mid-May to mid-June. This is a common feature.. and El Niño is to blame, not CO2 warming.
What really drives me crazy is this ‘climate expert’ wannabe did her dissertation on the Little Ice Age. Greenland Ice Cores (1989) clearly show higher CO2. She is a GE/Weather Channel/Obama Socialist and will say anything! I know this does’nt cover the science….but science from her has always been questionable!
Happy Easter!
Show the trend with the CI, hiding the uncertainty is no different than hiding the decline. That’s what hiding the decline was, hiding uncertainty in the data and just talking about it in the text.
north dakota, montana… inquiring minds..
Meanwhile in Miami: http://cbs4.com/local/RECORD.LOW.TEMPERATURE.2.1607771.html
Just once, it would be nice to see the Mauna Loa CO2 graph shown with a Y-axis scale that extends down to zero. Of course that wouldn’t fit the narrative of skyrocketing CO2 levels nearly as well.
The bulk of the people who would really need this type of information, would be farmers needing to choose whether to plant short or long season hybrids to be able to harvest a good yield ahead of freezing fall temperatures.
You cannot fool these farmers they are in the field almost every day, they watch the weather twice a day minimum, some subscribe to satellite coverage, as all of the COOP elevators do. They don’t miss much, and spend most of their time discussing what others saw they didn’t.
This is my daily reality in small town NC Kansas, these kinds of crap forecasts we are discussing here, are the first thing to be thrown out when they diverge from reality. They can post to their site what they want, but the bulk of the grass roots farmers won’t be fooled for 30 seconds, about as long as it takes to tarp the grain truck.
It truly is a shame what has been done to the data, I think it only effects the monthly averages, as it would be too much work to go back and change all of the daily raw station data. At least i hope they have been lazy enough to have taken the shortcut of just adjusting the monthly averages figuring the general public would not take the time to process the dailies into a monthly average to find out. I am working off a set of raw station data from CD’s printed in 2003, and they agree with the raw station data from several local stations I have checked, from their original hand entered records.
Climate Central is a nonprofit, collaborative group of scientists and communicators. Our mission is to create a bridge between the scientific community and the public, providing clear, honest, nonpartisan, and up-to-date information to help people make sound decisions about climate and energy.
In short, Climate Central combines sound science and vibrant media to increase public understanding and attention to the climate challenge.
This must be the bridge to nowhere. They ought to be glad that no one holds them accountable for completing their mission statement. A series of questions comes to mind:
1. What scientific community? Who are the people in this community? Do they mean all people in science? How did they determine who was at the science one end of the bridge?
2, Who are the public? Do they mean the general public? Progressives? Liberals? Politicians? News Media? Who are making sound decisions about climate and energy?
3. What do they mean by honesty? Do they mean fair and balanced? Do they mean unbiased? Do they mean complete?
4. What is vibrant media?
5. What is the climate challenge?
I wonder is paying the bill for the staff at Climate Central. They have at least 10 highly paid employees who surely do not work for nothing. Anyone know?
It amazes me that WUWT can do so much in inform the public and scientific communities with so little financial support and with a staff of volunteers.
It seems an easy way to test models would be to model the past. If your model matches the reality of what was in the past then this would be a pretty good proof of your model standing up in the future. All climate model should use that as a standard. Or am I just being to simple?
Bob, one doesn’t need a computer or a calculator to detect a trend–the old eyeball does an acceptable job of seeing correlation or lack thereof. These old eyeballs don’t detect a trend. Do yours?
But as Mr. Goddard explained in a previous comment, what deflects any possibility of a trend is demonstrated by the charts that show the number of years above freezing.
Was this one an April Fools joke?
“This was based on averaging the output of 16 different climate models.”
If the climate models are all inaccurate, what’s the point in the average?
Is there no way the alarmists can be taken to court in the US for spreading false, unsubstantiated claims about future climate disaster which will lead, if heeded, to the impoverishment of the nation?
British courts are too weak and more and more influenced and controlled by Europe.
I, for one, would be prepared to contribute to a fighting fund, if a credible case could be made. I suspect many others who visit this site would contribute if this nonsense could be finally put to rest.
Steven,
Apologies if someone has already pointed out your glaring oversite:
The 2010 maps from Cullen et al. clearly show that half of Wisconsin and nearly all of Minnesota still experience an average March temperature of < 0 (using 80s and 90s baseline). So why would we expect to already see "an increase in number of years above freezing"? You're looking for Marches above freezing in areas we already know are below freezing. Yikes.
Furthermore, Cullen et al. are considering the % area of each state that is below freezing, not the average of the thermometers. Your analysis disregards the spatial distribution of the temperature readings. When interpolation techniques are applied to point data (commonly referred to as "smearing" on this website), the area-weighting effect may yield a much different result.
If at first you don't succed, eh?
And I’d like to make my first official contribution to the “weather is not climate” department:
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/04/02/more-than-90-record-high-temperatures-broken/?hpt=T2
steven mosher (13:12:30) :
Here are some Minnesota March trends for you
1981-2009 : -32C/century
1980-2009 : -15C/century
1979-2009 : -3C/century
1978-2009 : +4C/century
1977-2009 : -11C/century
1976-2009 : -5C/century
Take your pick, but I am not going to draw a trend line with that kind of sensitivity to the start point.
Smokey (12:19:10) :
Jumping GISSosophat, Smokey.
That screen is moving like a den of rattlesnakes.
D (13:22:45) :
“Just once, it would be nice to see the Mauna Loa CO2 graph shown with a Y-axis scale that extends down to zero.”
click1
click2
click3
I’ve always thought that models were supposed to be *based* on reality.. so this makes me think: “*which* reality?”. It doesn’t seem to exist in this universe.
Re Ron McGathy (13:26:37) :
Inability to reconstruct the past may prove that the model doesn’t work, but being able to reconstruct the past is not proof that a model as any predictive ability. Only accurate future predictions can demonstrate that a model has accurate predictive ability.
Smokey (13:51:49) :
So much for CO2 trace trends.
Ron McGathy (13:26:37) :It seems an easy way to test models would be to model the past. If your model matches the reality of what was in the past then this would be a pretty good proof of your model standing up in the future. All climate model should use that as a standard. Or am I just being to simple?
You are not and they do (although I’m not so sure about these non-Academic centers that produce non-peer reviewed ‘research’.
It’s a buyer be aware market, I think the general population has enough savvy to know that they have never been right consistently on the daily forecasts, and will take these longer term forecasts with a bigger grain of salt.
Lawsuits for bad forecasting does not hold rain water, following bad forecasts to your own economic doom, is a laughable offense by your farming neighbors, (you believed that stuff?) then they get together and help when they can.