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:
http://climatecentral.org/about
http://climatecentral.org/about/people/
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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steven mosher (13:12:30) :
Sorry, there was a bug in my spreadsheet from my last post. Here is Minnesota with five different trend lines for different start years.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdFVBWFNvNDRQcE55bWlvZjFfdVhyekE&oid=1&v=1270243451722
Vuk etc (11:47:19) :
Raindrops keep falling on my head
And just like the guy whose feet are too big for his bed
Nothin’ seems to fit
Those raindrops are falling on my head, they keep falling
So I just did me some talkin’ to the sun
And I said I didn’t like the way he got things done
Sleepin’ on the job
Those raindrops are falling on my head, they keep falling
But there’s one thing I know
The blues they send to meet me won’t defeat me
It won’t be long till happiness steps up to greet me
Raindrops keep falling on my head
But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turnin’ red
Crying’s not for me’
Cause I’m never gonna stop the rain by complainin’
Because I’m free
Nothing’s worrying me.
It won’t be long till happiness steps up to greet me
Raindrops keep falling on my head
But that doesn’t mean my eyes will soon be turnin’ red
Crying’s not for me’
Cause I’m never gonna stop the rain by complainin’
Because I’m free
Nothing’s worrying me.
It is comforting in Rhode Island to note the models say they are high and dry. If you still have some battery left in your Blackberry you will note that we can’t believe the weather caster. The flooding picts must be an anomaly.
Phil M (13:41:21) :
You are confusing trends with absolute numbers. If March was warming in Minnesota and Wisconsin, we would be seeing both an overall warming trend and more years above freezing. We see neither.
It should also be obvious with the huge year over year variability, that the fine area sensitivity in the Cullen maps are vastly more precise than they are accurate.
Smokey (13:51:49) :
Sometimes National Geographic publishes scary pictures of tiny insects magnified about 10,000 times. Same effect as the CO2 graphs.
Phil M (13:41:21) :
I thought some more about your straw man question. You ignored the thesis of this article. Did you do that on purpose, or was it just an oversight?
Well, yeah, it’s March, what do you expect?
Of course their predictions give us an extra month of growing season in 2090, so we can raise higher yield hybrids. . .
steven mosher (13:12:30)
One more for Wisconsin.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdFVBWFNvNDRQcE55bWlvZjFfdVhyekE&oid=2&v=1270245333275
Tsk tsk, I can see Algore using White Bear Lake as proof of the former polar bear population. Kinda hard to explain wolves, bear and even wolverines moving south if it is warming, eh?
It’s a shame that modeling gets misused so often. Modeling is at the heart of science as a companion to the experimental mode. Mistaking model output for data is a pretty primitive error, of course, but the lure of either fame or fortune is strong within the human species. Unfortunately, all of science is given a black eye in the general public’s view when even a few misuse their art for whatever reason and are discovered to be less we thought them to be. Disingenuous or incompetent; the cause matters little and the damage is done. Being a scientist does not remove our subjection to human faults.
Steve Schaper (14:51)
[b][i]”so we can raise higher yield hybrids.”[/b][/i]
I’ll bet my 2090 Prius against your 2090 Insight over a quarter……..
maybe the thawing northern latitudes will be balanced by freezing lower latitudes…
Forecasters: S. Florida Winter Among Coldest Ever
Record Low Average Temperatures Set For Miami Beach, West Palm Beach, Naples
http://cbs4.com/local/RECORD.LOW.TEMPERATURE.2.1607771.html
” Once again, we see a case of scientists trusting climate models ahead of reality”
Likely response from the warmers: We can’t be swayed from our goals by this reality monkey business. 🙂
Steve Goddard (13:48:29) :
“Here are some Minnesota March trends for you
1981-2009 : -32C/century
1980-2009 : -15C/century
1979-2009 : -3C/century
1978-2009 : +4C/century
…
Take your pick, but I am not going to draw a trend line with that kind of sensitivity to the start point.”
Sorry, but this is completely impossible. The trend can’t change from +4 to -32 °C by omitting 3 years. Even the steady decrease is wrong. The temperatures were:
1978: 34 F
1979: 25 F
1980: 23 F
1981: 33 F
Average 1979-2009: 26 F
If the positive trend of +4 °C per century for 1978-2009 is right, the trend has to be more positive for 1979-2009 after the very warm march 1978 is omitted. And it must decrease after removing the cold year 1980.
By the way, even without trend line you couldn’t hide the increase: In your diagrams the average 1979-2009 for Minnesota is about 27.5 F, while the 100 year average is only about 26 degrees. Similar for Wisconsin.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/minnesota_march_100yr.png
Correction: Average 1979-2009 = 27.5 F (wrong in my table, right below)
Smokey (12:19:10) :
“Here are some examples of NASA/GISS temperature adjustments made into blink gifs: click ”
Smokey, is there no way these people can be accountable for what they are doing? I find it strange that he can keep on with this without any reaction from some authority ? It looks like outright fraud to me?
Here are scatter diagrams showing the lack of correlation between March temperature and year.
Wisconsin
https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdFVBWFNvNDRQcE55bWlvZjFfdVhyekE&oid=2&v=1270247228525
rsq = 0.0014
Minnesota
https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdFVBWFNvNDRQcE55bWlvZjFfdVhyekE&oid=3&v=1270247351385
rsq = 0.0002
We still need an answer from the gobal warming geniuses and scientists grazing at the trough of public grant money to the following question:
How do they explain that while CO2 has been increasing yearly:
a) for the last nine years or so there has been a statistical cooling, and
b) the year 2008, with its attendant 0.595C decrease, puts us back to where the temperature was in 1780, the start of the Industrial Revolution?
Anyone with an answer?
Wrong link for the Wisconsin scatter plot
https://spreadsheets.google.com/oimg?key=0AnKz9p_7fMvBdFVBWFNvNDRQcE55bWlvZjFfdVhyekE&oid=4&v=1270247646710
rsq = 0.0014
“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”
and up to say, 50.000 ppm (about the concentration in the air we breathe out).
“Of course that wouldn’t fit the narrative of skyrocketing CO2 levels nearly as well.”
Thank you D
There are lies, there are statistics, and then there are climatologists.
After 60 years of farming, I don’t think I’ll bet the farm on this drivel.
Climte Kate (15:08:22) :
This article is mainly about the last 30 years, when CO2 growth has been rapid.
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/#mlo_full
There was an increase from about 1948 to 1970, and a decline since – during the period of maximum CO2 growth. The Mauna Loa records don’t even start until the 1960s.
http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/minnesota_march_100yr.png
If you like longer term records, we also know that March temperatures have increased since the Wisconsinan Glaciation when the region was covered with ice about 4,000 feet thick.
And March temperatures have declined dramatically since the Cambrian Era when Wisconsin was a tropical climate.
Charles S. Opalek, PE (15:31:29) :
I’m game. The amount of C02 added to the atmosphere (est. 140 ppm) would make the thickness of cellophane if depicted on a graph 10″ high, with 0 ppm at the bottom and 1,000,000 ppm at the top.
Grab your micrometer, and open it from 0 to .0014″.
See what I mean?
Not enough C02 increase to make a skin on a lizard.
Let’s start calling this what it really is. It’s not CLIMATOLOGY it is CLIMASTROLOGY.
Along the lines of this: http://www.astrsoft.com/
Steve Goddard (11:46:49) : “People will be escaping from the desert heat of Chicago to Wisconsin in their tri-hybrid wind/solar/hydrogen powered cars.”
So their fiendish plot is to move Chicago into Death Valley, and make us race our, um, high-speed Toyota battery packs northeastward? I bet they change the name of Wisconsin to Nisnocsiw, too. Evil bastards… 🙂