Over at The Air Vent, Jeff reviewed the book “Warnings” by CCM Mike Smith. This is a book about weather, weather forecasting, severe weather events, and the people and technology that save lives and help people in their daily lives by making weather forecasting their mission. I’ve got the book, I’ve read it, and there’s nary a mention about climate in it.
The number five comment out of the gate at tAV was from Professor Eric Steig, Real Climate contributor and author of the recently rebutted paper that purported to show continent-wide Antarctic warming, that turned out to be nothing more than a statistical smearing artifact.
Professor Steig must still be angry about his paper being effectively rebutted, because he launched a rather bizarre rant of the “weather is not climate” meme about the author’s website, while at the very same time labeling Mike Smith a “liar” and “dishonest” in the context of a book professor Steig has never read.
Eric Steig said
‘Curious’ wrote “Does it cover the distinction between weather and climate?”
Well, I have not read the book, but if you watch the video the author links to on his web site, you’ll find he uses the same lie that Lindzen does “If you can’t predict the weather 5 days from now, how can you be confident in a forecast 100 years from now.” Hello, these are completely different concepts. No one is claiming they are predicting *weather* 100 years from now (or even 10 years from now!).
Mike Smith may be a good meteorologist, but he evidently hasn’t learned this very basic difference yet. Either that, or he is a very dishonest person.
Wow, just wow.
Mike Smith replied:
Mike Smith said
Hi Everyone. I thought that instead of Mr. Steig hurling accusations about me and everyone speculating as to my positions, I would make a few comments and clear the air.
First, there is NOTHING about global warming or climate change in “Warnings.” The book has received excellent reviews and I am very proud of it. I believe that any of you who might chose to read it will enjoy it as much as Jeff did. I certainly appreciate him posting the review.
Mr. Steig says, “No one is claiming they are predicting *weather* 100 years from now (or even 10 years from now!).” I suggest, he read p. 118 of the 2009 National Climate Change Assessment. It makes a WEATHER forecast for the number of heat waves to occur in Chicago during the period 2070-2099. The is just one of the few weather forecasts in the document (i.e., a weather forecast is a forecast of specific conditions at a specific place and time). Here in Kansas, there are various predictions made about drought and reservoir levels on a sub-state basis in 2050. It is factually incorrect to say that “no one” is making weather forecasts decades into the future.
I am very well aware of the differences between weather and climate. The assertion that we can forecast climate decades into the future depends on climate models being unbiased, the errors averaging out, and their ability to forecast volcanic eruptions and changes in solar energy as as other non-atmospheric inputs. No skill (other than in hindcast mode) in any of these areas has been demonstrated. Here is a new paper on the subject: http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/section?content=a928051726&fulltext=713240928 From the abstract: “Besides confirming the findings of a previous assessment study that model projections at point scale are poor, results show that the spatially integrated projections are also poor.”
Finally, I don’t understand the need for pejoratives like “liar” and “dishonest.” We have never met and, to my knowledge, have never had a conversation. While we may disagree on these points, I do not doubt Mr. Steig’s good faith. I wish he would have given me the same benefit of the doubt.
Mike
‘Tis a strange world we inhabit in blogland where people accuse you of being a liar and dishonest without even reading what you’ve written.
Just in case Professor Steig reads this and decides to read the book, here it is:
Filament snake erupts.
Thanx mark at Jo Novas
sun
Hmmmff, the image worked in preview.’
heres the link to NASA
[Preview is not posted. Only staff can post images. … bl57~mod]
Ayatollah Khomeini will kill Salman Roshdi without reading his book and Professor Steig calls Mike Smith liar and dishonest without reading his book. So what is difference between Khomeini and Steig? Mike must be glad that he is still alive LOL
[MOD NOTE: It appears your link goes to an article almost 2 years old.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009, 15:18 … bl57~mod]
Yes, exactly. It just shows how long this scandal has been going on. In the last two years the weather has got colder and fuel prices have rocketed. In Britain, fuel poverty has doubled in five years and this is set to get much worse thanks to the AGW Mafia and British politicians’ insatiable greed for taxes. Try finding any of that in our “Lamestream” media.
Remember Eric Steig is a product of his environment where the game is played by invitation to pass the ball to each other. Hardly surprising to see a rant when the coveted climate ball is intercepted and shared with better than his equals at RC.
If you live in a world of one opinion it’s hard to adjust to the concept of other views, let alone, one of “those” daring to speak and give their opinion above your moans Eric.
The Team are turning nasty now that their ‘beautiful wickedness’ is being rumbled.
Kate says:
December 7, 2010 at 3:56 am
[MOD NOTE: It appears your link goes to an article almost 2 years old.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009, 15:18 … bl57~mod]
Yes, exactly. It just shows how long this scandal has been going on. In the last two years the weather has got colder and fuel prices have rocketed. In Britain, fuel poverty has doubled in five years and this is set to get much worse thanks to the AGW Mafia and British politicians’ insatiable greed for taxes. Try finding any of that in our “Lamestream” media.
Here is a little more background…
http://www.npcuk.org/pressrel.htm
Figures from the Office for National Statistics, show an excess winter death rate between December 2009 and March 2010 in England and Wales of 25,400 – made up of 10,600 males and 14,800 females. The bulk of these cold related deaths affected those aged 75 and over – totalling 20,600 (81% of the total). The overall figure represents a death rate of 9 pensioners an hour during the 4 month period in question.
Dot Gibson, NPC general secretary said: “Since 1997, we have lost over 300,000 pensioners during the winter months because of cold related illnesses, yet the government seems incapable of acting. No other section of our society is so vulnerable and treated so badly. Pensioners see rising fuel bills and are constantly worried about whether or not they can afford to put their heating on.”
It looks like the story has some basis in fact…
‘Weather is not Climate’ made simple:
Hot weather – like the recent heatwave in Russia – is a function of Global Warming or Climate Change or climate. Very cold weather, the phenomenon that reliably occurs when climate summits are held, is not to be confused with ‘climate’ unless it is understood as, “Climate Disruption”. But Climate Disruption is a function of Climate Change which, in turn, is a function of Global Warming or a warming climate. So clearly, cold weather provides no indication of a cool or moderate climate but it may indicate a warming or hot climate.
The calling of names is never acceptable in informed and constructive discussion. This is why I raise the issue when one our our community fall into that immature strategy, and why I am concerned that Monckton ( Formal address for a UK Lord is to use the family name) is skating on thin ice with regard to some of the language he uses in his posts.
The quickest way to make someone angry is to be right. This week’s quote is further proof of that.
I think it is a good thing that Steig takes part. we need more of that, not less. If he could assume a less defensive attitude, then all the better.
Has anyone else noticed how delicate and unstable these climate PhD’s are?
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Eric Steig said
December 5, 2010 at 10:35 pm
The point is simply that the lack of our ability to forecast weather over a few days has little, if any, bearing on whether or not we can predict climate.
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This is his strawman.
It’s not the five day forecast.
It’s not the ability to forecast weather over a few days.
10 years ago, a decade, they predicted what the “weather” would be like, right now.
They could not have gotten it more wrong.
This AGW crowd engages in the psychological malady of “projection” constantly. They are the first to mix up weather and climate. Every time it’s hot or dry or there is a hurricane, they point out global warming is changing the climate. But if its cold or wet or there are no storms then it’s simply weather. If someone points out that it’s evidence against global warming, the warmists become so violently aggitated by that mixing of weather and climate. Why? Because subcontiously they do it all the time. A psychologist once said something to the effect that “one hates in others what they hate most in themselves”. It’s okay to predict there won’t be any snow in the UK this winter because of global warming, but it’s not okay to predict that it will snow in the UK this winter because there is no global warming.
Michael says:
December 7, 2010 at 12:39 am
Completely off-topic (not to mention idiotic). How’d that one slip by?
/Mr Lynn
I came across the pensioners dying at 12 per hour information yesterday, but can’t quote the exact source because it was inside a related report on the TV and they don’t offer these videos on their website. If I dig it up again I will post a link, but in the meantime 9 pensioners dying per hour is bad enough. The more I look into this, the worse it looks.
Kate says:
December 7, 2010 at 5:35 am
They don’t need “death panels” if cuts in heating serve the same purpose.
Very interesting post. I would wonder how the assumption that climate is not weather works if there were no records of what the weather was on specific times and places. This also makes me wonder just how certain agencies can end monitoring so many recording sites (many still in operation.) and then proclaiming that they are so much more accurate than before, while having to interpolate the data for large areas due to no recording station in that area. Perhaps there should be a more “robust” collection effort and use more of the data available to improve the empirical coverage of the planet, continents, and regions. Perhaps this might improve the forecast of weather and the prediction of climate in the future. With the understanding there be no cataclysmic events in future. Meteor strikes, volcano eruptions (major).
Just thinking,
Bill Derryberry
This from http://www.icecap.us/ about the UK’s death rates this winter, last winter, and the “official” figures from previous winters (that is, 2008).
Dec 06, 2010
Britain is Freezing to Death; Mounting Death Toll in Europe; NYT Changes Headlines to “Extremes”
SNIP – Please do not report ENTIRE ARTICLES, especially off topic ones – Anthony
http://www.icecap.us/ concludes their articles with the following (editorial) summary:
On Thursday a driver who stopped to help a stranded motorist in the Yorkshire Dales was killed when he was struck by another vehicle. Read more here. See this WSJ story on the mounting cold death toll in Europe. The New York Times changed the headlines after a few hours to one more suitable for the alarmist theme that extremes are occuring “Europe Jolted by Extremes of Weather” here.
This makes the likes of Blair, Brown, Holdren, Pachauri and his UN pirates, the enviros, the opportunists in the corporations and empty headed Hollywood ‘stars’ and Washington DC elitist politicans, and all the other wacky warmers and their enablers and cheerleaders in the lamestream media and alarmist blogs mass murderers. You see the world is awash in energy sources but the enviros and politicans are blocking access and want to push the useless alternative energy schemes which forces up the cost of energy which in the recession with high joblessness increases the number of families in energy poverty.
Nick Stokes says:
December 7, 2010 at 12:24 am @ur momisugly Mike Smith
“It makes a WEATHER forecast for the number of heat waves to occur in Chicago during the period 2070-2099. The is just one of the few weather forecasts in the document (i.e., a weather forecast is a forecast of specific conditions at a specific place and time).”
That’s an odd one. OK, I guess it’s specific conditions at a specific place. But what’s the specific time?
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Wow….coming from a great scientific mind….how can you miss that?
I think you are just being obstinate.
By this time, we have grown to expect such obstinance, Nick, of the CAGW acolytes such as Steig.
But, come on man….you?
If you can’t see the forest through those trees, then the cognitive dissonance….is worse than we thought.
To quote Mr. Vonn Trapp when he was trying to rescue Rolf “You’ll never be one of them.”
Come on over to the other side, Nick. You’ll never be one of them. 😉
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
TinyCO2 said: Actually I’m not sure I know what differentiates a climate forecast and weather forecast. The now discontinued seasonal forecasts from the MetOffice didn’t specify specific weather on specific days, they just indicated whether it would be warmer or colder than average and that there would be more or less precipitation. They always seemed to indicate it would be warmer than average, exactly like UK climate predictions and they’d no clue what the rain would be doing, just like UK climate predictions.
That would be because the Met Office use the same models for weather and climate predictions. For weather they use a basic unified model and for climate they add a few more variables.
I think Stumpy is right in saying “Climate is just the average of weather. The climate models TRY to predict weather on a day to day basis which is then averaged to make a “climatic” prediction.”
>>(Icecap Note: the age of Dickens was during the Dalton Minimum, with very similar solar conditions to the last several years.) <<
A correction: the Dalton minimum took place during the early 1800s while Dickens wrote during the middle part of the century.
“It is good to be back in North Carolina,” Obama said Monday. “Love North Carolina, although I have to say I came down here for slightly warmer weather. What’s snow doing on the ground in North Carolina? Come on now.”
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“slightly warmer weather” Mr. President ?? Hire someone who’s good with “creative interpolation.” You’ll find a name or two on this thread !!
In the weather is not climate department: Enjoy this webcam
Is it Nome Alaska?
No, its North Carolina.
The temperature is minus 1 (F and not C).
http://www.highcountrywebcams.com/webcameras_beechparkway.htm
Three days of constant upslope snowfall.
Surely CO2 is to blame.
We’d better start reducing from 390 ppm back to 350….or this little southern ski resort is going to have as good a start to the season as they did back in the 1970s. The horror!
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
Steig has jumped the shark. His 15 minutes are over, and he’s pissed about it…