Here’s an opportunity for crowd-sourcing a rebuttal to Climate Central’s Top Ten Climate Events of 2010. I think it is mistitled, and should be Climate Central’s Top Ten Weather Events of 2010.
Of course it OK when they do it, because as we all know, weather is not climate except when it fits the AGW narrative, which is CC’s founding mission. The Climate Central effort here with this list seems rather weak and transparent, when you look at the story behind the story for the list they have compiled.
Get a load of this paragraph:
This year also featured plenty of extreme events, from crippling snowstorms in the American Northeast to blazing heat and deadly flooding in Pakistan. Many of these events have already been at least partially linked to natural variations that occur in the Earth’s climate system.
Um, that’s called weather.
Here’s the list with some rebuttals of my own to get started. Readers please add your own in comments, and I’ll add them to this list.
1. Mid-Atlantic Cities Break All-Time Snowfall Records
Last time I checked, it takes two to tango. Cold and weather patterns are a factor also. And, can you tie single weather events to climate?
Readers can help fill in this section with more examples.
2. Flooding in Nashville, Tennessee
Gosh, it floods somewhere in the USA almost every year. For example the Great Ohio River flood of 1937. Was that caused by global warming climate change climate disruption back then too?
3. Record-breaking Heat Waves and Droughts in Africa and the Middle East
Gosh, it gets hot there? We have about 100 years of records, some of that natural variation you allude to can’t be in play in such a short slice of the planetary history? Assume AGW is not a factor; is it not unreasonable to expect new records to be set outside of a 100 year data sample?
Readers can help fill in this section with examples.
4. Russian Heat Wave
Gee, even NOAA doesn’t think this has anything to do with global warming climate change climate disruption:
Despite this strong evidence for a warming planet, greenhouse gas forcing fails to explain the 2010 heat wave over western Russia.
I guess Climate Central never got that memo.
5. U.S. Summer Heat Waves
2010 had heat waves, so did other years in the USA. When was it again that we had the most frequency of heat waves? Oh, yeah, the 1930’s.
And yes, I know the graph does not go to 2010, the graphs above were published in 2006, for pre-2000 data, but perhaps readers can locate an update?
6. Pakistan Monsoon and Flooding
Isn’t there a long history of this sort of thing?
From: Khandekar M. K., “2010 Pakistan Floods: Climate Change Or Natural Variability?”
(October 2010), Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society (Vol.38, No.5).
As the graph shows, rainfall records for the region prove how floods and droughts have occurred irregularly over a 150-year period and show no discernible significant trend.
Khandekar, also once a research scientist for Environment Canada, and an IPCC reviewer, sums up how Pakistan’s climate record shows no human signal:
“Among other droughts and floods, the monsoon rains were exceptionally heavy in 1917 with extensive floods over many areas of the country, while 1972 was a major drought year resulting in sharply reduced grain yields. The decade of the 1930s experienced in general surplus rains over most of India with three flood years, namely 1933, 1936 and 1938 (Bhalme & Mooley 1980). It is of interest to note that the1930s were part of the dust bowl years on the Canadian/US Prairies. A possible teleconnective link between Indian monsoon flood and Canadian Prairie drought has been speculated by Khandekar (2004).”
His conclusion:
“A rapid transition of the ENSO phase from El Niño to La Niña between spring and summer of 2010 appears to be the key element in triggering a vigorous monsoon of 2010 over the Indian subcontinent…….the 2010 Pakistan floods, although seemingly unprecedented, were well within natural variability of monsoonal climate over the Indian subcontinent.”
7. Third Lowest Arctic Sea Ice Extent
Yes, but here’s what Climate Central won’t show you:
or this:
8. Lake Mead Record Low
Yes, but it has dipped low before, and again, is a 70 year record really enough to claim a long term event outside the bounds of natural variability?
Figure 8. Time series of average monthly Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) (upper, smoothed) and standardized anomaly index (SAI) of cool+warm-season precipitation (lower). Arrows indicate regime shifts of the PDO.
The USGS says in Precipitation History of the Mojave Desert Region, 1893–2001:
Precipitation in the desert region is modestly but significantly correlated with the average PDO (computed from October to September) in the year preceding (lag 1) and the year of the cool+warm (lag 0) season (fig. 7). The three regime shifts of the PDO are largely in-phase with the annual and seasonal precipitation time series, particularly since the mid-1940s (fig. 8). The mid-century dry conditions show this in phase relation, which coincides with a period of low indices and a prolonged cool phase of the PDO. The early neutral to positive phase of the PDO is associated, although in a complicated manner, with the relatively wet conditions during the early half of the century. The strong warm phase of the PDO beginning around 1977 is readily associated with the wet climate beginning in 1978. Of particular interest is the downward shift in the PDO beginning in 1999 with concomitant decreased precipitation that has continued through the winter of 2002 with only slight relief in winter 2003. The unusually dry climate in the Mojave Desert region since 1998 is likely associated with a nearly continuous belt of high pressure in the northern mid-latitudes that produced drought conditions elsewhere in the United States, the Mediterranean region, southern Europe, and central Asia. This global-scale drying was evidently related to unusually cool and persistent SST in the eastern Pacific Ocean (Hoerling and Kumar, 2003). The weather, SST, and surface-pressure patterns of the past several years suggest that a transition to another PDO regime is presently underway (Gedalof and Smith, 2001). This transition could affect the climate of the Mojave Desert region.
Well, that’s inconvenient.
9. Amazon Drought
Wide open for readers.
10. Final Annual Temperature Ranking
Um, no, it’s not final yet. Final is the word you use when all the data is in, we still await December. But, it seems there’s been a lot of pressure to make 2010 the “hottest year ever” in advance of the year end.
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How about the drought in Mindanao Island Philippines which caused power outages for several months.
Oh and, what will happen to the weather and climate if the Gulf Stream is stopped and no warm water enters the Atlantic Current?
7. Third Lowest Arctic Sea Ice Extent
We only have about 31 years of arctic sea ice extent measurments. That gives us about a 3 in 10 chance of being in the lowest 3 years. Is this really that significant?
And just what was that chemical the US Government used to sink all the Oil? I mean come on now, I’m not reading about any Tourist problems in the south, nothing in the news, so the SnowBirds have flown and they are not bitching about the beaches? Where did all that all end up? Granted I’m in the Philippines and don’t get much local news from the US Gulf of Mexico, but I am a pretty regular on facebook. I’m not seeing the expected results of that much Oil being released. Where did it go? Don’t you think that might affect a few things?
As it has been 86 years since this record was set, does this prove Anthropogenic Global Cooling
Source – Australian Government BOM
Marble Bar heatwave, 1923-24
The world record for the longest sequence of days above 100°Fahrenheit (or 37.8° on the Celsius scale) is held by Marble Bar in the inland Pilbara district of Western Australia. The temperature, measured under standard exposure conditions, reached or exceeded the century mark every day from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924, a total of 160 days.
Temperatures above 100°F are common in Marble Bar and indeed throughout a wide area of north western Australia. On average, Marble Bar experiences about 154 such days each year. The town is far enough inland that, during the summer months, the only mechanisms likely to prevent the air from reaching such a temperature involve a southward excursion of humid air associated with the monsoon trough, or heavy cloud, and/or rain, in the immediate area. This may sometimes be associated with a tropical cyclone or a monsoon low. In the record year of 1923-24 the monsoon trough stayed well north, and the season was notable for its lack of cyclone activity. (In fact, the entire Australian continent was untouched by tropical cyclones throughout the season, a rare event in the 20th Century). The rainfall recorded at Marble Bar during the record 160 days was just 79 mm, most of it in two heavy, short-lived storms that developed after the heat of the day. Only a further 12 mm of rain fell before the following December. Severe drought prevailed across the Western Australian tropics, and stock losses were heavy. With no rain to speak of, and minimal cloud, there was nothing to relieve day after day of extreme heat.
7. Third Lowest Arctic Sea Ice Extent>>
Uhm… the mount of sea ice in the arctic at a given point in time is a weather event?
Um, are you saying that El Niño, La Niña, and the North Atlantic Oscillation are weather?
Why do you have to rain on their parade? Oh wait . . . that’s weather too. Maybe it can be number 11.
1 in 10 chance…
A “climate event” is something like the onset of an ice-age. There’s no such thing as a climate events for a specific year.
Nuts!
#10 this was the hottest year ever?? Don’t tell the dinosaurs.
`I couldn’t afford to learn it.’ said the Mock Turtle with a sigh. `I only took the regular course.’
`What was that?’ inquired Alice.
`Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,’ the Mock Turtle replied; `and then the different branches of Arithmetic– Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.’
`I never heard of “Uglification,”‘ Alice ventured to say. `What is it?’
The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise. `What! Never heard of uglifying!’ it exclaimed. `You know what to beautify is, I suppose?’
`Yes,’ said Alice doubtfully: `it means–to–make–anything– prettier.’
`Well, then,’ the Gryphon went on, `if you don’t know what to uglify is, you ARE a simpleton.’
I managed to forecast all the heatwaves this year in my long range weather forecasts, but it would be sad to think I had actually missed a climatic event 🙂
Of course those are weather events and the sum of those over a 30 y period will become a climatic trend…
1. Tim Folkerts: El Nino/La Nina are not climate. So it not weather, what are they?
2. As For the Climate Central what can one expect from these bandits disguised as scientists that regularly raid the US Treasury? Climate Central is their propaganda arm.
On day one of Cancun Climate Conference Japan says it’s done wity Kyoto goals and will have nothing to do with any successor. That event is certainly Climate, not weather, related.
The Big Events ! (19 Dec 99)
Dozens of scientists from the NOAA contributed to a listing of global storms and climate events, which were notable for their atmospheric marvel and/or impact on human life.
NOAA’s top global climate events were, in date order:
Drought, India 1900
Drought, India 1907
Drought, China 1907
Drought,. Sahel, Africa, 1910-14
Typhoon, China, 1912
Drought, Soviet Union, 1921-22
Typhoon, China, 1922
Drought, China 1928-30
Flood, Yangtze River, China, 1931
Drought, China 1936
Drought,. Sahel, Africa, 1940-44
Drought, China 1941-42
Great Smog of London 1952
Europe storm surge, 1953
Great Iran flood, 1954
Typhoon Vera, Japan, 1958
Drought, India 1965-67
Cyclone, Bangladesh, 1970
Drought,. Sahel, Africa, 1970-85
North Vietnam flood, 1971
Blizzard, Iran 1972
El Niño, 1982-83
Cyclone, Bangladesh, 1991
Typhoon, Philippines, 1991
Hurricane Mitch, C. Americ., 1998
The clear message from this albeit subjective list is that there has been no late `clustering’ of extreme events in recent decades, contrary to what media hysteria would lead us to believe. Also, in spite of the hype, the 1998 El Niño did not make the global list even though the 1982/83 event did
John L Daly
It was very misty in Yorkshire earlier this week.
Perhaps that was a Global Shock Horror record too?
Wretched Irritable Climate Syndrome.
Is there no end to it?
Mark and Merejen Borders says:
December 17, 2010 at 11:15 am
“Oh and, what will happen to the weather and climate if the Gulf Stream is stopped and no warm water enters the Atlantic Current?”
I’m in Europe and we’re fine. Mind your own business.
Here is the link to NOAAs top global and US national weather events of the 20th C
Actually, with urban heat island effects, we would expect to see more “all time highs” as more cities are built and as cities grow larger. I’m also assuming we take far more measurements than they used to which would give us a greater sample size (and thus more variability) in our measurements.
And here is the link to the National Climate Extremes Committee paper (2007 pdf) listing various weather records including such things like worlds heaviest hail stones, strongest tornadoes, most rain in one hour etc Really good Trivial Pursuit type stuff.
Only a tiny fraction occured in the 2000’s
Don’t forget about hurricanes… or lack thereof.
And the Bolivian cold snap.
Uhm… the mount of sea ice in the arctic at a given point in time is a weather event?
El Niño, La Niña, and the North Atlantic Oscillation are weather?
Yep, and yep. Anything shorter than 30 years is considered “weather”. You need at least a 10-year drought(flood, hot, cold, etc.) to begin seeing a climate “trend”, and a full 30 to nail it.