This ridiculous video story below from ABC news cites über alarmist Richard Somerville of Scripps in San Diego, and is backed up with this print story.
Here’s what the print story headline said:
Raging Waters In Australia and Brazil Product of Global Warming
Quoting Somerville:
“Because the whole water cycle speeds up in a warming world, there’s more water in the atmosphere today than there was a few years ago on average, and you’re seeing a lot of that in the heavy rains and floods for example in Australia,” Sommervile [sic] said.
he adds:
“This is no longer something that’s theory or conjecture or something that comes out of computer models,” Sommerville [sic] said. “We’re observing the climate changing — it’s happening, it’s real, it’s a fact.”
Well perfessor, while a warmer atmosphere can hold more water vapor content, I call BS on your statement. The climate has always changed. The same argument is being used to hype increased hurricane threats, and as we’ve seen from Dr. Ryan Maue, the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) says the linkage just isn’t there.
The headline of course is sensational, they really didn’t put any thought or research into the Brisbane, QLD flooding, they simply drew a conclusion and found somebody to support it with a soundbite. I’ve seen plenty of examples of this style of crappy TV news journalism in my career. Professor Somerville apparently couldn’t be bothered to do a little historical research before claiming the floods in Queensland were connected to “global warming”, neither could ABC News.
What did ABC news and professor miss? This graph from the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) on Brisbane flooding history. When you add the 2010 flood levels to the graph (as Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. bothered to do, shown in red below) all of the sudden, the historical context for the flood being driven by global warming disappears:
And this is backed up from the BoM web page narrative.
Explain then perfesser, how the 1974 flood, which was worse, links to “global warming”. Or how about the biggest flood, in 1893? How does that figure with “global warming”, especially when it was cooler in 1974 and in 1893 there was no appreciable rise in CO2 globally?
Some people will say, “well that’s just Queensland”, so here is the Australian continent. The same questions apply:
The historical narrative for 1893 from BoM:
| 3/2/1893 | Lower part of Brisbane submerged, and water still on the rise; the “Elamang” and the gunboat “Paluma’ were carried by the flood into the Botanical Gardens, and the “Natone” on to the Eagle Farm flats. |
| 4/2/1893 | Disastrous floods in the Brisbane River; 8 feet of water in Edward Street at the Courier building. Numbers of houses at Ipswich and Brisbane washed down the rivers. Seven men drowned through the flooding of the Eclipse Colliery at North Ipswich. Telegraphic and railway communication in the north and west interrupted. |
| 5/2/1893 | The lndooroopilly railway bridge washed away by the flood. Heaviest floods known in Brisbane and suburbs. |
| 6/2/1893 | The lower part of South Brisbane completely submerged. The flood rose 23’9″ above the mean spring tides and 10 feet above flood mark of 1890; north end of the Victoria Bridge destroyed. |
| 7/2/1893 | Flood waters subsiding. Sydney mail train flood bound at Goodna, unable to either proceed or return. |
| 13/2/1893 | Second flood for the year in the Brisbane River. |
| 16/2/1893 | More rain in the south east districts; another rise in the Brisbane; further floods predicted. |
| 17/2/1893 | A third flood occurred in the Brisbane River for the year. |
| 18/2/1893 | The ‘Elamang” floated off from the Botanical Gardens. Business at a standstill in Brisbane. Ipswich and other towns. Several deaths by drowning reported. |
| 19/2/1893 | The gunboat “Paluma” safely floated off the Gardens, and the “Natone” off Eagle Farm flats. Another span of the lndooroopilly railway bridge carried away. The third flood reached its maximum height at 12 noon, viz. 10 inches below the first flood. |
In my opinion, professor Somerville is spouting nonsense about Australia.
As for Brazil, they don’t have as easily accessible climatology, but I did find this newspaper front page from the 1967 Brazil flood, on the website of my friend and fellow skeptic, Alexandre Aguilar in Brazil who works for the weather forecasting firm METSUL. This event which mainly hit Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, with floods and landslides/mudslides, was the worst ever then. The headline cites 400 dead.
The final death toll was 437 people.
METSUL writes on their blog: (more photos there)
The disaster in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil is the largest since the disaster Caraguatatuba in 1967 (photos). On March 18 of that year, a flood came down the hills like a tsunami of water, mud and rocks, causing a landslide. Hundreds of homes were submerged and rivers have won strong currents, trailing not only houses, but trees, bridges and other structures. The exact number of dead is unknown until today, having been speculation over 500, but officially are considered 300 fatalities. The rain gauge installed at São Sebastão in March 1967 indicated a [monthly?] precipitation of 851.0 mm, with 115.0 mm and on day 17 and 420 mm the next day. The accumulated [rainfall total] may have been higher due to saturation of the rain gauge.
Again, how did this massive flood happen without the help of CO2 back then?
The Australian rains are being driven by La Nina says NASA in this press release
“Although exacerbated by precipitation from a tropical cyclone, rainfalls of historic proportion in eastern Queensland, Australia have led to levels of flooding usually only seen once in a century,” said David Adamec, Oceanographer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. “The copious rainfall is a direct result of La Niña’s effect on the Pacific trade winds and has made tropical Australia particularly rainy this year.”
UPDATE: Here’s yet another expert with a similar opinion, from CNN, where they quote a Columbia (where NASA GISS is located) lead forecaster:
The catastrophic weather events taking place across the globe – from Brazil’s and Australia’s flooding to the Eastern United States’ heavy snowfall – have two likely explanations.
Tony Barnston, lead forecaster at Columbia University’s International Research Institute for Climate and Society, said two phenomena – La Niña and the North Atlantic Oscillation – are likely responsible for the patterns we’re seeing.
UPDATE2: T Gough in comments points out this discussion on the Met Office website:
For the Australian state of Queensland, there is strong evidence to suggest that La Niña is the main reason for the ongoing widespread flooding. The current floods are also the worst since 1974 – which coincided with the strongest La Niña on record.
They offer this chart:
And this Q&A discussion which is a transcript of a video interview (PDF)
La Nina and severe weather around the world
Adam Scaife – Senior Climate Scientist
What is La Nina?
La Nina is part of a natural climate oscillation in the tropical Pacific. It oscillates between the warm El Nino phase, El Nino is Spanish for ‘the boy’, and the cold La Nina phase. So La Nina is like the cold little sister phase of this oscillation and it’s a purely natural event, occurs every few years as part of this natural oscillation.
Is the flooding in Australia linked to La Nina?
So during La Nina the rainfall that normally falls out over the Pacific shifts west over Indonesia and indeed northern and eastern parts of Australia. So the fact that there’s been lots of flooding in Queensland recently is very consistent with the occurrence of near record La Nina this year.
Is the flooding in Sri Lanka and Brazil linked to La Nina?
So La Nina affects weather patterns throughout the globe but of course the further away you are from the La Nina the more difficult it is to pinpoint the affects, it’s a bit like waving a long stick, the uncertainty grows the further away you are from the source. And so when we look at remoter regions, like Brazil or Sri Lanka, it’s more difficult to attribute the recent flooding events to La Nina. If we take the Brazil case, then when we look in historical records and in our climate models, then southern parts of Brazil are actually dry during La Nina so it would be difficult to attribute the recent flooding near Rio to the La Nina that is going on at the moment. If you go to Sri Lanka that is a little bit more complicated, a little bit less clear because it’s right on the edge of the wet influence from La Nina, but again historically it looks like La Nina tends to drive drier conditions in Sri Lanka so the previous biggest event, or the biggest on record in fact in 1974, Sri Lanka was actually dry.
Is La Nina linked to climate change?
La Nina, El Nino cycles have been going on for a very long time, they’re natural cycles, they’re part of a natural oscillation in the Pacific and indeed when we run our climate models into the future with increasing levels of greenhouse gases then there are no consistent changes in the El Nino, La Nina cycle.
Here’s the video:
While the Met Office may have trouble forecasting winter, they are right about this basic understandign of La Nina. It seem’s there’s a consensus forming that contradicts Somerville’s view of the world.
UPDATE3: My Oz friend Dr. Jennifer Marohasy has this discussion of Eastern Australian rainfall from 2008 and offers this graph, not the 1974 peak. When this graph is updated with the latest rainfall data, it may show a spike similar to 1974.
What the graph demonstrates is that heavy rainfall spikes have occurred in the past, and they are not exclusive to our present with m ore CO2. h/t to reader Crosspatch for this link.
UPDATE4: Crosspatch also points out that BoM now has the most recent rainfall totals online, here is the rainfall for QLD:
Weather history apparently can repeat itself, and the precedent was set before CO2 became a worry.
UPDATE5: See this report about Brazil –
Is the Brazilian flooding catastrophe evidence of another global warming era extreme ?
I think Dr. Richard Somerville needs a swift kick in the butt style reality-check, or perhaps he needs a course in weather history, or both.
The distiguished professor is right in general theory and very wrong in its specific application–a common failing of academics. Higher temperatures do speed up the hydrological cycle globally. But where, when, and at what rate the increased rains fall is a very much more complex matter. Somerville, no doubt, understands that . As the head cheerleader for IPPC alarmism, however, he simply can’t pass up an opportunity to shout “Go AGW, Go!” It does make an impression on sophomoric minds.
R. Gates, welcome back from your visit to the penalty box. Unfortunately your style of debating hasn’t changed.
Explain the BoM graph is update 4 then. Explain why the rainfall total now is different from an equivalent rainfall total in the 1950’s and how CO2 made that difference. Explain how it could reach the same peak then with less CO2.
Explain why all the other experts saying this is a La Nina event, as seen before in Australia’s history, which is not connected to AGW/global warming/climate change are wrong… and you are right.
Anthony Watts says:
January 15, 2011 at 12:40 pm
R. Gates, welcome back from your visit to the penalty box. Unfortunately your style of debating hasn’t changed.
Explain the BoM graph is update 4 then. Explain why the rainfall total now is different from an equivalent rainfall total in the 1940′s and how CO2 made that difference. Explain how it could reach the same peak then with less CO2.
Explain why all the other experts saying this is a La Nina event, as seen before in Australia’s history, which is not connected to AGW/global warming/climate change are wrong… and you are right
_______
Anthony, thanks for the timeout…it gave me a great opportunity to catch up on some other pressing issues.
In response to your questions:
I think I made it quite clear that one could not specifcally claim that the current flooding in Australia, nor any place recently (i.e. Brazil, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, China, etc.) could be pinned on AGW or the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere, it is true that the increase in frequency of such events is entirely consistent with the general acceleration of the hydrological cycle. We know that the current La Nina pattern combined with the cool phase of the PDO is the immediate culprit, but what we don’t know is if these natural ocean cycles might be changed by the accumulation of CO2. The carbon-rock cycle is well understood as is the long-term hydrological response to increased amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere. Could changes in the nature of the ENSO and PDO cycles be one of the ways that the hydrological cycle accelerates?This certainly cannot be dicounted, and certainly is the area of some research. With 2010 as the wettest year on record and atmospheric water vapor levels increasing, this is all very consistent with the accleration of the hydrological cycle and consistent with the trends indicated by GCM’s when considering the effects of the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700’s.
Smokey says:
January 15, 2011 at 6:11 am
Buzz Belleville,
Arguments based on an insurance company’s public relations advertising are not very scientific. Is that the best argument you’ve got?
He’s from planet ‘Toy Story’.
Anthony: R Gates should never have been released from the penalty box. His latest post warrants a ban for life for peddleing bullshit. He will never reform.
R. Gates says:
January 15, 2011 at 12:13 pm
No, you don’t get away with that one, no way.
For the past five years articles have been appearing in the MSM advising that southern England and Kent in particular would experience such droughts and temperatures that gardeners in that area would be well advised to plant succulents and cacti in future seasons.
And for my piece de resistance the Daily Telegraph today reports that some members of the Royal Horticultural Society are objecting most strongly to that body’s politicisation as demonstrated by it’s current promulgation of AGW in advising those same gardeners to plant their gardens this year with mediterranean plants and cacti.
So you see that there are climate researchers that have not caught up with your newly espoused and completely opposite reasoning. Obviously can’t keep up with the convolutions of the new improved brand of climate science where words mean whatever you want them to mean.
Now where have I heard that before?
R Gates
‘With 2010 as the wettest year on record and atmospheric water vapor levels increasing, this is all very consistent with the accleration of the hydrological cycle and consistent with the trends indicated by GCM’s when considering the effects of the 40% increase in CO2 since the 1700′s.’
No, 2010 was the 3rd wettest year since 1900 (1974 was the wettest). See:-
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/climate/change/20110105.shtml
Also, how do you explain the extreme wet periods in the 1840s and 1890s (which still show up as some of the wettest periods on record with extreme flooding events) without the CO2 component?
Reponse to “Puzzled”:
The main stream media needs a never-ending series of crises to keep up their ratings, get ad revenue, steal reader/viewer-ship from competitors, etc. This is why the 6-o’clock news is a body bag report and chronicle of mayhem.
As H. L. Mencken said: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed – and hence clamorous to be led to safety – by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”.
AGW is all about politics, power and wealth redistribution – period.
Paddy says:
January 15, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Anthony: R Gates should never have been released from the penalty box. His latest post warrants a ban for life for peddleing bullshit. He will never reform.
_____
Specifically, what have I said that is “bullshit”?
Would it be that:
Increased CO2 is correlated with an accelerated hyrdologcial cycle?
2010 was the wettest year on record?
Changes in the ENSO and PDO cycles might be one way the acclerated hydrological cycle is reflected?
Atmospheric water vapor levels are increasing as is consistent with an acclerated hydrolgocial cycle?
Increased flooding and other severe hydrological events are consistent with an acclerated hydrological cycle?
Or is it simply that the points I raise upset certain members of the AGW skeptical community?
The warmists in australia have been telling everyone for years that the climate is getting drier. Some, like Tim ‘ghost metropolis’ Flannery, predicted the imminent demise of major cities through lack of water! And as I recall the Murray Darling river was in a death spiral too.
I sincerely hope that somewhere in the Queensland Government archives is a Report/Document containing official ‘expert’ advice that Climate Change would lead to less floods. And that as a consequence: town planning and flood mitigation programmes were altered accordingly.
Other professions can be held to account for such failures why not climatologists?
Let’s try and nail these people down.
Oh and one other thing…has anyone ever seen a tv weatherperson begin a report with the words….’well we sure got that last report wrong’! After all – to err is human.
roger says:
January 15, 2011 at 1:41 pm
R. Gates says:
January 15, 2011 at 12:13 pm
No, you don’t get away with that one, no way.
For the past five years articles have been appearing in the MSM advising that southern England and Kent in particular would experience such droughts and temperatures that gardeners in that area would be well advised to plant succulents and cacti in future seasons.
And for my piece de resistance the Daily Telegraph today reports that some members of the Royal Horticultural Society are objecting most strongly to that body’s politicisation as demonstrated by it’s current promulgation of AGW in advising those same gardeners to plant their gardens this year with mediterranean plants and cacti.
So you see that there are climate researchers that have not caught up with your newly espoused and completely opposite reasoning. Obviously can’t keep up with the convolutions of the new improved brand of climate science where words mean whatever you want them to mean.
Now where have I heard that before?
_____
The acceleration of the hydrologcial cycle has long been seen in the GCM’s when factoring in the 40% rise in CO2, so this is not a “new’ projection, but is based on the historical and geological record from the basic carbon-rock cycle and is a natural negative feedback…(i.e. it is the earths way of keeping CO2 levels in check).
But to your point about the weather in England and any ‘warmist’ predictions for what to expect. I think specific localized predictions based on any GCM is absurd. GCM might be good a predicting global trends (i.e. temps, water vapor, acclerated hydrologcial cycle) but very poor at telling what the weather will be like in any specific area as it is dangerous to do so with a system such as climate that exists on the edge of chaos with too many factors that we don’t know about and possible tipping points yet to be revealed.
Sou says:
January 15, 2011 at 12:11 am
It might be instructive to check just what the December 2010 temperature anomaly is for what BOM refers to as the Melbourne Area. True the Melbourne weather station (MELBOURNE REGIONAL OFFICE) did show an anomaly of around +1 °C but as is well known that station has its problems, being located in the middle of a sea of bitumen and motor vehicles.
Anthony – I agree with your analysis.
Belief in AGW is a cult, a pseudo religious belief system.
It is not a scientific paradigm, theory, or hypothesis.
It is at best, an unproven and unprovable conjecture.
La Nina should make the Western Pacific warmer. During a La Nina, the surface temperatures in the equatorial Eastern Pacific go down because of strong trade winds blowing across that surface but the amount of energy going into the ocean increases during La Nina conditions. So temperatures go down over part of the ocean but overall heat content goes UP.
Now this La Nina might be different because there is less energy in the far UV spectrum that heats the ocean at depth. We will have to see. But overall, a La Nina year results in overall more energy going into the oceans even though the surface temperature drops. Temperature does not equal heat. Tisdale has done a lot of posting on that.
Global warmers have a real problem with all this hysteria about these floods being unprecedented. It’s so simple to look up the far worse floods in the past. Then they’ll look bad for claiming these over the past week were unprecedented.
And the ones in the past had a couple over 90 feet high of flood water.
Just page through this article searching for “Australia”:
http://climateprogress.org/2010/10/20/ncar-daidrought-under-global-warming-a-review/
To get a total picture of the disinformation being put out there.
You can convince people of anything. For example: I can predict with what I believe is certainty that if people continue shaving and getting haircuts at the current rate, that California and most of the Great Basin region will suffer a megadrought on the scale never before witnessed in the entire recorded history there.
Now the reason why I can make that claim is that I know that the past 500 years or so is the wettest period that the region has experienced in over 10,000 years and can with reasonable certainty predict that the region will, at some point, return to more “normal” weather patterns. If you go 20 meters deep into most Sierra Nevada lakes, you will find tree stumps. They aren’t small stumps, and they don’t appear in just one lake, either. In order for them to exists there, the levels of those lakes had to be much lower than they are today and had to be that low for a very long time. There is also evidence that Lake Tahoe was below its outlet level for many centuries at a time, perhaps millennia.
What we perceive as “normal” is actually anomalously wet. What we experience as mutli-year drought conditions are probably closer to the long term “normal” condition during this interglacial. So to make a prediction that “if we ….” and you can insert anything after the “we”, that we will face megadroughts in Western North America is probably accurate but not because we did anything in particular.
Of course the “fly in the ointment” is predicting the exact time that it will come to pass. But if one crafts their prediction so that it does not rely on any specific time frame, the prediction will eventually come to pass with as much assurance as my predicting right now that if you continue reading blogs, the sky will become very dark and you will not be able to see the sun and stars will appear in the sky. Note that I didn’t say the setting of the sun was CAUSED by reading blogs, I simply linked the two things in a sentence of words hoping that with the power of subliminal persuasion does its work.
Any attempt to link the massive rainfall, floods and landslides in the Região Serrana of the Rio de Janeiro State (the city itself was not very much affected) to the global warming hysteria is preposterous, to say the least. This region has always suffered from such extreme meteorological phenomena and the problems are indeed aggravated by the massive irregular and precarious occupation of the slopes of the elevations, hills and mountains. And if it is a fact that most of this occupation is done by the poor, this time the tragedy was somewhat “democratic” and fell upon many middle and upper class dwellings in the cities of Petrópolis, Teresópolis and Friburgo (the death toll is already over 600 and rising).
I am a geologist with specialization in Engineering Geology and I spent some years at the university in the 1980s making geological-geotechnical maps of some of those areas. Since that time and even before the professionals of these fields have been warning the authorities against the irregular occupation of the hillslopes (and we have a good deal of highly skilled experts in such areas). Unfortunately, politics (with very small “p”) have always prevented any kind of rational solution for this problem – and the consequences may be seen in the headlines.
But in any case there is nothing new in such phenomena here, as Mr Watt himself showed in the 1967 newspaper clip about the floods of that year. In Rio and its surroundings we had very heavy rainfalls and the corresponding tragedies in 1965, 1966, 1967, 1971, 1982, 1988, 1994, 1996 and 2010. There are records of the same problems going back to the 18th century. Global warming all this time? Please no kid.
By the way, despite its huge toll of human suffering this tragedy does not come even close to being the country’s greatest. This dubious distinction goes to the terribly severe droughts in Brazil’s Northeast in 1877-79 and 1915 (caused in part by very strong El Niños), whose combined death toll reached some hundred thousand lives.
There exists much confusion about the present climate extremes, but what is happening was entirely predictable.
For at least 7 years the oceans have been cooling, with the past 3 years very significantly. As a result, the climate of the surrounding land moves more towards that of a desert, with hot days and cold nights (and heat waves). It happens because the cool sea draws more land wind than producing sea wind. As a result, less moisture reaches the land, accompanied by droughts, bush fires and high day temperatures. Remember that the land temperatures are heavily moderated by moisture, and once that has evaporated, the land climate becomes more like that of a desert.
Very cool land will be snowed for the little bit of moisture that reaches it. Hence early snow. But we’ve had excessive amounts of snow and rain. Why?
This is where ocean circulation comes in. We’ve just sat out a long El Niño during which ocean circulation stagnated, while accumulating warm water over the tropics. Just recently the ocean began circulating again, and large pulses of warm water are finding their way now towards higher latitudes, thereby inverting the above process. With the warm water come more sea winds and more moisture, which is deposited as snow in the north and as deluges of water in other places like Australia. I live in New Zealand, south of Australia and have been watching the water temperature, which jumped suddenly from a very low of 14ºC to 18 and then 20. With it came a deluge of rain. We are now expecting a second La Niña pulse with more torrential rain.
Often the ENSO (El Niño Southern Oscillation) is seen as an oscillation, which it is, but due to stagnation, it is also accompanied by a sudden warm water pulse in the transition from Niño to Niña. When one attempts to predict the weather, one must know what the sea is doing, and this is alas missing from view.
“Monroe says:
January 15, 2011 at 9:20 am
Was global warming the cause of potential devastating floods in Brisbane during 1841 and 1893? A small population a lesser disaster.
http://www.bom.gov.au/hydro/flood/qld/fld_history/brisbane_history.shtml
The current flooding has so far fallen short of the crest of 1974, and far short of the crests of 1841 and 1893.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/15/australian-floods-quee…”
Sigh. You’ve made a point of saying “The current flooding has so far fallen short of the crest of 1974, and far short of the crests of 1841 and 1893.” but you have failed to point out this is purely due to the flood mitigation capacity of the dams now in place.
I’ll say it again dont compare flood levels from 1841 and 1893 to those for the current event and 1974.
In 1974, Wivenhoe Dam was not yet built and in 1841 and 1893 nor was Somerset Dam.
Had these 2 dams not been in place, flooding for this current event may well have approached 1841 and 1893 levels.
It is better simply to say that the nature of the current event is no different to events that occur once every 50 years on average in SE QLD. These events will continue to occur into the future with or without global warming so until we get frequent events of a severity in excess of those seen previously, blaming the current one on AGW really is something that cannot have any statistical support.
Just a quick, simple question to Sou, lazyteenage, gates, et al, who are convinced of AGW:
Just what evidence would lead you to believe that the global climate models are wrong? If there is none, if there is absolutely no way to falsify A COMPUTER MODEL with real life data, then you are no longer practicing science.
Before you ask, if we began having weather phenomena on a widescale basis THAT WE HAVE NEVER HAD BEFORE, or if record high temperatures were consistantly being made, year-over-year, in the same areas, I would concede GW, and probably AGW if temps were going up faster than anytime since the LIA.
So, what would the climate/weather look like if the models were wrong? So far, all we’ve seen are extreme weather events that are no different than extreme weather events over the past century.
Would any of you concede if, say, a monthly average of global temps came in below the average? Or would you say something like, “despite global warming, natural forces were so strong that we had below average temperatures. Imagine how cold it would be without GW?”
Obviously, there would be no reason to engage in a discussion with you if there is absolutely nothing that would disprove GW to you. You can’t argue with a religious fanatic.
DEREK ARNDT.
I noticed that name when that ABC piece was on TV, wrote it down. The older talking head, Somerville, was ignorable in his spewing of the expected (C)AGW garbage. But something about Arndt seemed notable, might have been the NOAA connection.
Googling lead to a curious reprint site for WUWT-type articles, utahclimate.org (WUWT on the blogroll, and where is the Source link for Josh’s Met Office cartoon?), leading to a nice ICECAP piece by Art Horn mentioning Arndt and NOAA (Claim 2010 tied with warmest year ever lacks historical perspective, good reading) and a Goddard post with a WAPO excerpt:
As the ICECAP piece put it:
Derek Arndt, an Important Person at NOAA-NCDC. A younger, hipper, much less discredited face for the (C)AGW movement, now being trotted out for face time with the media as a new Great Climate Expert. A person to watch, if you can’t turn off the TV fast enough.
Part of the summary of a paper in 1949, RGB (Brazilian journal of geography) event in 1948 on River Basin “Paraiba do Sul, with 250 deaths. Cause of death: Landslides caused by heavy rains.
Summary
This article deals with the natural and cultural factors responsible for the violent floods, which, in December 1948, ravaged an extensive area at the “Zona da Mata” in the State of Minas Gerais. Damage was inflicted mainly by the sloughing away of hillsides and the subsequent deposition upon farmlands of resulting detritus, which also buried homes and stores. …….. ……In concluding this interesting and timely paper, the author considers the steps which must be taken if the deleterious effects of unusually rainfall are to be avoided, or at least, mitigated……
In 1949 no one talked of anthropogenic global warming. Save Dr. J. B. Kinco (on March 29, 1939) in Diario de la Marina ” – Havana. He said that in the last 21 years the earth’s temperature increased 11.7 °F. Cause: A large amount of carbonic acid, generated from burning coal. (But that’s other story!!! :))
jtom says:
January 15, 2011 at 7:02 pm
Just a quick, simple question to Sou, lazyteenage, gates, et al, who are convinced of AGW:
Just what evidence would lead you to believe that the global climate models are wrong? If there is none, if there is absolutely no way to falsify A COMPUTER MODEL with real life data, then you are no longer practicing science.
________
I happen to think it very likely that GCM’s are wrong…about the specifics, but not about the trends. If the models were 100% accurate, we would know everything, but as it is, it is very hard to model a system at the edge of chaos. Also, as models, they are never really looked at as “right” or “wrong”, just more or less accurate. Just as it has taken decades of data to see the fingerprints of AGW, it would take decades to see the evidence disappear to totally disprove the GCM’s. This is very very unlikely to occur as the models have it generally right, but specifically:
1) If global atmospheric water vapor levels begin to level and then decline. They been rising steadily for decades as shown to occur by GCM’s and is one of the positive feedback processes specifically modelled to occur as CO2 levels rise. Corresponding to these increases in water vapor levels would be the continued acceleration of the hydrological cycle. Expect to see more frequent and more severe flooding events such as we saw in the past year in China, Pakistan. If this doesn’t happen over the course of decades, GCM’s would be shown to be grossly inaccurate.
2) Arctic year to year sea ice stops falling and returns to historical levels. We’ve not seen a positive anomaly in Arctic sea ice since 2004. Most GCM’s show the Arctic to be ice free in the summer by the end of this century, and some much sooner than that. Some skeptics want to look at one year in rebound and make a big deal of it (though no signficant rebound year has occurred). Expect a spiral down in year to year sea ice over the decades ahead. If this doesn’t occur, GCM’s would be shown to be grossly inaccurate.
3) The decade to decade temperatures stop increasing. 2000-2009 was the warmest decade on record. It is only a statistical exercise to look at any single year like 2010 and compare it to others, as natural variability can affect temperatures year to year, but decade to decade, all GCM’s show a steady rise in temps. Expect to see 2010-2019 warmer than 2000-2009, and then 2020-2029 warmer still. If this doesn’t occur, GCM’s would be shown to be grossly inaccurate.
Wetter and wetter.
“The flooding in the Campaspe threatens Echuca, where it meets the swollen Murray. The peak, expected later today, is likely to reach levels not seen since 1916.”
“The Wimmera River at Horsham is expected to peak between 3.75 and 3.85 metres tomorrow night, higher than floods in September 1988 and possibly mirroring the historic August 1909 floods.”
“In fact, western and central Victoria has already received the region’s highest monthly rainfall on record – in just the first 14 days of January.”
http://www.smh.com.au/environment/weather/record-flooding-wreaks-havoc-20110115-19s0t.html
“Unprecedented” flooding continuing in Australia:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/01/16/3113796.htm
Last I checked, unprecedented meant the worst in recorded history. Quite in line with a CO2 induced acceleration of the hydrological cycle on top of a La Nina and cool phase of the PDO. The last time La Nina lined up with the cool phase of the PDO (1974) there was flooding, but atmospheric water vapor levels were lower then, so it is not unreasonable to see how higher water vapor levels now could make the flooding worse now than even 1974.
REPLY:Sorry Gates, citing from my 30 years in the news business, “unprecedented” in a news story is often far different than “unprecedented” data. Simply put, I don’t trust reporters enough to get it right, they all have a penchant for factual inflation. The data is what is important, not the news hype. When the data comes in fully, then we’ll see if that term holds up. – Anthony