Paging Joe Romm… Remember this ridiculous moment in climate politics last year?
Well guess what kids, there’s a new peer reviewed paper to be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, and in the press release about the paper, they don’t even mention the word “climate”. Simply put, a rogue storm system, part of the normal chaotic nature of weather on this planet, was the cause. Nothing else. Anyone who claims it was part of “climate change” is simply flat wrong, and that includes Hillary.
This paper was presented today at the AMS meeting in Seattle.
From Eurekalert:
Rogue storm system caused Pakistan floods that left millions homeless
Last summer’s disastrous Pakistan floods that killed more than 2,000 people and left more than 20 million injured or homeless were caused by a rogue weather system that wandered hundreds of miles farther west than is normal for such systems, new research shows.
Storm systems that bring widespread, long-lasting rain over eastern India and Bangladesh form over the Bay of Bengal, at the east edge of India, said Robert Houze, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor. But Pakistan, on the Arabian Sea west of India, is substantially more arid and its storms typically produce only locally heavy rainfall.
The flooding began in July and at one point it was estimated that 20 percent of Pakistan’s total land area was under water. Structural damage was estimated at more than $4 billion, and the World Health Organization estimated that as many as 10 million people had to drink unsafe water.
Houze and colleagues examined radar data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite and were able to see that the rainfall that caused the Indus River in Pakistan to overflow was triggered over the Himalayas, within a storm system that had formed over the Bay of Bengal in late July and moved unusually far to the west. Because the rain clouds were within the moisture-laden storm from the east, they were able to pour abnormal amounts of rain on the barren mountainsides, which then ran into the Indus.
The progress of the storm system stood out in the satellite radar data, Houze said.
“We looked through 10 years of data from the satellite and we just never saw anything like this,” he said. “The satellite only passes over the area a couple of times a day, but it just happened to see these systems at a time when they were well developed.”
Houze is the lead author of a paper detailing the findings to be published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. Co-authors are Kristen Rasmussen, Socorro Medina and Stacy Brodzik of the UW and Ulrike Romatschke of the University of Vienna in Austria.
Houze also will discuss the findings during a session Tuesday (Jan. 25) at the American Meteorological Society’s annual meeting in Seattle
The storms were associated with a wind pattern that could be traced in the satellite data back to its origin over the Bay of Bengal, Houze said. Finding the storm system’s signature in the satellite data makes it possible to incorporate that information into weather forecast models. That could make it possible for meteorologists to forecast when conditions are favorable for such an event to occur again and provide a warning.
“I think this was a rare event, but it is one you want to be thinking about,” Houze said. “Understanding what happened could lead to better predictions of such disasters in the future.”
For more information, contact Houze at 206-543-6922 or houze@uw.edu.
NOTE: The Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission is a joint project of NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Mike, your numberz courses don’t, evidently, include anything covering the “Null Hypothesis”. See, that’s what you assume is the case unless strongly counter-indicated. In climate and weather, that MUST be that “this event is part of natural cycles and caused by non-anthropogenic forces.” Then you have to try sincerely and competently and inventively to prove that’s TRUE. Only if you fail with a high level of ‘confidence’, over and over, do you have a robust hypothesis.
This has never, ever, been done by Climatologists with respect to any sliver or fraction of the AGW speculation. It isn’t even a respectable hypothesis, yet.
Edit: “do you have the possibility of a sturdy opposing hypothesis to the Null” …
Douglas;
The numbers for frozen UK pensioners may do it by the end of the winter. (I note they haven’t been released for December yet; they’re probably already horrific.)
Here is summer precipitation over central Pakistan since 1980:
http://blog.sme.sk/blog/560/252537/precip_paki.jpg
Here are selected stations:
http://blog.sme.sk/blog/560/252537/prcp_queta.jpg
http://blog.sme.sk/blog/560/252537/prcp_multan.jpg
Here is another dataset of summer precip. over central Pakistan since 1900, without 2010: no trend
http://blog.sme.sk/blog/560/252537/precip_paki_1901.jpg
2010 = lot of precipitation yes, but nothing unheard of before.
Anthony Watts says:
Simply put, a rogue storm system, part of the normal chaotic nature of weather on this planet, was the cause. Nothing else. Anyone who claims it was part of “climate change” is simply flat wrong, and that includes Hillary.
She didn’t, she gave an explicit caveat; “You can’t point to any particular disaster and say, ‘it was caused by,’ but we are changing the climate of the world,” she said. and anyone who claims different is just an idiotic misrepresentation by a polemicist trying to push an agenda.
I am interested to see you opine that disagreement with peer reviewed material makes a person “flat wrong”. Is this true of all peer reviewed publications, the dozen or so hockey sticks out there for example, or just those that support your point of view?
“….it was weather, certainly not climate change that was responsible for the Indus floods….” Kuntala Lahiri-Dutt:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/29922.html
I thought the Russian heatwave and Pakistani floods were the result of the same jet stream blocking thingy.
Mike @January 25, 2011 at 8:30 pm
If your comments on here are anything to go by, being taught clear thinking by you must be like being taught patient care by Drm Harold Shipman.
Pakistan had worse floods in the 80’s, I forget which year, and before that probably every 30 years or so. Cyclic weather in a cyclic world.
It is amazing how a person in high office and with a wide public profile as Mrs Clinton can come down so strongly and emphatically on the side of the global warming cult when there is so much doubt and corruption of the science that has been put out about it. She has obviously been got at by the likes of Trenberth, Hanson and Mann. She will certainly win the plaudits of the AGW fraternity, but I’m afraid she will very soon be looking back on her public proclamations with not a little embarrasment.
I’m intrigued by the assertion that people who disagree with the peer reviewed literature are “simply flat wrong”. That statement serves as an admission of hypocrisy and alienates most of your readers.
I don’t recall where I ran across bits of historical info on Pakistan floods, but was sure that I had and that this past years’ floods were supposedly not out of the ordinary… quickest I found along these lines was a cached version of an article on canada free press & there’s a good bit more there than the first bit I copied below. According to this article & it’s referenced research, this latest flood isn’t even a 100 year event… several worse floods in the 20th century alone. (apologies for the long link, I couldn’t get the direct link to work and had to use the google cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:s5fBLSKWk3UJ:canadafreepress.com/index.php/articles-travel/30312+http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/articles-travel/30312&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a
Global Warming Fraudsters Exposed in Media Lies on Pakistan Monsoon
By John O’Sullivan Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Leading monsoon expert proves global warming media doomsayers lied to the public on the severity of this year’s floods in Pakistan.
Madhav Khandekar was an expert reviewer for the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in their 2007 Report. In his latest study he proves Pakistan did not suffer “unprecedented” monsoon floods this year. Rains were only 5% above average.
Madhav, who is presently studying monsoon inter-annual variability in the context of global warming and climate change issues, proves conclusively that the India/Pakistan subcontinent has had similar or worse monsoon floods at least SIX TIMES in the last 150 yrs.
But even more significant, the records show no human impact whatsoever on the subcontinent’s highly changeable climate.
New Study Acclaimed as ‘Excellent’
Dr. Khandekar, an expert in weather and climate science for over 53 years, sets the record straight in a new study, ‘2010 Pakistan floods: climate change or natural variability?’ World leading climatologist, Roger Pielke Sr. reviewed this latest research and described it as “excellent.”
In this publication from the Canadian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Dr. Khandekar conclusively demonstrates how utterly wrong the mainstream media’s reports have been on the monsoon issue.
Indeed, he explains that Pakistan (which was formerly part of India) suffered more damaging floods both in 1929 and in the 1980s. He recalls, “I witnessed the 1961 monsoon (rainiest in 150 years) in Pune. I was on one side of the river which was overrun due to dam burst.”
Khandekar recalls seeing “hundreds” of victims swept away to their death by the raging waters. But proving the actual extent of past tragedies and the numbers killed was the problem he says, because “there was no record then.” (continued online)
I would say that Senator Clinton is very “courageous” in the YES MINISTER sense.
Very few Ausie politicans or even scientists have been that brave, in claiming that the Australian floods were due to global what’s-the-name.
The leader of the Greens was brave.
He got promptly stood upon by both the government and oposition parties.
Will somebody step on the lady?
I doubt it because the USA political scene is rather more polite than ours Downunder.
(That’s because we stand on our heads all day and so the blood can rush there too fast some times – that’s a scientific explanation for rude behaviour).
Kevin MacDonald says:
January 26, 2011 at 2:22 am
I’m intrigued by the assertion that people who disagree with the peer reviewed literature are “simply flat wrong”. That statement serves as an admission of hypocrisy and alienates most of your readers.
Allowable hyperbole I would think. Fact remains that anyone blaming the floods on AGW was wrong to begin with. No single event can be laid at the door of climate change.
It might be possible to prove statistically that the frequency of flooding had changed, but this gets increasingly difficult as the rareness of the event increases. How many years of data do you need to prove that a 1 in 200 year event has become a 1 in 100 year event?
If you can do that, then you must also discount alternative reasons for the change in frequency. There’s been a drought in Amazonia. Is this AGW? Or is it due to the wholesale removal of rain forest (clue to its qualities in its name). The effect of floods grows annually anyway, because of people – more of them, in the wrong place, in poor-quality housing, removing forests in headwaters, straightening rivers & building flood defences & dams.
In a world empty of people, would this storm have occurred? A question impossible to answer I suppose.
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/global-warming-likely-to-bring-more-floods-droughts-in-pak-wwf/705567/
The recent floods in Pakistan were due to global warming and a change in extreme weather conditions, which may cause more floods and droughts in the country in future, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Pakistan Coordinator Nasir Panhwar has said.
Last i saw they were claiming “Global Warming is causing this drought, and it’ll get worse and worse.” Instead, they had a flood. Now they claim “Global warming is causing droughts and floods and it’ll get worse and worse”. Has anyone seen one single model that accurately forecast any of these ‘AGW caused’ extrreme events? If so, could you please cite it?
Jit says:
January 26, 2011 at 5:16 am
Allowable hyperbole I would think.
On what grounds do you think this hyperbole is allowable? Bear in mind that this website would not exist if it was not accepted that people disagreeing with the peer reviewed literature can be correct.
Fact remains that anyone blaming the floods on AGW was wrong to begin with.
That was another interesting thing about the article. Hilarly Clinton didn’t blame the floods on AGW as is made clear by her caveat in the original Fox piece; “You can’t point to any particular disaster and say, ‘it was caused by,’ but we are changing the climate of the world,” The misrepresentation of her stance by both Fox and now Wattsupwiththat are part of a wider dogma attacking personalities rather than the science and is certainly not what I recognise as skeptical thinking.
Kevin:
There seemed to be an implication in what HC said when she inserted a big “but”. You know the way these things are couched. A sentence of the form:
“We can’t attribute this event to global warming, but this is just the sort of thing we expect to happen under global warming,”
doesn’t really leave any doubt about what is meant: that this is another piece of evidence in favour of the hypothesis of AGW.
The hyperbole would not be right in a scientific article, but in a blog I think you can let it slide. Can’t you?
The problem with being a lap dog is you have to lick the heels of the owner of the lap you lie in. I do not blame Hillary for such stupidity – she was only doing what she was told to do by her master.
Politics exacts a demanding price to those who seek the glory of power and prestige.
I wonder how “clean” the manufacturing process is for all those solar panels and windmills……
Mike says:
January 25, 2011 at 8:30 pm
kevinc says:
January 25, 2011 at 4:11 pm
“were caused by a rogue weather system”
Mike, that’s clear enough for me.
————————–
This is why science is so hard for you…
The people who do science go to college and then graduate school where they take courses in how to think logically because formal logical thinking is hard and unnatural for most people. These courses are often called by such names as Calculus or Linear Algebra or Statistics, but they are really about how to think clearly. I teach these courses.
_______________
Ok Mike, so please point to one piece of experimental evidence that supports the AGW claim, i.e. one that clearly shows that today’s climate and/or weather is not due to natural variation. On top of that, please show one piece of experimental evidence that proves that CO2 in the atmosphere causes a temperature increase. (Here please note that an experiment in a jar in a lab does not equal evidence as to how CO2 behaves in the atmosphere.)
The point is this: until one proves, with evidence, there is AGW, then one must assume there is not. That’s how I was taught science.
KD, PhD Chemical Engineering
Jit says:
January 26, 2011 at 8:35 am
Kevin:
There seemed to be an implication in what HC said when she inserted a big “but”. You know the way these things are couched. A sentence of the form:
“We can’t attribute this event to global warming, but this is just the sort of thing we expect to happen under global warming,”
There is no hint of anything about her wording, she used the correct form; we can’t attribute any one weather event to climate change, but we can attribute changes in weather patterns to climate change. It’s an example of a recurring meme on this very website; weather is not climate. The only reason it is being interpreted in in such a pejorative way is because it suits Fox’s, Watts’ and your ideological bias to do so.
doesn’t really leave any doubt about what is meant: that this is another piece of evidence in favour of the hypothesis of AGW.
Given that changes in weather patterns are one of the predictions of AGW theory, it is another piece of evidence in favour of it.
The hyperbole would not be right in a scientific article, but in a blog I think you can let it slide. Can’t you?
When that blog’s stock in trade is questioning the veracity of peer reviewed literature? No, either peer review is robust or it is not, but you can’t have it both ways, Peer review can’t be corrupt when it contradicts your view and unimpeachable when it doesn’t; that’s nothing more than confirmation bias and yet more evidence of the ideological bent of this blog.
Kevin MacDonald says:
“…we can’t attribute any one weather event to climate change, but we can attribute changes in weather patterns to climate change. ”
Wrong. Weather patterns always change. The Gobi desert is now only about 60 kM from Beijing. It has been moving that direction for hundreds of years. And crocodiles were found north of the Arctic circle, long before CO2 was emitted from the first SUV.
Since “weather pattern” is such an unscientifically vague term, it suits the alarmist crowd well. But the only thing it indicates is that the climate always changes. Naturally.
KD:
Start here:
http://climateprogress.org/2011/01/26/floods-extreme-weather-link-to-global-warming-cbs-news/
Now evidence is not proof. I would not claim there is a consensus that recent flooding is related to AGW, but there is evidence.
One reason people might be having a hard time accepting the plausibility that AGW is causing an increase in extreme weather events is because we have only had 0.7C of warming. That does not seem like much. But that is only the warming of the surface temperatures. Most of the excess heat energy the Earth system has gained is in the oceans. Also warming is not uniform. So you have places where there has been a lot of warming of ocean water and this can lead to extreme precipitation events.
Now, if you don’t believe GHG caused the oceans to warm, obviously you won’t agree the AGW is a factor in these extreme weather events. But then you are clearly operating well outside mainstream science.
KD says:
January 26, 2011 at 10:50 am
please show one piece of experimental evidence that proves that CO2 in the atmosphere causes a temperature increase. (Here please note that an experiment in a jar in a lab does not equal evidence as to how CO2 behaves in the atmosphere.)
The point is this: until one proves, with evidence, there is AGW, then one must assume there is not. That’s how I was taught science.
KD, PhD Chemical Engineering
I know it helps you cling to your delusion if you pretend that laboratory physics and real world physics are different, but it is simply not the case. There are real world observations of the radiative properties of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere:
Increases in greenhouse forcing inferred from the outgoing longwave radiation spectra of the Earth in 1970 and 1997
Comparison of spectrally resolved outgoing longwave data between 1970 and present
Global atmospheric downward longwave radiation over land surface under all-sky conditions from 1973 to 2008
Measurements of the Radiative Surface Forcing of Climate
Smokey says:
January 26, 2011 at 11:22 am
Wrong. Weather patterns always change.
Can’t see how I can be wrong about this, given I never expressed any opinion on what weather patterns do or do not so historically. You tried to pull me up on something before, didn’t you, and you fell into a logical fallacy that time too, are you pathologically incapable of cogency?