Comments by Dr. Ryan N. Maue
Apparently we can throw away the meteorology textbooks, fire the forecasters at the National Weather Service, and tell universities and research labs that they have utterly failed to explain the origin of “monster snowstorms”. Renowned theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku crosses disciplinary boundaries to provide the readers of CNN.com his opinion on the recent winter weather over the Northeast and elsewhere. However, his explanations are hand-wavy, lacking peer-reviewed foundation, and quite equivocal — yet typical of the recent media rush to blame winter weather or any weather on global warming. However, as a theoretical physicist, Kaku needs to do a lot better and consult any weather forecaster that knows why there were snowstorms in the 1770s, 1970s, and still today. At the AMS meeting, Dr. Trenberth highlighted the reason: “winter”. CNN.com article link.
From Monster Snowstorms still spell global warming, I copy a few paragraphs and get to the important one…
New York (CNN) — The weather seems to be going berserk, with more snow dumped on our beleaguered Northeastern cities in a month than in a year, paralyzing business and our lives. Records are being broken even as we speak…
Basically, snowstorms in this region arise from the collision of cold Arctic air from Canada moving south and bumping up against warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, causing water vapor to condense and freeze and then form snowstorms, which travel up the Northeast corridor.
Among many factors, the amount of snow dumped is largely driven by the amount of moisture in humid air and not so much the temperature, and this seems to go against common sense.
Here’s the false dichotomy that Kaku sets up:
“There is no single smoking gun that can point us to the origin of these monster snowstorms. But we can focus our attention on two likely culprits. The first is pure chance. There are many random fluctuations in the weather due to many diverse factors (for example, last year’s weather was affected by El Niño).”
“But the second is global warming.”
Similarly, the main consequence of global warming is not warming at all but instead increasingly violent swings in the weather, with droughts and famine in one area occurring at the same time as flooding in another, and snowstorms in one region at the same time as hot spells in another.
More from Kaku:
“I saw this two weeks ago when I spoke in São Paulo, Brazil, where there were massive, lethal mudslides caused by unrelenting, pouring rain, which in turn might have been caused by increased moisture in the air. Of course, this means only that global warming is consistent with the monster storms hitting the Northeast, not that it is the only definitive factor.”
And as the Earth continues to heat, it means that there will be more moisture in the air to possibly drive more monster storms and hurricanes, simultaneously with droughts and hot spells. So we might expect more unusual, bizarre weather patterns in the future.
And unless something is done about it, get used to it.”
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From someone of Kaku’s reputation and credibility, I am surprised to read this very basic and hand-wavy, meaning factually light, screed that is barely above high school level science. Perhaps that was what was requested by CNN.com or whoever solicited this contribution, but come on. Kaku sets up a false dichotomy: it’s either random chance or it’s global warming (or I guess both). But, then proceeds to equivocate on every major point thereafter. To summarize, he says we need to do something about it.
Just a suggestion, if this is what the media establishment is putting out there to win over the public hearts and minds on draconian carbon taxation, then at least come up with some hardened facts. I am happy to hear the mention of El Nino, but the transition to a very strong La Nina is likely more important on top of the other alphabet soup of atmosphere/ocean oscillations on a bunch of timescales. It’s like the media, liberal politicians, and now television series scientists awoke out of a coma and are marveling about the drastic changes in the weather/climate all around them. It’s snowed before, it’s flooded before, and it will again. There is plenty of literature on storm track dynamics, extratropical cyclones, and countless broadcast meteorologists that could help a theoretical physicist out. Heck, turn on the Weather Channel and watch the jet stream blue-worm graphic.
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Addendum: Mike Smith at Meteorological Musings also has a good essay on the Kaku căca .
Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. has a related story here – Anthony
What a shame, I have always held great respect for Dr. Kaku, have watched him on the Science Channel and various programs elsewhere. Unfortunately, this brings the level of respect down several notches. I’m sad, he’s always been one of my favorites, sadly no more.
Kaku must have set some sort of record for wildly contradictory statements in this made-up stew of nonsense. He is obviously a few sandwiches short of a full picnic. I note that the Geography people aren’t very thrilled with his mad assertions about Yellowstone either.
About a year ago I read michio Kaku’s book Parallel Worlds. Kaku spends an inordinate amount of time bragging about a formula he discovered. He comes across as insecure, having to repeatedly validate what he did.
That fits in with his self promotion on shows like Art Bell. Anyway, if someone wants to read a much better book on the same subject, Brian Greene’s The Fabric Of The Cosmos was much better written and more interesting.
Well we have the example of the paper of Wentz et al; “How Much More Rain will global Warming Bring ?” SCIENCE July-7, 2007.
Frank Wentz, who is with RSS in Santa Rosa CA (Remote Sensing Systems) is a commercial purveyor of what UAH does with satellite data (not the same data, RSS gets their own, and uses it their own way) . In my view, the SCIENCE paper is among the most important papers ever in “Climate Science”.
It is actual real measured atmospehric data from satellite observations. Tehy found that the rate of increase in Total atmospheric water with Temperature (presumably either lower tropo, or surface) is 7% per deg C rise.
Now that is also the prediction of the Clausius Clapeyron equation, as Bill Illis mentioned here some time back; and is also in agreement with the GCMs which no doubt actually get their super computer simulated values by actually using the c-C equation.
Wentz et al, also found that total global evaporation and precipitation rates, had the same 7% per deg C rise. This disagrees with the far more believable GCMs which are simulated by super computer; and which say the evap precip pair are only 1% to 3%; shall we say 2% +/-50% which of course is the same hallowed 3:1 fudge factor that attaches to all Climatism simulations. Why should we believe Wantz et al’s actuyal observations, when we have such fine models to simulate it.
It should be obvious to all that evap and precip must be the same over time, because we don’t want the oceans to be over our heads, instead of down in those big holes where they are now.
So it is a no brainer that higher global temperatures will lead to more precipitation; but not necessarily where you want it.
I’ll leave it to those who understand AMO/PDO/ENSO and the like to ‘splain why it gose where it gose. I’m totally ignorant of any of that; and figure I can afford to be, since others know what it all does.
As for MK, it has always disappointed me that Physicists at that level of understanding of the arcane; seem content to remain relatively ignorant of Physics/chemistry, down at the level of communicating with the lay public.
Who cares if there are an infinite number of universes; that maybe are joined for our convenience by time travel and worm holes; or that the most fundamental things are strings that wiggle and vibrate.
Hey if you hand any 2 year old kid ANYTHING that wiggles or vibrates; it will inside of two minutes, have separated that wiggly thing into multiple elements; which by definition MUST be more fundamental than the wiggly thing.
So I think quarks are somewhat fundamental; they simply sit there and look stupid; they do not wiggle or do anything else to indicate they are alive; or made up of simpler bits.
So Brian Green or MK or not; I’m not a fan of strings or worm holes, and in my lexicon UNIverse implies there is only one; no matter how bizzarre it may turn out to be. If it is not part of the universe we can see (by any conceivable means, real or imagined) then it is not a part of the field of science; which is the study of things we can “see”.
Well, as a theoretical physicist, there is probably some 12th dimensional explanation in an alternate universe where string theory can explain all of this. He may just understand these things on a deeper level than any of us know…
Pretty interesting correlation! But, I’se confoozed.
What’re “sun-pots”??
;p
Replicators etc. are copy-cat borrowings from the Master: Fred Saberhagen’s “Beserkers”. Self-replicating intelligent weapons from some ancient war, with a slipped disk that morphed their mission into Destruction of All Life. There’s a temporary reprieve for “goodlife”, those who collaborate, and help spy on and subvert the “badlife”.
I have my suspicions about which group Kaku falls into …
Back to the real world. And speaking of frigid cold winters, the period 1975-1978 was saw some of the coldest and snowiest Northern Hemisphere winters of the 20th Century. And what is remarkable is that this was a period of not only El Nino (1976-1977), but it occured during the Great Pacific Climate Change (ie the PDO went from negative to positive). In my hometown, the winter of 1978 brought a record 136 inches of snow. And the borreal Winter of 1976-77 brought unusually cold temps as early as Saint Nicholas Day (Dec 6th 1976, the low was -2 deg F and the high was only +1 for South Bend Indiana).
And to make matters even more interesting, there was a double dip La Nina (1971-1974) that preceeded the 1976 El Nino. And in late April 1974 one of the worst outbreaks of severe weather hit North America (The Day of the Killer Tornado). Also of interest, devastating floods hit the Ohio River Valley during the La Nina periods, 2 severe droughts hit the Midwest as well (1974, 1975). The summers of 1977 and 1980 were some of the hottest on record for North America.
Dr. Kaku’s speculations are just that. If one was to get accurate weather information going back to colonial times, and from Europe as well, one will see that somewhere weather “extremes” occur.
There are two comments above that state that 2010 was the hottest year. The weight of the evidence indicates it was not: http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/01/2010-tie-for-hottest-year.html
E-Adler;
Please quit trotting out Masters as a competent climate authority. He’s a meteorologist who happens also to be a rabid Global Warming Believer. So what? There are 10 meteorologists who Doubt or Unbelieve for every Masters.
Also, the gradient between tropics and poles flattens out, reducing the power of energy transport to the polar “sinks”. Cooling, on the other hand, steepens that gradient and makes for more violent weather (see historical accounts from the LIA, for example.)
“… There are two requirements for a record snow storm:
1) A near-record amount of moisture in the air (or a very slow moving storm).
2) Temperatures cold enough for snow.”
Jeff Masters has been an AGW groupie for a long time. His assertions concerning water vapor are not completly correct. The term “near record” amount of moisture is a misnomer. The is a saturation point for every air parcel. Any forecaster who is old enough to remember plotting and analyzing Skew-T log P charts know that the mixing ratio is the metric used to measure absolute humidity. And as far as I know, no one keeps records of mixing ratios. For severe thunderstorms to form, a mixing ratio of at least 12g of water vapor to 1kg of water vapor is the norm. In really extreme cases, mixing ratios can go as high as 16-18g/1kg of dry air. But that usually occurs when the surface temp is over 28 deg C.
A typical New England snowstorm will see temps vary as much as +5 deg C to – 5 deg C. With a saturated surface condition, the mixing ratios would hit a limit around 8g of water vapor/1kg of dry air. As far as moisture aloft is concerned, we move into the dynamics of an occluded frontal system. Besides the inflow of warmer moist air of the Gulfstream, there is the moisture aloft released by intense vertical shear, positive vorticity advection, and upper level cold air advection. The injection of frigid cold air from Canada upstream and warm moist air from the Atlantic only increase this dynamic. But, the true genesis of these dynamics come from the Pacific. And in a warming world, the southern branch of the Polarjetstream would migrate northward. Most of the really frigid air would remain bottled up in the northern source regions with the northern branch of the polar jetstream.
In a warming wolrd where the Hadley Cell expands poleward, most of the dynamics for both classical Midwest snowstorms and Nor’Easters would fail to materialize. This was the IPCC predictions not only a decade ago, but also in 2007. My how quickly things change.
“I am a physicist, and the explanation seems like correct science to me. An increase in temperature means that the air can hold more water, and evaporation rates will increase . When the air holding this water cools, the moisture precipitates as rain or snow, depending on the temperature. So the distribution of precipitation in a sample of storms will go in the direction of increased rain or snowfall. It is reasonable that the amount of precipitation in extreme events would also increase.”
Eadler, you are talking about theoretics. Have you ever wondered why some parts of the Pacific and Atlantic (as well as the Indian Ocean) go through periods of extreme drought despite having surface temps as high as 30 deg C and high absolute humidities? There is much more to meteorology than theoretical abstractions.
JDN says:
January 28, 2011 at 6:17 am
Agree with Louis Savain and many others.
This guy is in showbiz/politics with a science flair. I can’t stand it when scientists’ first concern is to appear “competent” through maintaining a conventional attitude.
I have to say, though, that the only field that compares to the fraud of AGW is theoretical physics. So, maybe it’s a natural fit.”
Did you know that Mike Mann entered Yale graduate school as a student in theoretical nuclear physics and then switched to climate research?
eadler says:
January 28, 2011 at 9:06 am
[In response to my comment about the weather in NJ beng dies to the NAO]
“The occurrence of the NAO is not a contradiction of the theory that says AGW intensifies the effects of storm systems. These storms were North Easters bringing moisture from the ocean air above warm waters of the east coast, dropping the snow on land as the ocean air cooled. This is a physically sound theory which fits the storm patterns.”
Not to put a pin in your bubble or anything, but the “warm waters” are colder than usual.
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/dsdt/cwtg/catl.html
And the air temperature and humidity have been LOW.
eadler says:
January 28, 2011 at 9:06 am
Jimash says:
January 28, 2011 at 8:19 am
[referring to the recent heavy snowfalls ]
“The official climatologist of the State of New Jersey says it is the NAO.”
The occurrence of the NAO is not a contradiction of the theory that says AGW intensifies the effects of storm systems. These storms were North Easters bringing moisture from the ocean air above warm waters of the east coast, dropping the snow on land as the ocean air cooled. This is a physically sound theory which fits the storm patterns.
But the “warm waters” are colder than last year. Warm waters can hardly be any colder they are.
And as far as the general temperature goes it has been way below normal mostly since October. So where is this AGW doing it’s magic ?
Dave Wendt says:
January 28, 2011 at 3:30 am
…it seems good near term water vapor data really isn’t widely available… …Why do you suppose that is?
‘Cause it’s not at all well-mixed, involves changes of state and therefore in the too difficult box?
Seems to me the good Doctor has discovered an new element: Dollarium.
INGSOC says:
January 28, 2011 at 7:32 am
“I found it strange to hear a physicist speculating about UFO’s.”
I don’t understand. Why would that be “strange”?
Jose Suro says:
January 28, 2011 at 4:39 pm
Seems to me the good Doctor has discovered an new element: Dollarium.
+++
Dollarium Tremens… 😉
This one is frustrating. I had more faith in Michio Kaku than this level of understanding. I really liked his book “Einstein’s Cosmos”. I actually feel sad that he hasn’t looked into things more than this.
“I am a physicist.”
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Really??
Eadler….please state your qualifications and training.
All us non-physicists and inquiring minds…want to know.
And the physicists do too.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA
I am surprised “Renowned theoretical physicist Dr. Michio Kaku…” didn’t complain about that Cosmos pic breaking the laws of optics and insist it was fixed. Perhaps the magazine’s photoshopping “graphic artist” might not be aware of how the angle of refraction at the air/water interface would distort his appearance, but an esteemed cross-discipline physicist should have made sure the science was right.
I am more surprised how, unless I missed it, no one here has commented on the pic’s inaccuracy. Although perhaps my Pedantry Setting could be too high…
The truth is that we will never reach the level of a catagory 1 civilization as long as we take the hubris of a charlatan like Obama for granted when he states the following:
“We will advance a high speed railway network so travelers will be able to travel without a pad down and we don’t need those planes anymore.”
Completely denying the terror attacks on the trains in Madrid, London and Casablanca.
and
“We will be the first Nation that will have 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015”
at the same time banning the incandescent light bulb.
“We will further promote the use of bio fuels”
He makes this criminal promise when half the world is ablaze because people can no longer afford food.
“We will generate 80% of our energy with alternative energy by 2035”
He makes this promise while the Spanish economy crashed because of their attempt to generate their energy by alternative means like wind and solar.
Instead of kicking this incredible hack out of office people cheer and his ratings go up. U N B E L I E VA B L E
This guy is wrecking the economy and nobody stops him.
Jimash says:
January 28, 2011 at 1:18 pm
“eadler says:
January 28, 2011 at 9:06 am
Jimash says:
January 28, 2011 at 8:19 am
[referring to the recent heavy snowfalls ]
“The official climatologist of the State of New Jersey says it is the NAO.”
The occurrence of the NAO is not a contradiction of the theory that says AGW intensifies the effects of storm systems. These storms were North Easters bringing moisture from the ocean air above warm waters of the east coast, dropping the snow on land as the ocean air cooled. This is a physically sound theory which fits the storm patterns.
But the “warm waters” are colder than last year. Warm waters can hardly be any colder they are.
And as far as the general temperature goes it has been way below normal mostly since October. So where is this AGW doing it’s magic ?”
If you look at Tisdale’s January Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly map posted on WUWT, you see that there is a tiny band of very warm water, just off the east coast of North America, jst beyond it a wider band of water colder than normal, while the bulk of the Atlantic Ocean is warmer than normal at this time, and especially warm in the far north. When the colder air over land, combines with marine air, the precipitation falls as snow and a lot of it.