Open thread weekend

May 26, 2011
No Long-term Trend in Atlantic Hurricane Numbers
Short-duration storms are presently identified much more readily than they were, say, prior to the satellite era
If the Atlantic tropical cyclone history is divided up into “shorties” and, we guess, “longies,” something very interesting pops out. Over the entire record, there is a big upward trend in the number of “shorties” but there is no trend in the annual number of “longies”
Obviously, lumping the two together would produce an apparent upward trend in the total annual number of tropical storms and hurricanes—and give fuel for the fire which burns for those trying to develop a link to anthropogenic global warming.
This situation is akin to the observed record of tornadoes in the U.S.—the number of weak tornadoes has increased markedly in the last half century, while the number of strong tornadoes shows no such behavior
The positive trend in total annual number of tornadoes is driven not by climate change (as some would have you believe), but instead by changing observational methods.
“”Our results provide a context for interpreting studies exploring trend behavior in the North Atlantic tropical storm activity starting prior to the 1940s. In particular, the conclusions of certain studies reporting large secular increases in North Atlantic tropical storm activity in which shorties are included [e.g., Holland and Webster, 2007; Mann et al., 2007] could be affected by what we interpret as likely spurious nonphysical trends unless an alternative physical explanation can be uncovered for the pronounced increase in shorties starting from the middle of the 20th century. Further, statistical models of tropical storm activity built using century‐scale records that include shorties [e.g., Mann et al., 2007; Sabbatelli and Mann, 2007; Mann et al., 2009] likely include an element reflecting the spurious shorties in the record.””
http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2011/05/26/no-long-term-trend-in-atlantic-hurricane-numbers/

In my book, “Warnings: The True Story of How Science Tamed the Weather,” I tell the story of courageous scientists bucking the odds to create the tornado, hurricane, and aviation warning systems that save so many lives.
Unfortunately, in many cases, local officials are watering down the effectiveness of tornado warnings by grossly overusing tornado sirens and that may be causing complacency when the “real thing” threatens. I have a three-part series on my blog with the first posting the night before the Joplin tornado.
http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/05/sectorize-sirens-please.html
http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/05/more-on-selective-tornado-siren.html
http://meteorologicalmusings.blogspot.com/2011/05/selective-siren-activation-part-3.html

Seein’s as this is an open thread, I would like to propose a new term.
We’ve recently seen climate scientists and their friends rushing to embrace the term “Anthropocene” for the new human-induced climate epoch.
Given the funding involved, most if not all of it at the public trough, I would like to propose instead that we call it the “Anthroporcine” climate epoch (man/pork climate).
I also claim the alternative spelling, “Anthroporcene”.

Anyone knowing more about this project? Riding a MagLev train to space:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarTram

In a recent post at Bishop-hill, we find a link to an Australian radio interview program with Naomi Oreskes, and Australian Broadcasting’s presenter “Dr. Karl.”
Time and time again, we see that global warming fears and alarm are sustained by hypostatized theories (ie, conjectural models taken as fact), lacking sound supporting evidence – but too often plenty of the cherry picked sort of “evidence.” This is followed by loud assertions filled with confirmation bias (the post hoc fallacy). At its base lies the Enhanced Greenhouse Hypothesis (EGH), which is assumed to be a soundly established fact. (See The Carbon Dioxide Greenhouse Effect” But in reality, it needs sustained scientific confirmation, which is lacking, as critics point out. Circular reasoning – assuming what isn’t in evidence – thereby substitutes for testing through falsification and surviving serious criticism. This is what we see in this hour interview in spades.
Professor Oreskes and Dr. Karl agree that the measured and increasing CO2 should accelerate the hydrodrological cycle. Thus, producing more floods as well as droughts currently seen in Pakistan, the US, and Australia, respectively.
But do we? One nice, precise, fact to emerge from Fall and Watts (et al)’s new JGR paper from the surfacesations.org project undermines a key AGW finding even skeptical climatologists like Robert Balling and Pat Michaels. Namely, the best US stations data do not confirm one foundational “fact” consistent with the EGH.
The study’s results, say Watts, “suggest that the DTR [Diurnal or daily Temperature Range] in the United States has not decreased due to global warming, and that analyses to the contrary were at least partly contaminated by station siting problems.”
(See Fall and Watts, et al, ”According to the best-sited stations, the diurnal temperature range in the lower 48 states has no century-scale trend”. Watts claim is softened, calling this a “tentative” finding needing further confirmation. Still, if it holds up, this is perhaps the most startling and consequential finding of the entire surfacestations.org volunteer project. In a comment, Watts states: “The IPCC made significant use of DTR as a metric for AGW, and [study co-author] John N-G talked about the history of that in context.” Watts also links to three other climatologists discussion about its importance to the IPPCs reigning “orthodoxy.”)
Many previous studies have shown that over the decades late in the last century, diurnal (ie, daily) temperature spreads between the measured high and low temps, have narrowed. In the EGH, the increased heating has to go somewhere, and thus it goes into accelerating the hydrological cycle: more and stronger rains, and more droughts in between – in order to dissipate increased heat produced by rising man-made CO2 gases. Or at least so says the theory.
But this new and much more data quality-driven look at US temperatures by Fall and Watts undermines this well-established fact: the best maintained temperature stations do not show a decreasing diurnal temperature range. Instead, the measured narrowing is at least somewhat an effect of land use change or urban heat island effects. In other words, according to the best data, this key fact supporting the EGH resulting in global warming is wrong.
If EGH cannot be detected at a closely and carefully measured level, how much confidence should go into believing that a more dynamic weather is caused by AGW, like Oreskes and Dr. Karl claim? Probably little: AGW effects like the EGH should be much more measurable now than it is, if the climate is sensitive to increasing CO2 levels.
Oreskes and Dr. Karl thus join in the orgy of fad-filled hysteria over a snowy winter, a high flood spring melt, and a half-century record-setting tornado season, all this year. Yet all three events contradict the projections of global warming models touted by warmists, and none of which finds empirical support in long-term records. Perhaps the EGH is crumbing, even as the Sirens sing.

Well from the weather is not climate department:
The Bridger-Teton National Forest Avalanche Center is fully staffed to warn outdoors enthusiasts.
“May snow depths are deeper than anything we have seen in the last 45 years,” said avalanche center spokesman Bob Comey.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20110527/ap_tr_ge/us_travel_brief_memorial_day_snow