Guest Post by Ira Glickstein
[Update: New York City got more snow in October 2011 than ever before in recorded history, according to the NY Daily News (including some good photos). Special thanks to WUWT commenter NikFromNYC who posted this photo link of Snow near GISS HQ last evening.]
If the forecasts hold up, New York City, home to NASA-Goddard Institute of Space Studies, will get up to a few inches of snow, unprecedented for October.
Yes, I know “weather isn’t climate”, but every time there is a heat wave anywhere in the world, that weather event is put forth as “proof” of Global Warming, with the implication that human activities are responsible for most of the warming. So now, it is the turn for us Skeptics to show how silly such claims are. And, what is more foolish (in a healthy enjoyable way :^) than Seinfeld? We never discovered how Kramer supported himself – perhaps he was one of the climate scientists at GISS?
NOTE: The above image is a file photo from Google images. If any WUWT reader has a link to a photo of the GISS building taken during the current snowstorm, please post it and we will replace the image. It would also be nice to have a contemporary photo of the Occupy Wall Street folks coping with a little snow.
For background on the Seinfeld link, see this WUWT article:
NASA GISS, a division of Vandelay Industries?
I assume the “guy” unbound is referring to is me. As it says in the About Ira Glickstein, PhD box at the head of the comments, I am a “System Engineer (Advanced Avionics and Visionics, Route Planning, Decision Aiding, Five Patents … at IBM, Lockheed-Martin); Associate Professor (System Engineering at University of Maryland); PhD in System Science (Binghamton University, 1996); MS in System Science (Binghamton); Bachelors in Electrical Engineering (CCNY)” So I know a bit about engineering and science, and the real-world science behind complex systems. Would you agree that Climate is a good example of a complex system?
I also know that “weather is not climate” which is why I wrote “… every time there is a heat wave anywhere in the world, that weather event is put forth as ‘proof’ of Global Warming, with the implication that human activities are responsible for most of the warming. So now, it is the turn for us Skeptics to show how silly such claims are.” Get it? Any claims that implicate Global Warming (or Cooling) based on individual hot (or cold) weather event is “silly”, and I was making the connection between unprecedented October snow in NYC NOT saying anything more meaningful than some record-breaking warm weather event about Global Cooling (or Warming).
Yes, in general higher temperatures will tend to increase the amount of atmospheric moisture and thus precipitation events. So, in a place like NYC where it almost never snows in October, and even when it does the recorded maximum was less than one inch, it is news when an unheard of several inches of snow fall. Had it been extra rain, it would not have been news, would it?
How long to determine a trend ??
I did myself a little thought experiment – perhaps one or two people could comment on what is wrong with it :
Consider a sine curve.
To see it in its entirety you need to see at least 360 degrees
But to PROVE it is repeating – how many complete cycles would you need – obviously more than one. But after 5cycles it would be pretty much proven – within some arbitrary level of confidence.
Now lets look at points on the curve <360
if I look at 45deg +/- 0,5 degree and measure in 10the of a degree I'm pretty sure I would see a trend – and if I suspected a sine curve I may be able to do some appalling curve fitting – guessing amplitude and how much of the curve I was sampling (in this case 1/360 th)
If I looked at 90 deg +/-0.5 degree I'd see a trend as well
If I looked at 89 deg +/- 0.5 deg I'd see a trend too – ever so gently incresing
Probably going to use the wrong definitions now – Sample Space – the size of the function that is sampled – in the above examples the sample space is 1 degree…(what's the correct term ?)
So – regardless of the sample space I will see a trend from that function. If the sample space is too small – as long as I have enough SAMPLES to make a meaningful plot.
SO why is 10 years NOT long enough to see a trend ?
It may after all be a 10 year trend imposed on a 1000 year cycle – or a 100000 year cycle
(another thought here; think amplitude modulation 3kHz on a 28000kHz carrier is easy to detect and resolve down to qhite low levels of modulation – they just become somewhat hard to pick out from noise…)
@stevo says:
October 30, 2011 at 5:21 am
Funny how that mistake, which I can’t imagine anyone making in any other context, seems to crop up so often here.
Not so funny when you’ve been following things for a while. You see, it used to be warmer, even in Hansen’s official series. Then Hansen revised it downward, but it was still warmer. Finally, upon succesive revisions, it was eventually revised downwards to the point of being cooler than the most recent peak in the continuous warming since the LIA. Oh, and just to clarify that’s its really warmer now, he continuously revises the recent record upwards. And, all the while, grossly underestimating urban heat island effects.
What was your point again?
Stevo says
“Nope. Statistics tells us that 10 years is not useful but that 30 years is useful. Nothing arbitrary about it. Like I say, this whole business of needing a certain amount of data before you can determine a trend is very, very simple, but evidently much, much too difficult for you. When did you last study any maths?”
If you really did study mathematics, you know that trends on cyclical phenomena (climate is a natural phenomenon, hence cyclical) should usually be measured for longer than the cycle length. Shorter length trends may be useful to show where we are in the cycle.
Ten to fifteen year trends show where we are in the cycle. Thirty year trends (c. half of a cycle) can easily mislead the observer.
DirkH says:
October 30, 2011 at 10:04 am
———
It is appauling that concerned scientists like Ekwurzel spread their truths in TV and youtube but disable the comment function. They have no interest in discussing their expensive views, causing so much harm to tax payers. No chance to ask, why such simplistic views are applicable here but not elsewhere.
For example, if there is more moisture in the air and more precipitation, wouldn’t that also reduce and shorten draughts and be beneficial for mankind? The IPCC had already lied about this subject:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2008/09/18/how-the-ipcc-portrayed-a-net-positive-impact-of-climate-change-as-a-negative/
Another simplistic view not really communicated by concerned scientists:
As high latitudes warm faster, wouldn’t that reduce the temperature gradient und reduce the strength of winter storms, but hey that would be another benefit ? And global cyclone activity actually is at multi decade lows.
Finally, blaming global warming for a local weather event appears to be no so clever, as global temperatures have been running low in recent months compared with recent years:
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/hadcrut3vgl/from:2000
James ibbotson says:
October 30, 2011 at 10:51 am
Dear Americans.
Why on earth do you still have power delivered via cables over ground ?Thats just asking for trouble.
Why arn’t (sic) they underground like the u.k.
In my bit of the U.K. the power arrives in the village across several miles of overhead cable. We get power cuts every year. I’ve just invested in an inverter to install in my Land Rover to give me around 2.5kW of mains power for when the cables come down this year.
vigilantfish says:
October 30, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Very good – both are correct.
…and talking all along about moisture, when the main unusual event at the end of october are exceptionally low temperatures. These are the people stealing money from the pockets of the 99%.
I really dislike this warmist bullscheisse about ‘peaking on Everest’ and a ball being ‘stuck in the air’. Fantasy land once again.
Everest is the highest mountain on Earth, 1998 was certainly not the hottest. And as for the ‘ball stuck in the air’ schlock, has gravity occurred to you??
Time to take yourselves off to a dark room, and hug your knees.
Tbear, don’t worry, your global warming will arrive in another month or so. Then maybe you can send it back our way in April.
Dreadnought;
You’ve completely…and totaly…missed the point.
A report from relations in Worthington, Mass.: a yardstick was shoved down into the snowfall, bottom not found.
That’s over 36″ of Global Cooling. I have to call it Global Cooling, because that’s the language that is required to effect communication.
“Dreadnought says:
October 30, 2011 at 5:59 pm
1998 was certainly not the hottest”
It is according to
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/hadcrut3gl.txt
Do you see a number larger than 0.548 as it was in 1998?
Smokey says: October 30, 2011 at 11:46 am
“stevo is wrong as
usualalways:”Smokey is wrong. Those are detrended plots.
Two weeks ago, over on the thread Shifting Sun-Earth-Moon Harmonies, Beats, & Biases
Posted on October 15, 2011 by Anthony Watts
Paul L. Vaughan, M.Sc. – October 2011
I posted this comment;
Richard Holle says:
October 17, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Watch what happens when we have a Synod conjunction with Jupiter on 10-29-2011 when the moon is maximum south declination. There should be a larger than usual meridional surge of warm moisture coming off of the equator into the mid-latitudes having some intense interaction with the Mobil Polar Highs that will be forming the other half of the lunar tidal bulges in both hemispheres.
These patterns are what got me interested in wanting to understand WTF was going on, back in 1983.
***************************************
Well here is the surge in moisture and the MPH making an early snow storm right on time in New England, on the following loop you can watch the interaction as it flows together.
Richard Holle
http://www.atmos.washington.edu/~ovens/loops/wxloop.cgi?wv_east_enhanced+48+-update+3600
Now people are saying it is an extreme weather event that was not forecast for this time of year, it has little to do with the date that it happens it has all to do with the planetary synod conjunctions, if people would only look at the interactions, and study the patterns it would make long range forecasting much easier.
Warmer winters and cooler summers in the northern hemisphere is how interglacial periods end. It just has to be below 32F for snow to accumulate. Far below freezing is just overkill for snow accumulation. However every additional degree above freezing in the summer accelerates the melt. So global average temperature doesn’t need to change at all for glaciers to start building, there just needs to be less seasonal variation between winter and summer temperatures.
Dave Springer;
It just has to be below 32F for snow to accumulate. Far below freezing is just overkill for snow accumulation.>>>
Actually, snowfall can occurr a couple of degrees above freezing as the snowflakes may be below freezing but not the ambient temperature. Further, if temps are “far” below freezing, there is very little snow at all. We who live in winter climates call it being “too cold to snow”. While technically it actually does, the snow at minus 30 is pretty much dust rather than flakes, and there isn’t very much of it. Most snow falls between a couple of degrees above zero and a few degrees below zero.
Temperature alone however is not what determines glacier growth. Glacier growth is determined by the amount of snow accumulated in winter versus the amount that melts in summer. So, a warmer winter might easily result in more days suited to snowfall, and the increased snowfall, even when coupled with an also warmer summer, may grow the glacier. It is the amount of snow in winter minus the amount that melts in the summer that determines glacier growth, and surprisingly mild winters that hove arounf the freezing point will contribute a lot more to that growth than do very very cold winters.
Re: Ira Glickstein, PhD says:
October 30, 2011 at 1:04 pm
Funny how Smokey didn’t pop in and explain how on WUWT, you never, ever, argue from authority…
Second funny point is how the recent BEST posts have the regulars proclaiming “of course we know it’s warming, we never, ever, said it wasn’t.” And now they are right back to the cooling meme.
jakers,
If you’re going to be a fool, don’t post comments – keep it to yourself, you’ll be better off.
First, you presume to understand what I’m thinking without my posting a comment. You’re not up to that level of understanding, my friend. And second, you quoted, verbatim: “of course we know it’s warming, we never, ever, said it wasn’t.” Quotation marks mean exactly the same as a cut and pasted quote.
I challenge you to source that quote. If you can’t post who said it, and where, and when, then you are misrepresenting what others are saying. In other words, you’re lying. That is the default response when the alarmist crowd realizes the planet isn’t cooperating with their failed predictions. Honest folks would just admit they were wrong, and move on.
Also FYI, the planet both warms and cools, depending on the time frame and the trend. For the past decade it’s not done much of either. Before that it warmed, naturally. And before that, it cooled, naturally. But for the past fifteen decades the temperature has been amazingly flat, varying between 288K and 288.8K. That’s nothing, as the ice core evidence from both hemispheres proves.
Next time you want to comment on what someone never said, it’s best to argue about it with yourself.
Smokey, if you’re worried I’m laughing at you, you are correct. I’m not the only one.
Nick Stokes says:
“Smokey is wrong. Those are detrended plots”.
“Chart” is a noun. “Plot” is a verb. I posted a chart… on which data was plotted.
I suppose that sorry nitpicking is Nick’s best anti-skeptic argument. Sad.
• • •
jakers,
Name the others. Chapter and verse. The mouse in your pocket doesn’t count. And where’s your quote citation? I’m sure I’m not the only one who knows you were lying. Prove me wrong, and I will apologize.
Smokey says: October 31, 2011 at 1:59 pm
“I suppose that sorry nitpicking is Nick’s best anti-skeptic argument. Sad.”
So pointing out that a de-trended chart doesn’t tell you much about trend is sorry nit-picking? OK, so again, how do your detrended charts show that stevo is wrong?
Nick,
The way you wrote, it looked like you were objecting to the word “plots”. And detrended charts [which are used all the time by everyone] still carry information or they would never be used. And of course, stevo is always wrong. Either that, or he’s right, and everyone else is wrong. What are the odds, eh?
Smokey says: October 31, 2011 at 2:54 pm
‘The way you wrote, it looked like you were objecting to the word “plots”.’
Heh – an accident. I actually italicized detrended, but because I forgot to close a previous tag, it mad eeverything italic except what followed, which was plots.