From the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) more instituitional worrying turned press release leading up to the upcoming WMO report. I wonder where they get the increase in hurricane intensity from? Apparently they’ve never seen Dr. Ryan Maue’s ACE graph discussed recently in the GRL journal: “Historical global tropical cyclone inactivity (Editor’s Highlight):
And then there’s the report of a weather station in Germany that got more rain than ever before in 2002, which is just frightening on a decadal old scale isn’t it. Gosh. Loaded dice, that’s the ticket.
Weather records due to climate change: A game with loaded dice
The past decade has been one of unprecedented weather extremes. Scientists of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Germany argue that the high incidence of extremes is not merely accidental. From the many single events a pattern emerges. At least for extreme rainfall and heat waves the link with human-caused global warming is clear, the scientists show in a new analysis of scientific evidence in the journal Nature Climate Change. Less clear is the link between warming and storms, despite the observed increase in the intensity of hurricanes.
In 2011 alone, the US was hit by 14 extreme weather events which caused damages exceeding one billion dollars each – in several states the months of January to October were the wettest ever recorded. Japan also registered record rainfalls, while the Yangtze river basin in China suffered a record drought. Similar record-breaking events occurred also in previous years. In 2010, Western Russia experienced the hottest summer in centuries, while in Pakistan and Australia record-breaking amounts of rain fell. 2003 saw Europe´s hottest summer in at least half a millennium. And in 2002, the weather station of Zinnwald-Georgenfeld measured more rain in one day than ever before recorded anywhere in Germany – what followed was the worst flooding of the Elbe river for centuries.
“A question of probabilities”
“The question is whether these weather extremes are coincidental or a result of climate change,” says Dim Coumou, lead author of the article. “Global warming can generally not be proven to cause individual extreme events – but in the sum of events the link to climate change becomes clear.” This is what his analysis of data and published studies shows. “It is not a question of yes or no, but a question of probabilities,” Coumou explains. The recent high incidence of weather records is no longer normal, he says.
“It´s like a game with loaded dice,” says Coumou. “A six can appear every now and then, and you never know when it happens. But now it appears much more often, because we have changed the dice.” The past week illustrates this: between March 13th and 19th alone, historical heat records were exceeded in more than a thousand places in North America.
Three pillars: basic physics, statistical analysis and computer simulations
The scientists base their analysis on three pillars: basic physics, statistical analysis and computer simulations. Elementary physical principles already suggest that a warming of the atmosphere leads to more extremes. For example, warm air can hold more moisture until it rains out. Secondly, clear statistical trends can be found in temperature and precipitation data, the scientists explain. And thirdly, detailed computer simulations also confirm the relation between warming and records in both temperature and precipitation.
With warmer ocean temperatures, tropical storms – called typhoons or hurricanes, depending on the region – should increase in intensity but not in number, according to the current state of knowledge. In the past decade, several record-breaking storms occurred, for example hurricane Wilma in 2004. But the dependencies are complex and not yet fully understood. The observed strong increase in the intensity of tropical storms in the North Atlantic between 1980 and 2005, for example, could be caused not just by surface warming but by a cooling of the upper atmosphere. Furthermore, there are questions about the precision and reliability of historic storm data.
Overall, cold extremes decrease with global warming, the scientists found. But this does not compensate for the increase in heat extremes.
Climatic warming can turn an extreme event into a record-breaking event
“Single weather extremes are often related to regional processes, like a blocking high pressure system or natural phenomena like El Niño,” says Stefan Rahmstorf, co-author of the article and chair of the Earth System Analysis department at PIK. “These are complex processes that we are investigating further. But now these processes unfold against the background of climatic warming. That can turn an extreme event into a record-breaking event.”
Article: Coumou, D., Rahmstorf, S. (2012): A Decade of Weather Extremes. Nature Climate Change [DOI: 10.1038/NCLIMATE1452]
Weblink to the article once it is published: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/NCLIMATE1452
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Sigh, my rebuttal still stands: Why it seems that severe weather is “getting worse” when the data shows otherwise – a historical perspective
Izen, there are a few extreme events every year. You really need to get out of your Mom’s basement and look around. For example, we had three cat 3 hurricanes making landfall in one year back in 2005. Did that mark the beginning of anything? Nope, just one year.
All you and other alarmists are doing is looking at random fluctuations and trying to assert there is a pattern. You would make a lousy gambler.
It’s nonsense as the longer term data makes clear. We’ve seen the same ups and down in the past.
BTW, you didn’t answer why 300 years of warming has not led to worldwide destruction each and every year. Why is that?
BTW, I got a good laugh out of the Reuters article. Claiming warmth in Canada is a disaster. Bwah hahahahahahahaha. That is beyond silly and anyone that reads that kind of nonsense and believes it …. [self-snip].
@-Richard M says:
“All you and other alarmists are doing is looking at random fluctuations and trying to assert there is a pattern. You would make a lousy gambler.
It’s nonsense as the longer term data makes clear. We’ve seen the same ups and down in the past.”
That is the unsubstaniated claim many here have made without any mathematical or probablistic calculatyion to support it.
While the research which is the subject of this thread HAS done the maths, but I see nobody here engaging with that.
@-“BTW, you didn’t answer why 300 years of warming has not led to worldwide destruction each and every year. Why is that?”
I didn’t answer because I thought it was a mistake or typo and decided to spare your embaressment.
Are you really going to assert that there has been 300 years of a globally rising temperature trend?! I await with interest what data source you can aduce to support this outlandish conjecture!?
Well some seem to believe that “climate” is the long term average of “weather”. The same fuzzy thinking causes Kevin Trenberth et al to promote a “global energy budget” that consists of a whole lot of numbers; none of which relate to “energy”.
The numbers are actually “power density” (power per unit area) numbers.
I have stated on more than one occasion, that climate is NOT the “average” of weather; it is the “integral” of weather; reflecting everything weatherwise that has happened previously.
Oh the two are the same save for a constant factor, say the unbelievers.
Not so; as in Trenberth’s “energy global budget”, absolutely nothing is happening, because it is the image of a static system in equilibrium; the outgoing exactly balances the incoming, so nothing happens.
This is as assinine as the hi fidelity “enthusiasts” who talk about the “peak to peak power” or the “RMS power” of their favorite brand of ghetto blaster, and give you a peak to peak power rating that is eight times the RMS power rating.
Well “power” is an instantaneous quantity, denoting the instantaneous rate of arrival or usage of energy or doing work.
And the sun would do nothing at all here on earth if its rate of supplying energy to the earth actually was 342 Watts per square metre, as Trenberth claims. The exact same rate of emission of energy is also claimed by those folks; well some of them believe arrival exceeds emission, so we are gaining more and more energy. And maybe, we now have emission exceeding arrival so we are losing energy.
But if a sub solar point on earth is emitting energy at a 24/7 mean rate of 342 W/m^2, while the daylight side of the earth is irradiated at 1362 w/m^2 (current value for TSI); then it is highly likely that the excess input power density, over the emitted average power density, will result in “something” happening; like maybe that side will get warmer, since the thermal conductivity of the earth is not infinite, so the excess energy cannot possibly spread all around the earth in less time than it takes to rotate once a day.
When you have a non linear system, then averaging tells you exactly nothing; specially when you consider phase changes, as part of the non linear happenings that actually occur on earth, but are impossible under Trenberth’s static “global energy budget” scenario.
The earth is not now, and never ever has existed in a state of equilibrium, as depicted by Trenberth, and the non linearity of the many processes going on, makes averaging a fools exercise in futility.
“”””” henrythethird says:
March 26, 2012 at 7:23 pm
“…It´s like a game with loaded dice,” says Coumou. “A six can appear every now and then, and you never know when it happens. But now it appears much more often, because we have changed the dice…”
I hate this analogy. With a single die (as he implies with a single six), the odds of one side of an “unloaded” die coming up is still 1/6. Every time you toss, it’s still 1/6. “””””
Actually it is possible to create special sets of (unloaded) dice; let’s say sets A, B, and C where each and every dice in every set has an average score of 3.5 (6+1)/2 but the dice are not numbered all the same. For example, one dice could have three sixes, and three ones.
But these sets behave such that in any game, where a winner is chosen on each and every roll of the dice in the sets, a given set, say A, will be beaten over time by set B and set B will in turn lose to set C. Of course if your opponent chooses to play set C, then you select Set A which will beat set C even though it loses to set B.
A special form of mathematics can design such systems, where the probability of the outcome can always exceed 0.5 on average.
The very same form of mathematics, is used to construct horoscope predictions. If you read your daily forecast; say it’s Leo, you will agree that they have you pegged. But you will also find, if you take the time to read the other 11, that each and every one describes you to a tee, with some minor errors, just as the Leo has defects for you.
Yes; on average, nothing much happens.
@izen says
“It was known that chronic gastrc imflamation was strongly correlated with gastric MALT NHL lesions. There was NO theory about the cause of chronic gastritis beyond consigning it to the medical catch-all of ‘stress’. ”
You are correct, it has long been known that chronic gastritis often led to stomach cancer and Gastric Lymphoma. It was based on a guess, otherwise known as an hypothesis, which was found to be wrong as scientific knowledge progressed. Just as Einstein’s theory superseded Newton’s.
You say, “Ther was no concensus position or credible theory explaning the cause of the chronic condition, it was an entierly new hypothesis that an infective agent was involved, and a good bit of standard science in the testing and confirmation of the hypothesis.”
Had you gone to your doctor for treatment of stomach ulcers prior to the role of H.Pylori being known, you would have been treated on the basis of a scientific consensus based on an hypothesis of the adverse effect of stress and spicy food on the lining of the stomach and duodenum, albeit one which turned out not to be credible because it was wrong.
I could just as easily say that there is no credible hypothesis about apocalyptic climate change other than consigning it to the climate alarmist catch-all cause of carbon dioxide. Relativity is a theory. CAGW caused by CO2 is a guess which does not agree with experiment, observation or experience, it is therefore wrong…
@izen
To clarify the previous post, the cause of chronic gastriris was based on a guess, which turned out to be wrong. But I think izen that this is going too far off the topic of climate change. Any sensible person would realise that the percentage of scientists who believe in a hypothesis or theory does not mean that the theory is right. Science is not democracy and it wouldn’t matter if 100% of scientists believed a theory to be right, a theory can never be right, only not proved wrong.
The consensus on the ulcers was:
“At the time, the conventional thinking was that no bacterium can live in the human stomach, as the stomach produced extensive amounts of acid of a strength similar to the acid found in a car battery.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helicobacter_pylori#History
Izen: “Are you really going to assert that there has been 300 years of a globally rising temperature trend?! I await with interest what data source you can aduce to support this outlandish conjecture!?”
OMG, a Little Ice Age denier. You must still believe in Mann’s debunked hockey stick. Puts everything in perspective. Sorry I wasted my time responding to your hysteria.
Yesterday I had the pleasure of attending a talk and having lunch with my friend Dr. Madhav Khandekar, a veteran climatologist who has spent much of his career studying extreme weather events.
Based on Madhav’s lifetime of work and my own research, I am confident that warmists’ recent claims of more extreme weather events due to alleged manmade global warming are false.
I further believe these warming alarmists’ claims are not only false, but are known to be false by the claimants.
These claims of extreme weather are not based on scientific evidence, but rather are a transparent attempt to fabricate a scary story to encourage further action to combat alleged manmade global warming, based on the current global warm temperature “plateau”, while trying to ignore the fact that despite increased atmospheric CO2, there has been NO net global warming for a decade.
In summary, these claims of increasing “extreme weather” are false and fabricated scaremongering and have no basis in science.
BING! (Great timing by the IPCC, wrt my above post Thanks for the support!)
1) IPCC Confirms: We Do Not Know If The Climate Is Becoming More Extreme
Omnologos, 28 March 2012
The IPCC’s SREX report is out in full.
FAQ 3.1 | Is the Climate Becoming More Extreme? […] None of the above instruments has yet been developed sufficiently as to allow us to confidently answer the question posed here. Thus we are restricted to questions about whether specific extremes are becoming more or less common, and our confidence in the answers to such questions, including the direction and magnitude of changes in specific extremes, depends on the type of extreme, as well as on the region and season, linked with the level of understanding of the underlying processes and the reliability of their simulation in models.
–Full report here
http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/SREX/images/uploads/SREX-All_FINAL.pdf
2) The IPCC & A Handy Bullshit Button On Disasters and Climate Change
Roger Pielke Jr, 28 March 2012
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/handy-bullshit-button-on-disasters-and.html
The full IPCC Special Report on Extremes is out today, and I have just gone through the sections in Chapter 4 that deal with disasters and climate change. Kudos to the IPCC — they have gotten the issue just about right, where “right” means that the report accurately reflects the academic literature on this topic. Over time good science will win out over the rest — sometimes it just takes a little while.
A few quotable quotes from the report (from Chapter 4):
“There is medium evidence and high agreement that long-term trends in normalized losses have not been attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change”
“The statement about the absence of trends in impacts attributable to natural or anthropogenic climate change holds for tropical and extratropical storms and tornados”
“The absence of an attributable climate change signal in losses also holds for flood losses”
The report even takes care of tying up a loose end that has allowed some commentators to avoid the scientific literature:
“Some authors suggest that a (natural or anthropogenic) climate change signal can be found in the records of disaster losses (e.g., Mills, 2005; Höppe and Grimm, 2009), but their work is in the nature of reviews and commentary rather than empirical research.”
With this post I am creating a handy bullshit button on this subject (pictured above). Anytime that you read claims that invoke disasters loss trends as an indication of human-caused climate change, including the currently popular “billion dollar disasters” meme, you can simply call “bullshit” and point to the IPCC SREX report.
You may find yourself having to use the bullshit button in locations that are supposed to be credible, such as Nature Climate Change and the New York Times. This might may feel uncomfortable at first, because such venues are generally credible, but is absolutely necessary to help certain corners of science and the media to regain their credibility. The siren song of linking disasters to human-caused climate change exerts a strong pull for activists in all settings, but might be countered by the widespread and judicious use of the disaster and climate change bullshit button.