I cringe every time I see stories like the one being pushed in the Associated Press today by AP science writer Seth Borenstein.
My Way News – This US summer is ‘what global warming looks like’ http://apnews.myway.com/article/20120703/D9VP9J681.html
Even Drudge picked it up.
The amount of unsupported speculation trying to be passed off as science is nothing more than the classic appeal to authority. In this case, the “authority” is NCAR’s Dr. Kevin Trenberth, a man with so much hatred for alternate viewpoints that he refused to remove the holocaust word “denier” from his keynote address to the American Meteorological Society.
This reminds me of the Russian heat wave of 2010.
The same people made essentially the same comments, then months later the peer reviewed literature (published by NOAA researchers no less) said that it was caused by natural variation…a blocking high pressure pattern. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/03/09/noaa-findsclimate-change-blameless-in-2010-russian-heat-wave/
That was followed up by another paper saying the same thing: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/29/another-paper-shows-that-the-russian-heatwave-of-2010-was-due-to-natural-variability/
We have essentially the same thing happening here, a persistent quasi-stationary weather pattern, part of the normal natural variation.
As for the derecho, it is hardly new. The word was first used in the American Meteorological Journal in 1888 by Gustavus Detlef Hinrichs in a paper describing the phenomenon and based on a significant derecho event that crossed Iowa on 31 July 1877. Further, NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center has catalogued them through the years. According to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center, climatology, the Washington DC area gets a derecho about once every four years:
As I said in my essay, The idea that the recent derecho is linked to global warming is pure folly spun by people that wish to exploit any remotely plausible situation for political purposes. It happens on a regular basis, for example when they try to link tornado outbreaks to global warming: The folly of linking tornado outbreaks to “climate change”.
Or how about the disparity in “weather is not climate except when we say it is” blame game: New York Times Blames 2009’s Record Cold on Natural Factors — But Blamed Record Warmth in 2000 on Man-Made Global Warming!
Given how badly global warming is faring in the minds of the public according to the last Washington Post/Stanford poll:
Global warming no longer Americans’ top environmental concern, poll finds
…it is clear they are desperate to sell any connection because the public will probably not hear about the science studies that will follow.
It is another shameful attempt to do just that by Dr. Kevin Trenberth aided by Seth Borenstein’s media bully pulpit. I will give Borenstein at least one credit though, he asked Dr. John Christy what he thought about it and printed it:
‘…history is full of such extremes, said John Christy at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. He’s a global warming skeptic who says, “The guilty party in my view is Mother Nature.”‘
Yet it was still hotter on earth 1000 years ago than it is now.
Kevin Tenberth: Still desperately seeking missing heat! 😉
So I thought I’d have a look at Hadcrut3 data to see what that looks like when the weather in the US looks like global warming.
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/data/temperature/#datdow
I fear their thermometers must have melted as the data has not been updated since March data but then it didn’t look unusual. So instead i’ve looked out of the window and it’s still raining here in the UK, which I guess is also what global warming looks like.
By SETH BORENSTEIN
(AP) A tree sitting atop a vehicle offers free firewood in Falls Church, Va., Monday, July, 2, 2012, as…
WASHINGTON (AP) – If you want a glimpse of some of the worst of global warming, scientists suggest taking a look at U.S. weather in recent weeks.
Horrendous wildfires. Oppressive heat waves. Devastating droughts. Flooding from giant deluges. And a powerful freak wind storm called a derecho.
These are the kinds of extremes climate scientists have predicted will come with climate change,
Like this tree sitting on top of a vehicle, its all happened before.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8008/7497309986_88811a5d92_m.jpg
And there is this,
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_02.html
In reference to the Trenberth/Borenstein comments.
@Adam Gallon,
Here in the upper midwest of the US we would be more than happy to trade weather with the UK. However, you must arrange for transportation.
Stanley, records have only been taken at Pittsburgh International Airport since 1952. So I don’t know what records your talking about. The airport wasn’t even in existence in the 1930s.
The official Pittsburgh temperature records go back further than 1952 using monitoring at the Allegheny County Airport, the Bettis Airfield, and various office building in the City. The period of record for hot and cold temperature extremes in the official Pittsburgh temperatures do not coincide with the record keeping at Greater Pittsburgh Airport alone [which went into operation on September 15, 1952. Some parameters have a POR of 64 years, which goes back to 1947. That means the Allegheny County AP data was used prior to PIT data, going back to March 18, 1932.] There is no reason given by the NWA for the POR of 59 yrs or 64 yrs. By excluding the warm periods of the 30s, but including the cold 70s and early 80s, comparison of today’s readings with the truncated data series makes it easier to establish “new” hot extremes, which is my point.
The NWS office at Pittsburgh issued this statement based on the June 30th high T:
————————————————————–
000
SXUS71 KPBZ 300639
RERPIT
RECORD EVENT REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE PITTSBURGH PA
0214 AM EDT SAT JUN 30 2012
…RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT PITTSBURGH PA…
THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE HAS REPORTED A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE
OF 97 DEGREES WAS SET AT PITTSBURGH PA YESTERDAY. THIS BREAKS THE
OLD RECORD OF 96 SET IN 1934.
————————————————————-
Note that the NWS office references “the old record of 96 set in 1934”, which would have been recorded at the Allegheny County AP. The NOAA data don’t recognize the 96 of 1934 as being the old record, as their POR for extreme temperatures only goes back to 1952, and June 1952 data was from the Allegheny County AP.
The Mann-Trenberth pattern is clear: CAGW all the way, ignore the doubters, hold the line, accept the grants (not just for themselves but the entire discipline). If regulations, taxes and punishment weren’t part of the CAGW drive, I’d shrug and let them give passion and meaning to the eco-green guilt-trippers.
Until we get a solid year of global temperature decline, with a cold US contiguous mainland, this kneejerk foolishness is what we will see. Just as the media portrays American capitalism and democracy as the only ways the world should be going/wants to go, the media portrays American weather as the universal weather.
On a related note: We haven’t heard anything from Phil Jones for a while. What with the wet and the cold, when the Met said it would be dry and warm, is he perhaps less bullish on CAGW than he was?
Isn’t the definition of global warming a rise in the global average temperature? Isn’t that a deterministic measure? Why is Trenberth talking about record ratios? He says: “breaking far more high temperature records than low temperature records is most certainly a sign that the climate is changing”. Well, the recent high records are not independent of each other. In fact, most, if not all, are measuring one event. Trenberth says the record ratio is 10 to 1 to prove his point. Well, suppose Charlotte, NC, had 1,000,000 sensors, all measuring record highs, then Trenberth could have made a even stronger (i.e. outrageous) argument. By the way, Trenberth’s 10 to 1 ration is easy prove/disprove in a way every reporter can understand. Trenberth should prove this before given a public voice.
“KnR , can be regarded ass a joke”
Freudian slip there? Made me laugh because their science is so bass ackwards
Central Canada is also experiencing a warm spell. We had a similar summer in 1949 which was also near the end of the peak of the last 60 year climate cycle where there were 35 days during the summer [ June to August ]where Toronto[ airport] had temperatures of 30 degrees C or over and rising to as high as 36.1 C [97 degrees F]. June had 15 days , July had 12 and August had 8. The winter that followed had 215 cm of snow . These “sky is again falling” climate scientists seem to ignore the past records because that would void their doom and gloom science .
I guess I am not a fan of Kevin Trenberth’s “Global Energy Budget ” cartoon. Maybe soon, I can announce that I am five sigmas sure of that position. Other than that, I really have no opinion of him, not knowing much else about him (and verse vicea).
So what about his “Global Energy Budget” ; seeing as how he has a PhD (I think) and I do not. Dr Laura has a PhD; she doesn’t know anything about climate, or Physics.
Well when I went to school, and studied “science” including elements of Physics from (and before) 1948, and at least 13 formal years after that, Energy was measured in ergs or Joules.
Watts were not; and never had been units of Energy. They were in fact units of POWER, which is a RATE of doing work, using/collecting/delivering/wasting/whatever, ENERGY. Moreover, Watts per m^2 is also NOT a unit of ENERGY, but is a unit of “areal power density”.
So Watts per square metre, is not a good unit to be using for energy budgetting.
That is about as sensible as calling a government mandated purchase of merchandise or service, a TAX.
So Dr Trenberth is committing a sin, to be using Watt’s per square metre in his ENERGY budget.
Then he compounds the felony, by arbitrarily dividing the TSI by a factor of four, asserting essentially that now the sun shines at 1/4 of its actual rate, but now it shines 24/7/365, everywhere on earth, including the polar winter midnight.
Let me put it this way; Suppose we dropped a one megaton bomb on some worthless place; maybe a desert island devoid of people, and no leatherback turtles either. Now we don’t do this too often; say once every ten years would be sufficient.
Do you think I could claim, that on average, the damage to the island will not be too severe. Even if I said the bang lasted for about an hour; averaged over once per decade, the noise would not be so bad, and it wouldn’t be too dusty or windy on average; wouldn’t even get very hot on average.
So that’s what Dr Trenberth is claiming. The fact that the sun is dropping 1362 W/m^2 bombs on the daylit side of the earth, is no more damaging in his view, that hosing down the whole surface at once with a 341.5 W/m^2 hose.There wouldn’t even be anything much happening, because with no difference from place to place, basically absolutely nothing would happen, in the way of weather, because without Temperature differences, there would be no weather.
A 4-H lesson in science would suffice to make that clear to anybody; the PhD is quite superfluous.
Energy you can integrate to get a total, but a one KiloWatt ghetto blaster in your car, is not the same thing as a Japanese Transistor Radio, even if you only play it for 20 minutes on the way to work.
The TSI is 1362 W.m^2. That is THE areal RATE at which the sun provides energy to the places on earth where it does provide energy; it is NOT 341.5 W/m^2
The Texas drought is over, we have been having regular rain here and the wildflowers are blooming again! North East Texas (above Dallas). The rain has been keeping things a little cooler than normal for this time of year also. It’s just weather.
Trenberth’s been all-in with nine-high for more than a few years now.
In the private sector, he would have had his coat handed to him, and the exit door opened years ago.
Part of the reason for the bow front storms Derechos is due to solar wind inductions into the earths magnetic field, and corresponding ion charge potentials between the poles and the equator due to homopolar generator effects. The more energetic the interactions between the suns production in spots and CMEs, (that put out short term surges in magnetic and ion flux,) the more is the effected storm strength and production. When the sun is active the shifts in polarity of the solar wind keep the storms active and spread out, when the magnetic field strength of the earth weakens and becomes stable for periods of time longer than about two weeks, then the polar to equatorial air mass interaction slows down giving rise to larger mid-latitude bands of clean dry air with low ion count. Blocking highs that occur in these areas produce droughts due to there is little precipitable water vapor, and no flux of ions into or out of the area to cause rainfall.
These spots develop low concentrations of ions due to the neutralizing effects of passing fronts, Further poleward you will find Negative ions abound (accounting for the acidic Ph of rain), and closer to the equator positive ions driven off of the ocean surface by wave action nebulization.
When the magnetic fields of the sun and the earth weaken the areas of neutral charged air masses increase in the mid-latitudes, forming into cutoff blocking highs, when surges of ions arrive from the CMEs and solar flares they produce a cascade of free electrons which sweep down on top of the existing Mobile Polar Highs, and show up as intense events due to the ion induced wind power added to the normal temperature gradient across fronts, by these huge surges in free electrons push into the mid-latitudes.
http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/cgi-bin/magnetometer/gak-mag.cgi (graphs of electromagnetic activity of the interactions of the sunspots and CME’s upon the earths atmosphere) you can clearly see the shock impulses these past three days of CME arrival, at the same time the Drecheos were running across the charge boundary as the free electrons came cascading down from the North pole, as long as the graphs show rapid intense fluctuation the higher rate of precipitation results.
So the reason we are having summer droughts, and a lingering dry area in the Texas to South East of USA (for the past couple of years) is due to the decreasing strength of solar magnetic fields, resultant solar wind speed stability, and the probable weakening of the earths “permanent” fields. Thus lowering the ion content in the mid-latitudes allowing these events to occur. Drought until solar induced disruptions cause rapid discharges producing the Derechos along the periphery of the ion null, low aerosol content, zone of dry air in the blocking high pattern.
The maps shown on my site are for the normal average lunar declinational cyclic patterns and surges in ion inductions from solar activity show up as “out of the usual” or I totally miss their presence in my “forecasts for this cycle and I learn what is solar caused and what is not, how the interaction comes down. I learn more about how the electromagnetic interactions between the sun and the planets actually works quantitatively, as well as the length of timing durations to expect.
I built the web site as a learning tool to understand the entire system and its interactions. When I can derive algorithms to adjust the lunar declinational patterns by the expected solar activity, then I will be able to build an active weather forecasting method or model that works much better.
“Scientifically linking individual weather events to climate change takes intensive study, complicated mathematics, computer models and lots of time (AND A HUGE PILE OF GREEN STUFF CALLED TAX PAYERS MONEY). Sometimes it isn’t caused by global warming. Weather is always variable; freak things happen.”
Edit the copy: Note the money thing was left out. Typical!
Used the HA**P site link for informational purposes auto tanked into the trash.
REPLY: and there’s a good reason for that. -Anthony
Part of the reason for the bow front storms Derechos is due to solar wind inductions into the earths magnetic field, and corresponding ion charge potentials between the poles and the equator due to homopolar generator effects. The more energetic the interactions between the suns production in spots and CMEs, (that put out short term surges in magnetic and ion flux,) the more is the effected storm strength and production. When the sun is active the shifts in polarity of the solar wind keep the storms active and spread out, when the magnetic field strength of the earth weakens and becomes stable for periods of time longer than about two weeks, then the polar to equatorial air mass interaction slows down giving rise to larger mid-latitude bands of clean dry air with low ion count. Blocking highs that occur in these areas produce droughts due to there is little precipitable water vapor, and no flux of ions into or out of the area to cause rainfall.
These spots develop low concentrations of ions due to the neutralizing effects of passing fronts, Further poleward you will find Negative ions abound (accounting for the acidic Ph of rain), and closer to the equator positive ions driven off of the ocean surface by wave action nebulization.
When the magnetic fields of the sun and the earth weaken the areas of neutral charged air masses increase in the mid-latitudes, forming into cutoff blocking highs, when surges of ions arrive from the CMEs and solar flares they produce a cascade of free electrons which sweep down on top of the existing Mobile Polar Highs, and show up as intense events due to the ion induced wind power added to the normal temperature gradient across fronts, by these huge surges in free electrons push into the mid-latitudes.
alaska.edu/cgi-bin/magnetometer/gak-mag.cgi (graphs of electromagnetic activity of the interactions of the sunspots and CME\’s upon the earths atmosphere) you can clearly see the shock impulses these past three days of CME arrival, at the same time the Drecheos were running across the charge boundary as the free electrons came cascading down from the North pole, as long as the graphs show rapid intense fluctuation the higher rate of precipitation results.
So the reason we are having summer droughts, and a lingering dry area in the Texas to South East of USA (for the past couple of years) is due to the decreasing strength of solar magnetic fields, resultant solar wind speed stability, and the probable weakening of the earths \”permanent\” fields. Thus lowering the ion content in the mid-latitudes allowing these events to occur. Drought until solar induced disruptions cause rapid discharges producing the Derechos along the periphery of the ion null, low aerosol content, zone of dry air in the blocking high pattern.
The maps shown on my site are for the normal average lunar declinational cyclic patterns and surges in ion inductions from solar activity show up as \”out of the usual\” or I totally miss their presence in my \”forecasts for this cycle and I learn what is solar caused and what is not, how the interaction comes down. I learn more about how the electromagnetic interactions between the sun and the planets actually works quantitatively, as well as the length of timing durations to expect.
I built the web site as a learning tool to understand the entire system and its interactions. When I can derive algorithms to adjust the lunar declinational patterns by the expected solar activity, then I will be able to build an active weather forecasting method or model that works much better.
pat says (July 3, 2012 at 11:03 am): “That fellow Seth Borenstein is really not very smart.”
I would argue that he is indeed smart, in the sense that a successful snake oil salesman is smart.
Regarding this part of Anthony’s earliet reply:
“Lebanon, Missouri is ground zero for the 2012 heatwave. They have seen five days over 100F this year. By contrast, during 1936 they had forty-one days over 100F. During the past decade, they have had 31 days over 100F, compared to 152 days during the 1930s. Extremely hot days were five times more common during the 1930s.”
I had the good fortune of meeting a gruff Kansas farmer, (Raymond “Charlie” B., in case others had the pleasure,) who was a small child in the 1930’s, and he described a Kansas unlike anything we have seen. When the world “became green” at the end of the Dust Bowl, it was something he had never seen before. The world he grew up in was brutal.
The people who grew up in that gritty world are getting old now. If you know such a person, get them to tell you what it was like. There is no “adjustment” that can erase what they saw with their own eyes.
“Charlie” also spoke of a mini-Dust-Bowl in the 1950’s that you don’t hear much about.
This particular heat wave exaggeration issue is just like the whole global warming proposition.
It is internally-generated self-talk with one after another inflating the statements of the previous speaker until 3 days of warm temperatures and a plow wind completely prove global warming in their eyes.
And they are extremely dedicated and revel in keeping this up. I don’t know what kind of normal climate or weather will cause them to rethink it. It is going to be with us for several decades to come no matter what. Hopefully it does not turn into a state-sanctioned-enforced right-think law but that is not guaranteed.
On an a more positive note regarding the alarmism from the MSM, an article appeared on CNN quoting a recent study from a U of Berkely researcher that was published just before the wild fires started, and which predicted more wild fires and bigger wild fires. They of course rushed to interview him and of course the question of GW as cause came up. I was pleasantly surprised by the answer and that they published it:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/03/us/western-wildfires-why/index.html?hpt=hp_c1
*********************
While weather is a key contributor, there’s debate over whether Western states are victims of climate change.
Moritz said the record temperatures and lack of humidity are characteristics of climate change — hallmarks of what weather models predict we should expect under climate change.
“But to say it is climate change? I think most of us are cautious about saying that,” he said.
**********************
Well Kudos to Max Moritz! Let’s get him onto WUWT!
I saw this essay and it’s a reminder that if we are going to turn this around we are going to have to see this in terms of individual liberty. And what happens when a bureaucracy takes over any function.
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/peripatetics-global-warming-and-the-layman/
RE: Robuk says:
July 3, 2012 at 3:36 pm.
That link:
http://www.livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe30s/water_02.html
is wonderful.
A single eye-witness can undo tons of falsified dara.
I read about all the record temperatures coming from UHI area’s. What about the temperature sites that have been identified as providing good data not corrupted by the UHI effect? Are they showing record temperatures?
son of mulder says:
July 3, 2012 at 3:35 pm
I fear their thermometers must have melted as the data has not been updated since March data but then it didn’t look unusual.
It is hard to believe how slow they are! There is a different way that you can access the Hadcrut3 data as well as the Hadsst2 data. For some reason, explorer works for me but not firefox. To get the latest Hadcrut3, data, see:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadcrut3/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly
To get the latest Hadsst2, data, see:
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/hadsst2/diagnostics/global/nh+sh/monthly
The April and May values for Hadcrut3 are 0.481 and 0.474 and the April value for Hadsst2 is 0.292. The May value is not up yet. Unfortunately, in this form, these values are not accessible to WoodForTrees.
To put the above numbers into perspective:
With the Hadcrut3 anomaly for May at 0.474, the average for the first five months of the year is (0.217 + 0.194 + 0.305 + 0.482 + 0.474)/5 = 0.3344. This is about the same as the anomaly in 2011 which was at 0.34 to rank it 12th for that year. 1998 was the warmest at 0.548. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in February of 1998 when it reached 0.756. If the May anomaly continued for the rest of the year, 2012 would end up 9th, but 2011 would become 13th.
With the sea surface anomaly for April at 0.292, the average for the first four months of the year is (0.203 + 0.230 + 0.242 + 0.292)/4 = 0.242. If the average stayed this way for the rest of the year, its ranking would be 14th. This compares with the anomaly in 2011 at 0.273 to rank it 12th for that year. 1998 was the warmest at 0.451. The highest ever monthly anomaly was in August of 1998 when it reached 0.555. If the April anomaly continued for the rest of the year, 2012 would end up 12th, but 2011 would become 13th.