A picture is worth a thousand words:
It isn’t global.
This is weather, not climate. It is caused by a persistent blocking high pressure pattern. In a day or two, that red splotch over the eastern USA will be gone.
Image from Dr. Ryan N. Maue of WeatherBELL
h/t to Joe Bastardi
UPDATE: Dr. Roy Spencer puts it in perspective
June 2012 U.S. Temperatures: Not That Remarkable
July 6th, 2012
I know that many journalists who lived through the recent heat wave in the East think the event somehow validates global warming theory, but I’m sorry: It’s summer. Heat waves happen. Sure, many high temperature records were broken, but records are always being broken.
And the strong thunderstorms that caused widespread power outages? Ditto.
Regarding the “thousands” of broken records, there are not that many high-quality weather observing stations that (1) operated since the record warm years in the 1930s, and (2) have not been influenced by urban heat island effects, so it’s not at all obvious that the heat wave was unprecedented. Even if it was the worst in the last century for the Eastern U.S. (before which we can’t really say anything), there is no way to know if it was mostly human-caused or natural, anyway.
“But, Roy, the heat wave is consistent with climate model predictions!”. Yeah, well, it’s also consistent with natural weather variability. So, take your pick.
For the whole U.S. in June, average temperatures were not that remarkable. Here are the last 40 years from my population-adjusted surface temperature dataset, and NOAA’s USHCN (v2) dataset (both based upon 5 deg lat/lon grid averages; click for large version):
Certainly the U.S drought conditions cannot compare to the 1930s.
I really tire of the media frenzy which occurs when disaster strikes…I’ve stopped answering media inquiries. Mother Nature is dangerous, folks. And with the internet and cell phones, now every time there is a severe weather event, everyone in the world knows about it within the hour. In the 1800s, it might be months before one part of the country found out about disaster in another part of the country. Sheesh.
Hi KR, Jesse, Lazy, Paul K2, – sorry if I’ve missed any Alarmists, you know who you are. How come none of you have bothered to Alarm On about us. Don’t we have climate change Downunder?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/7218395/Extreme-June-cold-snap-breaks-records
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/kapiti/7212285/Record-cold-morning-for-Kapiti-Coast
http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/6525800/Holiday-spots-hit-record-low-temperatures
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-01-12/cold-snap-hits-south-east/3768810
http://www.weatherzone.com.au/news/near-record-cold-for-sun-starved-sa-and-nsw/21688
diogenesi, Interesting post — thanks for the mini course in statistics. Your post has far more substance than other replies that I’ve received here to my posts. I’ll study it diligently, with a cup of coffee at my side! Question: Would it make any difference, statistically, if the decline in the number of records is due, not to the increasing length of time for which records are kept, but for the fact that the records are approaching some physical limit, under current conditions? Could this be analogous to the decline in the number of new winning times in the Boston Marathon — which appears to be due not to the increasing length of time that the race has been in existence (the oldest records are not competitive today) but to the fact that the records are approaching the limit of what the human body is capable of? (This analogy breaks down because the distance between Hopkinton and Boston is going to remain what it is, while the physical limit to high temperatures may be imposed by the increasing amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.) And if the frame (bounded by physical limits in each direction) in which records of both sorts can be broken is moving upward, it would follow that there would be more opportunity for records to be set on the high end than on the low — many of the existing low records now being below what is physically possible given the new changed conditions. This would mean that the ratio of high to low records is being controlled by a process that is not “stationary” — the upward movement of the highest-possibility-to-the-lowest-possibility frame. But I am not sure whether what is physically not stationary is also statistically non-stationary — as I wrote, I need to con your interesting post with my cup of coffee. Please advise.
If the heat wave is due to global warming, when the heatwave is over does that mean global warming is over?
From the climate research center made infamous by the Climategate Emails, here is a link to a graph that shows the official documented “Global Warming” over the last 160 years. It shows a linear rise of 0.4 degrees Celsius from 1910 and 1940 and another increase of 0.4 degrees between 1980 and Y2000. Otherwise the curve is generally flat. This is the (assumed Anthropogenic) Global Warming Signal, straight from the horse’s mouth.
Global Temperature Record
http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/cru/info/warming/
Spector, The lesson to be drawn from this is that slight increases in average global temperature can produce significant changes in climate — this is not exactly good news. Arctic ice and glacial ice are disappearing; nights are staying warmer; the total annual power of tropical storms has increased by roughly 50 per cent since the 1970s; and more high temperature records are being broken than in the past — as far back as we have records, at least. Climate change skeptics constantly refer to the variability of the Earth’s climate, and they are right about that. It is variable, because it is highly sensitive to forcings, even ones that may strike us as being very small. A slightly imbalance in the plane of the Earth’s orbit is responsible for the Malenkovic cycle, which appears to control the coming and going of ice ages; this theory was slow to gain acceptance, because the imbalance is so small, but the linkage between the cycle and the ice ages now seems inescapable. We are seeing that the Earth’s climate responds to a slight nudge, in the form of increased atmospheric CO2; we don’t know how it will respond if we continue to nudge it, harder and harder. Is this an experiment that we want to continue? As a number of scientists have pointed out, this is the only planet we have to live on.
#jesse fell: As with everything in this business, reality is messy and complicated. 🙂
We look at record temperatures because they are quite sensitive to small movements in the average. But there are still plenty of low-temperature records; the estimated movement of the mean temperature is much smaller than the daily variability.
I don’t think there’s any physical limit involved. If the mean is rising, *and* the daily variability stays the same (which is also not necessarily correct), one would expect the system to settle down to some long-term rate of upward records which is representative of the movement of the mean.
But inferring climatological properties from temperature records is not so easy. Here’s a nice and fairly recent (2002) paper which discusses the issue:
http://www.atmos.uwyo.edu/~geerts/bart/daily_range.pdf
On pages 2-3 and 17, the author makes a point of saying that low clouds reduce the daily range of temperature, and that relative humidity is a good predictor of cloudiness. IMO the implication of the recent reduction in the number of temperature records is some effect like that — the average daily variability of temperature over the continental US has declined for reasons I don’t understand. Has cloud cover increased over the last 6 years? Unfortunately I have a day job which keeps me from digging into these things as much as I’d like. 🙂
diogenesni, I hear you about the day job. Let’s both win the lottery this week and then dig into this the way I think we’d both like to. I think that the ratio of high and low temperature records may be of limited significance to our understanding of climate change; it certainly appears, from all that you point out, that it is not easy, or perhaps even possible, to infer mean temperatures from it. But I don’t see how the ratio can be completely lacking in significance. A disproportion of high to low records could be a sign that the window of possibility is rising. That is, as the Earth’s mean temperature rises, new highs become more likely and new lows less likely. Maybe — this is enormously complex stuff. Still, the ratio is worth watching, along with all other indicators. It will probably be the case that we will get a bead on what’s happening only through a sort of empirical triangulation — looking at the case from every possible angle. With that, I return, reluctantly, to the day job. Good posts, deogenesni, whatever our difference in point of view.
RE: diogenesnj: (July 9, 2012 at 4:33 am)
“On pages 2-3 and 17, the author makes a point of saying that low clouds reduce the daily range of temperature, and that relative humidity is a good predictor of cloudiness. “
The question I often have on statements like this is whether clouds are causative or indicative. I regard clouds as indicators of ongoing condensing convective activity and wonder if that convective activity may be the ignored causative factor in some cases. Given that clouds are forming, however, they do reduce solar radiation arriving at the surface and by the same token, return thermal radiation emitted from the surface to reduce daily temperature variation.
Svensmark seems to have data showing a direct relationship between observed global cloud cover and the measured intensity of cosmic radiation.
misterjohnqpublic says:
July 7, 2012 at 10:36 am
History will show that AGW theory will rank with “evil spirits” in terms of logical reasoning.
Maybe if we sacrificed a few virgins all the bad weather will go away?
————————————————————————————————
And the solution to ‘overpopulation’ in one go!
Jesse Fell;
We are seeing that the Earth’s climate responds to a slight nudge, in the form of increased atmospheric CO2; we don’t know how it will respond if we continue to nudge it, harder and harder. Is this an experiment that we want to continue? As a number of scientists have pointed out, this is the only planet we have to live on.
>>>>>>>>>>>
As usual, confronted with information showing that climate is highly variable, that the behaviour we are seeing is nothing unusual, that CO2 is a factor so small as to be insignificant by comparison, some people can still respond ….”yeah, so look’s like what you are saying is it could be a disaster, right?”
diogenesnj – Regarding decreasing numbers of records:
I’m afraid I missed your earlier replies, as you had replied to “K2”, not “KR”, and given that there is a “Paul K2” in the thread I had overlooked them.
As you correctly noted, a stationary process with stochastic variation will show decreasing numbers of extreme records over time as more of the system behavior is observed. A non-stationary process with no noise will present new record values at every data point, if moving monotonically. In the case of temperature anomalies, the number of events is greatly increased simply because of the number of stations that are undergoing collection.
In between, however, a non-stationary process with stochastic variation may fall anywhere in that range depending on the stochastic variation and the rate of change in process averages. Given that we’re observing a ~0.16 C/decade change in mean with variations over several degrees C, a decrease in new records is unsurprising. Keep in mind that even if average temperatures rise by another degree C, we should still see record lows – although the ratio of highs to lows may be something like 20:1.
I would suggest looking at Meehl et al 2009 (ftp://ftp.soest.hawaii.edu/coastal/Climate%20Articles/US%20temp%20range%20Meehl%202009.pdf), where the data shows a decreasing number of total records over the 60 years examined (decreasing by about 2 orders of magnitude), as expected with observation of stochastic variation, with the ratio of high to low records changing considerably since the late 1970’s, as expected with slow changes in the mean temperatures. The data there is quite clear.
****
Jesse Fell says:
July 8, 2012 at 2:25 pm
Smokey, Lonny Thompson at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University has been studying tropical glaciers for over 30 years;
****
Hahahaha. Lonnie Thompson, the ultimate data-hider.
Jesse, go to Climateaudit & read up on Lonnie Thompson & his shenanigans. And yeah, tropical glaciers are sensitive to natural climate changes. So sensitive, they weren’t even present just 1000 yrs ago in the MWP, and just recently developed during the LIA, perhaps for the first time in the Holocene.
henrythethird – “I suppose it also shows there’s been no INCREASE in that rate either. And what experiments took out the CO2 component? You’re implying that every bit of that warming at ~0.16 C/decade is due to CO2 alone, that there are no natural forces or cycles to contribute to that level.”
CO2 is not the only forcing, and never has been. Right now CO2 (warming) and aerosols (cooling) are the most rapidly changing forcings, but they are far from the only ones.
While I expect long term acceleration of warming, 20-30 years is only sufficient to clearly establish a linear trend. Clearly showing a longer term curvature requires more data to clearly check the larger degrees of freedom in fitting something more complex than linear – the atmospheric temperature record is unsurprisingly not showing significant curvature (up or down, mind you) with recent data.
Sea level rise, on the other hand, (with both thermal and melt contributions) is showing acceleration both since the 1960’s, as described in Church 2008 (ftp://soest.hawaii.edu/coastal/Climate%20Articles/Domingues_2008%20Improved%20estimates%20of%20sea%20level%20rise.pdf) and other publications, and over the 20th century as a whole.
—
With regard to the “zero’s” you discussed at July 8, 2012 at 4:33 pm, please keep in mind that those are zeros relative to a baseline established within the temperature record, a relative number. Different records use different baselines, and crossing ‘zero’ is not a marker of anything other than when you define the baseline. For example, if you look at GISS with a 1951-1980 baseline versus UAH, which didn’t start until 1979, you have to rebaseline them to a common period or anomalies make no comparative sense whatsoever.
The 0.8 C difference I noted with/without anthropogenic influence is based upon http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/wg1/en/figure-9-5.html, where temperatures are estimated with and without the human contribution. It has nothing to do with anomaly baselines.
davidmhoffer – “…anything over 400 ppm (which is pretty much where we are now) is subject to the law of diminishing returns, and hence is pretty much negligible.”
With CO2 forcing being logarithmic WRT the increase, but the increase in CO2 being demonstrably greater than exponential, CO2 forcing imbalances will increase at a somewhat greater than linear rate. Meaning (given our current emissions path) that far from being negligible, it will have more influence over time.
“You’ve stated something that is a mathematical impossibility.”
The log of a value increasing exponentially increases linearly – the forcing Δ would remain constant as climate adjusts behind it. The log of a value increasing greater than exponentially (such as CO2) increases greater than linearly, forcing Δ increasing over time. If you feel that simple mathematic relationship is incorrect, I would have to disagree. And ask you to break out the math to demonstrate why high-school algebra is wrong.
RE: Jesse Fell: (July 9, 2012 at 4:57 am)
“Spector, The lesson to be drawn from this is that slight increases in average global temperature can produce significant changes in climate — this is not exactly good news. Arctic ice and glacial ice are disappearing; nights are staying warmer; the total annual power of tropical storms has increased by roughly 50 per cent since the 1970s; and more high temperature records are being broken than in the past — as far back as we have records, at least.
The problem here is that we have not had a stable system of reporting storms as we have gone from shipping observations to high quality satellite images. Over recent years, the Arctic Ice extent as measured on about May 15 each year has been relatively constant. While Arctic Ice has been retreating over the last forty years, Antarctic ice appears to have been advancing to a similar extent.
The simplest interpretation is that average temperatures have increased 0.8 degrees Celsius, as indicated, and all other changes result from increasing experience of the full range of random fluctuation.
Eventually, as the solar system moves ever farther out from the cosmic radiation coming from the fringe of the current galactic arm, we may see a period of polar melting and sea-level rise as atmospheric condensation is reduced, but that should be a long-long time coming.
KR;
Sorry bud, but there’s no such thing as “more than exponential”. You can have a high exponent or a lower one, or a super duper high one, but there simply is no such thing as “more than exponential”.
If what you are trying to say is that the exponential growth in fossil fuel consumption is greater than the decresing impact of CO2 due to itz logarithmic nature, then that has the possibility to be mathematically correct.
It would also be a ponsi scheme. Unless you believe that oil, gas and coal are infinite and that we can expand our use of those resources exponentially, forever, then your statement is exactly the math a ponzi scheme is based upon. The exponential growth of fossil fuel consumption that we have seen last century is levelling off for the simple reason that these resources are finite. Extrapolate out the exponential growh of the last few decades as continuing, and you’ll exceed the mass of the earth in short order. This is what ponzi schemes are based on, the assumption that exponential increases can be maintained for a resource that is limited for ever. They can’t be, and the levelling off of oil, gas, and coal production has already begun as I pointed out to you.
Can they still increase? They most certainly can. Can they increase exponentially over the next 100 years as they did in the last 100 years.
NOT A FREAKIN’ CHANCE IN H*LL SO PLEASE STOP PAINTING DISASTER SCENARIOS BASED ON SOMETHING THAT IS PHYSICALLY IMPOSSIBLE.
KR says:
July 9, 2012 at 7:40 am
“…20-30 years is only sufficient to clearly establish a linear trend.”
Based on what? Given a ~60 year cyclicality in the process (I would say the ~60 year cyclicality, but you cannot argue with this statement), ~30 years would be the worst possible time interval to choose.
davidmhoffer says:
July 9, 2012 at 12:47 pm
“…there simply is no such thing as “more than exponential”.”
I assume he means greater than with a linear exponent. But A) there is no evidence upon which to conclude the rise is more even than quadratic, much less exponential with a linear exponent and B) it’s moot anyway, because CO2 concentration is controlled by temperature, and not by humans.
What’s remarkable to me has been the African cold, now for years running. That probably also explains loss of mass on Kilamanjaro, as that peak depends entirely on non mid latitude systems for its snow. The colder the African interior that less moisture drawn in via Monsoonal and ITCZ mechanisms.
Just found this in an old Australian newspaper — to the right under the story of the missing student is a short piece on Heat Killing Americans http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/page/8035810?zoomLevel=3
davidmhoffer – As I (and others) have pointed out, the log of CO2 growth is upwardly curving, whereas growth with a fixed exponent would be linear. Hence CO2 is growing faster than exponential (with a fixed exponent, that is).
As to limits on our emissions, while oil is getting more expensive to produce, we’ve apparently got lots of coal, shale oil (fracking), natural gas, and other resources – our current emissions have not slowed, and all projections of “business as usual” see enough carbon availability to continue.
Bart – 60 year cycles would need a mechanism, a forcing change, a reason to occur. Curiously enough, looking at the forcing records there’s plenty of information on actual events, actual forcings, to show the recorded temperature changes – with physics, and without Mysterious Unknown Cycles (MUC’s, for short). Invoking MUC’s is simply hand-waving in denial of well supported physics.
As to CO2 rise being caused by temperature rise? That just doesn’t follow – ocean CO2 is increasing, not decreasing (as seen by decreasing pH), known biosphere changes can’t account for the mass of CO2 either. Unless aliens are teleporting CO2 into our atmosphere that claim is just unsupportable.
KR says:
July 9, 2012 at 3:55 pm
“60 year cycles would need a mechanism, a forcing change, a reason to occur.”
Natural modes are ubiquitous in… Nature. They are observed in every engineering discipline. They are a manifestation of energy storage, as in the oscillations of a spring as it cyclically trades potential energy for kinetic energy. The ~60 year cycle is obvious in the data. Sticking your head in the sand will not make it go away.
But, that is beside the point: Do you, or do you not, agree that IF there WERE a 60 year cycle in the data, 30 years would be a very bad number to use to proclaim a trend? If you disagree, then there is no point in further discussion, because you would then show yourself to be technically illiterate. If you agree, then how do you exclude the possibility of that which is staring you right in the face?
And, speaking of denying that which is right before your eyes, if you tell me the beginning concentration and the temperatures since, I can tell you quite accurately what the current level of CO2 is – human inputs are effectively superfluous – merely by integrating the scaled temperature anomaly. The derivative of CO2 is proportional to the temperature in the post-1958 era for which we have reliable data. We know that the derivative of CO2 is not driving temperature – the very notion is absurd, because temperature would then be independent of the absolute level of CO2. Furthermore, it means the absolute level of CO2 (what you get when you integrate the derivative) lags the temperature. We conclude that, on a logical and causal basis, temperature must be driving CO2 and not the reverse.
“there’s plenty of information on actual events, actual forcings, to show the recorded temperature changes”
These are not “actual forcings”. They are modeled forcings, for an effectively back-of-the-envelope level model. There is no verification of it, it is merely one way in which you can recreate a time response in the measurements superficially similar to the observations. But, that proves nothing – it is always possible to do so in an underdetermined system, i.e., it is exactly like solving the equation x + y = 1 for x and y: the solution space is infinite. But, I am introducing to you another observable which is incompatible with the solution which has been agreed upon. It is like they said that, in the case x + y = 1, x is one and y is zero, and I am showing evidence of another equation which says 2x + y = 3/2, and y can no longer be zero.
“ocean CO2 is increasing, not decreasing (as seen by decreasing pH), known biosphere changes can’t account for the mass of CO2 either.”
Which means merely that the ocean depths below where we can measure are upwelling CO2 and/or the necessary biosphere changes are unknown and unobserved. This is a trivial objection. The figure does not lie. There is no viable alternative explanation. Temperature, not humankind, is driving CO2.
[SNIP: Another anonymous drive-by coward with a fake e-mail address. -REP]
I am flattered to be ignored. I also understand that all Jesse Fell (and all others who wear the cloak of green) have in their arsenal is fear. From the beginning of man’s existence, fear has been used to manipulate and control. Not buying it.
“Obama and BP changed the dynamics of the weather by how they managed the BP Horizon disaster. There’s every indication this was a planned event to alter the weather to create global warming.
A few weeks prior Global warming was outed as a giant UN scam to get taxes and now their at it again… Anything to get global tax to consolidate the NWO of tyrants… By changing the ambient surface temperature of the Gulf, fake global warming was produced… To do this they murdered billions of life forms in the gulf. That’s how demented the Global warning people are; killers and scam artists… And now you get the heat wave. How’s that for “change”? ”
I posted the above on some blogs and such the other day… During the height of the BP disaster, I was curious as to the effect on Global warm this would have in the long run when I found a high-up NWO conspirator was on the Board of Directors of BP and BP and the UN stooge Obama shut down the media coverage in detail even now the real news of the disaster has been squelched…
So, within minutes of web search, I found on a scientific site, the math that showed that surface oil increases the ambient temperature of the water! The whole Gulf stream was slowed down to a crawl causing drastic weather changes that year in the USA and Europe as well… They killed the Gulf to sell you all on “Global Warming” and you need to know this about the fact that the NWO will stop at nothing!!! Pass it around if you can or agree.
RE: KR:(July 9, 2012 at 3:55 pm)
davidmhoffer – As I (and others) have pointed out, the log of CO2 growth is upwardly curving, whereas growth with a fixed exponent would be linear. Hence CO2 is growing faster than exponential (with a fixed exponent, that is).
First, the curve that you referenced earlier was *not* a plot of the log of the CO2 concentration. Second, exponential growth is not proportional to time or time difference raised to some fixed exponent, but some fixed number like 2.71828 raised to a positive exponent proportional to time or time difference. Such growth usually is characterized by a doubling interval. A periodic series of values like 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192, 16384…. is an example of exponential growth.
Population would grow at an exponential rate if an infinite supply of food and living space were available. As world population doubled in the last forty years, we might expect a global population of over 500 billion people in a few hundred years if resource limitations did not prevent this.
NONE OF YOU DOPES HAVE EVER DONE A SINGLE YEAR OF HIGH LEVEL STUDY ON CLIMATE. LEAVE IT TO THE SCIENTISTS. NONE OF YOU FOOL HAVE ANY TRAINING, EXPERIENCE OR EXPERTISE IN WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. ITS A JOKE TO THINK YOU DO.
[Left as-is, as-was-written, as a display of temperance and moderation and toleration of the CAGW-community. Robt]
Spector – An exponential over time is expressed as Ae^(kT), where A and K are constants.
To be more clear, a growth greater than exponential (as seen by taking the log of the data) indicates that either the function for CO2 is not exponential (it’s definitely increasing faster than that) or that K is not constant – and in fact increasing over time. That is very, very simple math.
What I noted earlier (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/07/the-folly-of-blaming-the-eastern-u-s-heat-wave-on-global-warming/#comment-1027264) was where to get the data, how to take the log of it, and (if I might go a bit further) to suggest fitting a trend line to the log of the data. Sadly, I see no indication that anyone commenting has taken the few moments needed to import the CO2 data into Excel, take the log of it, and look at the resulting trend… just shouting that “You’re wrong, you’re wrong!” with no justification other than unfounded ideas about the math…
To repeat: http://woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2/mean:12 if you wish to remove seasonal (growth) variation, or http://woodfortrees.org/plot/esrl-co2 if not. The data is at http://woodfortrees.org/data/esrl-co2/mean:12 for your viewing. From this point on I will simply ignore anyone who has not looked at the data on this topic as presenting unsupported opinions rather than evidence.
—
Bart – You’re promoting MUC’s again. Solar forcings are from sunspot activity. Aerosols are from volcanic eruptions and checking dust deposits in ice. CO2 is from repeated measurements both instrumental and in recent ice cores. Each and every one of those forcing traces is supported by evidence.
And the temperature record corresponds to the forcings. And the physics. MUC’s don’t in either case. And as Hitchens said, “What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” Present your evidence – the physics behind the cycles, the data supporting the energy flows, the source of the 25×10^22 extra joules of heat in the oceans since 1970 (http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/OC5/3M_HEAT_CONTENT/) – or I and others will, quite frankly, dismiss your assertions.