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.
>> Glenn Tamblyn says:
July 8, 2012 at 3:00 am … <<
Do you have a pre-2005 reference to some CAGW priest predicting this effect? Otherwise it's just another example of the CAGW religion coming up with another desperately lame explanation as to why their predictions for continued warming failed.
In North America we have man made heat-waves and hot dry conditions as a result of Anthropogenic Climate Change (apparently).
In the UK & Ireland we have man made heavy rain fall, cold damp conditions and localized flooding as a result of Anthropogenic Climate Change (apparently).
Right across the European Continent and Eurasia we have a wide variety of conditions including thunderstorms, floods and varying degrees of extremes such as hot deserts, snow caped mountains and glaciers, are we to believe that all of these geographical locations and their different environmental conditions (or extremes if you like) are man made as a result of Anthropogenic Climate Change?
I think we’re in a era of agenda driven media under political influence for the most part, natural disasters do happen all the time all over the world like they have done in the past, they are still as ferocious today when they happen, although there wasn’t the technology to document all these events when they happened in the past, today almost no heavy rainfall, heatwave or other meteorological event goes unreported or documented by the public and reported by our media and jumped upon by our out-of-touch political classes and used to push ridiculous policies that would otherwise be laughed at.
Yesterday on the news, I watched a politician declare that the recent bad weather and floods in the UK was a result of a changing climate (Anthropogenic Global Warming) and that scientists have been warning us about these extreme events for years, this was an obvious arrogant attempt to try and justify their stupid climate change laws, failures or what ever else they’re peddling to the public.
If the news interviewer had a set he would reply with–
“The UK is cold, wet, damp, overcast, gray, foggy and flooding this summer how is this “Climate Change” (Anthropogenic Global Warming) you fecking daft idiot!!”
Their TV ratings would also go through the roof!! lol
Recent unusual weather events in the Northern Hemisphere have nothing to do with Climate Change .
Footage produced by the UK Met Office demonstrates how the path of the Jet Stream has recently changed from its ‘normal’ route. This has resulted in significant increases in temperature to the south of the Jet Stream e.g. USA, together with dramatic increases in rainfall to the north of the Jet Stream e.g. northern Europe and particularly the UK. I understand that the Jet Stream is prone to wander off course from time to time but the cause of this is not known.
The Jet Stream clearly has a major impact on weather patterns but I cannot recall reading anything about its effect on climate physics.
Have the Jet Stream effects been considered in the GCMs I ask?
[SNIP: Let’s not go there. This is, after all, a family blog. -REP]
Chipotle says:
July 7, 2012 at 11:20 am
RE Mexico v Greenland comparison
In our real world Mexico is nearly the same size as Greenland (which here appears many times larger than Mexico). Both are about three times the area of Texas. From the CIA Factbook:
Mexico: 1,964,375 sq km, slightly less than three times the size of Texas
Greenland: 2,166,086 sq km, slightly more than three times the size of Texas
Just trying to clean up your point, which is a great one.
A picture is worth a thousand words
and a number outweighs a thousand activist views:
July 7, 2012. Global Anomaly 0.001 deg.
From your link:
Sorry, I asked for evidence of ‘large’ sums. Those numbers are just a drop in the bucket compared to the funding from fossil fuel industries to CRU, Greenpeace, and other church leaders.
LazyTeenager says:
July 8, 2012 at 6:03 am
RE comment RE Chipotle says comment
Terminology may have been imprecise, but the point stands – the higher latitudes of both hemispheres do appear to hold more of the above-average temp in this map projection while the lower latitudes appear to hold more of the below- (and near) average temp.
Actually, Jesse, they are sufficient. The reason that they are sufficient is because it doesn’t matter why they are happening — that they happen at all, and have been for tens/hundreds/thousands/millions of years without human influences of any kind, gives them the status of “natural variation.” Merely because a natural cycle is currently unexplained does not mean that ANY explanation is the right one.
We look at historical temperature records and see that the earth has been gently warming since the end of the Little Ice Age — long before human-produced CO2 was present in large quantities. We look further at those records and see spikes and dips in the record, and with modern technology we relate those spikes to El Nino events and dips to large aerosol releases by volcanoes. With such a long record we see many natural cycles in warming and cooling — and not knowing their exact causes does not make them go away any more than the Sun did not exist before we could explain nuclear fusion.
Tides existed before we knew about gravity. Disease existed before we had germ theory. Natural cycles are not to be ignored because we don’t know their causes. They ARE, and that is enough.
James, If we don’t know why cycles are occurring, we don’t even know whether what we are looking at are in fact cycles. We don’t know, for example, whether what we are seeing are cycles, or simply unrelated series of events that coincidentally have the same effect on temperature and climate. And certainly, if we understood the reasons behind the cycles, we would have a better understanding of the dynamics of climate, and would be better able to assess the effect of adding billions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year.
Cycles in themselves may be sufficient for talking points, but not for science, and not for policy that hopes to base itself on the best scientific understanding.
For the last time this is just the weather and not the climate. Where is the evidence that extreme weather events have worsening trends???
Are Warmists so desperate that they have not resorted to pointing at regional weather events to illustrate Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. We had record cold in New Zealand at the same time as the heatwave in the US. So what! It’s just the weather and not the climate.
Alarmists please read about bad weather.
http://stevengoddard.wordpress.com/bad-weather/
KR;
That means that CO2 increase over that period is greater than exponential, and that CO2 forcing is increasing faster than linearly. Personally, I would consider that significant.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Very nice try.
1. There was a dramatic and rise in use of fossil fuels last century which has since levelled off. You cannot take a trend that no longer exists and extrapolate it out to the future.
2. We’ve reached peak oil, or very close to it. The rapid rises in fossil fuel use of the past are no longer physically possible. The forces that drove the trend in the past are physically incapable of continuing to increase at that pace, and hence cannot drive CO2 levels at an increasing pace.
3. The curve of CO2 concentration is SLIGHTLY exponential. Even ignoring the issues raised above, the exponent is so small that it is dwarfed by the logarithmic effects which govern CO2 increases and their cumulative total forcing.
4. Temperature itself is a negative feedback. w/m2 of forcing varies direcly with T raised to the power of 4. As an example, it requires just 2.9 w/m2 to raise the temperature from -40C by one degree, but it takes 7.0 w/m2 to raise the temperature at +40C by one degree.
So nice try. But unless you assume massive increases in fossil fuel use, orders of magnitude beyond what we are physicaly capable of, the past increases in CO2 due to human activity can hardly be useful predictors of future concentrations of CO2, or of the forcing in w/m2 that may be attributed to them, and hence any temperature increases that might result.
In other words, what I originaly stated stands. At current consumption rates, it will take about 200 years for direct forcing from CO2 to increase by a single degree, and probably longer since the biosphere is responding with increased uptake. Concentrations beyond 400 ppm are simply meaningless in the context of the amount of CO2 human beings are capable of putting into the atmosphere.
Jesse Fell, in your various comments you reject the idea that climate change is principally due to natural causes unless someone can describe specific drivers which explain the changes better than the CO2 global warming hypothesis. Otherwise you will believe the CO2 hypothesis. In other words, you regard the CO2 hypothesis as the null hypothesis. This is where you make a serious error of logic.
The world has existed for 4.5 billion years, during which time the climate has been constantly changing. Even during the short duration of the Holocene we have seen regular warmings and coolings: the Little Ice Age, the Medieval Warm Period, the Dark Ages, the Roman Warm Period, the [enter name], the Minoan Warm Period, the early and late Holocene Optima. None of the earlier warmings was caused by CO2 and none resulted in Thermageddon. It is untenable to take any position other than that the null hypothesis is “climate change is natural”. It is up to the CAGW believers to establish their case otherwise the null hypothesis pertains. It is not necessary for skeptics to propose a specific alternative climate mechanism.
The CAGW believers have utterly failed in this regard because :-
1. There is nothing happening which is outside the envelope of past natural variability. So there is nothing requiring a non-natural explanation.
2. The proposed mechanism of the CO2 hypothesis depends crucially on strong positive water vapor feedbacks whereas empirical evidence shows these feedbacks to be negative.
dcfl51, OK, let me start by saying that I am curious about why the Northwest Passage has become navigable — at least in summer — during the past few years. That is, navigable by ships that aren’t equipped with ice-breaking prows. This is a dramatic change. I’d like to hear a plausible explanation.
The AGW thesis is a plausible explanation. I agree that plausibility is not proof; but in the natural sciences, you never arrive at a logically inescapable QED; you can get only higher and higher degrees of plausibility. And the AGW thesis has reached a high degree of plausibility. We are adding millions of tons of CO2 to the atmosphere every year; it is within the scope of a high school science fair project to show that CO2 absorbs infrared radiation, becomes warmer as a result, and itself emits more and more infrared radiation as it becomes warmer. It emits infrared in all directions, one of those directions being down. This is why the surface of the Earth becomes has to become warmer and warmer until it is able to return roughly as much heat energy to outer space as it is receiving from the sun — as it eventually will.
I have not seen an explanation for the recent changes in climate that comes near to approaching the AGW thesis in plausibility. I have read about cycles of nature and natural variability being the cause, but this explains nothing if it is left at that. Is there in fact a cycle that causes the Earth’s glaciers and arctic ice cap to shrink dramatically within, for example, the amount of time since bell-bottom trousers were fashionable? I am eager to hear all about this cycle, as well as the causes that bring the cycle about.
Until then, the AGW thesis is the best explanation that we have going for the change that must be making Frobisher and Hudson and Baffin spinning in their graves with envy.
Paul K2 says:
July 7, 2012 at 1:21 pm
Its peculiar that so many readers here seem to deny that much of the middle part of the US mainland has had some extremely hot weather recently. Most people who live there seem to be asking “What’s UP with this extremely hot weather?” and “When will it end?”
As the second graph CLEARLY indicates, “what’s UP with this extremely hot weather” is that it is June and July, and this year’s June and (early) July are nothing unusual. This year falls a good bit short of 1988 and 1994, and doesn’t outdo the more recent memory years of 2002 and 2006.
Obviously you did not read/view the entirety of the short article at the top of this page or you did and you just choose to ignore the data. I’ll follow Anthony’s lead on this and ignore further posts by you as yours to date display a lack of interest on your part in truth.
I’ve elevated Gail Combs comment to a post, and continued showing examples of why this event is weather and not climate. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/08/a-wave-of-heated-peer-pressure-results-in-shrinking-integrity/
Steve Divine: The chart shows entire US temperatures June anomalies. We are discussing changes in regional weather patterns related to the “Eastern US heat wave” as stated in the post title.
The northwest US has has some very cool temps because of the location of the jet stream in June. The middle part of the country got clobbered with a heat wave, that moved east. , The map at the top of this post shows the high temperature region.
This pattern alternating cold and hot regions is what we see when extreme hot or cold spells extend over a period of time. Regions in the downward dipping bends of the jet stream get cold, and regions in the upward dipping bends get hot. The current theory being discussed by meteorologists say the jet stream is slowing, stalling, and meandering more, causing more extreme weather events.
Glenn Tamblyn has an excellent description above in his comment timestamped July 8 at 3:00 AM.
davidmhoffer – “There was a dramatic and rise in use of fossil fuels last century which has since levelled off.”
False. http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/chart751.png
“We’ve reached peak oil, or very close to it. The rapid rises in fossil fuel use of the past are no longer physically possible.”
Peak oil, perhaps. Peak coal? Peak shale gas? Peak natural gas? No, false again, there’s plenty of carbon we appear ready to burn.
“At current consumption rates, it will take about 200 years for direct forcing from CO2 to increase by a single degree, and probably longer…”
False once more. We’re currently at ~0.8 C above where we would be without anthropogenic warming. At 0.16 C/decade, the current rate of increase, we’ll see another degree C in under 65 years, not 200.
Finally: “The curve of CO2 concentration is SLIGHTLY exponential. Even ignoring the issues raised above, the exponent is so small that it is dwarfed by the logarithmic effects which govern CO2 increases and their cumulative total forcing.”
This is _so wrong_ I find it a bit difficult to even begin. CO2 levels are increasing at a rate greater than exponential. This means that CO2 forcing is increasing at a rate greater than linear – meaning the forcing imbalance will increase, and hence warming rates will increase. You are essentially (and quite incorrectly) invoking the logarithmic relationship twice.
Jesse,
Since temperature is a component of climate it it perhaps not surprising that the same effect is seen.
Our data rich period, with increasing temporal and spatial resolution is too short to establish the nature of cycles, but much palaeo- and historical evidence suggests they exist and existed before any attempt to explain them. Identifying patterns in data does not not depend on explanation. At present our attempts to explain change as being a direct result of CO2 emissions is failing and should not be used to determine policy, as our best guess is so inadequate.
Eric, If cycles are at work now, why can’t we figure out what’s behind them? We aren’t dealing with events of ages and ages ago; we are dealing with what is happening now. We ought to be able to get to the bottom of it — and wouldn’t it be a coup for the critics of the AGW thesis to point to the REAL moving forces behind climate change? It would be a death blow to the AGW thesis; James Hansen would go into real estate. But the “cycles of nature” explanation has not been fleshed out with understanding of the nature and cause of these cycles — at least the ones that are supposed to have caused, within the last few decades, the dramatic shrinking of glaciers, the warmer nights, the rising sea levels, and the increase in the annual total energy of tropical storms, and so on.
Jesse,
I am intrigued that you think that modern Arctic conditions are unique. Given our technology we have the ability to observe and record synoptically, an ability Frobisher et al would have loved. During warmer periods in the past similar conditions could have occurred without anyone knowing about it. What is different about now?
Eric, What’s different now is that in Frobisher’s time he couldn’t get through because of all the &*$$ ice!
KR says:
“Recent warming (last 30-35 years) has been on the order of 0.16-0.18 C / decade …”
Cherry-pick alert!!
KR’s cherry picking begins at the same time the latest step change begins. However, by looking at a long term trend chart, we see that current temperatures remain on the same trend line they have been on since the LIA.
There has been no acceleration in global temperatures, thus falsifying the conjecture that the 40% increase in CO2 has any measurable effect.
Paul K2 says:
July 7, 2012 at 8:44 pm
… except he somehow believes that weather data is controlled by James Hansen and Michael Mann
=================================
You forgot the “et al”.
Gail Combs says:
July 8, 2012 at 5:47 am
“As a scientist, I KNOW other scientists will lie through their teeth when it comes to money or their career. I have had plenty of direct experience of outright lying and falsification of data. I have also been fired more than once for refusing to falsify data upon direct order from my superior.”
Gail,
Thank You, for looking the bastards straight in the eye and telling them “No. I won’t do that!”
I have faced similar circumstances. I was pressured to ‘sign off’ on an inferior and potentially hazardous design. After repeated refusals, I was asked by a smirking toad “What if you are not given a choice?”
Let me say right here, I don’t react well to threats.. and even more poorly when they are delivered with a smirk. I stood and, supporting myself on my knuckles, leaned as far over the table between us as I could. I told the no-longer-smirking pratt “You tell your boss these exact words: I Always Have A Choice! Tell him those exact words. Now, Get Out Of Here!”
I didn’t get fired… and the needed changes were made. The moral to our mutual experiences is ‘You have to do what is right, regardless of the consequences. Self respect demands it’
MtK
Current ships are equipped with GPS and get daily satellite photos of the Arctic ice. What makes you think there weren’t times in the past when ships could have navigated the NW Passage? Certainly it’s much less risky to do so with modern information technology.
Scarletmacaw, As Otsar has pointed out in another contribution to this thread, the first to navigate the Northwest Passage was Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer. Otsar inspired me to do a little research, and I found out that it took Amundsen three years — starting in 1903 — to get through the passage — his ship was locked up by ice during each of the three winters, and even in the summer he could simply sail though — as he certainly would have if he could, knowing what waited for him in the winter. Now it’s easy sailing for the most part — in summer at least.
Jesse Fell,
Your first logical error is assuming that scientific skeptics must replace the CO2=CAGW conjecture with another conjecture or hypothesis. You don’t seem to get the fact that skeptics have nothing to prove.
And your emotional examples are nothing but alarmist pseudo-scientific talking points. Both tornadoes and hurricanes are decreasing in severity, despite your claims to the contrary. Also see here and here and here and here.
And “dramatic shrinking of the glaciers” is simply more unscientific emotionalism. Glaciers have been receding since the LIA. What is so unexpected about that?? And sea level rise has been decelerating.
Since all of your claims are provably wrong, maybe you should spend a few months reading the WUWT archives, and get up to speed on the subject.
Smokey, Lonny Thompson at the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University has been studying tropical glaciers for over 30 years; he has the distinction of having spent more time in the “death zone” — the highest altitudes in the Peruvian Andes — than any other researcher. During that time, he says that he has seen dramatic shrinkage of the glaciers in the time that he has been going to do research there. The Quechua Indians, who have lived at these altitudes for centuries, are being forced off the mountains because the disappearance of the glaciers has left them without water — and because the moss on which their alpacas feed is dying off, due to dryness and rising temperatures. It’s a problem for the rest of Peru as well: the country is heavily dependent on hydroelectric power, and a number of their major generating plants are running at 20% of capacity, due to the decrease in glacial runoff. Thompson has also done field work in the Alps and Himalayas and sees the same thing happening there. If you don’t believe Thompson, Google around for then and now photographs of glaciers just about anywhere — a few are still advancing, because of local conditions, but the large majority are shrinking, and rapidly.
KR;
This is _so wrong_ I find it a bit difficult to even begin. CO2 levels are increasing at a rate greater than exponential. This means that >>>>
What this means is that you haven’t got a freaking clue what exponential means. You’ve stated something that is a mathematical impossibility.
KR;
So here’s carbon emissions by fuel type courtesy that paragon of virtue (ie most biased source possible) wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Carbon_Emissions.svg
Note that:
1. oil grew rapidly from about 1940 to about 1975 and then pretty much levelled off.
2. coal grew more or less linearly with a couple of brief 5 year upticks
3. natural gas grew at barely a little above linear from around 1950 on.
The cumulative graph (black line) looks like an exponential curve, but in fact is not. It is constructed of several other curves, each of which is added in at a later date in time. So in response to your quip that we have not reached peak coal, gas, etc, the answer is maybe, maybe not. What we have reached however is cost of oil that makes dramatic increases in additional oil production uneconomical. The uptake of coal and gas is in part a consequence of that, but note that they too are tapering off. We’re by no means running out, but we’re by no means in a position to ramp up consumption in the manner we did in the last half of the last century. You can see by the graph that oil consumption has flattened out, so has coal, and so has gas. Unless one or more of those is poised to “take off” in a major way in the next decade, that scary black line is going to flatten out too. Don’t lecture me about reserves either, go do a survey of all the oil, coal, and gas companies in the world and ask them what they could, based on their current capacity, ramp up as year over year maximum production. What you will find is that they cannot even get close to linear, let alone exponential.
Assuming that an exponential curve that is bounded by resource depletion can extend into the long term is a fools game. It is the very math upon which a Ponzi scheme is based. Don’t feel bad about being bamboozled by the numbers, lots of rather smart people have been taken to the cleaners by a Ponzi scheme before.
You compound your poor grasp of math (see my comment about “greater than exponential) above by assigning 0.8 degrees of warming as being 100% attributable to human GHG emissions. Given that global temperatures have been rising for the last 400 years, since the LIA, and so about 350 years before CO2 emissions became significant, you cannot assign ANY number to human GHG’s without first subtracting natural variance which we currently have NO way of calculating, we can only make an WAG.
Putting aside for a moment your lack of understanding of exactly what an exponential curve is, what the actual peak oil/gas/coal supply curves actually are, and that no finite resource can support an exponential depletion for an extended period of time, and that you have conflated natural variation with human induced variation, let us return to the matter of CO2 being logarithmic.
At current rates, it will take 200 years to add one additional degree of warming form CO2 forcing. Given that the human species thrived at temperatures less than that in the MWP and RWP, I am not particularly concerned (optimistic in fact). To illustrate how ludicrous your position is, let us consider a whopping TWO degrees of warming from CO2 increases.
That would require TWO doublings of CO2. From 400, that means 1600 ppm of CO2 to get just 2 degrees of warming. At current rates, that would be….. 600 years. So I will tell you what, let’s assume that we TRIPLE production of ALL fossil fuels starting TODAY. In 200 years, we would get 2 degrees of warming. That’s 0.01 degrees per year. Oooh, I am scared.
Wanna go for three degrees? You’ll need about a thousand years with every fossil industry we have going flat out and burning everything they dig up even if nobody needs it.
As an aside, keep in mind that the 3 degrees occurs at the “effective black body temperature of earth” according to0 your prescious IPCC, which is about -20C. Surface temperatures being about 15C, you’ll actually only get 2.1 degrees of warming at surface, not 3. You’ll also get almost no change at high noon at in the tropics but large changes at high latititudes in depth of winter at night. The increases in temp at high noon in the tropics won’t be much noticed by the biosphere in general, and my expectation is that a survey of polar bears as to their preference for -60C or -50C during their hibernation period is likely to result in a sparcity of data due to lack of returning polsters.