Tom Nelson writes:
If CO2 is really such an all-powerful warming factor, and if the science is so settled, why does warmist Gavin Schmidt have so much trouble explaining why the southeastern US hasn’t warmed since the 1930s?:
“Whether this is due to some oddity in the weather patterns, air pollution effects, irrigation or something else is unclear.”
Here’s the story:
Alabama’s heat wave: A preview of global warming or just a hot spell? | al.com
HUNTSVILLE, Alabama Alabama’s heat wave is just part of the normal climate roller coaster, not global warming, according to state climatologist and University of Alabama in Huntsville climate scientist Dr. John Christy…
“Since (today’s) temperatures aren’t higher than earlier temperatures, it doesn’t look like ‘global warming,'” Christy said, “but more like a problem we still wrestle with: unpredictable natural variability.” Christy said no one knows what causes these natural shifts in climate.
“The heat wave today is primarily natural climate variability,” agreed Dr. William Patzert, an global climate change researcher with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
“But it’s also a preview of coming attractions of what we are contributing to the atmosphere in greenhouse gases, which is definitely gonna heat it up,” Patzert said Friday.
“I am sounding the warning about what global warming will do out into the future,” Patzert said. “If you think it’s hot today, come back and take the temperature on July 6, 2050.” A hot summer day in 2050 or even 2030 could be 115 degrees, Patzert said.
Patzert said the Earth is about 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it was 129 years ago, when Alabama began keeping the weather records Christy has researched. “The unequivocal proof of that is that much of that warming has gone into the oceans,” Patzert said. “We have seen an 8 inch rise in global sea level.”
…Other climate scientists asked by The Huntsville Times to review Christy’s findings last week also cautioned against linking Alabama’s current climate and “global warming.”
“It is true that one of the few places in the world where temperatures have not exceeded temperatures in the 1930s is the southeastern U.S. (including Alabama),” Dr. Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said in an email. “Whether this is due to some oddity in the weather patterns, air pollution effects, irrigation or something else is unclear.”
But Alabama weather over the last 100 years or so has “very little to do with global warming,” Schmidt said. “It certainly isn’t the case that predictions of Alabama temperatures can ignore what’s happening globally,” Schmidt said. “It is just that there is more noise … when you get to the state or local level. ”
Dr. Virginia Sickle-Burkett, chief scientist for global change research with the U.S. Geologic Survey, said in an email that the role of humans in climate change has been demonstrated scientifically.
“Multiple lines of scientific evidence [like what, specifically?] indicate that most of the increase in average global temperatures since the mid-20th century is due to human influences on the atmosphere,” she said. Sickle-Burkett agreed with Schmidt that the Southeast’s climate has been less affected so far, for some reason, but that global warming is real.
Related articles
- The folly of blaming the Eastern U.S. heat wave on global warming (wattsupwiththat.com)
- An Example Of Media Hype By John Vidale In The Guardian (pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com)
- The Climate of Our Forefathers (valleywx.com)
- The Kevin Trenberth / Seth Borenstein aided fact free folly on the USA heat wave (wattsupwiththat.com)
Since 1930, the temperature trend for Alabama has been minus 0.17F/decade. But these figures are after NCDC adjustments of about 0.7F.
Therefore the decline on raw temperatures is about 2.0F.
NCDC have this “toolkit” which shows adjustments by state.
http://nidis1.ncdc.noaa.gov/GHCNViewer/
Schmidt has a gift. He could explain that light bulbs work by sucking away darkness and it would sound somehow plausible.
Patzert said the Earth is about 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it was 129 years ago, when Alabama began keeping the weather records Christy has researched. “The unequivocal proof of that is that much of that warming has gone into the oceans,” Patzert said. “We have seen an 8 inch rise in global sea level.”
So now heat is measured in inches?
There are multiple places on coastlines around the world that show NO rise in sea level. Yes you can measure that by satellite – but most people would validate those measures by going to old fixed markers and checking. These do NOT show the rise in sea level. Perhaps the satellites are wrong?
Most people would also measure the heat content of the oceans by simple temperature measurement. The ARGOS buoys despite ‘adjustments’ to their output data do not show a huge ‘8 inch’ increase in heat content. So why have the oceans so hugely expanded? Perhaps the measures of ocean levels are incorrect and they have not expanded. Perhaps there is no ‘missing heat’?. It radiated away due to the negative feedbacks shown by the ERBE and CERES experiments (which the AGW people were keen on sending up but not so keen on using the data from them now).
I think these climate ‘scientists’ have got too used to talking to credulous mainstream media hacks in search of a headline.
What WOULD it take for these people to agree that AGW was a failed hypothesis? Certainly they have shown an alarming tendency to attribute just about ANY observation to increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere, from increased cold to increased heat, from drought to flooding rains. Failed predictions don’t stop them — Australia’s Tim Flannery predicted in 2007 that Sydney’s reservoirs would never be fill again and that the country would need desalinization plants; now he says that “climate change cannot be ruled out” as a factor in recent flooding rains that filled some of those dams to overflowing.
From Hansen’s prediction of a flooded New York West Side Highway to David Viner’s soliloquoy to a snow-free England, the alarmists are batting zero in their dire predictions. Their only “successes” are where weather events overlap what we know to be normal climate variability, yet which they still shamelessly point to as “proof.”
This nail should be hammered at every opportunity; make the alarmists defend the falsifiability of their hypothesis. I know that some have tried to make the AGW scenario the null hypothesis, but that can’t stand up to even a casual challenge — they’re the ones making the case for CO2 driving the climate; they’re the ones who have something to defend, not those of us saying “natural variability.”
1930s, roughly 1,000 years ago, roughly 2,000 years ago. There’s a pattern and I doubt it’s CO2 related. The Romans (wine in England) and Chinese (how to use chrome) certainly didn’t produce that much CO2 and it was much hotter 2,000 years ago. We have the archeological evidence for it. Same ~1,000 years ago. The Danes planted wine and in Japan the first novel of mankind was written. Every time we find higher temperatures than today we can see culture blooming. How strange!
I’m appalled at how these people willfully ignore data and facts.
I thought that AGW was supposed to take place at higher latitudes and at night. I must have read some of this wrong.
Could it be that the CAGW specualtion is wrong? We have also had flat temps for nearly 15 years!
This very real warming has been taking place since the middle of the 1800s.
The meteorological station at Uccle (a few kilometers south of Brussels)
was created in 1887. The highest recorded temperature there was 38.8
degrees C, on 27 June 1947. Since, no higher temperature has occured
at Uccle, notwithstanding the “global warming”.
So we’re back to “global warming” are we? Oh, that’s right, when we have brutally cold winters like we did a couple of years ago it’s “climate change” but in the summer it’s “global warming”.
I think there is too much being made out of regional variabilty which has always existed which is now being projected on a global map which leads to wrong conclusions about what our future climate will be like . Here on the Canadian side of the Great Lakes and St Lawrence region two of the three warmest summers in the last 64 years were in 1955 and 1949 . Some of the 10 coldest summers were 1951,1956,1958 and 1959. This was well befeore we had any Arctic warming to alter Rossby wave patterns and cause extreme variability to our weather . So one can see that projecting future warming just because we had a period of local record temperatures makes little sense . Canadian summers as a whole have have only risen 1.2 dgrees C in 64 years
Dr. Sickle-Burkett’s vagueness and lack of specificity is typical of the unscientific, indeed anti-scientific, nature of warmist verbiage. What does “most” mean, exactly? Fifty, 60, 70, 80 or 90 percent? Starting when in the mid-20th Century, precisely? How about the cooling spell in the ’60s & ’70s, during continuing apparent rise in CO2 concentrations, or the sideways temperature trend since 1998 (assuming thermometer data can be trusted)? These are questions CAGW cultists steadfastly refuse even to try to answer, but merely assert them over and over again, brazenly repeating the Big Lie and claiming unassailable authority.
Which multiple lines of evidence? Carbon isotope ratios? Surely humans have dug up and pumped out of the ground sequestered hydrocarbons, but what have been the actual effects on global temperature and other climatic parameters of this activity?
How about countervailing human activities which cool the planet? Can science be certain of the sign of net anthropogenic effect on climate? Scientists even have trouble making falsifiable predictions on the net effect of clouds, and on what the impact on cloudiness at all levels and latitudes would be of increased temperature, whether occurring naturally or through human actions.
Clearly the science isn’t sufficiently settled to justify dismantling the world’s economy.
I wonder what part of “global” it is that is causing them the most trouble?
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“A hot summer day in 2050 or even 2030 could be 115 degrees, Patzert said.”
Quite so! And in the past, I have found such temperatures uncomfortable. Yesterday, we had 100 degrees F. and 14% R.H. Today’s outlook is for 97. I wonder if the difference will be noticeable.
A heat wave in Alabama is not Global! I know some would like to think they live in the center of the universe but this is getting ridiculous. What in Global they don’t understand? It’s just a local heat wave, stupid.
Most Warmists calculate that the sea level rise since 1850 is 18cm or 7″. Of course the sea level does not appear to be rising at all in many places when actual fixed reference points are used, such as rock faces and harbor constructs. On the other hand Warmists are blessed with the descending Eastern Seaboard that gives the appearance of a rising sea level and thus satisfies the needs of the NY Times and the Washington Post and other credulous media.
Under any circumstances, 1850 is coincidentally(?)a useful date for commencing studies on global warming and seal level rise because it is the generally accepted date for the termination of The Little Ice Age. And a bit of warming and sea level rise would be the norm, would it not?
The ARGOS buoys despite ‘adjustments’ to their output data do not show a huge ’8 inch’ increase in heat content.
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The amazing thing is how the oceans stopped warming precisely at the same time the ARGO was turned on. It also explains why the ARGO data is not shown graphically on their web site. Had it shown the warming it was expected to show, ARGO would have been front page news around the world. Instead it is buried and adjusted.
The cooling the raw data shows – that was simple enough to solve by assuming the floats showing the cooling must be defective. Remove them from the sample and what you are left with are floats that show warming. This is very similar to the process of “calibration” in tree rings.
The same process works everywhere. Any recording device, be it a tree, or thermometer, is “calibrated” to the temperature record. Those devices that do not match the record are discarded, and only the ones that match are kept. Since we know temperature as going up, any device that shows otherwise must be wrong and its records should be (and have been) deleted. Thus we know global warming is real.
This might be a dumb question, but do the same satellites and/or land-based-monitors which monitor sea levels, also monitor the possible effects of plate tectonics? Are the anomalous sea level changes in some areas simply due to the land along the shore line shifting up or down?
It’s not just that it isn’t warmer than in the thirties: it’s that the long term trend in Alabama is negative. -0.07 degF / Decade for annual mean temps according to the Climate At A Glance page. “Noise” is quite a powerful thing, isn’t it?
Also:
http://nsstc.uah.edu/alclimatereport/archives/pastreports/may/jja_hsvaatmax.jpg
Isn’t it nice how the Alabama media apparently can’t be satisfied with consulting with the scientist who knows more about Alabama’s climate than anyone? Clearly they hoped that the other people they talked to would assure them that Christy was wrong, and that Alabama is doomed to fry by global warming.
“Multiple lines of scientific evidence [like what, specifically?]”
It’s one thing to dispute the evidence. But to pretend you don’t even know what it is, that’s just bizarre.
@Paul Homewood
Very neat tool. Many states showed adjustments here and adjustments there. But, not California! What idiots they must be! They’ve never known how to measure their temperature and they still don’t. GHCN has had to fairly consistently alter their entire temperature record to get their desired results.
http://nidis1.ncdc.noaa.gov/GHCNViewer/
” A hot summer day in 2050 or even 2030 could be 115 F”. There is a nother equal possibilty that may materialize by 2030 which could indicate global and local temperatures that would be much cooler than 115F . If we have three consecutive low solar cycles, [first one has allready started ] the average July temperatures in Alabama could be much cooler[ perhaps closer to 75-80 F ] Isolated peaks are always possible . Just look at the past pattern from 1880-1910 . If we are looking into the future lets look at all the possible options , not just at the possible Co2 effects option.
Careful Kwasi. Soon the b-word will be banned.
If readers would read the comments at the recent WUWT post “The folly of blaming the Eastern U.S. heat wave on global warming”, they will find that the recent heat wave is consistent with recent seasonal temperature trends in the NH mid-latitudes. The seasonal trends show the winters and early spring getting cooler, and the summers getting hotter.
Paul Homewood in the first comment has provided the link to the NCDC Climate at a Glance site that helps answer the question about what is happening to the Southeastern United States. You can select the Southeast region in the interactive map and look at seasonal temperature trends.
We would expect the US Southeast to have hotter summers recently. The trend shows that the summers in the Southeast got much cooler after the 1930s, but the last 32 years (satellite era), the summer temperature has risen about 1.28 deg F (about 0.40 deg F per decade).
Climate At A Glance
Summer (Jun-Aug) Temperature
Southeast Region
Some of the following data are preliminary and have not been quality controlled.
For official data, please contact the NCDC Climate Services and Monitoring Division at ncdc.orders@noaa.gov.
Summer (Jun-Aug) 1979 – 2011 Data Values:
Summer (Jun-Aug) 1895 – 2000 Average = 77.94 degF
Summer (Jun-Aug) 1979 – 2011 Trend = 0.40 degF / Decade
The recent summers have exceeded the regional high summer temperatures from the 30s, and this year is on a course to take the top spot as the hottest summer ever recorded in the Southeast US.
Looking at the long term graph for the SE US winter temperature, the recent winters have been quite erratic, with a couple of very cold winters… just what we would expect from recent meteorology theories.
(see the WUWT thread comments on the Eastern US heat wave).
Edohiguma says:
July 8, 2012 at 8:19 am
….. Every time we find higher temperatures than today we can see culture blooming. How strange!
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You would appreciate E.M. Smith’s article on Civilization vs Bond Events
Kwasi says:
July 8, 2012 at 8:58 am
“Multiple lines of scientific evidence [like what, specifically?]”
It’s one thing to dispute the evidence. But to pretend you don’t even know what it is, that’s just bizarre.
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What is bizarre is that you cannot post the answer. Do you have any evidence that is not cherry picked “papers”? We all know the earth has been warming since the LIA, so deduct that from any trends first.
“What WOULD it take for these people to agree that AGW was a failed hypothesis?”
Governments cutting all funding for ‘Global Warming’ research?
Dave Dodd says:
July 8, 2012 at 8:45 am
This might be a dumb question, but do the same satellites and/or land-based-monitors which monitor sea levels, also monitor the possible effects of plate tectonics? Are the anomalous sea level changes in some areas simply due to the land along the shore line shifting up or down?
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California is moving up – A Transform-Fault Boundary where two plates are sliding horizontally past one another. The eastern seaboard is heading down – the Old Appalachians and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge – a divergent boundary see: http://www.platetectonics.com/book/page_5.asp and http://www.platetectonics.com/book/page_6.asp