Somewhere, Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. is polishing his red button and Bill McKibben, Joe Romm, and “forecast the facts” Brad Johnson are clawing their eyes out trying to unsee this. It is damning of their hyped up claims.- Anthony
From Nature: Extreme weather
Better models are needed before exceptional events can be reliably linked to global warming.
As climate change proceeds — which the record summer melt of Arctic sea-ice suggests it is doing at a worrying pace — nations, communities and individual citizens may begin to seek compensation for losses and damage arising from global warming. Climate scientists should be prepared for their skills one day to be probed in court. Whether there is a legal basis for such claims, such as that brought against the energy company ExxonMobil by the remote Alaskan community of Kivalina, which is facing coastal erosion and flooding as the sea ice retreats, is far from certain, however. So lawyers, insurers and climate negotiators are watching with interest the emerging ability, arising from improvements in climate models, to calculate how anthropogenic global warming will change, or has changed, the probability and magnitude of extreme weather and other climate-related events. But to make this emerging science of ‘climate attribution’ fit to inform legal and societal decisions will require enormous research effort.
Attribution is the attempt to deconstruct the causes of observable weather and to understand the physics of why extremes such as floods and heatwaves occur. This is important basic research. Extreme weather and changing weather patterns — the obvious manifestations of global climate change — do not simply reflect easily identifiable changes in Earth’s energy balance such as a rise in atmospheric temperature. They usually have complex causes, involving anomalies in atmospheric circulation, levels of soil moisture and the like. Solid understanding of these factors is crucial if researchers are to improve the performance of, and confidence in, the climate models on which event attribution and longer-term climate projections depend.
Read the full editorial here.
Dr. Roger Pielke Sr. has comments on this here
Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. observes:
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20 Sept: WTVA: MSU gets grant to study extreme weather
ATLANTA, Ga. (News Release to WTVA) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that it is providing a total of $2,238,053 to three universities across the Southeast for four research projects examining the impacts of extreme weather on air and water quality. The recipients include the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), Mississippi State University and the University of South Florida…
The following projects are among just 14 selected nationally to receive nearly $9 million to research and develop tools to prepare air and water quality management systems for extreme weather:
(FOLLOWED BY FULL BREAKDOWN OF THE GRANTS/CLIMATE CHANGE ETC)
http://www.wtva.com/news/local/story/MSU-gets-grant-to-study-extreme-weather/oMO_03cK60Oa2dFeA3jPzQ.cspx
Can I bring popcorn? There’s huge potential for entertainment here.
Phil Jones on EXCEL skills, Mike Mann on telling up from down, Trenbeth on searching for his heat. Just about anybody vs McIntyre on statistics. Lewandowsky on experimental design and execution……
The list is long
once a meme, always a meme:
18 Sept: NRDC Switchboard Blog: Anthony Swift: Climate change and extreme weather weren’t the only reason to oppose Keystone XL and tar sands expansion this summer
This summer has seen growing public opposition to tar sands pipelines and expansion projects – and for good reason. As climate change caused damaging extreme weather events across the country, environmental groups submitted comments to the State Department presenting a strong case for a broad and rigorous review of TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline, including the impacts on climate change of the expansion of tar sands oil extraction that Keystone XL will drive…
http://switchboard.nrdc.org/blogs/aswift/climate_change_and_extreme_wea.html
This is equivalent to saying “better models are needed before we can prove that smoking caused Bob’s lung cancer” — what models can do right now (and, in fact, all that’s likely to ever happen) is to say that smoking makes lung cancer more likely.
By the way, “taking observational data and understanding it” is also known as “forming a model.”
Ethically Civil says:
September 19, 2012 at 3:26 pm
Modelling of chaotic PDE’s can’t predict specific effects of small changes to partially characterized boundary conditions. This is my shocked face.
😐
Um, folks, how long did it take someone to recognize this most fundamental principle of *chaotic* systems might apply to climate models?
Whatever makes you think that someone _has_ recognized this most fundamental principle of *chaotic* systems might apply to climate models?
Everywhere you look in climate ‘science’ you will see linear projections of changes in variables usually of intensive variables; or sinusoidal pattern matching. Not a Poincare section in sight.
Tell Climate ‘scientists’ that a large input to a chaotic system at the wrong time may have no effect whereas a tiny input at the _right_ time may have a large effect — and they get quite upset. Physics to them is completely simplistically linear and starting a model when many of the start parameters not only have the wrong values but may not be known is almost de-rigeur they even run ensembles – of model runs of the chaotic climate then _average the model run results_. It is as if Lorenz never existed.
Bottom line: Send us zillions of dollars so we can continue this vital work.
They’ll have to get Gore in on expert testimony that melting sea ice raises sea levels. I’m sure he can come up with an experiment to prove that one. He’s good at such things as that.
So let me get this right…….
– Anthony appears on PBS?
– NOAA acknowledges they have long term siting problems, formally and publicly, that call into question their entire record keeping history quality, yet boast of such simultaniously. ……
– Nature then comes out and crushes the latest case for the “Cause” ……..
Wow!
What next, an asteroid?
I am going to go play the Lottery tonight 🙂
Gore can testify and remind everyone just how hot the mantle of the Earth really is: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/11/16/gore-has-no-clue-a-few-million-degrees-here-and-there-and-pretty-soon-were-talking-about-real-temperature/
The Nature report appears to suggest that the erosion hasn’t happened yet, but might do in the future.
One of the best examples I’ve seen of “get your retaliation in first”.
Also, I wonder what the job description is for a “climate negotiator”?
And “climate services”? Can I have fries and a cola with that?
I know of no climate scientist or even pundit who says you can attribute an ‘event’ – a single incident at a particular location – to climate change. The editorial falls squarely into line with the mainstream view, which posits that the frequency of extreme events may be shown to have a connection to climate change, but that attributing a sinlge event to climate change is far more problematic. The science of connecting extreme events to climate change mainly deals (at the current time) in large statistical volumes and averages on a regional or global level.
The article is about the possibility of civil action against CO2 emitters, which is inherently about damages to highly localised areas. The editorial points out what everyone knows, that understanding at broad scales is solid, but not at the micro scale. There’s no slap in the face to mainstream understanding here.
It is no surprise that Roger Pielke Snr would be interested in this article, as he has long been a proponent of the need for better understanding of the effects of AGW (which he does not deny) at the local scale.
Amazing. Nature’s position on climate models in the context of extreme events is exactly the position on climate models that should apply generally. What a remarkable change. How did this happen?
” barry says:
September 19, 2012 at 8:05 pm
{snip}
The article is about the possibility of civil action against CO2 emitters, which is inherently about damages to highly localised areas. The editorial points out what everyone knows, that understanding at broad scales is solid, but not at the micro scale. There’s no slap in the face to mainstream understanding here.” [snip]
Not really, this is about Global Climate Liability in the end. Just read some of the UN documentation available. That speaks volumes. Literally 🙂
I am sure this article has set the trial lawyers plotting. Since when did a trial lawyer ever need evidence to win a case? Throw out a few lawsuits, get some settlements, or go to trial and hope for 12 warmers on the jury. Not that hard to arrange. This is almost a slam dunk for them.
For trial lawyers the first case is expensive and likely to lose. The second is less expensive — most of the work being done. The third and fourth etc are almost cost free. Eventually you get the right jury and win the big bucks.That has been the pattern for almost all such litigation.
Eugene WR Gallun
The shorter Nature-
Big Climate is gunna need lots more taxpayer moolah to model weather now.
“Better models are needed before exceptional events can be reliably linked to global warming.”
The current models show no skill. What makes you think that future models will be more skillful unless you are a modeler? Having models verify models is the problem.
Nature seems to be hinting at a potential career pathway for AGW proponents: Certified Forensic Extreme Climate Deconstructionist.
Better models are needed before we can be sure with any degree of accuracy that northern hemisphere Cape Verde Hurricanes will start to spin clockwise and threaten Florida in a very unusual way as Al Gore predicted !!!
1. There can be no CO2-AGW [GHGs in self-absorption turn off their band emission at the Earth’s surface, standard heat transfer the IPCC has ignored in claiming ‘black body’ emission].
2. This fast ice melt was a zero enthalpy event because it was caused by an extreme storm which mixed down to 500 feet the warmer, saltier water and fresh water. That cooling of the deeper water plus the extra open sea cooling at night has probably led to net heat loss.
3. The result of this is that the freeze is likely to be exceptionally fast and deep: ocean.dmi.dk/arctic/icecover.uk.php
I think the most incredible example of bad science from the alarmist crowd is the fact they are treating sea ice like its a feature that has a correct “state” and that their religion now shows them that the state is “incorrect”. This of course is totally unscientific and based on arbitrary parameters. Sea ice is a “consequence” of energy exchange and for me the only really useful indicator for the sea ice melt and its likely future behaviour would be the gradient of the melt curve in the period april-july. Surely this is the real indicator that matters since it shows the rate of sea ice decline each year where actual melting is a major factor ( rather than currents, weather etc etc ). If we had accurate measurements of this gradient going back 200 years ( which of course we do not ) then would have a chance to try and spot some intuative and non-intuative correlations with historic land temperatures, weather/climate and geological events. Its breathtakingly stupid to look at a “record breaking” low of a consequence within an arbitrary short time frame and make a sweeping assumption like “this event proves AGW”. Finally a quick look at average sea/air temperatures in the arctic sea ice region and a look at the approx volume/area of the sea ice that remained this year suggests that a “sea ice free arctic” is not only unlikely in the near future but almost impossible. Unless energy transfers take place way above alarmist warming scenarios take place, according to my maths, there is not going to be a sea-ice free arctic any time soon …
Alaskans find they end up with a nation that’s more like California in climate AND THEY’RE GOING TO SUE!!!! Those guys have been left out in the cold way too long!
Maybe us Brits should sue the Alaskans for standing in the way of our climate getting better…
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings.
And yet the main message of the editorial still seems to be that global warming is, in fact, the cause of climate “extremes”; the models just aren’t capable yet of proving it!
Anyone sued for the “damages” from “global warming” and CO2 production needs to counter sue for the benefits: reduced heating costs / energy consumption, increased crop production, reduced accidents due to ice / snow… lower insurance costs…