Guest post by Chip Knappenberger, originally on Master Resource
“Today’s temperature ‘extremes’ are simply yesterday’s extremes warmed up a bit, partly from the heat-island effect. But they are not new events…. Hansen’s push on weather extremes is another case where the level of alarm is disproportionate to the level of impact.” – Chip Knappenberger
Today’s temperature “extremes” are simply yesterday’s extremes warmed up a bit, partly from the heat-island effect. But they are not new events where none existed prior.
This distinction is neither subtle nor unimportant. When it comes to temperatures, yesterday’s extremes warmed up offer less of a surprise (and hence a greater ease of adaptability) than if a new crop of extreme events suddenly sprung up out of nowhere to catch us unprepared.
But such a distinction is not made prominently evident in the latest work by NASA’s James Hansen—and even less so in the accompanying media coverage (including that instigated by Hansen himself). Instead, the general audience is left with the distinct impression that anthropogenic global warming (as a result of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel-based energy production) is leading to the occurrence of new extreme weather events when and where such weather events would not otherwise have occurred. For instance, in a Washington Post op-ed written by Hansen to accompany the release of his paper recently published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Hansen writes:
Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.
The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year can each be attributed to climate change. And once the data are gathered in a few weeks’ time, it’s likely that the same will be true for the extremely hot summer the United States is suffering through right now.
But this impression is untrue. These events and others like them, almost certainly would have occurred on their own (i.e., naturally). Climate change may have added a pinch of additional heat, but it almost certainly did not create these events out of thin air (see here for example).
But Hansen pushes this impression with his analogy of “Climate Dice.” The idea is that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions have “loaded” the dice towards extreme warmth, so now when Mother Nature rolls the dice for summer weather, there is better chance of rolling a heat wave, or an overall hot summer—events discreet from events that were contained on the unloaded dice.
But Hansen’s hot summers are not new discrete events at all. Instead, they are the naturally occurring hot summers with a few extra degrees added to them. The extra couple of degrees push some summers over an arbitrarily defined threshold temperature above which Hansen classifies them as being “extreme.”
Hansen’s threshold between a “normal” summer and an “extreme” summer has no physical meaning—instead it is rooted in statistics. While certainly some temperature thresholds exist that have physical meaning—like the 32°F, the freezing/melting point of water/ice—none exist in the range of temperatures which characterize summer across much of the globe. Whether or not the average summertime temperature is greater or less than some arbitrary value is of little practical significance.
Washington, D.C. Example
Let’s take the nation’s capital as an example. The mean summer (June through August) temperature in DC during the 30 year “base” period used by Hansen (1951-1980) was 77.0°F. The standard deviation—a statistical measure of the amount of year-to-year variability that exists about the average—was 1.2°F. Statistically, 67% of all values lie within one standard deviation of the mean.
For Washington DC, it means that 2/3rds of summers between 1951 and 1980 should have had an average temperature between 75.8°F and 78.2°F. Again, statistically speaking, 95% of all average summer temperatures should lie within two standard deviations, or between 74.6°F and 79.4°F. And less than one-half of 1% of all summer average temperatures should lie outside three standard deviations from the mean.
Hansen defines an “extreme” summer as one that is hotter than 3 standard deviations above the mean. So, for Washington DC that would mean a summer with an average temperature greater than 80.6°F—a situation that would almost never occur in the climate of 1951-1980 in DC.
Now let’s fast forward to the climate of the most recent 30 years. During the period from 1983-2012, the average summer temperature was 78.0°F—a full degree higher than it was during the base period. And, two summers (2009 and 2010) exceeded 80.6°F (that is, were more than 3 standard deviations above the 1951-1980 average). By Hansen’s reckoning, these were global warming induced climate “extremes.”
But are these hot summers entirely caused by global warming (or rather, climate change)?
If we went back and added 1°F to each summer from 1951 to 1980, one of them would have exceeded three standard deviations, and several others would have been close. In other words, the current climate of DC is pretty similar to the past climate of DC, just warmed up a bit. It is not a completely new climate replete with a different array of extreme events conjured up by human greenhouse gas emissions.
So yes, it is true that summers in DC are hotter than they once were. But local land-use changes (the increased heat-island effect) are largely to blame.
Compared to past climates, more summers now meet Hansen’s arbitrary definition of being “extremely” hot. But climate warming is not responsible for all the heat, instead it just adds some warmth to what would have been a hot summer anyway.
Certainly, the hotter it is in DC, the more air conditioners run and other costs incur as well. And quite possibly, the costs increase in some non-linear fashion (see here for a discussion). But, it is almost certain as well that the costs do not rise anywhere near as swiftly as the tally of events crossing some arbitrary threshold by which to define and “extreme” event.
Hansen’s push on weather extremes is another case where the level of alarm is disproportionate to the level of impact.
Addendum:
John Christy took a further look at the occurrences of weather extremes, as well as how Hansen’s recent analysis does not fairly represent them, in testimony last week before the House Energy and Power Subcommittee. It is worth checking out (see here).
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Arno Arrak says:
October 1, 2012 at 6:30 pm
IPCC prediction was made using the greenhouse theory of warming and has turned out to be false. In science, if a theory makes a prediction and the prediction is wrong the theory itself is also considered wrong and must be abandoned.
==============
Go into any store and put on the ugliest thing you can find on the rack. The salespeople are trained to tell you how good it makes you look. If they can’t lie with a straight face, they quickly are replaced by someone that can.
In science, any theory that continues to attract funding is a viable theory and will not be abandoned. it makes not the slightest difference to the people promoting the theory if it is true. They are salesmen, promoters. Dressed up as scientists with a fancy title. Laughing all the way to the bank.
D Böehm says:
October 1, 2012 at 2:46 pm
Thomas T says:
“…over 6 fold more papers citing warming.”
Not really. 27 papers cited neutral or cooling, vs 44 citing warming.
Ummm, no, you can’t just lump in the neutral papers with cooling – what justifies that position? If Thomas T had cited the paper and summarized “64 papers cited neutral or warming, whereas only 7 predicted cooling” you would have been all over him for faulty logic. Neutral is neutral, it is neither warming or cooling. And in any case, as computer modelling tools improve, and new methods of analyzing the planet emerge (for example, measurements of ice thickness taken from satellites did not exist in the 70s), the accuracy of scientific research improves. Do you think we knew everything there was to know about the causes of cancer in the 70s? If some of the scientifically held positions in that period were later contravened by subsequent research, does that mean that we should distrust all cancer research being done today?
You said: Now the big bucks are in the global warming scare, so every author is obliged to have a comment relating to ‘climate change’ if at all possible.
Specifically how are scientists making big bucks off the global warming scare? I’m working with academics on research (completely unrelated to climate change). The professors I am working with (in Singapore, where I live) are not allowed to supplement their university salary with the grant. All the grant monies must go to either a) graduate student stipends b) research equipment, which becomes the property of the university c) consumables used for the research or d) very limited economy class travel to conferences to present the results of their work. I did some additional searching – the most “lucrative” instance I could find is a researcher who said the grant terms do enable him to be paid during his non teaching months, as long as it is at the same pay rate. So, for example, if he were paid $60K for 9 months of teaching, he could make another $20K for doing research during his unpaid 3 months. That’s decent money but hardly getting rich. Do you have specific examples of climate research scientists getting rich off their grants that you can provide?
Once again, a phrase can be re-worded – “Those who fail to remember past weather extremes are doomed to state that all current weather extremes are unprecedented.”
So, Hansen’s statement “…The deadly European heat wave of 2003, the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010 and catastrophic droughts in Texas and Oklahoma last year can each be attributed to climate change. And once the data are gathered in a few weeks’ time, it’s likely that the same will be true for the extremely hot summer the United States is suffering through right now…”
Yet Marble Bar, Australia, STILL has the world record of most consecutive days of maximum temperatures of 37.8 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Fahrenheit) or more, during a period of 160 such days from 31 October 1923 to 7 April 1924.
Just how long were the deadly European heat wave of 2003 and the fiery Russian heat wave of 2010?
Hansen again: “…Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change…”
RECENT past. 1924 doesn’t matter…
A 1 % chance of an “extreme” hot summer over 30 years? Well, that means in any comparable 30 year period, there would be one outlier in 30% of such 30 year periods, because you expect to have 1 in 100 years. And if it happened twice, well (cringe) that would be expected to happen in 9% of such 30 year periods. So how many summers were cold outliers in the early and late 30 year periods? One? Two? Much ado about nothing, and that’s the point.
Hmm. So to summarise the article, Hansen is wrong to talk about extreme events, because the world is warming, so they aren’t extreme after all – just the new “normal”.
Here’s a link to a WUWT thread on the Russian heat wave, plus an extract from it:
Clicking on this link will bring up links to prior WUWT threads on the Russian (and US) heat waves, plus short descriptions of each thread:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/?s=russian+heat+wave
“My subjective impression was that there was a Pending Ice Age scare in the late 1970′s, it was “driven” by the temperature records…”
The “scare” was driven by a Newsweek cover. Newsweek frequently has sensationalist covers, in order to sell copy. Newsweek frequently has sensationalist covers with biblical themes, always good for sales.
In the scientific literature, on the other hand, there were over 6 times as many papers citing global warming, versus global cooling.
It is Whack-a-mole all the way down though, because thanks to a Newsweek cover the “1970s global cooling” will live on and on and on…as an internet meme.
Thomas T: Poppycock.
The ice age scare will live on in the MEMORIES of everyone who was alive in the 70s. You betray your youth when you claim it was just a Newsweek story or parrot the other alarmist claims. Heck, most of the current warmist panic-mongers were the cheerleaders for the cooling scare back then.
This is the internet age. In the 70s people relied on the media to keep track of science, nobody just wandered off and grabbed a copy of the “scientific literature”. And the media, ALL of the media, was warning us about the coming ice age. The belief made its way into TV shows, movies, books, even the daily comics. The coming ice-age was not some weird far-out-there fringe belief, it was more along the lines of “common knowledge”.
You betray your lack of knowledge by believing otherwise.
Add up the cost of losses in life and goods as a result of severe cold events verse the cost of losses in life and goods as a result of severe heat events. Then tell us which needs greater attention, not to say they neither is insignificant to those who endure such events. Billions go out in research grants supporting AGW while we see no preemptive spending to off set either cold or warm events. Only after the fact aid. Pretty pathetic.
Should read “…not to say neither is insignificant…”
CodeTech said: Heck, most of the current warmist panic-mongers were the cheerleaders for the cooling scare back then. Let’s see, to be a published scientist in the 70s, someone would have been born in the late 40s or earlier – let’s say 1948 or earlier. So you’re saying that most of the “warmist panic-mongers” as you call them, are 64 or older – and believed in a coming ice age in the 70s. Do you have any data to back that up? By the way, James Hansen did not publish papers in support of a coming ice age in the 70s, so your list will not start with him.
And as was noted earlier, a study of scientific papers that mentioned climate change found 7 papers predicting global cooling, 20 that predicted little to no temperature change, and 44 that predicted warming. Hardly a landslide of ice age papers – unless you failed remedial math.
“Heck, most of the current warmist panic-mongers were the cheerleaders for the cooling scare back then.”
You should be able to name some names then.
I can think of one person that switched opinions, although he is a writer and not a scientist.
Moreover, the terms “warmist panic-monger” and “cheerleader” are over-the-top caricatures and restrict the pool of candidates to almost nil.
Chris,
I was born in 1948, and I clearly recall all the non-stop media excitement in the ’70’s over the coming ice age. Scientists were routinely quoted in newspapers and magazines, and interviewed on TV. The ‘coming ice age’ narrative was incessant. There was no talk about global warming. None.
It was just like today’s wild-eyed arm waving over global warming, except the scare back then was over the coming ice age. And you know what? Both scares are equally baseless. Nothing unprecedented was happening then, and nothing unprecedented is happening now. What we are observing is natural climate variability, and it is all well within past parameters.
What year were you born, Chris? I suspect it was well after the ice age scare. Because you’re passing on talking points you get from unreliable sources. Those of us who were there know that the ’70’s scare was over global cooling, not global warming. And just like today, scientists were happy to fan the flames.
Regarding your attempt to claim that alarmist scientists do not benefit from their scaremongering, here is a [partial, incomplete] list of Michael Mann’s grants:
Development of a Northern Hemisphere Gridded Precipitation Dataset Spanning the Past Half Millennium for Analyzing Interannual and Longer-Term Variability in the Monsoons, $250,000
Quantifying the influence of environmental temperature on transmission of vector-borne diseases, $1,884,991
Toward Improved Projections of the Climate Response to Anthropogenic Forcing: Combining Paleoclimate Proxy and Instrumental Observations with an Earth System Model, $541,184
A Framework for Probabilistic Projections of Energy-Relevant Streamflow Indices, $330,000
AMS Industry/Government Graduate Fellowship, $23,000
Climate Change Collective Learning and Observatory Network in Ghana, $759,928
Analysis and testing of proxy-based climate reconstructions, $459,000
Constraining the Tropical Pacific’s Role in Low-Frequency Climate Change of the Last Millennium, $68,065
Acquisition of high-performance computing cluster for the Penn State Earth System Science Center (ESSC), $100,000
Decadal Variability in the Tropical Indo-Pacific: Integrating Paleo & Coupled Model Results, $102,000
Reconstruction and Analysis of Patterns of Climate Variability Over the Last One to Two Millennia, $315,000
Remote Observations of Ice Sheet Surface Temperature: Toward Multi-Proxy Reconstruction of Antarctic Climate Variability, $133,000
Paleoclimatic Reconstructions of the Arctic Oscillation, $14,400
Global Multidecadal-to-Century-Scale Oscillations During the Last 1000 years, $20,775
Resolving the Scale-wise Sensitivities in the Dynamical Coupling Between Climate and the Biosphere, $214,700
Advancing predictive models of marine sediment transport, $20,775
Multiproxy Climate Reconstruction: Extension in Space and Time, and Model/Data Intercomparison, $381,647
Detecting and understanding climatic change, $266,235
$5,884,700 in grants, and that is only a partial list. Note the mosquito vector NGO grant, which was simply payola coming on the heels of the first Climategate email dump. It was given to send a public message of support. Had they wanted a study on mosquito vectors, the proper recipient would be a biologist or an epidemiologist. Instead, the $1.8 million was handed to Mann. And where is that ‘study’ anyway? I can’t find it. Maybe you can. And if you read the Climategate emails you will find our public servants talking about their grants, and conspiring to avoid paying taxes.
Mann also writes books, providing another income stream. And of course the continuous jaunts to holiday venues like Hawaii, Bali, etc., are paid by his employers and others. You can be certain Michael Mann doesn’t stay in a Motel 6, either.
Maybe you’re just not doing it right, Chris. But if I were you I would be pretty unhappy about $billions in federal grants being handed out every year for climate ‘studies’. That doesn’t leave much for other areas of science. If you are not in the clique, you lose.
Thomas T: You want names? You can start with scientists named in this article. Note that it is one article in one magazine out of a decade of scare stories in newspapers, magazines and on TV and radio.
“You can start with scientists named in this article. “
That is from Newsweek. Newsweek is the popular press, not the scientific literature.
From the scientific literature, 7 papers predicted global cooling, 20 predicted little to no temperature change, and 44 predicted warming.
That is, 6 times more papers predicted warming versus cooling.
“alarmist scientists do not benefit from their scaremongering”
You have shown that Mann is successful in getting grants, that is true, but you have not shown that he is “alarmist” and “scaremongering”. If you could do this, doubtful, then you would still be stuck with a weak correlation equals causation argument.
Thomas T, you are moving the goal posts. You specifically asked for names. I provided names. Since you are a goal post mover, nothing I post will satisfy you.
Regarding Michael Mann, he certainly is scaremongering with this:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Hockey_stick_chart_ipcc_large.jpg
That alarming chart has been thoroughly debunked by McIntyre & McKitrick. That it is old news. The IPCC cannot use that chart any more because it has been falsified. Even Nature was forced to run a Correction. And then there is the Tiljander scaremongering. Mann08 used a known corrupted proxy to create yet another scary hokey stick chart. When the Tiljander proxy is removed, the hockey stick shape disappears.
Now that I have proven that Mann is an alarmist scaremonger, you need to run along to the alarmist blogs you frequent for some new talking points. The ones you used up here were too easy to factually deconstruct.
John Brookes says:
October 2, 2012 at 1:35 am
You are an academic and are not able to read? You should ask the Uni for your money back.
“You specifically asked for names.”
Yes, and you didn’t provide any in support of the argument: “most of the current warmist panic-mongers were the cheerleaders for the cooling scare back then”. No, goalpost moving, none, fact remains that the predominant scientific literature of the 1970s, including Hansen, supported warming.
“That alarming chart has been thoroughly debunked by McIntyre & McKitrick. ”
No it wasn’t. It has been validated multiple times. And so your alarmist scaremonger argument goes “poof”.
“you need to run along to the alarmist blogs you frequent for some new talking points.”
I must have struck a nerve.
Thomas T,
First, I said nothing about Hansen. You need to read more carefully.
I pointed out that both you and Chris are wrong about Michael Mann. Note that the IPCC cannot use Mann’s falsified MBH99 chart any more. And the IPCC LOVED that alarming chart. Now, they are forced to substitute pale imitations in the form of confusing spaghetti graphs, which make the public’s eyes glaze over. They would much prefer to keep using Mann’s original chart. But they can’t. Why? Because it is thoroughly debunked pseudo-science. This is what Mann’s chart looks like with correct data.
Next, you write: you didn’t provide any in support of the argument: “most of the current warmist panic-mongers were the cheerleaders for the cooling scare back then”.
How old are you, anyway? Old enough to read? You seem to have a reading comprehension problem. I never wrote what you quoted. Re-read my post above. Click on the link.
And post your age.
[Snip. Post using only one screen name. Final warning. — mod.]
Thomas T,
I provided names. That is specifically what you asked for. Now you’re moving the goal posts again, and setting up strawman arguments.
Post your age, puppy.
[Snip. Post using only one screen name. Final warning. — mod.]
I am posting under Thomas T and…Thomas T.
You are snipping because of a period?
-Thomas T (aka Thomas T.)
I provided names.
No, you linked to a Newsweek article. You did not state which of the names in that article were “cheerleaders for the cooling scare” in the 1970s, but now are “warmist panic-mongers”. Please note that you were responding directly to a statement from a different poster, if you read the thread.
First, I said nothing about Hansen. You need to read more carefully.
I didn’t imply that you did. The thread discusses Hansen and the 1970s, I was referring to a subject in the thread. Re-read the entire thread and you will realize your error.
I never wrote what you quoted. Re-read my post above.
You were responding directly to the quote. Re-read the thread and you will realize your error.
Regarding the hockey stick graph, it has been validated multiple times since Mann, including peer-reviewed, including removal of the Tiljander proxy, and notably graphs that diminish the medieval warming. You could find them, if you tried. Because you link only to a graph that purportedly “debunks pseudoscience”, without skepticism on your part, you might consider that your skepticism is…selective.
Post your age, puppy.
Relax.
Sorry, puppy, that was Chris who wanted to know ages. I’ll just assume you’re a young-un, too.
Regarding Mann’s falsified chart, McIntyre constructed the correct chart. Learn more here:
http://climateaudit.org/?s=hockey+stick