People send me stuff. This time it is a press release from the laughably named “Institute for Public Accuracy”. Even in the midst of hurricanes, these people don’t give up trying to tie weather to climate. It’s shameless desperation.
Here’s my response to this Tabloid Climatology™ they are pushing. In addition, go look at the history of the Great Atlantic Storm of 1962 and explain how CO2 at much lower levels than today fit into that. Also, explain why this:
One of the strongly held assumptions of climate change is that the variability of precipitation will grow with an increase in temperature. Storms will become heavier but less frequent. Flash floods and droughts will increase.
Has been falsified today by the American Geophysical Union saying:
However, drawing on seven databases representing global monthly mean precipitation values, Sun et al. find that from 1940 to 2009 global overland precipitation variability actually decreased.
I pity any news organizations dumb enough to buy into this activist schlock they are pushing. I urge readers to counter them with facts anywhere they see them popup in the media.
==============================================================
From: Institute for Public Accuracy
Date: Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 9:09 AM
Subject: Interviews Available — Hurricane Sandy and Climate on Steroids
To: Institute for Public Accuracy
Institute for Public Accuracy
980 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
___________________________________________________
Monday, October 29, 2012
Hurricane Sandy and Climate on Steroids
Interviews Available
BILL MCKIBBEN via Phil Aroneanu, (551) 486-5833, phil@350.org, http://350.org
The group 350.org organized activists in unfurling a giant “End Climate Silence” banner in Times Square on Sunday. McKibben, the founder of 350.org said today: “Meteorologists have called this ‘the biggest storm ever to hit the U.S. mainland,’ which is a reminder of how odd our weather has been in this hottest year in American history … scientists are connecting the dots between increasingly extreme weather and global warming. Yet for most of this year’s presidential election, the words ‘climate change’ have gone unmentioned.”
JOE ROMM, (202) 483-1024, jromm@americanprogress.org, http://ClimateProgress.org
Romm is a senior fellow at Center for American Progress, edits Climate Progress and holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT. He said today: “Like a baseball player on steroids, our climate system is breaking records at an unnatural pace. And like a baseball player on steroids, it’s the wrong question to ask whether a given home run is ’caused’ by steroids.” See the video: “Steroids, Baseball and Climate Change.” http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/02/08/421711/video-steroids-baseball-climate-change
“We also know that as we warm the oceans, we end up with more water vapor in the atmosphere — 4 percent more than was in the atmosphere just a few decades ago. That is why another basic prediction of climate science has been more intense deluges and floods.
“A new study finds, ‘we detect a statistically significant trend in the frequency of large [storm] surge events (roughly corresponding to tropical storm size) since 1923. In particular, we estimate that Katrina-magnitude events have been twice as frequent in warm years compared with cold years.’
“Global warming and the loss of Arctic sea ice has been linked to the kind of blocking pattern that is driving this storm.” See “NOAA Bombshell: Warming-Driven Arctic Ice Loss Is Boosting Chance of Extreme U.S. Weather.” http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/11/989231/noaa-bombshell-warming-driven-arctic-ice-loss-is-boosting-chance-of-extreme-us-weather/
Romm recently wrote the piece “CNN Bans Term ‘Frankenstorm’, But It’s A Good Metaphor For Warming-Driven Monster: ‘Largest Hurricane In Atlantic History.” http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/10/28/1101241/cnn-bans-term-frankenstorm-but-its-a-good-metaphor-for-warming-driven-monster-largest-hurricane-in-atlantic-history/
JOSEPH NEVINS, (914) 631-0403, jonevins@vassar.edu
Nevins teaches geography at Vassar College. He recently wrote the piece “Ecological Crisis and the Need to Challenge the 20 Percent,” which states: “Although you would not know it from what passes for debate during the ongoing presidential campaign here in the United States, the biosphere is under siege. A historically high rate of ice melt in the Arctic, devastating floods from the Philippines to Nigeria, a record-setting decline in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and extreme levels of drought in much of the United States are just some of the recent manifestations.” http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/10/2012101085331931338.html
TYSON SLOCUM, (202) 454-5191, tslocum@citizen.org, http://www.citizen.org
Director of Public Citizen’s Energy Program, Slocum recently told IPA: “For the first time in 24 years, neither the presidential nor vice-presidential candidates were asked a question about climate disruption during the debates. And the candidates have failed to highlight the issue as well — unless you count Governor Romney’s use of climate change as a punchline to a joke in his convention speech. Some argue that the issue isn’t high on voters’ minds, but polls demonstrate otherwise. Rather, the hundreds of millions of dollars that the fossil fuel industry and their allies are spending saturating the airwaves with anti-regulation messages is likely the culprit. Obama’s ‘all of the above’ strategy locks in fossil fuels as the status quo, forcing us farther behind on the sustainable era of renewable energy. There is no such thing as benign fossil fuel production and consumption, and the future of fossil fuels will only become more expensive.”
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
_________________________________________________________________
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DHoffer,
The question was why might one consider the possibility the Earth might be sick. The answer was because of its high CO2 level which it has not had in 3 million year – 40% higher than than ever observed for at least 800,000 years. And at the same time – understanding that the symptoms of the disease show up gradually but steadily – provided one believes that the Earth has great thermal inertia (which unfortunately works both ways).
The question was not why we might consider the Earth not to be sick. I can provide many of those, such as I went for a walk today and everything looked just fine.
The fatuous grimsrud says:
“The question was why might one consider the possibility the Earth might be sick. The answer was because of its high CO2 level which it has not had in 3 million year – 40% higher than than ever observed for at least 800,000 years.”
Therefore, the Earth was “sick” 3 million years ago??
Dope.
RHS, You might be pleased to learn that a system can work against the 2nd Law and those forces of entropy by a constant input of energy. Fortunately, the Earth is a closed system w.r.t. material only but not w.r.t. energy. We get a huge amount of it (some 1,600 watts / sq m) all the time from that big object at the center of our planetary system and with wise use of it, we can work against that 2nd Law (which BTW is “shit happens”)
To PhysicMajor,
Concerning your reference suggesting that the frequency and intensity of severe weather events has not increased, let me just day at this point that I am sceptical of the conclusion you have drawn from it because it appear to go against expectations for which there are probably far more papers of support. I will look at this issue more closely than I have. And, of course, I will try to get a copy of the paper itself rather than start with someone’s summary of it. Primary authors often provide qualifiers of their statements that summarizer sometimes omit.
At the onset, however, I also wonder how one measures such things with a good level of confidence – all over the surface of the Earth including over the oceans and all remote uninhabital places. For good reason, I suspect we have a lot more to learn about these things called extreme weather events and am not even sure if we have workable definitions of them yet.
My own thought still is that with more water vapor in the atmosphere, the power of latent heat will be delivered to more places in the planet when condensation occurs and that should increase both the intensity and frequency of those releases of power. I would have thought that meant that we would see a corresponding increase in “extreme weather events” whatever that term means.
Mr. D Boehm, Please try to imbed at least a bit of science in your cuteness. Sure, some readers of WUWT might get a good belly laugh out of your little “jokes” but don’t you also know that group includes only the likes of Sir Richart, the Uncourtly, and his jolly group of lackeys at WUWT? What meaning do you think your post of 8:56 pm above would carry to anyone else?
REPLY: I’m really growing tired of your commentary Mr. Grimsrud, and I’m sure people here don’t like being referred to as lackeys. Take another time out as your presence here dies nothing but cause moderation headaches these days, and quite frankly I have more important things to do than moderate these wars of words. See you in 36 hours – Anthony]
Ericgrimsrud,
Harking back to your original post, I have questions and observations.
1). I try to keep up on the various surveys. I have not heard of a survey of the range of scientists your describe in your Appeal to Authority that has determined that most of these scientists believe that extreme weather will increase throughout the world.as the world warms due to man-made global warming. Moreover, just because they publish in Climate Science does not mean they are “Extreme Weather” experts, so an Appeal to Authority would have to be limited to those who study Extreme Weather Climatology. I especially haven’t heard of a survey of that sector. Can you please give us an attribution for this survey?
2). I find it very odd that you think that weather reporting should include speculative Climatology. Don’t get me wrong; when meteorologists like Anthony take an interest in Climatology, I think it’s great; it stands to reason that a cross-discipline perspective on these sciences would give a different, and perhaps better, perspective on both sciences than can be achieved by those isolated in, say, the ivory tower of pure Climatology. But I don’t understand why you think this should be done as a matter of course.
I tune into the weather report to find out if I should wear a coat, or abandon my home in the face of Hurricane Sandy. The weather report is about giving me current info I need. Climatology is a nice bonus, but it’s not the point of a weather report.
In other words, there’s a reason it’s called a weather report instead of a climatology report. The point is that it’s weather news, and requiring that, say, that the weather report should report stuff somewhat related, such as that the rain ruined the princess’s wedding, doesn’t make a lot of sense.
However, the scientific speculations you yearn for are available in plenty in Science News reporting, which seems a pretty reasonable place to expect news about Climatology science.
3) , You seem fascinated by the speculative side of Climatology, such as the fact that a particular storm “May Be to some degree attributable to CAGW”. This doesn’t interest me very much, because “May Be” also means “May Not Be”. I’m more interested in what scientists have to say after they’ve done the science, not when they speculate. I would have thought that as a scientist yourself that you’d feel the same way.
I find that when I wait for the science to be done, I keep finding the scientists report that this Russian cold snap and that drought are NOT attributable to CAGW…Do you track this as carefully as you track the speculations, and if so, can you give us some examples of extreme weather events that have been scientifically attributed to CAGW? (We can take Arctic melting as a given…more interested in Russian/European cold snaps, American drought, American snowstorms, hurricanes, etc…the kinds that have been in the news and speculated on in the last 5-10 years or so).
ericgrimsrud;
Concerning your reference suggesting that the frequency and intensity of severe weather events has not increased, let me just day at this point that I am sceptical of the conclusion you have drawn from it because it appear to go against expectations for which there are probably far more papers of support.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The point being Eric that you can have all the papers on the planet all having the same expectations, but if they are contradicted by the data…. well then they’re wrong. The paper by Dr Ryan Maue is behind the AGU paywall, but you can see the important excerpts from it here:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/06/26/global-hurricane-activity-at-historical-record-lows-new-paper/
I’d encourage you also to re-read my explanation to you about the importance of energy differential versus total energy in a physical system, and to read the explanation by Dr Robert Brown that I pointed you to upthread. It was written at nearly the same time as my explanation, but in response to an entirely different thread.
“Institute for Public Accuracy”; reminds me of states referred to as “The Peoples Republic of blank”. Both are funny and transparent in that they really mean the opposite.
Thanks Anthony. whew, where do these people come from?
ericgrimsrud failed to find the error he missed, so I am going to help him out. Not because I want to help eric, but because as skeptics, it is important that we get the science right. In debating matters with ericgrimsrud, RHS said:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
RHS;
Since water vapor is roughly 40,000 parts per million, CO2 will never overwhelm water vapor for heat transfer.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
There’s a nuance to this that I think is important. At sea level, water vapor is 40,000 ppm. At high altitudes, temps drop to -20C and lower. The vast bulk of the moisture precipitates out. The air is bone dry. As a consequence, CO2’s effects are much more pronounced because there’s almost no water vapour to compete with.
But that brings up an interesting point. Since, at altitude, CO2 is in fact significant (as in NOT overwhelmed by water vapour) and it intercepts both upward and downward LW, the math suggests that there should be a peak concentration of additional energy at some point in the mid troposphere. This is the tropospheric “hot spot” that we frequently hear being discussed. While ericgrimsrud will probably point to the large number of papers that expect this hot spot to exist, the data says otherwise. It just isn’t there. Does this mean that CO2 doesn’t absorb and re-radiate LW after all?
IMO, no. What it does mean is that there are feedbacks, and we don’t understand their complexity, order of magnitude, or even their sign. That being the case, anyone who expresses certainty in regard to CO2’s ultimate effects on surface temps is fooling themselves.
ericgrimsrud says at October 29, 2012 at 9:13 pm
“Concerning your reference suggesting that the frequency and intensity of severe weather events has not increased, let me just say at this point that I am sceptical of the conclusion you have drawn from it because it appear to go against expectations for which there are probably far more papers of support.”
And so if empirical evidence disagrees with expectations Mr Grimsrud feels the real world is wrong, not the expectations. Thus we see that he is not a scientist. And neither are those scientists whom he consistently shows respect to, actually scientists at all.
We have here two proposed hypotheses; natural variation and cAGW. They are suggested by history and theory respectively. One fits the empirical evidence and the other doesn’t.
So what do you call a man who ignores the real world in favour of his beliefs and exxpectations?
At best a fantasist.
ericgrimsrud,
“The CO2 level in the atmosphere is now about 40% higher than it has been in 800,000 years for sure (unless the ice core record is also a big hoax) and very probably in the last 3 million years.”
Just shows with increasingly strong evidence that it has nothing to do with the general trend of climate because we are in the coolest period since then. Only the main greenhouse gases absorbing energy is also wrong, they are the big players, but how do you explain absorbance around 10 percent where none of these main greenhouse gases are in the wavelength bands.
Finally most of the warming has occurred at the surface where water vapor just above the ocean is saturated. The greenhouse effect from CO2 is not demonstrated here so can only rely on zones above land masses or much higher up in the atmosphere, where water levels decrease with height. Higher levels in the atmosphere either show very little warming compared with the surface or none, so the majority observed by instrumental stations on the surface show the warming can’t be caused by CO2. My previous post backs up this with what is the likely cause.
Yeah right. Now back to the real world.
Weird weather anyone?
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/qj.776/full
And just for fun…….
“New paper shows warming causes decreased extreme weather”
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2012/09/new-paper-shows-warming-causes.html
davidmhoffer – one question/item I think which is overlooked (certainly by me) is the relative density of the layers of the atmosphere and how they are less dense higher in altitude. My thought is, the less dense (regardless of concentration to some extent) the less engergy that can be reflect or absorbed.
I think this feeds into the feedback you refer to as well as why we don’t have a tropospheric “hot spot”.
I’m not disregarding the feedback, I just think this is a good example of, we barely know what we don’t know.
With respect to how much CO2 is released, I’ve that nature alone during the fall season in the Northern Hemisphere releases 1 – 2 Peta tons of CO2, while human sources contribute about 300 Giga tons. Does anyone have other information? The main point is, we release way less than nature does.
@ericgrimsrud
It is somewhat strange now that ericgrimsrud is now seeming to make H2O out to be a major contributor to the earth’s climate when at his ”short course”, he basically discounts it as being not a very big factor in how the earth’s climate reacts.
”H2O-%=0 to 3; PPM=0; last only days
CO2-%=.039 ; ppm=393; last more than a 1,000 years.”
I have tried to go through his ”short course” and it would be very short indeed if he dealt with known facts and not conjecture but what else could one expect from a person that has held a far left philosophy and taught for over 30 years? If one goes to his site and does not issue complimentary comments, they are soon ”frozen out” of his warming world of despair and certain catastrophe where in his ”short course” he shows an actual heat trapping ”canopy” at an unspecified altitude. How many college freshman shuttered in fear at such a picture and continue to do so because they have been denied the desire to actually learn just what the truth is about this issue?
I have posed a challenge to Eric and that is to provide the results of an actual experiment using the present day conditions in the earth’s atmosphere that prove that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has the effect on the climate that he and his fellow alarmist claim that it does.
One does not need to do any experiment regarding H2O and its bearing on the earth’s climate other than simply observe that the coldest nights of the winter in the higher latitudes, where there is actually winter, always occur when there is no cloud cover. It is a known that the desert areas on earth can have temperature of over 130*F during the day and freeze at night. One need not be a university chemist, I would hope, to figure out that it is the lack of cloud cover that creates these conditions.
I have noticed on Eric’s site that he fears the oceans are becoming acidic. This is a strange fear to possess since this is the truth according to NASA and certainly has some bearing on the claim that the oceans are heating up to an unprecedented degree:
“As water travels through the water cycle, some water will become part of The Global Conveyer Belt and can take up to 1,000 years to complete this global circuit. It represents in a simple way how ocean currents carry warm surface waters from the equator toward the poles and moderate global climate.” [The Global Conveyer Belt has suddenly stopped for several speculated reason in the past and caused dramatic and rapid climate changes always to the cold side; therefore, warm is preferable to cold any day]
http://science.nasa.gov/earth-science/oceanography/ocean-earth-system/ocean-water-cycle/
If any one is interested in exploring Eric’s mind more fully, go to his site for a close look:
http://ericgrimsrud.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/one-politician-on-board/
@ericgrimsrud
”Yet, most real professional climate scientists – that is, those scientists who do research on the subject every day and report the results of their studies in the best peer-reviewed journals of our country – believe that the frequency and severity of extreme weather events will increase throughout the world as the average temperature of the Earth increases due to man-caused global warming.”
I do believe that a fair question to ask the good professor is, regarding his statement, why none of these all time record high temperature extremes have not been broken in his frying hot world of his own making?
If what you are saying is true about CO2 causing this “catastrophic” rise in world temperature, then why do these world high temperature records still stand?
What follows are world record high temperatures: World (Africa) El Azizia, Libya; Sept. 13, 1922, (136F):
North America (U.S.), Death Valley, Calif.; July 10, 1913 (134F);
Asia; Tirat Tsvi, Israel, June 21, 1942, (129F):
Australia ,Cloncurry, Queensland; Jan. 16, 1889 (128F):
Europe, Seville, Spain,Aug. 4, 1881 (122F):
South America, Rivadavia, Argentina; Dec. 11, 1905 (120F):
Canada,Midale and Yellow Grass, Saskatchewan, Canada; July 5, 1937 (113F):
Oceania;Tuguegarao, Philippines, April 29, 1912 (108F):
Persian Gulf (sea-surface): Aug. 5, 1924 (96F):
Antarctica; Vanda Station, Scott Coast, Jan. 5, 1974 (59F):
South Pole, Dec. 27, 1978, (7.5F).
Highest average annual mean temperature (world): Dallol, Ethiopia (Oct. 1960 Dec. 1966), 94° F.
Longest hot spell (world): Marble Bar, W. Australia, 100° F (or above) for 162 consecutive days, Oct. 30, 1923 to Apr. 7, 1924. Notice anything regarding the dates of these records? Anyone heard of the dust bowl & wasn’t that in the 30s
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001375.html
The above information can be confirmed here also:
http://www.worldfactsandfigures.com/weather_extremes.php>
It does seem that the record high temp has been changed:
Death Valley, Calif. now holds the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded in the world with a maximum temperature of 134 degrees. This temperature was not recorded this past summer, but nearly 100 years ago on July 10, 1913. So, how can it be a new all-time record?
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released information on Thursday showing that the now previous all-time world record of 136 degrees on September 13, 1922 in El Azizia, Libya has been ruled invalid.
http://www.weather.com/news/death-valley-new-world-temperature-record-20120913
Give me your best educated explanation for these FACTS, Eric.
RHS;
davidmhoffer – one question/item I think which is overlooked (certainly by me) is the relative density of the layers of the atmosphere and how they are less dense higher in altitude. My thought is, the less dense (regardless of concentration to some extent) the less engergy that can be reflect or absorbed.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Took me a while to get my head wrapped around that issue. At day’s end, as you said, we don’t know what we don’t know. That aside, we’re talking about gases, not solids, and radiated energy not conduction. The issue at hand is the shear scale of the atmospheric column. One of the analogies I often hear used is put four blue bb’s into a jar of 10,000 yellow bb’s. The resulting image makes 400 ppm look pretty insignificant.
Now make two changes to that mental image. First, imagine that the yellow bb’s are invisible. Next imagine 100,000 jars stacked one on top of each other. Looking from the side, one would see a spec of blue here and there. But look straight down from the top, and you would see…. solid blue. Even though there are only 4 blue per 10,000, there’s now a total of 400,000 in the column from top to bottom. Assuming they are evenly distribututed, they will cover the entire cross section of the jar many many times.
An upward bound photon from earth surface has no free path to space because of this. So, even with much lower density, the issue is still one of over all scale. That photon has to be absorbed and re-emitted in a random direction many times, bouncing sideways much of the time to find new pathways both up and down. The decreasing density ensures that there are increasing upward pathways as a photon gains altitude, and the higher it gets, the more likely it will have a free path to space on the next re-emission.
There are some obsessed with the supposed increase of 280 ppm to 392ppm of CO2 and I hope that this information will help them to sleep better at nights.
This, I hope, will put this into some kind of a perspective that makes one understand just how insignificant this increase is.
A part per million is like 1 drop of ink in a large
kitchen sink.
A large kitchen sink is about 13-14 gallons. There
are 100 drops in one teaspoon, and 768 teaspoons
per gallon.
Some other things that are one part per million are…
One drop in the fuel tank of a mid-sized car
One inch in 16 miles
About one minute in two years
One car in a line of bumper-to-bumper traffic from
Cleveland to San Francisco.
One penny in $10,000.
I know that you understand that these 112 additional ppm are spread out over this 16 miles in different one inch segments and wouldn’t it be a task to be told to sort out the 392 pennies from the number that it would take to make up $10,000.
At 392 parts per million CO2 is a minor constituent of earth’s atmosphere– less than 4/100ths of 1% of all gases present. Compared to former geologic times, earth’s current atmosphere is CO2- impoverished.
Let’s picture this in another way to really get an idea of the scale of CO2 compared to the total atmosphere. The Eiffel Tower in Paris is 324 meters high (1063ft). If the height of the EiffelTower represented the total size of the atmosphere then the natural level of CO2 would be 8.75 centimeters of that height (3.4 inches) and the amount added by humans up until today would be an extra 3.76 centimeters (1.5 inches)
http://a-sceptical-mind.com/co2-the-basic-facts
This interesting site comes from, of all sources, the Green Party of Canada. I’m certain that after this was exposed to the light of day, Richard Belshaw, was crucified and the ”Excel spreadsheet extension of CRC 85th edition 2004-2005 handbook on physics and chemistry……” With the ”Equations worked out in Maple 12 by Maplesoft.” that shows ”The mass of CO2 in the atmosphere is approximately 1.06186E+14 x 10^14 kg” was destroyed like a heretical document, in the alarmist eyes, should be if it states the truth about this trace gas that everyone that has ever used a CO2 fire extinguisher knows that CO2 is 1 and one half times heavier than the rest of the earth’s atmosphere that it is contained in.
ppm of CO2 with altitude and mass of CO2 in atmosphere to 8520 metres beyond which there is practically no CO2
http://www.greenparty.ca/blogs/169/2009-01-03/ppm-co2-altitude-and-mass-co2-atmosphere-8520-metres-beyond-which-there-practic
(copy to your browser to open)
To davidmhoffer, concerning your comment on October 29, 2012 at 1:37 pm,
According to my understanding of the means by which matter can be transported, the definition of the term “convection” includes everything that cause the gross medium and everything in it to move – as occurs due pressure or temperature differential, or to physical “stirring” of a liquid or gas, and even the colriolis effect (just for starters). Of course, what we are discussing here is simple the nomenclature of science and that might differ somewhat between the subdisciplines.
Thus, convection differs significantly from “diffusion” which is defined to be the motion of a given substance through that medium – due to a concentration gradient of that substance. In the troposphere convection dominates the transport of material and in the stratosphere convection is very slow so that diffusion becomes competitive.
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