(Photo credits: NOAA)
By WUWT regular “Just The Facts”
We are pleased to introduce WUWT’s newest addition, the WUWT “Extreme Weather” Reference Page.
Realizing the difficulty in selling “Global Warming” when the globe hasn’t warmed in the last 16 years, the Warmists are now attempting to convince the public that CO2 has somehow caused “Extreme Weather”. This “Extreme Weather” meme follows a number of other ill-fated Warmist narratives including “Climate Change“, “Ocean Acidification”, “Global Weirding” and “Climate Disruption”.
Being the skeptical sort I looked at the Big Picture and noted that “There is no evidence of a recent increase in “Earth’s Temperature” due to “Climate Change,” which could have caused “Extreme Weather” to arrive and become the “new normal”. However, this observation got me labeled an “Extreme Denier” and “Tamino seemed disappointed that I had not attempted to debunk claims that there’s been a ‘dramatic increase in weather-related catastrophes.'” As such, with the help of an array of WUWT readers and articles, we crowdsourced the WUWT “Extreme Weather” Reference Page. I leave it to you to review and decide for yourself whether you think there has been dramatic increase in “Extreme Weather”.
As in the crowdsourcing thread, if you have any suggestions for additional credible 3rd party data on weather extremes, please post them in comments below and we will review them for inclusion. It is interesting to note that I provided Bill McKibben with an opportunity to submit non-anecdotal empirical evidence in support of the “Extreme Weather” meme and he apparently had none to offer.
In addition to our “Extreme Weather” Page if you have not had the opportunity to look through some our other Reference Pages it is highly recommended:
- Atmosphere Page
- Atmospheric Oscillation Page
- ENSO (El Nino/La Nina Southern Oscillation) Page
- “Extreme Weather” Page
- Geomagnetism Page
- Global Climatic History Page
- Global Temperature Page
- Ocean Page
- Oceanic Oscillation Page
- Polar Vortex Page
- Potential Climatic Variables Page
- Scafetta’s Solar-Lunar Cycle Forecast -vs- Global Temperature
- Sea Ice Page
- Solar Page
- Spencer and Braswell Papers
- Tropical Cyclone Page
- US Climatic History Page
- US Weather Page
Please note that WUWT cannot vouch for the accuracy of the data within the Reference Pages, as WUWT is simply an aggregator. All of the data is linked from third party sources. If you have doubts about the accuracy of any of the graphs on the WUWT Reference Pages, or have any suggested additions or improvements to any of the pages, please let us know in comments below.
Pat Ravasio
It is refreshing to read a rational, clear viewpoint from a skeptic — without any insults, name calling or childish bullying behavior. You give me hope!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Excuse me? Did you read your own first comment in this thread? The one where you made any number of ugly insinuations, accusations, and asked questions on the assumption of facts not in evidence? Then you complain about childish bullying behaviour?
Your inability to actually discuss in any meaningful manner the substance of the points made to you says more about you than all the words on your blog.
Confronted with facts the falsify their position, an adult admits and learns from their mistakes.
A coward runs away in silence.
A fool continues to argue anyway.
A child whines that things just aren’t fair.
[snip – your angry diatribes about “dope smoking hippies and other trailer trash talk really isn’t appropriate here, and adds nothing to the conversation, and you’ve been warned previously. Take a hike, permanently – Anthony]
ferd berple says:
December 9, 2012 at 8:36 am
“No one is denying that “there are environmental problems that could be solved by a reduction in the use of fossil fuels”.”
Arguable. With car catalysts, that Urea injection into Diesel engines, soot filters for Diesel cars and flue gas scrubbers in coal power plants we’re pretty much done with it in my opinion. Entering the area of dimishing returns / negligible impact fast from there.
MikeB says:
December 9, 2012 at 4:23 am
“Water vapour does not rise to the Top of the Atmosphere (TOA). It rises and as the air cools it condenses. It gives up its latent heat and warms the atmosphere. The atmosphere then re-radiates back to the surface of the Earth. ”
It does not have to. Before it condenses it is a greenhouse gas with a broad absorption spectrum up to wavenumber 4000 where there is no competition from other gases. That means where it is at its highest it can radiate to space unhindered. Kirchhoff’s law applies, absorption and emission happen to equal amounts, thermalization and dethermalization happen to equal amounts (assuming local thermal equilibrium).
Thanks to EM Smith and others for your great responses. I may very well point to them when trying to educate a “true believer” as so many of them (like Pat) still wander around in total ignorance of the facts.
Thanks also to JTF for another great reference page. You have done some great work and it truly is appreciated.
I’ll also second the notion that many of us accepted AGW at one time. I did as well until I studied the issue about 5 years ago. We can only hope Pat does the same.
Finally, I don’t believe EM Smith was denying the existence of downward radiation. I believe it exists and that the GHE is real (as I believe Mr. Smith does) … it’s just part of the full story. Here’s a couple of facts to keep in mind:
1) Radiation goes in a random direction. However, when it goes downward it is usually reabsorbed sooner that when it goes upward. The typical path length of always longer heading toward space due to reduced density. Hence, the net result of radiation is an average movement of energy towards space.
2) Re-radiation is not always in the same frequency as absorbed radiation. For example, CO2 may not be able to absorb radiation coming from another CO2 molecule. Some re-radiation is generated in frequencies that are absorbed very poorly in the atmosphere.
3) Increases in CO2 have a separate cooling effect. After all it is GHGs that radiate most of the energy away from the planet. Increasing the concentration of a cooling gas must produce some additional cooling. At some point in the atmosphere CO2 changes from having a net warming effect to a net cooling effect. Since the lower altitudes are dominated by H2O it’s very possible the the overall effect of CO2 increases is net cooling (at today’s concentrations).
Kev-in-Uk says:
December 9, 2012 at 8:32 am
I think you will find replies to trolls follow an exponential decay function following the first appearance. First, notice. Second, reply. Third, the fall-off begins. Rapid descent.
So, Kev, relax and enjoy the balmy MET-office induced weather.
Great addition to the Reference Pages Just The Facts. Thanks!
I know that everything said when blogging can make one seem pretentious, but in ALL SERIOUSNESS, I REALLY APOLOGIZE for saying all that.
In truth, I forgot I’m on a public forum and simply dredged up every bombastic, absolutist term I could for people who believe in global warming, while literally, leaning over laughing, in my chair, at my Archie Bunker (an old-time WAY right-wing situation comedy ogre) imitation.
Very sorry and Merry United Democratic Mobocracy Season,
and may everyone have a very happy
Respiration Stamp Renewal Holiday !
ferd berple says:
December 9, 2012 at 9:03 am
The Great Horse Manure Crisis
Here you go:
http://www.enviroliteracy.org/article.php/578.html
“The following is an extended excerpt from “The Centrality of the Horse to the Nineteenth-Century American City,” . . . “The normal city horse produced between fifteen and thirty-five pounds of manure a day and about a quart of urine, usually distributed along the course of its route or deposited in the stable.”
Pat Ravasio opines:
December 8, 2012 at 7:16 pm
I am only seeking the truth, and remain open to your input.
Sorry Pat, but the overwhelming preponderance of evidence shows otherwise. Truth is obviously the furthest thing from your mind. Your own trollish behavior has outed you.
Here’s a light-hearted, light-shedding list of mine:
If Global Warming Didn’t Exist, It Would Be Necessary to Invent It:
… To lift climatology out of its backwater status …
… To increase research funding for Academia …
… To move environmentalism from the fringes to the center of social concern …
… To justify increased media coverage of environmental issues …
… To give enviro-groups a powerful fund-raising and consciousness-raising tool …
… and allow them access to the levers of national and international power …
… To fund alternative energy developers and researchers …
… To justify & refresh the raison d’être of the EPA & UN …
… To give activist & green parties a vote-getting wedge issue …
… and a case-study justification for their habitual “hammer” (increased regulation and taxation) …
… To provide at-a-loss “engagé/enragé” types with a new stick with which to bash the beastly bourgeoise…
… To transfer wealth from the West to the South …
… To justify the de facto political empowerment of a sector of the scientific / academic elite, setting a precedent for the subsequent empowerment of other sectors of that elite.*
(* See Pareto on “the circulation of the elites.”)
So why not “warm” to global warming, if you’re:
… a climatologist?
… a university administrator?
… an environmentalist?
… an environmental reporter?
… an official of an environmental organization?
… a worker or investor in an alternative energy company?
… an environmental regulator?
… a UN official?
… a socialist?
… a would-be true believer?
… a country in the global South?
… a bigshot in a boffins’ brigade?
For such as those, what’s not to like about “climatism”? It’s all upside—a gravy train that’s glory-bound. It would be tempting to get aboard, wouldn’t it? (Especially after others did so, threatening to leave you on The Wrong Side.)
The problem of extreme weather, is that the concept is moronic.
Whats the extremes? Are volcanoes weather? Then Krakatoa would be an extreme.(yet a baby by geologic standards)
Typhoon, hurricanes, tornadoes, any kind of storm, these are weather not extremes. There has been worse and there will be worse. So “Extreme Weather” listing will be very short.
Now if the intention is to mock the faithful well I’m up for that.
I am nauseated by the Weather Channel here in Canada, announcing “Active Weather” and “Extreme weather”.
Their way of insulting their viewers I guess. I leave the sound off when I flick thro.
Now the beauty of the alarmed ones choosing this meme, is it alienates the public who have been ignoring the dubious science of CAGW/CC.
Every-one can recognize the traditional symptoms of, irrational fear of the weather, this is part of our history and has a rich folklore.
Equating everyday storms to extremes is buying into the zealots faith, of wetting one-self about the weather, perhaps we should encourage the alarmists as this is going to help them score a series of spectacular own goals.
These are the people who brought us climate change and active weather after all.
As for feeding the troll, why are there so few coming out to play?
I used to read for hours, too much time at times, just for the smack down comments replying to the wailings of the touchy-feely save the ………(fad of choice) trolls.
What can I do to encourage a better quality of troll?
Posting like Tom Fuller’s do seem to bring ’em forth.
@DirkH December 9, 2012 at 9:40 am
Dirk, I’m not sure what your point is. Of course water vapour is a strong greenhouse gas, and as such it will radiate back to the surface of the Earth and keep it warmer.
At high altitude the effect of the greenhouse gases is to cool the atmosphere by radiating to space. But we don’t live at high altitude. We live on the surface and it is the warming there which is important. Greenhouse gases make the surface warmer.
Richard M December 9, 2012 at 9:42 am
Your point 2 is not correct. When a C02 molecule, for example, absorbs radiation at 15 micron, it moves temporarily to a higher energy state. When it reverts to ground state the wavelength of the emitted radiation must be the same as that of the absorbed radiation (aside from Doppler effects etc.). At low altitude the re-emitted radiation will most likely be re-absorbed by another C02 molecule within a distance of 1 metre (95%).
“These amazing birds’ eye views of incredible properties made me feel just a bit green with envy. I am trying to be thankful that I don’t have to clean or pay for upkeep on any of these!”
Patricia and Bob Ravasio on facebook writing about the houses of celebrities.
Patricia Ravasio sells houses. To be true to her principles she must be selling ‘eco-houses’, powered entirely by wind and solar containing nothing made from petroleum and manufactured entirely by craftsmen using their hands and basic materials, such as wood and cow dung. Viewings must be by horse and cart. Or are we being exposed to another example of eco-hypocracy: “Do as I say not as I do….”
And just to help Pat get to grips with her desired goal of saving spaceship earth, here is a partial list of things she must never ever use because they are made from……oil:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/classroom/wwo/petroleum.pdf
John F. Hultquist says:
December 9, 2012 at 9:49 am
You’re absolutely right of course – the ‘ignore’ function of the brain is fairly easy to use!
john robertson says:
December 9, 2012 at 10:23 am
You are right too – at least to a degree. The extreme weather meme has been entirely promoted by the alarmists as it fits their agenda; when in reality the term unusual weather may be far more appropriate for a large number of so called ‘events’ (as in, ‘its mild for December’ or ‘it’s a wet summer this year’, etc). On the other hand, the extreme weather meme does kind of shoot the alarmists in the foot too, as, generally speaking, there is always a previous ‘worse’ event recorded before the rise of CO2 and AGW !! – making a mockery of their AGW alarmism.
Pat Ravasio says: “If you are fueled by anything other than greed and an interest in advancing your own interests, could you please state what your motivation is, so that those of us with open minds might begin to understand?”
Being environmentally conscious is extremely important, but in my opinion the “health” of the planet is secondary to the “health” of humanity. Clearly the two are interrelated, but the planet is going to be fine for quite some time. I remain uncertain about the health of the human race.
There is a great deal of science related to mass extinctions on earth and none of the theories involve man-made C02 or even similar naturally occurring levels of CO2. From my perspective far greater threats to humanity exist such as: impacts from space, gamma-ray bursts, massive volcanism, glaciation and so on.
I believe establishing a human presence in space increases our chance of survival. To establish that presence we must adequately address nearly every environmental challenge we currently face on this planet, but we can’t do so if we squander our limited resources.
When I see us wasting those limited resources on “bad” or “politicized” environmental science it bothers me. I think it should bother everyone and that we need to focus our efforts on science that can truly serve and protect humanity in the long run. Establishing a presence off earth will allow us to conquer the environmental challenges we face here, as well as protect humanity.
Now since you asked a series of highly biased questions, here’s one back at you… Why do you favor squandering our limited resources and placing the long term survival of the human race at risk?
I look forward to hearing your answer, or possibly your acknowledgement that they way you characterized your questions was pointless. Either will do.
With regard to the reference pages, I am fascinated by the work of Scafetta and Seifert on cosmic cycles and their influence on the climate.
MikeB says:
December 9, 2012 at 10:46 am
“Dirk, I’m not sure what your point is. Of course water vapour is a strong greenhouse gas, and as such it will radiate back to the surface of the Earth and keep it warmer.
At high altitude the effect of the greenhouse gases is to cool the atmosphere by radiating to space. But we don’t live at high altitude. We live on the surface and it is the warming there which is important. Greenhouse gases make the surface warmer. ”
My point was to explain that water vapor can radiate directly to space without having to rise to the top of the atmosphere.
As for your insistence that there’s a problem because we’re living at the surface and radiating away high up in the atmosphere doesn’t help us: This is nonsense. For 30 years the warmists tell us that heat accumulates through cumulative radiative imbalance and now you tell me that that’s not the problem at all?
How fast does it get cold at night where you live when there are no clouds? And why? Guess what – radiative cooling. Takes a few hours and reaches minimum temperatures before sunrise.
No accumulation.
What happens is that the mean free path length of an IR photon say in the CO2 absorption/emission band is about 23 m at ground level and obviously gets longer the thinner air gets; so you can compute the number of absorptions and re-emissions until such a photon reaches space. As an excited molecule quickly re-releases its excitation via a photon of the same wavelength (Ignoring thermalizations and dethermalizations here as they happen to equal amounts anyway) – quickly meaning within milliseconds – it doesn’t take long and that’s the reason why radiative cooling at night works in the first place.
MikeB says:
December 9, 2012 at 10:46 am
” At low altitude the re-emitted radiation will most likely be re-absorbed by another C02 molecule within a distance of 1 metre (95%).”
Ok, I said 23m.. who’s right…
Nasif Nahle has some computations saying 33m:
http://www.biocab.org/Mean_Free_Path_Length_Photons.html
mfo says:
December 9, 2012 at 10:48 am
““These amazing birds’ eye views of incredible properties made me feel just a bit green with envy. I am trying to be thankful that I don’t have to clean or pay for upkeep on any of these!”
Patricia and Bob Ravasio on facebook writing about the houses of celebrities.
Patricia Ravasio sells houses. ”
Ah, so she’s a guilt-ridden limousine liberal.
Ray says:
December 9, 2012 at 8:28 am
Have a heart! I wouldn’t want to drive her to physical prostitution!
We’ve all got to make a buck.
DaveE.
Maybe what we need is a resource page called “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions”?
Q: Why don’t you listen to the climate scientists? If you had a bad cough, would you ask the advice of a plumber? Or a doctor?
A; I’d ask a doctor. If he told me that the only cure was to cut off all my arms and legs, I’d seek another opinion. If every doctor in the world said the same thing, I’d still do a helluva lot of my own research before telling them to go ahead.
Q; Why don’t you support cleaning up the environment?
A; I do. What I don’t support is strangling the means by which billions of people are clothed, sheltered and fed every day. Why do you support impoverishment and starvation of billions of people?
Q; Why do you support the evil oil industry?
A: I don’t. I support the regular oil industry, the one that allows me to heat my home and buy food at a reasonable cost, which delivers good and services from anywhere in the world they are to anywhere in the world they are needed, and which has lifted billions out of poverty and starvation. Which one do you support?
Q: Why don’t you explain your reasons for supporting the Heritage Foundation?
A; Why don’t you explain your reasons for supporting eugenics?
Q: Why are skeptics so unreasonable?
A; Because the earth isn’t warming up, severe weather is becoming neither more severe nor more frequent, seal level rise isn’t accelerating, Antarctic ice is growing almost as fast as Arctic ice is receding, and the net effect of warming appears to be beneficial in any event. What’s the unreasonable part?
…and so on…
I like to be a contrarian, Pat, to make people like you think.
Has it worked?
I hope so. (On some, it works, on others, it doesn’t. Don’t disappoint us, ok?)
DirkH says:
December 9, 2012 at 11:50 am:
Nasif Nahle has some computations saying 33m:
http://www.biocab.org/Mean_Free_Path_Length_Photons.html
That is an interesting paper. Note the conclusion:
(quote)
“Conclusions
The results obtained by experimentation coincide with the results obtained by applying astrophysics formulas. Therefore, both methodologies are reliable to calculate the total emissivity/absorptivity of any gas of any planetary atmosphere.
At an average density, the atmospheric water vapor allows quantum/waves to cross the troposphere to the tropopause in 0.0245 s, i.e. 2.45 cs (centiseconds). By comparing the ability of water vapor to avoid that quantum/waves escape towards the outer space (0.5831 s) with the ability of CO2 (0.0049 s), I can affirm that the role of CO2 on warming the atmosphere or the surface is not possible according to Physics Laws.
The water vapor is five times more efficient on intercepting quantum/waves than the carbon dioxide. Therefore, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere works like a coolant of the atmospheric water vapor.
By considering also that the carbon dioxide has by far a lower total emissivity than the water vapor I conclude that the carbon dioxide has not an effect on climate changes or warming periods on the Earth.
The low thermal diffusivity of carbon dioxide makes of it to be an inefficient substance to adjust its temperature to the temperature of its surroundings. Consequently, the carbon dioxide can never reach the thermal equilibrium with respect to the remainder molecules of the air.”
(end quote)
For those who have called for proof that CO2 is not warming the atmosphere, this paper seems to offer that proof. Don;t take my word for it, see for yourself. The paper is quite short so it is an easy read.
David A. Evans says:
December 9, 2012 at 12:15 pm :
Have a heart! I wouldn’t want to drive her to physical prostitution!
We’ve all got to make a buck.
LOL!