No need to guess anymore! The University of Tennessee has the weather and climate all figured out

From the University of Tennessee at Knoxville this gives a whole new meaning to “release the Kraken”.

University of Tennessee study predicts extreme climate in Eastern US

Results show the region will be hotter and wetter

From extreme drought to super storms, many wonder what the future holds for the climate of the eastern United States. A study conducted by researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, does away with the guessing.

Results show the region will be hotter and wetter.

Joshua Fu, a civil and environmental engineering professor, and Yang Gao, a graduate research assistant, developed precise scales of cities which act as a climate crystal ball seeing high resolution climate changes almost 50 years into the future.

The study found that heat waves will become more severe in most regions of the eastern United States and, that both the Northeast and Southeast will see a drastic increase in precipitation.

The findings are published in the Nov. 6 edition of Environmental Research Letters.

Harnessing the supercomputing power of UT’s Kraken and Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Jaguar (now Titan, the fastest in the world), the researchers combined high-resolution topography, land use information and climate modeling. Then they used dynamical downscaling to develop their climate model results. Dynamical downscaling allowed the researchers to develop climate scales as small as four square kilometers.

“Instead of studying regions, which is not useful when examining extreme weather, dynamical downscaling allows us to study small areas such as cities with a fine resolution,” said Fu, who is also a professor within the UT-ORNL Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education (CIRE).

The researchers evaluated extreme events along with daily maximum and minimum temperatures and daily precipitation. For the 23 states east of the Mississippi River, they analyzed the present-day climate from 2001 to 2004 and predicted the future climate from 2057 to 2059. This is the first study to predict heat waves for the top 20 cities in the eastern U.S. For example, Nashville will see a temperature rise of 3.21 degrees Celsius and Memphis will see a rise of 2.18 degrees Celsius.

In comparing present climate to future, the researchers found that heat waves will become more severe throughout the eastern part of the nation. The Northeast and eastern Midwest will experience a greater increase in heat waves than the Southeast, which will almost equalize the temperatures between the future North and current South.

“Currently, the mean heat wave duration is about four days in the Northeast and eastern Midwest and five days in the Southeast,” said Fu. “By the end of the 2050s, the Northeast and eastern Midwest will be gaining on the Southeast by increasing two days.”

In addition, the Northeast and eastern Midwest are likely to suffer from steeper increases in the severity of heat waves.

“While the Southeast has the highest intensity in heat waves, the northeast is likely to experience the highest increase,” said Fu. “We are looking at temperature increases of 3 to 5 degrees Celsius, with New York experiencing the highest hike.”

Both the Northeast and Southeast will experience an increase of precipitation of 35 percent or more. Most coastal states will see the greatest increase, of about 150 millimeters a year. Taking into consideration heat waves and extreme precipitation, the Northeast shows the largest increases in precipitation. This suggests a greater risk of flooding.

“It is important that the nation take actions to mitigate the impact of climate change in the next several decades,” said Fu. “These changes not only cost money—about a billion a year in the U.S.—but they also cost lives.”

###

Fu and Gao collaborated with researchers at Emory University and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. They received assistance from the National Center for Computational Sciences, the UT-ORNL Joint Institute for Computational Sciences and UT’s National Institute for Computational Sciences.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention, that when they get this supercomputer online at Oak Ridge, it will take even more guesswork out of climate and weather prediction. – Anthony

0 0 votes
Article Rating
199 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Bob B
December 17, 2012 10:35 am

This is a joke –right?

TerryS
December 17, 2012 10:37 am

developed precise scales of cities which act as a climate crystal ball

About the only thing I agree with and about as accurate as using a crystal ball.

Pull My Finger
December 17, 2012 10:39 am

I’m sure they will have no problem at all telling me who will win the next 50 Super Bowls.

December 17, 2012 10:42 am

Well, this looks conclusive to me. How can they possibly be wrong if they have used not one, but TWO supercomputers? 😉

AleaJactaEst
December 17, 2012 10:42 am

Astrology, pure and simple. Boy I’m glad my taxpayers dough didn’t’ fund this nonsense.

TomHaley
December 17, 2012 10:43 am

Well – the computer doesn’t make mistakes. Glad that’s settled, Now they can use the computer time on something else. Nothing to see here folks, – move along.

Wyguy
December 17, 2012 10:43 am

Well FU, I thought we were going to be declining in temperature. So FU on this report.

Latimer Alder
December 17, 2012 10:46 am

Wow.
I wonder if I could ask them to predict the winners of the seven races at Folkestone tomorrow.
http://www.attheraces.com/allcards.aspx?meetingid=57312&date=2012-12-18&ref=atrfixtures
A betting coup like that would help my pre-Christmas finances no end, and these guys have such great accuracy even forty years out that it should be a very easy problem for them.
/sarc

Gary
December 17, 2012 10:48 am

they analyzed the present-day climate from 2001 to 2004 and predicted the future climate from 2057 to 2059

Well there’s your problem right there. 😉

December 17, 2012 10:49 am

“For the 23 states east of the Mississippi River, they analyzed the present-day climate from 2001 to 2004 and predicted the future climate from 2057 to 2059.”
Let me see if I have this straight. They analysed 4 years of “climate” and then proceeded to project out fifty years into the future, to a precision of 0.1 C. Yeah…yeah…I could see how that could work…
JIC/ SARC!!!

Manfred
December 17, 2012 10:52 am

“Harnessing the supercomputing power of UT’s Kraken and Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Jaguar (now Titan, the fastest in the world)…”
together with
“…dynamical downscaling to develop their climate model results.”
Gosh! Words fail me.

Fast Freddie
December 17, 2012 10:52 am

For funding, Fu fibs.

Editor
December 17, 2012 10:52 am

Katharine Hayhoe produced similar alarmism in her “North East Climate Impacts Assessment” a couple of years ago.
However her claims that such changes were already happening did not stand up to scrutiny.
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2011/12/28/katharines-northeast-climate-impacts-assessment/

Edward Martin
December 17, 2012 10:53 am

Using the world’s fastest computers means of course that when required by the “cause”, we can process larger amounts of garbage even faster.

davidmhoffer
December 17, 2012 10:54 am

Based on 4 years of data they predict the climate 50 years hence?
Why 50 years? If they can be so accurate in 50 years with just 4 years of data, surely they could produce something in the 10 year range? You know, something that could be shown to be true one way or another before all their pay cheques have been cashed and they’re sitting on their derrier’s collecting retirement benefits and being smug about how they ripped of the public with research so blatantly fictional that their administration is too embarrassed to call them out on it for fear of being asked how the h*ll is was allowed to be published in the first place.

Louis
December 17, 2012 10:58 am

“For the 23 states east of the Mississippi River, they analyzed the present-day climate from 2001 to 2004 and predicted the future climate from 2057 to 2059.”
=====
It must be true. They used a supercomputer!
I wonder if their program would be able to accurately predict the climate for 1957 to 1959 using the data for 1901 to 1904? I sincerely doubt it.

Phil's Dad
December 17, 2012 11:04 am

“This is the first study to predict heat waves…”
Hmm. Sure I’ve heard something like that before.
Perhaps GIGO should be renamed GaoFu “Garbage accepted = output F…”
(you can fill in the blanks)

DaveG
December 17, 2012 11:04 am

How about a snow/rain/drought/flood/hot/cold snow globe with a secret selector dial to show these different conditions – Then the likes of Joshua Fu and Yang Gao, can always say they are and they will be right with a flick of a secret switch.
We could have one in every climate department grant seeking university and of course a huge one in the Ministry of Truth (EPA/UN) located in the grand entrance hall.
Who could argue with such irrefutable evidence?

Editor
December 17, 2012 11:05 am

USHCN example at Charlotteberg, a rural station in NJ.
This graph is the distribution of daily max temps 1893-2011. Top temps are not as high as the 1930’s and show no upward trend (although, as with most of these things, temps are higher than the colder 1960’s + 70’s)
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/broker?id=281582&_PROGRAM=prog.gplot_boxtclim_yr2011.sas&_SERVICE=default&param=TMAX&pyear=year&xyear=year&minyear=1893&maxyear=2011

Chuck
December 17, 2012 11:08 am

The faith that people have in what comes out of a computer is stunning. But this is nothing new. I wrote my first computer programs in 1980 and was surprised then as to how people simply trusted any result that a computer produced.

beesaman
December 17, 2012 11:09 am

Just as long as when these alarmist predictions fail to materialise the fools get shown the door and have to retake their PhDs…
Some sort of responsibility and accountability should be expected after all.

Steve Bellner
December 17, 2012 11:09 am

In other news, European researchers quietly announce simultaneously the discovery of the Higgs Boson and demonstration of continuous cold-fusion. A spokesman for the researchers said, “We have supercomputers, too.”

DonK31
December 17, 2012 11:09 am

Looks to me that all UT has done is to describe hotter Urban Heat Islands. They speak of the cities as being hotter. What about the countryside? Will the rural areas 50 miles upwind of the cities be any hotter according to this study?

Darren Potter
December 17, 2012 11:10 am

“… developed precise scales of cities which act as a climate crystal ball seeing high resolution climate changes almost 50 years into the future.”
April Fools!
“Harnessing the supercomputing power of UT’s Kraken and Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Jaguar (now Titan, the fastest in the world),”
Complete waste of super computing power.

Darren Potter
December 17, 2012 11:13 am

Louis says: “It must be true. They used a supercomputer!”
Supercomputers enable one to make more and bigger mistakes, Faster! 😉

Peter Miller
December 17, 2012 11:15 am

Obvious spoof, this is just too stupid and unbelievable.

rufus3698
December 17, 2012 11:16 am

They won’t be getting good results until the mesh size of the numerical algorithm is smaller than a butterfly’s wing.

Bob Diaz
December 17, 2012 11:18 am

Good to see that his computer model works as well as my computer model:
10 PRINT “Is AGW real?”
20 INPUT “Press Return to see: “;A$
30 PRINT “Yes, this computer model say it is!!!”
40 END
See, my computer model proves it!!! ;-))
Bob Diaz

jgmccabe
December 17, 2012 11:18 am

I think this is even more idiotic than Mann’s hockey stick graph! I hope to see news that they’ve been ‘released from their employment contracts’ very soon!

Darren Potter
December 17, 2012 11:18 am

Edward Martin says: “Using the world’s fastest computers means of course that when required by the “cause”, …”
They can run gazillions of Climate Change scenarios in hopes of finding one that sticks and doesn’t result in broken Hockey sticks.

Justthinkin
December 17, 2012 11:21 am

So more heat waves,plus more precip.Oh Noes Boston baked beans on boil! And nobody has tarred and feathered these yahoos yet? It tis to weep.!

December 17, 2012 11:22 am

It is claims such as these, in conjunction with recent claims relating to extreme weather events, that has made me conclude that climate science is presently a junk science field.

Steve C
December 17, 2012 11:22 am

In the United Kingdom, it will continue raining gently.
[supercomputers used: 0]
[probability: very high]

johnbuk
December 17, 2012 11:26 am

Don’t these people ever give up? Who sets the homework there? All that computer power and they come up with this bilge. I’d have thought going for maximum points on Far Cry 3 would be better use of the facilities.

RockyRoad
December 17, 2012 11:27 am

Looks like they selected a segment of time in the future that was beyond their lifetimes–that way they wouldn’t be here to take responsibility.
Science advances one funeral at a time.” Sad they’d render this truism so glaringly obvious.

dave38
December 17, 2012 11:30 am

Models all the way down
I know this comment has been used before but it’s still very appropiate

john robertson
December 17, 2012 11:33 am

Well my comments are already covered. Don’t Wu know April 1st is in a few more months?
Classic Garbage In Gospel Out. Who appoints the supervision at this institute?

Tim
December 17, 2012 11:36 am

Save BILLIONS!!!!!!!! Stop funding climate alarmists. Yet anoter doomsday computer projection to be embraced by AGW proponents and guaranteed to get more funding.

December 17, 2012 11:36 am

So, then, the Univ. of Tenn. needs to contact the U.N.’s IPCC and let them know to stand down.
A “just in time” study.

EcoFascist Science
December 17, 2012 11:40 am

These guys must be on drugs or else they believe in the Mayan calendar and think they will not be around to be proved wrong. Such garbage.

Lance
December 17, 2012 11:42 am

I feel so much better now … /sarc…

December 17, 2012 11:43 am

4 years???
Even a 30 year period are less then an “eye blink” in the geological timeline …
… a statistical grand failure!
Well, playing by the same rules, the end of the 1930’s is a better choise …

December 17, 2012 11:44 am

Super Computers: Garbage in —-> Garbage Out

zootcadillac
December 17, 2012 11:45 am

Is this the university of Johnny Knoxville? Because all I could think about whilst reading this was ‘jackass’.

Bob Kutz
December 17, 2012 11:47 am

Well, at least they were smart enough not to predict anything we can check in the next 10 years. That is the real lesson of James Hansen; don’t make any predictions that can be checked during your professional lifetime.

December 17, 2012 11:48 am

This study is pathetic. These two clowns must be looking for their 15 minutes of fame. As an academic or scientific exercise is should be an embarrassment to the University.

DirkH
December 17, 2012 11:49 am

Okay, they can’t have used a climate model, as the grid box size would be too large, and downscaling is impossible because the statistical description of what happens in the boxo breaks down.
They surely also have not solved the problem of how to model cloud formation and other microscale processes correctly.
So I guess they’ve taken the guess for the start date of their interval from a conventional GCM and ran a weather model from 2057 to 2059.
Fu and Gao, is my guess right? If so you deserve a price for bogosity.

December 17, 2012 11:49 am

Bob B says:
December 17, 2012 at 10:35 am
This is a joke –right?

Oh man, I just don’t get it. It seems all so STUPID. These people need to get out more. Yeah right, like that is going to happen. It’s as depressing as all get out.

Gail Combs
December 17, 2012 11:49 am

“…they analyzed the present-day climate from 2001 to 2004 and predicted the future climate from 2057 to 2059…”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If they can predict 2057 to 2059 how come they can not predict 2013 to 2015? My guess is because predicting 2013 to 2015 or 2015 to 2020 well leave their arse hanging in the breeze when they are soon proved wrong. However by going 45 years into the future they will be retired (or dead) and won’t give a rat’s behind that they are proved wrong.

Leon
December 17, 2012 11:50 am

Let’s see…these computers didn’t “know” that there are really 26 states east of the Mississippi River.

December 17, 2012 11:52 am

To repeat the punchline of an old joke, and ever so slightly paraphrase it:
“If the ‘Fu’ $hits, wear it”
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/479113.html

December 17, 2012 11:55 am

This is what happens when adults are left to play with the children’s toys.

Dr. W. Zernial
December 17, 2012 11:55 am

Its a total misunderstanding of Computer Modeling with datas from only some years to Look Long years in the Future. Its total nonsense. The Same is valid for all this Junk Science for Extreme temperature increase by 5 and more degrees Celsius in Europe in the next 60 years.

chris y
December 17, 2012 11:56 am

Nashville will see 0.642 c per decade increase. We have almost one decade since 2003. How did the prediction do?
Also note the prediction is accurate to 0.01 C. Wow!!! That is 500 – 1000 times better accuracy than IPCC.
Remarkably deep CACC.

Gail Combs
December 17, 2012 11:57 am

Will Nitschke says:
December 17, 2012 at 11:22 am
It is claims such as these, in conjunction with recent claims relating to extreme weather events, that has made me conclude that climate science is presently a junk science field.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Let me correct that statement for you
“…hat has made me conclude that climate science is actually ALCHEMY …”

The occult school of alchemy didn’t turn into the science of chemistry until alchemists abandoned the practice of secrecy and instead started sharing results with each other and checking each other’s experiments.

Alchemy, Climate Science, who can see a difference.

December 17, 2012 12:02 pm

Joshua Fu, a civil and environmental engineering professor…
IF “scientist” = “”warmist”
THEN “research”= TRUE
ELSE nul

AndyG55
December 17, 2012 12:04 pm

They really need to learn the difference between artifical intelligence, and natural stupidity !!!

Taphonomic
December 17, 2012 12:07 pm

Published article available at:
http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/7/4/044025?fromSearchPage=true
Not paywalled.
Interesting that Fu says: “These changes not only cost money—about a billion a year in the U.S.—but they also cost lives.”
“about a billion a year”, that’s two Solyndras. That’s massively less than is spent on ‘climate” research each year. If this guy can’t get orders of magnitude right in his press release, why should his article be better?
Also, what lives? More people die from cold than heat. How many heat related deaths in Las Vegas where summer time temps can top 115 F?

Eric H.
December 17, 2012 12:11 pm

Well, I couldn’t get time on a super computer so I had to resort to the next best thing.
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ssanty/cgi-bin/eightball.cgi
I asked the 8 ball this question: Question: Will the weather be 3 degrees hotter in 2050?
Magic 8 Ball answer: No Way!
So I call on your crystal ball and raise you a magic 8 ball…

Stop Global Dumbing Now
December 17, 2012 12:13 pm

“A study conducted by researchers at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, does away with the guessing.”
Good!! I hate guessing!

frederik wisse
December 17, 2012 12:14 pm

Garbage in is garbage out .

December 17, 2012 12:15 pm

Mike Strong said:
December 17, 2012 at 11:44 am
Super Computers: Garbage in —-> Garbage Out
—————————————————————-
Super Computers: Garbage in —-> Super Garbage Out

Zeke
December 17, 2012 12:16 pm
gbaikie
December 17, 2012 12:27 pm

It seems everyone fails to realize the Urban Heat Island Effect is real and therefore predictable.

DP
December 17, 2012 12:30 pm

One mans extrapolation is another Fu’s prediction.

Henry Clark
December 17, 2012 12:31 pm

This prediction is an illustration of a dominance of style over content. Usage of a supercomputer or not is in itself insignificant next to the astronomical inaccuracy resulting from extrapolating from 4 years, but, by saying they used a supercomputer, a giant pile of GIGO impresses the naive. On topics flooded by environmental activists, for who flocks to employment at the corresponding institutions, what the “peer review” process primarily consists of really is just ensuring a formal style of writing and presentation to
give the illusion of authority, so few question assumptions (plus, of course, weeding out presentation of unpopular inconvenient results).
Often data isn’t even uploaded for verification, nor does a single person do solid critical review of content (as opposed to superficial style) for years if ever; the history of Mann’s hockey stick paper is an example.
For instance, in one of many other examples, the Doran & Zimmerman 97% concensus paper was patently BS if actually read by a moderately intelligent unbiased person, with it concluding that debate about CAGW is over because 74 of 76 climatologists answered yes to 2 trick questions of whether temperatures increased since the pre-1800s (since the crippling cold of the Little Ice Age) and whether humans have a significant effect on temperature (where significant in a scientific sense essentially means just non-zero, from a garbage bag on someone’s lawn to Urban Heat Islands). Take away the formal style of writing; don’t imply “peer review” means much; and it is just something said by a couple dumb and/or dishonest activist guys. They went to college, but anybody who has gone to college knows it doesn’t magically make everyone with a degree never lie about anything for the rest of their life. (There is not even any strong reason to conclude they didn’t just make up their numbers, although the questions are so slanted that they probably didn’t need to do so). But the style is enough for fools to auto-trust and the media to present it as authoritative, carefully never mentioning the specifics of the actual questions.
Someday I would like to find out what kids are being taught in schools today about “peer review,” or whether the false memes about it are coming primarily from the media, or both.
Much of advancement of true science occurred before modern journal-based “peer review” arose in recent decades. Abuse of the label by many who don’t deserve the term “scientists” is a growing problem. (Someone like Dr. Feynman or Dr. Shaviv does; not so much these guys).

Stephen Richards
December 17, 2012 12:31 pm

I would be too ashamed to put my real name anywhere near this paper. Unbelieveable !!

Rick K
December 17, 2012 12:34 pm

If they need suggestions as to where to store their crystal balls, I have at least one really good idea.
On the other hand, I see that April 13, 2049 in Chattanooga will be sunny, light winds of 4.2 mph from the NNE with a temperature of 68.23 F between 2:12 pm and 3:07 pm. Not bad…

DirkH
December 17, 2012 12:38 pm

It boggles the mind. They really did what I guessed and have the audacity to publish it.

December 17, 2012 12:57 pm

But – if the computers are 100% failsafe, why didn’t they anticipate the end of the world in 2012?

Mike Smith
December 17, 2012 1:03 pm

“they analyzed the present-day climate from 2001 to 2004 and predicted the future climate from 2057 to 2059.”
I reckon my 7th grade kid would get an F if he had turned this work in to his science teacher.
These clowns deserve a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the silliest “science” of all time.

David L.
December 17, 2012 1:05 pm

“Currently, the mean heat wave duration is about four days in the Northeast and eastern Midwest and five days in the Southeast,” said Fu. “By the end of the 2050s, the Northeast and eastern Midwest will be gaining on the Southeast by increasing two days.”
Oh NOOOOOO!!!!!!! Six whole days of heat wave rather than four by 2050? Why aren’t we destroying our entire economy and standard of living to prevent this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
/Sehr Grosse SARC

Perfekt
December 17, 2012 1:07 pm

Computers are wonderful tool and can tell a thing or two if you know what you are doing
http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1989-06-30/

Gerry
December 17, 2012 1:07 pm

Since they are so accurate with the 2057 data why don’t they use that data to predict what the climate will be like in 2100 etc etc. …….

B.Klein
December 17, 2012 1:08 pm

Garbage in is garbage out!!!!
There is an experiment that proves that the Greenhouse gas effect does not exist. This experiment which has been technologically reviewed by Ph.D physicists (at least 4). Ph.D. Chemical engineers (at least 2 at last count) and others Ph. D’s in other fields The experiment is found on the web-site http:// http://www.slayingtheskydragon.com click on the blog tab then on page 3 of 12. . It is titled “The Experiment that failed which can save the world trillions-Proving the greenhouse gas effect does not exist”
The Greenhouse Effect Explored
Written by Carl Brehmer | 26 May 2012
Is “Water Vapor Feedback” Positive or Negative?
Exploiting the medium of Youtube Carl Brehmer is drawing wider attention to a fascinating experiment he performed to test the climatic impacts of water in our atmosphere.
Carl explains, “An essential element of the “greenhouse effect” hypothesis is the positive “water vapor feedback” hypothesis. That is, if something causes an increase in the temperature this will cause an increase in the evaporation of water into water vapor.”
Another important website is www. The Great Climate Clash.com -G3 The Greenhouse gas effect does not exist.

December 17, 2012 1:09 pm

Ahem…would anyone out there like to buy a some insurance?

December 17, 2012 1:16 pm

If they can do it that well fifty years out, could they please let us know what will happen next week?

John A
December 17, 2012 1:22 pm

So why can’t they use the data to predict the next ten years and put their pensions on it?

Tim Clark
December 17, 2012 1:23 pm

I asked my rare, antique and collectible magic eightball if this study was legit. I shook it fifty-three times to simulate independent computer runs. The robust answer it gave was: “Not at this time”.
Go figure.

Paul Marko
December 17, 2012 1:23 pm

Come on. Someone quote Yogi Berra’s comment on predicting the future.

Snotrocket
December 17, 2012 1:26 pm

“…dynamical downscaling to develop their climate model results.”
I do hope they took into account parasitic oscillations caused by interstage feedback of the Eccles-Jordan mono-stable double-diode flip-flop.

jorgekafkazar
December 17, 2012 1:26 pm

Louis says: “I wonder if their program would be able to accurately predict the climate for 1957 to 1959 using the data for 1901 to 1904? I sincerely doubt it.”
Picky, picky, picky!

jorgekafkazar
December 17, 2012 1:29 pm

john robertson says: “Well my comments are already covered. Don’t Wu know April 1st is in a few more months?”
It’s December, so we’re dealing with Yule Fools, here.

pat
December 17, 2012 1:37 pm

Every year we have a spate of regional alarms of climate catastrophe coinciding with the new Congressional class. There will be one for every region. In my State the seashore will no longer be habitable. Sand beaches will be a thing of the past, and we will have no industry. But some money to the wailers will help. And Americans must change their evil life style, or at least those that are not part of the elite, who must maintain their ‘carbon footprint’, ie wealth, for the benitfit of all.

Matt
December 17, 2012 1:37 pm

“This is the first study to predict heat waves for the top 20 cities in the eastern U.S. For example, Nashville will see a temperature rise of 3.21 degrees Celsius and Memphis will see a rise of 2.18 degrees Celsius.”
That’s an awful lot of significant digits for a prediction 50 years in the future. A range and/or error bars would have been much, much more appropriate for a study like this even though they would be based on the same fantasyland projection.

December 17, 2012 1:41 pm

This is the revealed truth.
As noted many times above, and heretofore – GIGO.
Eric H. says:
December 17, 2012 at 12:11 pm
I tried Eric H.’s 8 ball, and it is ‘definite’ that a cane toad will win the 2013 Grand National Steeplechase [4+ miles, over forminable fences, with the animals carrying at least 10 stone [140 pounds, or about 64 Kg]].
And that, too, is the revealed truth.
Steve C says:
December 17, 2012 at 11:22 am
Quite right. The 8 ball and I both concur.
Seriously, if I tried a stunt like this by Fu & Gao – a cupid stunt – in my job in the private sector, I would be seeking employment by nighfall.
beesaman says:
December 17, 2012 at 11:09 am
Just as long as when these alarmist predictions fail to materialise the fools get shown the door and have to retake their PhDs…
Some sort of responsibility and accountability should be expected after all.
But accountabilityand responsibility do not exist in the wider public sector [Government, academia, what we in the UK call QUANGOes – quasi-governmental organisations, much of public education, th civil service, the BBC, etc.]
. And these citizens have votes, and access to the media [quite rightly, but do they alwasys promote what is best for the country – or for themselves?].

Gail Combs
December 17, 2012 1:41 pm

Mike Smith says:
December 17, 2012 at 1:03 pm
….These clowns deserve a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the silliest “science” of all time.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I do not know, they have a heck of a lot of competition these days.

Michael John Graham
December 17, 2012 1:47 pm

apparently the difference between a model and a modeller is that you have to feed rubbish into the model first!

Michael in Sydney
December 17, 2012 1:49 pm

That University should be very very embarrassed .
“… Nashville will see a temperature rise of 3.21 degrees Celsius and Memphis will see a rise of 2.18 degrees Celsius…”
At least they are willing to state with absolute certainty what the rise “will” be to two decimal places – can’t criticize them for not putting it out there.

Gail Combs
December 17, 2012 1:50 pm

Matt says:
December 17, 2012 at 1:37 pm
“This is the first study to predict heat waves for the top 20 cities in the eastern U.S. For example, Nashville will see a temperature rise of 3.21 degrees Celsius and Memphis will see a rise of 2.18 degrees Celsius.”
That’s an awful lot of significant digits for a prediction 50 years in the future. A range and/or error bars would have been much, much more appropriate….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..
Here I will add them for you.
“….a temperature rise of 3.21 degrees Celsius +0.00/-13.21 and Memphis will see a rise of 2.18 degrees Celsius +0.82/-12.18.” This scientifically based on THIS data.

A-Bad-Odor!-Pale-Color!-Lack-of-Pulse!-Death-Is-Certain-Evidence-Is-Abundant
December 17, 2012 1:52 pm

Looks like them ‘Volunteer Boys’ found a way to power their ‘Kraken’ with Moonshine !
Hay UT Bartender, I’ll have 5 of those with my 200,000 IPCC euros. XD

Gail Combs
December 17, 2012 1:57 pm

What is interesting is this paper is so far out in left field that no one in comments even bothers to try to refute it.
It is hard to believe this type of idiocy would take place in a junior high school class much less in our institutes of higher brainwashing higher learning.
I think what is truly frightening is Joshua Fu is a civil engineering professor, he is teaching the people responsible for building bridges and sky scrapers – SHUDDER!

December 17, 2012 1:59 pm

The reason why 2057 is the date is because no one will ever know if they were right or not. Any good psychic knows not to make predictions that fall within their own lifetime.

North of 43 and south of 44
December 17, 2012 2:07 pm

Too bad they didn’t enter the data for 1951 to 1955 then they would have had something to validate their model against.

ferdinand
December 17, 2012 2:13 pm

What a lot of skeptics you are. Of course they are right. Do you know any computers that have ever got their models wrong ?

CodeTech
December 17, 2012 2:13 pm

This is awesome!
Now we have a new benchmark for “ridiculous”!
Next time someone tells me the models are credible, I can point them to this!
So… if the “present day” is 2001-2004, how accurate is their 2011-2014 prediction? Just wondering. It’s funny, because both the “researchers” and “reporters” seem to be taking this seriously, as if it is some sort of valid achievement.

David Schofield
December 17, 2012 2:15 pm

“Manfred says:
December 17, 2012 at 10:52 am
“Harnessing the supercomputing power of UT’s Kraken and Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s (ORNL) Jaguar (now Titan, the fastest in the world)…”
together with
“…dynamical downscaling to develop their climate model results.”
Gosh! Words fail me.”
Agreed – but do you know what is truly sad about all this. That some genuine scientists haven’t had access to these computers because these two arse-holes are time wasters.

Adam Gallon
December 17, 2012 2:15 pm

Hotter, drier summers & warmer, wetter winters anyone?

Hot under the collar
December 17, 2012 2:17 pm

They could have saved the tax payer billions if they had just consulted ‘Mystic Meg’ (astrologer) here in the Uk.
The BBC and Gaurdian can also look in their crystal balls and be relied upon to predict doom and gloom.

Mike Webb
December 17, 2012 2:18 pm

Umm.. I thought there were more than 23 states east of the Mississippi, or is there a mis-statement somewhere in the summary?

Brian R
December 17, 2012 2:24 pm

“…dynamical downscaling…”
I think their spell check messed up. I believe that should read “comical downscaling”.

Hal
December 17, 2012 2:29 pm

So 2001-2004 predicts 2057-2059. Since I am most concerned about the next 3 years, 2013-2015, shouldn’t their Super Computer models be able to use Climate data from the 1957-1960 window to tell me this? And to demonstrate their model accuracy, since the data from 2008-2010 has probably been verified and archived, can’t we see how good the fit was based on the 1952-1955 window?

December 17, 2012 2:38 pm

RIF
reading is fundamental
“Currently, the mean heat wave duration is about four days in the Northeast and eastern Midwest and five days in the Southeast,” said Fu. “By the end of the 2050s, the Northeast and eastern Midwest will be gaining on the Southeast by increasing two days.”
Oh NOOOOOO!!!!!!! Six whole days of heat wave rather than four by 2050? Why aren’t we destroying our entire economy and standard of living to prevent this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
#########
mean heat wave DURATION. not total heat wave days which is much larger.
the mean heat wave DURATION will increase by two days.
Heat wave Duration is a real killer. Basically as the heat wave gets longer the tmin continues to rise. Today nearly 40 cities in the world operate a heat wave warning system. looking at the historical data for chicao and looking at excess deaths, its pretty clear that
A) there are more than 4 days of heat wave during the summer.
B) the mean heat wave duration is around 4.
C) the longer the heave wave the more people die.
Reading is fundamental. Part of this is brain dead simple and you dont need a super computer to give you a sense of the increased heat waves IFF temperature goes up. One can simply scale temperature and get an answer roughly the same as theirs.
The solutions, however, need not rely on mitigation ( cutting carbon) in fact anything we do now is not likely to effect weather on 2050. Adaptation in the form of better heat wave warning and changes to cities like cool pavements, porous pavements, white and green roofs, and cooling centers for the elderly will reduce deaths. We should be doing that regardless of what climate science says or does not say

Robert of Ottawa
December 17, 2012 2:41 pm

Joshua Fu, a civil and environmental engineering professor, not at all interested in environmental outcomes, and Yang Gao, his stooge say that the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and only their particular services can save it.

December 17, 2012 2:43 pm

Only a fool would fail to recognise the Kraken causes climate chaos. His appearances also strongly correlate with the prophecies of the Great Orifice who warned Mann of terrible gases.
In light of these shocking revelations of our imminent doom I feel it is only right and proper that Texans* start collecting for the tithe and strapping conspiracy nut Kraken deniers to the rocks.
* I think I’m supposed to blame naughty black gold worshippers and anyone not using Pegusus Airways
/sarc

December 17, 2012 2:45 pm

An amusing post. Any chance we can get these authors to defend their paper here?

John Trigge (in Oz)
December 17, 2012 2:45 pm

We in Aust have had Tim Flannery, a ‘Climate Commissioner’ make predictions regarding rainfall that did not pan out. Rather than fall on his sword when reminded of his predictions and their failure, he reverts to stating that his quotes have been taken out of context.
He reminds us that he said ‘all things being equal’ there will be further droughts/unfilled dams/need for desalination plants/the sky is falling. What he says he meant is that if the exact same conditions occur in the future that are occurring when he makes his ‘predictions’, then what he says will come true. The fact that climate is always changing did not seem to enter into his ‘predictions’. His scaremongering and the effects of his catastrophic announcements on the populace don’t worry him. The money expended based on his doom and gloom view
Perhaps these new ‘predictions’ will also be explained when they don’t occur with statements of ‘we used the best science available’, ‘things changed that we could not have known at the time’, any other excuse for being so certain but not being right.

Ray Downing
December 17, 2012 2:48 pm

There’s nothing new in politics. Charles Babbage (1791-1871), when asked by Members of Parliament if his difference engine (mechanical computer) would still provide the right answers even if the wrong figures were entered, replied, “I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.”

December 17, 2012 2:48 pm

The test for their models would be to use the data from 2001 to 2004 to predict the future climate from 2005 to 2008. Did they do that? Of course not – and we all know why.

ROM
December 17, 2012 2:51 pm

This is very good news indeed.
This tremendous leap in climate prediction and forecasting capabilities will overcome a very, very long standing problem for the farming community particularly in Australia with our highly variable climate and rainfall.
These scientists will now be able to very accurately predict and forecast for us, the amount of critical rainfall and when we will get it for our grain growing programs next [ southern ] winter and no doubt all the winters following just by using the super computers on the precipitation outcomes of a few years ago.
No more very expensive fertilizers and chemicals and ground preparation when we can now be told when a dry year or drought is coming many years or even decades ahead. And the new machinery brought and the house improvements made when we know absolutely that the seasons a few years ahead will be wet, warm and bumper crop years.
And just imagine how major events like the Olympics. national and international football games, winter snow sporting events, political events and so many other major events of every type can be programmed years or even decades ahead to be located in cities where the predictions of these scientists say that the weather at that time, based on some 4 years of weather and climate data from a half century beforehand will be eminently suitable for such events.
The mind swoons at such immense possibilities in predicting the future weather and climate opened up by the research efforts of these gentlemen.
Much more and very generous funding should immediately be made available to these researchers.
Damn! [/SARC ] or is it [ /CRAP ] just doesn’t seem to quite cover this development!

starzmom
December 17, 2012 2:56 pm

So it’s going to rain more in the southeast. That is a good thing, isn’t it? They’ve been in a drought in the past few years.

John Blake
December 17, 2012 3:06 pm

Anyone tracking these absurdities on (say) a quarterly basis, just to ensure that the usual Green Gang gobblygook doesn’t ooze too freely through the cracks? What statisticians genially term “the fallacy of inferred precision” is so rampant here that a teaser interval or two would be extremely apropos.

Dung
December 17, 2012 3:08 pm

Would anyone care to take a bet that all the Green super computers are being used outside office hours by avid green gamers who are the same ones who move with impossible speed in the pvp shoot em ups and really spoil your fun?

Matt G
December 17, 2012 3:15 pm

Lets us pick a period of just 3/4 years from an El Nino to La Nina plus another forming and extrapolate that in future for a similar period in 50 years. Therefore because of the weather changes between El NIno and La Nina the illustration below shows regions are going to get much more severe. (mainly colder, wetter and drier)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/La_Nina_regional_impacts.gif
What a load of nonsense of course and all that has been done here is the change of weather from La Nina to El Nino and suggested this will worsen in future for a similar period in 50 years. Does it get any worse than this in climate pseudoscience, NO.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:El_Nino_regional_impacts.gif
Difference above (mainly warmer, wetter and drier)
Hence, this model has based worse climate in future on just an ENSO change of weather in regions from La Nina to El Nino.

December 17, 2012 3:19 pm

I read this PR last week and dismissed it as more wishful thinking and modeling craziness. I might suggest goat guts (or choose any animal you like) are probably as accurate as this model and all the computing power in the world won’t make up for the lack of understanding and assumptions that go into it.

Buzzed
December 17, 2012 3:20 pm

I agree the press release is poorly written and even comical. But from the paper itself – freely available as someone else pointed out – it seems like the researchers are making some valuable progress in regional climate modeling. Whether warming is human caused or good or bad it is likely going to be helpful to have better regional modeling. This was the first paper to report on a new approach. So hopefully further work will give us a better idea of how useful it may be.
If people have any interest in science they might read the paper and then discuss it instead of making fun of a press release.

D Böehm
December 17, 2012 3:24 pm

Buzzed,
Define “valuable progress”.
Valuable for whom? ☺

Doug Allen
December 17, 2012 3:29 pm

Mosh,
You have said that the idea of extreme climate is the new normal, the new consensus, and I see little effort on your part to resist that new hype. I agree with what you write above about heatwaves, except- why even reply rationally to absurd (and untestable) claims about weather conditions 50 years in the future. Academics, and I’ve been one, don’t deserve recognition for National Enquirer or Nostradamus type predictions. ROF is more appropriate for the BPU set.

December 17, 2012 3:33 pm

Input data and assumptions.
The computers are always “correct”. The questioning is for the data and assumptions, the two things the MSM and liberal arts don’t understand has uncertainties. But they love computers. Just don’t understand them, either.
The GIGO thing doesn’t mean much to the lovers of Apple5, especially to Twitter/McKibben followers.

David L
December 17, 2012 3:34 pm

Steven Mosher
Dec. 7, 2012 at 2:38 p.m. says:
“RIF…”
Funny! And statistics is even funnier! A statistic like mean heat wave duration is MEANINGLESS. Why? Because heat wave duration is bounded on the lower side by zero and not bounded on the upper side. So therefore the distribution for small values of heat wave DURATION would be what? Log Normal perhaps, or Weibull? You pick. In any regard the summary statistic for central tendency would not be the mean, more likely median. Small detail perhaps but hey, the devil’s always in the details especially for models that got out for decades with ridiculously small confidence intervals and significant figures.
And with that error I’m going to believe their computer model beyond 2057 for any proclamation? Tell me why I should based on this most elementary failure?

Matt G
December 17, 2012 3:36 pm

Buzzed says:
December 17, 2012 at 3:20 pm
Regional climate understanding is a step in the right direction, but not in this way over a too short period from an La NIna to El Nino. This tells us nothing about the regional climates background behavior not influenced by El Nino or La NIna. Therefore it is impossible to use this in 50 years time and claim a solution.The best way to go about this is to show how regional climate in eastern USA behaves on the long term without ENSO influence.

ajb
December 17, 2012 3:40 pm

This “crystal ball” they’re talking about — is that one of those black crystal balls with a big number 8 on it?

Jim G
December 17, 2012 3:40 pm

Yep, University of Tennessee, probably right up there with MIT and Cal Tech in science and technology, ha, ha ha, wait, they probably are when it comes to climate science.

BC Bill
December 17, 2012 4:02 pm

Fu, that’s a Mayan name isn’t it?

Richard M
December 17, 2012 4:16 pm

On the other hand … maybe these guys are simply brilliant. By taking the results of GCMs to the next level they highlight the stupidity inherent in the belief in climate models. No one can seriously believe these results since no one can predict our weather more than a few days in the future. Instead of laughing at these guys we should be congratulating them on their insight.

Larry Ledwick (hotrod)
December 17, 2012 4:16 pm

Bangs head on desk repeatedly —– Arrrrgggggg
As mentioned above, how about a validity check please predict the weather on Tuesday, July 2 2013 in New York city with daytime peak temperature accurate to +/- .01 deg C
Larry

knr
December 17, 2012 4:21 pm

‘By the end of the 2050s’ when will both be dead and therefore be in no position to have the BS nature of our claims rammed down our throats . Meanwhile on the back of these claims we hopping to get another buck load of research funding and perhaps an invite to one of those ‘beach front ‘ environmental conferences where for minim work we can enjoy a few days of luxury with the bills picked up by the suckers of Joe public . the Northeast and eastern Midwest will be gaining on the Southeast by increasing two days.”

December 17, 2012 4:27 pm

They need two super computers so they can agree with one another. /sarc.

Phil's Dad
December 17, 2012 4:29 pm

Steven Mosher says: @ December 17, 2012 at 2:38 pm
“The solutions, however, need not rely on mitigation ( cutting carbon) in fact anything we do now is not likely to effect weather on 2050. Adaptation in the form of better heat wave warning and changes to cities like cool pavements, porous pavements, white and green roofs, and cooling centers for the elderly will reduce deaths. We should be doing that regardless of what climate science says or does not say”
I entirely agree with everything Mr Mosher says in the above paragraph and would add only that similar provision be made for the effects of cold spells.

Chuck Nolan
December 17, 2012 4:35 pm

Darren Potter says:
December 17, 2012 at 11:13 am
Louis says: “It must be true. They used a supercomputer!”
Supercomputers enable one to make more and bigger mistakes, Faster!
—————–
And to a much more detailed and accurate level.
cn

Tom
December 17, 2012 4:37 pm

What a waste of time, money and energy. Everyone knows 99942 Apophis will strike the earth in 2036.

george e. smith
December 17, 2012 4:41 pm

“””””…..Gary says:
December 17, 2012 at 10:48 am
they analyzed the present-day climate from 2001 to 2004 and predicted the future climate from 2057 to 2059
Well there’s your problem right there. ;-)…..”””””
So how come they started with four years of climate from 2001 to 2004; and after supercomputing it, they only end up with three years of climate in 2057 to 2059 ?
What happens to all those petabits of climate that simply vanished ?

FrankK
December 17, 2012 4:44 pm

FU BAR perhaps? or just FU EE

December 17, 2012 5:02 pm

The SE US has had decreasing temperatures for the past 50 years.
If rising temperatures mean the Great Lakes are not frozen solid in winter, think of the economic benefits to cities like Chicago and the US in general.
As thing are now, a large portion of the mid-west economy needs to shut down during the winter. What would it mean to the mid-west if instead of one crop a year they could plant two as happens in Mexico and southern California?
Warming is not a threat, it is an opportunity.

Chuck Nolan
December 17, 2012 5:04 pm

Bob Kutz says:
December 17, 2012 at 11:47 am
Well, at least they were smart enough not to predict anything we can check in the next 10 years. That is the real lesson of James Hansen; don’t make any predictions that can be checked during your professional lifetime
—————————-
I don’t know about that Bob.
It seems if they predict a 35% increase in precipitation in the NE by 2057 (that’s a 1% increase per year over the next 35 years) with Nashville seeing a temperature rise of 3.21 degrees Celsius (that’s almost 1/10 of a degree per year) and Memphis a rise of 2.18 degrees Celsius we should be able to monitor their progress. We should know something by 2020 unless they’re saying no change until 2057 then poof.
What am I thinking? A crystal ball?????????
cn

Juan
December 17, 2012 5:08 pm

What odds is their bookie taking?

Chuck Nolan
December 17, 2012 5:09 pm

Oops.
57-12=45
cn

prjindigo
December 17, 2012 5:10 pm

Did they happen to mention which version of WayForward Tech.’s Anthem was used to produce the results?

Heaterguy
December 17, 2012 5:33 pm

Dr Fu and Mr Gao, please turn your amazing super computer model loose on the Western United States. I want to know what days to plan my ski vacations for next year.

Merovign
December 17, 2012 5:52 pm

I believe they have a term for things like this in the medical field. Something to do with the sound a duck makes.

Sean
December 17, 2012 5:54 pm

According to the predictions made by the organic super computer inside my skull, University of Tennessee professors of environmental propaganda will face increasing cognitive impairment from their continued use of crystal meth, which they claim helps them to see into the future….

SAMURAI
December 17, 2012 6:02 pm

Model, model on the wall,
Who’s the scariest of them all…
Fu me once, same on Fu. Fu me twice, shame on Fu, too….
Let’s see….. If you double this, tweak that, ignore this, square that, don’t even consider that thing over there, times 35 years….. PRESTO!! Warmaggedon!!
Just what my patrons paying for the study requested…
Isn’t *sigh*ence great!…..
Didn’t Fu get the memo that 1) no warming trend in 16 years and 2) there’s no statistical correlation between CO2/extreme weather?… Oh….right… “IF you double this, tweak that, ignore this…..Sorry….my bad….
[Same shame on me? ]

Pamela Gray
December 17, 2012 6:06 pm

Ya know, if someone could rewrite the code in those darned things to expose the super-duper-fast computers to experience the same moisture and heatwaves they predict, this prediction nonsense of gloom and doom could be solved tonight. I would wager that at atmosphere of air conditioned bliss would be in our future.
Make the computer and its owners pay for gloom and doom 50 years hence. Presto, no more gloom and doom and then we could get back to meteorologists telling us when to grab our sweater and umbrellas.

AndyG55
December 17, 2012 6:15 pm

buzzed
“it seems like the researchers are making some valuable progress in regional climate modeling.”
sorry, but BS !!!
Now if they were to create TESTABLE prediction , with VERIFIABLE outcomes.. that would be progress..
Climate Science has yet to manage this basic test of real science

John West
December 17, 2012 6:17 pm

The paper is even worse than the press release.
“Thus, it is important that the northeast take actions to mitigate the impact from climate change in the next several decades.”
The contribution of the northeast to mitigation “results” (LOL) could only be minuscule at best. Reading may be fundamental but you’d think scientists would have basic math down pat. Gail Combs is on the right track, climate science has strayed from science similar to alchemy. At the very root of science is the drive to explain phenomena without myth. The alchemist was driven by a search for the philosopher’s stone (& etc.) and climate science seems to driven by a search to feed human arrogance (& etc.).

Stephen Pruett
December 17, 2012 6:17 pm

Granted, the press release makes the whole modeling effort and the conclusions sound silly. However, this comment stream seems to me to be unusually short on substantive criticism and long on cliches (GIGO, supercomputer jokes, etc). Does anyone actually know enough about regional climate modeling to know if the paper (not the press release) has any merit? I don’t, but surely some do, and I would be interested in hearing specific evidence-based criticisms of the paper.

Bob Newart
December 17, 2012 6:18 pm

while everyone has been sitting on their asses someone has actually gotten the solution set.
And all everyone here can do is sour grapes!!!
I’m sooooo sad…
🙂

AndyG55
December 17, 2012 6:20 pm

“This “crystal ball” they’re talking about — is that one of those black crystal balls with a big number 8 on it?
More like one of those balls you shake to create snow.. ….appears to be one of the many thing “global warming” causes.

December 17, 2012 6:27 pm

These guys must be really brilliant – perfect software, all conditions that affect weather are known, and their future values. Wow…I guess the opium dens at UT are open and in business.

old construction worker
December 17, 2012 6:35 pm

Nashville will see a temperature rise of 3.21 degrees Celsius and Memphis will see a rise of 2.18 degrees Celsius…..unless we go into an ice age then all bets are off.

December 17, 2012 6:47 pm

SAMURAI says:
December 17, 2012 at 6:02 pm
Model, model on the wall,
Who’s the scariest of them all…
Fu me once, same on Fu. Fu me twice, shame on Fu, too….
Let’s see….. If you double this, tweak that, ignore this, square that, don’t even consider that thing over there, times 35 years….. PRESTO!! Warmaggedon!!
Just what my patrons paying for the study requested…
Isn’t *sigh*ence great!…..
Didn’t Fu get the memo that 1) no warming trend in 16 years and 2) there’s no statistical correlation between CO2/extreme weather?… Oh….right… “IF you double this, tweak that, ignore this…..Sorry….my bad….
[Same shame on me? ]
*
Samurai, you have a way with words. I enjoyed your post very much. 🙂

Gary Pearse
December 17, 2012 6:50 pm

Civil and environmental engineering!!! You all know that civil engineering has been renamed environmental engineering in most Universities for promotional reasons, right? What in the dickens are they letting a bunch of soil mechanics, concrete designers and highway curve surveyors doing anywhere near a super computer! What are their physics/chemistry skills? No wonder I have hair dressers and brick layers arguing with me about global warming and psychologists and sociologists castigating me for my skepticism and offering psychoanalysis of my illness.

Paul Carter
December 17, 2012 7:00 pm

With the increasing number of super computers required to maintain credibility in the face of more and more contrary empirical evidence, the heat output of these super-computer behemoths will indeed raise temperatures to the required predicted level.

December 17, 2012 7:10 pm

B.Klein says December 17, 2012 at 1:08 pm
…There is an experiment that proves that the Greenhouse gas effect does not
… experiment … slayingtheskydragon …

No, B.Klein simply no.
Unless you and your ‘party’ are prepared to totally, emphatically and factually refute the field of IR Spectroscopy … you know, gas molecule interaction with EM (electromagnetic) energy?
.

TomE
December 17, 2012 7:11 pm

I am confident that when these two researchers read the peer review comments on WUWT they are not going to be happy. Somewhere along the research trail one needs to apply common sense to the results. It is always a wake up call.

December 17, 2012 7:22 pm

“…they analyzed the present-day climate from 2001 to 2004 and predicted the future climate from 2057 to 2059…”
I haven’t laughed so hard in a very long time. Kudos to these guys for the belly laughs.
Bob Kutz says: Well, at least they were smart enough not to predict anything we can check in the next 10 years.
AndyG55 says: They really need to learn the difference between artifical intelligence, and natural stupidity !!!
Eric H. says: Well, I couldn’t get time on a super computer so I had to resort to the next best thing.
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~ssanty/cgi-bin/eightball.cgi
I asked the 8 ball this question: Question: Will the weather be 3 degrees hotter in 2050?
Mark and two Cats says: Super Computers: Garbage in —-> Super Garbage Out
Rick K says: On the other hand, I see that April 13, 2049 in Chattanooga will be sunny, light winds of 4.2 mph from the NNE with a temperature of 68.23 F between 2:12 pm and 3:07 pm. Not bad…
Snotrocket says: I do hope they took into account parasitic oscillations caused by interstage feedback of the Eccles-Jordan mono-stable double-diode flip-flop.

December 17, 2012 7:38 pm

Chuck says:
December 17, 2012 at 11:08 am
The faith that people have in what comes out of a computer is stunning. But this is nothing new. I wrote my first computer programs in 1980 and was surprised then as to how people simply trusted any result that a computer produced.

I have no problem trusting the results produced by a computer. They do what they’re told. I don’t trust the programmers as far as could comfortably spit out a rat, though.

December 17, 2012 7:39 pm

Climate Science has always required Super Computers to do their work. I guess to make up for their below average abilities. These guys think that they can forecast climate 50 years in the future in a 60 year cycle system. Even a super computer can not make up for their mental insufficiency pg.

December 17, 2012 7:41 pm

The Kraken Blushes

Doug Badgero
December 17, 2012 7:43 pm

“For me the starting point is to recognize the system for what it is – a non linear dynamical dissipative system perpetually out of equilibrium and never in steady state.
Finally the important conclusion is that such a system is deterministic but unpredictable, i.e. (sic) you cannot find a unique solution for the non linear partial equations describing it.
This is an impossibility of principle – it doesn’t matter what is the power of computers or the accuracy of the numerical models.”
Tomas Milanovic
The computers will produce a result but it will be meaningless. He also discussed the possibility that the system may be predictable iff it is ergodic. Which no one is even investigating.

December 17, 2012 7:45 pm

Make the computer and its owners pay for gloom and doom 50 years hence. Presto, no more gloom and doom and then we could get back to meteorologists telling us when to grab our sweater and umbrellas.

And they’d get that wrong half the time too.

December 17, 2012 7:53 pm

…both the Northeast and Southeast will see a drastic increase in precipitation.

I find this hilarious! .. they were just telling us (here in Nashville) this past summer that we were all doomed from “permanent drought” … good grief! … give me an F’ing break already….

Gail Combs
December 17, 2012 8:17 pm

Bob Newart says:
December 17, 2012 at 6:18 pm
while everyone has been sitting on their asses someone has actually gotten the solution set.
And all everyone here can do is sour grapes!!!
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Take a look at where the earth’s temperature is headed.
graph 1 and graph 2
A drop in temperature of ~-0.3C make a lot more sense that this idiocy. Long term we are headed back into an ice age conditions or pretty darn close to ice age conditions. [ link 1 and link 2 ] The Holocene peaked in temperature 8000 years ago and the earth has been cooling since then in fits and starts. An increase of 3C is the entire temperature swing in the Holocene from the peak to the present. It just ain’t going to happen in the next fifty years.
If you look at it another way, the ice age to interglacial temperature swing is ~ 10C and the other interglacials peaked at perhaps a degree higher than the peak of the Holocene.
This paper just doesn’t pass the common sense test. That is why we are ROTFL

Sean
December 17, 2012 8:18 pm

Gary Pearse says:
December 17, 2012 at 6:50 pm
Civil and environmental engineering!!! You all know that civil engineering has been renamed environmental engineering in most Universities for promotional reasons, right?
———————————–
When I was an engineering undergrad, it was well known by all engineering students that civil was the place where people went if they were not bright enough to be real engineers, mind you, they were still smarter than the artsies, but not by much by our thinking…

John West
December 17, 2012 8:27 pm

Stephen Pruett says:
“I would be interested in hearing specific evidence-based criticisms of the paper.”
Ok, the evidence currently shows no trend in NC precipitation or extreme events yet they’re projecting an increase in extreme rainfall.
http://www.nc-climate.ncsu.edu/climate/climate_change
How about methodological objections?
1) Calibration period too short.
2) Verification period way too short.
3) Why not verify half century scale projections with half century scale data?
How about objections to unsupported conclusions like my comment above or self aggrandizements like “The regional climate dynamical downscaling technique has been successfully applied to CESM results for the RCP 8.5 climate change scenario to generate high resolution climate outputs.” What could possibly define successful if not the test of predictive skill proved out by time and future reality, surely the mere production of fancy projections aren’t the bar for success in this field?

Darren Potter
December 17, 2012 8:40 pm

Jeff Alberts says: “I have no problem trusting the results produced by a computer.”
You should not even trust a computer.
Remember Pentium FDIV bug?
I have seen a bug in a computer system that caused inaccuracies in a long-term model – go undetected for four-years.
Trust, but verify – on a different computer system.
Be prepared for differences caused by different compilers, libraries, and platform “features”.

December 17, 2012 8:58 pm

Unless this turns out to be an intended joke as compared to the unintended one that D. Dooley was as head coach of the UT Football program my UT stickers and front vanity plate are coming off tomorrow.

December 17, 2012 9:02 pm

Unless this is intended as a joke as compared to the unintended joke that D. Dooley turned out to be as head coach of the UT football program my UT stickers and front vanity plate will be coming off my car.

Jeef
December 17, 2012 9:03 pm

What concerns me most is that this was peer reviewed and published. There is no hope at all if this parallel to the excrement of an animal that produces beef is passed unquestioned. Fu ***** sake…

OssQss
December 17, 2012 9:31 pm

Wow, what are the odds of getting that right?
The lottery comes to mind 🙂

I prefer using a different method for such extrapolation.
Just sayin, the University of Tennessee probably has the same odds of accuracy that were produced by an old school method, no?

alan
December 17, 2012 9:33 pm

Climate video games! Violent ones at that!

eyesonu
December 17, 2012 9:36 pm

This is so incredibly ridiculous that it must have been done as a spoof of the entire peer review and publishing program related to “climate science”. At least I hope so.

mogamboguru
December 17, 2012 10:39 pm

GIGO

mogamboguru
December 17, 2012 10:44 pm

Tennessians should stick to what they know best – making great Whiskey.
Oh, I see: Fu and Gao had too much of it, while they ran their computer-game.
Perhaps I should copyright the “Fugao”-brand?

Oakwood
December 17, 2012 11:15 pm

Lucky for them, their computers came up with the right answer. What if they’d shown that in fact nothing much would have changed in 50 years? No more floods, no more droughts. They’d have looked a bit silly.

dp
December 17, 2012 11:21 pm

Two words come to mind – imperious asses. What have they done to science? There was once a time scientists would tell us what they know and it was tempered in uncertainty. Now they tell us what they think and it is intemperate sophistry. They have fooled only themselves. I would give a nut for another Richard Feynman to come into the world.

December 17, 2012 11:35 pm

Am I mistaken, or are they trying to create a finer grid of predictions than presently exist for data?

Bill Irvine
December 18, 2012 12:20 am

Somewhere in an alternative universe Douglas Adams is splitting his sides as he realises that even his masterpiece has not envisaged the full farcicality of reality.
Majikthise, Vroomfondel, Loonquawl and Phouchg have just been trumped by FU (shurely a spoof, rude as well) and Gao (say that aloud).

Rhys Jaggar
December 18, 2012 12:30 am

So: the authors will be drawing their pension or already in a box by the time anyone knows if what they say is revolutionary; misguided or pure bullshit.
There’s nothing wrong with people setting up predictions now.
There’s everything wrong in basing policy on predictions which won’t be validated or refuted for another 40 years.

richardscourtney
December 18, 2012 2:00 am

roncram:
At December 17, 2012 at 2:45 pm you ask

An amusing post. Any chance we can get these authors to defend their paper here?

No, because there is no possibility that anybody could defend this paper anywhere except on the stage of a Comedy Theatre.
Richard

richardscourtney
December 18, 2012 2:09 am

John West:
Your post at addressed to Stephen Pruett at December 17, 2012 at 8:27 pm asks

What could possibly define successful if not the test of predictive skill proved out by time and future reality, surely the mere production of fancy projections aren’t the bar for success in this field?

Of course, “the mere production of fancy projections” IS “the bar for success in” so –called ‘climate science’. This is demonstrated by each and every IPCC Working Group 1 Report. And no climate model has any demonstrated predictive skill.
Richard

DirkH
December 18, 2012 2:13 am

Steve Schaper says:
December 17, 2012 at 11:35 pm
“Am I mistaken, or are they trying to create a finer grid of predictions than presently exist for data?”
they take the state in the coarse grid from a GCM at moment x in time and initialize a finer model with it that they let then run with finer temporal and spatial resolution.
One of the climate “scientists” once called the scenarios of the GCMs not predictions, but “possible stories”; so the models are a way of telling a story about the future. In this regard, Fu and Gao take an overall story and tell an episode of it filled in with more invented detail (invented because the state information of the finer model is of course not taken from any measurement or scientific process but just a “possible story” within a larger “possible story”).
Like blowing up “The Hobbit” into three feature films. As expected, most of the content does not come from Tolkien. (I’m not a fan of those walking movies anyway. I like running movies, like the first ofo the Matrix films.)

DirkH
December 18, 2012 2:20 am

Stephen Pruett says:
December 17, 2012 at 6:17 pm
“Does anyone actually know enough about regional climate modeling to know if the paper (not the press release) has any merit?”
I know enough about chaos and models to tell you that what these people do has no predictive value. The normal GCMs already have no predictive skills but these guys have managed to make it worse.
Yet, the story that their computer tells will look very realistic, like a modern CGI movie, and I guess that is what the climate science apparatchiks want to achieve. Trying to get back to the good old days when Al Gore’s mockumentary was able to sell millions of tickets.

Jimbo
December 18, 2012 2:41 am

My bold.

Joshua Fu, a civil and environmental engineering professor, and Yang Gao, a graduate research assistant, developed precise scales of cities which act as a climate crystal ball seeing high resolution climate changes almost 50 years into the future.

This is good because they would have been long retired. This is how you do it folks.

For the 23 states east of the Mississippi River, they analyzed the present-day climate from 2001 to 2004 and predicted the future climate from 2057 to 2059.

Silly me, I thought even the IPCC and WMO uses a period of 30 years for climate. 4 years is now climate. Unbelievable crap.

December 18, 2012 3:22 am

The only time those “Models” will derive or achieve any credibility, is when they can accurately demonstrate the weather yesterday. Something they appear to be incapable of achieving due to the varied and compulsive manipulations of the data.
At this point in time, they are equivalent to crystal ball gazing, Astrology and Voodoo incantations. Maybe one day we will see the opposite of “Garbage in/Prophecy Out”.

Bob
December 18, 2012 4:13 am

So, how are they doing with the precise annual forecasts or do I stick with the Farmer’s Almanac?

David L.
December 18, 2012 4:30 am

squid2112 says:
December 17, 2012 at 7:53 pm
“…both the Northeast and Southeast will see a drastic increase in precipitation.
…I find this hilarious! .. they were just telling us (here in Nashville) this past summer that we were all doomed from “permanent drought” … good grief! … give me an F’ing break already….”
Don’t worry, another highly regarded group of “scientists” will run an even bigger and more expensive super computer and get even more “accurate and precise” model predictions further into the future which will be the complete opposite to these highly “accurate and precise” predicitons.

Jimbo
December 18, 2012 4:58 am

I would like to nominate the following for “Quote of the Week” or “Friday Funny” on Friday.

“For the 23 states east of the Mississippi River, they analyzed the present-day climate from 2001 to 2004 and predicted the future climate from 2057 to 2059.”

The “climate” precision is quite amazing. These ‘researchers’ would make the Brothers Grimm blush profusely.

highflight56433
December 18, 2012 5:05 am

Just imagine the people who have reacted to all the nonsense of CAGW gloom and doom to the extent that it has had a negative impact on their lives. Totally irresponsible to continue this “the sky is falling” fear rhetoric. It creates hopelessness and guilt.

tty
December 18, 2012 6:20 am

gbaikie says:
December 17, 2012 at 12:27 pm
It seems everyone fails to realize the Urban Heat Island Effect is real and therefore predictable.
Only if you know the the size and density of the town in question. What will the urban area and number of inhabitants in Nashville and Memphis in 2057 (to four significant digits).

Philip Finck
December 18, 2012 7:46 am

Well, in Maritime Canada (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island) the meteorologists / climate scientists using dynamic downscaling are predicting temperatures for 2100 on a town by town basis with the towns 20 – 50 kms apart. Temperatures up to 8 deg. C higher than now. It is utter rubbish but it is what the government is using. Drinking the cool aid I would say.

David Jones
December 18, 2012 9:23 am

Pull My Finger says:
December 17, 2012 at 10:39 am
I’m sure they will have no problem at all telling me who will win the next 50 Super Bowls.
That’s very long term! I will settle for the winners of the next 50 horse races at any horse racecourse you care to name! That, at least, would have some value!

December 18, 2012 9:44 am

Actually, winners of horse races and super bowls would be easier. For one thing, the developer of this predictive algorithm probably would feed “past” data into it and see if the predictions were accurate, unlike the climate change people. I doubt they would share data any more than climate scientists, however!

Editor
December 18, 2012 12:57 pm
Elliott Althouse
December 18, 2012 5:32 pm

Did anyone notice that the supercomputer predicted a 35% increase on average in precipitation with the most at the coast? The coastal amount was listed as 150mm. Two problems! First, 35% of precipitation in this part of the country is a number 2.5 to 3 times 150mm. Second, 150mm is within the natural variability. 600mm extra in four years happens often. So does 600mm less. Still, how can a supercomputer take 35% of the 40 to 50 annual inch rainfall and get an answer of 6?

December 19, 2012 6:54 am

Elliott: Garbage in, garbage out? Super just refers to computing capacity, not the intellectual capacity of those using it.

troe
December 19, 2012 9:57 am

Sorry to burden the rest of you with the high-jinx our science hillbillies. The Bredesen Center and increasingly the Oak Ridge National Laboratory are excellent examples of money and politics corrupting science. Oak Ridge of course was the home of The Manhatten Project and has since focused on supporting the nuclear industry without limits. The Bredesen Center is a pass-through for state and federal funding of renewable energy and climate science. It’s inception goes back to our once young Congressman Al Gore and former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker. As Monckton tells us of Thatcher and nuclear so it has been here. We need to find a way to defund both of these useless money pits.

Mervyn
December 22, 2012 5:32 am

There has got to be a way, before this sort of crap is allowed onto the public domain, for it to be screened and challenged. Without such accountability, the university is engaging in misleading and deceptive conduct.

December 22, 2012 7:23 am

Mervyn: No way without censoring the press. The media loves doomsday and will use any lie or truth that pushes for said agenda. The ONLY defense against any of this is an educated population. Allowing the greens to take over schools was huge mistake and will be hard to overcome. Right now, the internet is the main defense, until someone starts filling classrooms with teachers that are not political “true believers”.