Every once in awhile you see something in the “it’s worse than we thought” meme that deserves some clarification for those that want to look at all the data, rather than those who want to push gloom and doom. A recent tweet by Bill McKibben thoughtlessly retweeting a statement by the Master of Disaster, Weather Underground’s Dr. Jeff Masters, got me digging to see just how true it was. Here’s the tweet:
OK, we are used to weepy Bill regurgitating Tweeting without thinking on a daily basis, but the response from one his unthinking followers was a true Harold Camping moment.
Dear Ms. Andrea Angulo, the answer is: we’ve done nothing wrong, because this isn’t the worst USA drought by any measure nor did we cause it (it was a natural weather oscillation the NAO, and stop following weepy Bill and look for yourself rather than being a flock member).
Jeff Masters’ claim doesn’t hold up when you look at all the data, and it is a claim of his own invention that not even NOAA said anything about. Let’s look at Masters claim:
He cites this graphic and PR from the U.S. Drought Monitor, big mistake, because they have a documented tendency to exaggerate. Here’s the current map:
But Masters didn’t really bother to visualize all the drought data he cited, preferring instead to simply make a pronouncement, which is then unthinkingly parroted by folks like McKibben. I took the CONUS drought area data Masters linked to in the article from:
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/sotc/drought/2012/11/uspctarea-wetdry-mod.txt
And plotted it, noting the years Masters referred to:
Not so scary now, is it? But it becomes even less scary when you don’t cherry pick the data you want, but instead look at all the drought data available to you. Quite frankly, since Masters holds a PhD. in meteorology, you’d think he’d know to look at the most widely accepted metric, the Palmer Drought Severity index (PDSI) also available from NOAA.
Negative values are dry (in yellow) positive values are wet (in green) Source: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/time-series/index.php?parameter=pdsi&month=11&year=2012&filter=ytd&state=110&div=0
(Note: the 2012 value is a slim yellow line to -4 on the right axis)
Using the Year-to-Date average Palmer Drought Severity Index, 2012 is just another blip compared to others in the last century, and hardly rates a mention. But that doesn’t fit Masters and McKibben’s ongoing gloom and doom meme, so they don’t want to look at it or show it to their followers. But wait, there’s more.
From Sheffield et al 2012, plotting the Palmer Drought Severity Index globally over the past 60 years they show little change in drought severity, and certainly no response to “global warming”.
a, PDSI_Th (blue line) and PDSI_PM (red line). b, Area in drought (PDSI <−3.0) for the PDSI_Th (blue line) and PDSI_PM (red line). The shading represents the range derived from uncertainties in precipitation.
From their abstract:
Here we show that the previously reported increase in global drought is overestimated because the PDSI uses a simplified model of potential evaporation that responds only to changes in temperature and thus responds incorrectly to global warming in recent decades. More realistic calculations, based on the underlying physical principles that take into account changes in available energy, humidity and wind speed, suggest that there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.
So even the PDSI may have errors, making it overestimate drought severity, and it isn’t just one paper saying this. Martin Hoerling of NOAA says:
Hoerling et al. in Journal of Climate: Is a Transition to Semi-Permanent Drought Conditions Imminent in the U.S. Great Plains?
“We conclude that projections of acute and chronic PDSI decline in the 21st Century are likely an exaggerated indicator for future Great Plains drought severity.”
Climatologist Dr. Pat Michaels, in his previous WUWT opinion piece, noted that NASA GISS Dr. James Hansen is making a claim that global temperatures are driving U.S drought, and did a scatterplot to gauge correlation between Hansen’s own GISS temperature data (GISTEMP) and the U.S. Palmer Drought Severity Index with annual data through 2011:
Annual PDSI -vs- Annual Global GISTEMP – Source: Dr. Pat Michaels
There’s no correlation: zero, zip, nada. If there were, you’d see the dots align along a diagonal line, there’s not even a hint of that. Of course doom and gloom proponents like Masters and McKibben might say “… but, but, but, 2012 was a terrible drought”. Yes, it was, it is, but we’ve seen worse in the past.
One final note, about the real worry of drought in the USA; effects on the food supply.
![CornYieldDep_US[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/cornyielddep_us1.gif)
Note how 2012 compares to drought years of 1934, 1936, and 1988. It is certainly no outlier.
And, the trend for yield continues upward, with 2012 not even coming close to some of the worst years for production.
![CornYieldTrend_US[1]](http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/cornyieldtrend_us1.gif)
Source: http://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/YieldTrends.html
Agricultural science trumps a drought year. That’s a hockey stick we can all believe in.
Call me a “doubting Thomas” as to overwrought claims by Masters and McKibben, but the fact is that the 2012 drought isn’t as bad as they would have you believe and won’t show you these other data because they don’t fit their business model.
Regarding corn, recall what Bill McKibben once wrote wept:
Those damned shriveled ears of corn. I’ve done everything I can think of, and millions of people around the world have joined us at 350.org in the most international campaign there ever was.
Everything that is, but look at the data.
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America seems to have more climate deniers than grasshoppers. Sad.
REPLY: no, sadly, insects such as yourself outnumber the human race. – Anthony
Hate to nit-pick, but I would swear I see yellow, right on the right hand border, running down to the -4. Is that an unfortuate bleed, or is that the bar for 2012? (this is on the Continguous US, PDSI, Jan-Nov chart).
Can someone let me know either way, please? I just wish to make certain of what I am seeing, before I do a piece on Deviantart, and link back here. Either way, it is still very much smaller than the 30s, 50s, 80s and 2000 markers.
Anthony, I wonder if you should borrow the comment from RACookPE1978 and start a new section called “An Inconvenient Graph”
Over the last couple of years I have begun to have an increasing contempt for climate science generally and the catastrophic warming meme promoting scientists in particular, none of which have produced anything of any consequence or any perceivable benefit to mankind except a self flagellating legacy of fear, severe societal conflict and wealth destruction on a massive sale and the corruption of good government and honest political ideals with their uncompromising promotion of corrupted and massaged data designed to reinforce and flaunt their personal ideologically biased beliefs in a manmade catastrophic future for the world.
Yet these same CAGW believing climate scientists are still held in high regard despite the sorrow and grief they have created and continue to attempt to create amongst the citizens of Earth.
I contrast the behavior and the outcomes of the so called climate science with that of those real scientific heroes of our world, the agricultural researchers and agricultural scientists and the plant breeders of this world.
_________
To quote from a recent WSJ article “Our Fading Footprint for Farming Food” by Matt Ridley;
It’s a brave scientist who dares to announce the turning point of a trend, the top of a graph. A paper published this week does just that, persuasively arguing that a centurieslong trend is about to reverse: the use of land for farming. The authors write: “We are confident that we stand on the peak of cropland use, gazing at a wide expanse of land that will be spared for Nature.”
Jesse Ausubel and Iddo Wernick of Rockefeller University, and Paul Waggoner of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, have reached this conclusion by documenting the gradual “dematerialization” of agriculture. Globally, the production of a given quantity of crop requires 65% less land than it did in 1961, thanks to fertilizers, tractors, pesticides, better varieties and other factors. Even corrected for different kinds of crops, the acreage required is falling at 2% a year.
In the U.S., the total corn yield and the total corn acreage tracked each other in lock step between 1870 and 1940—there was no change in average yield per acre. But between 1940 and 2010, corn production almost quintupled, while the acreage devoted to growing corn fell slightly. Similar divergences appeared later in other countries. Indian wheat production increased fivefold after 1970, while wheat acreage crept up by less than 1.5 times. Chinese corn production rose sevenfold over the same period while corn acreage merely doubled.
&
the researchers find that over the next 50 years people are likely to release from farming a land area “1½ times the size of Egypt, 2½ times the size of France, or 10 Iowas, and possibly multiples of this amount.”
Indeed, the authors find that this retreat from the land would have already begun but for one factor so lunatic that they cannot imagine it will not be reversed soon: biofuels. If the world had not decided to subsidize the growing of energy crops on 3.4% of arable land, then absolute declines in the acreage of arable land “would have begun during the last decade.” The prospect of “the restoration of vast acreages of Nature” is enticing for nature lovers. [/]
_____________
The above is the true measure of the relative importance of and standing between climate science scientists and those unheralded, almost entirely unrecognised agricultural scientists and researchers and the world’s farmers and food producers.
With one, climate science, great societal discord, fear and conflict has been created, often and apparently deliberately so.
With agricultural science and it’s researchers, the world’s farmers and food producers have been able to continue to adequately feed mankind’s ever growing numbers.
Mankind’s numbers at more than 7 billions are now twice the population of the 1950’s but they have been for the most part, adequately fed over those past 60 years with only a relatively small increase in global food crop acreage from those 1950’s times to the present,
. There are no longer the great famines of the past centuries nor would there be any significant hunger anymore in this world if the racial, tribal and terrorist inspired,sometimes nation wide conflicts and killings could be eliminated.
The lack of mankind’s scourge of past ages, major famines are due almost entirely to those unrecognised, often in relative terms, poorly rewarded plant breeders, agricultural scientists and researchers and the world’s farmers and food producers adopting ever better and ever more efficient food production technologies plus a highly sophisticated global transport system that enables massive quantities of essential basic food supplies to be rapidly transported from places of plenty to needy areas in the far corners of the Earth in only a matter of a few weeks.
The whole system of society’s recognition of scientists of all types is totally screwed up and totally corrupted with those who have made a real and vital contribution to ALL of mankind, the agricultural scientists, the plant breeders and researchers, going unrecognised and unrewarded whilst those whose scientific legacy is societal conflict and dissension and fear and wealth destruction, the so called climate warming scientists whose contribution to mankind’s welfare and society is almost entirely negative, collect all the awards, the money and kudos.
Agricultural science trumps a drought year. That’s a hockey stick we can all believe in.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Doesn’t that follow the CO2 curve? graph
Ironically these morons actively promote more human misery than is necessary through support for things like bio-diesel or bio-ethanol.
I can see why Australia’s sugar industry supported bio-ethanol – it was an established industry running out of export markets.
But to advocate devastating the Amazon wilderness to support a loony hypotheisi that promotes starving humans to produce fuel that is in oversupply already – there are literally thousands of capped gas well in Australia waiting for the economics to start producing – well such advocacy could only be supported by deranged evangelists.
Kinda scary really that people are prepared to condemn the unfortunates among the Earth’s population to endless misery on thr righteousness of an unproven, and extremely unlikely hypothesis.
Academia has a lot to answer for for shutting down the scientific debate and adopting advocacy !!!
DirkH says:
December 30, 2012 at 8:51 am
Now we should really start undoing all the things we did wrong. Then we would be back in the 30ies and have BIGGER droughts and The New Deal again (and some mayhem in Europe). /facepalm
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Now I have to clean my screen again.
That is a very good summing up of the matter.
markx says:
December 30, 2012 at 8:56 am
Even without Anthony’s clear discussion, what immediately strikes me is the statement “…worst since 1930s…”
And THAT is supposedly proof? ….. of … what, exactly?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The ~ 80 year Gleissberg cycle but don’t tell Jeff Masters that.
August 2002 paper by the Russians:
Dr S. of course thinks they are wrong even though he never bothered to read the paper.
Matthew W says:
December 30, 2012 at 9:40 am
“Historical Corn Yields”
Mechanization is a huge part of that.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So is commercial fertilizer and pesticides, not to mention hybridization. The yield per acre is not so much mechanization as the rest of the advances. Whether I work the land with a mule or with a tractor is not as important as the seed variety, correct lime and fertilizer (soil tests) and irrigation.
Corn is a C4 plant BTW and not as sensitive to CO2 as wheat and rice which are C3. Most food stock is C3 most ‘weeds’ are C4.
seedling response to CO2
C3 vs C4 plant response to CO2
” arthur4563 says:
December 30, 2012 at 2:12 pm
Never assume that a PhD indicates intelligence. Burke’s Law.”
I don’t know who you are referring to but McKibben doesn’t have a PHD, he isn’t even a scientist, in fact he never talks about the science, because he doesn’t know any of it.
ROM says:
December 30, 2012 at 2:56 pm
Over the last couple of years….
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Thank you for that.
Americans are too well fed and so are most of those in the EU, therefore the farmer and agricultural scientists are treated with contempt.
My one and only bumper sticker says:
Never curse a farmer with your mouth full
Otter says:
December 30, 2012 at 2:49 pm
Hate to nit-pick, but I would swear I see yellow, right on the right hand border, running down to the -4. Is that an unfortuate bleed, or is that the bar for 2012? (this is on the Continguous US, PDSI, Jan-Nov chart).
Can someone let me know either way, please? I just wish to make certain of what I am seeing, before I do a piece on Deviantart, and link back here. Either way, it is still very much smaller than the 30s, 50s, 80s and 2000 markers.
I see the same Otter, very thin yellow line down to -4. That does actually make sense.
If you go to the link and take the values under the plot, there it is: -4.09
Here are all values from the plot:
1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1900 1901 1902 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 1909 1910 1911 1912 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1928 1929 1930 1931 1932 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1938 1939 1940 1941 1942 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1948 1949 1950 1951 1952 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1960 1961 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011
2012
-0.17 0.11 -0.47 -0.22 0.22 -0.01 -1.04 -1.16 1.95
0.04 1.43 3.52 4.16 3.54 2.05 -2.20 -2.59 2.75 0.54 -0.32 1.96 2.76 -0.41 -3.36 1.74 3.53 -0.41 -0.31 0.96 -0.08 -2.31 0.24 2.77 2.72 1.24 -1.84 -4.25 0.00 -0.66 -6.63 -3.18 -3.17 -2.35 0.19 -2.48 -4.56 1.50 3.17 0.96 0.27 1.98 2.52 1.26 0.38 1.54 1.38 1.68 -0.61 -2.81 -4.39 -4.50 -3.53 0.06 3.05 -0.56 0.18 0.90 0.14 -2.76 -1.25 0.73 -1.56 0.17 1.57 2.39 0.63 0.41 1.61 4.76 3.42 3.70 -0.31 -1.18 0.85 2.23 -0.20 -1.11 3.11 4.82 3.67 0.74 1.96 -0.13 -3.34 -0.80 -0.01 1.12 1.05 4.37 2.32 2.81 2.37 4.23 1.63 -0.02 -4.38 -2.66 -2.11 0.84 1.08 0.29 -1.34 -0.80 0.53 1.03 2.88 -0.62
-4.09
Buzzed
December 30, 2012 at 11:54 am
###
I guess you are. Read the post once you sober up.
Gail Combs says:
December 30, 2012 at 3:37 pm
Matthew W says:
December 30, 2012 at 9:40 am
“Historical Corn Yields”
Mechanization is a huge part of that.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
So is commercial fertilizer and pesticides, not to mention hybridization. The yield per acre is not so much mechanization as the rest of the advances. Whether I work the land with a mule or with a tractor is not as important as the seed variety, correct lime and fertilizer (soil tests) and irrigation.
==============================================================
No.
If you have 100 bushels per acre without fertilizer and hybrid seed corn and then triple that with scientific advances, great.
But if you still had to pick the corn by hand which was still being done in the early 20th century, you physically just can’t gather the crop without mechanization.
And at that time, the price of corn did not justify the land owner to hire more man hours.
Never assume that a PhD indicates intelligence. Burke’s Law. But,but,but….doesn’t it mean piling it higher and deeper?? (sorry if over the top,mods)
It appears to me that the “Contiguous U.S. PDSI, January-Novermber” graphic
is not showing 2012 well. According to the data, 2012 ranks 7th worst since
1895 for Jan-Nov PDSI.
However, I would agree that 2012 is not exceptional or 2nd-worst or anything
along such lines. I consider 2012 to merely have a level of drought that
occurs on-average 5 or maybe 6 times a century, even after considering for
temporary anthropogenic factors contributing to the dryness of the 1930’s.
Something that happens 5 times a century is part of the fabric of “normal
American weather”. A large variety of extremes of weather each individually
pummel “the 48 states”, or some or another part of the Contiguous USA, with
each type of extreme weather pummeling each location it affects very
infrequently. But the sum of weather extremes has always been mostly high
in America.
CO2TUS INTERRUPTUS?
The City of Sydney plans to make its New Year’s Eve extravaganza a carbon-neutral event by using biodegradable firecracker cases, recycled water, renewable energy and buying carbon credits to offset the emissions created by the evening’s dazzling $6.5 million fireworks display.
‘Hurricane Sandy and a string of extreme weather events this year are an important reminder that climate change remains the biggest challenge of our time,” the lord mayor of Sydney, Clover Moore, said.
”Making New Year’s Eve carbon neutral shows you can stage a world-renowned event attended by over 1 million people and still be sustainable.”
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/about-town/revellers-set-to-get-climatefriendly-bang-for-their-buck-20121228-2bz98.html
Do these people honestly believe this sort of garbage? And do they need some tokens to take away their guilt in order to justify a firework display on New Year’s Eve? Or is it purely about stemming calls of hypocrisy? Whichever, the mind boggles.
And does this herald a new era of CO2TUS INTERRUPTUS events in the alarmists’ ever increasing psychosis that we cause cyclones and that we can control the earth’s climate by using recycled water and investing in windmills?
One good sign is that the mass media have been sticking closer to the truth than they previously did. Most have described this drought as “worst since the ’50s”, which is accurate.
Otter,
At the NCDC site there is a table at bottom of the graph that gives the PDSI for 2012 as about -4. Not plotted because the December data is missing no doubt. Quite dry, but several other years in the 30s and 50s were similarly dry with 1934 being much dryer. While it is sadly necessary to continue to debunk these silly claims by alarmists, why does anyone believe simply breaking the 1934 record would be an indication of CAGW? When the climate stops changing we can reasonably expect no more records set.
Concerning Ag Production during the 2012 drought.
1. The C4 plants, wheat and soybeans, both had yields outside of the normally used yield models. There was not enough stored soil moisture, plus precipitation, to produce the yields recorded.
a. The result of this is that mainstream Ag Universities are now re-evaluating their yield models.
b. It is very apparent that the higher CO2 levels resulted in fewer open stoma, which resulted in less evaportransportation by the plants. Instead, they were able to put available water sources into yield.
2. Corn, a c3 plant, did not show the response as plainly as he C3 plants, but there was most deff a yield response, verses the yield models used for decades.
The above are facts. Another reason that CO2 is a good thing in the atmosphere.
grasshopper says: December 30, 2012 at 2:44 pm
“….America seems to have more climate deniers than grasshoppers. ….”
Ah, grasshopper … you have much to learn …..
You will find no-one is denying climate, or its existence.
And very few are denying that the climate changes, or that it may in fact be changing now.
Most simply object to the concept that a few scant years of intense record gathering, some elaborately calculated satellite measures, and a raft of historical adjustment all fed through computer models constitute sufficient evidence to restructure the world’s energy, financial and political systems at a cost to the average man, while providing a stream of revenue for the financial traders, the World Bank and the UN.
And, at the same time, most have little time for token gesture knee-jerk reactions of the “piss* in a wet-suit” variety either.
The number of intelligent people out there (probably including yourself) who seemingly take the approach of; “Thats what we are told, so it must be true”, is astounding.
* (… a warm feeling, but nobody notices.)
Camburn says: December 30, 2012 at 8:01 pm
b. It is very apparent that the higher CO2 levels resulted in fewer open stoma, which resulted in less evaportransportation by the plants. Instead, they were able to put available water sources into yield.
===================================
Most interesting- is this really true? Does this refer to atm CO2 increases of the last few decades?
Please explain. Thank you
Brilliant, Anthony!!!
Let me echo the observation of:
Ray says:
December 30, 2012 at 8:38 am
That is such a well presented article that it should be added to the WUWT Reference page…
Simply title it “Drought Reference Page” and occasionally pepper it with updates, but you’ve already hit this one out of the park. You’ve provided a huge public service, and the accolade applies to the rest of your site as well!!!
Corn prices keep dropping like a rock. So much for the super drought going to wipe out our food supplies story.
SAID HANRAHAN by John O’Brien
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
In accents most forlorn,
Outside the church, ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn.
The congregation stood about,
Coat-collars to the ears,
And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,
As it had done for years.
“It’s looking crook,” said Daniel Croke;
“Bedad, it’s crook, me lad,
For never since the banks went broke
Has seasons been so bad.”
“It’s dry, all right,” said young O’Neil,
With which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heel
And chewed a piece of bark.
And so around the chorus ran
“It’s keepin’ dry, no doubt.”
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
“The crops are done; ye’ll have your work
To save one bag of grain;
From here way out to Back-o’-Bourke
They’re singin’ out for rain.
“They’re singin’ out for rain,” he said,
“And all the tanks are dry.”
The congregation scratched its head,
And gazed around the sky.
“There won’t be grass, in any case,
Enough to feed an ass;
There’s not a blade on Casey’s place
As I came down to Mass.”
“If rain don’t come this month,” said Dan,
And cleared his throat to speak –
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If rain don’t come this week.”
A heavy silence seemed to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed a piece of bark.
“We want an inch of rain, we do,”
O’Neil observed at last;
But Croke “maintained” we wanted two
To put the danger past.
“If we don’t get three inches, man,
Or four to break this drought,
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
In God’s good time down came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune.
And through the night it pattered still,
And lightsome, gladsome elves
On dripping spout and window-sill
Kept talking to themselves.
It pelted, pelted all day long,
A-singing at its work,
Till every heart took up the song
Way out to Back-o’-Bourke.
And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
“We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“If this rain doesn’t stop.”
And stop it did, in God’s good time;
And spring came in to fold
A mantle o’er the hills sublime
Of green and pink and gold.
And days went by on dancing feet,
With harvest-hopes immense,
And laughing eyes beheld the wheat
Nid-nodding o’er the fence.
And, oh, the smiles on every face,
As happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep on Casey’s place
Went riding down to Mass.
While round the church in clothes genteel
Discoursed the men of mark,
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed his piece of bark.
“There’ll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We’ll all be rooned,” said Hanrahan,
“Before the year is out.”
Around the Boree Log and Other Verses, 1921