Some people wonder if Michael Mann is simply an activist masquerading as a scientist, this lends credence to that idea. I wonder if Dr. Mann has ever visited weather stations in China to understand what is going on there? I have.
I had to laugh when I saw this quote from Mann in Seth Borenstein’s most recent AP article:
“The study is important because it formalizes what many scientists have been sensing as a gut instinct: that the increase in extreme heat that we’ve witnessed in recent decades, and especially in recent years, really cannot be dismissed as the vagaries of weather,” said Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann.
The study he is referring to is this one, press release below. I’ll explain why Mann and Borenstein made me laugh (besides the “gut instinct” nonsense) after the press release:
===============================================================
Greenhouse-gas emissions raise extreme temperatures in China
9 April 2013 AGU Release No. 13-12 For Immediate Release
WASHINGTON – Humans are responsible for increasingly warm daily minimum and maximum temperatures in China, new research suggests. The study is the first to directly link greenhouse gas emissions with warmer temperature extremes in a single country, rather than on a global scale, according to the paper’s authors.
“There is a warming in extreme temperatures over China, and this warming cannot be explained by natural variation,” said Qiuzi Han Wen, an author on this paper and a researcher at the Institute of Atmospheric Physics in Beijing, China. “It can only be explained by the anthropogenic external forcings. These findings indicate very clearly that climate change is not just an abstract number for the globe; it is evident at regional scale.”
The study was recently published in Geophysical Research Letters—a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
To identify the human influence on temperatures, researchers from Beijing and Toronto compared data from climate change models with actual observations from 2,400 weather stations in China gathered between 1961 and 2007.
“The climate model produces historical simulations to mimic what would have happened under different influences—such as human-induced greenhouse gas emissions and volcanic activities—and produces many possible outcomes”,” said Xuebin Zhang, an author on the paper and a researcher in the Climate Research Division of Environment Canada in Toronto. “If we average these possible outcomes, the day-to-day weather noise cancels out, leaving us with a general trend.”
The climate model reproduces China’s present reality only if human emissions are included, indicating that global warming is indeed the culprit for China’s warmer day and nighttime temperatures and not natural weather fluctuations, Zhang said.
“Actually seeing a warming trend in a single location is hard,” Zhang said. “It’s like trying to see the tide change when you’re in a rowboat going up and down on the waves. You need a lot of data to distill the day-to-day weather noise from the general trend.”
But the key to cracking the warming trend in China, Zhang said, was the vast amounts of data that the research team distilled from the thousands of weather stations, over more than four decades. The researchers estimate that human emissions likely increased the warmest annual extreme temperatures—the daily maximum and daily minimum for the hottest day and night of the year—by 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit (0.92 degrees Celsius) and 3°F (1.7°C), respectively. They also found that human emissions likely raised the coolest annual extreme temperatures—the daily maximum and daily minimum for the coldest day and night of the year—by 5.1°F (2.83°C) and 8.0°F (4.44°C), respectively.
In addition to calculating the overall trend, Wen, Zhang and their colleagues separated the effect of each anthropogenic input. Carbon dioxide emissions had the highest impact on warming, explaining 89 percent of the increase in the daily maximum temperatures and 95 percent of the daily minimum temperatures.
Wen asserts greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere will continue to affect China’s climate for years to come, regardless of mitigation measures taken to reduce future emissions. “As a result, we expect warming in China will continue into the future, and consequently warming in extreme temperatures will also continue,” Wen said. “This will have huge implications for China, as heat waves and drought have already become more and more of an issue in our country. We would expect more hardship for dry-land farming as water supply is already stressed, higher demand on energy for cooling, and increasing heat-induced health issues.”
Zhang stresses that the results of this study highlight that climate change is an urgent issue for China and that warming is already taking a toll on the country.
“There are heat waves almost everywhere in China and we’re seeing more droughts,” Zhang said. “China is getting much warmer, and people are very concerned.”
This study was funded by the National Basic Research Program of China and benefited from a collaboration between the Meteorological Service Canada and the China Meteorological Administration.
Paper: “Detecting human influence on extreme temperatures in China”
Journalists and members of the public can download a PDF copy of this accepted article by clicking on this link: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50285/abstract
Abstract
[1] This study compares observed and model-simulated spatiotemporal patterns of changes in Chinese extreme temperatures during 1961–2007 using an optimal detection method. Four extreme indices, namely annual maximum daily maximum (TXx) and daily minimum (TNx) temperatures and annual minimum daily maximum (TXn) and daily minimum (TNn) temperatures, are studied. Model simulations are conducted with the CanESM2, which include six 5-member ensembles under different historical forcings, i.e., four individual external forcings (greenhouse gases, anthropogenic aerosol, land use change, and solar irradiance), combined effect of natural forcings (solar irradiance and volcanic activity), and combined effect of all external forcings (both natural and anthropogenic forcings). We find that anthropogenic influence is clearly detectable in extreme temperatures over China. Additionally, anthropogenic forcing can also be separated from natural forcing in two-signal analyses. The influence of natural forcings cannot be detected in any analysis. Moreover, there are indications that the effects of greenhouse gases and/or land use change may be separated from other anthropogenic forcings in warm extremes TXx and TNx in joint two-signal analyses. These results suggest that further investigations of roles of individual anthropogenic forcing are justified, particularly in studies of extremely warm temperatures over China.
The full paper is open and available here: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/grl.50285/pdf
=================================================================
So what did they do?
Here, we use a newly compiled and quality-controlled extensive Chinese daily temperature data set and ensembles of model simulations under different forcings, conducted with the second-generation Canadian Earth System Model (CanESM2) [Arora et al., 2011], to investigate possible causes of the observed changes in extreme temperatures.
…
China’s National Climate Center has recently compiled
and quality controlled an extensive daily temperature data
set [Wu and Gao, 2012]. Records of daily maximum, daily
minimum, and daily mean temperatures were collected from
2416 observation stations from 1961 to 2007.
They compared surface data to a model, and drew inferences from that:
We used optimal detection method to compare the observed China annual extreme temperatures for 1961–2007 with those simulated by the CanESM2 under different external forcings. Our analyses include one-signal analysis using climate responses to ALL, NAT, ANT, and individual anthropogenic
forcing, and two-signal analyses using various combinations
of responses to different forcings.
But the only forcing they considered was GHG’s. Nary a word exists in the paper about UHI, urban heat island, station siting, or heat sink effects.
We also found that the influence of anthropogenic forcing can be separately detected from that of natural forcings. These clearly indicate that among known external forcings, only anthropogenic influence can explain observed changes in China’s extreme temperatures.
That statement is ludicrous, and made me laugh, especially when the physics of heatsink effects is staring them right in the face by their own observations in the press release:
The researchers estimate that human emissions likely increased the warmest annual extreme temperatures—the daily maximum and daily minimum for the hottest day and night of the year—by 1.7 degrees Fahrenheit (0.92 degrees Celsius) and 3°F (1.7°C), respectively.
A larger nighttime signal than daytime signal is exactly what you would expect in the influence of poor station siting and UHI. The EPA says:
In contrast, atmospheric urban heat islands are often weak during the late morning and throughout the day and become more pronounced after sunset due to the slow release of heat from urban infrastructure. The annual mean air temperature of a city with 1 million people or more can be 1.8–5.4°F (1–3°C) warmer than its surroundings.3 On a clear, calm night, however, the temperature difference can be as much as 22°F (12°C).3
I find big differences in Watts et al 2012
But never mind the exponential growth of China’s infrastructure during their industrial revolution in the last 30+ years adding heat sinks near weather stations, let’s go with our “gut feelings” rather than investigate any other avenues.
I’ll have more on this flawed study later.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Reblogged this on Climate Ponderings and commented:
Thank you!
Outstanding post!
One small note: the old editor in me caught this misspelling: “tsrating” 7th to last paragraph.
I see no mention of adjusting temperature records to account for UHI, though just what is meant by “quality controlled… temperature data set” is unclear.
A few years ago I went to a talk by Environmental Defense on measures to reduce energy consumption in NYC. The #1 proposal they had was green roofs (or at least white roofs) which they claimed could reduce the temperature in NYC by 5 degrees (reducing temps reduces A/C needs which further reduces local temps etc).
Now I check their website and I find this:
http://www.edf.org/sites/default/files/4418_MythsvFacts_05_0.pdf
MYTH #8: The global warming observed for the past century at Earth’s surface has been
caused by urbanization (urban heat island effect) and other changes in land surfaces,
such as deforestation, not greenhouse gases.
FACT: It is true that urbanization increases temperatures locally, and can potentially
affect the determination of the global trend, since some measurement sites are located
in urban areas. Buildings and pavement absorb sunlight, heating up their
surroundings, and dense human settlements release significant amounts of waste
heat. Urban and agricultural areas also replace trees, which cool the Earth’s surface by
providing shade and evaporating water drawn up from the soil. But the claim that the
observed increase in global average temperature is due to these changes in land
surfaces is wrong, since the analyses showing the warming account for and remove
any biases caused by urbanization (for example Hansen et al. 1999; Jones et al. 2001).
In any case, it has been shown that urbanization has had an insignificant effect on
global and even regional temperature trends (Peterson 2003). In addition,
temperatures have risen significantly over oceans as well as over land, providing
further evidence that changes in land surfaces are not the primary cause of the
observed warming.7
7 The warming has been less over oceans than over land, but the size of the land-ocean contrast
agrees quite well with what models predict will occur with increasing greenhouse gases (for
example, Karoly et al. 2003).
I’m in New England and would gladly take another 3 degrees at night!
I bet the climate model has a built-in positive feedback fudge factor on CO2.
Anthony, what happened to your paper? Is it published, is the data released, and the code, and where? Haven’t heard.
REPLY: It took a long time to get the analysis done, given that this is done in spare time and to properly address the criticisms raised in the pre-release it required us to review every station in the network again, both froma photgraphic standpoint as well as a metadata standpoint. The new analysis is now complete, and the next step is publication. I was rushed by Muller and another dog and pony show in front of Congress last July, I won’t be rushed again – Anthony
Models. It is truly astounding how dependent on these little bias calculators the climate people have become. To the point that nobody even questions it…or challenges the obvious: Input bias. Not only bias, but an ‘educated guess’ bias. Models are not reality, and cannot reflect the complexity of reality (especially how they keep reducing it to one silly forcing, CO2). The outcome is always used in a way to ‘confirm’ CO2 as the culprit. How does that work? How can you use a CONSTRUCT to confirm REALITY? Shouldn’t it be the other way ’round? And Mann, leaping to the fore in confirmation of every little thing…as if his word was gospel. It’s just a big self-feeding group grope, and rather disgusting to watch unfold.
Who was the Chinese prof in the US who collaborated with Phil Jones and also got UHI-tainted stuff? – in his case it distinctly looked looked as if it had earned the f-word label. Ah yes, Doug Keenan went after him IIRC.
Now Zhang’s stuff is “urgent”???
[Reply: IIRC, Wei Chyung Wang. — mod.]
Reblogged this on By the Mighty Mumford and commented:
UNDERSTAND WHAT THE MASSES BLINDLY ACCEPT FROM “EXPERTS”.
The study did not do a good job of separating well documented UHI temperature trends. In 2011 authors of “Observed surface warming induced by urbanization in east China” found “The strongest effect of urbanization on annual mean surface air temperature trends occurs over the metropolis and large city stations, with corresponding contributions of about 44% and 35% to total warming, respectively. The UHI trends are 0.398°C and 0.26°C /decade”
Tree ring “thermometers” are less affected by urbanization due to their remote locations and thus help separate climate change from UHI. The trees argue there is no unusual warming. In the 2010 study “A 622-year regional temperature history of southeast Tibet derived from tree rings” researchers reported ” during the 20th century, modelled temperature exhibits a remarkable rising trend whereas the reconstructed temperature fluctuates around the long-term mean. Moreover, the cooling below the average from 1965 onwards, demonstrated in the reconstruction, contrasted with slight reduction and temperature above the average displayed in modelled curve.”
How this team “quality controlled” its data from the time of Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” is beyond me…
Like Oscar Wilde’s comment on Dickens’ “death of Little Nell”, it would take a heart of stone not to burst out laughing at Mann’s Chinois nuttiness. Have these people no dignity, no academic-intellectual integrity at all?
Inspector Clouseau, call your office.
Something awfully odd about this. A simulation of ALW (anthropogenic LOCAL warming)? What are the assumptions about the rate of CO2 diffusion in the atmosphere? How about the water vapor diffusion rate? Does this model not take atmospheric circulation into account at all? How does it get around it?
Sounds questionable to me.
“In addition to calculating the overall trend, Wen, Zhang and their colleagues separated the effect of each anthropogenic input. Carbon dioxide emissions had the highest impact on warming, explaining 89 percent of the increase in the daily maximum temperatures and 95 percent of the daily minimum temperatures.”
Wow! They completed the forcings-feedbacks calculation for all forcings. I wonder why they didn’t publish that?
1) Design a roofrack weather station.
2) Construct twenty. Preferably with NIST-qualified gear.
3) Pick a city.
4) Examine all the surface stations around the city.
5) Call for volunteers.
6) Drive mobile weather stations all over the city – starting at one surface station and ending another.
7) Do a formal calibration to determine offset, bias, and instrumental error for remotely predicting temperatures throughout the city given just the original surface stations.
The “We can’t see any UHI” needs some definitive debunking. And I find it hard to believe its doable from a dataset where all the stations are (a) within city limits, or (b) within one mile of a post office. They might well have perfect ‘micrositing’ and be CRN1 – but be well within the actual UHI envelope of a city.
Firstly, as anyone who has been in China for more than a couple of weeks will know, huge swathes of it are bathed in thick smog for long periods of time. This blanket may absorb, or may reflect solar energy. On balance I don’t know which, but I’d venture the former. Secondly, if you think that unscrupolous Western scientists will fake and massage data to please their political paymasters, then multiply that by 10 to appreciate the situation in China.
Sorry,if my previous comment was too fruity, it is because I am so mad at the idea that China could tell us *anything* useful about global temperature!
Nothing regarding climate science in China should be taken at face value. China has huge environmental problems. Chinese scientists will gladly latch upon AGW to bring about remediation if that is what it takes.
“The climate model reproduces China’s present reality only if human emissions are included, indicating that global warming is indeed the culprit for China’s warmer day and nighttime temperatures and not natural weather fluctuations, Zhang said.”
Oh, not that old logical fallacy again.
A model that has been tuned ( and yes they are developed by adjusting parametrisations of certain major factors that can not be modelled from basic physics ) to best reproduce the climate from 1960-2000 , for example, will not work as well if you remove one of the inputs.
It does not matter whether you remove CO2 or volcanoes or aerosols or something else, if you just pull something out it won’t work as well.
That does not prove you got that factor right, it just means that particular mix of inputs no longer works as well if you arbitrarily dump one of them.
This is so stupid , it’s obvious.
And these scientists are not children or chimpanzees. They are not stupid or untrained. They know damn well this is a farce.
That means that they are being deliberately misleading in publishing such a paper.
I think that would clearly fall within the NSF definition of scientific fraud and malpractice.
Perhaps the new Chair of the Ethic Committee at AGU should look into how this obviously dishonest kind of presentation came to be published in one of their journals.
So much for the “global” in global warming
I think we would all be better off if everyone stopped reading “articles” by Seth Borenstein.
Yes, but did they check to see if the CO2 was authentic? Or was it a cheap knock off?
Seriously, they can’t detect global warming on a global basis, but they can detect it on a regional basis? Let’s put aside the gaping holes in the paper and simply examine that claim by itself.
Global average temperature trend is flat.
One region (China) has a positive trend.
For the global trend to be flat, there must be one or more regions with a negative trend to arrive at an average of zero.
So, if they studied a single region that had a negative trend, would they conclude that an impending ice age due to anthropogenic forcing was being detected?
What if they studied one region with a positive trend and one with a negative trend? What would their conclusion be then? That the earth will be ripped asunder as some parts enter an ice age and others spontaneously combust? But that the average would still be zero?