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.
davidmhoffer says:
April 12, 2013 at 10:10 am
…
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?
—–
It depends. What sort of grant money would be associated with that kind of paper? Any U.N. position appointments for that? Any junkets? Would this help or hinder the careers of the authors? hmmm. Just listen to me, going on with this conspiratorial screed.
Seriously yeah; I thought the same thing. This would backfire on them by opening the door to localized studies contradicting AGW. At least, it would if there were any reasonable number of climate scientists out there ~trying~ to contradict AGW.
After 3 days of wind and rain wiping away the UHI effect from the cities I live 30 miles from, which is a 350,000 pop urbanized area. This morning there was a 5 degree differential according to my automobile thermometer. The wind and rain is gone and last night was cool and clear. Ideal for heat loss to space.
I think my VW thermometer is fairly accurate, it is usually withing +/- 1 degree F of the NWS reported temperature over at the airport a few miles from where I work.
They think we’re stupid. Unfortunately there are enough gullible people out there to keep the meme going. Apparently most of them are in Washington, D.C.
It is certainly worthwhile to point out the flaws in the data. However, even supposing that the data are kosher, no amount of number crunching can quantify the human contribution to climate change, as long as there is no solid and quantitative theory of natural climate variation. That’s the elephant in the room of climate science, and I don’t understand how any scientist, climate or otherwise, can ignore it.
Another thing to consider: China, whether we want to admit it or not, is in an economic war with the west – particularly the US. The green movement, and it’s destruction of the manufacturing infrastructure, is a strong and (probably) unwitting ally of China in it’s intent to dominate the world’s economic future. This study may be nothing more than an attempt by the Chinese political class to bolster one of their best weapons – the luddite greens.
“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”
“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”
So what is the direct link? A climate model?
Junk science supported by Jolly Junkett Scientists?
Interesting to look at the growth of places such as Shenzhen. GISS records run from 1950 -1990 and are pretty flat. They call the population out at around 10,000. Wikipedia suggests current 3.5m ‘urban’ and another 10m ‘sub-urban’. So a 350x increase in city dwellers alone has no influence on the station pictured above?
Head a little North and we have Guangzhou. Population doubled since 1990, oddly enough the very point where the GISS graph takes off. No correlation there then?
Back to my homeland and we have Manchester Airport. A grass field until the jet age. Now a few degrees hotter but then again it now handles 22m passengers (plus freight) a year. It is now even included in The CET. Did they have major international airports in CE back in 1650?
Oh no … Mosher incoming. Telling me all about how we grid and average this nonsense to conclude the following… (5..4..3..2..1…..)
This is actually a key propaganda point. It is telling people that they should more highly weight information that is emotionally satisfying. This cuts right to the core of the entire issue. It has always been about using people’s emotional concern for “the environment” as a means to implement policy and economic decisions. Now faced with actual data that contradicts their hypothesis, they must throw out a piece of red meat that “formalizes” the “gut instinct” so that they don’t stray from the fold.
It is so very, very sad to think that this is what science has become. It is little more than propaganda.
Wasn’t it Stephen Colbert who argued that it was better to trust your gut than your head because there were more nerve endings in your gut? At least he was up front about being a comedian.
Anthony, would you please, please quit posting about the despicable Seth Borenstein. I am about to explode and you know why. This is twice in the last couple of days.
The guy up the thread has the right idea. In spite of the temptation he gives us to ridicule his articles we should ignore him.
REPLY: No, sorry. I call ’em as I see ’em and if that upsets anyone, tough noogies. – Anthony
They don’t have the names of the humans actually causing this CO2 do they? Could be worrying.
BJ says:
April 12, 2013 at 8:49 am
> I’m in New England and would gladly take another 3 degrees at night!
But that would melt all the sleet that’s accumulating today!
My lawn is having second thoughts about finally turning green. (Near Concord NH.)
seanbrady says:
April 12, 2013 at 8:44 am
“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”
The assumption is local temperature increases remain local. They don’t, because if an air mass travels over a surface warmer than it’s self it will pick that heat up and take it somewhere else. In spite of the sun shining down much the same every day the UK weather varies dramatically and is dependent on where the air has come from and whether it’s hot, cold, wet or dry. And when it’s cloudy its colder. Out of interest the Aral Sea has been shrinking for much the same reasons as the Colorado river never gets to the Ocean, in that water is extracted faster than it goes in. Since the fall of the old Soviet Union there has been some restoration of water to this sea with positive affects on the climate (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-10625.html). Consider this extract:
“Even the climate is changing for the better. “It’s true. In April, May and June we now have rain,” exclaims Nazhmedin Musabaev, Aralsk’s jovial Mayor. There is more grass for livestock. Summers are a little cooler. Dust storms are fewer. Swans, duck and geese are returning.”
The removal of any cooling features on the Earth’s surface, which are vegetation or water, will allow the sun to warm the surface that is now exposed. Has that happened in China on a national scale or what does one mean by local if those local actions are carried out all over the continent? UHI implies that it is only Urban areas where the surface has changed and the word ‘Island’ implies the extra heat is confined to a small area.
The problem is that, for every piece of bullshit propaganda one ignores, those living on the fence start thinking about jumping off. Seth may well be despicable Problem is that he rouses the crowd with his mindless crap and somebody needs to point out just what a [snip] he really is in order to neutralise the crap.
@Anthony: 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
Le mieux est l’ennemi du bien. – Voltaire 1772
(The perfect is the enemy of the good. )
It was very good in the end that you were rushed to get out an imperfect paper with substance. It was a first look at whether Leroy 2010 siting criteria is a significant factor in the surface temp data reduction. It appears to be so and the sooner the world knows about that bit of science, the better. A “shot across the bow” of Muller was very appropriate given the circumstances of his misuse of your provided data and his own lack of peer review.
I see nothing wrong with the concept of an “in progress” paper that publishes findings along with up-front admitted shortcommings that will be addressed in the next cycle. Maybe journals and journal editors don’t want to operate that way, but that is how science progresses. A marathon is built from individual steps.
Your last hour of the Gore-athon 2012 covered a revision of your July paper where you did a fine finesse of the Time of Observation issue. You simply and elegantly filtered the data to only those stations were Time of Observation wasn’t an issue. Brilliant! Don’t correct troublesome data, omit it! Ok, less data means potentially larger confidence ranges, but it still looked promising — especially for an in-progress analysis. May I ask why you have not posted the video of that hour?
REPLY: The video is in one large file of all hours, and takes time to excise from it. No time left is why I’m making changes to WUWT now….so I can get stuff done other than worrying about comments that need answering 😉
-Anthony
I wonder what they used for their CO2 base line and characterization of its increase in the local environment. Could it be the Mauna Loa measurements taken thousands of kilometers away?
Mann also has a gut instinct about climate sensitivity issues, more arm waving here, this time with Dana N. of SkS:
Mann and Dana N. on climate sensitivity
“During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.” (George Orwell)
Anthony,
You and the WUWT cadres are revolutionaries indeed! Keep speaking the truth to a world sorely in need of just such. And Thanks A Bunch for doing what you do so well!
MtK
Ok – I’m a finance guy, not a PhD whiz, but it’s laughable that some bright grad student hasn’t either proposed or actually done a preliminary experiment on a sample (5%? 10% more…?) of weather stations by placing a grid of X-number of “mini-weather stations” around (radius of 100 feet…500 feet? half a mile?) an “official” weather station to evaluate UHI. In another thread a few days ago, Steve Mosher absolutely bent himself inside-out trying to justify his “analytical model” for classifying weather stations. One of the most astouunding arguments in the whole thread dealt with the effect of jet-engine blast on a weather station sited at an airport. AT NO POINT IN TIME DID ANYBODY ACTUALLY RUN OUTSIDE AND MEASURE JET BLAST AT THE WEATHER STATION.
This may (or may not) cost a few bucks for the entire sample (or population). Given an absurd cost of $1 million/weather station, and 3-4,000 stations (somebody please correct my population estimate), you’re looking at $3-4 billion; even this idiotic number seems reasonable if you’re talking about weather stations being used to justify spending trillions of dollars. Entire survey could probably be completed in a single calendar year.
“…compares observed and model-simulated spatiotemporal patterns…”
Hmm, when we do this with the IPCC forecasts and the observed, we get a marked global cooling trend. It also fits with gut instinct.
Is there any good reason they would use 2007 as their end date?
Apologies to Adan S. Blue (April 12 @ur momisugly 9:40am), who essentially articulated my proposed cncept…mea culpa.
I especially love how the causes is “Humans” causing this warming. Perhaps it would be more accurate, since it occurs in China, to say that the “Chinese” were causing the warming.
Much like every single Natioanl Geographic story of extinctions blamed it on generic “humans”. It sounds much more reasonable than blaming the Dodo extinction on, say, ignorant peasants, or blaming Amazon deforestation on “humans” rather than “Brazilian governmental subsidies for clearing land for farming”
Though I can’t find the Coop in the imagery, the Building is in Google Earth at 22D32’30.94″N 114D00’19.59″E or ENTER 22.5419N 114.0055E in the fly to window
30 years ago, China was not very different from North Korea today: impoverished, economically backward and militarily powerful with nuclear weapons. Does anyone have a night time satellite photo of China 30 years ago to compare with one today. That should provide all the evidence needed to prove a strong UHI effect there over the past three decades.
My guess, if it is possible to find out, that there is no UHI in North Korea and there has been little or no warming there, other than the global average.
Anthony, is your website still blocked in China?
It was when I was there a year ago.