I’m caught between sessions but wanted to post this. From a presentation at AGU that I couldn’t attend. This from SciAm:
James Elsner at Florida State University has a killer curve, and lots of caveats. The curve indicates that tornadoes in the U.S. may be getting stronger. The caveats indicate they may not be.
“If I were a betting man I’d say tornadoes are getting stronger,” he noted on Tuesday during a lecture at the annual American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco.
But when asked directly at a press conference whether that is the case, he would not commit. “I’m not doing this [work] to establish the future intensity of tornadoes,” he explained, but to establish a method that someday could indeed determine if the storms are becoming more powerful.
Because the lecture was titled “Are tornadoes getting stronger?” the audience expected an answer. And their consternation rose when Elsner showed his final graph, adding up the kinetic energy of tornadoes each year from 1994 to 2012.
More here: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2013/12/11/tornadoes-may-be-getting-stronger-or-not/
This reminds me of Dr. Ryan Maue’s ACE (accumulated cyclone energy) for hurricanes.
Since measuring tornado wind speed is a hit/miss proposition, even with doppler radar I have many reasons to suspect the data in this graph.
Elsner has 18[years of data]. His data begin in 1994 because that’s when Doppler radar, the best at tracking tornadoes, began covering the entire U.S.
The point of the curve, however, is to show that measuring the length and width of a tornado’s damage path gives an accurate indication of its strength, which is driven by the storm’s peak wind speed. It is difficult if not impossible to measure that speed directly, as is done for hurricanes by ground instruments and planes that fly into the storms.
So, like Mann’s hockey stick, it is a proxy, not the actual measurement.
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Friend, these independent super-cells have MORE than just an identifiable RADAR signature that allows them to be identified … have you ever been to a NWS-conducted Skywarn class? The first one for me back in the 70’s was an eye-opener … conducted by (now-retired) FT NWS meteorologist (Dr.) Alan Moller. Alan storm chased with Dr. Chuck (Charles) Doswell who wrote many, many papers on super-cell thunderstorms …
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Good point; later in the series it could be coincidence with the various enhanced or improved ‘data’ products output by the (now) Open Source RPG (Radar Products Generator) via ‘software upgrades’ as described here in a paper from about 2003:
https://ams.confex.com/ams/pdfpapers/57682.pdf
Fair-use excerpt:
“Base Products” refers to (basically) raw-type ‘imagery’ acquired by the RDA (the RADAR Data Acquisition system), which is the ‘dish’ and accompanying receiver and transmitter and supporting site that actually ‘acquires’ the RADAR picture as seen by transmitting and receiving the narrow RADAR RF (radio wave energy) pulses. ‘Base’ products as opposed to ‘derived’ products such as re-constructing (in software) synthetic 3-D images from multiple ‘sweeps’ (at different elevation angles or scans) of the RADAR dish antenna.
Also see the paper for more info and accompanying graphics.
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18 years? Odd, then, that he takes his hockey stick record back further. But an important question here is, what is the actual relationship of this variable to temperature? That last point there, which I am assuming is 2012, is a large drop from the highest value (2011?) Which is interesting, because the temperature in the US underwent a big jump-*up* when it looks like the tornado energy went *down*. I’d need the full dataset to do a proper correlation analysis but it looks to me like there is *no* clear relationship to temperature here *at all*.
Tornado activity is going to be the lowest on record in 2013 (going back to 1954).
This is an adjusted for under-over-counts chart from the NOAA. The Pink line was the previous record low and 2013 is obviously going to come in under that.
http://www.spc.noaa.gov/wcm/torgraph-big.png
Ok, so who has a coverage map showing the fully operational doppler sites as they progressed over the time period referenced? Don’t tell me they smooth or homoginize those too /$arc
The tornado Hockey Stick (TM) period perfectly overlaps with the temp Pause (TM) period.
WUWT??
It seems to me that an increase in tornado intensity would be more likely the result of cooling – the temperature contrast between air masses increases the instability, and tightens and intensifies the jet stream. Global warming, if it were to occur, ultimately would reduce tornado intensity since the contrast between warm and cold air masses would be less and the jet stream slower.
Money where yer yap is, pal…
Ban Ki-moon
Secretary-General of the United Nations says:
December 10, 2013
“Ice caps are melting, sea levels are rising and the oceans are becoming more acidic. Greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise – we are the first humans ever to breathe air with 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Extreme weather events – heat waves, floods, droughts and tropical cyclones – are more frequent and severe.
We need look no further than the recent catastrophe in the Philippines. All around the world, people now face and fear the wrath of a warming planet.”
_Jim says:
December 11, 2013 at 4:40 pm
… have you ever been to a NWS-conducted Skywarn class?
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No, but I worked outside everyday from 1985 – 2005.
I’ve seen every kind of weather She could throw at the northwest suburbs of Chicago.
Never a tornado though.
Used to watch the sky,… it was before real-time radar displayed on the “phone”.
Our electronics didn’t like the rain, or wet snow, other than that we needed to meet deadlines and try to make a profit.
I’ve lived by radar returns and forecasts.
It’s still fun and exciting.
One thing I see is We are in such a hurrey to understand how these systems work that if the conditions even look like producing a tornado man with all their electromagnetic senscing equipment attacking the potential tornado producing storm with electromagnetic radiation from all sides, meanwhile the national weather service is doing their thing tracking it with their radar systems only add energy to the system and help it to intencify. To see were I’m comming from you will have to look at a tornado as a eletromagnetic process .
http://www.sott.net/article/229191-Tornado-A-Natural-Charged-Sheath-Vortex
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_(physics)
@ur momisugly John M (6:21pm today). “To see were I’m comming from you will have to look {through a powerful telescope}… .”
Sorry, John M., no one here (except, perhaps, Ja! M!tchell) is likely to EVER get it. I hope you can find a little peace of mind… somehow.
WT*? Are you simply mad or uneducated in sciences and physics?
Do you have ANY idea what the AVERAGE RF power output is from a WSR-88D RADAR?
ANY IDEA AT ALL?
Can you Google it even?
Do you know how that figure compares to the heat output from your average vehicle or a house air conditioner?
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What was left unsaid is that the spike in intensity must be due to global warming. But the spike occurs in the last 13 years, and there has been no warming for the last 17 years. Conclusion; any increase in intensity is not due to global warming.
How does this enter into process with the release of latent heat from from condensing water vapor in the parent thunderstorm?
Do you have any idea what I’m asking?
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@ur momisugly Janice Moore Two things that have helped man progress , And the way we see things has been a major impact on knowing While the radio telescope has improved deep space research the radio microscope has accelerated understanding how things work here on Earth at the nano level . No use CERN smashing mater together if they can’t see whats going on. So here on Earth I’d say the advancement in the microscope has a greater effect on our everyday lives then the telescope.
@ur momisugly Jim, Heat IS electric potential at WORK ( ELECTRon, ELECTRicity and ELECTRONics ) What do these all have in common . Radio Is short for Radiated electromagnetic wave.
Here is a couple of other things that may help people see a clearer picture Their about how the fair weather electric field…
[…Snip. Weather control, HAARP, and related comments are not allowed here. — mod.]
You didn’t answer the question; please stick to the subject and answer the question, if able. No more hand-waving or gobbledygook.
Let me be plain and straight away. I think you’re an idiot and a prime example of the Dunning–Kruger effect effect, which states:
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than is accurate. This bias is attributed to a metacognitive inability of the unskilled to recognize their ineptitude.
[Insults, unless they advance the argument being presented, should be avoided. Mod]
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Yes, yes, John M., but, I stand by my statement that we would need a powerful telescope to see where you are coming from.
@ur momisugly _Jim, I may be mistaken, but I think this is a fellow who needs our sympathy, not our scorn…. far more than he will ever know, I’m afraid. The human mind is such a fragile thing… .
btw: GREAT answers demonstrating your super-extensive knowledge (not to mention sharp analytical thinking) above, blank Jim. Glad you are here on WUWT to so often provide us all with first class science.
Dear John M.,
Please forgive my joking about needing a telescope above. I hope that you can find a sympathetic ear somewhere. Hang in there.
Take care,
Janice
@ur momisugly Jim Do I have to provied you with the difference between a forcing and a feed back come on get over yourself and you might learn something RADAR uses a small forcing to create a large feedbak. Turn what you know about how the sun workes and turn it upside down . IF there have been people following this pathway I’m trying to create they must start seeing how weather modification IS a part of our everyday lives
@ur momisugly Janice Moore BAZINGA LOL Cheers
How does the author get off calling it 18 years of data? The system wasn’t fully fielded until 1997, and was continuously tinkered with on the processing side up to present. The data in my lab has to be collected on the same setup to assure apples to apples comparisons and data consistency. How can you compare the data processed on the 1997 equipment with that collected from the upgrades fielded in the years since? That is just insanity. It is a little like assuming that the ARGOS floats MUST have a COLD bias because the data doesn’t match the MODELED output then adjusting all the data up to compensate! You have to scoop the sensor up and do a full lab calibration to make such a claim and implement it. Undergrads fail lab courses for doing this, is it better to do because these yahoos have PhD.s?