Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
In discussing President Obama’s latest boondoggle, the one billion (with a “b) dollar Climate Resilience Plan, The US Under-Assistant Minister of Scientific Silly Walks, John Holdren, wandered way off of the party line. The party line in question, of course, is …
“Although we can’t ascribe any given weather event to climate change, we still insist that blah blah blah …”
Perhaps Holdren’s teleprompter was broken, but anyhow, here’s what he said (emphasis mine):
During a call with reporters on Thursday evening, the assistant to the president on science and technology, John Holdren, said, without any doubt, the severe drought plaguing California and a number of other states across the country is tied to climate change.
Now, that quote was bad enough, since everyone from the IPCC to my cat agrees that
• There is no link between historical post-Little-Ice-Age warming and extreme weather, and
• Droughts are more common in colder times than in warmer times, and
• For the last decade and a half there’s been no statistically significant warming, certainly not enough to cause increased extreme weather.
• We have neither the understanding nor the information necessary to ascribe ANY single weather event to climate change, and we’re a long ways from having either one.
But despite Holdren going way off piste in his comment, it wasn’t truly of the quality needed for a quote of the week. It wasn’t concise enough for an epigram … or for an epitaph, for that matter.
However, just when it all looked hopeless, Holdren rallied, came back and captured the gold by uttering the deathless words that will ring forever in the halls of climate academe:
Weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change.
There you have it, folks, Holdren’s Law of Climate Causation, all you need to know about droughts and such … weather practically everywhere is being caused by climate change.
…
… and people wonder why the alarmists are having trouble these days peddling their nostrums? Well, mostly it’s not a communications failure. Mostly, it’s because we’ve been lied to before by these same folks (including Holdren), and Holdren’s current pathetic shilling for the Obamaclimate program is just more of the same.
The issue is not how the science is being communicated, as Judith Curry and many others seem to think.
The issue is that what is being communicated is so obviously not science, but merely poorly framed and scientifically absurd scare tactics, that as in this case, the communication just makes people point and laugh …
Regards to all,
w.
Willis Eschenbach
Willis … your post does not take into account regional warming which has most definitely taken place since the mid 1990’s. Just look at what has happened in the Arctic and in eastern north America … the data speaks for itself! The cause … who knows … but clues certainly link to the earth’s magnetic field!
Every decade of “statistically insignificant” ANYTHING goes AGAINST all predictions of warming.
All the experts predicted “something.” They expected, “statistically significant.” However, in stark contrast, they got, “statistically insignificant.”
Nick Stokes, I’m looking at you. Fess up, won’t you? Otherwise, you look pretty foolish running away from an invisible boogyman…
Well there you have it.
If you will buy man made weather effects, you will buy anything.
CAGW is an intelligence test.
Most of the fools infesting our civic structures, have failed this test.
The bandits however, well they are making out like… gathering taxpayers money.
Every decade and a half of “statistically insignificant” ANYTHING goes AGAINST all predictions of warming.
All the experts predicted “something.” They expected, “statistically significant.” However, in stark contrast, they got, “statistically insignificant.”
Nick Stokes, I’m looking at you. Fess up, won’t you? Otherwise, you look pretty foolish running away from an invisible boogyman…
By their standards one could make a more credible case that the drought in California more than coincidentally coincides with the passage and subsequent rollout of Obamacare. Now, whether or not we can attribute that to Obamacare getting rid of it is the right thing to do. By their logic this foregoing argument is flawless.
Words can only say so much…… Holdren has carried the ball as dictated. And it ain’t comin from the POTUS. He only reads the teleprompter on the subject of CAGW. Oh the pain!
https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/3418329088/hA107BA65
OT post, reg. the Mirror Farm that cooks birds thread below.
Posted a question down there and now here also as I did not see any info regarding any possible hail storm history for the area, any excessive high winds in the history of the area.
Moderators and or Anthony or others who have access and knowledge what is known on that.
If hail or wind storms do occur , then what the Insurance cost might be and or how these investors would deal with a rebuild after an event?
thanks
Willis Eschenbach said, February 14, 2014 at 2:06 pm:
“[Global] Warming which is “not statistically significant” is [global] warming that cannot be distinguished from zero [global] warming.”
Nick Stokes replied, at 2:51 pm:
“No, it’s warming that was measured [in Melbourne, Australia]. It happened [in Melbourne, Australia]. Last weekend [in Melbourne, Australia] we had a heat wave. Two days over 40°C. Probably not statistically significant [i.e., normal weather for Melbourne in summer]. But no less hot for that.“
I’ve read from many sources that the California drought, being caused by the “Ridiculously Resilient Ridge” is from global warming and climate change. Reasons vary from the loss of Arctic Ice, the models predicted it, ridges are stronger when the planet is warmerr, thickness’s are higher from warming, dry areas get drier/expand from global warming and so on. There are dozens of articles from varying sources but none that I read that identified an actual connection that provided the scientific evidence.
What I note is that the PDO has been solidly negative now since this drought began. The correlation between a -PDO and increased drought has been established. We have a tendency to see more La Nina’s during -PDO periods and that often leads to high pressure zones and jet stream deflections northward in the Pacific similar to what we’ve experienced recently in this area. We are not having a La Nina currently.
The Ridiculously Resilient Ridge is clearly an anomalous example of such a pattern and might or might not be related to the PDO which as mentioned has been strongly negative during this drought. A -PDO is actually a global cooling pattern. Not just the fact that we see more La Nina’s when this index is negative but it typically will be negative for a period of around 30 years and at those times, the planet tends to cool a bit(mid 1940’s to mid 1970’s for example) even when CO2 levels increase.
The positive PDO regime ended close to when global warming from the late 70’s thru the 1990’s also ended. Of course we had more El Nino’s and fewer droughts during that time frame too.
When Dr. Holdren came out with his statement last month that the Polar Vortex was displaced because of global warming and we should expect additional record cold outbreaks in the future because of global warming, I provided the Winter of 1976/77 as an example of the Polar Vortex dropping in to the US repeatedly. As a result, that Winter was one of our coldest in the last 100 years. Not coincidentally, that Winter also brought an historic drought to California.
Not coincidentally, the PDO was negative during that time frame.
Note that CO2 could not have possibly been a factor and the world was in a global cooling scare at the time…………..because we had been in a modest global cooling, natural cycle that was nearing its end at that time.
We are in the same part of the cycle right now. Increased incidence of droughts are too be expected. Harsh Winters will be more frequent, especially downstream from the West Coast, where ridging there, teleconnects to deep troughs in the Midwest and East.
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/pdo-f-pg.gif
http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/teleconnections/pdo-5-pg.gif
This doesn’t explain the intensity of this particular drought, just the underlying favorable natural and repeating cycle that is present in both cases with the -PDO
Obviously, one might think that if we were in the midst of a strong La Nina, it might make the connection more clear but ENSO is neutral right now. However, 1976/77 also did not have a La Nina. Instead there was a very weak El Nino.
http://ggweather.com/enso/oni.htm
Now to add to the confusion but to stay completely honest. After analyzing actual weather maps and patterns and comparing 76/77 with 2013, we come up with completely different height anomolies………but they still lead to similar wind patterns and a northward shift in the storm track. It would appear like, for different reasons.
http://www.weatherwest.com/archives/1038
The mind boggling intensity and persistence of this upper level ridge that has dominated into the Northeast Pacific appears to be the greatest in the last 66 years(as far as I can tell). Whether it’s a coincidence that we have a strongly -PDO or not is uncertain(for me) This could be a factor. I would bet that there are some connections with the Winter of 1976/77 with the same extreme weather in the exact same places in the US(especially the Polar Vortex dropping south repeatedly in 76/77 being even more extreme on the downstream end of the pattern)
If the Arctic had recently become ice free, one could make a case as that being a factor. However, if it were mainly from less sea ice coverage, then we should have seen signs of this developing as sea ice was melting and coverage shrinking for 20 years……….not suddenly in 2013 and coinciding exactly with the Arctic gaining a substantial portion of ice in one year.
Holdren actually said:
“Weather practically everywhere is being influenced by climate change.”
I’ll repeat that again:
Holdren said:
“Weather practically everywhere is being influenced by climate change.”
The Hill misquoted John Holdren.
Listen to what Holdren actually said:
http://kvpr.org/post/obama-announce-federal-drought-relief-fresno-trip
Holdren: “We know that scientifically no single episode of extreme weather, no storm, no flood no drought can be said to have been caused by global climate change, but the global climate has now been so extensively impacted by the human caused building of greenhouse gasses that weather practically everywhere is being influenced by climate change.”
“If you LIKE your climate change, you can KEEP your climate change. Period!”
Unless, of course, the earth enters a cool cycle, and then it isn’t climate change, but rather simple natural climatic variance….
Remember only humans are capable of creating BAD climate change, and 97% of all scientists agree with that statement. I know the IPCC said there is low confidence of a drought/CO2 correlation, but what they ACTUALLY meant was that insuffienct funding and lack of monitoring is the real cause of this low confidence, and since 97% of scientists know all bad climate change is human induced, ergo, since droughts are bad, they’re human induced… If scientists just had more money, then the drought/CO2 correlation would exist…
It’s just simple science and basic logic. Dummies incapable of seeing this reality are in the pocket of rich oil companies and are deniers incapable of understanding complex science and logic.
The debate is over….
cartoonasaur says: February 14, 2014 at 6:21 pm
“Every decade and a half of “statistically insignificant” ANYTHING goes AGAINST all predictions of warming.”
No. “Statistically insignificant” proves nothing. It is a test that failed. If you want to disprove predictions of warming, you have to test those predictions. If you find a significant deviation from that, you have something.
Willis’ claim of “Warming which is “not statistically significant” is warming that cannot be distinguished from zero warming.” reminds me of the frog in the pot:
after one minute, well, it has warmed, but not statistically significant – indistinguishable from zero
another minute, well, more warming, but that wasn’t statistically significant either – indistinguishable from zero
…
I can’t see anything controversial about Holdren’s statement at all. Any climate change, whether in temperature, sea level or ice coverage will effect the weather somehow, at least statistically.
Or maybe you folks are looking at this from the wrong end. Holden always blamed Man for “climate change”. He has never recanted his global cooling theories from the 70s. For all we know, he believes in a new little Ice Age. In his mind, the end result is the same, so why dither over causation when it’s inconvenient?
When I have to hire an expert witness for a case I am working on, (David Sanger) we call Holdren’s statement “flexibility”.
“The consistent barrage of this BS from the MSM is having an effect.”
Given the sophistication of the target audience, this should be no surprise…
One in four Americans unaware that Earth circles Sun
We are, quite irrevocably, doomed.
Nick, how accurate do you think the temp was globally in 1900 as measured then and interpreted and calibrated into today?
Your comments, although satistically not wrong, probably aren’t comfy….
Just sayin, it is what we interpret in the end, no?
@Kpar –
I agree entirely with your characterization of the contretemps, and most emphatically with your characterization of the mind-boggling hubris that would make anyone think they can control climate. How sad it is that we have come to this, that the people who are supposed to inform us and teach us and lead us are reduced, as you put it, to idolatry and mental vacuity
Martin says:
February 14, 2014 at 7:19 pm
————————————–
You wouldn’t be related to Holdren by any chance, would you?
Ossqss says: February 14, 2014 at 8:24 pm
“Nick, how accurate do you think the temp was globally in 1900 as measured then and interpreted and calibrated into today?”
Well, it’s a long story, and I think here people are mainly talking about the last few decades.
But it does raise an issue. There is measurement uncertainty. That’s about the temperature that was.
But that’s not what people here are talking about with statistical significance. There it’s the much greater uncertainty about natural variability. The temperature that might have been. It requires fitting a statistical model. And it affects what you can deduce from the observations, in terms of climate implications etc. But it doesn’t affect what actually happened. If it rained, it rained. May not signify anything re climate, but it’s wet. Distinguishable from zero.
Before climate change there never was any weather. it was all butterflies and unicorns. bad weather only happened to out enemies. looks at the communist, they always had bad weather, and the fascists, they always had bad weather. while we always had good weather, until the deniers caused climate change.
David Sanger (@davidsanger) says:
February 14, 2014 at 7:54 pm
Climate science is bizarre, in that it perhaps the only physical science whose main focus of study is not something physical. This is because what we call “climate” doesn’t exist—it is a mathematical construct obtained by averaging weather over a “sufficiently” long period, with 30 years often arbitrarily chosen.
Now, consider … climate doesn’t exist, it’s just the long-term average of the weather.
Since climate is the average of the weather … then how can it cause the weather as Holdren claims?
I note that some folks above say that the record reflects Holdren as saying (emphasis mine):
While these may be his actual words, it’s no better. Once again, climate is the long-term average of weather. As a result, the weather certainly influences the climate (any weather incident influences the long term average of the weather) … but how on earth can the average of the weather (the climate) influence an individual weather incident?
w.
“Not statistically significant” does not necessarily mean small.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Just flip a coin it’s just as likely LOL….
Nick Stokes says:
February 14, 2014 at 9:04 pm
“But it does raise an issue. There is measurement uncertainty.”
——————————————–
That’s always been my problem with the whole assumption that we are experiencing “global” warming and not an increase in localized temperatures.
Iow, when it was 58 degrees in central London on April 9th, 1914, how close in actual sensation on the skin– all things being equal– would that be to a reading of 58 degrees in London on April 9th, 2014, given all the changes in data reading and collection technology and adjustment procedures? Could it be that a reading of 58 degrees is significantly warmer (or cooler) today in a statistical sense, than it was back then? That 58 degrees was actually 56 back then and 100 degrees F today was actually 97 back then?
To catweazle666,
I blame the 1976 PURPLE microdot.
; P