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The Weather Channel pushes back against John Coleman
168 Comments
There are at least five observations/analysis results that support the assertion that roughly 90% of the warming in the last 70 years was due to solar magnetic cycle changes, rather than due to the increase in atmospheric CO2. For example (paleoclimate and correlation history facts): There are cycles of warming in the paleoclimatic record (Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles) which correlate with periods of high solar magnetic cycle activity. All of the cyclic warm periods in the climate record were followed by cooling periods which correlate with low periods of solar activity. The regions of the planet that warmed and cooled during the Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles (high latitude regions) are the same regions that warmed in the last 70 years (high latitude regions). Note the AGW theory predicts that the most amount of warming due to the CO2 increase should be in the tropics where the most amount of long wave radiation is emitted to space which is not observed – ‘The Latitudinal Warming Paradox’.
There is however no need to explain the scientific reasons why the warmists’ theory is incorrect, observations trump theory, planetary cooling is a climate war game changer, planetary cooling is a news worthy event. The planet has started cool, due to the abrupt change in the solar magnetic cycle. The sun will be spotless by this time next year as it moves into a very deep, special type of Maunder solar magnetic cycle minimum. The cyclic Maunder solar magnetic cycle minimums last 100 to 150 years. More on the special type of Maunder minimums when there is unequivocal in your face evidence of cooling.
http://www.ospo.noaa.gov/data/sst/anomaly/2014/anomnight.10.30.2014.gif
This is todays map of same a bit of a worry as it has not chnaged for days now. SG is maintaining that it is correct. Im a bit skeptical BTW the colour coding seesms diffrerent. http://weather.unisys.com/surface/sst_anom.gif
The temperature did increase during the 20thC, so even if it is decreasing now that doesn’t change the “increase of approximately 1 – 1 1/2 ” bit. But their whole case is built on “an increase of approximately 1 – 1 1/2 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century, more than half of that occurring since the 1970s“. That’s a cherry-pick, using the lowest possible starting point for the later part of the century. The true increase of the later part is the amount by which it exceeded the highest earlier temperature.
The temperature rose ~0.4 deg C from 1900 to ~1943, and ~0.4 deg C from then to 2000. http://tinyurl.com/nn3zroc So the whole article is based on a false premise. Half of the increase occurred in the earlier part of the 20thC, and half in the later part. ie, the increase in the later part was not more than half.
Yes, we have measured 0,8 deg C with equal parts in each half of the previous century. But how much of that is a real increase and how much is due to calibrations errors, UHI and so on?
There is research done on that, showing that only 0,4 deg C is temperature increase. The rest is imagined warming due to the errors mentioned. http://bit.ly/1riEAsm
October 30, 2014 4:15 am
“However, it is known that burning of fossil fuels injects additional carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This in turn increases the naturally occurring greenhouse effect,”
Does it? Logically if there are now an extra 60ppm of CO2 in the atmospheric mix, there must be 60ppm LESS of some other component (or components). The overall “greenhouse” impact will surely depend on what the displaced 60ppm actually are and their individual “greenhouse signatures” – something which I have never seen defined.
Actually the reduction in O2 is much less than you might think. The worst case estimate showed that if we burned the worlds entire reserves of fossil fuels we would reduce the O2 concentration by 3.3% . However studies have shown that in fact the increased rate of photosynthesis would in large part counter that effect. According to the Scripps Institute the increase in CO2 since industrial times has led to a decrease in O2 concentrations of less than 2 parts per million per annum. To put this in context atmospheric o2 concentrations since the Cambrian era have varied between 15% and 35% due to natural variability.
Oxygen is monitored since 1990 (a hell of a job as the needed accuracy is less than 1:200,000) in the atmosphere and shows a small surplus if one calculates the oxygen use caused by fossil fuel burning. That indeed shows that the biosphere is a net supplier of oxygen, and thus has a net uptake of CO2 of ~1 GtC/year (0.5 ppmv/year): the earth is greening. That is about 10% of the human emissions. Important, but not enough to remove all human emissions in short term… See:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/287/5462/2467.short
and more recent:
http://www.bowdoin.edu/~mbattle/papers_posters_and_talks/BenderGBC2005.pdf
CO2 is a greenhouse gas, N2 and O2 aren’t. But if the increase of 110 ppmv CO2 since ~1850 has much effect is questionable: the longer the “pause” lasts, the lower the effect…
Actually. One takes one molecule of oxygen (two atoms) and atom of carbon (sourced from coal) and you get one molecule of carbon dioxide. Hence the volume and total number of gaseous atoms does not change. Oxygen does not absorb at the same (or as many) wavelengths as CO2. To have the same absorbance from oxygen as you would from CO2 would require so much more oxygen that one can ignore the effect of the reduced oxygen completely. The only measurable effect is the increased absorbance from CO2. So the statement you are critical of is correct. This is not new physics, or particularly related to climate. The absorbance characteristics of water and CO2 have been studied by combustion engineers in great detail for far longer than the climate gang came along. Funny thing is, the combustion engineers believe that CO2 does actually become saturated. For those who are about to jump down MY throat. I have discussed this at Science of Doom (very good sight for the physics). He agrees with me.
Wow; you might be in luck:
This is all settled science with 97% consensus from knowledgeable (not to mention well-funded) scientists, so accurate data has to be easily available. Surely this has been incorporated into the highly credible climate models used to inform our elected officials regarding climate policy decisions.
Or maybe not:
97% of the CAGW climate science bozos haven’t a friggin’ clue, and 0% of them care if there is an answer…and you’re only asking because you’re a trouble maker.
This article describes a decrease of water vapor in the stratosphere:
http://www.noaa.gov/features/02_monitoring/water_vapor.html
“… Changes in the amount of upper atmosphere — or stratospheric — water vapor strongly influence surface temperatures, according to a paper published in Science magazine. The researchers relied on data from the long-term Boulder water vapor data record as well as satellite observations.
Their findings indicate that as stratospheric water vapor decreased after 2000, it has slowed the rate of the Earth’s warming. Likewise, an increase in water vapor in the 1990s accelerated the rate of warming during that time — by about 30 percent. Scientists cannot yet fully explain the changing patterns of the amount of water vapor in the stratosphere. …”
Both are greenhouse gases.
October 30, 2014 4:22 am
More than a century’s worth of detailed climate observations shows a sharp increase in both carbon dioxide and temperature.
And more than a century’s worth of detailed climate observations show that temperature and carbon dioxide do NOT increase in tandem.
And many century’s worth of temperature observations show that temperature started increasing long before carbon dioxide increased and has maintained a fairly steady rate (over the long term) despite sharp changes in carbon dioxide level and rate.
These would be a strong indicator that carbon dioxide does NOT significantly affect temperature.
The more pronounced evidence in the ice core records is the lag when temperature is coming back down in interglacial periods. CO2 remains elevated for a long time despite falling temperature, in some cases over a thousand years.
It decimates the alarmist claim that “CO2 is a major influence on temperature”. If that was true then temperature would remain higher as long as CO2 remained higher. But it did not thus indicating that, – whatever other natural forcings caused the temperature to decline (CO2 obviously not one of them), – those other natural forcings were also the main reason temperature rose in the first place not CO2.
There are lags over many periods of time, from seasons to multi-millennia, but in the past 160 years, CO2 is leading far ahead the temperature increase. During the warm(er) Medieval Warm Period, the CO2 level was ~285 ppmv, now we are near 400 ppmv for about the same temperature…
The overall ratio between temperature and CO2 is about 8 ppmv/K for the past 800,000 years. That is what the ice core record shows, where CO2 always lags temperature. Even for the MWP-LIA cooling the drop is ~6 ppmv for a ~0.8 K drop with a ~50 years lag:
http://www.ferdinand-engelbeen.be/klimaat/klim_img/law_dome_1000yr.jpg
The opposite warming since the LIA thus should have given not more than ~6 ppmv increase…
October 30, 2014 4:29 am
Willis nailed it years go by showing that the earth ventilates itself around the equatorial belt. The vertical dumping of heat(water vapor), then its condensation, at altitude(producing rain), dumps the heat of condensation ABOVE 90% of the earths CO2 greenhouse gas.
If I recall properly, he postulated that this thunderstorm process might start a minute or two earlier every day, thus easily dumping the entire human influence into the stratosphere. This solved the mystery IMO. We are thus nothing in the overall scheme of heat removal.from earth. We will be lucky to measure 0.5 C of warming due to human CO2. Nothing at all to fret about.
Willis: I congratulate you. They should name it the “Willis effect”.
Or the “Mikeishere effect” – I wrote about it too several years ago and before I read about it from Willis. A simple estimate of annual global precipitation gives the total latent heat transported. Water drives the climate of our planet and everything else is in the back seat going along for the ride. Considering hydrogen is the most abundant element of the universe, oxygen is the most abundant element on earth and that the combination of both of them as H2O is one of the most unusual molecules there is – somehow I don’t think it was all by ‘chance’…
“…dumps the heat of condensation ABOVE 90% of the earths CO2 greenhouse gas.”
Sorry sir, but you, Willis and everyone else who believes this ‘latent heat-hot tower’ concept is incorrect. This is all basic operational meteorology…
1)A parcel of air rising at the dry adiabatic lapse rate cools @5.38 °F per 1,000 ft
2)A parcel reaching it’s condensation point (that latent heat process), it rises at the moist adiabatic lapse rate which cools @2.7 °F per 1,000 ft.
*NOTICE* the parcel is still cooling…it is *NOT* warming. The tops of the clouds are COLD!!
3) Once the parcel reaches it’s Equilibrium Level (which is usually the Tropopause, not the Stratosphere, but could be ‘any’ warmer layer in it’s vertical path – that’s what inversions are), it is at the same temperature as it’s surroundings and the lifting process stops, the cooling process stops & the latent heat process stops & 9 times out of 10, the parcel will be colder – often *MUCH* colder than where it started from near/at the surface.
4) The clouds are, in fact, blocking the warm surface LWIR from radiating out to space.
Again, this is all very basic, long established operational meteorology verified by daily RAOB, aircraft & satellite observations & the process can be seen on a plotted Skew-T thermodynamic chart which, BTW, is called a ‘thermodynamic’ chart for a very specific reason…it is graphically showing the thermodynamic process of rising & falling parcels of air though the various dynamic temperature structures of the vertical atmosphere.
If anyone does not agree with this, feel free to reply with your math explaining the process & the references to back it up.
Regards,
Jeff
“*NOTICE* the parcel is still cooling…it is *NOT* warming. The tops of the clouds are COLD!!”
Wow. How about sticking to what I said as opposed to making up things which I did not say. However, your own words state what I stated. You said that the vertical cooling rate was lower for moist air. I just said the same thing, in layman’s language. The equatorial region dumps massive heat above the “greenhouse” CO2 layer every day. It is no big deal for the earth to dump a bit more, by starting a minute earlier. Willis nailed it.
Physics Major
October 30, 2014 at 9:30 am
“The parcel got colder, so the heat that started with was transfer to somewhere else. Where did it go?”
If you understood the adiabatic process, you would know. Go, study, learn.
mpainter
October 30, 2014 at 10:18 am
“We have all been through this before with jkrob who is confuses heat with temperature…”
TROLL ALERT!! You are not following instructions in *showing* where I’m wrong & *how* I’m wrong…you are a troll.
Ed_B
October 30, 2014 at 11:13 am
(I said)“*NOTICE* the parcel is still cooling…it is *NOT* warming. The tops of the clouds are COLD!!”
“Wow. How about sticking to what I said as opposed to making up things which I did not say. ”
Jeez, you can’t “…[dump] the heat of condensation (latent heat) ABOVE 90% of the earths CO2 greenhouse gas.” when the heat is being lost to the adiabatic process within the cloud…which blocks LWIR. Once the parcel reaches the TOA (tropopause), it’s temperature (heat content) is down to -40 to -70F which means there is a whole lot less ‘heat’ to radiate to space. Also, the air parcel will reheat when it descends back to the surface…which it will do at some point. That is the adiabatic process in reverse.
Robert B
October 30, 2014 at 2:14 pm
“Why is the dry adiabatic lapse rate less than the moist adiabatic lapse rate?”
Uhh, when is cooling @ur momisugly 5.38 °F per 1,000 ft (dry) ‘less’ than cooling @ur momisugly 2.7 °F per 1,000 ft (moist)?
Once again, if you disagree with what I say give the numbers/math which is correct & give references where you got it from. Until that time, I’m correct.
Have a great day,
Jeff
Yes JKrob, I did get that the wrong way around. It was clear in my head if not my typing fingers. I was trying to point out that it has cooled less at a certain height because of condensation. The liquid cools by emitting LWIR and the higher it is the less that is absorbed by the atmosphere. It also condenses suddenly in the real world, not gradually as it rises.
” it’s temperature (heat content) ”
Yup. Clearly confusing HEAT with TEMPERATURE. Different things entirely. When water freezes to ice, the latent HEAT of fusion is released. It all happens at the same 0 C temperature. Please, as you are fond of saying: go study up on it and get back to us with numbers and references. Until then, I’m correct /snark;
As pointed out by mpainter, your understanding is confounded by mixing heat and temperature as though they were the same thing.
Yes, the cloud tops are cold. Yet far far warmer than deep space and well able to radiate loads of heat to space. (Though I’m pretty sure what actually happens is that the Hurricane Force Cat 2 winds at the tropopause transport some of the air poleward and the radiating is done there, just prior to descending at way cold temps like -50 C)
You can see the net radiation levels here:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/view.php?d1=CERES_NETFLUX_M
Notice that they move seasonally with the rain / cloud tops:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/GlobalMaps/view.php?d1=CERES_NETFLUX_M&d2=TRMM_3B43M
though there may be some lags in there, it’s hard to tell what with the frames repainting separately.
So it’s blindingly obvious that the net outbound radiation moves with the insolation (seasonally tracking it) and that the rain moves with the solar heating that evaporates the water making clouds and precipitation. Said precipitation happening when the water condenses in the clouds.
CO2 has no role in the heat transport process of the troposphere / tropopause. It has a minor role in the stratosphere, and there it is a net cooling agent.
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/tropopause-rules/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2014/10/17/gonzo-gonzalo-and-cyclone-up-vortex-down/
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2014/06/01/le-chatelier-and-his-principle-vs-the-trouble-with-trenberth/
And please, go learn the difference between heat (an extrinsic / extensive property) and temperature (an intrinsic / intensive property).
http://chiefio.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/intrinsic-extrinsic-intensive-extensive/
The Earth is a giant heat engine solar driven with water as the working fluid. Heat is absorbed in the oceans (and a tiny bit on land surfaces) and radiated at stratospheric height. Well above the bulk of ‘greenhouse gasses’ (that are anything BUT like a greenhouse… they are net radiative / cooling and do not in any way block convection – which is how a real greenhouse works.)
It might be above 90% of the Earth’s CO2 but it still has a path length of miles to go. Has anyone calculated water movement in the stratosphere? There is enough water for it to emit an equivalent of 1 W/m2 for the surface area of the Earth if it all precipitated in one year. Circulation of this water between poles and the equator might be important.
October 30, 2014 4:38 am
“Humans are also changing the climate on a more localized level. The replacement of vegetation by buildings and roads is causing temperature increases through what’s known as the urban heat island effect”
Thanks to your project Anthony, we also know that the UHI also affects many if not most of the temperature measuring stations giving gradually increasing “false” higher temperatures that than should have been indicated over the last century had their surroundings remained bucolic.
October 30, 2014 4:42 am
“More than a century’s worth of detailed climate observations shows a sharp increase in both carbon dioxide and temperature. These observations, together with computer model simulations and historical climate reconstructions from ice cores, ocean sediments and tree rings all provide strong evidence that the majority of the warming over the past century is a result of human activities. This is also the conclusion drawn, nearly unanimously, by climate scientists.”
Bold mine
What does the scientific term “sharp increase” mean? There was a “sharp increase” in global temps in the first part of the 20th Century and another in the latter half. The “climate scientists” that TWC references seem to believe that only the second one was caused by human CO2 emissions. Huh?
Other than the computer model simulations (designed to show CO2 as a major factor), none of the other referenced items “provide strong evidence that the majority of the warming over the past century is a result of human activities”. Indeed, if anything, they show that nothing out of the ordinary has happened over the past century. Moreover, the computer model simulations are not evidence of anything. A simulation is not evidence, and unless it is an exact simulation, it is not even accurate.
Saying “This is the conclusion drawn, nearly unanimously, by climate scientists” doesn’t make it so. Better, and more accurate, would be to say that there is nearly unanimous agreement that human activities may have contributed somewhat to the warming with the exact portion of the warming caused by human CO2 emissions being uncertain.
Humans caused the second sharp rise in temperature but not the first! We also caused the 18 year standstill! This is the so called elephant in the room.
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/media/image/j/l/warmingtrend.gif
Editor
October 30, 2014 4:58 am
At least they are recognizing the role of UHI & land use change & that it isn’t just CO2.
I think they are a bit disingenuous to imply a high correlation between temperature and CO2 increase when they surely know that the correlation is not high.
The computer model simulations are not ‘evidence’ , especially since they fail so miserably to reflect observations of temperature. Nor are tree ring proxies or the other indicators ‘evidence’ that human activity is responsible for temp rise.
Also disingenuous to say that the ‘jury is out’ on cyclonic activity presumably because it isn’t doing what they ‘hope’ it will.
October 30, 2014 4:59 am
Several statements, all basically true, but pieced together in such a way as to justify an unjustifiable belief. No facts, no definite linkage, can’t say anything about hurricanes since they’ve suddenly disappeared for a decade.
Claims about conclusions drawn by “climate scientists” are still no better than predictions from astrologers. It’s NOT a “science”, it’s voodoo, except without tasty chickens.
That’s the problem with inventing your own branch of “science”, there’s nobody around to shake you and say, “Hey, stupid, that’s all wrong!”… and in 100 years when they use this as yet another lesson on hubris and the stupidity of herds, the current “climate scientist” names will be universally laughed at and scorned, they way we remember Chamberlain, Quisling, et al.
Hey Bob, you want to really screw up those financials? Just do Mike’s Nature trick on the gold samples, that’ll bring the investors running. Hey Jim, want to make your tax numbers look better? Just Hansen up the records. Oh Sam, if you want to completely mess with Wiki, just Connoley the real facts with made up trash.
October 30, 2014 5:09 am
The climate of the earth is indeed warming, with an increase of approximately 1 – 1 1/2 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century, more than half of that occurring since the 1970s.
Yes, it’s a fact that the climate has been slowly warming since the LIA. But only 0.69C per century, according to the JMA, looking at the average surface temps over land and oceans (oceans dominate climate).
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/ann_wld.html
[data and analysis method]
http://ds.data.jma.go.jp/tcc/tcc/products/gwp/temp/explanation.html
October 30, 2014 5:13 am
“The climate of the earth is indeed warming, with an increase of approximately 1 – 1 1/2 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century.” Duh what do you think should happen at the end of the “Little Ice Age” and during the start of the modern warm period. Do you think it was going to get colder? This has happened before at the end of Bond Events.
October 30, 2014 5:19 am
This is one for the books. A sceptic gets the first bite at a comprehensive news release and the alarmist establishment gets the lesser role of defending their position. It is difficult to discredit an idea once it has been floated globally.
It is usually the reverse. Warmists marketing army pump out press releases and leave it to the sceptics to put the toothpaste back into the tube. Bravo John Coleman!
October 30, 2014 5:25 am
Was there a big meeting some years ago where it was decided to ignore the principles of metrology and science in order to present data like this as fact?
Data with uncertainties and resolutions much larger than the stated measurement value and filtered through a raft of assumptions all that are conveniently ignored when values are presented?
It’s like using Google Earth to count the hairs on your head and then getting fired up when you realise there are a few more on reanalysis.
As they say in Belfast, wise up the bap.
October 30, 2014 5:36 am
October 30, 2014 5:46 am
Sin of Omission: Failing to do something which one is able to do, and which one ought to do.
John Coleman is not guilty of the Sin of Omission, but the Weather Channel clearly is.
Their statement intentionally ignores the important scientific facts that John Coleman pointed out:
1. The satellite temperature record for the past 18 years shows no warming.
2. There is almost Zero correlation between CO2 and surface temperatures.
3. The polar ice caps are making a dramatic recovery.
4. Climate models are abject failures at projecting future climate conditions.
October 30, 2014 6:00 am
“More than a century’s worth of detailed climate observations shows a sharp increase in both carbon dioxide and temperature. These observations, together with computer model simulations and historical climate reconstructions from ice cores, ocean sediments and tree rings all provide strong evidence that the majority of the warming over the past century is a result of human activities”.
1) Is there not evidence that “More than a century’s worth of detailed climate observations shows a sharp increase in ….temperature” can be attributed, at least partially, to retrospective recording adjustments?
2) “…together with computer model simulations…” Are there any such models which have past the test of time?
3) “…ocean sediments and tree rings” All such temperature proxies have huge margins of error. Tree rings, in particular, as Steve McIntyre and McKitrick have shown, make notoriously unreliable proxies. Indeed
October 30, 2014 6:04 am
“There is evidence in recent years of a direct linkage between the larger-scale warming and shorter-term phenomena such as heat waves and precipitation extremes. The jury is out on exactly what effects global warming is having or will have upon tropical cyclones or tornadoes.”
Sh!t Lysenkoist propaganda from the weather channel (yes, lower case).
Dear weather channel,
Why are you doing this? Are you so embarrassed at being wrong that you want to continue the charade as long as you can and hope it will all go away. ?
Are you Government toadies like the BBC in the UK ?
Do you think that you cannot be eviscerated in the internet age within 24 hours ? How quaint.
October 30, 2014 6:08 am
This is the last gasp of a dying brand. “The Weather Channel” probably won’t exist in a few years (on cable at any rate). Unfortunately, other websites are being infected by “The weather Underground”. WU recently trashed one of my favorite weather sites, Intellicast.com by introducing a horrible new presentation format that looks like a high school website building project. Just terrible. And they just didn’t care what the users thought. Anyway, I’m on to Accuweather.com and that’s been fantastic.
Bye bye, Weather Channel and Intellicast…
October 30, 2014 6:15 am
In the future, historians and scientists will be amazed by the world wide hysteria induced by a single degree of temperature rise, amazed by not just the ignorance (ignorance is an unavoidable consequence of our lack of understanding), but by how any reasonable application of either logic or scientific method could possibly lead to such illogical and unscientific conclusions.
It is difficult to overstate the abject failure of science and reason that has befallen us, as there is no historic precedent I can think of. We can look at the fairly recent (until circa 1960) rejection of continental drift as a failure, but at least antagonists could claim that there was no known method explaining how continents could actually drift. Reason was not simply abandoned.
The closest parallel is with eugenics, another unscientific theory notable for evidence-mongering to accepted prejudices of the time. Today’s evidence-mongers however, are hard at work not merely scouring the globe for anything that can support their mad theory, but so often turning their heads away whenever they overturn something that contradicts it, they ought to have neck injuries by now.
Will people of the future look kindly to all this? If the generation who won the second world war and put man on the moon are the greatest generation, what will they call us?
Vince:
A very well stated concern.
As an old CFO, I note your statement also applies to my area of…well, let’s go with “experience”:
“It is difficult to overstate the abject failure of science and reason that has befallen us, as there is no historic precedent I can think of [for such willful ignorance]…” also applies to attempts to “forecast” the stock market. Investors can believe in the tooth fairy all they want, but irrational crowd momentum only carries so far before reality takes over and investments go POOF. Stock market time constants are shorter and consequences are more noticeable than climate fluxuations.
It is possible and highly profitable to take advantage of trends in both systems: in climate, it’s called farming; in investing it’s called Berkshire Hathaway.
In their defense, complex non-linear coupled systems like the climate and the economy are impossible to ‘model’ with current technology. The ‘modelers’ in climatology and Keynesian macroeconomics picked up mathematical constructs from physics in the 19th century, that seemed to reflect what we now know to be quite primitive understanding. Trouble is, their ‘models’ in no way actually represent reality. It just seemed like a good idea at the time. The politicians saw all this as a tool for acquiring votes and power, but they “… use Science the way a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination.” {That’s a quote, not original, but I can’t find the reference. Apologies to the source. }
Maybe in the distant future, quantum computers or something we haven’t even thought of … with far more capacity, and much finer granularity, will get closer to real models, but we’ve got a very long way to go before that is possible.
ecSNcrew: Strongly agree with most of your comment, except for “…Maybe in the distant future, quantum computers or something we haven’t even thought of … with far more capacity, and much finer granularity, will get closer to real models.
I’m a little out of my academic depth here, but it’s difficult for me to accept climate as a chaotic (i.e.: deterministic) system. This implies it’s stochastic, and thus simply cannot be accurately modeled (i.e.: produce accurate forecasts). This appears to be a mathematical property of the system, not a function of the computer power.
October 30, 2014 6:17 am
WC does a reasonably good job on severe weather but everything they say is underscored with climate change dogma. Ironically, there’s no weather on The Weather Channel it’s all climate change. They search the globe for severe events to support the statement we’ve just read. My weather comes from local sources on line without all the hype.
The Weather Channel posted this yesterday, no doubt to counter TWC founder John Coleman’s recent Open Letter and appearance on Fox’s Kelly File (several comments make the connection):
Global Warming: The Weather Channel Position Statement
Introduction
The scientific issue of global warming can be broken down into three main questions: Is global warming a reality? Are human activities causing it? What are the prospects for the future?
Warming: Fact or Fiction?
The climate of the earth is indeed warming, with an increase of approximately 1 – 1 1/2 degrees Fahrenheit in the past century, more than half of that occurring since the 1970s. The warming has taken place as averaged globally and annually; significant regional and seasonal variations exist.
Impacts can already be seen, especially in the Arctic, with melting glaciers, thawing permafrost, and rapid retreat and thinning of sea ice, all of which are affecting human populations as well as animals and vegetation. There and elsewhere, rising sea level is increasing coastal vulnerability.
There is evidence in recent years of a direct linkage between the larger-scale warming and shorter-term phenomena such as heat waves and precipitation extremes. The jury is out on exactly what effects global warming is having or will have upon tropical cyclones or tornadoes.
Human Influence
To what extent the current warming is due to human activity is complicated because large and sometimes sudden climate changes have occurred throughout our planet’s history — most of them before humans could possibly have been a factor. Furthermore, the sun/atmosphere/land/ocean “climate system” is extraordinarily complex, and natural variability on time scales from seconds to decades and beyond is always occurring.
However, it is known that burning of fossil fuels injects additional carbon dioxide and other so-called greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. This in turn increases the naturally occurring “greenhouse effect,” a process in which our atmosphere keeps the earth’s surface much warmer than it would otherwise be.
More than a century’s worth of detailed climate observations shows a sharp increase in both carbon dioxide and temperature. These observations, together with computer model simulations and historical climate reconstructions from ice cores, ocean sediments and tree rings all provide strong evidence that the majority of the warming over the past century is a result of human activities. This is also the conclusion drawn, nearly unanimously, by climate scientists.
Humans are also changing the climate on a more localized level. The replacement of vegetation by buildings and roads is causing temperature increases through what’s known as the urban heat island effect. In addition, land use changes are affecting impacts from weather phenomena. For example, urbanization and deforestation can cause an increased tendency for flash floods and mudslides from heavy rain. Deforestation also produces a climate change “feedback” by depleting a source which absorbs carbon dioxide.
more…
http://www.weather.com/news/science/environment/global-warming-weather-channel-position-statement-20141029
h/t to WUWT reader Pat.