From the Joint Research Center:
Analysing heat waves – new index allows predicting their magnitude
JRC scientists have developed a new index to measure the magnitude of heat waves, in cooperation with colleagues from five research organisations. According to the index projections, under the worst climate scenario of temperature rise nearing 4.8⁰C, extreme heat waves will become the norm by the end of the century. Heat waves like the one that hit Russia in summer 2010, the strongest on record in recent decades, will occur as often as every two years in southern Europe, North and South America, Africa and Indonesia.
The Heat Wave Magnitude Index is the first to allow comparing heat waves over space and time. It takes into account both the duration and intensity of heat waves and can serve as a benchmark for evaluating the impacts of future climate change. Results also show that the percentage of global area affected by heat waves has increased in recent decades, and the probability of occurrence of extreme and very extreme heat waves is projected to increase further in the coming years.
The index is based on an analysis of daily maximum temperatures, which was carried out to classify the strongest heat waves that occurred worldwide during three study periods (1980-1990, 1991-2001 and 2002-2012). In addition, a combination of models is used to project the future occurrence and severity of heat waves, under different scenarios as established in the latest Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
Taking into account the disastrous effects of the 2003 and 2010 heat wave events in Europe, and those of 2011 and 2012 in the USA, results show that we may be facing a serious risk of adverse impacts over larger and densely populated areas if mitigation strategies for reducing global warming are not implemented.
The paper:
Gamblers can only double down for so long…
Yeah, but they’re gambling with tax payer money.
You know…
The bottomless money pit.
Since they are spending it faster than taxpayers provide it, they are BORROWING it so in the future the taxpayers while OWE it! That is the insult to injury of planning to kill the economy.
Time for a tax Jubilee.
We base our findings on heat waves in Europe and the US between 2003 and 2012, lets not mention the dust bowl years. After all most of those that experienced those years have now passed, and we no longer teach history prior to the 60’s.
‘will occur as often as every two years in southern Europe, North and South America, Africa and Indonesia.’
Will Australia be subject to heat waves every year? And they didn’t want to scare us, so omitted it?
Don’t you just hate it to be excluded? \sarc
Are they predicting anything as devastating as this/ “The Mayan civilization flourished till 17th century before Spain invaded the last independent Mayan city of Tayasal in 1697. However, some climate scientists believe that a massive drought struck the regions of the Classic Maya Civilization and persisted for 200 years from AD 800 to 1000, around the same period when the civilization collapsed.”
http://www.ibtimes.com/reign-falls-did-200-year-drought-less-rainfall-cause-collapse-classic-mayan-civilization-415628
4.8 degrees. This is with the dreaded doubling of pre industrial levels of CO2 I assume. Plot that relationship on a graph and we get a line showing exponential growth of temperature for each new rise of CO2. The consequences of extending that logic is sufaces temperatures of Earth exceeding the surface temperature of Venus before CO2 hit 0.5% concentration! Extending the same logic in reverse says temperatures wouldn’t drop below 0.5C of 1850 levels if CO2 was eliminated completely from our atmosphere! Now can someone please catch one of these morons drawing their apocolytic graphs and publicly extend the line drawn in both directions to show how stupid they are!?
I think extreme weather indices are a good thing. But they should go back 60 years at least. They are very informative because they show current trends. As predictions of the global temperature change are difficult a 2°C goal is a bad alarm bell. Decadal predictions of extreme weather are much more difficult because they sensitively depend on regional parameters. Such forecasts produce only noise.
No surface warming for 18 years and counting. Climate sensitivity being dialled down in recent years. The worst case scenario is computer driven drivel, the IPCC’s temperature projections have failed since their first report.
CONFIDENCE LEVELS GROW AS PROJECTIONS OVERSHOOT OBSERVATIONS.
http://www.energyadvocate.com/gc1.jpg
That’s a brilliant graph!
So, apparently the IPCC becomes more and more confident as their predictions become more and more wrong. You couldn’t make this stuff up.
A copy of this graph should be sent to every politician.
Chris
What good would that do? Most of them are politicians because they found math too hard.
I love your graph. Very concisely correlates increasing failures with increasing BS at a >95% confidence level.
Will these good folk be brave enough to enter into the period of “UNHOGENISED HEAT”. Because it was bloody hot at times when I was a kid in Central Australia. AND my grandfather told me it was even a hell of a lot hotter when he was a kid!!!!!!
He died at 103 years and still said his period in Broken Hill in the early 1900’s were the hottest he ever experienced.
AND – I am not surprised. They were burning coke and coal like it was going out of fashion in those days!!!!!
Joint Research Center
Sure sounds like it.
Steven Mosher
November 5, 2014 at 10:36 pm
I dont know why they keep re inventing the wheel
FOR TAXPAYER’S MONEY. It’s better than having to work for a living.
I like to think that the comments sections on websites that cover the topic of climate are a snapshot of how the world is thinking. I have definitely seen a sea change, so let them come out with these reports, no one is listening anymore.
I thought heat waves were going to be the norm by the end of the last century. This is kind of like chicken little crying wolf.
Is he saying “The sky is going to eat me!”?
What a wonderful escape clause: “…the strongest on record in recent decades…”. Was there any mention of when those previous decades were, and what the temperatures were then?
Yet another “If…then” press release/research study.
Here’s a few more that fit in the same exact category…
“If a frog had wings, then it wouldn’t bump it’s ass every time it hopped.”
“If the sun erupted, then Earth would be destroyed.”
“If my aunt had balls…she’d be my uncle.”
“If” is the ultimate out for these people. “Hey…we didn’t say it WOULD happen!…we only said this would happen if THAT happened. Just because THAT hasn’t happened yet, doesn’t mean we’re wrong!!!”
So if I change all the laws of physics, reindeer can fly and unicorn flatulence will power the world!
I think we should tax unicorns, just in case.
Same same…as happened thousands of times in earth life cycle just someone cut out a 35 year chunk of the timeline instead of the WHOLE timeline to substantiate their argument or bolster someone’s political agenda… no doubt climate changes as has before and will again 😉
In theory, if increased GHG forcing increases positive North Atlantic Oscillation conditions, some continental summer heat waves should be reduced. Heatwaves that can be associated with increased forcing indicators such as positive NAO and even developing La Nina conditions, being generated from short term solar forcings, should not spontaneously increase in frequency as a result of a moderate rise in global mean surface temperature, by whatever means. On longer scales than the short term solar forcing of heat waves like in 2003, 2010, and March 2012, continental drought and hence heatwaves are intensified during longer periods of weaker solar forcing that are resulting in El Nino episodes, and a warm AMO mode.
Fascinating, they start their study period at the same time the PDO shifted from cold to warm and end it when the PDO shifts back to cold.
Nothing like cherry picking when you want to bake a pie.
Absolute drivel.
Since we haven’t had a real heat wave in the Toronto area for several years and this is exceptionally rare, hopefully my great grandchildren will know what a heat wave is; for apparently, they won’t know what snow is?
Where is the demonstrated forecast skill for their models in the report?
I just tooted, better add that heat to the index.
No study periods prior to 1980? Intetesting.
“Taking into account the disastrous effects of the 2003 and 2010 heat wave events in Europe, and those of 2011 and 2012 in the USA, results show that we may be facing a serious risk of adverse impacts over larger and densely populated areas if mitigation strategies for reducing global warming are not implemented.”
What global warming?
Ummm….
Ok. I know I’m old, but damn…2011/12 wasn’t THAT long ago.
Exactly what were the disasters that were due to heat waves in the US during those years?
http://sarcozona.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/hwindex.jpg
The data as usual refutes their crazy claims.
Hey, yours even shows past 2006! Thank you, Salvatore for that great (actual scientific) evidence against their claims. You’d think they would have considered all the records that existed before they programmed their model..
The models assume CO2 is causing the accumulation of heat, and therefore increasing heat waves. But a historical perspective debunks that claim.
Looking at heat waves our top climate scientists found the 30s experienced the worst heat waves in the USA. Read Peterson, T., et al. (2013) Monitoring and Understanding Changes in Heat waves, Cold Waves, Floods and Droughts in the United States, State of Knowledge. Bulletin of the American Meterological Society. June 2013, p. 821-834.
http://landscapesandcycles.net/image/73818681.jpg
http://landscapesandcycles.net/image/73818621.jpg
The European and Russian heat waves were created by winter/spring droughts. Analyses of the Russian heatwave was that it was natural and similar heat waves happened periodically.
Read 94. Dole, R., et al., (2011) Was There a Basis for Anticipating the 2010 Russian Heat Wave? Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 38, L06702.
That Peterson graph of decadal heat waves has the data on it, but the graph chops off the most extreme of the extremes, leaving a visual impression that the Dust Bowl years weren’t so bad. Here’s a properly scaled version I put on ICECAP last year:
http://icecap.us/images/uploads/UHI12.png
If someone cleverer than me knows how to post that in these replies, go for it – thanks.
Holy cow, the graph showed up!
Clever…