From Stanford News Service:
MEDIA ADVISORY. Stanford at AGU Fall Meeting.
Global warming’s influence on extreme weather
Understanding the cause-and-effect relationship between global warming and record-breaking weather requires asking precisely the right questions.
Extreme climate and weather events such as record high temperatures, intense downpours and severe storm surges are becoming more common in many parts of the world. But because high-quality weather records go back only about 100 years, most scientists have been reluctant to say if global warming affected particular extreme events.
On Wednesday, Dec. 17, at the American Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting in San Francisco, Noah Diffenbaugh, an associate professor of environmental Earth system science at the Stanford School of Earth Sciences, will discuss approaches to this challenge in a talk titled “Quantifying the Influence of Observed Global Warming on the Probability of Unprecedented Extreme Climate Events.” He will focus on weather events that – at the time they occur – are more extreme than any other event in the historical record.
Diffenbaugh emphasizes that asking precisely the right question is critical for finding the correct answer.
“The media are often focused on whether global warming caused a particular event,” said Diffenbaugh, who is a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. “The more useful question for real-world decisions is: ‘Is the probability of a particular event statistically different now compared with a climate without human influence?'”
Diffenbaugh said the research requires three elements: a long record of climate observations; a large collection of climate model experiments that accurately simulate the observed variations in climate; and advanced statistical techniques to analyze both the observations and the climate models.
One research challenge involves having just a few decades or a century of high-quality weather data with which to make sense of events that might occur once every 1,000 or 10,000 years in a theoretical climate without human influence.
But decision makers need to appreciate the influence of global warming on extreme climate and weather events.
“If we look over the last decade in the United States, there have been more than 70 events that have each caused at least $1 billion in damage, and a number of those have been considerably more costly,” said Diffenbaugh. “Understanding whether the probability of those high-impact events has changed can help us to plan for future extreme events, and to value the costs and benefits of avoiding future global warming.”
Diffenbaugh’s talk takes place Dec. 17 at 2:44 p.m. PT in Room 3005 of Moscone West, Moscone Convention Center.
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No shame.
If severe weather outcomes are judged by cost then inflation will make them increasingly more common.
Precisely. But the concept that the Federal Reserve (by inflating the money supply) might have a hand in any increase in property damage costs is undoubtedly a concept that a Stanford University professor could not possibly grasp.
With the non-linear increase in population expected to reach 11 billion by 2100 along with changing life styles and consequent ecological destruction certainly show multifold increase in the damage for the same intensity weather system.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
And those 11 billion face 85 more years of ever-increasing death, disease, hardship and suffering BECAUSE OF the CAGW community artificial demands to restrict energy production, raise prices, and forced death. Are YOU, personally, willing to acknowledge that YOU personally though YOUR advocacy are causing that harm to billions deliberately for the next 85 years to “perhaps” avoid “non-linear” changes due to weather damages that will not themselves be changed by restricting man’s CO2 release?
Wait a minute, (sniff, sniff, sniff) Ah, yes; BS
I would invite your attention to the book “What to Expect When No One is Expecting”.
http://www.amazon.com/What-Expect-When-Ones-Expecting-ebook/dp/B00KK6CBCY/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418568805&sr=1-1&keywords=what+to+expect+when+no+one%27s+expecting
There is a real problem with global population, but it is not what you think.
Regards,
Steamboat Jack (Jon Jewett’s evil twin)
This is the conference you are attending??
“One research challenge involves having just a few decades or a century of high-quality weather data with which to make sense of events that might occur once every 1,000 or 10,000 years in a theoretical climate without human influence.”
Yup, going to definitely need “advanced statistical techniques” and probably a theoretical planet.
Who needs “advanced statistical techniques” when you have models??
So no evidence that the weather / climate is becoming more extreme due to man. I like this bit:
So more bollocks and garbage in and out. No chance of statistical bias entering the “advanced statistical techniques”.
Just a little something for ya. Here is the bit from the AGU. [my bold]
I can’t help but wonder about bias creeping in.
Here is our Gavin.
Sorry, I can’t find this extreme weather thingey. It must be in the deep oceans.
No trends in extreme weather
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/27/another-paper-shows-that-severe-weatherextreme-weather-has-no-trend-related-to-global-warming/
Little change in global drought over the past 60 years
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v491/n7424/full/nature11575.html
No trend in global hurricane landfall
http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/admin/publication_files/2012.04.pdf
Better models are needed before exceptional events can be reliably linked to global warming.
http://www.nature.com/news/extreme-weather-1.11428
It gets worse. It’s worse than we thought!
It’s hiding in the oceans. It has to be or the observations are wrong.
From AR5
http://turiteadocuments.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/ipcc-ar5-chapter-12-table-12-41.png
More proof that extreme weather event claims are scare mongering and are not caused by AGW…even the IPCC gives them low probability and confidence levels.
Jimbo writes “I can’t help but wonder about bias creeping in.”
Yeah, its hilarious isn’t it. They’re not asking the question as the whether the increased CO2 causes extreme weather events any more, that assumption has been made. Its now a question of finding evidence to support that proposition. That’s no longer science.
And lots of grant money…
Noah is a great name for an extreme weather investigator. I wonder if his $70 billion in damage losses is ‘normalized’ data that takes account of increased vulnerability due to population increase/movement and inflation? I wonder how just a century of data can realistically relate to 1000 or 10,000 years? Is Michael Mann supplying ‘the advanced statistical techniques?’
So let’s make money the lead factor in how good a PGA tour player is. You would have the then conclude on the basis of career earnings that Ryan Moore is three times the golfer that Jack Nicklaus is and Mathew Goggin is 10x better than Sam Snead. While I am pretty sure Ryan and Mathew would not necessarily agree, below is some of their totals. (from a few months ago)
Ryan Moore $ 17,541,028 3 wins no majors
Jack Nicklaus $ 5,734,031 career earnings 73 wins 18 wins + 19 2nd place finishes in major championships
Mathew Goggin $ 7,368,691 no wins 49 top 25 finishes
Sam Snead $ 713,155 career earnings 82 wins 7 majors. 52 top 25 finishes after age 52
Another result of inflation.
Noah is correct in focusing on what the probability of the extreme events were vs without human influence. But first I want to see the list of 70 events that each caused $1 billion damage. What kind of events? Were we where we should not have been in the first place. Would we have been there 200 years ago? Would anyone have even been aware of the event 200 years ago? A lot of spurious conjecture will be involved I’m sure.
What are “events that might occur… in a theoretical climate?”. Is that like forecasting what the weather should have been next Tuesday?”
Hi Anthony –
This statement is where their work is fatally flawed – they assume
“a large collection of climate model experiments that accurately simulate the observed variations in climate;”
As we have shown; e. g. see
Pielke Sr., R.A., R. Wilby, D. Niyogi, F. Hossain, K. Dairaku, J. Adegoke, G. Kallos, T. Seastedt, and K. Suding, 2012: Dealing with complexity and extreme events using a bottom-up, resource-based vulnerability perspective. Extreme Events and Natural Hazards: The Complexity Perspective Geophysical Monograph Series 196 © 2012. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. 10.1029/2011GM001086. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2012/10/r-3651.pdf
and
http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/b-18preface.pdf
the multi-decadal regional climate predictions of changes in climate statistics (when run in hindcast) show no significant skill. Thus, they cannot be used robustly for attribution studies,.
On the issue of extreme events and climate, see the new book by my son
The Rightful Place of Science: Disasters and Climate Change.
http://www.amazon.com/Rightful-Place-Science-Disasters-Climate/dp/0692297510/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1418494133&sr=1-1&keywords=pielke
Roger Sr. .
… “climate model experiments” …
Typical Orwell’ian Climatism-Newspeak!
Computer models can and will never be “experiments” – full stop!
Thank you for that, Dr. Pielke. I also read that sentence about needing ACCURATE models. And we have none.
The IPCC in their previous report were clear that the probability was that extreme whether could not be shown to have been linked to increased CO2 or that in fact had been increasing in both intensity or frequency. I think before they try to prove that there is an increased probability of extreme events occurring that as a matter of fact that they establish they are incurring. From the post it appears that is assumed. If I wasn’t mistaken this discussion in the context of the previous IPCC report is warmists arguing amongst themselves.
To me the extreme weather claims is a desperate attempt to maintain a scare campaign that is dying because the world refuses to warm.
Yup, but there’s still money to be made:
“Dr. Diffenbaugh is currently a Lead Author for Working Group II of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and a member of the National Academy of Sciences Ad Hoc Committee on Effects of Provisions in the Internal Revenue Code on Greenhouse Gas Emissions.”
https://earth.stanford.edu/noah-diffenbaugh
Exactly!
And if it hasn’t “warmed” for eighteen odd years, then how do they attribute recent bad weather to global warming?
I’m just asking because it’s as plain as the nose on your face.
Am I the only “denier” that can see the hypocrisy in the alarmists argument?
Global warming should lead to LESS types of extreme weather. They tell us that most of the warming should occure as you head towards the poles. The temperature differential is thus reduced. During the Little Ice Age the north Atlantic experienced some of the greatest storms. Warmists know this but would prefer to spew garbage in order to scare people. I always ask for the evidence that the weather is becoming more extreme AND caused by global warming as opposed to El Nino and other NATURAL climate oscillations. I always get nothing.
Further reading.
“Storminess Of The Little Ice Age”
http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2014/02/06/storminess-of-the-little-ice-age/
I have found the evidence of extreme weather! The insurance industry would know the answers so here we have it. / sarc
Bring your umbrella to the AGU meeting. Heavy rain at times forecast for all four days and during “Noah’s Flood” talk. I wonder how many talks are going to be about California drought.
Failing to achieve their temperature predictions they are now going for scare mongering with individual events. They need to be reminded how Sandy was touted to be a direct result of AGW only to be downgraded from even being a hurricane at landfall.
It’s not actually record breaking when it’s happened before but outside the time frame chosen or the instrument record. The time frames are often chosen so as to be able to use a superlative to describe the event. (IE I heard the recent storm that hit California described as “the worst storm in five years”.)
Also, to be honest, that “$1 billion in damage” would need to adjusted for inflation and account for increased population and development in the area effected by the event.
If $$ are to be used, how about a new unit of measure? “$ per capita adjusted for inflation”?
>“$ per capita adjusted for inflation”
An excellent point, but you would also need to adjust for wealth. An average home destroyed in 1900 would not be as large as one in 2014, nor have insulation, AC or central heat. It would not be an economic equivalent of 2014 home. Maybe a better measure would be, “% of real (estate) wealth destroyed per capita adjusted for inflation”.
Basically you need to calculate the ‘at risk’ value when assessing relative damage – which is what the article says. A Billion $ damage is what % of asset value at risk?
The Great Storm of January 1862 destroyed 25% of the taxable property in California. Now that was a storm. Turning that asset value into 2014 $ is not enough. It was so much the State of California went bankrupt. Now that is an impact.
Notice how the weeks-long December rains preceding the storm was ‘a weather event’. Then there was a pause. Of course the massive January flood was ‘the result of climate change’. Isn’t that how it works? The only problem is the flood came 150 years too early.
David and Crispin, Good points.
Of course the best measure is and will always be the measure of the storm itself in the context of “climate change”. An EF1 tornado is still an EF1 tornado whether it hits a cornfield or a trailer park or downtown. The cost of the damage done might be greater but the strength of the tornado is the same.
A new unit of measure for damage would be useful when the $ amount is used to hype a storm as being stronger than the weather event actually was or to give the impression it was somehow new or unusual. A unit of measure to put things into a more honest perspective.
I see Moscone is in San Francisco, so presumably Thursday’s rainfall will be used as an example of extreme weather, likewise so will last year’s drought.
Sigh………….
Yes, whether dry or wet, cold or hot, cool or warm, climate change is all to blame.
Of course, “Rain-god, him plenty-plenty angry” is equally valid as a hypothesis.
The “extreme” weather attriution has the perfect CAGW qualities of non-falsification. But not only can any event not be said to be not CAGW related, every one of the events can be claimed to be “possiblly” caused by CAGW despite the impossibility of every one of them being CAGW related.
Let’s say that the alarmists say there is an increased “likelihood” of an extreme weather event, say there are 10% more than some earlier time (which is not true, but for this argument’s sake, let that issue ride). Out of ten events, one is therefore CAGW-caused. But the MSM say that all 10 “may” be CAGW related. So the reader hears not one, but ten.
The way the alarmists are allowed to work with possibilitiies or probabilities allows them to misdirect the public into believing, at least emotionally, that ALL extreme weather events are caused by CAGW. If they used such techniques on, say, violence by ethnicity in the light of increasing ethnic changes, and said that any violent incident by X type of person “may” reflect the increase in the X type of people coming into this country, the liberals would shriek at the wrongness of the argument. But when it comes to the climate, well, people burning fossil fuels “do” cause every nasty storm you see.
Nobody will believe this except the most deluded global warmers who, of course, believe anything.
The Gullibles™
It’s sunny outside even though a snowfall was predicted. That’s pretty extreme, you heathen. I’m going for a bike ride. Tomorrow has been denied.
“…a large collection of climate model experiments that accurately simulate the observed variations in climate; and advanced statistical techniques to analyze both the observations and the climate models.”
Makes sense… but only if you could find climate models that ‘accurately simulate’ any thing to do with climate on this ball of rock and water.
When are any of these idiots going to realize you can’t simulate something you don’t thoroughly understand!
They can’t admit that, it would mean the end of the paycheck and that is the final, irrevocable end.
It might be interesting to count the number of climate papers that only use the models as input vs. those that use real world data. Why do I get the feeling that the main purpose & value of the models, even though they have no relation to the real world, is provide a quick and easy way to get grants and publish junk without leaving the campus.
I’m only saying this in a general sense:
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves.”
Pretty good advice, of old.
I believe that it was Martin Sheen that narrated a nature documentary in which he injected his disgust in contrasting the beauty of the wilds of the Amazon and the blight of industrialization on the landscape as he scanned the horizon from his plane. While hiking out of Muir Woods reaching the crest looking down at SF and South along the California coast I too shared in that feeling of disgust. Perhaps it is time to lessen the influence of man on our climate. Maybe someone can ask Noah Diffenbaugh about returning the California coast to its pre-Columbian state and in particular the whole of Santa Clara county to grasslands. Would removing the anthropogenic blight on the lands of California lower the billions of dollars of potential losses to extreme events?
touché
If there’s no warming, the causal chain to extreme events is broken at the inception. And that’s assuming the bonfire of logical fallacies attributing warming to man is an impeccable proof.
The dude says “the research requires three elements: a long record of climate observations; a large collection of climate model experiments that accurately simulate the observed variations in climate; and advanced statistical techniques to analyze both the observations and the climate models.”
Right off the bat, the first two simply don’t exist. So, we can conclude that the AGU will let anyone of sufficient faith have a microphone even if the proposition they assert is risible on its face.
So is the third one (i.e., advance statistical techniques).
Quinn and Joe
+1, why can’t educated people see this?
Someone just sent me a column by George Monbiot where he implies that the moose population in Canada is exploding and upsetting the CO2 balance as a result of vegetation reduction and moose farts. I am sure extreme weather in Newfiundland is about to increase in frequency and intensity. God help us.
Yes, indeed. And if Moonbat is expert in any field, it’s certainly moose farts.
Which are probably causing the moose to explode.
Think of the implications. We must invoke the Precautionary Principle.
Don’t feed the moose then?
The use of $ damage as the metric highlights the first point made – that if you ask the wrong question you will get a misleading policy from the answer.
So, in conclusion, if we stop emitting CO2, the climate will stop changing, right?
“Diffenbaugh emphasizes that asking precisely the right question is critical for finding the correct answer.”
I can see a list of his hopeful questions now using AGW as an abbreviation for [)Human caused Global Warming) or Climate Change (Human caused of course)]:
#1. Is AGW causing increased flooding on any streams anywhere on the Earth?
#2. Is AGW causing increased tornado activity in any location on the Earth?
#3 Is AGW causing increased hurricanes in any location on the Earth?
#4. Is AGW causing any increased weather activity on any days on the Earth when I modify all the data involved? Eureka, he has some winners.
Regardless or not of AGW, a case can be made that there is no increased activity of floods, tornadoes, hurricanes or general weather. As a matter of fact I believe it has been repeatedly stated that the most severe of these events have waned.
But Paul, you don’t seem to see his methods.
“The media are often focused on whether global warming caused a particular event,” said Diffenbaugh, who is a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. “The more useful question for real-world decisions is: ‘Is the probability of a particular event statistically different now compared with a climate without human influence?’”
Diffenbaugh said the research requires three elements: a long record of climate observations; a large collection of climate model experiments that accurately simulate the observed variations in climate; and advanced statistical techniques to analyze both the observations and the climate models.
Seems that there is an ‘app for that’.
Somehow, I read that as “AGU Fail Meeting…”
“Quantifying the Influence of Observed Global Warming on the Probability of Unprecedented Extreme Climate Events.”
In other words, “How to Lie With Statistics”. Should be interesting.
Huff’s book, How to Lie With Statistics, is available here (used):
http://preview.tinyurl.com/l9vrydx
The case for it being caused by witchcraft is just as strong. And instead of banning CO2, perhaps we should just make a potent stew from albinos.
Please don’t joke on this at people with albinism. You don’t want to hear what superstitious people do in East Africa.
More info from Under the Same Sun and albinism associations.
A stew made from Climate Activists would go a long way towards reducing the problem of CAGW.
But saying that the question should be ” ‘Is the probability of a particular event statistically different now compared with a climate without human influence?’” misses the point. It should be ” ‘Is the probability of a particular event statistically different now compared with a climate without human influence and with all other known recent natural trends removed?’” The if that shows signs of a trend then science should set out to eliminate any other natural trends before concluding that human influence is a trigger. It is not many years ago since those who argued for a solar trigger and suggested that vulcanism was improperly assessed were dismissed. Not so now…
And the “precisely right question” is never, “Might all this just be natural?”.
“…Understanding the cause-and-effect relationship between global warming and record-breaking weather requires asking precisely the right questions….”
More importantly, “understanding” this putotive [!] relationship requires NOT asking any of dozens of embarrassing questions, such as:
Q: What physical mechanism would reasonably permit an increase in CO₂ of 0.01% to result in an increase in weather phenomena at both ends of the spectrum?
A: None known to humankind.
Q: How can a flat-lined temperature trend extending 18 years result in any record-breaking weather at all, beyond normal statistical variation?
A: It can easily do this in scientists’ imagination if you simply pay them enough money.
“Diffenbaugh said the research requires three elements: a long record of climate observations; a large collection of climate model experiments that accurately simulate the observed variations in climate; and advanced statistical techniques to analyze both the observations and the climate models.”
So, I make that a nice round zero out of three.
Nul points.
Diffenbaugh said the research requires three elements [the second being:] a large collection of climate model experiments that accurately simulate the observed variations in climate.
Assuming “accurate simulation”, would not one model suffice?
The “requirement” for a “large collection” exposes the fraud (as been eloquently discussed on WUWT previously; rgbatduke comes to mind.)
”
Excellent question. If the answer is of the same quality, there is nothing remonstrate about.
For, according to pure logic, relationship between probabilities of the same weather event in a particular region under human influence and without it can be one of the following three kinds:
1. probability of its occurrence is significantly higher under human influence
2. there is no statistically significant difference
3. probability of its occurrence is significantly lower under human influence
An objective scientific study, as opposed to wacky press releases, would provide an exhaustive list of weather events by region tagged with (1;2;3), irrespective of their effect on human affairs. Along with all the evidence, of course, which would make the exercise replicable.
Analysing this list for possible effects on habitability, economics, etc. is an entirely different job, requiring different expertise in a number of completely different fields, therefore one would expect an Associate Professor of Environmental Earth System Science refrain from such comments, simply because it is not a task he is supposed to be better at than anyone else.
Furthermore, if the list is large enough, one would expect the vast majority of items fall into category (2) and the rest to be divided evenly between (1) and (3). Any other result would be quite surprising, requiring an in-depth explanation.
Dr. Diffenbaugh’s statement is logically correct but as a practical matter, completely useless as we do not have two Earths, one with and one without people.
Apparently that is not how Science works any longer.
Agree that he is out of his field, but apparently that doesn’t matter any more either.
Wonder what a probability distribution could look like in computer models of climate? Taking your hypotheses (do they have those at Stanford any longer?), “one would expect the vast majority of items fall into category (2)” and ultimately accept the null that this work is no different than most of the others = quackery.
Thanks for your logic. . . however the plus thing works here.
The main influence Man has had in the “CA” part of “CAGW” is what Man has built in a weather events path.
For Man to build nothing or eliminate himself is not an option. (Even though some would propose that for us lesser mortals.)
Berényi Péter writes “…” Yeah but why do all that when you can instead cherry pick some events and compare them to model output?
Diffenbaugh asks “Understanding the cause-and-effect relationship between global warming and record-breaking weather requires asking precisely the right questions.”
Cant argue with that. One “right question” might be to wonder what climatic conditions would cause less extreme weather. It seems to me that a cooling earth isn’t going to cause less extreme conditions and so I believe their main assumption is that the earth is currently (or at least say 50 years ago) in its minimum extreme weather configuration.
These people never stop amazing me.
Sounds suspiciously like lawyers. Just the right kind of questions. If you ask the wrong questions, you lose, or worse, get ad-hom’d to bits. I call bullsh*t.
They (AGU) have gone whole hog into the CAGW realm. Is there any cautionary /skeptic/realistic presentations at all? Somebody saying ‘whoa, there other points of view’?
Seems there are pitfalls in not presenting a balanced view.
Extreme weather events are caused by the Sun. “Global” warming was caused by the Sun’s Modern Maximum. The Pause was (is) caused by the Sun’s slowdown since the Modern Maximum ended in 2002. The global cooling that is still naiscent was caused by the Sun as it started it’s decline after 2002. 2014 warm records were caused by the Sun during the recent SC24 activity peak.
The Maunder and Dalton minimums and their cold legacies were caused by a weak Sun. Post-peak SC24 cooling is imminent, to be caused by a weak Sun.
The SUN causes warming, cooling, and extreme weather events, not CO2.
Photons, protons, and electrons cause weather and climate to change, not CO2.
The clash of cold polar air with recently solar warmed heat-laden evaporated water vapor off the tropics driven by higher solar flux periods in addition to solar wind – Earth’s global electric circuit electrodynamic processes are the cause of extreme weather events.
The AGU is barking up the wrong tree.
The SUN drives the weather and climate, not CO2!
But if it’s the sun and Dr. Malinkovitch in the climate driver’s seat, then how can a societal cost of carbon (SCC) be calculated, taxes levied, and wealth transferred??……oooopps.
Milankovitch cycles work on very long time scales, well beyond the historical timeframe. Solar variability is what caused the recent “calamity”, and is what this world needs to understand more than anything right now.
You are right Joel, solar activity can’t be taxed and we can’t be made to feel responsible or guilty for it, so the subject of solar variability and its effects are ignored by the controllers who seek to imprison us in their faulty groupthink, ooooopps, I mean CO2 “science”.
“But decision makers need to appreciate the influence of global warming on extreme climate and weather events.
“If we look over the last decade in the United States, there have been more than 70 events that have each caused at least $1 billion in damage, and a number of those have been considerably more costly,” said Diffenbaugh. “Understanding whether the probability of those high-impact events has changed can help us to plan for future extreme events, and to value the costs and benefits of avoiding future global warming.””
More misleading statements from a group with self serving interests, cognitive bias and lack of scientific, authentic empirical data and evidence to support their contention.
From the American Society of Civil Engineers, Natural Hazards Review:
Reconciliation of Trends in Global and Regional Economic Losses from Weather Events: 1980-2008
http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29NH.1527-6996.0000141
“In recent years, claims have been made in venues including the authoritative reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and in testimony before the U.S. Congress that economic losses from weather events have been increasing beyond that which can be explained by societal change, based on loss data from the reinsurance industry and aggregated since 1980 at the global level. Such claims imply a contradiction with a large set of peer-reviewed studies focused on regional losses, typically over a much longer time period, which concludes that loss trends are explained entirely by societal change”
“To address this implied mismatch, this study disaggregates global losses from a widely utilized reinsurance data set into regional components and compares this disaggregation directly to the findings from the literature at the regional scale, most of which reach back much further in time. The study finds that global losses increased at a rate of $3.1 billion/year (2008 USD) from 1980?2008 and losses from North American, Asian, European, and Australian storms and floods account for 97% of the increase. In particular, North American storms, of which U.S. hurricane losses compose the bulk, account for 57% of global economic losses. Longer-term loss trends in these regions can be explained entirely by socioeconomic factors in each region such as increasing wealth, population growth, and increasing development in vulnerable areas. The remaining 3% of the global increase 1980 to 2008 is the result of losses for which regionally based studies have not yet been completed. On climate timescales, societal change is sufficient to explain the increasing costs of disasters at the global level and claims to the contrary are not supported by aggregate loss data from the reinsurance industry”
That’s just not fair – you are using DATA.
“http://ascelibrary.org/doi/abs/10.1061/%28ASCE%29NH.1527-6996.0000141”
Succinctly discredits the claim.
If we had some wilder weather, we could blame it on global warming, if we had some global warming…
CO2 is a magic gas.
This is OT but may be of some interest.
Some time last week I downloaded the NOAA’s global land temperatures from
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/global
then again today.
Comparing two, out of 135 records 77 have been altered, granted it is only second decimal point, a minor difference, largest being 0.03C for 1913, but even so, I wonder if this is happening on a weekly basis or what?
Here you can see both records
Is there no note to explain these changes?
Else they may be a cumulative shift instead of one-off or random.
Minor changes that are one-off and balance out isn’t really a problem, except for traceability of data.
But systematic, iterated adjustments… That would be curious.
I shall occasionally look at the data file and log the values.
Thanks V. Good spot and good luck in the monitoring.
This may be bad practise of little import or it may be acceptable practice of great import or somewhere in between.
But if we don’t know what the cumulative effect is we can’t say.
And I also thank you, vukcevic. I found the information interesting and useful. 1912 was -.95/6 the coldest year My 7 year old is interested in all thing about the Titanic. I will be showing him this.
michael
No note. And don’t ask them for their correspondence from the White House. That hard drive has failed.
I see the changes you mentioned. There may be a legit reason but many more downward adjustments were made in the past and upward for recent temps.
I would not have responded to anybody else pointing out the same thing but have tremendous respect for your gifted abilities to observe, graph, analyze and interpret empirical data.
Thanks, your comment is appreciated.
“..there may be a legit reason.” Such as ? Enlighten me.
vukcevic, the new data gives a steeper trend line, exactly the effect I have heard them accused of previously. As you say, these changes don’t amount to anything significant, but obviously many small changes over time, all of them biased steeper, would add up… That is really interesting. I couldn’t imagine them actually doing something so easily detected without valid reason behind it. Surely some skeptic out there has locally saved data from way back, which would be interesting to compare to the current data.
If we are going to stick with the effect of “observed” rather than modeled global warming, the effect should be effectively zero.
I’m getting pretty confused by this new type of global warming that doesn’t involve heat or temperature in any way…
It’s post-modern warming. It doesn’t need any of that ‘sciency’ stuff. If you ‘feel’ that it’s warmer, then it is warmer.
The Global Warming has been temporarily hiding with catastrophic sea level rise in the deep ocean while anthropogenic CO2 has been engaging in this almost two decade long stop work action (aka ‘STRIKE’) in protest against capitalism and non-believers.
The emphasis on asking the correct question that will lead to the ‘correct answer’ says it all. That is a statement akin to someone pushing a religious position not a scientific one.
OT: now that I am a confirmed AGW skeptic- are other blogs anyone is aware of (besides the wacko conspiracy places) which host real “sceptic” scientists questioning other “mainstream” consensus science? I truly believe that much of what is currently accepted in many fields of science today is not being questioned sufficiently. thanks, and keep up the anti-AGW work. I refer people here constantly.
wattsupwiththat.com is the best, but search for “Skeptical Views” on the home page. It is off to right hand side. From there, you can scroll up and down for other sites of different types.
http://www.climatedepot.com/ will direct you to articles (some good).
Scientific sites:
http://www.drroyspencer.com/
http://climateaudit.org/
Lukewarmists sites
http://judithcurry.com/
http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/
‘Is the probability of a particular event statistically different now compared with a climate without human influence?’
Convoluted much?…
OT Has anyone heard any more about the Lima IPCC, or have they disappeared into the Andean Triangle? Maybe they decided to stay on a few more days and head down to the beach, get a few rays.
They are just saying it’s all a WAG
“If we look over the last decade in the United States, there have been more than 70 events …. blah blah blah”
Last decade, eh ? Shouldn’t he be linking these events to cooling then, not warming ?
Doesn’t William M. Briggs (aka Staff Sergeant Briggs) claim one should look at the data and “advanced statistical techniques” likely won’t help if there is nothing to see?
Just got ‘Error 404’ when I went looking for his classic posts, so sorry, no link.
Noah Diffenbaugh should read the history lessons of ‘tonyb’ and the collections of Paul Homewood and Steven Goddard regarding past weather events. Other things (Jimbo’s lists) could be added.
wmbriggs.com
That’s Cmdr. Briggs to you!
Well he’s got the theory of asking the right question, however like much in climate science the implementation is poor.
What the quote should say, is,
Keeping things simple, is a high ideal like asking the right questions. However “keeping it simple” should not be confused with “keeping it simple and stupid”.
“If you torture the data enough, nature will always confess” — Ronald Coase
When Michael Mann and the Team were in their heyday they were throwing down wardrobes and shelves stacked with all sorts of stuff in the path of the reality cops chasing them through the offices of CAGW Central. Now the latest crop of scientific fringe fraudsters are reduced to throwing down doilies and paper napkins as they keep on running. The cops take a break to catch their breath cos its really hard to run and laugh at the same time and The Teamsters still shout “Deniers” “Deniers” like it is meant to hurt!
Forget Hockey Schtick hokey science, this is Slapstick Science.
and to value the costs and benefits of avoiding future global warming….
It’s all about charging people more money……..
If they were really honest they would have said ‘evaluate’ in place of ‘value’.
That’s because it looks ridiculous to claim that global warming could have contributed to the lower occurrence of hurricanes and cyclones recorded during the HIATUS.
Wonder how many scientists weren’t reluctant to say “probably not”?
I think I’m starting to get it. These scientists aren’t really using science, rather they are in some kind of fantasy club. This gathering is no more than a Comic Con for the warmists. It iss a gathering of people that enjoy their fantasy. It’s an Alarmist Con.
The incidents of extreme weather are increasing (dis)proportionally to the ability to report them from remote locations by modern technology. Nothing more.
Below is what Kevin Trenberth wrote for his abstract in a talk he presented at the University of Colorado at Boulder last week. The abstract is in an e-mail that was sent out dated December 8th.
Presumably, his entire talk will be online at http://cires.colorado.edu/news/announcements/2014/IPCCseminar.html but is not there yet. If anyone attended, please summarize what he said during the actual talk.
A few key items relevant to the topic “Global warming’s influence on extreme weather” [since the same issue of model robustness applies to using climate attributions in hindcast as for future forecasts].
“This is a topic where demands are high from policy makers but greatly exceed the capabilities.”
“…how well do we understand and can deal with monsoons, tropical cyclones, ENSO, and extremes, etc. All of the predominant patterns of climate variability were considered and how they may change, as these affect regional climate in major ways. So this topic also involves predictability and natural variability issues. In addition, many of these phenomena and patterns are not particularly well simulated by models, making the basis for confident statements rather weak.”
This is an important candid set of comments by a major climate scientist. It does echo what he wrote some years ago in his article
http://pielkeclimatesci.wordpress.com/2007/06/18/comment-on-the-nature-weblog-by-kevin-trenberth-entitled-predictions-of-climate/
Trenberth wrote than
“the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate.”
Here is the 2014 communication
Date: Mon, 8 Dec 2014 15:06:57 -0700
REDACTED
Subject: last IPCC seminar tomorrow: Trenberth
Dr. Kevin Trenberth, NCAR senior scientist
Review editor, 5th IPCC Assessment
Participant in all five IPCC assessments
Tuesday December 9
2:00-3:15 pm
CIRES Auditorium
webinar: http://cirescolorado.adobeconnect.com/ipcc_dec9/
IPCC WGI AR5 Chapter 14: Climate Phenomena and their Relevance for Future Regional Climate Change.
A summary will be given of the intent and substance within this chapter. A commentary will also be given on the major difficulties encountered in dealing with this topic. This is a topic where demands are high from policy makers but greatly exceed the capabilities. It is a synthesis chapter dealing with regional climate change including observations, modeling and projections. This chapter assesses the scientific literature on projected changes in major climate phenomena and more specifically their relevance for future change in regional climates. It used a phenomenological approach in part: how well do we understand and can deal with monsoons, tropical cyclones, ENSO, and extremes, etc. All of the predominant patterns of climate variability were considered and how they may change, as these affect regional climate in major ways. So this topic also involves predictability and natural variability issues. In addition, many of these phenomena and patterns are not particularly well simulated by models, making the basis for confident statements rather weak. It closed with discussion on future regional climate change. As a review editor for this chapter I found the whole process to be quite frustrating and I included the following in my final report:
I would like the following added to the chapter to ensure that we (REs) are not responsible for any text: Review Editors were responsible only for seeing that review comments were appropriately responded to. They were not permitted to comment on their own chapter and therefore have no responsibility for the content or quality of the chapter. They do not necessarily endorse the chapter.
The IPCC has issued four previous assessments, in 1990, 1995, 2001 and 2007. Should there be another one in perhaps 2019? Or should IPCC reports evolve along with its findings and the state of the climate? A case can be made that IPCC should declare success and move to do things differently in future. There are some aspects of the IPCC process that should be retained, but the burden on the climate community in endlessly producing unfunded reports is too much. More importantly, the needs have changed. These aspects will also be briefly discussed.
Dr. Kevin E. Trenberth is a distinguished senior scientist in the Climate Analysis Section at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. From New Zealand, he obtained his Sc. D. in meteorology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has been prominent in most of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scientific assessments of Climate Change and has also extensively served the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) in numerous ways. He chaired the WCRP Global Energy and Water Exchanges (GEWEX) project from 2010-2013. He has also served on many U.S. national committees. He is a fellow of the American Meteorological Society, the American Association for Advancement of Science, the American Geophysical Union, and an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand. He has published over 520 scientific articles or papers, including 234 refereed journal articles, and has given many invited scientific talks as well as appearing in a number of television,!
radio programs and newspaper articles.
Interesting. Trenberth seems to have positioned himself to disown the chapter which he was responsible for editing.
“the science is not done because we do not have reliable or regional predictions of climate.”
Confessional: we do not understand the process yet. We need more funding to continue defending settled science.
Sorry, hit ‘reply’ by mistake.
Shouldn’t that be “the AGU fail meeting”?
No, it’s part of a title. That’s why Meeting is capitalized too.
The gag was in “fail” as opposed to “fall”
Extreme climate, lots of people like it, such as polar and “roof of the world” high-elevation explorers.
I’ve been examining Michael Mann’s record. There’s evidence he could be Big Fossil Energy/ Koch brothers plant. I’m not stating he is, but there is suggestive evidence he could be.
The political- body UN IPCC wanted reports to develop a “consensus” on climate causes and human solutions. This was led by high-school-graduate Maurice Strong, who decided to settle in Communist China, which oddly doesn’t agree to stop its “climate changing” CO2 emissions, until ca.2030, long after the “tipping point” sends us to Venusian disaster.
Mike Mann delivered an unprecedented “hockey stick”, that the IPCC jumped on. It got heavy promotion, including Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.” Mike Mann wasn’t an impressive Berkeley undergrad. He didn’t make Highest Honors, or even High Honors. His profs didn’t send him to MIT, Harvard, Caltech, Stanford, Princeton or Berkeley, or even Columbia or Cornell. They demoted him to 2nd-tier Yale, which had zero Nobel Prizes in physics, and only 4 NAS Physics section members in 1989 (currently only 2). Even there, Mann got the “consolation prize” M.S., and had to scramble to get a place in the geology department for PhD work.
Was he bought off by the Koch sector? He somehow concocted a “hockey stick” which had no scientific foundation, and the unscientific IPCC promoted it. It was later utterly discredited.
Fast forward, Mann V. Steyn. Mike Mann filed a lawsuit in which he asserted he was a “Nobel Laureate.” He knew that was false. He dind’t posses a medal, or check from the Nobel Foundation.
We can look at trivial things like he wasn’t exonerated by British and US authorities.
The facts are: Mike Mann created a completely bogus “hockey stick” which didn’t show the MWP or LIA, which dropped the modern tree rings upon which the hockey stick was based, and presented false credentials to the court, which were obviously false, and easily discoverable.
Take-home lesson: Mike was working for the Kochs to discredit the IPCC. Nobody could present such obviously false information to the world, without working for the Kochs. Otherwise, such person would be assuming the general populace was extremely stupid, and easy to deceive ala Dr. Gruber
Stop that!
Are you trying to blow the cover of our best man on the eco-challegenged front?
This mann has served “The Cause” ™ IPCC heart and sole.
Best his twisty little heart.
What I do not understand is… If the CO2 warming was supposed to show in some part of the atmosphere but has not been found by balloon or satellite, how has that heat reached the surface? Is there a different route it could take which is also CO2 dependant?
http://37.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lezp17tkTB1qfz1emo1_1280.jpg
A Personal Perspective on what I call the “Monetary Damage Fallacy”.
I live in rather small community north of Houston called The Woodlands. When Hurricane Ike passed through The Woodlands in 2008, I was relatively lucky. A tree fell through my fence and a gate was blown off. The most expensive part was the tree removal, maybe $1,000 total damages. The streets were filled with fallen trees, and most of us were without electricity for a week. I saw homes with the telltale blue tarps on their roofs. However, as far as I know there were no deaths in The Woodlands.
Monetary damages in The Woodlands were relatively small. There were about 100,000 inhabitants, maybe 25,000 homes and business structures. If each suffered damages of $1,000 that would come to $25 million and say another $25 million to clear the streets and restore power. A low estimate would be $50 million of damages not counting the lost from a week without power.
Compare that to the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 which killed approximately 8,000 people in Galveston alone (Ike deaths in the whole US were ~50) and destroyed almost every structure in Galveston continued through the Midwest and turned to pass through New York City with winds of 65 mph.
In 1900, there was no community in The Woodlands. There was a small sawmill, and even if that was totally destroyed the damages would not have reached $50 million inflation adjusted.
Hence, the “Monetary Damage Fallacy”.
“A low estimate would be $50 million of damages not counting the lost from a week without power.”
Don’t discount the loss in groceries, increase in food poisonings, healthcare costs and the like. Those are the whole ball of wax. The melons want to make that damage permanent.
If we had 1000 years of satellite data then perhaps he would be a man worth debating. Even then we are not talking about probability outcomes based on a fixed system like a die or a roulette wheel. It’s an ever changing system, so past probabilities are irrelevant to future ones. There is also the fact that probability mathematics does not mean even distribution of events. You can roll a six 6 times in a row, a croupier can have the ball land 3 times in a row on zero (I know, I was a croupier for 10 years). So even assuming 1000 years of satellite data and a fixed system, a clump of bad weather events over a 10 year period could still be just a random fluke.
With just 30 years of satellite data on a system with ever changing inputs from the sun and the cosmos this guys article is about as worthwhile as a resume for a horrorscope reader!
“…having just a few decades or a century of high-quality weather data with which to make sense of events that might occur once every 1,000 or 10,000 years in a theoretical climate without human influence.” Hey good luck on that! Now we know why its important to have ” a large collection of climate model experiments that accurately simulate the observed variations in climate” Models all the way down.
It seems to me that if surface temps are stable and ocean temps are slightly rising, that would tend to reduce extreme wind events. IPCC AR5 basically threw extreme weather over the side, anyway. They must have looked at the graphs this time around.
“Understanding whether the probability of those high-impact events has changed can help us to plan for future extreme events, and to value the costs and benefits of avoiding future global warming.”
Is the inverse true? Is the OBSERVED reduction in hurricanes, tornadoes, etc. PROOF that there is no global warming?
What does “plan for future extreme events” even mean?
Yup it will be the Unprecedented Extreme of totally normal weather.
Makes for a totally unliveable climate for publicly funded members of the Cult Of Calamitous Climate, which of course will be all of them.
CAGW is created, promoted and endlessly prolonged(protected) by your government.
“The more useful question for real-world decisions is: ‘Is the probability of a particular event statistically different now compared with a climate without human influence?’”
If good climate records only extend back a few decades, how do you determine what the “probability” of an event would have been without human influence? They’re just looking for excuses to make things up again.
“If good climate records only extend back a few decades”
Climate is weather over a few decades. So they have records for one climate. One.
‘ a large collection of climate model experiments that accurately simulate the observed variations in climate;’
We don’t have any yet; please send more money.
“Understanding whether the probability of those high-impact events has changed can help us to plan for future extreme events, and to value the costs and benefits of avoiding future global warming.
Of course the probability of high-impact events has changed.
More people, more people that can be affected consequently more “high – impact” events.
500 years ago what effect would a “super storm” have had on [what is now] New York?
The locals would have shifted to higher ground, kept their heads down and returned when things had calmed.
None of them would have submitted insurance claims.
RACookPE1978 observed “And those 11 billion face 85 more years of ever-increasing death, disease, hardship and suffering BECAUSE OF the CAGW community artificial demands to restrict energy production, raise prices, and forced death. Are YOU, personally, willing to acknowledge that YOU personally though YOUR advocacy are causing that harm to billions deliberately for the next 85 years to “perhaps” avoid “non-linear” changes due to weather damages that will not themselves be changed by restricting man’s CO2 release? ”
Reply to this is given as follows:
IPCC report says more than 50% [half] of the global average temperature raise after 1951 was contributed by global warming component. Here, they are not sure the exact percentage!!! Then the question is which are contributing to the other “less than half part”. If urban-heat-island contribution is 10% of global raise, as reported by IPCC; then which are the other factors contributing. Also, day by day all over the globe urban sprawl is rapidly growing by destroying the natural ecology. In London urban-heat-island effect was noted 250 years back. After deducting the unaccounted cold-island effect part,from the global temperature raise, what will be the raise in temperature and thus global warming? Also prior to 1951, the global temperature presented a raise. Can we account this as the contribution by the “other part” in global temperature raise? Then what is the contribution of global warming to global temperature raise after deducting the natural variability part? Is it less than 0.1 oC per century? This is reflected in Lima/Peru meet where nations forgetting the global warming, looking for how much they will be getting from green fund forgetting the ramifications of that in their national economy. With this scenario, there will be nothing from “CAUSE OF the CAGW”. as weather extremes are part of natural variations — see national Normal Books. In India extremes have not crossed the limits presented IMD Red Book [Normal Book].
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy:
Thank you for your expanded comments.
Today morning my wife talked to my son saying that we are getting drizzle for the past two days in Hyderabad, India and my son told her that they are also getting good rains [Los Alto/California] along with cold temperature — we were discussing on the California drought in the last few days. Some are telling that this is due to global warming; some say only small part is from global warming. Observed data showed it is a part of natural variability.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
If urban-heat-island contribution is 10% of global raise, as reported by IPCC; then which are the other factors contributing.
For the well sited USHCN station trends, when you don’t grid the data by climate region about matches that. When gridded, it’s closer to 20%. But the biggie is microsite. That produces ~a 60% spurious increase in Land Surface trend, which suggests an overall exaggeration of perhaps 25%.
Love those “climate model experiments”.
1 Take one climate model.
2 Add a bit of heat.
3 Stir vigorously with a statistical rod.
4 Observe disastrous results.
5 Publish press release.
6 Apply for more funding.
7 Go to 1.
Extreme weather events increasing?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2013/05/08/sorry-global-warmists-but-extreme-weather-events-are-becoming-less-extreme/
Sadly, this story “reported” in front news section, page 13, of UK Sunday Times under the headline “CO2 behind Britain’s Winter Deluges”. The lead is “Britain’s floods of last winter may be been partly caused by climate change, a group of scientists will claim this week. Theywill say that green-house gas emissions have raised the risk of extreme wet wingers by 25% and could have played a part in last winter’s deluges”. But instead of connecting the story to Noah Diffenbaugh, it is attributed to a project led by Oxford University (Nathalie Schaller) and the UK Met Office (Prof. Peter Stott).
All their work based on computer simulations, 1/2 simulation “with climate change” and 1/2 “without climate change”.
Story by @jonathan__leake
Indeed, the number of Wet Wingers has most definitely increased, and the vast majority of them are limp-wristed simpering Greenies…… 🙂
Ralph
No $1bn insured loss storms occurred before the Industrial Revolution pumped CO2s into the atmosphere.
They have to make this link, they have nothing else. Point out that even the IPCC does not try to attribute any extreme weather events to CO2 emissions, at least not in the main report.
Diffenbaugh:
and then he said
Where in the three elements of research are the human influences removed?
Diffenbaugh:
No, decision makers need to appreciate the human influence on weather events. Only on weather events. What is a climate event? We need no middle man called ‘climate’. To introduce climate only makes the evidence chain much more complicated:
Human influences climate how? => No evidence shown yet.
Climate changes naturally? => Yes. Consensus.
Climate influences weather events? => Probably. Depends on the definition of ‘climate’.
Diffenbaugh:
What about ‘How can humans prevent that the climate changes naturally?’
By vanishing? => Not really.
Humans can control climate and how it changes? => Presumptuous assertion.
Were we better off with a stable climate? => No. Unless all weather events only happen because climate changes we will get what we know and those unprecedented (that’s what we not know) from the past.
And we had a steady climate [not weather] right now for 18 years.
In any genuine Scientific Establishment this kind of Crap Science would either be laughed out of the room or totally destroyed by the presentation of the facts.
But sadly it won’t happen
But there has been no Global Warming for 18 years. Zero Global Warming cannot be responsible for anything. So I will say it again – this myth is BUSTED.
Ralph
Hope Anthony can stay awake or, better still, has a nice nap.
“Diffenbaugh said the research requires three elements: a long record of climate observations; a large collection of climate model experiments that accurately simulate the observed variations in climate; and advanced statistical techniques to analyze both the observations and the climate models.”
Rephrased for clarity:
Diffenbaugh said the fantasy requires three elements: a long record that does not exist; a large collection of computerized climate fantasies that accurately reflect the bias of the model creators; and enough mathematical hand waving to hide that there’s nothing real there.”
While the essence of this post deals with the relationship between so-called Global Warming and Extreme Weather, the connection has been disproven by many, Dr Madhav Khandekar, formerly of Environment Canada among them.
The larger question is whether changes in climate in general have any relationship to extreme weather occurrences. In that respect one should consider the dislocation and blocking patterns of zonal flow by meridional outbursts from so-called Polar Highs, which have become a regular feature at the end of the Solar Maximum that dominated the 20th century, as we are proceeding into a Solar Minimum regime. Mechanisms of this process (which, b.t.w. occurs in both hemispheres) have been described in various essays on Dr. Tim Ball’s website.
There have been unusually persistent outbursts of polar vortices, most noticeably in NH winters but equally present in the SH, as a correspondent in Cordoba, Argentina (30 degrees SL !) reports. But similar events during the summer period have also been reported (Urals to Pakistan blocking).
As the time period covering this solar change so far is relatively short, statistical evidence is meagre, so stay tuned.
For Open Access papers on the the direct and indirect solar cause of major climate changes, see the collection of more than a dozen papers in ‘Pattern Recognition in Physics’, Special Issue:
I have just been looking at temperatures in Denmark for each month and several years. It is very clear that the great variation is in the winter months where the temperature is lower. The same is seen in the Arctic, where the day to day variation can be 5K or more at winter times, which is never seen in the summer.
It somehow questions the meme of hotter weather beeing more extreme.
I believe the higher moisture in hot weather instead dampens the variability.
At Science 2.0 : “Weather Bombs, Polar Vortex: Global Warming’s Influence On Extreme Weather”, an article about the same press release states:
“Diffenbaugh emphasizes that asking precisely the right question is critical for finding the correct answer.”
Yes like asking “how many respondents in our survey who’s have written papers in the last X years on climate change and stand on one leg when they speak.” Would be an example of asking the right question to get the right answer — 97%
The anthropologist, Dr Brian Fagan, in his book The Little Ice Age, argues that seasonal variations are much more pronounced in a cooling world than a warming world based on his research. This makes sense in that there is more potential energy when the differences between the poles and equator increase (i.e. when the globe cools). During periods of global warming, the poles warm and the delta T between the equator and the poles decrease. The potential for extreme changes in seasonal weather decreases.
Dr. Diffenbaugh needs to read Dr. Brian Fagan’s book “The Little Ice Age.” Therein he will find mention of and references to the the severe North Sea Storms in the early 14th, Century which:
– carved out the Dutch Zeider Zee
– killed tens of thousands (!) of people
– ocurred in a time of global cooling…
He might change his mind when comparing all that to the relatively minor stuff which has ocurred over the last century.
Hmph: these modern keyboards just can’t spell!
Zuiderzee
There, got it right.