Recent event underlines importance of study by German and Russian scientists
That the temperatures on our planet are rising is clear. In particular, the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide continue to warm the atmosphere. The effects of global warming on the hydrological cycle, however, are still not fully understood. Particularly uncertain is how the strength of extreme summertime thunderstorms have changed, and how it may change in the future. In coastal regions neighboring warm seas, the sea surface temperature can play a crucial role in the intensity of convective storms. The Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean have warmed by about 2 C since the early 1980s. Russian and German scientists investigated what impact this warming may have had on extreme precipitation in the region.
“Our showcase example was a heavy precipitation event from July 2012 that took place in Krymsk (Russia), near the Black Sea coast, resulting in a catastrophic flash food with 172 deaths”, said Edmund Meredith, lead author of the study. “We carried out a number of very-high-resolution simulations with an atmospheric model to investigate the impact of rising sea surface temperatures on the formation of intense convective storms, which are often associated with extreme rainfall”, Meredith continued. Simulations of the event with observed sea surface temperatures showed an increase in precipitation intensity of over 300%, compared to comparable simulations using sea surface temperatures representative of the early 1980s. “We were able to identify a very distinct change, which demonstrates that convective precipitation responds with a strong, non-linear signal to the temperature forcing”, Prof. Douglas Maraun, co-author of the study added.
At the end of June 2015, the nearby Olympic city of Sochi experienced an unusually intense precipitation event. Over 175 mm of rain was recorded in 12 hours, showing the relevance of the scientists work. “Due to ocean warming, the lower atmosphere has become more unstable over the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean. We therefore expect that events like those in Krymsk or Sochi will become more frequent in the future”, added the Kiel-based climate scientist.
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“In particular, the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide continue to warm the atmosphere”
I wanted to test this to see if it’s true or a lie. I put the UAH version 6.0 global temperature data in a spreadsheet. The trend line slope is zero for the last 18 years and 4 months. No global warming whatsoever.
“This much is clear” is a big tell that some big porkies are coming.
Anthony,
Perhaps you would care to contact the Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR) and suggest to them that they can now afford to donate their GRAVY TRAIN MONIES to a worthwhile, scientific place … such as WUWT. (Just a nice thought).
Regards and thanks,
WL
“…the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide continue to warm the atmosphere”
Not according to satellites.
Ignoring that this “study” was little more than model simulations of a single weather event on a tiny slice of the globe, anyone who has studies weather realizes that the supply of water vapor is not enough. There are tropical islands in the Pacific surrounded by the largest source of water on earth that are virtual deserts.
The Black Sea is not in the tropics. And while the summer time temperatures often go above 40 deg C, the Crimea and surrounding areas in the Ukraine often dip below -10 deg C. Winter snow squalls accompanied by very cold temperatures are not unusual. In other words, the northern shores of the Black Sea are influenced by a dynamic mid latitude weather pattern as much as they are influenced by the sub-tropics. And to experience such meso-scale phenomenon as thunderstorms, or sub-synoptic scale thunderstorm complexes all rely upon some dynamic in the atmosphere to kick them off. Whether it is low level convergence aided by a high level outflow channel, or an upper level short wave trough, the story is the same: the atmosphere needs a some mechanism to set these storms off. And in a globe that is warming, those mechanisms are fewer than when the globe is cooling.
Large scale precipitation events during the summer months (like what the US is now seeing) occur when cold air masses are dense enough to penetrate into the subtropics. Of course, there are other phenomenon, like the MJO, that play a role too.
Except neither the Black Sea nor the eastern Mediterranean are oceans.
The other thing is, at Sochi winters are way more rainy than summers. And guess what? The Black Sea is colder in wintertime. I have arrived at the latter proposition by an extensive modelling study, so there can be no doubt about it.
Indeed, that’s far from any true ocean. Furthermore, the century-long station data in the study region show virtually trendless temperatures, albeit with a strong multi-decadal oscillation.
AGW theory has called for more droughts now it is more floods. AGW theory says nothing about nothing.
A more meridional atmospheric circulation pattern is going to give greater precipitation amounts along with a greater temperature gradient between the equator and poles.
“Ocean warming” must have caused Boston’s record-breaking snows this past winter. A 75-foot tall “snow mountain” has just now finally disappeared.
But the claim is that a dry spring retarded the melting of the ‘mountain” which is contrary to the premiss of the paper under discussion.
Several things to consider but with certainty, there will be more rain and heavier rain events………..all things being equal when you have a warmer ocean and warmer atmosphere. This is basic meteorology. Warmer air holds more moisture, warmer waters contributed more moisture.
The observations clearly confirm this. Our planet has more low level moisture than it did 30 years ago. One can see the effect on temperatures too. The vast majority of warm records have been coming from record high minimums vs far fewer record high maximums. This is exactly as you would expect with air that has more water vapor(more humid/higher dew points).
However, the greater warming taking place at higher latitudes has caused a change that relates to the extreme events which contribute greatly towards excessive rain events.
The meridional temperature gradient has been weakened. This is what give the atmosphere energy for many extreme events……..mid latitude cyclones and jet streams for instance(which in turn causes extreme events like severe storms/tornadoes).
So there could be an offsetting element related to this but that is unclear. An important element would relate to “blocking” type patterns that stall out and result in the same place being effected for a longer period of time with one kind of weather vs a more progressive flow pattern that results in that weather being of shorter duration.
We know many of the jet streams are weaker with global warming(high latitudes) and we get less extreme types of some weather in high/middle latitudes. However certain jet streams(like those related to an El Nino for instance) and stalled jet streams may be enhanced by global warming, in which case, the added moisture from the warmer ocean and atmosphere would amplify the excessive rain element of events.
This is not to say that one side should only count the bad things associated with the beneficial warming of higher latitudes. In fact, though the excessive rain events increasing are legit here, almost everything else, based on authentic, objective science, including meteorology/climate and biology associated with increasing the beneficial gas, CO2, has made a positive contribution (massive in the realm of photosynthesis) to life on earth.
THis seems to be from the department of the obvious. Warm water results in more evaporation, resulting in more clouds, resulting in more rain. I thought everyone know that already…
Re: Ocean warming stronger precip 7/14/15:
First sentence: That the temperatures on our planet are rising is clear.
The first sentence is incompetent, especially without specifying a time period, to say nothing about the contrary data over the last 1.5 decades.
Second sentence: In particular, the increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide continue to warm the atmosphere.
The science behind the 2d sentence is incompetent. This former conjecture, since shown invalid, implies that increases in CO2 causes the atmosphere to warm. That model requires one to show that the CO2 leads the warming. The paleo record shows it lags. That requirement is the scientific principle of causality underlying causation. (Note: sometimes these two words are reversed in usage.) Without saying more, that would be a mere statistical statement. However, an underlying law of physics applies, Henry’s Law of Solubility, which for CO2 in water says that warming causes the oceans to release CO2 into the atmosphere. If the 2d sentence were correct, climatology would have invalidated Henry’s Law, a most improbable occurrence.
The rest of the discussion seems to be about regional phenomena, but the title of the article presumably is an observation about global climate.
Nothing here, folks. Keep moving.
With regard to the competence in “Kiel”, I think of famous Prof. Mojib Latif, the “After 2007 no snow-man”! I suspect a complex connection with the increasing temperature gradient between the tropics and the cooling polar regions.Seems to be “clearer” than the warming “Mumpitz”!(=ridiculous nonsens, pronouced “moompits” – oo -short as in -book-)
How soon can we plant the Sahara?
According to my model it is already a lush deciduous forest.
“At the end of June 2015, the nearby Olympic city of Sochi experienced an unusually intense precipitation event. Over 175 mm of rain was recorded in 12 hours, showing the relevance of the scientists work. “Due to ocean warming, the lower atmosphere has become more unstable over the Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean.”
The “relevance of the scientists’ work” was not demonstrated at all. The relevance of our drainage and sewage engineers was demonstrated! For example, a wastewater treatment system installed in Nebraska soon after being constructed handled a historic rainfall event and the water and sewer was flushed safely away from the city. This testing also struck Bazalgette’s sewer in London soon after it was constructed, as it was deluged nearly to the capacity designed by the genius engineer.
This article should only demonstrate to us all once again, not the “relevance of the scientists’ work,” but the relevance of the wastewater engineers’ work in the US and other countries who have given us indoor plumbing and sewer to every home.
It underlines the relevance of the work of people who worked behind the scenes to destroy cholera and safely handle sewage and drainage. Water, sewage and electricity to all homes should surely be considered as fundamental to any definition of civilization. And any real education should include a basic understanding of these extraordinary accomplishments by very ordinary people. Thank you to engineers and drainage experts who have done their jobs so well that we do not notice them.
And it just so happens that their “showcase” area has no easily accessible weather records. How convenient.
“The Black Sea and eastern Mediterranean have warmed by about 2 C since the early 1980s.”
They had some heavy rainfall, which they imply has never happened before, but has the 2 degrees of warming been “catastrophic”? Has it caused a mass migration out of the area? Or have there also been some positive effects that have outweighed the negative and kept people from leaving? While it’s important to understand the possible negative effects of a warming climate, isn’t it also important to understand the positive effects? Otherwise, how can we know whether a warming climate isn’t a net-positive for most areas of the planet? I have a feeling that is the last thing they would want to learn from climate research.
catastrophic flash food ???
Pizza maybe?
In the IPCC summary they claim that rising CO2 will cause rising temperatures that will cause disruptions in precipitation, resulting in dry places getting drier and wet places getting wetter. But the issue of where the rain falls is complicated and do not follow that simplistic assertion. Yes, the rain comes from oceans evaporating, but which land gets the rain has much to do with the biotic pump, as explained by A. M Makarieva et al:
?w=1000&h=956
Forests are the key factor, and biofuel policies are hurting, not helping.
https://rclutz.wordpress.com/2015/04/30/here-comes-the-rain-again/
And they call the Wind Makarieva.
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Blast from the past–Kingston Trio
Ron Clutz,
In 1958, I think, The Kingston Trio “covered” a song from the 1951 Broadway musical, Paint Your Wagon. The title was They Call the Wind Maria.
It must be a result of certain prevailing wind conditions, this is the only low level area where wind can pass, from there to the east the Caucasus mountains gradually rising up. This area is a kind of a throttle valve for the wind like the Mistral in France. Black Sea is always warm in summertime and I passed Krimsk on my way to Anapa in 1999 for holidays in july. Last year I tried to spent holidays on the Crimea but due to bad weather and the small ferry with long waiting times I got stuck . Besides these bad weather conditions are not unusual for that area.
Using the logic of the climate scientists that correlation means cause and effect, on a course I went on the pupils were asked to find the best correlation with the most stupid cause and effect. Someone proved that aids was caused by sales of Toyota land cruisers in Harare.
More plausible is that more extremes of precipitation is actually caused as predicted by one climate scientist in the late sixties by clean air. If I remember correctly he showed with quite simple equipment that because rainfall started when moisture coalesced round dirt particles, clean air meant that higher moisture levels were needed before we got that rainfall so when it did occur it was far heavier.
I loved what Ivor Ward had to say. Getting up for morning stars was a wonderful experience, particularly in the Pacific. And one could get a bacon and egg sandwich from the galley after the calculations, with a bit of luck.
Weather buoys routinely measure wind speed and have done for some time.
They are isolated from cities by and large.
If there was an increase in global near surface temperature one would expect this average wind speed data to show a steady rise.
As far as I know this issue has never been pushed by alarmists.
hmmm. A model, tuned to the observed conditions present before the rainstorm, then allowed to run to see if the rainstorm would happen. And this points to an anthropogenic driver how?
“Extreme Precipitation in an Atmosphere General Circulation Model: Impact of Horizontal and Vertical Model Resolutions”
Sorry, I have not found an open access pre-print…yet.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EGUGA..1711485M
oops.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2015EGUGA..1711485M
Found it.
http://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU2015/EGU2015-11485.pdf
Drat. Links don’t work. But I have found a related article regarding the model setting that should be used to determine whether or not extreme precipitation events can be modeled. I will keep looking for the other.
https://oceanrep.geomar.de/26044/1/jcli-d-14-00337.1.pdf
These authors have published 4 articles together (searched using the
SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)). Only the pdf of one of the 4 articles was located. I think it is the main one on this topic while the minor one is just a more reader friendly re-write as well as an addendum to the preprint pdf linked to above. Sorry about all the non-working links. These guys and their institutions are quite resistant to free and easy public access.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-abs_connect?db_key=AST&db_key=PHY&db_key=PRE&qform=PHY&arxiv_sel=astro-ph&arxiv_sel=cond-mat&arxiv_sel=cs&arxiv_sel=gr-qc&arxiv_sel=hep-ex&arxiv_sel=hep-lat&arxiv_sel=hep-ph&arxiv_sel=hep-th&arxiv_sel=math&arxiv_sel=math-ph&arxiv_sel=nlin&arxiv_sel=nucl-ex&arxiv_sel=nucl-th&arxiv_sel=physics&arxiv_sel=quant-ph&arxiv_sel=q-bio&aut_xct=YES&aut_logic=AND&author=Meredith%2C+Edmund%3B+Maraun%2C+Douglas%3B+Semenov%2C+Vladimir%3B+Park%2C+Wonsun&ned_query=YES&sim_query=YES&start_mon=&start_year=&end_mon=&end_year=&ttl_logic=OR&title=&txt_logic=OR&text=&nr_to_return=200&start_nr=1&jou_pick=ALL&ref_stems=&data_and=ALL&group_and=ALL&start_entry_day=&start_entry_mon=&start_entry_year=&end_entry_day=&end_entry_mon=&end_entry_year=&min_score=&sort=SCORE&data_type=SHORT&aut_syn=YES&ttl_syn=YES&txt_syn=YES&aut_wt=1.0&ttl_wt=0.3&txt_wt=3.0&aut_wgt=YES&obj_wgt=YES&ttl_wgt=YES&txt_wgt=YES&ttl_sco=YES&txt_sco=YES&version=1