Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new study has emerged predicting the end of snow, along with melting glaciers and water shortages – though this study is cautious enough to predict more snow, less snow, or no change, for at least the next few decades.
The potential for snow to supply human water demand in the present and future
Justin S Mankin, Daniel Viviroli, Deepti Singh, Arjen Y Hoekstra and Noah S Diffenbaugh
Abstract
Runoff from snowmelt is regarded as a vital water source for people and ecosystems throughout the Northern Hemisphere (NH). Numerous studies point to the threat global warming poses to the timing and magnitude of snow accumulation and melt. But analyses focused on snow supply do not show where changes to snowmelt runoff are likely to present the most pressing adaptation challenges, given sub-annual patterns of human water consumption and water availability from rainfall. We identify the NH basins where present spring and summer snowmelt has the greatest potential to supply the human water demand that would otherwise be unmet by instantaneous rainfall runoff. Using a multi-model ensemble of climate change projections, we find that these basins—which together have a present population of ~2 billion people—are exposed to a 67% risk of decreased snow supply this coming century. Further, in the multi-model mean, 68 basins (with a present population of >300 million people) transition from having sufficient rainfall runoff to meet all present human water demand to having insufficient rainfall runoff. However, internal climate variability creates irreducible uncertainty in the projected future trends in snow resource potential, with about 90% of snow-sensitive basins showing potential for either increases or decreases over the near-term decades. Our results emphasize the importance of snow for fulfilling human water demand in many NH basins, and highlight the need to account for the full range of internal climate variability in developing robust climate risk management decisions.
Read more: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/11/114016
What a pointless effort. The authors predict water shortages which might occur in the near future, but also claim climate variability may mask this effect for decades to come. The authors present a claim of imminent potential danger, with no possibility of imminent falsification. All the predictions are based on climate models, which have never demonstrated predictive skill with average global climate, let alone regional climate.
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The authors of the paper are concerned that water supply & demand involving snow related cycles, concerned because they postulate warming.
It isn’t an argument, it is a postulation.
John
Just a thought but just who are the authors?
Our work was supported by a Predoctoral Science Fellowship at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University to JSM, and NSF CAREER Award 0955283 to NSD.
Predoctoral Science Fellowship, Students in other words
michael
Michael (not a) Morlock — nice detective work and good point… kinda sad those poor students already made themselves look like fools even before they got a “Dr.” before their name….. hm……. likely some kind of climate “science” sorority/fraternity initiation rite, or something…. “Sorry, guys and gals, but to get your Ph. D., you’ll have to first prove you are worthy of being one of us by making an utter fool of yourself. Just the way it is. (shrug)”
— Reminds me of what gangs and cults do to make their members loyal: once you’ve done something terrible, you can’t go back emotionally and they — own — you.
Say! (off topic, but I’ve been looking around WUWT for you all day… — Thank you for the great info. about France being forced to agree to “defend” its former colonies on behalf of the Naz!s — I did not know that. You made a good point — it was just that that thread was so loaded down already, I didn’t want to say so there. So, here I am. :))
Thanks, And yeah when I came across the treaty requirements years ago it gave me a reality check
michael
“Predoctoral Science Fellowship, Students in other words”
Phew that’s a relief! For a while there this budding student of climastrology thought he was gunna have to get a pre-doctoral appointment to get some post-doctoral fellowship with his pharmacist over all this heady stuff.
Northern California and points north have received an early snowfall so far this year. Plus, take a look at what is taking place in Alaska. Do you recall all the talk about how warm Alaska has been over the last several winters? That well above average warmth appears to have come to an end with the advent of a well below average temperature drop even though it is not yet winter. Yesterday and today were 18 F below the average…http://www.intellicast.com/Local/ObservationsSummary.aspx?location=USAK0012
Note that Russia through into Siberia has been every cold for the last several weeks. It is morning over there now, but take a look at what Intellicast will show in around 12 hours from now. This extreme cold is now into Alaska, also. I wonder what winter will bring to these regions?…http://www.intellicast.com/Global/Temperature/Current.aspx
Great reporting, Goldminor. Thanks for sharing. You {and ALL of you who regularly comment with such insight and excellently sourced information!} should write a post for WUWT based on your research — you are a fine reporter. No need to “explain” anything — many WUWT articles are just FYI and we enjoy reading them!
Thanks Janice! That really caught my attention over the last several weeks, but especially over the last several days. The entirety of Russia and all of the land eastward to the Pacific ocean was basically the same temp as Greenland. That also includes Northern China. I wonder if this is the herald of what forms a grand minimum?
China could face some real internal problems quickly, if their crop yields start to drop.
China… problems, yes. Good point, Goldminor.
Existence, nevertheless: likely perpetual. And the likely great loss of life will not be deemed a tragedy by the officials. The mother or father of that little child who wastes away to a skeleton will mourn deeply, but, Communists don’t value human life as we do, you know. Human beings are fungible goods.
They just increased the allowed number of children per family (“allowed” — cool country, huh?) from one to two. I think they already have the famine thing handled: just have more kids until the famine years pass. Sure, many will die in the meantime. So?
Okay! Back to the topic, er, sort of… And B. Hussein (and his puppet-string handlers whom we MUST VOTE OUT OF OFFICE!!) is doing his best to keep them supplied with fuel… .
Note: Goldminor’s second 6:08pm link DOES go to “global” — just need to click on the word “Global” near top of that page.
That is the most stupid thing I have ever read in an abstract. “90% of snow-sensitive basins showing potential for either increases or decreases over the near-term decades”? What the hell does that mean?
What do the OTHER 10% show? Near-term decades? How many decades are those?
English, dammit, english!! ;-D As an aside I rather gather the population growth and average water usage assumptions are central to the study. I will have to read this one
Thanks for highlighting !
Don’t you love the squishy wording? Not falsifiable. Like, “There’s an invisible man chasing me, but he can’t be seen, touched, heard, smelled or tasted.” Science by Tarot?
But seriously. We should all wish for an end to snow. End the Ice Age. Otherwise, when the Holocene ends, we’ll all be in for a lot more snow. With Global Warming, more evaporation, more clouds and more precipitation. We have to ask, what kind of person promotes global cooling in an ongoing Ice Age? Especially when the Holocene is already running a bit long!
And warmer climate should give the entire planet far more precipitation, overall. Deserts rule during the glacial period; deserts shrink during interglacials. How large would deserts be when the Ice Age ends?
They’re just too obsessed with AGW and CO2 levels to even want to consider natural climate change cycles. When you’re dealing with people who think CO2 must be eradicated, you’re dealing with the suicidal.
I think that I may be able to give this paper some context.
The number of meaningful claims that can be made in climate science is rapidly diminishing.
This is because:
1. Only negative, alarmist claims about anthropogenic influence are tolerated by the “consensus” community.
2. Many such claims have already been made, and then discredited or ridiculed by their consequent failure.
3. The alternative – stating high levels of uncertainty – is perceived as an admission of doubt, and so that isn’t permitted either.
All this leaves very little that can be confidently claimed.
Firstly a topic must be chosen in which the conclusions will show a strong negative consequence from continued emission of GHCs.
There isn’t really much evidence of this well defined relationship so the best way to achieve such an end, is to distort the evidence. To use a “trick” of some sort.
Unfortunately, this approach has the weakness that it has the capacity to awaken the wrath of “an army of pensioners”. Some of whom are extremely knowledgeable, committed and intelligent.
These people will hunt down and expose weaknesses in research methods and analysis.
So, what is left? Perhaps all that is left is making weak or meaningless claims whilst couching the claim in technical jargon, in order to disguise fact that nothing has been discovered and no progress has been made towards any greater scientific understanding.
The basically meaningless result will hopefully slip through and avoid the attention of Climate Audit, WUWT or Judith Curry. Certainly, it then cannot be embarrassingly disproved by the failure of its predictions.
In short, when properly conducted free and balanced scientific exploration is not tolerated, then all that is left is this feeble minded bullshit.
Ha ha!
This paper Inherits The Wind!
In one second gone the next.
(y)
“with about 90% of snow-sensitive basins showing potential for either increases or decreases over the near-term decades.”
Wow, that’s a brave prediction! But does that mean the other 10% will not change at all? I find it hard to believe that any snow basin will remain unchanged over decades. Has that ever happened with even one, let alone 10%?
BTW, I predict that 90% of stocks will either increase or decrease in value over the near-term decades. Now where’s my grant money?
They predict more snow, less snow, or no change – at least not until they safely reach retirement age!
Glaciers that don’t shrink are net consumers of water. They are not reservoirs because they cannot be managed. Dare I use the example of shrinking glaciers supplied by the author as evidence? Even if they are not shrinking they certainly can, hence they’re unmanageable. Too bad the world sat on their PC asses while China stole the top of the world for the water opportunities. http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/aug/10/china-india-water-grab-dams-himalayas-danger
I’m sure the effects will be “masked” long enough for these “scientists” to have milked it for what it was worth and settled down to a comfortable retirement……
On the basis that none of the predictions of the climate change alarmists have come true, I can offer 1000/1 that this latest joke won’t come true either.
But I can offer 2/11 that these scientists will get more funding to investigate the matter further.
“90% of snow-sensitive basins showing potential for either increases or decreases over the near-term”.
Please send grant money.
remind me when did ‘heads you lose tails I win’ become an acceptable approach in science ?
The most useless peace of “science” I have ever read!
The bottom point of this abstract is they have no clue!
Let me help you guys, and rephrase your abstract:
“The potential for snow to supply human water demand in the present and future”
Justin S Mankin, Daniel Viviroli, Deepti Singh, Arjen Y Hoekstra and Noah S Diffenbaugh
Abstract:
We do not know what will happen in the future. More money is required.
Who pays for drivel like that?
In other words, ” we don’t know what will happen in the future but if you send us more money so we can send our kids to university, I’m sure they will figure it out someday ” !!!!
Anthony:
Please archive that article, before the AGW true believers pull another “Winston Smith” and make it an “unarcticle”, just like Dr. Viner’s (in)famous prediction.
The really sad thing is that there is gold in there: “irreducible uncertainty in the projected future trends in snow”. They could have done exactly the same work and written almost the same text and produced a paper “Climate models not yet suitable for long term snow estimation”, explaining why it would be very useful to have good long term estimates of snow and that they demonstrated that current models can’t provide those estimates. And shouldn’t sceptics be grateful for such a demonstration?
Yes, indeed, Mr. O’Keefe: “there is gold in there”: “‘irreducible uncertainty in the projected future trends in snow’.” Good spot.
Grateful, meh, not so much (heh). Coming from such a low-credibility source, it does more harm than good. About as good as getting a LinkedIn endorsement from Hilary It-Was-the-Video Clinton.
You can see that these climate social scientists have no idea what engineering is all about. You can always recognize Malthusians by their belief that humans live helplessly in a petri dish type relation to resources. Change is what they have settled on as a scary climate paradigm but have no clue that ‘change’ is really the paradigm and specialty of humans blessed with ingenuity. We can recharge the petri dish at will.
We have proven that we can leap continents in a single bound, drop in on the moon(s), Mars and the rest of the far and beyond. Reduction in snow is a mere trifle for such ingenuity and probably three quarters of humanity already live without it. Yeah, but what about rain? We can capture and store it easier than we can CO2! Climate social scientists, please(!), when you are flying to your next what-are-we-gonna-do klatch, look out the window of your 500ton fossil-fueled aircraft from 35,000ft at a metropolis in daylight or dark and amaze yourselves. Haul out your laptop and read The Straits Times and see what is happening in Singapore. Play chess in real time with a stranger in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, a city and country you’d never heard of.
I see you are trying to cover the bases by eliminating rain, too. Now there is a good use for solar: desalinate the ocean. And if you decide to predict the end of oceans….becalm your frantically beating heart. Engineers are here just for this kind of problem.
Let me get this right. There might be more snow in the future, or possibly less snow. But then there’s a third possibility – OMG Horror of Horrors!!!!! things might stay the same. Climate Changeless – we’re all going to die from boredom at the monotony unless we give up fossil fuels TODAY!!
I expect the snow will slow down and be like it was last year. But for now, like last year, it’s above normal:
http://www.onthesnow.com/?utm_campaign=2015-11-19&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=logo