Study predicts a significantly drier (or wetter) world at 2ºC (Warning: ‘robust’ model output)

From the University of East Anglia, home of Climategate, comes this press release claiming a good portion of the world will become drier due to global warming. Just a little over a year ago, at the other climate alarmist outfit in Australia, the UNSW ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science, they said a good portion of the world would get wetter:

Global warming will increase rainfall in some of the world’s driest areas over land, with not only the wet getting wetter but the dry getting wetter as well.

This part made me laugh:

“With precipitation climate models and observations don’t always tell the same story regarding regional changes, but we were very surprised to find that our results turned out to be highly robust across both,” said Dr Donat.

Climate Science, robustly telling two different stories from climate models. Below is UEA’s press release today.


Study predicts a significantly drier world at 2ºC

Over a quarter of the world’s land could become significantly drier if global warming reaches 2C – according to new research from an international team including the University of East Anglia.

The change would cause an increased threat of drought and wildfires.

But limiting global warming to under 1.5C would dramatically reduce the fraction of the Earth’s surface that undergoes such changes.

The findings, published today in Nature Climate Change, are the result of an international collaboration led by the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen China and UEA.

Aridity is a measure of the dryness of the land surface, obtained from combining precipitation and evaporation. The research team studied projections from 27 global climate models to identify the areas of the world where aridity will substantially change when compared to the year-to-year variations they experience now, as global warming reaches 1.5C and 2C above pre-industrial levels.

Dr Chang-Eui Park from SusTech, one of the authors of the study, said: “Aridification is a serious threat because it can critically impact areas such as agriculture, water quality, and biodiversity. It can also lead to more droughts and wildfires – similar to those seen raging across California.

“Another way of thinking of the emergence of aridification is a shift to continuous moderate drought conditions, on top of which future year-to-year variability can cause more severe drought. For instance, in such a scenario 15 per cent of semi-arid regions would actually experience conditions similar to ‘arid’ climates today.”

Dr Manoj Joshi from UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences said: “Our research predicts that aridification would emerge over about 20-30 per cent of the world’s land surface by the time the global mean temperature change reaches 2C. But two thirds of the affected regions could avoid significant aridification if warming is limited to 1.5C.”

Dr Su-Jong Jeong from SusTech said: “The world has already warmed by 1C. But by reducing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere in order to keep global warming under 1.5C or 2C could reduce the likelihood of significant aridification emerging in many parts of the world.”

Drought severity has been increasing across the Mediterranean, southern Africa, and the eastern coast of Australia over the course of the 20th Century, while semi-arid areas of Mexico, Brazil, southern Africa and Australia have encountered desertification for some time as the world has warmed.

Prof Tim Osborn from UEA said: “The areas of the world which would most benefit from keeping warming below 1.5C are parts of South East Asia, Southern Europe, Southern Africa, Central America and Southern Australia – where more than 20 per cent of the world’s population live today.”

###

This work forms part of a partnership between between the University of East Anglia (UEA) and The Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech).

‘Keeping global warming within 1.5C constrains emergence of aridification’ is published in the journal Nature Climate Change on January 1, 2018.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-017-0034-4


BONUS! MORE ROBUST UNCERTAINTY:

NASA asks: Will the Wet Get Wetter and the Dry Drier?

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Latitude
January 2, 2018 6:13 am

Honest…this is getting sad
$trillions..and their very best science has gone into these “climate models”
..and not one prediction has been right

..and they keep doing it and acting like it means something

Trebla
Reply to  Latitude
January 2, 2018 6:38 am

I thought the Earth was greening due to increased CO2. Are the satellite images lying? Also, higher levels of CO2 reduce plant water requirements. Am I missing something here?

HotScot
Reply to  Trebla
January 2, 2018 6:56 am

Trebla

I think you are missing something here.

As far as I can gather, NASA’s evidence of global greening is the only observable manifestation of increased atmospheric CO2.

David Middleton assures me there is a study that demonstrates empirically that CO2 causes the planet to warm but I’m not sure one single study over 40 years, and billions of $/£ spent on the subject is terribly convincing. Nor does David’s study tell us whether warming is good or bad.

So we’re kinda stuck with one conclusion. Increased atmospheric CO2 is good so far.

MarkW
Reply to  Trebla
January 2, 2018 10:22 am

David has done no such thing.
What he has done is show that the science behind CO2 causing small changes in climate is sound.
What he has also said, over and over again is that this signal is too small to be detected against the noisy climate record.

Bryan A
Reply to  Trebla
January 2, 2018 10:46 am

It is the science you deserve when your data depends on Proxydust

Reply to  Trebla
January 2, 2018 2:52 pm

Satellite images are not climate prophecy models.

Not one prediction (modeled or alleged visionary doom scenarios) has occurred as or near as predicted.

Reply to  Latitude
January 2, 2018 1:36 pm

Before I die, I’d like to be robust. It’s sort of a personal goal.

MarkW
Reply to  Bartleby
January 2, 2018 3:19 pm

My doctor says that I’m to robust.

Catcracking
Reply to  Latitude
January 2, 2018 10:41 pm

+10

tim
Reply to  Catcracking
January 4, 2018 1:56 am

That poor young lady cannot even afford a T shirt. Just another tragic victim of Climate Change.

AndyG55
Reply to  Catcracking
January 4, 2018 2:30 am

Another VERY good reason to like WARM weather/climate. 🙂

Samuel C Cogar
Reply to  Latitude
January 3, 2018 4:39 am

It looks like 2018 is going to be a really great “Fearmongering” year, …… to wit:

Experts say chocolate could be impossible to produce by 2050

Read more http://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/2018/01/03/experts-say-chocolate-could-be-impossible-to-produce-by-2050.html

Reply to  Samuel C Cogar
January 3, 2018 5:49 am

Daily Mail yesterday reports on a professor Zharkova’spaper about a mini ice age in next 30 years ?

sexton16
January 2, 2018 6:13 am

But but but… If it doesn’t rain wont the sky get full?

Editor
Reply to  sexton16
January 2, 2018 6:51 am

It will probably rain upwards!

HotScot
Reply to  Paul Homewood
January 2, 2018 6:57 am

Paul

Isn’t that called evaporation?

Comrade Kuma
Reply to  Paul Homewood
January 2, 2018 8:34 am

Inside the minds of the comrade climate ‘scientists’ it can rain upwards if you tweak the kontrol knobs on the ‘models’ politically correctly.

Moderately Cross of East Anglia
Reply to  Paul Homewood
January 2, 2018 10:25 am

So should we start calling downwards rain devaperation?

The rest of it looks more and more absurd.

SteveT
Reply to  Paul Homewood
January 3, 2018 4:40 am

Why not? It rains up in Scotland 🙂

SteveT

tom0mason
Reply to  sexton16
January 2, 2018 8:00 am

The H2O will follow the heat and turn up in the deep oceans by that super science of ‘teleconnections’.
/sarc-off

ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 6:14 am

Climate sceptics need to wake up and smell the coffee.

2017 was the second-hottest year on record according to Nasa data, and was the hottest year without the short-term warming influence of an El Niño event. In fact, 2017 was the hottest year without an El Niño by a wide margin – 0.17°C hotter than 2014, which previously held that record. Remarkably, 2017 was also hotter than 2015, which at the time was by far the hottest year on record thanks in part to a strong El Niño event that year.

https://mankindsdegradationofplanetearth.com/2018/01/02/2017-was-the-hottest-year-on-record-without-an-el-nino-thanks-to-global-warming/

jaffa68
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 6:22 am

That’s the funny thing about warming, it get warmer, then it gets warmer again. The interesting thing is why.

A C Osborn
Reply to  jaffa68
January 2, 2018 6:29 am

One word.
Adjustments.

ivankinsman
Reply to  jaffa68
January 2, 2018 6:30 am

Different drivers but now AGW has become the key one. WUWT will be changing their tune on this issue one day…

John
Reply to  jaffa68
January 2, 2018 6:44 am

Or, the CAGW crowd will be begging for more CO2 in the midst of the coming cooling. We’ll see.

A C Osborn
Reply to  jaffa68
January 2, 2018 6:49 am

Yes, we know the magic CO2 molecules.

Reply to  jaffa68
January 2, 2018 2:57 pm

“A C Osborn January 2, 2018 at 6:29 am
One word.
Adjustments.”

Absolutely correct, but perhaps better stated as, adjustments adjustment adjustments adjustments, endlessly adjustments and more adjustments.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  jaffa68
January 2, 2018 7:08 pm

“ivankinsman January 2, 2018 at 6:30 am

Different drivers but now AGW has become the key one.”

Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. Please, don’t link to your propaganda site.

MarkW
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 6:29 am

It really is fascinating how trolls can’t tell the difference between their own propaganda and reality any more.

ivankinsman
Reply to  MarkW
January 2, 2018 6:31 am

Propoganda? More like evidence staring you in the face.

LdB
Reply to  MarkW
January 2, 2018 7:45 am

Evidence??? you may want to look up the science definition it is usually something like

Results when a theory or hypothesis is tested objectively by other individuals such as in an experiment or in a controlled environment.

You have science data and like all science data it can be interpreted a number of ways there isn’t a magic right way you are supposed to be able to argue them. Only in climate science it appears you just appeal to consensus because that is the sort of pseudoscience being practiced.

MarkW
Reply to  MarkW
January 2, 2018 8:12 am

ivanski, I’m still waiting for evidence. Just screaming that all the scientists who agree with you, agree with you isn’t impressive.

Sparky
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 6:31 am

Looking at Giss, it seems to be getting warmer mostly where the infilling is.
Nuff said.

Richard M
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 6:40 am

Lots of left over energy from the 2014-2016 El Nino which was slowly released over 2017
due to the lack of any Bjerknes feedback. We also had El Nino conditions for about 3.5 months. All of this on top of the +AMO. If you spent any time understanding natural climate drivers you wouldn’t get your panties into such a bunch.

We are now headed into La Nina. We will see where this leads. In about 6 months if it is still warm then you may have a point.

John Harmsworth
Reply to  Richard M
January 2, 2018 8:28 am

The Russians would like to have the West commit economic hari- kari by ditching fossil fuel production while they continue to pump and drill.
[snip – unnecessary commentary on another poster. -mod]

Bruce Cobb
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 6:41 am

“Climate sceptics need to wake up and smell the coffee”.
Said the Klimate Koolade-guzzling climate troll. LOL.

icisil
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 6:45 am

I believe that during the 20-year warming hiatus there were 2 el ninos, with 2015-16 being the third, and they all followed that pattern of no warming (flat), then a step increase in warming during el ninos, then flat again. Why don’t you be the first to show us CO2 ppmv following that same stair step pattern.

Sasha
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 6:48 am

WMO Demolishes NOAA/NASA Claims Of “Hottest Year”
17 Jan 2015
If anybody is still in any doubt that it is UNSCIENTIFIC to make claims about hottest years, without taking into account error bars, see what the WMO had to say on the issue in their report on global temperatures for 2006:
“All temperature values have uncertainties, which arise mainly from gaps in data coverage. The size of the uncertainties is such that the global average temperature for 2006 is statistically indistinguishable from, and could be anywhere between, the first and the eighth warmest year on record.”
http://www.wmo.int/pages/publications/bulletin_en/archive/56_3_en/56_3_gcs_en.html
*************************
Met Office says 2014 was NOT the hottest year ever due to uncertainty ranges of the data
Met Office Confirms 2014 Continues Global Warming ‘Pause’
27 Jan 2015
With the release of the 2014 HadCRUT4 data by the UK Met Office, and the previous release of global temperature data by Berkeley Earth, Nasa and Noaa, the main conclusion to be drawn from the data is that 2014 was a warm year, but not statistically distinguishable from most of the years of the past decade or so meaning that the “pause” in global annual average surface temperatures continues.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/news/releases/2015/2014-global-temperature
*************************
Global Satellites: 2016 not Statistically Warmer than 1998
3 Jan 2017 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.
Strong December Cooling Leads to 2016 Being Statistically Indistinguishable from 1998
The Version 6.0 global average lower tropospheric temperature (LT) anomaly for December 2016 was +0.24ºC, down substantially from the November value of +0.45ºC

http://www.drroyspencer.com/2017/01/global-satellites-2016-not-statistically-warmer-than-1998/
*************************
NOAA data demonstrates that 2016 was not the ‘hottest year ever’ in the US
19 Jan 2017
https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/maps/
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/time-series/us/110/0/tavg/ytd/12/1996-2016?base_prd=true&firstbaseyear=1901&lastbaseyear=2000
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/
That plot was done using NOAA’s own plotter, which you can replicate using the link above. Note that 2012 was warmer than 2016, when we had the last big El Niño. That was using all of the thermometers in the USA that NOAA manages and uses, both good and bad.
What happens if we select the state-of-the-art pristine US Climate Reference Network data?
Same answer – 2016 was not a record warm year in the USA, 2012 was:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/land-based-station-data/land-based-datasets/us-climate-reference-network-uscrn
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/national-temperature-index/time-series?datasets%5B%5D=uscrn&parameter=anom-tavg&time_scale=p12&begyear=2004&endyear=2016&month=12
*************************
Conclusion:
2016 was 0.01°C warmer than 2015. Margin of error: 0.10°C.

MarkW
Reply to  Sasha
January 2, 2018 8:14 am

Error bars also result from uncertainty regarding the measurements themselves.

Edwin
Reply to  Sasha
January 2, 2018 9:18 am

Sasha, funny you present evidence from more than several groups that counter Ivan’s hyperbole and he has no response. Even though when any of these same groups say something that fits the present orthodoxy Ivan, Griff and others would be screaming how wonderfully awful things are going to be based on the same organizations. Why they don’t take the time to look at all that is being written and said is beyond me. They certainly do not care about the impacts, especially on the developing world, of draconian measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. I cannot understand, if they have studied history at all, how they could buy into an cultish orthodoxy when there is not way of knowing whether predictions are correct for another hundred years. I guess it is another example of people never taught critical thinking buying into some bizarre pseudo-religion.

Reply to  Sasha
January 2, 2018 1:04 pm

I once worked on a space mission where the temperature of an external cable was a critical factor in the qualification of an engine. The limit was for the sake of argument 200 degrees C. Our best measurements in a controlled environment with fully calibrated and characterised equipment had a systematic uncertainty of +/- 0.5 degrees C. And this was on the cable at a key junction where it got hottest.

We spent almost 1 year trying to get the temperature of the cable down by a degree to fit inside the tolerance. Turns out we could have used climate science methods and just averaged multiple measurements to get any uncertainty we wanted.

Crispin in Waterloo
Reply to  Sasha
January 2, 2018 1:55 pm

Sasha and MarkW

The error bars are not nearly large enough to reflect standard error propagation treatment. The value of 0.01 is implausible. That is so far down in the mud, it is lost. In any “normal” experiment such a claim for precision would not be tolerated (geddit?).

For those who didn’t follow that point, the value “0.01” is not a temperature difference, it is the difference in the position of the centre of the uncertainty range. If the 95% confidence range is plus-minus 0.2 degrees and the centre of the range calculated happens to be 0.01 degrees above or below some other estimated value, the “0.01” is literally meaningless for a ‘record temp’ because we do not know what the true answer is, only the range in which it is likely to be found. Or highly likely. And the values for the other years are too close in value.

One can alternatively report the % chance that one year’s average is approximately 0.01 degrees warmer than another year within the range of 0.015 to 0.005. In other words, there is a limited possibility that it really is in that tiny range, but the likelihood would be very small, given the ineluctable propagation of uncertainties of each of the contributing measurements. We cannot know that the exact difference is 0.01 degrees because none of the exact temperatures of the other years is known precisely.

HotScot
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 7:07 am

ivankinsman

Yet another Guardian link. Man, you’re such a sucker for that left wing, scaremongering rag.

LdB
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 7:34 am

Cooler/Warmer the world isn’t going to do anything about it until it becomes a real problem and then actual real scientists and engineers will get involved.

ivankinsman
Reply to  LdB
January 2, 2018 10:38 am

Yeah, yeah. Pull the other one…

MarkW
Reply to  LdB
January 2, 2018 12:17 pm

Yea, it’s such a huge problem that every poll puts it at last place in what concerns people. If it gets mentioned at all.

AndyG55
Reply to  LdB
January 2, 2018 12:30 pm

“Yeah, yeah. Pull the other one…”

ivan loves the sound tinkling bells.. it sooths his mind. !!

Pop Piasa
Reply to  LdB
January 2, 2018 3:30 pm

Ivan Kinksman, we would appreciate if you would beg elsewhere to get your parts pulled.

LdB
Reply to  LdB
January 2, 2018 8:56 pm

If it was all so compelling the trolls wouldn’t be here and the public would believe them 🙂

richard
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 7:37 am

of course it was if most of the temps were estimated around the world.

ferdberple
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 7:54 am

2017 was the second-hottest year on record
≠=========
so? this is a combination of natural forces and human industrialization and population growth. uncertainty exists as to how much.

adaption is one solution. something humans are very good at.

the other approach is to try and reverse natural forces, industrialization and population growth. this will require increased industrialization which is bound to fail because increased industrialization is one of the causes.

Hugs
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 8:14 am

ivankinsman makes a slightly Griff’y entry to wetter-drier discussion by telling there is some weather around. I’m sure some day you’ll change your tune. Until then, you’ll continue trolling.

Peter Plail
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 8:43 am

Yes, I saw the squirrel, but going back to the subject of this post, which one of the two contradictory “studies” best represents the outcome of claimed AGW?

Pop Piasa
Reply to  Peter Plail
January 2, 2018 2:49 pm

Perhaps, considering their sources, a sniff test to see which one smells more like fish.

Michael Jankowski
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 8:50 am

ivankinsman you must have skipped the article you started posting on. Try again.

Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 8:57 am

Wasn’t warm here. was bloody cold.

And it is by no means the warmest year in my personal experience.

Despite assurances of all the data adjusting climate modellers.

Jules
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 9:22 am

Mankindsdegridationofplanetearth.com, lol not a too lunatic fringe then.

Jimmy Harris
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 9:39 am
AndyG55
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 11:28 am

Still way below MWP and the first 8000+ years of the current interglacial, ivan.

BNRW is the only warming we have.

Craig
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 11:51 am

Ivankinsman,

So, is the record cold in North America weather or global warming?

Charlie B.
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 1:18 pm

and now we have record cold temperatures. And that’s attributed to global warming too!

Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 4:12 pm

All of these two-significant-digit averages are subject to a +/- 0.5 C measurement error, so 0.17 C is statistically insignificant. The Law of Large Numbers doesn’t apply, and extrapolations are used in place of measurements to fill where IS no data. All of those anomalies are statistical frauds.

Crispin in Waterloo
Reply to  James Schrumpf
January 3, 2018 8:37 am

James S

Just to nitpick, that 0.5 C measurement uncertainty has to be propagated through the averaging process and the final uncertainty is far larger than 0.5. That is one of the little secrets the public should not know.

Reply to  Crispin in Waterloo
January 3, 2018 6:39 pm

That’s what I had remembered from my physics courses at university, but later, when I went to look up the exact method of propagating the error in addition, I found that it was the square root of the sum of the square of the error in each measurement. If you add X +/- 0.5 C +Y +/- 0.5C, the actual error was sqrt(0.5**2 + 0.5**2), or +/- 0.7C.

If that carries on for, say, the 930 measurements one has to sum and average to get the May baseline for a station, it seems it could get very ugly indeed.

John F. Hultquist
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 6:08 pm

” . . . wake up and smell the coffee.

I hate the smell of coffee. Can I smell the ‘Covfefe’ instead?

Doug
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 7:12 pm

Why is it so cold Ivan?

ivankinsman
Reply to  Doug
January 2, 2018 8:34 pm

OK, just by asking that question shows that you need clarification on how this has no correlation to AGW – and this applies to Donald Trump as well:

With unusually frigid weather gripping much of the Eastern United States this week, President Trump took to Twitter on Thursday to cast doubt on the reality of climate change, but he appeared unaware of the distinction between weather and climate.

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump
In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!

Climate refers to how the atmosphere acts over a long period of time, while weather describes what’s happening on a much shorter time scale. The climate can be thought of, in a way, as the sum of long periods of weather.

Or, to use some analogies – Donald Trump might appreciate, weather is how much money you have in your pocket today, whereas climate is your net worth. A billionaire who has forgotten his wallet one day is not poor, anymore than a poor person who lands a windfall of several hundred dollars is suddenly rich. What matters is what happens over the long term.

On Thursday, Dec. 28th, parts of the United States were roughly 15 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit colder than average for this time of year. But the world as a whole was about 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average from 1979 to 2000.

Whereas you might be experiencing a cold snap in the USA, here in Europe is has been an unseasonably mild winter – in Sweden and Poland, for example, there has been hardly any snow at all thsi winter.

gwan
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 2, 2018 7:25 pm

You wouldn’t be living in the Midwest of the USA would you RECORD COLD TEMPERATURES> explain that Ivan

ivankinsman
Reply to  gwan
January 2, 2018 8:35 pm

OK, just by asking that question shows that you need clarification on how this has no correlation to AGW – and this applies to Donald Trump as well:

With unusually frigid weather gripping much of the Eastern United States this week, President Trump took to Twitter on Thursday to cast doubt on the reality of climate change, but he appeared unaware of the distinction between weather and climate.

Donald J. Trump

@realDonaldTrump
In the East, it could be the COLDEST New Year’s Eve on record. Perhaps we could use a little bit of that good old Global Warming that our Country, but not other countries, was going to pay TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS to protect against. Bundle up!

Climate refers to how the atmosphere acts over a long period of time, while weather describes what’s happening on a much shorter time scale. The climate can be thought of, in a way, as the sum of long periods of weather.

Or, to use some analogies – Donald Trump might appreciate, weather is how much money you have in your pocket today, whereas climate is your net worth. A billionaire who has forgotten his wallet one day is not poor, anymore than a poor person who lands a windfall of several hundred dollars is suddenly rich. What matters is what happens over the long term.

On Thursday, Dec. 28th, parts of the United States were roughly 15 to 30 degrees Fahrenheit colder than average for this time of year. But the world as a whole was about 0.9 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the average from 1979 to 2000.

Whereas you might be experiencing a cold snap in the USA, here in Europe is has been an unseasonably mild winter – in Sweden and Poland, for example, there has been hardly any snow at all this winter.

LdB
Reply to  gwan
January 2, 2018 9:07 pm

Ivan is clearly not very good at maths and science so lets make this kid dumb.

USA is setting a breaking a record low dating back to 1884, now I can’t personally vouche for the 1884 reading but lets take that at face value. So if you want to claim it’s 1 degree warmer in the USA today on average then (i) your cold variation has to have increased OR (ii) You have some random 1 in 134 year extreme storm.

Now normal climate scientist might argue (i) or (ii). I suspect you are trying to argue (i) but are too stupid to work it out.

pbweather
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 3, 2018 1:47 am

Ivankinsman: How about you address the paper here about the world going drier with 2 deg C warmer temps rather than go strawman about a warm 2017. This paper says it will go drier in places that it makes no sense what so ever like the Maritime continent. I could buy into areas affected by the Hadley Cell going drier, but the tropics? There are already indications of higher precip in places like Singapore during the recent warming period showing real Obs that fly in the face of this model based study. They simply don’t know anything about weather and climate dynamics and just believe their model output. Throw in the CO2 greening then less water is required by plants and this is a non story from the start.

It is about time these clowns employed experienced Mets to tell them whether the output from their precious models is either likely or physically/dynamically possible or not.

F. Leghorn
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 3, 2018 3:11 am

Do you have a job? Other than walking around with your “The End is Near” sign.

ivankinsman
Reply to  F. Leghorn
January 3, 2018 3:38 am

Yes I earn an income just like climate sceptics do. I have a house, children, a dog, a cat, 2 cars, take holidays regularly. Anything else you want to know?

F. Leghorn
Reply to  ivankinsman
January 3, 2018 3:43 am

Are your cars electric ? Do you fly to your vacation? How can you justify pets? I have more but that’s enough for now.

ivankinsman
Reply to  F. Leghorn
January 3, 2018 3:50 am

I lead a normal life. Don’t live in a cave. But I think about the bigger picture as well instead of just being absorbed in my own life…

ivankinsman
Reply to  F. Leghorn
January 3, 2018 4:10 am

I seriously recommend you read the books written by the independent scienties, James Lovelock. He knows a lot more about what is happening on this planet than you or me…

Summary: Gaia Hypothesis – James Lovelock

James Ephraim Lovelock, is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurist. He perfected the Electron Capture Detector which sought out poisons in the atmosphere and discovered CFCs puncturing the ozone layer, as well as pesticides. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis.

Link: Gaia Hypothesis – James Lovelock (2007)

Link: BBC: Beautiful Minds – James Lovelock – The Gaia Hypothesis/Gaia Theory (2013)

***

Summary: James Lovelock: Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change (03.2010)

Link: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2010/mar/29/james-lovelock-climate-change

***

Summary: We’re all doomed! 40 years from global catastrophe – and there’s nothing we can do about it, says climate change expert (03.2008)

Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-541748/Were-doomed-40-years-global-catastrophe–theres-NOTHING-says-climate-change-expert.html

***

MarkW
Reply to  F. Leghorn
January 3, 2018 7:21 am

Man ivanski, you really will believe whatever you are told to believe.

AndyG55
Reply to  F. Leghorn
January 4, 2018 2:35 am

“I have a house… etc etc….”

SO, a massive fossil fuel user.

I guess we all knew that . 🙂

And really…… The MAKE-BELIEVE of Loony Lovelock?

WOW !!

January 2, 2018 6:16 am

Put your money on “hot,wet,dry,cold” and you can’t lose.

Pop Piasa
Reply to  Matthew W
January 2, 2018 3:02 pm

It’s who you bet to win and who you bet to place that makes the money.

That said, you have suggested a fine name for a thoroughbred foal coming soon to a barn near me.

jaffa
January 2, 2018 6:20 am

Could.

It could become drier, or it could become wetter, they just don’t know which. Maybe it could also not change at all. Or they could have some drier days and some wetter days. Or space aliens could visit and steal all the oceans. Or the earth could be hit by a massive gamma ray burst from deep space and we could all die.

Frederik Michiels
January 2, 2018 6:25 am

Spain is considdered an arid land because of the height of the plateau So is Greece and mainland italy

it’s due to the elevation. they shuild have said “the coastal regions”

the main inland plateau is considdered as cold desertin the south or cold grass steppe since the beginning…

southern europe is thus arid thanks to the blocking Alps and Pyrenees mountain ranges.

Only the north is semi arid and northern Portugal is

It’s only when we have a heat wave that the low pressures veer south

I would expand on this if wished but that’s a long write…

Sparky
January 2, 2018 6:27 am

Warmcooling, Wetdrying, Blowcalming.
All hail the great molecule,

Jules
Reply to  Sparky
January 2, 2018 9:23 am

Lol.

Reply to  Sparky
January 2, 2018 2:08 pm

Aww, sleet! That was good!

NorwegianSceptic
January 2, 2018 6:32 am

I predict with a robust 50% certainty that it will be dryer or wetter. (Send more Money!)

LdB
Reply to  NorwegianSceptic
January 2, 2018 7:50 am

You could get a grant based on that with a number of universities take there money.

AndyG55
Reply to  NorwegianSceptic
January 2, 2018 12:35 pm

“(Send more Money!)”

There’s a guy in France wanting to throw money away on this malarkey.

January 2, 2018 6:39 am

Beyond parody. Just like ‘climate change’ set a new standard in unfalsifiability leaving poor Russell’s teapot dead in a ditch, so these guys have set the absolute benchmark for Poe’s law. I’ll wait with trembling anticipation to see if it becomes drier. Or wetter. Or stays the same. Or drier in some parts and wetter in others. Or wetter in some parts and drier in others. Or …

A C Osborn
January 2, 2018 6:39 am

They don’t seem to realise that the general public have already suffered “catastrophe fatigue” and are no longer listening.
The only ones listening are the brainwashed and those “in the industry”, because that is what it is.

LdB
Reply to  A C Osborn
January 2, 2018 7:48 am

Yes the “cry wolf syndrome” has kicked in and the climate activists still keep pumping out the stories 🙂

Dave O.
January 2, 2018 6:40 am

For some reason, climate science has given a lot of credibility to guessing when it comes to advancing the CGW hypothesis. Maybe it’s because nobody knows what’s going to happen.

dr strange
January 2, 2018 6:56 am

Climate Models predict a future of dry rain, so it will be wet and dry at the same time!
See what fake Nobel Prizes do for you!

James Bull
Reply to  dr strange
January 2, 2018 11:03 pm

“not only the wet getting wetter but the dry getting wetter as well.”
does this mean that we’re going to get wetter rain I’m confused?

James Bull

January 2, 2018 6:57 am

I think this is a press release from the Department of Creative Writing at the University of Easy Access. Either that or they released it 4 months early.

January 2, 2018 7:02 am

Anthony:

The UNSW study was 16 months ago. The fact that we’ve gone from greatly increased precipitation modelling results to greatly decreased precipitation results indicates that there is an unprecedented acceleration in climate modelling instability that is much worse than previously realized. Such extreme variations are exactly what we would expect from the changing climate research environment.

Unless drastic action is taken at once, it may not be possible to keep climate modelling results to just two incompatible projections. We could face peer-reviewed outputs of three or even four incompatible projections, which would clearly be a tipping point on the path to projectaclypse.

John Harmsworth
Reply to  Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7
January 2, 2018 8:34 am

Ha!
+1000

Auto
Reply to  John Harmsworth
January 2, 2018 10:28 am

Agree!
Thoroughly good!

Auto

mobihci
Reply to  John Harmsworth
January 2, 2018 1:37 pm

why do you find incompatible projections funny? this is exactly what they want. 4, 6, who cares. the goal is not to be correct, it is to continue the pal review chain. the next paper along can quote the outcome it wants, and it can do it more precisely, or look like it is. and thats what matters. nobody will read them apart from the other pals, and the media release will be the most appropriate for the day and look surprisingly accurate.

the ridiculous nature of these pal reviewed stories does not even enter the mind of the general public, because the media are quite happy to filter for them.

Edwin
Reply to  Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7
January 2, 2018 9:27 am

Alan, that reminds me of a recent visual on the Weather Channel of computer model results predicting where low pressure that is suppose to maybe developing of the US East coast this week was going to end up off NE US. Fifty different results, a couple saying it wouldn’t develop at all. The entire spread took up an area seemingly about as big as a quarter of the North Atlantic. Even they meteorologist said it was ridiculous. I was taught by two very good statisticians that computer models were fine but no matter how big or fast the computer running the model we had to understand that models would always be nothing more then “a small imitation of the real world.”

Tom Harley
Reply to  Alan Watt, Climate Denialist Level 7
January 2, 2018 5:08 pm
Andy Pattullo
January 2, 2018 7:32 am

I don’t read horoscopes so why would I read this sort of nonsense in Nature Climate Change? I can read my own tea leaves and enjoy a warm drink at the same time.

ferdberple
Reply to  Andy Pattullo
January 2, 2018 8:08 am

the horoscope is more reliable.

MarkW
Reply to  ferdberple
January 2, 2018 8:15 am

It’s cheaper too.

Petibodo
January 2, 2018 7:36 am

Good analogy:

Editor
January 2, 2018 7:41 am

Global Climate Models ‘model’ two linked dynamically non-linear, chaotic systems — the Oceans and the Atmosphere. The output of GCMs is itself “chaotic” in the Chaos Theory sense, being highly sensitive to initial conditions, and bounded only by the computer code and parameters used for each model (without the built-in limits, the results would span the entire range of numerical possibilities). As it is, results are bounded between two radically different potential outcomes. If they change the initial conditions even slightly (0.0001 degrees to start, or air pressure over the Pacific 0.000001 mb higher), the results 100 years later resemble what we see above — Wetter everywhere, Drier Everywhere, Wet Places Dry/Dry Places wet, Dry places drier/Wet Places wetter.

The real error in climate modelling is the denial of the chaotic nature of the system modeled and the totally unfounded, strictly fallacious notion that they can obviate the chaos in the results by AVERAGING the chaotic output of a large number of computer runs started with slightly differing initial conditions or by AVERAGING the output of a large number of different models. This second idea is shockingly unscientific. [see this WUWT essay from RGBatDuke — Robert G Brown, a professor at Duke — who has written more than one insightful rant on this subject].

This is not some silly old skeptical talking point — it is deep mathematics and can not be explained away. Modellers claim to know that the system is chaotic, but failing to understand Chaos Theory, come away with the idea that they can average chaos away — fruit-cakery!

As a result, they regularly put out press releases from studies that are totally contradictory and think nothing of it. In any other field their would be an immediate attempt to find out what has gone wrong and studies initiated to resolve the apparent conflict. But not in CliSci….they just blather on predicting/projecting “any old thing” (as long as it is catastrophic) in total denial that their results cannot be right if they are all different.

Ray in SC
Reply to  Kip Hansen
January 2, 2018 8:18 am

Kip,
It has been shown that chaos is normally distributed, thus it cancels out with averaging.
/sarc

ferdberple
Reply to  Kip Hansen
January 2, 2018 8:37 am

results cannot be right if they are all different.
≠=========
the problem is that there is no single mathematical “right” answer for the future except in trivial situations.

for example. the average of a pair of dice is 7. this can be predicted.

but now consider a system where you add 1 more dice after each roll. what is the future average of this system?

Auto
Reply to  ferdberple
January 2, 2018 10:33 am

fred,
42, same as it is in Hitchhiker’s guide.
Approximately.

Auto.
PS – Have you seen the size of My Error Bars!?

AndyG55
Reply to  ferdberple
January 2, 2018 2:34 pm

“Have you seen the size of My Error Bars!?”

Getting a bit personal there, aren’t you !!!

Patrick MJD
Reply to  ferdberple
January 2, 2018 6:48 pm

“Auto January 2, 2018 at 10:33 am

fred,
42, same as it is in Hitchhiker’s guide.
Approximately.”

42 in ASCII is * …Adams was a computer geek!

ferdberple
Reply to  Kip Hansen
January 2, 2018 8:55 am

the idea that they can average chaos away — fruit-cakery!
≠=========
random sampling of climate results in a normal distribution due to the central limit theorem.

from this climate itself is normally distributed. by analogy taking a picture of a person results in a 2 dimensional result. looking at the picture climate science concludes people are. 2 dimensional.

the error is that climate science mistakes climate data for climate itself. it assumes the climate has the same physical properties as the data.

Editor
Reply to  ferdberple
January 2, 2018 10:42 am

ferd ==> “random sampling of climate results in a normal distribution due to the central limit theorem” is a theory of statistical averaging. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the real world — the real climate — or real anything.

“The central limit theorem says that the computed values of the average will be distributed according to a normal distribution” — the CLT is about computed values of averages — not even about real probabilities….it is a artifact of computation alone.

Ray in SC
Reply to  ferdberple
January 2, 2018 12:36 pm

Kip,
I was going to ask ferd if he missed a /sarc tag somewhere but IDK what he is going on about.

Reply to  ferdberple
January 2, 2018 10:24 pm

The temperature measurements for a given day are not distributed normally. They are skewed to the right (higher temps) of the mean of the dataset. This applies to the mean for a given day of the year, or the mean temp for a particular month over the period 1981-2010. No matter how you look at it, the measurements are not distributed normally around the mean.

Reply to  Kip Hansen
January 2, 2018 9:00 am

Been saying this for decades. Universities used to teach physical science students that you cannot make long range predictions in deeply non-linear dynamical systems regardless of your computational resources. The classic examples given were usually the stock market and weather/climate. If people want to make long range predictions in these systems I want to see the seminal paper demonstrating that these all but infinite phase spaces are now accessible by numerical means.

I usually get told that ‘oh well you’re just not familiar with heuristic programming techniques or whatever is the latest statistical methodology’. My response is along the general lines of ‘I don’t care. Show me the seminal paper and then go away and become the wealthiest person on the planet by applying it to the stock market. Until that glorious day just stop boring everyone to death with endlessly failed quacking insane computer predictions of the climate which were written to demonstrate an incredibly stupid a priori conclusion in the first place’.

John G.
Reply to  Kip Hansen
January 2, 2018 11:33 am

You mean that since the world must end in fire or ice I can’t take solace in the fact that on the average it will end in a pleasant afternoon?

Editor
Reply to  John G.
January 2, 2018 2:11 pm

John G ==> If only if were so……

Bill Illis
Reply to  Kip Hansen
January 2, 2018 2:14 pm

The theory is based on water vapour in the atmosphere increasing by 7.0% for each 1.0C increase in temperatures.

The average amount of water in the atmosphere 24.5 mms or almost exactly 1 inch. To increase by 7.0%, the 24.5 mms needs to increase by 1.7 mms. That means that evaporation must exceed precipitation by 1.7 mms eventually some day or the time it takes to get to 1.0C of temperature increase.

Given water vapour circulates through the atmosphere each 9 days, that means that evaporation and precipitation is something around 994 mms/year on average around the world.

So, in 37 years or so, the evaporation has to increase by 1.7 mms or the equivalent of 0.005% per year for 37 years.

I really doubt we will notice an increase in evaporation of 0.005% per year.

And the farkin’ climate scientists should know this math!!!

Bill Illis
Reply to  Bill Illis
January 2, 2018 2:20 pm

Sorry, I did the math wrong.

The 994 mms/year increases by 7.0% as well.

So evaporation increases to 1,063 mms per year and rainfall increases to 1,061.3 mms/year from the 944 mms/year they are both currently.

Bill Illis
Reply to  Bill Illis
January 2, 2018 2:22 pm

Also noting that the increased CO2 should result in plants losing less water through evapotranspiration so it probably tunrs out that general evaporation levels should decrease which calls into question entirely the assumption that water vapor levels in the atmosphere will increase.

What a mind-screw this business is.

Reply to  Kip Hansen
January 2, 2018 2:48 pm

An old comment that seems to apply:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/05/12/tisdale-an-unsent-memo-to-james-hansen/#comment-985181

Gunga Din says:
May 14, 2012 at 1:21 pm

joeldshore says:
May 13, 2012 at 6:10 pm
Gunga Din: The point is that there is a very specific reason involving the type of mathematical problem it is as to why weather forecasts diverge from reality. And, the same does not apply to predicting the future climate in response to changes in forcings. It does not mean such predictions are easy or not without significant uncertainties, but the uncertainties are of a different and less severe type than you face in the weather case.
As for me, I would rather hedge my bets on the idea that most of the scientists are right than make a bet that most of the scientists are wrong and a very few scientists plus lots of the ideologues at Heartland and other think-tanks are right…But, then, that is because I trust the scientific process more than I trust right-wing ideological extremism to provide the best scientific information.

=========================================================
What will the price of tea in China be each year for the next 100 years? If Chinese farmers plant less tea, will the replacement crop use more or less CO2? What values would represent those variables? Does salt water sequester or release more or less CO2 than freshwater? If the icecaps melt and increase the volume of saltwater, what effect will that have year by year on CO2? If nations build more dams for drinking water and hydropower, how will that impact CO2? What about the loss of dry land? What values do you give to those variables? If a tree falls in the woods allowing more growth on the forest floor, do the ground plants have a greater or lesser impact on CO2? How many trees will fall in the next 100 years? Values, please. Will the UK continue to pour milk down the drain? How much milk do other countries pour down the drain? What if they pour it on the ground instead? Does it make a difference if we’re talking cow milk or goat milk? Does putting scraps of cheese down the garbage disposal have a greater or lesser impact than putting in the trash or composting it? Will Iran try to nuke Israel? Pakistan India? India Pakistan? North Korea South Korea? In the next 100 years what other nations might obtain nukes and launch? Your formula will need values. How many volcanoes will erupt? How large will those eruptions be? How many new ones will develop and erupt? Undersea vents? What effect will they all have year by year? We need numbers for all these things. Will the predicted “extreme weather” events kill many people? What impact will the erasure of those carbon footprints have year by year? Of course there’s this little thing called the Sun and its variability. Year by year numbers, please. If a butterfly flaps its wings in China, will forcings cause a tornado in Kansas? Of course, the formula all these numbers are plugged into will have to accurately reflect each ones impact on all of the other values and numbers mentioned so far plus lots, lots more. That amounts to lots and lots and lots of circular references. (And of course the single most important question, will Gilligan get off the island before the next Super Moon? Sorry. 😎
There have been many short range and long range climate predictions made over the years. Some of them are 10, 20 and 30 years down range now from when the trigger was pulled. How many have been on target? How many are way off target?
Bet your own money on them if want, not mine or my kids or their kids or their kids etc.

Can any climate model program process all that?
This layman’s understanding of “chaos theory” isn’t just that there are more variables involved than we know but also that we don’t (and/or can’t possibly) know the number to assign to those variables.

Stevek
January 2, 2018 8:09 am

Couldn’t we just look at dinosaur fossils since the world was warmer then ? Arid regions would have fewer fossils.

tty
Reply to  Stevek
January 2, 2018 3:03 pm

Not necessarily. On the whole fossils preserve better in dry environments.

Reply to  tty
January 2, 2018 10:30 pm

No. What makes for a good fossil is a quick cover-up and sealing of the body part/imprint from the atmosphere. A dead dinosaur lying on the ground in an arid desert is going to decay or be scavenged. A dead dinosaur that falls into a lake and quickly silted over and covered in an anaerobic environment stands a much better change of leaving a fossil.

Patrick MJD
Reply to  tty
January 3, 2018 3:17 am

Correct. Always a wet environment to lay down a “fossil”, even a footprint of something that ran over some soft ground.

January 2, 2018 8:11 am

On average nothing will happen. That’s how models work isn’t it?

hikeforpics
January 2, 2018 8:40 am

The ‘on record’ part is the key. So what if it’s warming even if we accept the adjusted numbers. The time frame of ‘on record’ is so pitifully short, the truth is we are still on the somewhere on the minor trend upward coming out of the little ice age. This ‘peak’ is the 6th such hump since the glaciers receded and the least peaky of the lot. Line these 6 ‘peaks’ up and we still have a descending curve as we ultimately return to glaciation events.

There is nothing I’m seeing that is outside this overall trend. I see no effect from CO2 but just a continuation of natural events.

John Harmsworth
January 2, 2018 8:40 am

An infinite number of climate scientists typing endlessly into government computers at unlimited expense will produce the climate of Shakespeare’s time eventually.

January 2, 2018 8:53 am

Seriously expensive climate research shows that if the climate changes, things won’t stay the same!

Good thing it isn’t changing then…

Michael Jankowski
January 2, 2018 8:58 am

Remarkable how 1.5 deg C comes out to be the magic number, just like the not-worth-the-paper-it-is-printed-on Paris Accord target.

Reply to  Michael Jankowski
January 2, 2018 9:29 am

I suspect because the old Schellnhuber 2C is no longer a warmunist threshold give the new low observational ECS estimates of 1.5-1.8.

NRW
January 2, 2018 8:58 am

‘Robust’ is a euphemism for ‘fat’. Anyone found the lurking heat in the mid-troposphere yet? And why aren’t those Kelvins lurking in the deep abysses of the Briny warming Cape Cod and the frozen sharks?

The Original Mike M
January 2, 2018 9:44 am

It wasn’t all that long ago that the Australian BOM was predicting worsening drought which prompted their government to fund desalinization plants which created a Gore Effect to bring them flooding rains. (Remember when a lull in SLR had them later claiming it was because of that same rain … during their “extended drought”? https://www.npr.org/2013/08/20/213577129/how-extreme-australian-rains-made-global-sea-levels-drop )

http://joannenova.com.au/2012/12/most-useless-flagrant-flop-of-government-muffog-2012-finalist-victorian-desal/

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