Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A new study claims that while the US West will feel the impact of Climate Change by 2028, Southern Great [Plains] region won’t notice Climate Change until 2074.
When will the US feel the heat of global warming?
For the Great Plains, natural variability will dominate until late this century.
JOHN TIMMER – 3/21/2018, 6:55 AM
By increasing the energy stored in our atmosphere, climate change is expected to generate more severe storms and heat waves. Severe storms and heat waves, however, also happen naturally. As a result, it’s tough to figure out whether any given event is a product of climate change.
A corollary to that is that detecting a signal of climate change using weather events is a serious challenge. Are three nor’easters in quick succession, as the East Coast is now experiencing, a sign of a changing climate? Or is it simply a matter of natural variability?
A team of researchers has now looked at heat waves in the US, trying to determine when a warming-driven signal will stand out above the natural variability. And the answer is that it depends. In the West, the answer is “soon,” with climate-driven heat waves becoming the majority in the 2020s. But for the Great Plains, the researchers show that a specific weather pattern will push back the appearance of a warming signal until the 2070s.
…
To quantify this difference, the authors developed a simple measure: the year in which half of the heat waves wouldn’t have qualified as heat waves if it weren’t for the influence of climate change. For the US West, that point was crossed in 2028. The West was followed by the Great Lakes, which crossed the threshold a decade later in 2037. But the Great Plains were on a completely different schedule. In the Northern Plains, the 50-percent threshold wasn’t crossed until 2056, while the Southern Plains didn’t have a clear signal of climate change until 2074.
…
So why is internal variability so significant in the Great Plains? The researchers suggest two potential causes of these regional differences. One is a difference in the flow of air across the continental US, something that may be changing with our warming climate. If the prevailing winds become more erratic, then it’s possible that they would bring cooler air across the Plains more often. The alternative is soil moisture. This takes up heat from the air and ground as it evaporates, which would counteract some of the heating caused by greenhouse gases.
…
Read more: https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/03/when-will-the-us-feel-the-heat-of-global-warming/
The abstract of the study;
Early emergence of anthropogenically forced heat waves in the western United States and Great Lakes
Climate projections for the twenty-first century suggest an increase in the occurrence of heat waves. However, the time at which externally forced signals of anthropogenic climate change (ACC) emerge against background natural variability (time of emergence (ToE)) has been challenging to quantify, which makes future heat-wave projections uncertain. Here we combine observations and model simulations under present and future forcing to assess how internal variability and ACC modulate US heat waves. We show that ACC dominates heat-wave occurrence over the western United States and Great Lakes regions, with ToE that occurred as early as the 2020s and 2030s, respectively. In contrast, internal variability governs heat waves in the northern and southern Great Plains, where ToE occurs in the 2050s and 2070s; this later ToE is believed to be a result of a projected increase in circulation variability, namely the Great Plain low-level jet. Thus, greater mitigation and adaptation efforts are needed in the Great Lakes and western United States regions.
Read more (paywalled): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0116-y
So much for the climate emergency – if the study is correct, if you live in the Southern Great Plains and you are lucky enough to live until 2074, you might notice the weather has warmed slightly.
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…while the US West will feel the impact of Climate Change by 2028…
What time, please? I need to schedule my nap, which is usually in the afternoon…
It’s official. There will be no climate for the next 50 years.
Expected? Expected by whom? As Roy Spencer points out from time to time, weather outside the tropics is largely driven by differences in energy (OK, OK … differences in temperature), not by absolute values. Because of “Arctic Amplification” differences in temperature between the poles and tropics should possibly be expected (on average) to decrease, not increase.
Caveat — tropical cyclones (hurricanes, typhoons, tropical storms) are fueled by evaporation rather than horizontal temperature differences and might reasonably be expected to respond differently to a warmer climate than temperate areas. … OTOH, I’m not aware of much geologic evidence for more frequent or devastating tropical storms in warmer times like the Cretaceous, Paleocene, or early Eocene
If you cannot pick out climate change driven variability from natural variability now, how on Earth can you say that it is happening? Doesn’t this paper implicitly acknowledge that we cannot see anything by natural variability currently?
Well it’s like this with tipping points and doomsday scenarios-
http://dailycaller.com/2015/05/04/25-years-of-predicting-the-global-warming-tipping-point/
When Gaia continually lets you down you have to keep moving the tipping point doomsday clock forward if you’re to stay on the gravy train with the last chance meme. So 2074 is a nice far enough away figure that looks like you know what you’re talking about and is eminently fit for purpose. After all who cares about the career prospects variability of the new indoctrinees once you and the mates are all safely ensconced on the pension?
At least give them credit for 2028 , that after all is a mere tens years from now when they may well be in a position to be asked why they got it so wrong . As opposed to making their claims for so far ahead that they will never be in a position to be asked ‘so why did you get it wrong ‘ as become largely standard within climate ‘science ‘
“At least give them credit for 2028”
No no you’re engaging in a peek review when a peer review would be focussing on the 2074 backstop figure for when 2028 comes around. This technical sciency stuff is not for laypersons.
From the article: “As a result, it’s tough to figure out whether any given event is a product of [Human-caused] climate change.”
Not “tough” but *Impossible* with current knowledge, I would say.
They invented a time machine?
It also shows these people know nothing about climate.
A heat wave is not defined as temperatures reaching a particular point, it’s defined as temperatures getting a certain level above what is considered average for that day.
If the CAGW nonsense is correct, the average is going to increase, so there will not be an increase in heat waves.
More people die in NY when the temperatures push 90, than die in New Mexico when temperatures top 120.
It’s all in what you are used to and what your infrastructure is designed to deal with.
From the article: “A team of researchers has now looked at heat waves in the US, trying to determine when a warming-driven signal will stand out above the natural variability. And the answer is that it depends. In the West, the answer is “soon,” with climate-driven heat waves becoming the majority in the 2020s.”
Soon? Here’s a Heller chart that shows heatwaves have been *decreasing* all over the United States since the 1930’s:
From the article: “But for the Great Plains, the researchers show that a specific weather pattern will push back the appearance of a warming signal until the 2070s.”
It’s really getting ridiculous when they start claiming that CAGW is happening in one part of the U.S., while natural variability is going on in another part at the same time. They can’t even tease out any human-caused signal, yet they make claims like this, apparently sincerely. This is a head-shaker.
I thought that post had been lost in the ether.
For a forecast of the amount of global cooling until 2100 see Fig 12 at
http://climatesense-norpag.blogspot.com/2018/01/global-sst-data-confirms-cooling-is-on.html
Fig. 12. Comparative Temperature Forecasts to 2100.
Fig. 12 compares the IPCC forecast with the Akasofu (31) forecast (red harmonic) and with the simple and most reasonable working hypothesis of this paper (green line) that the “Golden Spike” temperature peak at about 2003 is the most recent peak in the millennial cycle. Akasofu forecasts a further temperature increase to 2100 to be 0.5°C ± 0.2C, rather than 4.0 C +/- 2.0C predicted by the IPCC. but this interpretation ignores the Millennial inflexion point at 2004. Fig. 12 shows that the well documented 60-year temperature cycle coincidentally also peaks at about 2003.Looking at the shorter 60+/- year wavelength modulation of the millennial trend, the most straightforward hypothesis is that the cooling trends from 2003 forward will simply be a mirror image of the recent rising trends. This is illustrated by the green curve in Fig. 12, which shows cooling until 2038, slight warming to 2073 and then cooling to the end of the century, by which time almost all of the 20th century warming will have been reversed
IPCC makes no predictions whatsoever. Only projections. The difference is that projections are not legally binding, which shows you what confidence they have in their own work.
AR5 says
” Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes
in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and
in changes in some climate extremes (see Figure SPM.6 and Table SPM.1). This evidence for
human influence has grown since AR4. It is extremely likely that human influence has been
the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century. {10.3–10.6, 10.9}”
Their definition of extremely likely is 95 – 100%. It is this extreme overconfidence of the scientific academic establishment in their scientific ability which has mislead the MSM and the eco-left chattering classes and has lead governments to waste trillions of dollars in their literally insane attempts to control temperatures by reducing CO emissions.
“To quantify this difference, the authors developed a simple measure: the year in which half of the heat waves wouldn’t have qualified as heat waves if it weren’t for the influence of climate change.”
Heatwaves are generally solar driven in the short term, a source and not a symptom of climate change.
The article attributes future Great Plains heatwaves to changes in soil moisture, and the illusory Arctic Amplification, rather than the widely known dominant driver, the AMO. Which presents the logic that as negative North Atlantic Oscillation states drives a warm AMO phase, but rising CO2 is expected to increase positive NAO, our dear friend climate change should in theory reduce desiccation and heatwaves in the Great Plains during the next AMO warm phase in ~70 years time.
“To quantify this difference, the authors developed a simple measure: the year in which half of the heat waves wouldn’t have qualified as heat waves if it weren’t for the influence of climate change. ”
So. These authors use an arbitrary threshold on data from unproven simulations. How, precisely, do they determine what the influence of “climate change” (on their simulated data) is?
…..And April Fool’s Day is still almost a week away?
From the article: “A team of researchers has now looked at heat waves in the US, trying to determine when a warming-driven signal will stand out above the natural variability. And the answer is that it depends. In the West, the answer is “soon,” with climate-driven heat waves becoming the majority in the 2020s.”
Soon? Here’s a Heller chart that shows heatwaves have been *decreasing* all over the United States since the 1930’s:
Here’s the EPA’s Heatwave chart:
From the article: “But for the Great Plains, the researchers show that a specific weather pattern will push back the appearance of a warming signal until the 2070s.”
It’s really getting ridiculous when they start claiming that CAGW is happening in one part of the U.S., while natural variability is going on in another part at the same time. They can’t even tease out any human-caused signal, yet they make claims like this, apparently sincerely. This is a head-shaker.
“2074”
What, they couldn’t pick a month and a day as well?
First we had “ninja heat”, and now we have “ninja climate”. Climate “science” is such fun!
2074. Yeah, that oughta make sure they’re never accountable for being full of @ur momisugly#$#.
Also, by extrapolation, this would imply that the climate is CURRENTLY dominated by natural variability, and therefore nothing going on today could be a product of AGW.
Sigh. Ever notice these sorts of back-to-back contradictions never seem to imprint on alarmists?
“By increasing the energy stored in our atmosphere, climate change is expected to generate more severe storms and heat waves.”
First sentence, and already complete BS. Increasing temperatures occur at the greatest level in the polar regions (remember “polar amplification?) as the climate warms. Similarly, if you believe in “greenhouse” warming, the atmosphere warms at height, decreasing the temperature differential between the higher levels of the atmosphere and the surface. As a consequence, the temperature differential between the poles and the equator, and the surface and the upper atmosphere, all shrink, resulting in LESS turbulent overall weather, not more.
It is temperature differentials, not the “average global” temperature, that drives more severe storms.
As for “heat waves,” nearly the ENTIRETY of the “trend” in temperature increase is accounted for NOT by higher daytime high temperatures, but by nighttime LOW temperatures not getting as low. Again, reducing temperature differential. Again, contributing to LESS stormy weather, not more.
These idiots live in a fantasy world where warmer weather is worse. Why do you suppose the warmest period in the current epoch, the Holocene, was called the “Holocene Climate OPTIMUM?!” Because the weather was so BAD?!
Yes, but which weekend in 2074 so we can start the countdown?
Lollers. A web plugin making countdowns for climate change predictions is welcome.
If you have the right pal review any model will do.
For years we’ve been speculating about how the warmist rhetoric would explain away the hiatus. Here we see a convenient use of hindcasting natural forcing combined with a forecast that the devil in the greenhouse will soon vanquish nature and punish us for our sins of emission.
Tropical cyclone Marcus is roaring along with sustained winds around 135 mph. It is predicted to move south, and then southest. So this could turn into the next Onslow TC since 2015. This one is good sized. …https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/700hPa/orthographic=-250.08,-14.58,1305/loc=107.910,-16.466
I love this future imperfect tense what ‘happened in 2074’.
There is a principle in Physics called the anthropomorphic principle which says the laws of physics should not assume some special place for man or our place in the universe.
Climate Science suffers from a lack of data. We really have only good data for the last 40 years. Before that data was accumulated from sporadic locations and sources. Different instruments, different proxies and in most cases from very few locations. What we know even about extreme events is very small. No one kept track of storms, measured them and where people didn’t have a city there was no one to even write something incidental down.
So, when climate scientists use the last 40 years to conclude something about the last 200 years or the next 200 years they are operating in a “anthropomorphic” way. They are assuming that when we get 3 big storms in a row it is extraordinary but in fact we have no idea if other people 100, 200, 300, 400 or whatever experienced the exact same weather.
The assumption has to be that weather was at least as bad in the past. The reason is that just looking at the last century we can see that millions would die from a single natural disaster event. Heat waves, droughts, storms, famines would kill 10s, 100s of thousands and even millions. Today no event has killed more than a thousand people in years. In the US we had 3 huge storms in a row that in recent years killed more than 1,000 each. Less than 100 people died in each. This is happening worldwide.
Scientists tell us these are big storms. They say the energy or wind speed is huge. They tell us temperatures are rising but the effects of these events is less and less. Many people are affected and the 3 storms caused a lot of damage but this is largely because people have more to damage and its worth more. We just don’t know.
Many people can only process the latest disaster or temperatures and seem to assume if it is hot, it must be the hottest EVER. If there is a storm, it was the worst ever. This simply reflects lack of education and anthropomorphic thinking, maybe lack of experience. One should never assume that this is the worst or the best or that this has never happened before and if you hear that you should be immediately skeptical and demand solid proof of some sort. It is just incredibly unlikely that we live in this special time.
Consider that once every 2 millions years or so the Earth experiences a major asteroid hit and every 60 million years or so a serious hit so bad to in some cases wipe out 50% or more of all life on Earth. People are assuming that the “normal” is a static world locked pretty much to the current experience of their tiny brains last few years experience when in fact just 20,000 years ago temperatures were 8C(16F) colder than today worldwide. California was covered in an ice sheet all year.
Humans have a poor sense of time and we live remarkably short lives compared to geologic time. For 60,000,000 years during which almost all living things today evolved and prospered the temperature of the Earth was 8C (16F) warmer on average than today and the atmosphere had 2,000+ ppm of CO2 or 5 times todays elevated levels. There is no reason to think that adding 100ppm will end life on Earth or make one hill of beans difference.