Austrian ski industry researcher Günther Aigner looks at the winter temperatures over the past 50 years at the famous Schmittenhöhe ski resort in the Austrian Alps, some 1,954 meters above sea level.
In the video, Aigner looks at how much winters have warmed over the period in question and whether it has had any significant impact on skiing. Global warming alarmists have warned that skiing would be dramatically curtailed as snowy winters disappear due to warming.
Aigner shows the winter mean temperature data, whose linear trend shows there’s been an increase of 1.0°C over the past 50 years. A trend Aigner describes as “not statistically significant” and well within the range of natural variability:
Cropped here.
Note that the upward trend is primarily due to the very cold period in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Overall there’s been little linear change over the past 35 years.
Interestingly, the warmest 3-year period occurred in the winters of 1988 – 1990. Four of the top six coldest winters in fact happened in the last 16 years.
The 1.0°C of linear trend warming presented by Aigner means the snowline has moved uphill 150 meters, thus not greatly affecting ski conditions.
What has warmed, Aigner says, are the summers at the ski resort. Here summer temperatures have increased by 3.2°C. That warming probably has more to do with greater number of sunshine hours, and less to do with manmade CO2. For example, Central England temperature has followed along with the number of sunshine hours, and not CO2.
Chart: Met Office UK
So far there has been no hard evidence offered to show that CO2 leads to more sunshine.
In summary, skiers need not worry about snow disappearing from the European Alps and can count on continued excellent conditions for years to come. Ignore the climate doomsayers.
Most claims from the climate crusade are not statistically significant.
Given: none of the AGWer’s claims have ever been established by DATA (i.e., observations),
NONE of the climate crusade’s claims are statistically significant.
Sorry to have to differ, but 100% wrong for every claim made in the last 60 years is, in fact, statistically significant.
Edward H,
How far apart do two of these temperatures need to be, so that it is statistically correct to call them “different”?
References? Geoff S
Edward can’t believe his eyes (or is he snow blind?).
Mr. Hanley. (ahem) Without data, there can be no statistics.
Ed,
Ummmm . . . . that they have always been wrong – yes, statistically very significant.
#Thanks.
Auto
Please explain, Mr. Hanley how you (as did Duane recently) managed to give yourself all those ++++?
Oh, sure, you managed to fool 19 (plus those to offset any minuses which it is highly likely happened) bona fide WUWT readers into applauding your inaccurate comment. 🙄
Gretta scolds “how dare they” deny her climate science
Does ANYBODY take any notice of this ignorant kid any more?
Don’t worry, doomsayers, someone will be along shortly to “adjust” these numbers and make you feel better again. The science is settled and children will be snowfree.
One of my biggest criticisms of climate ‘science’ is that you NEVER see confidence intervals given for predicted results from models. This is despite the basic principle that results from any model — regardless of the discipline — are meaningless without confidence intervals and should always be ignored.
As anyone who knows anything about statistics and models will know, confidence intervals plunge as more variables are added. Climate inherently involves many variables and, to make matters even worse, many of these are co-linear. Add to this the fact that climate is not stationary but non-deterministic. When all of these things are taken into account the predictions made by climate models are worthless, with confidence intervals effectively zero.
To be blunt the predicted results from climate models are nothing more than junk. Despite this we see temperature predictions made years into the future to ridiculous levels of accuracy taken as gospel. This is, quite simply, fraud.
Yes, models can and should be used to increase understanding of climate. Using them for predictive purposes, however, is total and utter nonsense. So the results quoted here will come as no surprise to anyone who understands these issues. Unfortunately, many climate ‘scientists’ are either ignorant or wilfully committing fraud.
“that you NEVER see confidence intervals given for predicted results from models”
And rightly so. A confidence interval is basically the range of results you would get by making different but reasonable decisions. Applied to physical measurement, you have to estimate this, often with difficulty.
But with models you don’t have to. You can just do it again, with those different decisions. That is why you don’t often see a single result, but rather a spaghetti plot of different runs. Eventually someone will plot an envelope of the spaghetti. That is the most reliable confidence interval, being actually calculated rather than guessed.
LOL, yet the worlds’ economy is going broke because the models alarmists rely on have all the confidence levels needed to predict doom and gloom.
Sorry Nick, but that is complete nonsense. You don’t “estimate” confidence intervals at all. In fact the complete opposite. I’ve always respected your views regardless of whether or not I’ve agreed with them, but your response here tells me you really don’t understand what you’re talking about. The idea “that you can just do it again” with “those different decisions” is, again, complete nonsense.
All you’ve done is prove to me that climate ‘science’ is nothing more than witchcraft when it comes to predictive modelling. Quite frankly, tossing a few dice would give an answer every bit as reliable as a climate model predicting future temperatures.
I’m actually gobsmacked that you believe this.
“You don’t “estimate” confidence intervals”
Really? How do you derive them? Can you give an example?
“is, again, complete nonsense”
It isn’t. It is what they do. Done systematically. it is called an ensemble. Surely you have seen those spaghetti plots.
Nick, sorry but I just cannot your views seriously any more.
As for ‘spaghetti plots’, the reason they look like spaghetti is because the results are all over the place. In other words totally unreliable and completely useless for predictive purposes.
This is no surprise, of course, for reasons I’ve already explained, above.
No answer to my question, quoting you
“You don’t “estimate” confidence intervals at all. In fact the complete opposite.”
Where to you think confidence intervals come from? And example of ones that are not estimated?
Here, Mr. Stokes. Watch this video (and if you need more basic info., there is a link within this video for that).
🙄
That tells you how to derive CI for a mean from the CI of the parts. But where do you get the CI of the parts?
OK, well it seems to be focussing on sampling error. You estimate this by taking samples.
It mentioned sampling error.
lol
Again, complete nonsense. There are many ways you can determine confidence intervals and one of the best is resampling, or bootstrapping. Whichever way you do it will produce confidence intervals and these should ALWAYS be shown.
All you’re doing is evading the facts, which is that results from all models can and should have confidence intervals quoted. What you cannot do is take a bunch of confidence intervals and average them, which is basically what you’re claiming with your spaghetti.
Again, you’re simply proving my point, which is that the confidence intervals for predictive results from climate models are garbage.
I’ll disagree- the IPCC clearly listed confidence intervals in AR4, albeit twenty years ago. With the large increase in CO2 levels this century, they predicted a warming rate of 0.4 degrees/ decade, with a confidence interval of 0.24 to 0.64 deg/dec. Since warming has been near half the lower bound, they want everyone to forget this ever happened.
The usual complete indifference to facts. Firstly the AR4 came out in 2007. But they did not predict a warming rate of 0.4 °C/dec over that time. The relevant prediction is (SPM p 12)
“For the next two decades a warming of about 0.2°C per decade is projected for a range of SRES emission scenarios.”
and that is looking low. The trend of surface temp, Mar 2007 to Mar 2022, is 0.298°C per decade.
The usual complete indifference to statistical integrity. At what levels of significance were those numbers being provided? Without this they’re meaningless (and 95%, if that’s what was used, is not good enough).
On top of that, if these numbers were provided in 2007 why is it we’re no longer seeing them?
“On top of that, if these numbers were provided in 2007 why is it we’re no longer seeing them?”
Which numbers? How about a quote? Evidence? That is what I do.
The AR4 hasn’t changed. Plenty of people have copies as originally published. I do.
The IPCC structure is that the SPM makes broad, testable predictions, one of which I quoted. They link to backing material in the Chapters, in this case 10.3. There you find figures like 10.5 showing the ensemble of GCM results. They form the basis for the SPM judgement,
That prediction is now testable, and erred on the low side.
This really is farcical. The reason there’s no “evidence” is that there are no numbers; and that is the very point. There should be numbers, so where are they? Where are the confidence intervals, which appear to have vanished?
The rest of your comment is total and utter fudge; and as for “broad, testable predictions”, that would be fine if we were talking about a stationary, deterministic system. Newton’s and Einstein’s equations work because they’re governed by the laws of the universe. There’s nothing remotely deterministic or stationary about climate, so such an approach is just smoke and mirrors.
The sad thing is you just don’t seem able to understand or accept this. I always had you down as a reasonable person, whom I might not agree with but nonetheless respected. But if you genuinely believe the approach you’re describing is science then any respect just evaporates.
It isn’t science, it’s nonsense.
” There should be numbers, so where are they?”
There are plenty of numbers in the AR4. But you specifically referred to ” if these numbers were provided in 2007 why is it we’re no longer seeing them?” and so I ask, what numbers provided in 2007 are you referring to? No answer.
Your notion that someone has been altering the AR4 is in loony territory. As I said, from the time of its publication (as a physical book) many people have had copies of the original release. If you really think numbers have disappeared, you can surely get hold of historic copies.
The prediction I quoted is set out verbatim in this 2008 article in Climate4you. Do you think they are in on the plot?
If you want an original SPM, someone included the whole thing into a submission to the Australian Senate, Feb 21 2009, here
https://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/wopapub/senate/committee/climate_ctte/submissions/sub497a_pdf.ashx
I doubt if the Senate is keeping up with supposed IPCC alterations.
Nick, why can’t you just be straight about this? All you’re doing is going on about what happened over 10 years ago. Anyone reading this would reasonably assume you’re just trying to wriggle out of the point I keep raising. It has nothing whatever to do with reports going to to 2007, 2009 or whenever. I’m talking about now.
So let me ask you once again. What are the confidence intervals for predictions made using climate models; and why aren’t these being declared?
If your answer is about ‘ensembles’ and ‘spaghetti charts’ then it’s total and utter nonsense. Either you know this and insist on denying it or you don’t know it, in which case you need to go back to school and learn about statistics.
The plain truth is that the confidence intervals for the models will be extremely poor, to the extent that the results they produce are no better than tossing dice. In other words they’re worthless. I’ve already given the reasons why this is the case, which anyone who knows about statistics and models will understand.
I repeat yet again. This isn’t science.
We’ve had this one before, not just once, but twice. And with the same fallacy. Skiing doesn’t depend on whether the warming is statistically significant. It just depends on whether snow is there.
Plus, of course, statistical significance depends on the model you use. If you don’t want to find it, you can always use a low power model.
Since there is snow you are full of shyte, yet again. Being wrong and dense is all you got.
Nick
its time
So, Nick, I respect your views and would welcome your opinion on my comment about confidence intervals, above. How can you or anyone else justify models being used for predictive purposes when their predictive power is zero?
So how much tax money was pissed away on this bullshyte?
Who remembers all the ridiculous chicken little predictions in the past 30 years. Not worth even thinking about them. We live in the age of political hoax to be leveraged by whoever needs a smoke screen, false flag or a market edge.
The Climate Cluckers and Caterwaulers just love to cluck and caterwaul ad nauseum about how all the snow is disappearing and the ski industry is “threatened” by “climate change”. Balderdash. Not content with that, they then cluck and caterwaul about other things, like the maple sugar industry, moose “threatened” because of ticks maybe being out earlier or not dying off as much or some such nonsense, and on and on they go. Whatever it is that’s “wrong” just blame “climate change”. Might as well be witches.
It doesn’t worry you that children won’t know what sand looks like?
World Running Out Of Sand And UN Says It Is Pretty Concerning (ndtv.com)
Have you no feelings man? Save Our Sandpits! Else where will all the fluffy kittens crap?
We are far from running out of sand. In the northern hemisphere more sand was made by the glaciers than on could possible imagine. Now granted a lot of that sand has shale in it and that shale make the sand unsuitable for concrete. The fact is in the good old USA you cannot make concrete that goes into a bridge in this day and age with natural sand it has to be crushed rock. The angular surfaces of the crushed rock make the concrete mush stronger and there is no shale. Oh by the way I94 concreate in North Dakota was made from sand imported Minnesota due to the shale in North Dakota sand. That was done in the late 1950s and early 1960.
With respect, don’t “ignore” them – laugh at them, to their face, loud and long.
Amen.
Given, the AGWers are liars and the Devil is “The Father of Lies,”
The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.”
Martin Luther
CO2 UP A LOT. WARMING NOT.
Bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
I got a chuckle out of Herr Aigner’s calling the positive temperature anomalies “too mild.” Heh.
SNOWBOARDING FOREVAH!! (and skiing, too 🙂 )
All I know is that the skiing was excellent the 2nd half of the 80’s in the German, Austrian, and Italian alps. The winter of 86-87 the snows came a bit late but when they came it was excellent.
That year I started skiing on a glacier in Austria where assessment was done to select those of us that were good enough to go through the ski instructor training.
Then it was off to the German Army ski instructor school which was conducted on the Zugspitze because the snows were late.
Then the 1st Bn. 10th SFG(A) instructor training and then training others on the Brauneck/Lenggris where all SF team members has a season pass to.
Then for us instructors a day of helicopter skiing as a reward for our work during which we skied the Alpenspitza, the 2nd highest mountain in Germany from peak to bottom.
Then down through the Brenner pass to Vipiteno in Sud Tirol to take part in the annual ski training and exercise of the Italian Special Forces.
Other than a couple days off for Christmas I did not go more than one day without skiing, mostly downhill with lots of off-piste but with some Alpine touring with full rucks and combat equipment for over 4 months.