Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
So I was wandering through the marvelous KNMI website, and I came across data for the Palmer Self-Correcting Drought Severity Index. This is an index that measures the drought conditions in some given area. The source website says:
The scPDSI (self-correcting Palmer Drought Severity Index) is a variant on the original PDSI of Palmer (1965), with the aim to make results from different climate regimes more comparable. As with the PDSI, the scPDSI is calculated from time series of precipitation and temperature, together with fixed parameters related to the soil/surface characteristics at each location.
Now, the KNMI site only offers linear trends of data. But if you look at the bottom of the KNMI page linked above, or other pages at that level of inquiry, you’ll find that there is an option to download the NetCDF version of the data. As in this case, this NetCDF data is often gridded.
And using that NetCDF gridded file lets me make a graphic showing the average scPDSI for the globe.
Figure 1. Yes, indeed, Australia is a dry country
Note that the long-term averages range from minus 2.5 (very dry) to 1.9 (pretty wet). Here, to the same scale, is the monthly global average scPDSI.
Figure 2. Monthly global average self-correcting Palmer Drought Severity Index (scPDSI).
No overall change in the scPDSI over the last 120 years—droughts are not becoming either more or less frequent or intense … go figure.
Having gotten that far, I thought I’d see what the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) has to say about droughts. Here are couple of quotes:
It is an established fact that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions have led to an increased frequency and/or intensity of some weather and climate extremes since pre-industrial time, in particular for temperature extremes. Evidence of observed changes in extremes and their attribution to human influence (including greenhouse gas and aerosol emissions and landuse changes) has strengthened since AR5, in particular for extreme precipitation, droughts, tropical cyclones and compound extremes (including dry/hot events and fire weather).
SOURCE
My rule of thumb is that most of the time when the IPCC says something is an “established fact” … it isn’t. Here’s another of their claims:
In summary, there is high confidence that concurrent heatwaves and droughts have increased in frequency over the last century at the global scale due to human influence.
SOURCE
Both of those made me say “Hmmm”, so I thought I’d take a look to see what they are calling “heatwaves”, “droughts”, and “high confidence”. From the glossary of the Working Group where those quotes are found, we have:
Heatwave: A period of abnormally hot weather, often defined with reference to a relative temperature threshold, lasting from two days to months. Heatwaves and warm spells have various and, in some cases, overlapping definitions.
Drought: An exceptional period of water shortage for existing ecosystems and the human population (due to low rainfall, high temperature, and/or wind).
SOURCE
I suppose it might be possible for definitions of measurable phenomena to be more vague, but you’d have to work at it. How on earth can you have “high confidence” in claims involving totally undefined terms? And a two-day “heatwave”? Say what? That’s not a wave, that’s a tiny ripple.
Next, here’s how they assign “high confidence”. Not with mathematics or statistics, as you might imagine, but by squinting at it from across the room and making a value judgment based on “evidence” and “agreement”.
Figure 3. IPCC matrix for making value judgments regarding “confidence”.
So how can they have “high confidence” that ” concurrent heatwaves and droughts have increased in frequency” over the last century when they haven’t even bothered to establish clear, bright-line definitions for either heatwaves or droughts? This is fast approaching simply throwing darts at the above confidence matrix …
Having seen that the IPCC is merely issuing its usual meaningless pabulum, I continued my investigation of the scPDSI. I moved on to looking at the 120-year trends by geographical areas. Here’s that graph:
Figure 4. Century-long trends in the self-correcting Palmer Drought Severity Index.
Some points of note. First, there’s no overall trend. Next, almost nowhere has there been a change of more than ± 0.1 units per century. Next, the southwestern US has gotten wetter and the rest has gotten drier. And Australia, as usual … drier. But again, not much.
Seeing that graphic made me wonder about the oft-repeated claim that wet areas are getting wetter and dry areas are getting drier. For example, a study in Nature magazine says:
The “dry gets drier, wet gets wetter” (DGDWGW) paradigm is widely accepted in global moisture change.
To determine if this is true, we can use a scatterplot of the trend in scPDSI levels (Fig. 4) versus the average scPDSI levels. This gives us the following:
Figure 5. Scatterplot, trend vs average, self-correcting Palmer Drought Severity Index.
Interesting. Most of the world has an average scPDSI between -1 and +1 (bottom scale). There’s little trend in there. But in the dry areas, less than -1, the dryer it is, the wetter it’s getting. And the same is true above +1, the wetter it is, the dryer it’s getting.
Finally, I made a video of the annual changes in scPDSI around the globe. Here’s that graphic:
Figure 6. Video, changes in annual average scPDSI.
My conclusion from that? Ignore the hype about droughts. There’s almost always a hair-raising drought going on somewhere on this lovely planet.
In closing, to show there’s nothing new under the sun, here’s a long-term look at drought conditions in the American west …
Good thing that the now-ubiquitous Climate Snowflakes weren’t around during the 200-year drought, the folks back then would never have heard the end of their whining …
My very best to everyone,
w.
Heard It Before Note: When you comment please quote the exact words you’re discussing. It avoids endless problems and misunderstanding.
Editor’s note. For general reference on droughts and other topics, visit EveryThingClimate.com
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Figure 4 would contradict “established wisdom”.
“established wisdom”
Isn’t that an oxymoron?
You did notice I used snipe quote marks?
Models require increased atmospheric water vapor to derive high equilibrium climate sensitivity under increasing CO2. So how can computer gamers predict more drought?
Those who control the input, control the output.
You are correct Milo ,
The theory of runaway global warming rely s on a warmer atmosphere holding more water vapour which at some stage goes into overdrive .
The problem with this theory is that clouds and rainfall cool the world and the extra water vapour has to condense and fall as rain .
If there is more water vapour in the atmosphere there will be less droughts.
End of story.
Models also can’t handle clouds, which are a net negative feedback, as is evaporative cooling. Actually to model clouds would require orders of magnitude more computing power than now available, so their effects are “parameterized,” ie made up to fit the desired result.
Climate phiisics can achieve anything they want. In the real world, water that goes up eventually comes down. The turnover of water in the atmosphere averages 8 days. So there is a lot going up and over an annual cycle the same amount comes down. Climate models can create atmospheric water from literally nowhere.
Attached shows the CMIP5 model mean for monthly precipitation minus evaporation. Integrating this difference over any annul cycle should result in something very close to zero. But the models are able to continually generate more precipitation than evaporation.
Yes, the models are shamelessly, intentionally unphysical and antiscientific, which is a desired feature, not a bug to be corrected.
More excellent work sir! Thank you. I will pass this one for sure.
Just in the past couple of years here in Colorado, the prediction was for continuing drought and then this year becomes the wettest ever.
Normally, around the end of June, the irrigation ditches are dry. This year they are still running strong, at least the ones around here just outside of Boulder.
On the western slope we had rain until 6/20. In the past 30+ years I’ve never seen the plants flourish nor the wildflowers blossom like this year. Things are still green, but in need of rain soon. It looks like Tuesday on next week should give us some rain.
Do you have Japanese beetles there? I just vacuumed up several dozen from my grape vines.
No we don’t. Had a few ticks until it dried out.
That’s good. Maybe they won’t make it over the divide.
Figure 6 is a stunning show – no dry or wet year predicts the next. It refutes all the “new normal” pontificators.
That is why it is called weather.
“Weather, not Climate” is more than a truism. It reflects a deeper truth.
Climate change, the integral of weather over a sustained period – changing, begs the question of whether the climate is changing.
Because a ‘climate’ only occurs in the first place if the weather is stable over the period that you have defined.
That stable weather is ‘the climate’.
If the weather is changing then how it changes is beyond mortal knowledge. Or even the ken of an eternal (non-transcendental) AI. Because the weather is chaotic.
Once the weather leaves its near stable point (it’s attractor) we have no way of knowing where it is going to go next.
God only knows.
And that ain’t science.
Easy explanation for <-1 dry getting wetter and >+1 wet getting drier. It is the well known phenomena of ‘regression to the mean over time’. Extremes tend to get statistically less extreme with time.
SHH!!!
You are giving away the secret of us contactors / consultants.
We are only called in when things get extremely bad. And then whatever we do, it will probably get better. Quids in. Kerching!
Never reveal the secret of ‘regression to the mean’.
I once lost 27 hands of blackjack in a row by assuming I would benefit from RTM on the next hand….
Conclusion: When you have the MSM in your pocket you can say anything you want without being challenged.
Thanks for your continued good work, Willis. It might be better, however, to use Snowflake rather than Karen. Karen is a pejorative aimed at white middle class women, although everybody seems to be using it.
Thanks, Dave. Fixed.
w.
De nada.
WE, nice work. I find it amazing that the IPCC repeats alarming stuff that is so easily refuted by publicly available information, as you do here.
A decade ago, in their special SREX study, they concluded there was no or little evidence of increases in weather extremes. Yet in AR6 2023 they say it is now so with high confidence. Trying to have it both ways usually does not end well.
Let’s hope it turns out that way.
Like Willis said, if you use vague terms you can show anything you want about them at any particular time consistent with the mandated narrative of the day. Over the past decade they have hired more and cleverer word-smiths to imply things that are not strictly true if one were using precise and consistent definitions.
Indeed. Polar vortex, heat dome, atmospheric river… Scary new extremes…
“The long-term averages range from minus 2.5 (very dry) to 1.9 (pretty wet).”
Definitely misleading. I would expect a high drought severity to be a large positive number, not a large negative one. Maybe it is misleading on purpose ..
I think it is a measure of the soil moisture anomaly from “normal”,
… hence dry would be negative.
Willis,
You do realize of course that this is all religious heresy and Orwellian thought-crime, don’t you? What matters here is what real-world Orwellian Big Brother wants us to believe and the truth (and the data) be damned.
When will the thought police come knocking on your door?
I like paleo records for this subject–>
https://news.arizona.edu/story/giant-sequoias-yield-longest-fire-history-from-tree-rings
“The scientists found the years from 800 to 1300, known as the Medieval Warm Period, had the most frequent fires in the 3,000 years studied. Other research has found that the period from 800 to 1300 was warm and dry”
In another related piece it noted that from aprox 1860 to the present the dendro data
was correlated to direct temperature readings, which might give some indications to
earlier data. So yea dry does get drier..
At least in California.
There are other published dendro studies that show the medieval warm period happened in Europe and Russia. A key point to all this is that it is impossible
to say what effect human activities are having on the climate without
first establishing the parameters of natural variation. Which to my understanding
the IPCC/Greens is not wanting to do. I recall reading a lot of interesting facts regarding dendro back 10 yrs or so ago but that info online is gone..so curious..
Many researchers use other paleo evidence, not tree rings. Their findings are that the Medieval Warm Period, with some variations in timing, occurred from the Arctic to Antarctica, and everywhere in between.
Treemometers are absolutely unreliable, especially stripbark type trees. Rainfall, pests, encroachment, differential bark growth & etc. keep dendrochronologists from being able to correlate their growth patterns with temperature. That fact is all over the literature but is largely ignored by corrupt CliSciFi practitioners.
The UA Collage of Science piece I posted a link to is about wildfire damage to the Sequoia’s, which to my understanding is very reliable. Wildfire and dry go together.
Then correlate the settlement of Greenland by the Norsemen at the same time
where they were able to grow grain and make wine a picture of the temperature
and type of climate can be seen..
“Scientists reconstructed the 3,000-year history of fire by dating fire scars on ancient giant sequoia trees”
I agree that using tree rings for dating is very precise and can be used to date the timing of destructive events. As I indicated, though, the literature states flatly that they should not be used for reliable temperature studies. Data also shows that as the world warmed over the past 120+ years wildfires have not increased in frequency nor intensity.
I’m a casual student of climate science, so my level of expertise is
only as good as my sources. In the above paper link the authors
wrote “Since 1860, human activity has greatly reduced the extent of fires.” The picture in the paper clearly shows fire damage over
a long time frame. In another paper the authors noted that in that
era the tree rings were so tiny they couldn’t count them, That
implies dry to me.
My personal view of the Medieval Climate period is that it
was a abnormally warm period. I’ve noted here in the past week about
some white pine stumps that were found 500ft in elevation above
the current tree line and radio carbon dated to be between 1000
and 2000 yrs old. Add some dendro to some sediment layers
and stir in some archology finding from Greenland and add it all up.
Tiny, very narrow tree rings implies either dry, cold or low CO2 – it’s impossible to narrow it down further without more data/context.
Richard Page:
Mr. Ed is correct
The MWP was a period with very few volcanic eruptions, so the air was exceptionally clean, and global temperatures were high because of the lack of SO2 aerosol pollution.
“I’ve noted here in the past week about
some white pine stumps that were found 500ft in elevation “
If you have a link for that, could you post it please. 🙂
https://abatlas.org/the-human-sense-of-place/high-altitude-archeology
“The scientists are also finding that the high country wasn’t the same as we now see it. Old whitebark pine stumps have been dated to 1,100 to 2,100 years ago in places that are now 500 feet above where trees are growing now, Guenther said. “These were happy, well-fed whitebark pine,” he said. That points to the possibility that the high country was warmer for a period of time, maybe encouraging occupation when lower elevations were stricken with drought.”
“Collage of Science”
Please show us a picture of it. 🙂
This morning I couldn’t spell technician. Now I are one.
“Treemometers are absolutely unreliable, especially stripbark type trees.”
And don’t forget the effect of increased atmospheric CO2 on growth.
Taxpayers have been sending the UN billions over decades to deal with drought, famine & disease – it’s still there, however, some people have been made very rich
Its like the cure for cancer – multi billions poured into research over decades, still no cure – one wonders whether a cure is good business, or not
The only good drugs are the ones you have to take every day for the rest of your life. Short term acting drugs (cures) are not worth the research to develop them.
Even that would be good if they worked….
Many cancers are now treatable, and some others have been largely prevented.
Unfortunately, “cancer” is a catch-all term covering a wide range of diseases.
Speaking of Drought (gleaned from The Automatic Earth)
A little perspective always helps. Thank for providing some. 🙂
I would like to find the source data for that graph, but I’m pretty sure it’s all been published here before. Error bars would be nice, but maybe distracting at this level.
After all, it is basically proxies all the way down…
Bill Gates and John Kerry want to reduce it to zero.
Very nice work. This needs wide distribution.
My Mark IV eyeball would put that at more like -1.5 and +1.0
Where did you go to get the upgrade?
Story tip: National Geographic have published an article stating that Oceans are like a Hot Tub with temperatures upwards of 90degF!
Corals like higher temperatures.
The highest temperature any part of the open ocean can get to is around 32ºC (approx 90ºF), then only for short periods. The atmosphere corrects that to around a steady maximum of around 30ºC in the tropics.
There is absolutely nothing abnormal about a tropical ocean temperature of 90ºF.
ps, The human body temperature is around 98.6ºC
A “hot tub” should be slightly above this for best effect.
“Is The Dry Getting Drier?”
Certainly not here in the American northeast- been raining for weeks. I seem to recall some years ago when we did have a mild drought here- the climate pitch here was that New England would turn into a desert! Now it seems tropical. Not fun if you want any outdoor activities, but my lawn, my garden, my flower beds, my trees and shrubs never grew so fast or looked so healthy. And all the reservoirs are filled to overflowing, including the Quabbin Reservoir in the center of the state which sends water to Boston. It had been way down for many years.
There must not be any tiny delta dwelling fish between your reservoirs and the sea.
Joseph Z,
My wife and I took a serious hobby interest in that beautiful winter flowering plant the camellia, starting in earnest 1982. We bred and registered several in the International register, helping to compile the print encyclopaedia of an initial 16,000 named camellias from global historical records. We/I went to Yunnan, China several times, worked with the famous Kunming Institute of Botany and fully legally brought back to Australia some scions of rare yellow flowered camellias. Serious amateur stuff.
The point is that global Carbon Dioxide in the air measured at Mauna Loa increased from about 330 ppm in 1980 to 425 ppm in 2023. It is well recorded and probably undisputed that CO2 fertilization is happening to trees and shrubs.
We have seen this fertilization in camellia trees. There has been a decrease in yellowish, underfed leaves, with now a more uniform and darker green. The rate of growth has increased, making pruning more often. The flower quality has improved, with fewer straggly, poorly developed blooms and more uniformity of good blooms.
Of course, there are confounding co-factors like water use and application, artificial fertilizers, lower quality of commercial potting mixes now, effects of pests and diseases. We take these into account in making a strong assertion that increased CO2 has led to stronger, better camellia plants over the last 40 years. Geoff S
Just for interest and a bit of a skite, here is a bloom from our registered C.reticulata hybrid “Our Granddaughters”.It is 6.5 inches diameter. Geoff S
As CO2 levels continue to increase, plants need less water. Because of this, even if there was a tiny increase in dryness, it wouldn’t make any difference.
This does not mean that many plants would not do still better with more available water.
From the article: “It is an established fact that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions have led to an increased frequency and/or intensity of some weather and climate extremes since pre-industrial time, in particular for temperature extremes.”
That is just a blatant lie.
These climate change alarmists don’t have one shred of evidence establishing that human-induced greenhouse gases are causing the atmosphere to do anything.
Somebody ought to ask the question: What is this evidence you have?
They don’t have any evidence. I’ve been paying attention. For *many* years. They are lying through their teeth saying something like this.
Their UN IPCC CliSciFi climate models tell them it is so.
CO2 will kill me
that I know
because the IPCC tells me so.
There is no theory anywhere that increased atmospheric pressure from CO2 affects weather systems. Barometers 250 years old still work fine today. Since weather is all about the difference in pressure systems, that statement is pure bunk.
I used ro enjoy quoting from the “Observations” chapter of AR5 (2013), because measurements showed no global trends for any “extreme weather” events. None. Not a single one. I never bothered with the “Summary for Policymakers” because it was political nonsense written by–you guessed it—politicians, not scientists. The politicians wanted something more hyperbolic than actual science so they doctored it to their liking and would always—always!—refer the media to the Summary for Policymakers not the Observations chapters where the actual science lay.
In Observations I had to skip the summaries and go to the measurements of each weather event like droughts, floods, cyclones, etc. and read carefully to see that they were phrasing their findings in a way to infer to the reader that there was a trend without actually blatantly saying there was. To be scientifically accurate they would very briefly say something like “no global trend” but follow it with equivocation like “there are regional trends” or “not enough data”. Once you discarded the equivocating language it was easy to see they had bupkis. But they would quickly assure the reader that “it’s going to happen, because climate models”. A brief skim of AR6 shows the same tactics. Buried in all the summaries and assurances that global catastrophe is happening and it’s caused by humans are the very brief admissions of the real data which show, once again, bupkis. And I use the word knowing the original Yiddish meaning of the word, which accurately describes their so-called “conclusions”.
Another trick they have is not including studies that contradict the narrative. There are 54 (at least) contemporary studies of normalized (adjusted for GDP, inflation, the amount of infrastructure in harm’s way & etc.) damages caused by extreme weather catalogued over long periods. Only one of the 54 studies had damages increasing and it was flawed. Guess which of the 54 studies was the only one cited in IPCC’s AR6? Hell, they even ignored the studies by Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr. who wrote the seminal study of normalized damages in 2008.
““it’s going to happen, because climate models””
And it’s always ten years down the road when it’s going to happen.
Like the guy on the corner with the sign “The World Ends Tomorrow”. He’ll still be there tomorrow with the same sign!
FWIW
“Models wrong again: Looks like Climate Change is making rainfall *less* intense globally”
https://joannenova.com.au/2023/07/models-wrong-again-looks-like-climate-change-is-making-rainfall-less-intense-globally/
I always love seeing the grid for the IPCC confidence levels. High agreement is ALWAYS high confidence – no matter the evidence.
SCIENCE! At least, as defined by the Church of AGW.
They are trying to con us with CONfidence levels.
I’m not advocating for or against but the presentation raises some questions that I can’t answer. The graph, and the trend calculated for it, cover 120+years, presented in a very small space. Whether or not they are significant in any way to humans or other life, how many of those “tiny ripples” or significant changes in their frequency, might disappear in that CEEMD Smooth and Linear Trend, to say nothing of the Monthly Data?
Is the data really fit for purpose? I suppose that might depend on what the purpose is.
The alarmists claim that we’re already seeing the effects of “global warming” on droughts, storms, and the like.
The data is certainly fit to show that they have no evidence to back up their claims regarding droughts.
w.
I really like the RED LINE OF DEATH…graph and concept. If we can get the suburban wine moms and impressionable teenage activist clamoring to be saved from the RED LINE OF DEATH… Most of the worlds problems would be solved.
“I really like the RED LINE OF DEATH…graph and concept.”
Me, too. That ought to get some attention!