Extreme Heat Becoming More Likely Under Climate Change

[Devonian]

Entirely irrelevant, should be deleted - and there are plenty of interesting attacks on sceptics I could point too.

Both posts or neither imo.

[loafer]

There is a distinction between weather forecasts and climate projections - the two are very different. I can't forecast what number the next dice roll will bring, but I can predict on average how may sixes to expect over time. Load the dice and things change.

This is a poor analogy.

We know, when we roll the dice, that gravity works in a certain way, how heavy the dice is, how slippery the surface, whether the dice is loaded by weighting one side more than another.

Climate science, by contrast, has a hugely greater number of variables which interrelate in ways we are only just beginning to understand. Does the melting of Arctic Ice increase evaporation, therefore clouds? Does this trap heat or reflect it? Does it move the jet stream accelerating or decelerating the melt? Do the same effects happen in the Antarctic. The fact is we haven't got a Scooby Doo.

Despite this, we treat our initial models as accurate, even when they are repeatedly refuted by actual outcomes.

[Methuselah]

Who was that bunch that got busted over dodgy e-mails a coupla years back, y'know - the Climategate thing? I bet if you asked 'em to come up with anagrams of 'Mario Lanza', 'climate change' would be in the list but they'd never tell you how they came up with it.

Can we please forget 'Climategate', barrie? It was nothing more than a concerted attempt to throw mud, once all-else had failed, at scientists, using frivolous FOI petitions?

And, in answer to Dev and 4wd, both posts are irrelevant!

And can we - please - all calm down?

[Devonian]

This is a poor analogy.

We know, when we roll the dice, that gravity works in a certain way, how heavy the dice is, how slippery the surface, whether the dice is loaded by weighting one side more than another.

Climate science, by contrast, has a hugely greater number of variables which interrelate in ways we are only just beginning to understand. Does the melting of Arctic Ice increase evaporation, therefore clouds? Does this trap heat or reflect it? Does it move the jet stream accelerating or decelerating the melt? Do the same effects happen in the Antarctic. The fact is we haven't got a Scooby Doo.

Which is why long term the forecasts are for climate not weather?

Despite this, we treat our initial models as accurate, even when they are repeatedly refuted by actual outcomes.

Well, what I've seen suggests otherwise. 1, 2, 3

[laserguy]

And can we - please - all calm down?

Pete - I am calm, hence the (hopefully!) humorous response to your Mario Lanza thing! Honest, this climate change ( or more accurately CC responding to our CO2) is but a joke to me and I'm only here for the laugh, especially when the warmists get all upset and huffy. It's great fun.

[Buzzit]

And what proposed regulation is based on cows farts? Not one....

It has previously been proposed in NZ, USA, Estonia. And the UN has suggested a fart tax in some of its research papers. Australia now has a carbon tax (both pre and post farm emissions are considered, though on farm methane emissions was only left out due to difficulty of measurement.)

[Devonian]

It has previously been proposed in NZ, USA, Estonia. And the UN has suggested a fart tax in some of its research papers. Australia now has a carbon tax (both pre and post farm emissions are considered, though on farm methane emissions was only left out due to difficulty of measurement.)

I've not seen the evidence it has, do you have a report you can quote?

[loafer]

Which is why long term the forecasts are for climate not weather?

I must have misunderstood your analogy - I thought you were comparing the next throw of the dice to weather and the long term probabilities to climate.

My point was that you can indeed do the latter because you have a limited and well known set of variables, which, by contrast, you do not have with climate.

[Devonian]

Pete - I am calm, hence the (hopefully!) humorous response to your Mario Lanza thing! Honest, this climate change ( or more accurately CC responding to our CO2) is but a joke to me and I'm only here for the laugh, especially when the warmists get all upset and huffy. It's great fun.

Well, I'm here to offer counter points, links to evidence and to, hopefully, learn. But, if a p*** taking session it be, can we all join in?

[laserguy]

But, if a p*** taking session it be, can we all join in?

Feel free! There's nowt to talk about re CO2 and climate change anyway so we might as well. You go first...

[loafer]

Well, what I've seen suggests otherwise. 1, 2, 3

Are 1 & 3 the same?

In any event, a quick look at the comments below both (?) articles show they are far from 'settled', not least due to the many 'adjustments' made by the researchers to the 'data'.

The superfluous quotes are in honour of GW, BTW, to lighten the mood.

[Gray-Wolf]

Pete - I am calm, hence the (hopefully!) humorous response to your Mario Lanza thing! Honest, this climate change ( or more accurately CC responding to our CO2) is but a joke to me and I'm only here for the laugh, especially when the warmists get all upset and huffy. It's great fun.

Let me try this approach L.G.

You accept that an El- Nino has associated 'weather' impacts for regions of the globe yeah?

Have a look at the Sst anoms ,and area affected, for the 98' Super nino.

Now take a look at the anomalously warm Sst's , and area affected, across the Arctic.

We've had 10 years of growing anoms across the Arctic, come summer, with this year posting the biggest yet.

Will this have no impact on global weather and , if not ,why not?

[Buzzit]

I've not seen the evidence it has, do you have a report you can quote?

A google search would give you the information without me pointing you to it - but in any case

http://www.fao.org/docrep/012/i0680e/i0680e.pdf

[Methuselah]

Well, I'm here to offer counter points, links to evidence and to, hopefully, learn. But, if a p*** taking session it be, can we all join in?

Well, it does take some of the heat out of proceedings? Pardon the pun...Whilst the salient points can still be made...

[Methuselah]

But there's far more to the AGW - NGW debate than Spencer's question: 'Global Warming: Natural or Manmade?' [italics, bolding are mine] I'd suggest that the true situation is not such a clear-cut either/or as Spencer tries to suggest. Perhaps: Global Warming: How much is down to humanity? might be a fairer reflection of reality; and, thus, a better question to ask?

[knocker]

So, I thought I'd use a wee bit of humour in order to defuse the situation, Mario??

But, humour aside, I guess I'm part 'believer' (How can one dismiss, out-of-hand, CO₂?) and part 'sceptic' (How can we attribute each-and-every meteorological vagary on CO₂?)...

Been out so will have that drink now. Bet it's been aerated with CO² . Damn.

Edited July 11, 2012 by knocker

[jethro]

But the question is: do we continue to do nothing until each-and-every feedback mechanism is finally unravelled, or do we adopt a precautionary principle? And, are the feedbacks not, by virtue of their very existence, empirical proof that warming is indeed occurring? No warming --> no feedback?

Where you and I agree unequivocally, I believe, is that we both abhor the tendency to blame every little piece of meteorological variation on Anthropogenic Global Warming; because, however much the media/politicians love them, such conflations are, IMO, nonsense!

No one is proposing that we do nothing. Supporting the AGW side of this debate or supporting the sceptical side won't make a jot of difference to whether or not CO2 emissions are cut - governments around the world are in charge of that.

Feedbacks.....incredibly more complicated than your example. We are not able to say whether feedbacks are negative or positive, which feedback is negative or positive, or indeed whether feedbacks will negate increased CO2, or amplify it.

[jethro]

i was worried that I had somehow 'understood' the peril better than they had and that I might be able to paraphrase in a way that helped the penny drop for them?

As the years wore on the frustration at my 'failure' to help folk understand the peril the way I had must have become more apparent. As ever, I'm sorry for any upset I managed to cause.

I now understand/accept that I have been wrong.

With the utmost respect GW, that comes across as incredibly patronising.

People can make their own minds up with the information available to them, it's not up to you, or I, to convince them our reality should be their reality too.

[jethro]

Can I ask, anyone here, what is wrong with the actual methodology of the study in question. What is it that can make folk simply dismiss it out of hand, other than they don't like the results?

We're adding huge amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere which is a proven greenhouse gas.

This is increasing the global temperature. Some areas are warming faster than others. Thermal, pressure, thickness gradients are being altered because of this, which is altering the dynamics of many atmospheric processes. The extra warmth means the air can hold more water vapour, causing further warming and meaning there is an increase in precipitable water in the atmosphere.

All this and much more are altering the weather, but not controlling it. Natural variability will always play the lead role.

Moving onto what I think is the essence of the debate, why is climate change so unique with the ferocity of debates?

Why isn't evolution treated the same way? Or seismology? Or medicine?

Why is it then that people can be so vehemently against those that believe AGW/ACC, be so against the organisations that fund the research, be so against the scientists conducting the research (to the point that they receive hate mail and death threats!).

Could it be the hydrocarbon and other industry funded propaganda? These organisations run mainly by journalists, religious zealouts and Friedman free-market nuts? They can't win the debate with science so they don't bother to fund that, instead, they turn to emotive techniques, stirring up hatred in so many minds. They use billboards to compare AGW believers to serial killers, claim that every little change in data they don't understand is a conspiracy and cover-up (NSIDC ice extent in April), keep circulating the same debunked myths over and over (it's the sun, it's the oceans, cosmic rays, volcanoes, urbanisation, any and every unfounded thing but CO2), deride top climate scientists incessantly, claim it's all a big conspircay to control people, make money off carbon tax, one world order, bla bla bla, then fund documentaries where they put this nonesense into a neat little package for distribution. Then anyone who happens to be taken in by much of this, quickly finds a forum where they can spout all this and demonstrate how smart they are, that they figured out the conspiracy while all these idiots still think there's actually a problem!

From then on it doesn't become a case of debating the actual science, it only debating the results. Any rare paper that seems to supports the denier/sceptic view is paraded around the usual circle, as though divine. Anything else is attacked.

This seems to be exactly what's happening here. So many people are just dismissing the study because they don't agree with the results, using excuses like

it's just about getting more grant money,

they said an ice age was coming in the 70s,

it's just weather,

it's been hot before,

climate is always changing so it doesn't matter,

As well as interpreting the media scare stories and being the scientific consensus.

Of course, the above doesn't explain the nuances of every sceptic/denier position but what can you do? It's a 5h1tty situation and so far the propaganda is working. Consensus around published climate scientists is 97-98%, but I'd say the sceptics have the upper hand with the general public. Quite an odd disparity methinks.

Genuine sceptical attitudes and critical thinking across the board in necessary for the advancement of any science, but I see little of that here from those who'd probably consider themselves sceptics.

And now to await the onslaught...

Personally speaking, it's not the methodology but the fact that it's yet another paper which claims we know what's going on. How many have there been now? Why should this study be any more accurate than the ones which said we'd all be having hot, dry summers and mild, wet winters? I don't personally care what the outcome of the results are, I'm just wary of accepting of these studies because they change the outcome as often as the wind changes, but still expect to be taken seriously.

As for the rest of your post, those means and methods are used by both sides of this debate, no side can claim to be wearing a halo on that score. Only this morning my perfectly calm criticism was taken as an emotional outburst; people read what they want to read into something, in order to justify their own reaction/response - doesn't make them right and it flows from both sides of the divide.

[Methuselah]

No one is proposing that we do nothing. Supporting the AGW side of this debate or supporting the sceptical side won't make a jot of difference to whether or not CO2 emissions are cut - governments around the world are in charge of that.

Feedbacks.....incredibly more complicated than your example. We are not able to say whether feedbacks are negative or positive, which feedback is negative or positive, or indeed whether feedbacks will negate increased CO2, or amplify it.

But I didn't cite an example, J and neither did I say anything is simple; I just stated the blindingly obvious: that for any feedbacks even to exist, whether positive or negative, the pre-existence of their respective drivers is necessary.

The idea that feedbacks can ever absolutely offset continually rising levels of atmospheric CO₂ is, at best, misguided; there are limits: that the sky cannot exceed 100% cloudiness/clarity, and the globe cannot be more than 100% ice-covered/ice-free are very simplistic, I know. But we can keep forcing-up CO₂ until we suffocate...

[jethro]

But I didn't cite an example, J and neither did I say anything is simple; I just stated the blindingly obvious: that for any feedbacks even to exist, whether positive or negative, the pre-existence of their respective drivers is necessary.

The idea that feedbacks can ever absolutely offset continually rising levels of atmospheric CO₂ is, at best, misguided; there are limits: that the sky cannot exceed 100% cloudiness/clarity, and the globe cannot be more than 100% ice-covered/ice-free are very simplistic, I know. But we can keep forcing-up CO₂ until we suffocate...

Feedbacks exist irrespective of man's meddling.

Clouds.....we need first to discover if the feedback from CO2 is negative or positive, we still don't know. An increase in cloudiness may trap heat or it may reflect the Sun and reduce the energy received. Ice....which has the highest albedo, dirty ice or snow? We may have less ice but this in turn may generate snowier weather further south leading to a greater expanse of the earth snow covered during the winter - will this balance out the loss of albedo from less ice, be greater than the ice albedo due to the brightness of fresh snow compared to old, dirt ice?

These and many more questions are still unanswered, to assume we know what's going on and can predict the future when these basics are still unknown is misguided.

I'm still of the opinion that increased CO2 has the potential to alter the climate but we're a very long way from knowing how, why or what the impacts will be. Doubt and questioning is my personal stance in all this, I fail to accept the certainty which some state when a simple gardener like me can see there are huge gaps in our knowledge.

[Summer Sun]

From the BBC News website

Weather could get worse over next 20 years

As large parts of the UK continue to be affected by flooding, there is a warning that the weather could get worse over the next 20 years.

The Committee on Climate Change says that four times as many homes and businesses could be at risk unless the UK prepares for more extreme weather conditions.

The government says it is spending more than £2bn on reducing flood risks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk...onment-18793182

[knocker]

Now we are stressing the cows out. Is there no end to human infamy?

Got milk? Climate change means stressed cows in southern U.S. may have less

“Cows are happy in parts of Northern California and not in Florida†is a good way to sum up the findings of new research from the University of Washington, said Yoram Bauman, best known as the “stand-up economist.â€

Bauman and colleagues found that the decline in milk production due to climate change will vary across the U.S., since there are significant differences in humidity and how much the temperature swings between night and day across the country. For instance, the humidity and hot nights make the Southeast the most unfriendly place in the country for dairy cows.

Their study combined high-resolution climate data and county-level dairy industry data with a method for figuring out how weather affects milk production. The result is a more detailed report than previous studies and includes a county-by-county assessment -- that will be available to farmers -- of the impact climate change will have on Holstein milk production in the U.S. through 2080.

http://www.washingto....-may-have-less

Edited July 11, 2012 by knocker

[rob48]

As the number of experts were mentioned earlier, did anyone follow the expert climatologist advice from about ten years ago to sew drought-resistant plants?

If you did, could you let us know what sort of a year they're having?

[Gray-Wolf]

I think most of the Mid-west ones died from the drought Rob?