Is there any evidence showing a correlation between rising CO2 levels and extremes of weather?

[UV-RAY]

Research Links Extreme Summer Heat Events to Global Warming

08.06.12

 

A new statistical analysis by NASA scientists has found that Earth's land areas have become much more likely to experience an extreme summer heat wave than they were in the middle of the 20th century. The research was published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

 

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/warming-links.html

Give a dog a bone and he'll chew on it all day long, the point I'm making is that there is so much money involved for scientist to make up such claims without providing any direct link and evidence, much more likely is a phrase that crops up time and time again in these studies. There is no evidence whatsoever, just tedious and repetitive wild claims, this isn't science it's a get rich quick franchise.

[Polar Maritime]

Give a dog a bone and he'll chew on it all day long, the point I'm making is that there is so much money involved for scientist to make up such claims without providing any direct link and evidence, much more likely is a phrase that crops up time and time again in these studies. There is no evidence whatsoever, just tedious and repetitive wild claims, this isn't science it's a get rich quick franchise.

 

"This summer people are seeing extreme heat and agricultural impacts," Hansen says. "We're asserting that this is causally connected to global warming, and in this paper we present the scientific evidence for that."

Hansen and colleagues analyzed mean summer temperatures since 1951 and showed that the odds have increased in recent decades for what they define as "hot," "very hot" and "extremely hot" summers.

 

To distinguish the trend from natural variability, Hansen and colleagues turned to statistics. In this study, the GISS team including Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy did not focus on the causes of temperature change. Instead the researchers analyzed surface temperature data to establish the growing frequency of extreme heat events in the past 30 years, a period in which the temperature data show an overall warming trend.

NASA climatologists have long collected data on global temperature anomalies, which describe how much warming or cooling regions of the world have experienced when compared with the 1951 to 1980 base period. In this study, the researchers employ a bell curve to illustrate how those anomalies are changing.

 

How can this be A wild claim..? On top of all the other thousands of papers out there, how much evidence does one need? 

 

Have you any evidence for your wild claim of it being a get rich quick franchise?

Edited May 10, 2013 by Polar Maritime

[BornFromTheVoid]

Give a dog a bone and he'll chew on it all day long, the point I'm making is that there is so much money involved for scientist to make up such claims without providing any direct link and evidence, much more likely is a phrase that crops up time and time again in these studies. There is no evidence whatsoever, just tedious and repetitive wild claims, this isn't science it's a get rich quick franchise.

 

Your post just looks like the stock [person who denies science] response for any climate change study, a broad dismissal without any reference to the study in question.

 

What part of the study do you have issue with? Give an example, quote from it, show us your how understanding of the topic (and not just blind dismissal due to political/ideological leanings) leads you to disagree with its methodology and/or conclusions.

[knocker]

Give a dog a bone and he'll chew on it all day long,

That's very true and the fossil fuel franchise are rottweilers. I actually find your post so ridiculous that methinks this is just trolling..

[Methuselah]

Give a dog a bone and he'll chew on it all day long, the point I'm making is that there is so much money involved for scientist to make up such claims without providing any direct link and evidence, much more likely is a phrase that crops up time and time again in these studies. There is no evidence whatsoever, just tedious and repetitive wild claims, this isn't science it's a get rich quick franchise.

You must be confusing it with fracking?

[UV-RAY]

"This summer people are seeing extreme heat and agricultural impacts," Hansen says. "We're asserting that this is causally connected to global warming, and in this paper we present the scientific evidence for that."Hansen and colleagues analyzed mean summer temperatures since 1951 and showed that the odds have increased in recent decades for what they define as "hot," "very hot" and "extremely hot" summers.

To distinguish the trend from natural variability, Hansen and colleagues turned to statistics. In this study, the GISS team including Makiko Sato and Reto Ruedy did not focus on the causes of temperature change. Instead the researchers analyzed surface temperature data to establish the growing frequency of extreme heat events in the past 30 years, a period in which the temperature data show an overall warming trend.NASA climatologists have long collected data on global temperature anomalies, which describe how much warming or cooling regions of the world have experienced when compared with the 1951 to 1980 base period. In this study, the researchers employ a bell curve to illustrate how those anomalies are changing.

How can this be A wild claim..? On top of all the other thousands of papers out there, how much evidence does one need?

Have you any evidence for your wild claim of it being a get rich quick franchise?

You lost the argument by presenting a paper by Hansen. I repeat please bring evidence to the table not conjecture. Go back through the records and show me anything what's happening now in both terms of frequency and intensity which hasn't already happened. Edited May 11, 2013 by Sceptical Inquirer

[Methuselah]

You lost the argument by presenting a paper by Hansen. I repeat please bring evidence to the table not conjecture. Go back through the records and show me anything what's happening now in both terms of frequency and intensity which hasn't already happened.

Surely, when a paper contains real science, its content is more important than any names that happen to be on it...We're not talking 'Monckton' here.

[UV-RAY]

Surely, when a paper contains real science, its content is more important than any names that happen to be on it...We're not talking 'Monckton' here.

Its conjecture though Pete not science.

[Methuselah]

Its conjecture though Pete not science.

Indeed SI...But then that is the way science works. Haven't each and every major scientific advance been the result of conjecture?

 

But, I agree, conjecture does sometimes lead folks into overstating their conclusions...

[VillagePlank]

Of course, everything that we call weather is a function of (pressure,humidity,temperature), (time), and (location): ie both time and space give rise to what we call 'weather'

 

The events that are publicly available AFAIK are averages over space (such as the CET, HadCRU) which, by definition, take out the extremes of weather (and thus lose information) For instance we could have a cold day +4C with a warm day +15C which leaves us with a recorded average of 9.5C which is a mediocre day. Also, most datasets perform quality assurance on the raw data - such as if some data point is > 5stdev then that value is removed and is interpolated from surrounding stations - potentially removing the extremes. This isn't a criticism since you'd expect such an extreme to occur about one day in every 1369 years which is way longer than the data record - so it is highly likely that such extremes are, in fact, measurement errors.

 

Extrema, then is probably best determined by > 4stdev (which is an expected event every 16 years) to record an extreme, and then to see if the frequency is static (standard distribution) or whether the distribution is changing through time (skewed) but you'd still need to use all of the original station data for every place on the planet to come to a view since it is weather and therefore spatial positioning is important, too.

 

IMHO anyone making claims about weather rather than climate is on shaky ground unless it is something like what I've just described. Might give this a go with the CET, later which on a planetary scale is pseudo-local ... I suppose ....

Edited May 11, 2013 by Sparkicle

[Gray-Wolf]

But then there's the perception that's left when something that used to occur once in a lifetime occurs twice in a year? No matter the 'facts' folk are left living within their own 'construct' of a reality based upon their own experiences?

 

Folk here should be reassured that they are done with floods (on the scale of last years) for nearly a lifetime but you watch them check the river levels each time we have a heavy downpour now...

 

We get handed our data but live our experiences. Many folk , post Sandy, had a re-think about climate change. Many in the drought struck areas of the U.S. are re-thinking climate. Pockets of folk all over the world, hit by more frequent extremes, are all coming to similar conclusions.

 

As more folk are blighted by the extremes all talk of 'statistical significance' becomes mute. Look at the cost, in dollars, that the past two years of 'Weather' have brought to the U.S. (never mind the cost of flood damage here!) ?

 

How long can people (and Nations) sit around whilst folk tell them they shouldn't worry as we do not have the data to make a sound decision on the subject yet?

Edited May 11, 2013 by Gray-Wolf

[VillagePlank]

But then there's the perception that's left when something that used to occur once in a lifetime occurs twice in a year? No matter the 'facts' folk are left living within their own 'construct' of a reality based upon their own experiences?

 

Folk here should be reassured that they are done with floods (on the scale of last years) for nearly a lifetime but you watch them check the river levels each time we have a heavy downpour now...

 

We get handed our data but live our experiences. Many folk , post Sandy, had a re-think about climate change. Many in the drought struck areas of the U.S. are re-thinking climate. Pockets of folk all over the world, hit by more frequent extremes, are all coming to similar conclusions.

 

As more folk are blighted by the extremes all talk of 'statistical significance' becomes mute. Look at the cost, in dollars, that the past two years of 'Weather' have brought to the U.S. (never mind the cost of flood damage here!) ?

 

How long can people (and Nations) sit around whilst folk tell them they shouldn't worry as we do not have the data to make a sound decision on the subject yet?

 

Well, whether we are being "hit by more frequent extremes" seems to me to be rather qualitative, rather than quantitative given the preceding discussion.

 

I don't think we know that that is the case ...yet ... although, I suspect, many will have already come to that conclusion. For sure, more weather events are being recorded, and the availability of weather records and/or weather news has risen exponentially. Besides, given the observed warming trend, we should expect, for instance, record breaking warmth in places? Tieing weather to climate is notoriously difficult, and finding a cause for climate change, and attributing that to weather events seems nigh on impossible - after all you are talking of climate change of well under 1degC when the variance of weather is at least an order of magnitude higher.

 

You wouldn't want to be first in line to suggest that since tomorrow is going to be, say c.1degC warmer the weather will therefore be more extreme? Would you?

Edited May 11, 2013 by Sparkicle

[BornFromTheVoid]

On the precipitation side of things

 

Human contribution to more-intense precipitation extremes

Extremes of weather and climate can have devastating effects on human society and the environment. Understanding past changes in the characteristics of such events, including recent increases in the intensity of heavy precipitation events over a large part of the Northern Hemisphere land area, is critical for reliable projections of future changes. Given that atmospheric water-holding capacity is expected to increase roughly exponentially with temperature—and that atmospheric water content is increasing in accord with this theoretical expectation—it has been suggested that human-influenced global warming may be partly responsible for increases in heavy precipitation. Because of the limited availability of daily observations, however, most previous studies have examined only the potential detectability of changes in extreme precipitation through model–model comparisons. Here we show that human-induced increases in greenhouse gases have contributed to the observed intensification of heavy precipitation events found over approximately two-thirds of data-covered parts of Northern Hemisphere land areas. These results are based on a comparison of observed and multi-model simulated changes in extreme precipitation over the latter half of the twentieth century analysed with an optimal fingerprinting technique. Changes in extreme precipitation projected by models, and thus the impacts of future changes in extreme precipitation, may be underestimated because models seem to underestimate the observed increase in heavy precipitation with warming.

 

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v470/n7334/full/nature09763.html

 

 

That's very true and the fossil fuel franchise are rottweilers. I actually find your post so ridiculous that methinks this is just trolling..

 

I think we've found LGs replacement...

[Methuselah]

Well, whether we are being "hit by more frequent extremes" seems to me to be rather qualitative, rather than quantitative given the preceding discussion. I don't think we know that that is the case ...yet ... although, I suspect, many will have already come to that conclusion. For sure, more weather events are being recorded, and the availability of weather records and/or weather news has risen exponentially. Besides, given the observed warming trend, we should expect, for instance, record breaking warmth in places? Tieing weather to climate is notoriously difficult, and finding a cause for climate change, and attributing that to weather events seems nigh on impossible - after all you are talking of climate change of well under 1degC. You wouldn't want to be first in line to suggest that since tomorrow is going to be, say ~1degC warmer the weather will therefore be more extreme? Would you?

True, to an extent, S...But hot and sunny weather does tend to occur rather more frequently in deserts than in rain forests? 

[johnholmes]

Is this link of any use in this area?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-22484907

[Gray-Wolf]

That's the thing of 'averages though isn't it? You ask anyone in Greenland's Capital about the 'average' rise in temps and any 'extremes' it drives and you'll get a very different picture from someone in Los Angeles?

 

The 'average' kinda blands out the picture? If all the warming is over Greenland's ice sheet then the 1c average bring with it 5m of higher sea levels, if it occurs over the Sahara we get a bit more dust?

[Methuselah]

I believe so, Ian. I've always imagined 'climate' as a kind of 'long-term average weather-condition'. If that's true, then one can't really alter the climate without changing the weather? You can, however, expect the weather to change, even when the climate does not...

[VillagePlank]

True, to an extent, S...But hot and sunny weather does tend to occur rather more frequently in deserts than in rain forests? 

 

Of course, and that's why we use anomalies rather than absolutes to account for that and to be able to assess a vast majority of different local climates on a level playing field. Does a 1degC change in the desert have the same effect as a 1degC change in the Arctic circle?

Edited May 11, 2013 by Sparkicle

[Gray-Wolf]

And so we come to 'scaling'? Sure 1c does not sound very much at all but it's impacts in differing areas of our world are huge! 1c rise of sea ice at -1.5c leads to a huge change with open water the result and the flip of albedo (leading to further heating)?

 

We talk about 1c global average and we should have this qualified by examples of just what that means around the globe and what other 'forcings' it brings into play compared with 'the norm'?

 

If we talk sea levels and a Greenland input of 2mm per year with a doubling period of 4 years then some folk will think' 2mm? that isn't a lot' without working out what it means in 40yrs time when they are older?

 

For folk used to talking climate impacts the difference between 1 and 3c warming globally is huge, to folk that don't it's the difference between a hot summers day and a sweltering one!

[VillagePlank]

For folk used to talking climate impacts the difference between 1 and 3c warming globally is huge, to folk that don't it's the difference between a hot summers day and a sweltering one!

 

Please feel free to elaborate (Hint: regression to the mean is what you're looking for)

Edited May 11, 2013 by Sparkicle