Roger J Smith

I think it's fair to say that the professionals have a very strong bias against any theories that stress energy input mainly top down to the surface, as opposed to surface up into the atmosphere. Not sure really why there is this almost religious fervour but I suspect that it is tied up with the notion that since supercomputers have improved the 3-6 day time scale notably since 1980 (a point I readily concede), they must have the ability over time (through intelligent programming, of course) to keep advancing that accuracy thresh-hold well into the medium and long range. Of course, if energy cycles are generated from above the atmosphere as implied in my type of theory and research, then this is all wishful thinking. There is no way that supercomputers will have any way to anticipate the onset and life cycle of such energy cycles, unless of course they detect a pattern that amounts to a cyclical pattern. On the other hand, rapid progress might be made if a theory were accepted along the lines of predictable geomagnetic and solar system magnetic variations being linked to atmospheric variations. People keep telling me what can't be done, but I've already seen a number of examples of how that can be done. Each time it is done, perhaps imprecisely, observers then say "that was a fluke, show us another one." Eventually, even a patient person such as myself gets the paradigm -- the observers don't want to believe what they may be seeing, they are suppressing all possibility of having their minds changed, and they throw in a little condescension for good measure. This has been the pattern in the earth sciences for two centuries, actually, and my point goes largely unappreciated when I say that the first step is for the community to set standards of what LRFs should predict so that all can be verified by the same standards. This would at least remove some of the obscurity about what methods are working better than others. I hope I see some progress in this direction, because a lot of time and effort will soon be wasted by the inevitability of the human life cycle, in my case, and I would guess in other cases as well, when it comes to some alternative methods. Meanwhile, those who believe that existing global models can be extended far into the future with great accuracy will almost certainly be waiting a very long time to see even modest gains out to ten days. The amount of resources being wasted in this approach may be very large indeed.

In these discussions, we keep reading statements that suggest that there are no reliable or accurate long-range forecasts available "yet." Is it not more correct to state that the orthodox science of meteorology has not yet identified any reliable or accurate long-range forecast systems, although they tend to give their own a very good review? The truth of the matter is that dozens of people issue long-range forecasts for every month and every season in the UK, and in North America too for that matter. Then, for the most part, people forget all about them and don't do any kind of a review of them after the fact. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that there is no set format for issuing and thereby validating LRFs. One person gives an anecdotal account without numbers, another talks in terms of a seasonal average, another gives some monthly anomaly predictions, and yet another offers up weekly predictions. When people say categorically that nobody has demonstrated much skill, what is that based upon? Circular reasoning -- "I know these LRFs can't be very accurate, so I'm not going to waste my time reading them over at the end of the season, I'll just assume they are wrong or random." I call that the Canadian substitute for the scientific method, since unfortunately I have had that applied to my work when I know for a fact that a seasonal forecast has been obviously non-random. This has been going on for twenty-five years in my case, to the extent that I keep checking the calendar to see if it's 2006 or 1609. I think I'd be luckier if it were 1609 (I know, for one thing, there would be more snow in the winter). We have some summer forecasts "pinned" on this site -- who's saying all of these are junk? Mine wasn't, so put that in your computer and resolve it.

I think there's a rational explanation for the week 13-16 map and its improbable anomaly patterns. Somebody forgot to remove the actuals from week 9-12 so the n.h. anomalies are adding in the temp difference between Nov and Dec which is about 6-8 C degrees in many continental climates. Meanwhile, land areas of the s.h. appear warmer than they should because December there is warmer than November. In other words, sack the quality control guy. As for an actual forecast for the UK from yours truly (speaking of the sack), my preliminary call subject to revision before the cut-off date is December -- mild, perhaps very mild January -- turning a lot colder and then becoming variable, overall about 1 below average February -- cold tending to fade out mid-month with milder conditions returning. Overall this gives a slightly above normal seasonal forecast but a good chance for some real winter weather as the coldest period is due when averages are lowest, 15 Jan to 15 Feb, and hopefully this time it won't be just a bunch of near misses and localized events but some more meaty winter-like weather to feast on.

I give you my personal, money-back guarantee, this will be the coldest winter in the UK since 2005-06. It will also be the mildest, driest and wettest. Seriously, though, I am working on an experimental long-range winter forecast, and so far (work still in progress) the indications look milder than average for December, and variable near normal sort of a little bit of everything for January February, based on indications that some return to high-latitude blocking seems likely, but perhaps not a huge or prolonged event. So, there might well be a little of everything that all comes out to average or near normal in the long run. Autumn, by the way, looking consistently warmer than average -- I'm thinking that December may well be an extension of that trend, as is often the case when you get a mild December. Much is made about the tropical storm influence, but I see this as chicken and egg sort of stuff -- if the long-wave patterns allow remnants to sweep across the Atlantic, then you're likely in a zonal flow, and if they don't, then you're probably in a long-wave trough or under a block. So the mere fact that the tropics are supposed to get active or not, has to be seen against that complication, because not all active seasons see transport of the remnants across the Atlantic on a regular basis. For example, Ernesto has decided to die a natural death over the Great Lakes region. Remnants of Hurricane Hazel in 1954 went up into Baffin Island before totally dying out, and the 1954-55 seasons were generally active with many storms heading into the eastern Canadian arctic or west of Greenland. So far, this Atlantic season that held a lot of promise has been a bit of a dud, frankly, but I expect late September and October to pick up the pace -- I think the missing ingredient has been the seeding magnetic field disturbances that start off these storms. The water temperature environment will definitely support strong hurricanes this season, but Ernesto has been the only real player so far, and he took a route that was too close to land for too long. Even so, this tropical storm packed quite a punch when it hit NC and VA yesterday. Even today, there is plenty of strong wind circulating around the remnants, gusts to 54 knots recorded on Lake Erie in the past few hours (from the NE).

Nice pictures there. We've had a more or less perfect summer here in Vancouver and coastal BC, except for the fact that some places are facing major water shortages (not the greater Vancouver area, we have very deep reservoirs). It has probably rained a total of three hours since the middle of June here. Thursday was a crystal clear day with a high of 24 C and very low humidity. You may have noticed a picture I posted in the photos section showing smoke haze from forest fires in early August, over east-central British Columbia. Here' another picture from the same mountain showing some of the alpine flowers that grow wild in this area.

Radar from Key West shows that Ernesto has opened up with a very large, ragged eye surrounded by a rather brief (in duration) squally band of 30-45 knot winds. It's about to move inland, and will probably move quickly through Florida at about 80.5 to 81 W re-emerging into the Atlantic near Daytona Beach tomorrow afternoon. The more significant risk now would seem to be heavy rainfall in the zone north and west of Washington DC and Philadelphia, as far north as Lake Ontario into southern Ontario. The reason for this is that the storm should intensify to near cat-1 status on Friday near Cape Hatteras, move NNW and become entangled in a block situation due to sprawling high pressure over northern Ontario. Some models are indicating 10-15 inch rainfalls over a three day period this weekend in the inland northeast and mid-Atlantic states. This weekend happens to be the three-day Labour Day weekend (Labor Day in the US).

Here's a weather picture that's a little unusual -- forest fire smoke reduces visibility to about 5 kms high in the Selkirk Mountain range of eastern BC this month. The view (such as it is) looks south down Slocan Lake from near the summit of Mount Idaho, which is about 2200 metres above sea level.

Hey, by the way, this term "Indian summer" as you probably know is widely used in North America but we wouldn't use it for a warm September. The supposedly "official" definition of Indian summer is a spell of warm autumn weather that comes after the first frost and usually when the leaves are turning full colour, so very late September or most of October is when Indian summer might set in, sometimes for weeks and some years not at all (thinking of the Great Lakes region where the term is widely used). A warm early September is just when it's too hot to go back to school. It's pretty unusual to hear the term over here until after the fall equinox at the very earliest. The further south you go into the U.S., the more likely it is that the term would be applied to early November weather. One of the hallmarks of true Indian summer is that the days are quite hazy and the nights are foggy. Some say that the term was coined in the 18th century when east coast residents noticed the annual phenomenon of massive clouds of smoke drifting east above their region, something they rightly or wrongly attributed to the practice of the Indian tribes in the Ohio and Tennessee valley regions burning off brush in the spells of good weather in the autumn, therefore the connection between the haze and the Indians. No idea if this is scientifically sound or not. You would have to suppose also that in some years there would be massive wildfires raging further west, in regions unknown to colonial America.

Looks as though Ernesto may be veering further north than expected, possibly taking the path of least resistance between Haiti and Cuba, spending only a short time over eastern Cuba, then trying to redevelop on a NW course but possibly fooling the models a second time and veering north towards western Bahamas or east coast of FL. The furthest west I think it could get is parallel to Fort Myers - Tampa Bay, but a more erratic meandering path would not surprise as the steering currents are generally weak, and getting weaker. There is also about a slight chance that Ernesto will just die out over eastern Cuba and fail to maintain a circulation past Tuesday.

Looks like a very warm start, there's bound to be a few cooler days so somewhere between normal and the record high seems logical, I see a space at 15.0 so cram me in there.

Now Ceres will be all snooty with the other asteroids, "I'm a dwarf planet, you're still just asteroids," and on it goes.

Micro-scale changes in temperature can be astounding. I did a field research project on the urban heat island (in the Toronto area) many years ago. The mobile thermometer revealed that on a clear, cold night it was typically 5-7 degrees © colder in a small stream valley than in open country, and another 5-7 degrees milder in an urban area of relatively light population nearby. On one occasion after a late spell of wintry weather in April, some lakes in Ontario remained frozen while the weather turned hot in early May. You could walk down a road towards the ice and feel that the temperature was dropping by 2-3 degrees every few yards, probably from about 32 to 10 degrees C. Light winds meant that this absurd thermal gradient could be maintained on that local scale for a few hours. I saw something quite strange during my recent summer holiday. We were in a car with one of those on-board temperature sensors, and I had come to the conclusion that it was accurate after watching it through various climate zones on our trip. One afternoon as we were driving towards a line of severe thunderstorms, the temperature sensor began to fluctuate quite wildly, it was going up and down between 21 and 28 degrees as we were driving around a lake towards a storm cell. I think this may have been the result of various outflow and inflow winds near a frontal boundary, because at one point when it was reading high, I stopped and got out to see if it felt that warm, and it did feel much warmer than a few kilometres back. Then on the subject of micro-scale rainfall phenomena, as part of that same field project we placed a number of rain gauges around a small town, after first checking that they would record the same amount when sitting in one place together (they did). The rainfall variations were quite remarkable in thunderstorms, which is one reason why these airport or first order station reports are probably much over-valued by some when assessing a rainfall event. There would literally be two or three times as much rain a few hundred metres away from one given location. The main observing site in Toronto was operational for about 130 years before being downgraded (too much urban high-rise development for it to be reliable after 1970) but in all those years, it never recorded a daily rainfall of 100 mm, even though suburban and regional stations have come in with vastly higher amounts, one recently nearly 300 mm in 24 hours. These weather observations can vary a great deal, which is why one should never assume that a NW member's observation is incorrect just because it's way different from others nearby. Now, here's one really strange local weather observation you may have seen over there as well. One morning I noticed a few raindrops were falling in the back garden of the house where we were staying on holiday. I wouldn't have noticed except that they were hitting a metal roof. But the whole sky overhead was either clear or covered in cirrus patches. Some showers had moved through an hour or two earlier. I guess some of these raindrops got caught in a series of updrafts and downdrafts and were just reaching the surface much later than the rest. I've seen the same thing happen with snowflakes falling out of a clear sky after a squall moved past earlier on.

I think what has the astronomers concerned is that there are very likely several or perhaps dozens of objects larger than Pluto out beyond its orbit, in the outer solar system -- they have already identified one for certain. Ten planets might be okay, but when they are forced to admit twenty or thirty to the club, then the prestige of the title of planet will be diminished. Pluto is basically an escaped satellite and/or a far-out asteroid that happens to have a smaller object (Charon) under its sway as its own moon. It is hardly bigger than Ceres, the largest of the regular asteroids, and considerably smaller than several of the larger satellites, including Neptune's Triton and even our own Moon. However, on that basis, Mercury is in a spot of trouble, being slightly smaller than Titan or Ganymede. I think they will probably vote to dump Pluto and redefine "planet" so that all the far out newcomers will be forced to accept asteroid status. But I won't vote on it here, because frankly, I don't care one way or the other. The solar system is basically a collection of many different types of objects. Jupiter is as different from the earth as the earth is from Pluto. Having classifications is useful, but boundaries are bound to be fuzzy at times.

Put me in for 19.4 because there's more heat coming in due course.

They're actually the same -- check your addition in "method 2" part 1 ... it should come to 50/2 = 25, not 48/2 = 24 as you show. From that point on, the methods give the same results. If you look at each method, what you are essentially doing is adding up the total of max and min and dividing by twice the number of days. The two methods are just different in the steps used to do this.

The reason why Michael is getting a higher avarage may not be related to his instrument exposure at all. From what he says, he's taking an hourly average. In the summer months, this will be higher than the average based on daily max and min, which is the way most monthly averages are calculated. The reason is fairly obvious -- July has 16 hours of daylight and 8 hours of night. Only the hours around dawn are usually close to the daily minimum, and many hours during the daytime are almost as warm as the maximum. Michael, if you have a few minutes, just list your daily highs and lows from that hourly data, and see what the average of those happen to be. Betcha it will be lower than the average you have for the hourly data.

For urban centres in the northeast U.S., the July average max and min sit around 29 C and 18 C for a monthly mean of 23.5 C. ... Rural locations might be more like 28/16 for a mean of 22. There are occasionally spells of cooler weather but a hot month could easily come out with means like 31/22 for 26.5 ... Ontario is only slightly less oppressive, one of the reasons we decided to move to the west coast despite all the rain for three or four months, the rest of the year has an almost ideal climate and those rainy months have enough sunny (and mild, usually) days to keep one's sanity. What?

Well, if it's sitting at 19.7 after 22 days, and the final nine days average 22.0, which seems conservative to me (Tuesday highs near 34 C and I don't see many days below 27 C highs or 15 C lows coming up) then the final July average would be ((19.7 x 22) + (22 x 9))/31 = (28.7 x 22)/31 = 631.4/31 = 20.37 C In other words, the warmest July or month on record and if August reached 19 as I think it well might, sure to be the warmest summer on record (16.2+20.4+19)/3 = 18.5 C Global warming aside, I think the Sun might be cranking out a little extra heat this year, we are also having a stinking hot time here, 42 C at a number of locations in B.C. and Washington state yesterday and today (well inland from here) and about 34 C where I live, which is 20 km inland from the airport here (highest there was 29 C). This is the hottest summer in this part of the world since 1998. The 582 dm thickness contour which runs through Spain in your current set-up is well into Washington and southeast BC at present, and there's a 599 dm high centre at 500 mb over Salt Lake City. This is basically the same heat wave as people were discussing (in another thread) last week over the central U.S., it has since retrogressed to the west coast. As I mentioned before, looking well ahead into August, there is statistically a very good chance the hot weather will continue, both in western Europe and western North America. In most climatic regions of the mid-latitudes, persistence from July to August is high, especially in hot summers. It would be quite unusual if the heat broke down quickly and a cool regime replaced it. It would on the other hand be quite predictable for further warmth and sustained heat waves at times. In west coast climates, August can often be a little warmer than July (for Toronto, though, it is rare for a warmer than normal July to be topped by August because of the continental influence, usually it turns out to be about 0.5 C cooler). For these reasons, I wouldn't rule out a second 20 C month in August. That would definitely make 2006 a summer to remember.

I forgot to enter this month (away from 1 to 4 July in any case) but in my summer forecast on that thread I was talking about a hot summer. This is actually so far 1-2 degrees warmer than I was expecting, so, since I was looking for August to be the hottest of the three months, I guess either (a) the heat came earlier or ( August may be a real scorcher. Leaning towards ( since in the climate I am more familiar with (eastern N America) it is very unusual for temperature anomalies to go negative in late July, August or even September after a warm June and first half of July. Usually, if June is going to be an outlier in that sense, the change happens around 28-30 June. In your case, I think with this North Sea ridge apparently replacing the Azores high there is now a real anchor in place for continued hot, dry weather. I would not be surprised if either July or August hit the magic 20.0 mark, and right now that's about what I would predict for July, given that max temps in the period Thursday to about middle of next week will not be far from 30 C. Every day that reaches say 30/14 for a mean of 22 pushes that monthly mean up a tenth or so. This is basically the same circulation as last winter, only now the blocking high is rather warm instead of rather cold. BTW, nice head-butt action video.

Just a few points to add to this discussion. On the decade-to-decade scale of the past century, my own research has convinced me that there is very little correlation between solar activity and either temperatures or storminess. I think that it is fairly well established that the Sun's heat output at solar maximum is about half a per cent higher than at solar minimum, but with a lot of variations. Since I tend to focus more on solar system magnetic field sectors, which could have some role to play in sunspot development, the cause and effect may be a lot more complex than this notion of solar activity "causing" weather cycles. As for the longer term and presumably larger variations in solar activity, I have little doubt that the Maunder minimum was a real phenomenon, because the observing capability at that time was not all that much lower (on the gross scale at least) and the related lack of auroral records tends to demonstrate low solar activity. Whether this long period of weak solar activity (my data show that it lasted from about 1650 to 1710) really formed any direct cause of the lower temperatures recorded at about the same time, is more doubtful. Solar activity was also rather weak from about 1875 to 1910 and that was actually a period when the climate warmed substantially in North America, around 1889-90 there was quite an upturn in eastern North America for sure. And by the way, the now-famous winter of 1947 was actually at a strong peak of solar activity. All things considered, I don't think straight solar activity and weather regime correlations are very well demonstrated by their proponents -- the evidence so far is at best anecdotal. But there may be something buried behind the scenes in terms of some other set of processes that drive both solar activity and weather cycles. That's the area within which I am doing my research. The one thing we all need to keep in mind is that the oceans have very long-term capability to store heat and resist possible changes, and also that changes in ice cover and arctic currents will have large impacts even when the external forcing from such elements as solar variation may be much smaller.

Sorry, I urge everyone to avert their eyes. But it's snow, ya gotta take a peek!!!

Winter sunset in the Canadian Rockies (Slocan Lake in eastern B.C.)

On the subject of increasing carbon dioxide, I certainly accept the observations there, and I accept that this increase is largely human-related, but I don't take that as proof that any observed warming is all a result of increased carbon dioxide. I've stated elsewhere on this forum that I estimate the warming as 75% natural and 25% human-related, but those are just rough estimates, it could as easily be 50-50 as 90-10. I hope that as this debate proceeds, people taking part will keep in mind that there has to be an awareness that natural cycles have always been around and there's no particular reason for them to stop just because the human race is polluting the atmosphere and adding more carbon dioxide. As to the more complicated question of how the natural and human-related impacts might interact over time, I suspect that this may be less simple than just adding one impact to the other. It would be convenient for my point of view if a large natural cooling event lay just around the corner, but my own research tends to indicate that we are just nearing the peak of a rather long-term warming cycle now (on a hemispheric basis), and won't begin to see the strongest part of natural cooling until 2050 to 2100 at the earliest. Therefore, it's a legitimate question whether the arctic ocean's ice cover will survive this warming episode, and what role a fully ice-free arctic ocean would then play if the natural climate began to cool -- it could lead to a much different northern winter than we have seen even from any conclusions that could be based on reports from historical times, such as the milder climates that favoured the Viking settlements of Greenland. I don't claim to have any answers about any of this because I suspect there is a wild card in all such speculation, the location and future intensity of the north magnetic pole. Because such changes take place over longer periods of time than human lifetimes, predictions have no real chance of verification in the usual time frame in this whole area of study. However, if anyone digs this up in the 23rd or 24th century, and the weather happens to have shifted to a much colder pattern in Europe, then I would state for the record such an event could be related to the establishment of the north magnetic pole over northern Scandinavia or northwest Russia. At the rate the NMP is currently drifting north away from the Canadian arctic islands, this could conceivably happen in the late 21st or 22nd century, but there is no known reliable method for predicting magnetic pole wandering, plus the general opinion in the science discounts any linkages (despite the fact that in North America temperatures have shown a strong conection to the ongoing change in latitude of the NMP, especially in regions close to that position).

I think the really inconvenient truth is that the GW theory keeps changing to fit new global climate patterns, which raises the suspicion that it is not a very sound scientific theory at all. Anything that is really just speculation but enforced as belief by anxious scientific authorities is really a sidetracking of legitimate science. The reality is that relatively small shifts in global climate have been taking place since GW became a fashionable topic, none of them much different from the kinds of changes that have always been seen from decade to decade or half-century to half-century in the past. Add to that the fact that whatever warming you can accept as legitimate is more likely to be of natural origins than human-related, and you get a situation where the more obvious response should be to plan for natural change that could well be underway, rather than acting like King Canute and trying to stop natural processes from happening by over-estimating minor human contributions. That may turn out to be an inconvenient truth for Al Gore if he plans to become the modern King Canute in 2008. The other inconvenient truth? Where most of the people actually live, it ain't getting warmer (go outside and check it out for yourself.) Now, let the inquisition begin, the heretic hath spoken. Off with my head!!!

I think there may be some confusion about what I was saying regarding public opinion on global warming. I gather that public opinion in Europe has swung to about 70% or so in favour of the prevailing scientific view that human contributions are probably the main cause of recent warming. Here in Canada I would say it is a lower percentage than that, but the question is so muddy that you get rather vague readings on public opinion depending on the wording of the question. Probably there are some people who don't believe there has been warming at all, because of the high variability of our climate here. We have not any recent winter trend like you have in Europe, where formerly common events have become rare or not observed. In other words, it still gets damned cold here and snows a lot (not in Vancouver, but almost everywhere else). However, a larger proportion believe that there has been some warming, and are not sure why, and tend to be skeptical of the more adamant assertions that claim a largely human source for it. Also some of the numbers are seen as exaggerated. This is probably the view of about 30 or 40 per cent of the population. And the rest, maybe a half, take the Al Gore view of the situation and believe what "The Scientists" tell them. But behind the scenes, quite a few scientists are not that enthused with the AGW theory. It is risky to one's career to say so in public (except in my case, because I was blacklisted years ago for entirely separate reasons, which I sum up as a cantakerous decision to do my own thinking and not recite some creed of opinion which is presented to the public as fact.) Since there are three or four university level researchers who have spoken out against the AGW lobby, I assume but I have no way of knowing that there are others less brave or foolhardy. The main problem with the theory, as I keep saying, is that it asks us to believe that all observed facts are evidence for the theory, and the paradigm keeps shifting. After major warm spells or heat waves, it's all about the world warming up. After big storms or hurricanes, it's all about cause and effect for storminess. After droughts, it's drought, after wet spells, it's more moisture, and so on. Being a climatologist very familiar with long-term historical records, I take all of this with an enormous grain of salt, especially when computer models are involved, because these can, quite frankly, be programmed to display nasty looking red blobs over the subarctic at a moment's notice, to represent 5-10 C degree warming events that lie (always) just over the horizon. Then these are shown on TV documentaries and people who don't have much of a scientific education assume that this means Albert Einstein was seanced and gave absolute assurances that said computer graphics were exact forecasts of the climate fifty years from now. Meanwhile, we are lucky to get an accurate forecast for the day after tomorrow (not that I need one). And my final thought is perhaps rather cynical, but if Al Gore and Bill Clinton assure me that something is true, then I tend to assume it is false, because that tends to be the track record. Their bland, almost hypnotic way of speaking about these matters to the American public is creating the same 50-50 split in public opinion in the USA, but as some have said here, this is basically a "problem" that may not even exist, if it does exist we don't know why with any certainty, and if we want to do something about it, we're not really sure if what we've been told will work, will actually do anything at all. I think a better response would be this -- assume that warming is real, 75% natural and 25% human-related, then assume we're going to face climate shifts of largely unknown details, rising sea levels, and plan around that. I am not in any position to stop the AGW lobby from creating all kinds of political and social initiatives, and I don't really fear the results of it all that much, except that I think personally it will be a huge waste of time and effort, and could result in some economic dislocation that could be avoided, while at the same time nothing is done to plan for rising sea levels, something that will have largely negative impacts and needs to be worked on from the present time with considerable vigour. But I stress that most of this would be happening even if squirrels were the most intelligent beings on the planet (and the way things are going, well ...)