eddie
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Posts posted by eddie
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It is perfectly easy to produce broad systems for the global climate at the macro level, and for some climatic regimes to be very clear about the long period impacts (e.g. drier / warmer).
I don't think it is that easy. Yes you can say that a particular area of the world will be warmer but once you try to predict what average rainfall over a particular area will be you are starting blur the line between climate prediction and weather prediction.
We simply don't know what effect climate change will be on ocean currents (we don't even fully understand why they change naturally nevermind when you factor in climate change) and, as the existance of this topic shows, what the effect will be on the melting of polar ice. Average rainfall depends *very* much on these two factors which is why I think that GCMs are really just guessing at the moment.
Re your first point, nobody had ever seen an atom bomb explode before Hiroshima but that didn't mean people didn't know what would happen.You do know they exploded an atomic bomb in the desert (Trinity) before they dropped the one on Hiroshima? That fact aside, I don't think your analogy is valid anyway since they only knew it would go bang and not exactly how big that bang would be which is what we need to know here.
As I've mentioned previously, one test of all models is to retrogress them. I.e. feed in data from twenty years ago and let them run to the present day to see whether they seem to replicate the current system. It doesn't follow AUTOMATICALLY that this ensures robust future projection, but it helps a lot.An average of many runs from a selection of climate models gives an fairly good fit to the observed historic temperature curve. This is a long way from having predicted what the the average rainfall was. The historic recreations also have the benefit of the ocean currents being in a known state.
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Looking at the latest GFS I think we will be at 16C or slightly below by the 15th due to some cold nights.
Hard to say what will happen after that but one thing is fairly certain, we won't be breaking any records.
If we are at 16C on the 15th then it would require a second half CET of 22.2C to beat the warmest august (19.2 - 1995) and 9.9C to beat the coldest August (12.9C in 1912)
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2007/2008 will be a Hale Winter. Philip Eden also pointed out a few years back, how 2007/2008 had a higher probability of being cold, than most winters in the christmas pudding. Infact, in his 1st January 2000 column I believe he joked it could be the last severe winter of the third millennium?
Anyway, being a Hale Winter, this is probably where Bill Giles got his idea's from? As for the November chart, it certainly looks good, but just remember the saying;
Ice to bear a duck, there will be nothing left but slush and muck....
Very wet and reasonably mild would do me for November.
Forgive my ignorance but what is a 'Hale Winter'? Google not being helpful today.
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I do think there is a tendency to gloss over some of the more 'complicated' parts of our climate history to make the AGW theory seem less vulnerable to the 'climate has changed this fast before so it must be natural' argument. I think this is the wrong attitude to take because it can lead to accusations that the past is being manipulated to support the AGW theory.
It doesn't necessarily follow that just because climate has changed quickly before due to natural cycles that the current warming is caused by natural cycles. For example it could be quite possible that the warming in the medieval warm period was caused by the sun and the warming now is caused by C02.
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My point precisely Eddie, temps go up and down, we're just better at measuring and recording them now so we have a definative time period to refer to. What do you think, has the last few years of warmer than usual summers and mild winters influenced your perspective on climate change?
The mild winters and warm summers have definitely influenced my perspective. If temperatures weren't going up and if we weren't breaking CET records all over the place then I would definitely be more skeptical.
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In the past temperatures have fallen and risen much faster than 1C in a century. This warming is only unprecedented in recorded history.
Having said that, these rapid climate shifts took place at a time when the earth was coming out of the last ice age so I'm not sure if they are relevant to today's situation.
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I've experienced temperatures up to 46C in Eilat in Israel and I'll tell you its not nice being out for long in those sorts of temperatures. But its dry heat so you dont sweat that much and it isnt that bad when your sitting in the shade. Although you have to drink constantly and you just feel energy being sapped away from you. On the plus side it makes 30C feel cold. But you have to comfortable in temperatures of around 35C first before you want to go to one of these places or else its just too much to cope with coming straight from the UK.
I have only experienced near 50C temperatures once and that was also near Eilat. It's really not an experience I would care to repeat either. 2 or 3 hours outside in that heat with no water could easily kill you. A simple 1km round trip to a shop and back left my partner and I exhausted for the rest of the afternoon despite the fact we regularly climb mountains in this country.
It's so dry that your sweat evaporates instantly which can be quite dangerous becuase you don't realise how much fluid you are loosing. The tour people made a big deal of warning us to drink water at set intervals even if we weren't thirsty.
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The hypocrisy about Nuclear power from the environmental lobby is one of the things that damages credibility most. Nuclear is for the forseeable future the cleanest source of enough energy available. This idea that the world can survive on wave and wind power and other such fanciful notions should be enough to have these people committed to a nut house. Mind you it is the consequences of such ideology on the 3rd world that is the most grotesque implication of their mindset. They have either not considered properly or managed to comprehend that impoverished countries need to develope far faster then at any time in history. This will mean massive extra pollution. Its too easy to prophesise about global warming from the trappings of the first world. IMO some of these people need a shock - maybe of the economic type as a reminder that things are not black and white and that the majority of the worlds population does not have the luxury afforded to them of having so much time to come up with 'solutions' to global warming (after the derisory laughter has calmed down). I find their agenda far from funny.
Nuclear power is far from ideal but unfortunately I think we are at a point in time where it's going to be a necessary evil, at least in the short term.
I am just hoping that these guys deliver the goods soon.
/edit: The next stage of nuclear fusion technology is ITER which is a new experimental fusion reactor that will come on line in 2015. This will be the first reactor that will actually produce more energy than it takes to sustain the fusion reaction.
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AFAIK, the only way out of this cycle is to totally rethink and restructure the way in which the global economy functions; this is, in a small part, about what we do, but mainly it is about how value is attributed and sustained, and how the markets work.
No disrespect P3 but I really think that this is pure fantasy (with respect to it being part of the solution to AGW anyway). How do you propose that this is achieved? Exactly how long would it take to change to whole economic structure of the world and get everybody to agree? I would suggest more time than we actually have to do something about C02 levels.
I would like to bet we will all be using totally green energy a LONG time before you could implement what you described.
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It's nice that we have people like Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth presenting what the ideal solutions to global warming should be but in reality what will happen is something in between the ideal and what is possible within the constraints of the global political and economic system.
The global 'society' is just not equiped to deal with this kind of threat. It's like a big oil tanker heading towards some rocks, except this oil tanker has 673 captains and they can't agree which which course to take to avoid the rocks. In fact half of the captains don't even think there are any rocks and some of the captains think the ship can cope with collision anyway. In short we are pretty much screwed when it comes to getting anything done quickly.
I am fairly confident something will get done about gloabal warming but only when the really bad effects start to show. It's going to be more about adaptation than mitigation.
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No doubt even if we got an unsually cold or snowy winter somebody in the media would try and attribute it to AGW.
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Well Chantal is now fully extratropical, indeed it probably was on its way as noted by Iceberg as early as last eveing. Remains of Chantal should now be heading NE and interacting with the jet stream tigthening the thermal gradient and giving a boost to the jet stream which in turns helps to deepen the remains through Baroclinic processes. Not really much more to say aobut Chantal then that and that it did give us a nice little teaser to what the rest of the hurricane season will be like, a warm up before the grand show begins over the nexr 2 months!
If the jet stream continues tracking further south than normal (as it has been in July) would that mean that the south of the UK is more likely to be affected by any hurricanes that head this way and become extratropical storms?
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I suppose the Atlantic is having a moderating effect?
Sounds like a reasonable explanation. I had a read around and it seems that coastal regions, apart from the arctic, will warm less that those areas in the middle of continents.
Another explanation could be that the model is predicting the north atlantic drift to slow down.
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I don't think it's flawed to the point of AGW being unreal, but I do think understanding AGW and its' ramifications is utterly impossible unless natural drivers are more fully understood, how these all interact and how adding Co2 changes the natural flow of the climate. Once you know all these or at the very least, are a whole sight closer to understanding than we are now, and once the climate as it stands today is programmed into the models, then and only then will any IPCC predictions/likely outcomes/what ifs, stand any chance of being accurate. My concern is, and always has been that the focus on Co2 being the leading cause of climate change is a dangerous stance to take if other natural drivers are at work here. Any predictions based on this will be invalid and the forecast changes may be greater, happen quicker than we as a race are prepared for; with so many lives potentially at risk, the majority of which, from the poorer less developed countries who are less able to adapt, I for one think we have a moral duty to make damn sure we've got it as right as we possibly can. I don't think we're anywhere near.
Climate scientists aren't all going to pack up shop and hand over to the economists because they think their work is done now that IPCC 4 has been released. The science is still going to get refined and, even though it might be flawed, I don't think any goverment decisions based on IPCC 4 will cause much harm compared to indecision waiting for IPCC 5 or whatever comes next.
What if we can't program all the factors into the models? What if it is just not technically possible for the next ten or twenty years because computers are not yet powerful enough? At what point do we decide that the models are good enough to make some kind of decision?
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Yes, but that's not what they are doing or being held up by the world at large as doing. The IPCC are lauded far and wide as having all the answers, governments the world over are, or are being urged to address their Co2 output based on the findings of the IPCC report. Any sceptic question/doubt is measured against this report, it is supposed to be the benchmark against which climate science is judged. Their inaccuracies are not as a result of not knowing Co2 emissions, if they were I wouldn't have a problem with it. I and others on here have said time and again correlation does not equal cause, 3+2=5 as does 2=2+1 etc, yes Co2 emissions have increased, yes global temperatures have increased slightly; one does not necessarily follow the other in the way the IPCC has portrayed and neither are their predictions or "what if's" in any way accurate nor can they be based on current modelling. A sceptic voice raising these points or concerns is easily dismissed, someone who is not only an advocate of AGW but a learned one at that, involved in the actual process of this report, who thens turns round and says exactly the same thing, cannot so easily be ignored. The IPCC report has and has always had fundamental flaws.
As far as I can see, in the article you linked, Kevin Trenberth is saying the science is not in a state to predict future local climate variations. He wasn't saying that there was any doubt over the fact that the the earth is warming due to AGW (or even by how much).
He was commenting on the fact that we will need to adapt to the effects of local climate change but doesn't think that the science is in a state to predict what they will be.
I do actually agree with you that the IPCC report is flawed (see this post I made a week or so back..... random rant about climate models) but I don't think it's flawed to the point where you can question whether AGW is real or not.
/edit: I should add that I even though I think AGW is real I do think they have underestimated the Sun a little.
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I'm not entirely sure of the science behind it, but all the climate models predict this. Current observations also support it - the Arctic is warming far faster than the rest of the world.
This slide from the Hadley centre seems to suggest that the UK will not warm more than the global average although you are right about the arctic..
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To be fair to the IPCC can only ever offer 'what if' projections because they don't know how much C02 we are going to release.
I don't think using 'what ifs' invalidates what they are trying to do (even if I don't necessarily agree with their numbers).
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Now we are a bit closer to August I am revising my guestimate upwards to 16.4C
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That's expected, places further North will warm considerably more than those nearer the equator. So the models do project us to warm more than the global average.
I agree with that. The last 12 months may have been excpetional even taking into account the warming trend, but just as the exceptional warmth was a blip, so is this summer so far. Our weather will eventually average out towards what is to be expected with the warming trend - increasingly wet winters and Autumns with warmer and drier summers, with more intense rainfall generally, particularly in summer. Nothing has changed, everything we have seen is fully in line with the projections of our climate in the future, along with some blips.
Why is that?
/edit: Oops you edited why I was replying. I meant why will places further north warm more?
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thanks for that link. i always find it a little tricky getting excited about watching these systems develop, and i'm sure i'm not alone. it almost feels like voyeurship from us in the uk. i wonder at nature's power but like i did whilst trailing katrina from a td to a cat 5 i feel guilty when i know the potential damage these systems may cause. its a hard one to call
Nature at its worst is interesting and since hurricanes are going to happen whether you enjoy watching them or not then I say sod feeling guilty. It's not like bull fighting or boxing where the fact that people watch makes a difference to whether it happens or not.
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What an extraordinary stat Kevin.
I'm not a proper statitician, actually I'm not any kind of statitician, but doesn't that suggest that the July average is in some ways suspect? The implication is that it has a wider spread above and below of any other month proportionately, and that the average might be pulled by some rank hot outliers? Anyone able to tabulate that into a clever graph? Or is that nonsense? Mr Data? Stratos Ferric?
Just to test that, could we have the July average for the last 40 years without the 5 highest and 5 lowest months included? Just wondering ...
The July average for the last 40 years (67-2006) is 16.53C.
If you take off the 5 coldest years (1980, 1988, 1978, 1968, 1970) it would be 16.77C.
If you take off the 5 warmest years (1994, 1989, 1995, 1976, 1983, 2006) it would be 16.19C.
If you take off the 5 warmest and 5 coldest years it would be 16.41C.
I have no idea what that means though or if taking off the 5 hotest and coldest even gives you anything meaningful in a statistical sense. Somebody else will have to answer that question.
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It is my view that 2006 set a CET benchmark that is not going to get beaten easily and regularly. Certainly not in the short term anyway. I believe the freak warmth was due not just to AGW but also exceptional synoptics and global climate paterns.
I suppose this month should really be a reminder that AGW does not guarantee above average temperatures. We haven't moved any further away from the arctic or the sea and if the wind blows in the right direction it can still be colder than average.
I wouldn't say that 2007 is a turning point but I certainly wouldn't be suprised if we have reached a temporary plateau where we see yearly CETs in the 9.9C-11C range for the next decade.
The UK seems to have warmed a good 0.4C more than the global average temperature and I can't help but feel some of that is due to synoptics rather than background warming.
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Of course you're right.
But...
When it come to putting these ideas into practice? Well, you can just do it as an individual - in which case everyone else carries on as before and the problem is addressed in 2300 AD. Or you start to urge people - and they resist and the problem is addressed in ...2300 AD. Or you make them do it, all hell breaks out and, after a god allmight struggle, the world is a better place.
Shrug. People try to make this a better world and all they get is (at best) flak.
I do agree with this to a certain extent but unfortunately there are some fundamental problems with trying to 'make' people do things especially if those things impact people lives financially in the short term.
The first problem is that humans are proven to be short termist. Generally they will take a smaller reward now rather than wait for a larger reward in the future. In a similar way, they will resist giving up something they percieve of good now (that new car, tv, whatever) just because somewhere down the line, perhaps even after their own death, something bad might happen as a result of them having that thing.
The second problem is that the only body that can make people do something is the government. When the government want to make people do something they also have to take into consideration that fact that those same people also decide how long they will remain in government. Push people too hard or too fast and you won't be the government for very long.
It's a fine balancing act between getting something done about C02 (but perhaps too slowly) and trying to change things quickly but then getting kicked out, and therefore achieving nothing, because people are generally selfish and don't like giving up any of the perks of modern life.
The third problem is that the world doesn't have just one government. You can only ever make a small part of the worlds population do something,
I think what I am trying to say here is that you have to work with the people. Before anything radical can happen the majority of the population have to accept that AGW is real and also agree what needs to be done. Until this happens you can't 'make' them do anything. In fact you may even force the opposite of what you are trying to achieve.
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WiB, whilst I agree that we will almost certainly will see a 20C+ August at some point I very much it will be this one. I just think we would need an above average July to see a record breaking August.
Over the whole CET record:
Average CET of Augusts that have followed a below average July=15.4C
Average CET of Augusts that have followed an above average July=16.3C
Over the last 30 years:
Average CET of Augusts that have followed a below average July=16.0C
Average CET of Augusts that have followed an above average July=17.0C
On the basis of that I am going for 16C which will no doubt be wrong because on average I usually am.
Overhype on global warming
in Space, Science & nature
Posted
Hi P3,
Working my way through your blog right now. I particularly like your summary of the recent papers on the cryosphere and I will be reading all of those shortly.