In The News

[Devonian]

Well more absolute tosh from global alarmist last year drought worse ever, droughts 10 yrs ago and the 1950"s were far worse

Kieth, I rekon there's more chance of you 'going consensus' than providing links...

[keithlucky]

Leaked report http://claesjohnson.blogspot.co.uk/

[knocker]

Climate-related disasters usually have multiple causes, and the 2012 drought was no exception. The natural, periodic La Niña climate oscillation played a role, as did the pattern of sea surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean, but so did manmade global warming, and plain old bad luck. As the century progresses, however, the atmosphere’s growing concentration of greenhouse gases will very likely make severe droughts more common, more intense and longer lasting.

That’s bad news considering how the 2012 drought devastated America’s agricultural sector, with withering effects on corn, soybeans, winter wheat and cattle. Formal numbers won’t be available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture until February, 2013, but estimates of damage from crop losses alone could total more than $35 billion, according to the reinsurance company Aon Benfield. In fact, it’s quite possible that damage from the drought will eclipse the total bill from Hurricane Sandy, which some estimates place at more than $100 billion. Overall, the drought could end up robbing the limping U.S. economy’s GDP of a full percentage point, said Deutsche Bank Securities.

Back in the spring, the U.S. Department of Agriculture was predicting a record corn yield for the upcoming season. Then, an unprecedented March heat wave was followed by a record warm spring, and the combination of low precipitation and record high temperatures spiked the drought footprint of the lower 48 states from a worrisome 38 percent to a devastating 64 percent — an expansion so blazingly fast that experts called it a “flash drought.â€

http://www.climatecentral.org/news/hurricane-sandy-tops-list-of-2012-extreme-weather-and-climate-events-15405/P3

Edited December 31, 2012 by knocker

[knocker]

r

Leaked report http://claesjohnson.blogspot.co.uk/

Leaked, have you looked at some of the contributers. Should only be let out at weekends,

http://www.desmogblo.../john-dale-dunn

Edited December 31, 2012 by knocker

[keithlucky]

Read the report then you realise the IPPC should be only let out in LEAP YEARS!!

[keithlucky]

Kieth, I rekon there's more chance of you 'going consensus' than providing links...

http://www.ncdc.noaa...state=110&div=0

[keithlucky]

http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/forget-global-warming-alaska-headed-ice-age

[Gray-Wolf]

We all must begin to wonder at what is chaging , throughout the northern hemisphere, the old 'average' surface pressures? We know of the natural drivers that augment cold/warm (like ENSO ,PDO,AMO,AO etc) but we appear to be seeing impacts far beyond the past scope of such influences and sychronously across all the N.Hemisphere?

North slope, Alaska has to be the worry though? removed from the PDO-ve influence, and once greatly impacted by sea ice dominated temps, we see the rapid warm up that the loss of ice brings. The majority of the permafrost is along this slope has warmed down to 80m in places and this does not bode well for both coastal erosion and natural GHG emmisions?

In the same way we do not think our run of appalling summers is a sign of an 'impending ice age' then neither should Alaska!!!

[Gray-Wolf]

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/01/02/1383901/shell-runs-its-arctic-drilling-rig-aground-coast-guard-prepares-for-possible-spill-response/

Well who'd a thunk it? An oil company of all things..........

[pottyprof]

We all must begin to wonder at what is changing ,

Alaska is getting colder, that's what's changing. If it continues then eventually it will have an increasing area of cold, just like the warming up there has spread.

I'm not saying that it heralds any kind of reversal of the current trends but it is something to monitor with interest.

[Gray-Wolf]

Pacific coastal Alaka is getting colder if you check the data points/settlements that are reporting this and only over winter, Oncw you enter the area impacted by the Arctic Ocean you see a continued trend of warming with record year following record year. This is in keeping with the 1,500km impact inland from lost sea ice and I imagine the core PDO-ve Pacific will do the same to the land inland from that coast?

If this makes such news now then what will happen in a few years when we swing back PDO neutral and Positive.

The anoying part of it is the reaction it is bound to bring from the usual quarters.

[4wd]

The anoying part of it is the reaction it is bound to bring from the usual quarters.

Agree with that - like people trying to suggest it's the wrong sort of cooling?

If it was Antarctica you could probably find a station that was so intensely cold it hardly managed to record any data, then fill in all the blanks with what you thought it should be - and cover an area almost as big as Alaska with instant warming 'just like that'.

[BornFromTheVoid]

Agree with that - like people trying to suggest it's the wrong sort of cooling?

If it was Antarctica you could probably find a station that was so intensely cold it hardly managed to record any data, then fill in all the blanks with what you thought it should be - and cover an area almost as big as Alaska with instant warming 'just like that'.

Or use statistical models, satellite data, proxy data, interpolation techniques etc., to try and get the most accurate result. Then get it peer reviewed and published to allow people to analyse, dissect and find issues with it.

Unfortunately the typical "sceptic" response is to dismiss it because they don't like the result. But even worse, the "sceptics" then make up a false methodology and try to disprove that! Strawman +1.

[4wd]

That would apply equally to the response to 'real' Alaskan cooling.

Try to downplay it or fudge it away by including wide areas of ocean etc.

[BornFromTheVoid]

There's downplaying and there's trying to understand the cause.

Like the British Isles this year, Alaska has had more northerly winds than usual, thus somewhat cool conditions. I'm sure if we had a cold AMO with those northerlies, we might have been a little cooler even.

Winds

SSTs

Temps

[4wd]

I think it interesting that one station's invented 'data' in Antarctica can extrapolated over a huge area - then provokes worldwide headlines of dangerous new warming.

But several years of accurately measured cooling in Alaska gets this:

Pacific coastal Alaka is getting colder if you check the data points/settlements that are reporting this and only over winter, Oncw you enter the area impacted by the Arctic Ocean you see a continued trend of warming with record year following record year. This is in keeping with the 1,500km impact inland from lost sea ice and I imagine the core PDO-ve Pacific will do the same to the land inland from that coast?

If this makes such news now then what will happen in a few years when we swing back PDO neutral and Positive.

The anoying part of it is the reaction it is bound to bring from the usual quarters.

[Gray-Wolf]

I'm sorry 4 but the permafrost issue is taken very seriously due to it's impacts on structures, infra-structure and coastal erosion so the north slope has many deep measuring stations. Were the thaw to stop they would see it instantly and , more over, be very pleased to see it!

Last springs extension of the Bering Sea ice must give us a clue into what is happening up there. In 2010 even Mr Serreze said the 'ice factory' phenomena was an unusual one unlikely to repeat but what have we seen since? A full Arctic recovery or an isolated area reacting to new synoptics?

We know melted Sea Ice impacts up to 1,500km inland so what of 'new' sea ice? How do you think that impacts the land?

If we see a good 'horseshoe' of cold in the Pacific this summer i'd guess the temps will be there will be impacted again?

Seeing as we are well into PDO-ve (onset 1998) then we should not expect these augmented impacts to last long but should we expect to continue to see the odd synoptics? I think we must.

[4wd]

Is that tacit acceptance Alaska has cooled?

You write in such a strange muddled way I'm sure I'm not alone in finding most of your posts largely incomprehensible meandering.

[Methuselah]

If Alaska is cooling then so-be-it...

[BornFromTheVoid]

Has anyone denied that Alaska has cooled?

EDIT: At least in recent years. The longer term is still very much upward I believe?

Edited January 4, 2013 by BornFromTheVoid

[laserguy]

Is that tacit acceptance Alaska has cooled?

You write in such a strange muddled way I'm sure I'm not alone in finding most of your posts largely incomprehensible meandering.

GW speak with forked tongue - an art in which the warmists are supremely adept.

[knocker]

Thames Estuary 2100 project

The Met Office has been doing detailed work in the Thames Estuary on flood risks, looking ahead over the next 80+ years. Work on the finalised TE2100 Plan will ensure that the right investments are made to avoid flooding or other serious water hazards that could result from climate change.

The project examined the potential future climate-driven changes in extreme water levels in the southern North Sea near the Thames Estuary up to the year 2100. The Thames Estuary 2100 Project (TE2100) is tasked with protecting London and the people living in the Thames Estuary from flooding now and into the next century.

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/services/climate-services/case-studies/barrier

http://resilient-cities.iclei.org/fileadmin/sites/resilient-cities/files/Resilient_Cities_2011/Presentations/E/E5_and_F5_Reeder.pdf

[4wd]

Probably deserves a thread called "not in the news" but whatever:

http://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2013/01/05/major-change-in-uk-met-office-global-warming-forecast/

[Gray-Wolf]

http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/global-heating-revisited/blog/43566/

I find this section to be of most interest;

Change in Radiative forcings, 1800 to Present:

1. Heating:

Solar irradiance: Compared to pre-industrial solar energy, the sun’s energy output has fluctuated between zero and + 0.3 Watt/m² over the last two centuries, yielding a slight heating effect that could account for about 5% (or less) of the observed temperature increase.

Human Greenhouse gases: The heat forcing from human carbon and other gases has risen from approximately zero in 1800 to + 3.1 Watt/m² today, rising annually, and which accounts for about 95% (or more) of Earth’s temperature increase over the last two hundred years.

2. Cooling:

Volcanoes have had an intermittent cooling effect, by releasing aerosols, particles of ash and sulfur-dioxide that scatter and absorb sunlight. The cooling impact – most recently from the El Chicon and Pinatubo eruptions in 1982 and 1991 – is localized, intermittent, and short lived. On average, volcanoes have had a slight cooling effect.

Human aerosols rise from burning tropical forests, coal and oil, and now exceed the impact of volcanic aerosols. The effect has reached about -1.6 Watt/m², a cooling, which has mitigated the impact of heating from human greenhouse gases.

Determining the Net Forcing is a simple matter of adding and subtracting. The effects of volcanoes, solar fluctuations, and human land use changes, net out to virtually zero. Human greenhouse gases and human aerosols are the only energy forcings that have serious temperature impact, and the math is simple enough for grade-school children:

+ 3.1 Watt/m² heating from human greenhouse gases

– 1.6 Watt/m² cooling from human aerosols

+ 1.5 Watt/m² net heating.

So how much heat is this? Consider a typical 1500-watt space heater that can be used to heat a room. Earth’s surface area is 510 trillion square-meters. Multiply this by 1.5, and we see the net heat forcing is about 765 trillion watts. This is the equivalent of placing 500 billion such electric space heaters across Earth’s surface, land and sea, 30 meters apart, running 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.

[pottyprof]

Probably deserves a thread called "not in the news" but whatever:

http://tallbloke.wor...rming-forecast/

Very similar in projection to the LI. Curious......