Originally Posted by James50

Ernest Rutherford James50

Climatology, Sociology and Population Biology ain't Physics.

Physicists telling other scientists what is properly scientific is annoying and patronizing.

Originally Posted by Odin

Physicists telling other scientists what is properly scientific is annoying and patronizing.

So is saying that warmer winters are evidence of global warming, then turning around four years later and saying that colder winters are evidence of global warming.
Very Orwellian.

Originally Posted by The Rani

So is saying that warmer winters are evidence of global warming, then turning around four years later and saying that colder winters are evidence of global warming.
Very Orwellian.

Trying to keep it simple. Sorry if I can't keep it short enough for a one paragraph answer.

The North Atlantic Oscillation gives us warm winters when it is at one extreme, and cold winters when it is at the other. A few years ago we had a string of warm winters here in New England where I didn't have to shovel very much. I thought if this was global warming, there was an upside. This year I've had to shovel altogether too much.

As I understand it, putting more energy in the system is causing the oscillations to swing more to the extremes. Thus, New England is having fewer bland winters, but more that might be considered unusually warm or unusually stormy. We might expect a bit more of the unexpected. Similarly, northeast Australia recently had an extended drought that really stressed their agriculture, followed by extreme flooding then a Category 5 hurricane.

If one doesn't want to see it, one doesn't have too. One might, for example, average the warm and the cold winters together and say that on average nothing is going on. In the Blogs and in the popular press, one can definitely find people and groups with agendas. The Wall Street Journal is a corporate organ that will slide its presentations towards denying global warming. Real Climate and the Union of Concerned Scientists will slide the other way. It would be hard to find folks who are printing stuff on the issue that don't think it important and haven't picked a side.

The peer reviewed press isn't generally as biased, but it is by no means uniform and unanimous. Climate is complex. If one looks through the science periodicals, one can cherry pick studies and parts of studies that might support whichever type of propaganda one wishes to present in the popular press. I'm not surprised Justin found a study that supports his views. Thing is, there are a lot more studies that present opposite views. Science is a back and forth process. Climate science is not fully mature. The reevaluation project Justin quoted is trying a new approach, which should not be dismissed but neither should it be considered the final word.

Justin and Eric might well continue to throw studies at each other. I suspect Eric will have more ammunition, but Justin will have quite enough ammunition to maintain an illusion that the issue is in doubt. In detail, it is still in doubt. There is a lot more work to be done in the field.

But a study throwing contest is no replacement for spending some time really looking into the issue. It seems that not a lot of people are willing to do that.

Originally Posted by James50

Ernest Rutherford

If your result needs a statistician then you should design a better experiment.

James50

Yes, I'm sure that, after 73 years in the grave, Lord Rutherford has great insight on climate change.

Originally Posted by The Rani

So is saying that warmer winters are evidence of global warming, then turning around four years later and saying that colder winters are evidence of global warming.
Very Orwellian.

Complexity tends to be accurate but confusing and simplicity is clear and usually wrong. The fact is, climate, changing or static, is a driver of weather averages, but average weather has, at most, a very limited relationship to current weather.

If that's confusing, then see my first sentence.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Complexity tends to be accurate but confusing and simplicity is clear and usually wrong.

Well maybe they should stop trying to point to the weather as an indicator of anything, then. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Well maybe they should stop trying to point to the weather as an indicator of anything, then. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Who are "they"? Most of the references to weather and climate change are by people not involved with the science. Typically, the climate scientists get pulled into explaining what the result will be, and the pundits take it and run. FWIW, we can feel pretty certain that, within a limited range of possiblities, the temperature averages will be warmer in 50 years than they are today. That doesn't mean that the winter of 2060-61 might not be colder.

It might be better to apply a 11-year moving average. That's long enough to include a full the solar cycle and should smooth the data from the other drivers too.

Amy, you'd mentioned reading about the increase in solar activity a few pages back... thought you'd find this interesting.


Huge solar flare jams radio, satellite signals: NASA

A powerful solar eruption that triggered a huge geomagnetic storm has disturbed radio communications and could disrupt electrical power grids, radio and satellite communication in the next days, NASA said.
A strong wave of charged plasma particles emanating from the Jupiter-sized sun spot, the most powerful seen in four years, has already disrupted radio communication in southern China.

From League of Conservation Voters:


Last week, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called for completely abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency.

This week, Republican leaders in the House have taken a big step toward making the Gingrich plan to eliminate the EPA a reality by slashing funding for environmental and public health safeguards in their proposed Continuing Resolution.

We cannot allow Dirty Coal and Big Oil -- and their allies in Congress -- to dismantle the EPA.

from saveourenvironment.org:


Yesterday, the House voted to cut billions from essential environmental programs – and today they will vote on even more aggressive attacks on the environment.

Your representative will be voting today on proposals that would prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions, offshore drilling permits, and mountaintop mining removal.

Tell your representative to vote NO on environmental attacks today - send them a letter NOW!

These are some of the biggest energy and environmental policy votes in years – and they're following on the heels of yesterday's votes to slash billions from programs that will protect our environment and our health. In addition to the $3 billion in cuts to the EPA already passed, the House is considering completely defunding key research and climate programs.

The EPA has saved millions of lives over the past 40 years through protections to our health. These cuts are coming from pollution-friendly politicians influenced by Big Oil and Coal, and are not being made with the interests of the American public at heart.

If they succeed, we will be vulnerable to dirtier air, toxic water, and irreversible damage to the environment.

Real Climate put up a short blog entry, Going to Extremes. It talks about the claim that global warming tends to produce more extreme weather which we have been talking about recently. They propose that it it's more complicated than one would like.

• Not all extremes are the same. Discussions of ‘changes in extremes’ in general without specifying exactly what is being discussed are meaningless. A tornado is an extreme event, but one whose causes, sensitivity to change and impacts have nothing to do with those related to an ice storm, or a heat wave or cold air outbreak or a drought.
• There is no theory or result that indicates that climate change increases extremes in general. This is a corollary of the previous statement – each kind of extreme needs to be looked at specifically – and often regionally as well.
• Some extremes will become more common in future (and some less so). We will discuss the specifics below.
• Attribution of extremes is hard. There are limited observational data to start with, insufficient testing of climate model simulations of extremes, and (so far) limited assessment of model projections.

Kudos to RC. That is a genuinely good article they put up.

Originally Posted by Justin '77

Kudos to RC. That is a genuinely good article they put up.

I like Real Climate. Most of the contributors take global warming quite seriously, but they aren't a propaganda organ presenting simplistic one sided scare stories. "It's more complicated than that" is a common theme. They write more for climate scientists than the general public, but I find them a reasonably readable way of keeping up with what is going on within the professional community.

Montana bill would 'embrace' global warming

By MATT VOLZ
The Associated Press
Friday, February 18, 2011; 3:45 PM

HELENA, Mont. -- A Montana legislator is proposing the state embrace global warming as good for the economy.

Republican Rep. Joe Read of Ronan aims to pass a law that says global warming is a natural occurrence that "is beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana."

Reaction by scientists and environmentalists to House Bill 549 has been harsh. University of Montana climate change professor Steve Running calls it an indefensible attempt to repeal the laws of physics.

The bill was to be heard in the House Natural Resources Committee Friday.

Another climate change bill by Read was also being heard Friday. House Bill 550 would claim the state has authority over the EPA when it comes to regulating greenhouse gases.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...?hpid=politics

My comment: Legislatures, pulpits, and corporate boardrooms are the wrong places in which to establish scientific fact.

Montana? Much of the state is on the climatic borderline of desert, and warming without an increase in precipitation would turn much of Montana into a desert. Sure, the temperature extremes of winter wouldn't be as severe, but much ranch land east of the Rockies would become waste land. Summers would be brutally hot. Instead of the state being livable for five months out of the year it would be livable for about two as it gets Arizona-like summers and Wyoming-style winters.

My advice to the usually-conservative ranchers of Montana: take the Green side this time, because global warming could destroy your way of life.

Originally Posted by The Rani

Well maybe they should stop trying to point to the weather as an indicator of anything, then. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

I notice that the MSM describing almost any kind of science, pretty much dramatizes it and makes it into something unrecognizable by the folks doing the actual work.

The trouble with Climate Change in the MSM is that

1. Climate is by definition STABLE, especially over the short term.
2. Weather is by definition highly UNSTABLE, especially over the short term.
3. Because all weather over all regions of the earth, over all time periods, adds up to the climate, superficial thinkers insist on conflating climate with weather.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Montana bill would 'embrace' global warming

By MATT VOLZ
The Associated Press
Friday, February 18, 2011; 3:45 PM

HELENA, Mont. -- A Montana legislator is proposing the state embrace global warming as good for the economy.

Republican Rep. Joe Read of Ronan aims to pass a law that says global warming is a natural occurrence that "is beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana."

Reaction by scientists and environmentalists to House Bill 549 has been harsh. University of Montana climate change professor Steve Running calls it an indefensible attempt to repeal the laws of physics.

The bill was to be heard in the House Natural Resources Committee Friday.

Another climate change bill by Read was also being heard Friday. House Bill 550 would claim the state has authority over the EPA when it comes to regulating greenhouse gases.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...?hpid=politics

My comment: Legislatures, pulpits, and corporate boardrooms are the wrong places in which to establish scientific fact.

Montana? Much of the state is on the climatic borderline of desert, and warming without an increase in precipitation would turn much of Montana into a desert. Sure, the temperature extremes of winter wouldn't be as severe, but much ranch land east of the Rockies would become waste land. Summers would be brutally hot. Instead of the state being livable for five months out of the year it would be livable for about two as it gets Arizona-like summers and Wyoming-style winters.

My advice to the usually-conservative ranchers of Montana: take the Green side this time, because global warming could destroy your way of life.

Jeez at first I thought that was from the Onion.

Originally Posted by TnT

I notice that the MSM describing almost any kind of science, pretty much dramatizes it and makes it into something unrecognizable by the folks doing the actual work.

The trouble with Climate Change in the MSM is that

1. Climate is by definition STABLE, especially over the short term.
2. Weather is by definition highly UNSTABLE, especially over the short term.
3. Because all weather over all regions of the earth, over all time periods, adds up to the climate, superficial thinkers insist on conflating climate with weather.

Right. A place like Waterloo, Iowa has a Koppen Dfa climate-- basically a fire-and-ice climate with adequate precipitation all year. There is no predictable dry season. Very predictably, winters are harsh -- cold enough for snow to accumulate easily and stick around for a few weeks. Summers are long, hot, and humid from mid-May to mid-September. Summers feature huge thunderstorms; winters have snowstorms. In between is very changeable weather, sometimes including the worst possible manifestation of such change: tornadoes. Those usually result from relics of winter air masses that act as if April is still winter meeting
warm, humid airmasses typical of late May.

I singled out the place because Places Rated Almanac selected Waterloo, Iowa as one of the places with the worst "climate" outside of the obvious high-mountain (extreme: Mount Washington, New Hampshire), hot desert (like Yuma, Arizona) locations, and American Siberia (Alaska). But at least Yuma has reasonably-gentle winters. Waterloo has no 'gentle' season. The transitions between brutal winters and infernal summers are seasons of drastic changes of the weather that often get violent -- spring or fall.

Monthly Normal, Record High and Low Temperatures, and precipitation (Waterloo, Iowa)

Month Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Rec High °F 65 66 87 100 94 103 105 105 98 95 80 67
Norm High °F 25.8 31.9 45 59.7 72.2 81.7 85 82.8 75.3 62.5 45 30.7
Norm Low °F 6.3 13.2 24.9 35.8 48.1 58.1 62.2 59.5 49.8 37.8 25.1 12.5
Rec Low °F −41 −47 -34 −4 22 38 42 38 22 11 −17 −29
Precip (in) 0.84 1.05 2.13 3.23 4.15 4.82 4.2 4.08 2.95 2.49 2.1 1.11

Source: USTravelWeather.com

The place has had a below-zero temperature in April as one as high as 100F (possibility of heatstroke if one is unprepared, which one would be in April), and a high of 80F (warm enough to go swimming) and -17 (cold enough for quick frostbite) in one November or another. There's about a ten-degree or greater increase in average highs and lows from the previous month from March to June and a similar decrease in such temperatures from September to December in each month. Needless to say, this no resort setting.

Originally Posted by TnT

I notice that the MSM describing almost any kind of science, pretty much dramatizes it and makes it into something unrecognizable by the folks doing the actual work.

The trouble with Climate Change in the MSM is that

1. Climate is by definition STABLE, especially over the short term.
2. Weather is by definition highly UNSTABLE, especially over the short term.
3. Because all weather over all regions of the earth, over all time periods, adds up to the climate, superficial thinkers insist on conflating climate with weather.

The MSM notion that the climate is 'by definition Stable' would be problematic. There are any number of factors that can effect climate over different time scales.

There are solar cycles that run fairly predictably every 11 years, and far less predicable variations on solar output than run on a longer time scale.

A big sooty volcanic explosion can cause from 1 to 5 years of global dimming (cooling).

The Milankovitch Cycles describe predictable variations on how much sunlight energy is retained in the atmosphere. Such cycles turn on a period of multiple millennia. Of late they have caused ice ages separated by interglacials.

Plants take CO2 out of the atmosphere and sequester it as coal, oil and gas. This causes a very slow natural cooling trend.

Continents move. Sometimes their positions allow the ice caps to freeze, and sometimes they don't. Continental drift is a very very slow factor in climate change.

Climate is a very dynamic system with things happening at many levels. Thing is, only a few things are changing at a rate humans will perceive of as important within their life time.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Montana bill would 'embrace' global warming

I am from Montana and am embarrassed. I know who I am voting against next time.

E&E threatens a libel suit

We've seen how the global warming debate takes place here at the Fourth Turning web site. Real Climate has a glimpse of how it takes place at the next level up.

Energy and Environment has a reputation for straddling the border between a peer reviewed professional journal and a house propaganda organ for the energy companies. Their editor has made a comment that as it is hard to get denialist papers published in the main stream climate journals, she will be less strict in peer review process if doing so follows her political agenda. This has, of course, resulted in less than favorable comments being made about E&E.

E&E's publisher has responded with a threat of a lawsuit in England, where the laws make it expensive to defend against libel charges. Real Climate has responded with 'bring it on.' They seem ready to expose the shoddy publishing standards of E&E. England's libel laws do allow for telling the truth being a defense against libel, it is just expensive to go through all the proceedings.

The Washington Post had a rather striking article about an environmental activist's steps to prepare for the future. I have the link above, but this snippet was interesting, for those who believe climate change is a political scare tactic.

But here's a question for Cuccinelli and other skeptics: Why would private insurance companies lie about climate change? Already, Allstate has stopped selling new homeowners' policies in coastal Virginia and Maryland because the warming Atlantic Ocean is bringing larger hurricanes to the region. And Munich Re, one of the largest insurance companies in the world and a leader in drawing attention to the role of carbon emmissions in driving global warming, announced in January that weather-related disasters soared in 2010, providing "further indications of advancing climate change."

They answer is they would not. Yes striking.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A recently dedicated an issue to what would happen in a world that warms four degrees.

Meeting the old two degree target has always been doubtful. With political failures making the two degree option less and less likely, they thought it proper to examine the consequences of four degrees.

Ugly reading.

A while ago, solar cycles were a point of discussion here. There is an 11 year sunspot cycle where the more sunspots observed correlates to more heat thrown out by the sun and warmer global temperatures. Through much of the 2000-2009 decade this cycle was in its cooling phase. We're now in the warming phase, but there was an unusually long time of no sunspots during the recent minimum.

NASA recently reported that Researchers Crack the Mystery of the Spotless Sun. Researchers have developed a new computer model which when meshed with new solar observatory satellite data is giving a better model for what is happening.

The article doesn't project in very long term trends. It suggests the 11 year cycle isn't entirely regular. There will be times of extended low sunspot activity that extend the low periods of the 11 year cycle, but I saw no hints that we ought to be seeing a long term hot or cold trend.

The Washington Post reports of a Shifting spring: Arctic plankton blooming up to 50 days earlier now.

Plankton are the base of the ocean food chain, with larger animals depending on them as a food source. While the plankton will grow as soon as it is warm, other species have firmer ties to the seasons. It might be difficult for them to shift their feeding to when the food is.

Some are concerned about possible disconnects.

I'm not knowledgable about how the food chains and seasons interact, but a fifty day shift in when the plankton population peaks says something is happening.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

The Washington Post reports of a Shifting spring: Arctic plankton blooming up to 50 days earlier now.

Plankton are the base of the ocean food chain, with larger animals depending on them as a food source. While the plankton will grow as soon as it is warm, other species have firmer ties to the seasons. It might be difficult for them to shift their feeding to when the food is.

Some are concerned about possible disconnects.

I'm not knowledgable about how the food chains and seasons interact, but a fifty day shift in when the plankton population peaks says something is happening.

Beyond the Arctic? It likely portends an earlier spring in the mid-latitudes and a swifter transition from winter-like to summer-like weather.

Fifty days is slightly more than half a winter season.