Is this year what we can expect?
Is this year what we can expect?
In recent weeks a question I have been asked often, “is this year, the last couple of years, like what we can expect in the future?” The question is often asked quietly, perhaps by a planner, say, someone worried about water in their city. The question follows from not only a perception that the weather is getting “weird,”, but also some small aspect of experience in their job. For example, a water manager recently said they were seeing their local river showing a distinct change to sporadically high flow in the winter, smaller spring flows, and extremely small flow late in the summer. Is this what I should expect in the future? The short answer is yes.
This question of expectation has rolled around in my head for years. I am a gardener with aspirations for small farmer. Over the last 30 years, I have definitely pushed my planting earlier in the year. When I was in Maryland, I felt wet, cool Mays were becoming the “norm,” with my tomatoes sitting in sodden soil. At the same time I would recall plots I had seen in some recent presentation that showed modeled shifts in the warm-cold patterns suggesting springtime cooling in northeastern North America. These are the sorts of casual correlations that lead people to think are we seeing a new “normal.”
In 2008 I wrote a blog about the changes in the hardiness zones that are reported on the back of seed packages. These are the maps that tell us the last frost date, and there were big changes between 1990 and 2006. These changes in the seed packets caught the attention of a lot of people. Recently, NOAA published the “new normal.” This normal relies on the definition of climate as a 30 year average. (AMS Glossary) What was done - at the completion of the decade NOAA recalculated a 30 year average. That is, 1981-2010 rather than 1971-2000. This average changed a lot, with notable warming of nighttime minima. There was some regional reduction of summertime maxima; that is, cooling. All in all, the average temperature went up, with most of the increase in nighttime minimum, a fact that is consistent with both model simulations and fundamental physics. This also came with another update of those hardiness zones.
When trying to interpret climate information and determining how has climate changed and how will it change, the combination of observations, fundamental physics, and models provide three sources of information. The combination of this information and the determination of the quality of that information is subject to interpretation. In the case of determining whether or not we are already experiencing the climate of warming world and how that change will be realized in the next decades it depends on how we use the models.
In my previous entry on heat waves, I implied how to use these pieces of information together. There are fundamental physics in the relationship between temperature and moisture in the air; hot air holds more water; warm water evaporates more quickly. The question of the model is - how well does the model represent the movement of that moisture? For the heat wave example, it is important how well do the models represent persistent high pressure systems over North America in the summer? Are these high pressure systems represented well by the models for the right reasons? The answer to the model question has a range of answers. The model does represent these systems, but if you are an expert in summertime persistent high pressure systems, then you can provide a long list of inadequacies. How can we glean information about the quality of the model? If we look at weather models, then we were able to predict the heat wave – even with the inadequacies that the expert or skeptic can list. Returning to the climate model, do we see like events in the current climate, and do these events change as the planet warms? The answer is yes. Then can we use this to guide our development of plans to adapt to climate change? The answer is yes, if we can connect the model back to data and the fundamental physics. This does become a matter of interpretation – how strong or weak is that connection?
The more I work with planners the more I hear the need for interpretive information, expert guidance, advisories about climate and climate change. People start with the notion that they want digital data from climate models that looks like current weather data. Once presented with 1) the logistical challenges of using that data, 2) the complex nature of the uncertainties associated with that data, and 3) the relative importance of climate to other parts of their decision package – once presented with these facts, they move to the need for advice. This makes sense - most of us want a narrative weather forecast, rather than model output. And the models play the same role in the use of weather forecasts as they do in climate projection. The models guide our thinking, with the ultimate forecast based on that guidance refined by observations and fundamental physics.
This entry started with the question I hear more and more – is this year what we can expect more of in the future? I have a mantra which is that on average the surface of the Earth will warm, ice will melt, sea level will rise, and the weather will change. What we are seeing here is weather changing in a warming, more energy laden, environment. The extraordinary extremes that we have seen in the last year and are seeing this year are quite solidly connected to both fundamental physics and the guidance from climate and weather models. Hence, my answer, as I walk around my garden, thinking how to get better tomatoes next year, thinking about my irrigation system in my doddering retirement, is yes, what we are seeing this year tells me about what to expect in a future that is relevant to me - not something far off.
r
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new blog
refreshing..
or decade? or century? or millenium?
Climate, Erosion, Tectonics, Orbits, Evolution, Everything...is dictated by natural shifts, and the mosiac of matter that which we can and cannot see or understand will never be constant forever.
Neapolitan,
While I appreciate your recognition I'm not particularly fond of your interpretation and comprehension of my comment. The point of my comment was the following: "...there are hundreds of examples of extreme weather of varying nature for various places at various stable lengths of time that can be compared against each other." So while there may be short-term changes in the nature of the extreme weather events, the overall number of extreme weather events remains fairly constant. And by fairly constant I mean despite all the ups and downs the filtered values don't leave a predictable range of values, as shown in this graph of US climate extremes.
So while the number of extreme events recently is higher than it was 40 years ago, for the US, it's roughly the same it was 90-100 years ago. There's essentially no way one can determine what the future of this graph will look like based in the information contained therein. This is why my statement was as such: "There isn't one shred of evidence that today's weather is any more extreme than any other period on record in question in any other region of the world" We can compare today's extreme's (1995-present) with extremes from 1910-1935 for the US and the numbers aren't that far apart with any difference easily explained by much improved data collection/increase in reporting stations. We can also look at the period of 1955-1975, a lull in extremes over the US, but should data exist for other areas of the globe that's compiled and analyzed similarly there would be regions where 1955-1975 were above their long term average of extreme weather events while we were below ours. Keeping this in mind, these aren't even 'stable' climatic periods, which is at a minimum 70 years in length to account for well-documented cyclical changes in the state of ocean basins.
Moving on from real data to a hypothetical. Let's say that the climate of Region 'A' for a 100-year period 'a' had 'X' number of extreme weather events, say 253. Meanwhile the climate of Region 'B' for a 100-year period 'b' had 'Y' number of extreme weather events, say 197.
If the following 100-year period Region 'A' has 212 and Region 'b' has 270. . . and the following 100-year period Region 'A' has 235 and Region 'B' has 233, using this example, over the 300 total years both Regions have 700 extreme events a piece, yielding an average of 233 extreme events per 100-year period.
Right now, using NCDC US data as a crutch, we're 17 years into the second 100-year period of Region 'B' and you're looking at the first 100-year period and comparing it against the increase you're seeing in the beginning of the second 100-year period and extrapolating that out to the third, while ignoring Region 'A'. And, in using this example, in the third 100-year period the number of extreme events at Region 'B' falls back to 'normal'. Furthermore, Region 'B' in having only 197 extreme events over the first 100-year period is going to have a smaller sample of events to be able to determine what exactly is a 100-year event. Using this example its still hard to define what a 100-year event would be considered and that's with three separate 100-year periods. This is why using weather events is, in my opinion, short-sighted when trying to win a climate debate. There's endless apples to put up against infinite oranges.
This is why I take issue with your use of the term denialist, which is an insult to those who actually do take the time out to educate themselves about this subject. So you twist my words to fit me into your 'c' category of denialism, which is "refusing to accept the climate is changing." Using my examples above, extreme weather events can change up and down many times over while the climate remains stable, which is why, again, using weather events to promote the theory of human-induced climate change (the greenhouse gas kind) is short-sighted. It's a lazy argument. How much effort does it take to copy and paste a news article about snowfall in the Atacama Desert?
But I shall go on. You say "I've not seen you say anything in support of AGWT, so I think I can safely assume item 'a'" but right I did write the following: "You don't, in fact, have to convince me that the planet has warmed. So your fingers can save some work there." So again, I ask, why throw around the term denialist? What am I denying in that statement?
And what about your 'b' point? Very simply put, AGWT is overstated. It's occurring but not at the rate which is claimed and won't reach the values modeled. I don't know what else you want me to say here because real world data does not fall into line with GCM's. It just doesn't.
So from here on out you may just want to study a person's curriculum vitae before making an absolute fool of yourself through presumptuous comments.
Statement as of 07:30 PM CDT on August 02, 2011
... Record high temperature set at New Orleans Audubon Park...
A new record high temperature of 99 degrees was set at New Orleans
Audubon Park yesterday. This broke the old record of 98 degrees which
was previously set in 2006.
Absolutely--and, more importantly, provably--true.
Thanks as always for the very fine entry, Dr. Rood.
That's toasty. Elsewhere: Little Rock, AR, reached 114 degrees today, and Ft. Smith reached 115, the all-time hottest day ever in either of those cities.
I understand you are unhappy with my use of the shorthand term "denialist", so in the future I will avoid using it with you; I truly don't wish to offend. However, when a person states unequivocally, "...AGWT is overstated. It's occurring but not at the rate which is claimed and won't reach the values modeled," some term besides "skeptic" must be applied, for that isn't skepticism, but denial; there's simply far too much evidence refuting your conclusion. Now, I might have said otherwise had you explained just how it's overstated, or had you gone into detail about how you arrived at your conclusion that it won't be as bad as the vast majority climatologists believe it will be. But, well, there you go.
I do far more than highlight online articles that show climate change indicators happening, of course. But I like those for their inherent usefulness; while some people can easily understand peer-reviewed papers, articles in the mainstream press that talk about increasing natural disasters--especially those that don't even mention the words "climate change" or "global warming"--can be extremely effective in communicating to the average person just what is happening. And there's much to communicate.
You wrote, "...while there may be short-term changes in the nature of the extreme weather events, the overall number of extreme weather events remains fairly constant." Couple of things: even if that statement were true--which it's not--it doesn't tell enough of the story. Suppose that one year--let's say 1950--there were (and these are made up numbers) 80,000 cold records in the U.S, and 80,000 heat records. In 1980, there are, say, 60,000 cold records, and 100,000 heat records. In 2010, there were 25,000 cold records, and 135,000 heat records. Yes, the number of extreme temperatures remained constant at 160,000--but that stat alone doesn't come close to telling the whole story. But on a larger note, as Dr. Rood alluded to, we're not talking about "short-term changes in the nature of the extreme weather events"; we're talking about a real and measurable decadal trend in those extreme weather events.
And if AGWT is even half right, we've only seen the beginning...
OMG, oh snap, and whuppidy do.
This man can actually speak without monitors in front of his podium and actually use freehand speak instead of factoids to present his view in a conservative(small letter c), intelligent, and mature manner obviously fascillitated by an unbigoted interpretation of fact.
...Yeah, I hate compound sentences also, but sometimes the emotions just flow.
It's times like this that prompt me to edit my iggy list to see a response..."NOT"!!!
It ain't worth the pain and suffering.
Luv ya sulli-mon
I bow at your feet.
Last updated 05:00 02/08/201
Last week's cold snap has seen Timaru record its second lowest temperature for July since records began in 1906.
On July 26, the minimum air temperature recorded in Timaru was -7.8 degrees Celsius. It was also the fourth-lowest minimum temperature for any month since 1906, according to the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa).
Senior climate scientist Georgina Griffiths said the coldest temperature recorded was -9.1C in August 1998, followed by two cold days in 1966 which saw -8.9C in June and -8.8C the next month.
''It was a near record cold, so it was a pretty significant event.''
On July 25, the maximum temperature for Timaru was 6.9C at 3pm.
Link
Aug 3 (Reuters) - Australia's 2011/12 wheat crop is suffering from cold dry weather in the key eastern grain producing state of New South Wales, which may cut output, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia said in a report on Wednesday.
Here is an excellent treatment of models versus observations:
Recent Climate Observations Compared to Projections. Stefan Rahmstorf et al. Science 4 May 2007: Vol. 316 no. 5825 p. 709
This is a key graph from that paper:
(1973 to 2006, ticks are 5 year intervals)
From the caption: "Changes in key global climate parameters since 1973, compared with the scenarios of the IPCC (shown as dashed lines and gray ranges). Annual global-mean land and ocean combined surface temperature from GISS (red) and the Hadley Centre/Climatic Research Unit (blue) up to 2006, with their trends."
From the paper: "The global mean surface temperature increase (land and ocean combined) in both the NASA GISS data set and the Hadley Centre/Climatic Research Unit data set is 0.33°C for the 16 years since 1990, which is in the upper part of the range projected by the IPCC."
This graph shows several of the model scenarios. The observations are on the high end of this suite of model scenarios. Simply put, the models actually are very close to observed and tend on average to estimate less warming than observed, not more.
If past model performance in an indicator of future behavior, then there is a high probability that future temps will reach those modeled.
8th place
***If past model performance in an indicator of future behavior, then there is a high probability that future temps will reach those modeled.***
If 18% is the best they can come up with then I'd say Black Jack is a better bet. You can reach 21% there....and "still" go home broke.
But, you must forgive my ignorance, I'm simply relying on past posts by Jeff Masters.
In the future when you post model conclusions, please post their precentage of accuracy....or stay home
What hat are pulling the 18% out of and what exactly are you referring too? Your comment is so vague that I can't really reply it.
But, take a look at how close model and observed data are. If I had a model for stock market performance that worked as well, I'd be a very very rich man.
I posted the pdf of the paper. You can dig into the IPCC report for details on the models scenarios and model performance.
I won't be staying home any time soon.
Sounds more like a ShamWow commercial........
Remember these quotes .....
"the complex nature of the uncertainties associated with that data"
"models guide our thinking"
Disappointing.
End post ~
Shouldn't multi-decade climate change models undergo at least the same scrutiny as a 3 day hurricane model prediction that gets shrouded with the Mariners 1,2,3 Rule.
One of you geniuses do the math for this ignorant country boy and extrapolate the three day cone of uncertainty applied to hurricane models with their percentages of accuracy as compared to the climate change models and thier sloppy performance over a 3 "DECADE" period and "thier" percentages of accuracy.
What do dat cone of uncertainty look like, Skippy ???
Many await your learned response.
I pulled them out of Jeff Masters' hat.
Ever heard of him?
I have an excellent memory, except when it comes to accurately identifying frog species by the eggs they lay, and I'm not crawling through the racks to appease you.
Do your own research and prove me wrong.
Well stated. How anyone could possibly miss the only obvious conclusion is beyond me...
This comment has been removed for violating the Community Standards
So, it's not "what" you say...it's "who" you say it to?
Sounds fair.
You're a funny guy. You tell me how you do not wish to offend. You tell me you won't use that term with me. Then the very next sentence you take it all back. Do you read what you type out before you post it? That would be like me saying, "OK, I'm not going to call you an idiot anymore. OK, idiot?"
And, once again, I think there's a failure to communicate here. You tell me I made this statement: "...while there may be short-term changes in the nature of the extreme weather events, the overall number of extreme weather events remains fairly constant." proceed to tell me it's false, then use another exaggerated hypothetical but which basically reiterates my statement, that there's short-term changes in the nature, the nature, of extreme weather events. Right now, being in a warmer period than 30 years ago, of course we're more likely to see record highs outpace record lows. Is an ~2:1 ratio a little odd for the last cumulative decade? Yeah, it is a little odd. But can you force out a decadal trend out of just three decades of records? No, you can't. Three is the operative number too because the fourth decade back, the 1970's record lows outpaced record highs at an ~4:3 ratio, same for the 1960's. So for the three decades prior to the most recent three decades the trend was negative. But using just three decades isn't a trend on a decadal time scale. Indices such as the AMO are said to operate on decadal time scales but if you only use 30 years of data you'll never get a full picture of the behavior of that oscillation. You have to look back over at least 70 years of data to pull out a trend from that type of data.
That's a very nice graph that goes with that paper but there's a problem. It's a reconstruction of past climate. What I mean is a forecast model of future temperatures. I should have been more specific. Let's start with the suite of IPCC AR4 models. Then we can go back in the past to the IPCC AR1 models and see how they stack up, now a full 21 years into their predictions. And those predictions weren't nearly as bad as more recent IPCC assessment reports.
4:32 AM GMT on August 04, 2011
Sorry ... I promise to do more things than I can do!
If we look at the two elements of extremes, temperature and precipitation, what are the options and challenges for planners in modern times. On a global basis, food production and distribution, a large scale life and death issue, should take precedence over whether an individual city is adequately prepared to deal with a blizzard, or whether dwellings should be situated half a mile further inland from a 500 year floodplain determined by past data.
But since we as a species don't yet govern globally, we don't plan globally. All politics is still local politics.
So be it. Then planners in northern cities should consider laying in a separate long term stockpile of fuel and salt, much like the strategic petroleum reserve, for extreme winters or successive extreme winters. They might even take the enlightened step of putting a compact together with other cities to pool their resources, the fundamental concept behind insurance, such that the pool could support City A while City B is having an easy winter. Each year, though, all cities contribute fuel and salt to the pool (premiums) to keep it whole.
Insurance companies, incented to manage risk, may end up regulating floodplain development simply by making coverage cost commensurate with their own probabilistic determinations of future extreme event frequency and cost.
The Texas drought presents another matter entirely. Farmland is individually owned. Difficult for the pooling/storage concept to work. If we had known exactly what was coming up (not possible at present), the best the individual economic unit, ie the farmer, could have done might be to avoid planting, sell cattle early, and hope to be financially solvent enough to continue next year. But if next year, and subsequent are just as bad, the farmer is out of business. Remember the Dust Bowl.
Fortunately the US is big enough that, at least so far, regional losses can be moderated by production in other areas. Other countrires, ie Kenya, Somalia, are not so fortunate...hence the need for a global 'storage' framework to assit these entities. The longer term solution for these smaller states may simply be that they are not viable economic entities and that they need to merge with other states, another means of pooling.
We have current evidence that significant portions of agriculture are on the edge in terms of tolerance for successive deviations from the mean. The world can still feed these hungry if it has the will, but there is no firm solution as to what to do with the people who may never be able to continue their former livlihood, whether in Somalia or Texas. They cannot all be retrained to work in call centers.
Part of this is the unprecedented population explosion in the last 100 years and a desire for continuous creature comforts not present in the past, ie central heating, air conditioning, power grids, central water supply. All well and good in a benign environment. Less achievable if the world will be beset by increasing frequencies of regional extreme events.
So, taken from an external view, just looking at the planet from a distance, we may not be able to support all these comforts to 8 billion people. China's one child emphasis is Draconian to some, but pragmatic for a nation that has to manage 2 billion people and would seek to have that number stabilize or decline.
We may need to strive for a smaller population by 2100, located in areas where successive deviations from the mean can be more readily absorbed. Those seeking to chance it in more marginal areas do so at their own risk.
I rather doubt that such an outcome will be achieved voluntarily or thru predictive models. More likely it will be the outcome of famine, flood, and other successive regional disasters driving the point home. That will be the 'proof' we seem to need as a species to move us into action.
Link
Link
Now, a few responses in digest form:
--#24 nymore: I see you're still making some basic errors in understanding; please visit the NCDC's records page and have a look around.
--#26 rod2635: Yes, a Malthusian Catastrophe or two awaits should we continue on our present course.
--#20: sullivanweather: I told you I didn't wish to offend any tender sensibilities by applying the term "denialist" to you. That doesn't mean what you're doing doesn't fit into the category of denial; it merely meant I would no longer call you by that name as it apparently bothers you. And I won't, I promise.
Now, it's true that lows in the US outnumbered highs in the 1970s and the 1960s (though not in the 1950s, so the trend was only negative for two decades, not three as you stated). At any rate, that's been well explained from a scientific standpoint. In short, the postwar boom led to an amazing amount of "cooling" pollution being pumped into the environment. When that pollution was recognized and thus greatly reduced, warming began anew. And it's been picking up the pace ever since. Here are the ratios of heat records to cold records based on NCDC data:
1950s: 1.09:1
1960s: 0.77:1
1970s: 0.78:1
1980s: 1.14:1
1990s: 1.36:1
2000s: 2.04:1
2010s: 2.41:1 (so far, and with this year's running ahead of last year's by the same date.)
With the heat wave in the middle part of the country not expected to break for at least six weeks or so, and with at least some forecasters tentatively calling for another massive East Coast heatwave in a few weeks, it's gonna take some very cold wintry blasts to equalize things, if that's possible.
--#30 CorneliaMarie: you mean like how PD's comment #1 has 17 plus votes, while Dr. Rood's #25 has only three? Yes, the vote counts are obviously an accurate way to measure the validity of a particular comment, or value of a poster. As I wrote above: if it makes the "skeptics" feel better, more power to them; they need all the help they can get at this point, even if that means stuffing the ballot box in an internet forum. ;-)
Silly denialists...
I suppose that's how a denialist would look at it. But a climate scientist would say, "We're clearly being outspent by the deep-pocketed Professional Denial Industry. While we'll never have enough cash to take on the fossil-fuel industry, we'll have to do more to be sure the truth gets out and the anti-science brainwashing is halted."
This part, at least, was encouraging: "Out of three scenarios, 30% of Americans say a period of dangerous global warming is likely to occur, while just four percent (4%) say a dangerous ice age is more likely." I'm sure that makes the Koch Brothers and ExxonMobil unhappy; perhaps they need to drop more billions to enlarge their campaign of obfuscation...
You really think private industry is outspending world governments? You really are in denial.
do you think this sort of discredits your arguments a bit?
Only among denialists.
ha! again
Yeah. Pongo, Perdi and I were out last night sending the message out to all the climate contrarians to come here to thumb you down and thumb us up.
How childish.
Yes, I have spoken with Patrick, and, yes, a scheme somewhat like the one he describes could weaken hurricanes threatening places like Miami that have strong western-margin currents just offshore. There are, however, numerous qualifications.
The scheme that we discussed involved an array of several rows devices across the Gulfstream. Each device would be a rectangular duct 140 m long and 10 by 14 m in cross section. Normally the devices would be moored horizontally at a depth of 100m with their long axes aligned with the current flow. They would be nearly neutrally buoyant. When a hurricane approached, ballast at the downstream end of the channel would be released, allowing the device to float up to a 45 deg angle. Cold water entering the upstream end would flow up to the surface and mix with the warmer water there. Since the mixture would be negatively buoyant, it would sink. But mixing due to several (3-10) lines of these devices could cool the surface waters of the Gulfstream by 1-2C, enough to weaken an Andrew-like hurricane from category 5 to category 3. A rough calculation indicates that a device every 100 m on each line of moorings (~1000 devices per ~100 km line) and 3-10 lines of moorings would be required. My guess is that it would cost $250K to fabricate and deploy a single device, but there might be economies of scale. One might also be able to optimize the size and spacing of the devices.
Let's say that careful calculation told us that 4 lines of 1000 devices each would do the trick. At $0.25M per device, the cost works out to 4*1000*($0.25M) = $1000M. The actual cost might range from a few hundred million to a small multiple of a (US = 1000M) billion. One would want to do a detailed simulation before defining the scope of the project, but the basic notion is conversion of some of the kinetic energy of the Gulfstream into gravitational potential energy of the mixed water column. Again, I've not done that detailed simulation, only back-of-the-envelope calculations.
Activation of the array would require accurate forecasting since it would take several days for the effect to make its way from south of the Dry Tortugas (optimum location for protecting the maximum amount of shoreline) to the landfall point.
South Florida gets hit by a category 4 or 5 hurricane at every few years, but the really damaging ones like Andrew tend to be once-a-generation events, or less frequent. The array would need to be deployed and maintained for a long time between activations that actually safeguard property, although false alarms would not be particularly costly. Annual maintenance could easily exceed 10% of initial deployment cost. Bear in mind that Key West to Jacksonville is the only stretch of US coastline where this strategy would work. The other vulnerable sites, Houston-Galveston and New Orleans, lack the necessary strong offshore currents. While Georgia and the Carolinas also experience many hurricane landfalls and have the Gulfstream offshore, most of these cyclones are already weakening because of vertical shear of the horizontal wind so that a second installation north of Jacksonville would be much less useful.
There has been a lot of talk about using wave and current energy to cool the ocean ahead of hurricanes. My general conclusion is that while these ideas might be made to work, the proponents underestimate the scope of the required effort, as well as the political will and recurring cost necessary to keep the project going in the long intervals between really damaging hurricanes. Skeptic that I am, I think that wiser land-use policy and more rigorous building standards are much more cost-effective and more politically feasible. A proof-of-concept that might entail deploying a half dozen devices has some appeal, but I think that there are more promising ways to spend disaster-prevention money.
Best regards,
Hugh Willoughby
No. The ratios were negative for two decades. The trend there through the three decades, using only those three decades, is negative.
Using another example, from the 1960-1980's, both the 1960's and 1970's have negative ratios but the 1980's has a positive ratio. So the trend from the 60-80's is positive, despite the two negative ratio decades of the 60's and 70's. Trend.
This is why, as I said, I don't like to get involved in these types of discussions. I feel I spend more of my time having to correct interpretation and comprehension of my comments than anything else. I don't know whether I'm not typing it out clearly or what.
Winter in the southern hemisphere has less of an impact than its northern counterpart. This is partly because the land area affected is much smaller, being confined to southern South America, the far south of Africa, southern Australia and New Zealand. It is also partly because the south is dominated by the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific. These tend to have a moderating effect on winter in the region.
Nevertheless, for those affected, conditions can be severe. The winter of 2011 has been harsh one in South America. Bolivia and Chile have seen large snowfalls; Argentina has seen snow in areas where such events are rare. Cold blasts of Antarctic air have also threatened Brazil’s future coffee crops.
The cold weather is likely to continue here with further heavy rain, with snow at higher elevations, expected across Chile.
Further west, Australia has seen very unsettled weather affecting Victoria and New South Wales over the last week or so. The last few days have seen exceptional weather conditions across New Zealand with Monday 25th July probably the coldest day of the year, so far. Temperatures fell as low as Minus 5 degrees Celsius in Christchurch and Minus 8 degrees in Queenstown. This followed a night of clear skies after the most widespread snow across the country since 1995. Snow extended from the southern tip of South Island to just south of Auckland in North Island.
Source:
Al Jazeera
Okay, then, if we're talking about trends, here's my take: there was a negative trend from data point A to data point B, and a negative trend from A to C. Meanwhile, there was a positive trend from B to C, a positive trend from B to D, a positive trend from B to E, a positive trend from B to F, a positive trend from C to D, a positive trend from C to E, a positive trend from C to F, a positive trend from D to E, a positive trend from D to F, a positive trend from E to F, a positive trend from A to D, a positive trend from A to E and a positive trend from A to F.
The thing is, one can't simply cherry-pick three data points of their choosing and then claim with any real degree of honesty that a negative trend between them balances out the overall picture. Attempts to do so can certainly fool some, especially those who desperately wish to believe things aren't changing. But climate scientists know better. They always do.
Wait: did you really just call me "childish" while at the same time posting a clip from a Disney cartoon? ;-)
Another example where opinions do not have to be based on the reality? ... Just asking. 69% of the people may also believe that corporations overstate their tax load. Would this also be true then since opinions really do matter?
Did you even read the article? The article actually supports GW theory. What is being questioned is if a higher CO2 level will help retain soil moisture due to the fact that the pores in the leaves of the grasses become more closed. This will cause the plants to release less water vapor and therefore draw less water form the soil. The article also states that some of the range farmers depend on the grasses that are more adapted to cooler temps than are the grasses more adapted to warmer temps. It is the grasses better adapted to warmer temps that would see any benefits. The article also does not point out that when the pores in the leaves start to close then they become less effective as a carbon sink as well.
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