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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I haven't had the chance to see said podcast, or even read all there is about what he said...
All I said, generally, is that he is very qualified. And yes, his 1996 textbook is rife with Carbon Dioxide in the atmosphere.
Here is a transcribe from the index of his text (which sits before me):
Carbon Dioxide (CO2)
absorption by, 200, 201, 203, 216-217, 232, 244
greenhouse effect 249-250, 252
line broadening, 224
LW radiation, 46, 242
as trace constituent, 22-25
(and the above is only for the parts that contain CO2; the greenhouse gases section is much larger)
But, where do you get off putting all of the above into what I said? Did you learn this from JFLORALA?
Here is my post, for reference:
too bad that philosophy doesn't work for economics on the government level.
Or they don't know manipulation when they don't see it.
Rassmussen is well known to have results that trend toward conservative viewpoints and have been criticized for using leading questions.
So, what have other recent surveys shown, Gallup and here.
The second one deals with a trust questions also.
My comments are never just aimed at the quoted commenter (if they were I'd be spending most of my time trying to move unmovable objects without access to an irresistible force), but are rather aimed at providing information for all readers of the blog, and you can just as well read my "you" for "those that would". Glad to know you wouldn't, but you know there are those who will.
If your going to throw his textbook out there, I will qualify it in the context of the paper we are discussing.
I can read index's too, and the index has no entry under carbon cycle. Greenhouse gases get's 5 pages in a approximately 600 page book (from TOC) and I was able to read greenhouse section online and it does not deal with the carbon cycle, which is the topic of the paper we are discussing.
So I stand by my assertion that based on his research pubs and this textbook, the carbon cycle is not his forte.
He's obviously a brilliant scientist, and it will be interesting to see how this story unfolds. But, like I said before even if he got the regression right, there are several others steps that need to happen before his hypothesis is confirmed. Least of which is getting this paper passed peer-review.
And again, this comment is aimed at readers in general, not just you Atmo.
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quote:
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
Since they can weaken hurricanes from a Cat5 to a Cat3 then they can also restore our Arctci Ice.
Ice-free Arctic could bring benefits, climate scientist says
The Arctic will be practically ice-free during the summer within three decades, the top U.S. ice observer says. But climate change could bring some good with the bad, he adds.
"I'm a climate scientist, but I'm also a realist on this," said Mark Serreze, director of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.
Arctic sea ice is disappearing a little more each summer. It shrank in July to the least coverage that satellites have ever recorded for that month, measurements show.
"This is just part and parcel of the decline that we've seen in the overall ice extent because the Arctic is warming up," Serreze said.
Average ice extent was 3.06 million square miles, 81,000 square miles below the previous record low (2007) and 842,000 square miles below average, according the data center. The center operates out of the University of Colorado at Boulder with support from NASA.
Satellite records date to 1979, but observations by ship and plane go back to the 1950s, Serreze said. July's ice coverage "is certainly the lowest in oh, the last 50 or 60 years that we have reliable records for," he said.
The oldest ice in the Arctic, which tends to be the thickest and most resistant to melting, is declining, data center scientists said.
The overall ice coverage declined rapidly in the first half of July but slowed in the second half as weather patterns changed, Serreze said. Now they seem to be changing back again. By the time the melting season ends in September, the ice coverage could be among the lowest three or four ever, he said.
"The Arctic is the heat sink of the Northern Hemisphere," Serreze said. "The ice cover is highly reflective. If you lose that ice cover, you change the heat budget of the Arctic."
That changed budget is likely to affect weather patterns below the Arctic, and ultimately the overall climate, he said.
"This is man-made; there seems to be little doubt in that," Serreze said. "It would be reversible if we were to do something about our carbon dioxide emissions, (but) I don't see much of a fat chance in hell we're going to see any change here. We're going to have to adapt."
Climate change will have some serious consequences, Serreze acknowledged: rising sea levels, loss of habitat for Arctic fauna, drinking water shortages, territorial disputes over newly open waters and more. But there will be some real benefits, he said.
Warmer winters and springs will extend growing seasons and even allow farming to happen in places where it hadn't before, Serreze said.
Another benefit of the retreating ice is increased navigation. A tanker set sail from Murmansk, Russia, on June 29 and completed a crossing of the Kara and Barents seas on July 14, according to the data center. The same company plans to send six or seven more ships along the same route this summer.
"We will adapt, because we have to," Serreze said.
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/08/05/arctic-ice-a t-record-low-for-july/
South-Central U.S. continues to bake
The extreme heat continues again today after 269 high maximum and 250 high minimum temperature records were set yesterday, 19 and 29 of which were all-time records, respectively. 206 of yesterday's records were 110°F or higher. Yesterday, Reuters was reporting that Texas was one power plant shutdown away from rolling blackouts. The forecast today doesn't look any better. Heat index values up to 125° are forecast in eastern Texas and the Lower Mississippi Valley.
Particularly toasty heat index values from yesterday:
• Mobile, Alabama: 120°
• Arkadelphia, Arkansas: 121°
• Bay St. Louis, Mississippi: 121°
• Memphis, Tennessee: 122°
quote:
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
Link
Of course it is that is what they can prevent. Why else do you think I made the tunnels?
http://hockeyschtick.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-pap er-finds-arctic-sea-ice-strongly.html
Also looks like Arctic ice is making a comeback:
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BS? What does this chart demonstrate? Or can you decipher it?
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Please don't tell me what to do. Speaking of BS, also don't post any adjusted data from NOAA. Do you truly believe that garbage?
It's definitely making a comeback--in late September, as it does every autumn.
For the record, preliminary AMSR-E numbers (they're never final for a day or two, and the number will likely decrease) indicate that 36,429 square miles of Arctic Sea ice were lost yesterday. Some comeback, huh? ;-)
Unless I'm missing something, we're at the beginning of August.
The chart speaks for itself. Must be a foolish chart.
Your Queensland link doesn't work. You Australian link is not a dot graph. Please reanalyze!
ROFLMAO :)))
What a hoot!!!
That's what happens when you become so factoid dependent that you copy and paste something from a past year.
But, I'll verify your response before I go any further,
Hmmm???
March, April, May, June, July, August...August 5th???
Of snap...yer right.
And toward the end of next month..."he'll be right".
Somehow I'm starting to get a mental image of a prepubescent teen on his mom's computer playing "stump the teacher" while she's at work.
mileskilometers of it was lost in the past week alone. Only in Happy Fantasy Denialand is a quarter of a million squaremilekilometer loss called "a comeback".Whoopsie!!!
That Queensland link is still not working. Sorry.
OOOOOooooh, we've been keeping track of ice for 30 yrs. I'm sure the ice will return. Don't get your panties in a bunch.
Edit: Yes, I am of the mindset that Arctic ice is coming back ahead of the the 2007 levels, as if 30 years of data really make any difference in 5 billion years.
Every "statistic" he spouts is twisted one way or another and any information that doesn't comport with his preconceived notions isn't science or has been "thoroughly debunked" by his imaginary board of climate scientists.
Link
Quite the ob, and quite undeniable :)
As with that anti-science nonsense from one denialist site or another that you so frequently cut-and-paste from or link to, do you have anything at all to back up that accusation?
I'm sorry you have to once again delve into baseless ad hominems. But I can certainly imagine your ongoing frustration.
The article on which that story is based merely repeated something we've been saying for a long time: while Arctic Ice will disappear entirely in summer not too many years from now (I say five to seven), there's no chance at all of it disappearing entirely in winter, not even if the climate warmed at the top of all projections. Unless the earth somehow tilts on its axis with the North Pole aimed at the sun, such a scenario simply can't happen.
Comic dat is,,though.
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