extreme weather

What noaa is calling extreme is always bad weather, but I liked the guy's analogy, the climate change is like a baseball player on steroids. climate change will give some places good weather, milder winters, etc.

http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/cmb/bams-sotc/2011-peterson-et-al.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/science/earth/global-warming-makes-heat-waves-more-likely-study-finds.html

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Read what I wrote, and watch the video.

NOAA, NCDC, examined 6 extreme weather events and attempted to determine if climate change made them more likely. No single weather event can be tied to climate change. They found the texas heat wave, was 20x more likely because of climate change. While I question the number, as do some at NOAA, I like the science, instead of saying its climate change its bad, they actually do the analysis. They looked at the thai floods and can't find strong correlation with climate change.

Read the information, don't be prejuduce of the outcome. My response to post 2, was this is not a survey of where climate change makes things better, those or different studies. The nice thing about this study is it provides tools to look at weather and help report whether it had signifiant climate change causes, or is just a coincidence. Trenberth went on the news hour earlier, and did a poor job of explaining.

I like the baseball player analogy. If you aren't a good baseball player or home run hitter, steroids aren't going to help you hit home runs. If you are they may help you set personal or league bests. In texas where we are good at heat and droughts - not a good thing - getting juiced with climate change makes them more likely. Other weather events are more coincidental like the thai floods.

 

I don't think you read the news story. This is about attribution studies. If these events had been predicted as they happened then there would be no need for attribution.

Again, they are looking at a subset of extreme weather events, and trying to decide if they can be attributed to climate change. IPCC climate models are assumed to be correct in this. This is not about using events to verify the models. It is hoped that better attribution will contribute to better prediction, and if these weather events can be predicted then governments can proactively help. In the case of the thai flooding, this has not been attributed to climate change, but to the natural weather and where people have decided to live. The response may be to move people out of harms way.

In the case of the texas drought/heat wave they found it was 20x more likely because of climate change. ENSO is also a large factor. This should provide information to proactively change crops, manage water, and be prepared for fire. We should expect more events in the future.

I haven't seen a good prediction of extreme weather that has happened. If these exist can you point them out. Most that suposedly have been confirmed correct are either small or vague. Things like decreases in summr artic ice are not extreme weather events, they are predicted by climate change, and are occuring. Just being hot for a couple of days also does not qualify as one of these extreme weather events.

 

Well I'm glad your not arguing, I didn't think you had anything to argue against on this thread. As to specific predictions of extreme weather events, I have not heard of a large percentage of true ones, or really predictions that are in the near future that are specific enough to test. That is why NOAA is doing these attribution studies. Vague predictions of "more extreme" need definition, and of those that are extreme attribution is important, if we are to get to specific projections.

Again, I don't think any Holocaust deniers are interested. Those PACs that want to stop action will not accept the premise of these studies. They assume climate change, then try to figure out if this event was likely to have happened without it.

Again, these do not try to be political or call for action. Their purpose should be scientific. They also don't say what you say there. Even if the US had instituted goals many times as harsh as kyoto in 1998, there would have been similar likelihood. The 2011 texas drought cost between $5B-$10B when you count all the fire and agricultural losses.

I agree with the proactive part, but we should be clear about what this research does and does not say. The research does go along with the impression that some of these things will happen more often in the future. On the proactive part, if we can predict these things agricultural losses can be cut down. The state was also not equipped with man power or equipment for the fires, better predictive powers might have had other states helping earlier, getting the fires out faster.

 

Austin will have its floods and droughts, just like it has before. They just might be a little dryer or wetter depending on what ENSO decides. I wish the extreme weather would stop people moving here, but that doesn't seem to matter much, many of us wish it did. People that came in 2009, another hot dry summer, didn't even know 2011 was exceptional other that the winter cold. They only had one year -2010 - of normal. Now the new comers are surprised that the greenbelt is green again, and we can play in creeks, rivers, and lakes. It should be remembered that Russian heat wave that killed so many, was cooler than our normal.

The western part of the state is not forecast to fare as well. In the decade without rain (late 40s and 50s) many farmers and ranchers went out of business. They slowly started up again as the land recovered. That looks like it may happen again. Fire budgets may need to be raised in rural areas.

The one thing that is sticking from last summer is the no smoking in the parks. Last summer it was for summer for fire hazard, but some people liked it and it looks it might stay. In the '90s we saw the train coming of future droughts, and moved many people off the edwards aquifer. Some jackhole set up a fish farm in the wet spell.

 

We had an interesting difference in papers on the russian heat wave. The guy that uses the dice analogy said climate change made it much more likely. He was only looking at temperatures. Warming does make higher temperatures more likely. The other study was an attribution study that looked at rain and cloud patterns. This found climate change likely did not cause the heat wave, that the weather patterns randomly set by AMO were likely the cause. People that talk about loaded dice often will mischaracterize any "bad" weather" as extreme and blame warming. Often it is a simplistic statistical model that would also blame pre-industrial for any event. These NOAA studies are attribution, simple statistics based only on temperature are going to get you bad results. Be vary cautious about studies that say loaded dice. From the NYT coverage of the work also sited above.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/11/science/earth/global-warming-makes-heat-waves-more-likely-study-finds.html?_r=1

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I did like the idea of the baseball player on steroids. Steroids might make him get more extra base hits, but if you does well or badly in the stock market, steroids are not likely the answer.​

Again, when someone uses the term denier, they are unlikely to convince anyone middle of the road or unconvinced. Equating skepticism to AGW alarming predictions to denying the holocost is wrong in so many ways, but it seems to be the main thing from people of a certain point of view. When Hansen calls a train carrying coal for export, "coal trains of death", equating them to trains taking people to the concentration camp to be murdered, it goes way to far. Since you are the second person to mention the term on this thread, I feel like I need to correct it.

Now it was news for FOX to cover people blaming gore, I don't watch fox, but saw the story on other media. If fox made up the protest, in the great tradition of Randolph Herst of making up the news then covering it, that is a different story. Is that what you are saying? I thought it was some politicians like palin that were leading the charge. A reasonable news organization should have pointed out that the snow is not proof or even evidence that global warming isn't happening. But it is rare to find a reasonable impartial 24 hour news organization today.

I do think it is good reason for a scientific organization like NOAA to do attribution studies. Many claim anything even the tornados or snowing in DC is the fault of climate change. Attribution studies should be used not political rhetoric. We do have gore on record saying climate change was going to cause more hurricanes. The next IPCC report should have studies showing this is unlikely, that the numbers of large huricanes are not effected by climate change. There severity maybe increasing. Katrina was likely 1%-2% stronger, because of higher sst, but this is not significant when talking huricanes. What is likely to happen is hurricanes will migrate and their patterns will differ as temperature increase.

 

You may have noticed, that the newscast that I put up, only had one side of the story, the scientific one, and had an interview with a climate scientist from NOAA. It tried to be non political. You have to applaud that right?

So then I have to ask, why post this? Was it to say good job to me for posting a story with only the scientific side of the story, or to get the word denier out here one more time?

If bill nye is using that word, "shame on him". He is a children's entertainer, he should no better. The source of this did not have the live feed so I looked it up.
CNN Host Carol Costello To Bill Nye: “You’re The Kooky Guy Who Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About.” » Viral Viral Videos

At least in the piece you point to bill never says denier? I wonder why the site you quoted did? hmm. Could they have an agenda.

Now if your point is, CNN should not get bill nye on, they should get the real climate scientists on the show to talk about climate change. That getting a guy that says he reads graphs, might be enertaining, but it sure is not very informative. I absolutely agree.