The Weather Is Getting Weirder And More Extreme

Yeah, we got snow here again today!

 

I firmly believe it is just the normal "mood swing" the Earth goes through over many years. Lately, it seems to be throwing a temper-tantrum....

 

op2:

 

How can you make the artic ice caps larger again? The end of the article gives some sound advice.

Or maybe just send money, yeah that will work.

This is paired with a WSJ article that says exactly the opposite. Is it selective memory. I mean if you look at weather records from the 30s that weather is at least objectively more extreme, with many high temperature records surviving to today and a massive drought. The thread on the WSJ article should really say there is not evidence that the weather is getting weirder, but there is now a project that is trying to collect the data. I would hope that people would look to evidence and this project instead of anecdotes and hand waving. It snows in DC, it must be global warming because someone says so. It seems like the same as a preacher saying its not raining because you don't love jesus enough. I turn off the lights and bought a prius, why isn't that ice cap growing fast?

 

It's February and you live in Alaska! Is snow really unusual or weird this time of year in Alaska? Now if you were living in Florida or Texas, I might understand your comment a bit better... LOL!

 

there are a MILLION articles detailing why the bizarre weather we have had over the past 2 years is not an indication of GCC. but i am skeptical of that.

weather extremes will always happen. record highs, lows wets, etc. and a certain percentage of those all time records willl be set constantly. but over the past few years, the # of all time record sets has increased dramatically.

coincidence??

 

skepticism is good. Blind belief that this is the most bizzare weather and it is caused by gw is a problem. There are projects that help determine that, but I would say first that we need a definition of what bizarre is. Then that can be tested. So far the testing has failed. There are projects to get this data.

Are there really more record high temperatures. How are these measured. A good measure to me would be high temperature of all time. In most states these were set in the 30s. There are always a number of new highs and lows for a day. For the continental united states, 14 states had their high temperature of all time set in 1936. Weather moves in cycles, and their is disagreement on how long these cycles are, but if we are looking at 22-80 year cycles we should try to look at weather for at least the last 160 years to see if this cycle is more extreme. At a mininum we should look at 2 sun spot cycles which is that low end 22 years x2 = 44. You don't get a good read if you only look back to the 80s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._state_temperature_extremes

Two high temperature records were tied in the last decade, afaik there were no new all time highs. Oklahoma set a new record cold, but since its weather is not really affected by smaller historic artic ice cap, I would say this does not lend any support to the theory of more extreme temperatures caused by gw. At least in the united states the temperatures are not as extreme as they were in earlier time periods.

 

That was my sarcastic point... it is very normal and often through April. While you all have been getting pounded down south, it has been pleasantly calm up here. OTOH, when you all get more "normal weather" we get the "typical extremes" up here. Jet stream.

Again, that is all just weather. I would say however, that our average temps over the years has increased a bit. Normal cycle or the "end of the world"? Who knows?

 

wow, talk about two ships passing in the night.

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weather extremes will always happen. record highs, lows wets, etc. and a certain percentage of those all time records willl be set constantly. but over the past few years, the # of all time record sets has increased dramatically.


ya, like ALL TIME never been done before stuff. the incidence of these extremes (iow record lows as well) has increased over the recent past. i dont have the article in front of me, but extreme hots have increased something like 300% but extreme colds have increased about 200%. now there is expected to be a number of records set every year, this percentage increases from a bad memory of mine are the increases over the expected # of records

iow, the range of weather has increased on both ends.

in the recorded history of Olympia, WA we had never exceeded 100º now that is only over about 140 years or so nor had we had temps in the 90's more than 3 days in a row... that is not until July-August 2009.

during a 12 day stretch we hit 90 11 of those days including 7 in a row and broke the all time high FOR ANY DAY 3 times. granted, most likely a fluke weather system. but i think that trends are allowing these fluke weather systems to go from the 90's to well over 100º

now, will we prove that? dont know. could be a fluke. last year, we set a record for snowfall in a one two and week long period.

Centralia, an area 25 miles south of here has had TWO "100 year floods in the span of 3 years. now flooding can be and is no doubt partly to blame by development from Mankind.

so, like i said. probably will never be proven until a retrospect decades from now.

 

If you are talking about highs for all days, no it is not higher. The record highs for other days may be increasing, I do not know. If the record high on a cold day is beat, does that make the weather more extreme? We need a good definition, and mine is for all days, not any day. This gives much fewer data points and is easier to review. The other point of view can be spelled out and may show a pattern, but it is very different than the pattern of the highest highs and lowest lows being broken.

A quick check of the data shows a record of 104 for the olympia area which was last tied in 1941. I would rather look at regions for extremes, and the high for washington state was 118 which was last tied in 1961. If we were getting more extreme in the last couple of decades I would expect more recent new records.

For me extreme weather would not be if you set a record of snowfall on March 20, but for any date or period. Others may have other definitions. If indeed AGW is causing more extreme weather I would expect the theory to show more than a date shift. People are looking into these things and I will agree with the data when there is actually data put out that meets scientific standards. For me the time period needs to be fairly long and include that record in olympia in 1906 and not just look and say it hasn't hit these temperatures since the 70s.

 

Check your records. The record high was 100 last hit in 2006 and achieved 3 times previously.

Also reord high temps in winter don't extend the weather unless its also a record high for summer as well

 

That is why averages matter more than extremes. Rising average temperature is why the ice caps are melting. Globally, the Earth is warming; locally, not everywhere and not always.

 

Yes and no. An increasing range of extremes, with significant consequences for those affected, can be hidden in the stats if only averages are considered.

 

2009 was a very hot year here and in Washington state. There was a new record in seatle. My link says that the Olympia area tied their record. But the number of new records have not been accelerating in most of the world as they have in Washington state. I can't post the records from my weather software but this agrees with my figures.

Weather of Olympia, Washington - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I hadn't looked at tumwater, but I would say it should be included so Olympia area since it is so close. The Priest Point Park weather station stopped reporting. Maybe this is why my figures disagree with yours.

Yes, I'm glad you agree. This is the source of a lot of the new highs. The average world wide temperature is growing which is the definition of GW, but even though Washington has hit extremes in some cities does not mean the world is setting more extremes than before.

 

Exactly on the point of GW, these averages have been rising and are easier to talk about.

This would be needed for this new theory that GW (higher average temperatures) are creating more extremes. If you are going to state this is what is going on as the OP article says, you need to show more extremes, and the WSJ article linked to a project trying to measure this. If you go with this theory you need to explain why we are not seeing as many extremes as in previous periods. Perhaps you could show some coastal cities are more extreme, or perhaps the theory is simply wrong, and the null hypothesis - weather is statistically with in the norms is the correct one.

 

I grew up in Alaska, and snow is usually on the ground until mid April, so snow in February is not weird. That is in southern Alaska, by Anchorage. If there was not snow in southern Alaska in February, I would be very concerned.

 

It is my understanding that the last decade in the U.S. had a 2 to 1 record high to record low ratio, so for every record low recorded there were two record highs recorded. In the eighties it was more a one to one ratio, but in the thirties it was also a 2 to one ratio. Is that accurate?

 

Yes, quite so, the deviations are also important. And of course as the average temperature goes up new high-temp records will be set at a faster rate than if the average temperature had stayed constant.

 

Choosing this ocassion to try to fan some interest here is a simple way to search scientific publications

Google Scholar

Works much like plain old google, but only (or mostly) shows results from journals. In go your favorite search terms (perhaps record air temperatures america) and out come the hits to sift through.

Even if you are not at a library, a fair proportion of the articles are posted free somewhere. The others, if a reading of the abstracts leads to curiousity, there are ways to hunt them down.

It does not work perfectly for 'in press' publications. something about web crawlers that I don't understand.

In some ways also it is inferior to ISI web of science and scopus, but those are subscription services.

Anyway, it will lead you (eventually) to the pubs on this or any other topic of interest. A bit of reading and you will be in a great position to understand things better than from news media interpretations. Or affinity websites. Or McKitrick. Or me

Who knows, somebody might get so inspired as to abandon their day job and become a climate scientist! That's where the big bucks are