Record Cold, US and Europe: Global Warming?

[seer]

You're the one who is trying to claim that the winter in the US is inconsistent with climate change. And when pressed on that being an unreasonable conclusion to draw, you proceeded on a to quo que fallacy i.e that 'they' were doing it as well. Except Michael Mann hasn't been using these weather events to argue for or against global warming.

No, I'm arguing against the double standard. They are linking things like Harvey and this recent cold and snow to Climate change, and that is a fact. So they get use events like these to confirm their predictions, yet we can't. And since our recent warmer milder winters were also linked to climate change there are no weather conditions I can imagine that could not be made to fit the theory.

[Leonhard]

Look at your own link:

I'll grant you he said that much. For some reason Chrome didn't highlight it when I searched for it, and before that I was searching for where he claimed it was predicted. He did say extreme weather events could be expected.

And again, he did not use this to prove or disprove Global Warming. Which is what you seem to be wanting to do with this winter in the US.

[Leonhard]

No, I'm arguing against the double standard.

There is no double standard. They're not trying to prove or disprove Global Warming. They're taken it as a given, and arguing whether or not it has exaserbated current weather patterns.

You're trying to use an individual weather phenomenon, namely how cold the US winter has been (ignoring the rest of the world) and trying to use that to cast doubt on Global Warming.

These two things are not the same seer.

They are linking things like Harvey and this recent cold and snow to Climate change, and that is a fact.

Yes, but they're not using these events to prove or disprove Global Warming.

So they get use events like these to confirm their predictions,

They are not using them to confirm predictions about the earth's global average temperature going up.

And since our recent warmer milder winters were also linked to climate change there are no weather conditions I can imagine that could not be made to fit the theory.

No single weather phenomenon can be used to prove or disprove global warming.

How many times do I have to repeat it seer?

Its not about unfairness where they get to use weather patterns to shore up evidence for their side and you don't (because nurny nurny boo boo). The evidence for global warming is primarily the land temperature record collected from stations all over the world, and from the oceanographic record collected from buoyes and ships in the Ocean. It is those records that make or break the fact of climate change, that the earth is warming.

None of the scientists, at least not in the peer-review, are using how hot or cold some winter or summer was to argue for Global Warming. To the press they might use an example of a particular temperature record to call attention to it, but they're not using those events to prove or disprove Global Warming.

What they're talking about is the link between global warming, and whether they have made weather phenomenons worse. And that's a very complex discussion, and I haven't decided either way and won't blame you if you're dubious. However it is completely unrelated to the question of whether, or not, the Earth is getting warmer.

Which is what you were disputing in the OP.

And when you were called out it not being possible to use local weather phenomenons to argue against Global Warming you seem to think it was unfair "because they get to"

But they don't.

[carpedm9587]

Of course that is what Mann is saying, the climate change theory predicts these extreme events. Of course it also predicts milder warmer winters. The question is Carp, what weather events could counter these predictions. What weather events couldn't be shoe horned into the theory/predictions.

What Mann actually said was that climate models predict that the frequency of these extreme events, both on the warm side (mild winters) and on the cold side (deep freezes) will increase in frequency. As at least a couple people have told you now, at no point in any of this does Mann say that THIS storm is caused by climate change, or explained by climate change. He DOES say climate change predicts increases in this type of storm.

That is not what I asked Carp, I asked if extreme weather events were unusual in the distant past. Tree rings and core samples don't to speak to this to any real degree.

My apologies if I misunderstood your question. Extreme weather events have occurred throughout recorded history, and are documented in some geological events. No one has said otherwise. What climate change models predict is that the global warming trend, which is measured in low single-digit numbers, will create an increased likelyhood of wider weather variation, largely due to the increased variation in the flow of the jet stream (as far as I understand the models). So as the jet stream tends to wobble more frequently and more deeply south, it will draw more cold air and trigger periods of abnormal cold. As the jet stream tends to wobble more frequently and more deeply north, it will draw more equitorial temperatures further north and trigger periods of abnormal warmth. The extremes are predicted to occur with increased frequency.

[carpedm9587]

Look at your own link:

https://www.climaterealityproject.or...climate-change

Seer. Read the sentence carefully. It is not saying what you think it is saying. This storm is "an example of" (i.e., like in kind to) the sort of extreme winter weather (i.e., the type of weather) that climate change predicts. You are reversing this to say that he is claiming this storm is evidence of global warming. He's not. Mann knows that no one storm can make a case for a climate case. It requires a large body of weather data over time for a specified area to make a climate change argument. When the claim is "global warming," these is one simple way to verify it is happening, or falsify it: tracl average global temperature over time. If the graph is flat, there is no temperature change. If it drops over time, we have cooling. If it rises, we have warming. The data shows the latter.

From there the nay-sayers point to local weather phenomena and say "see, no global warming." To this the response is, a) one weather event does not prove/disprove a climate claim and b) this type of weather is NOT inconsistent with a warming earth - models predict increases in extreme weather events of pretty much every kind. Put in the simplest terms, heat is energy. If the atmosphere is hotter, it is more energized. Atmospheric energy is typically expressed as storms.

[Mountain Man]

Its actually because of these posts by you, that I've decided to get the raw measurements (the pure thermometer readings) as that article calls it, and try to follow the reasoning of CRU, NOAA and Berkey BEST, in coming to the adjusted graphs they've had.

The dozens of news articles you've cited on this mostly just covers the fact of these changes. Nobody disagree that Berkeley, NOAA, made adjustments to the final data set. They had argued that there things to correct and they trusted recent instrumentation more than older instrumentations.

I don't get the thing about lack of documentation as claimed in that link. There's plenty of documentation of what they've done. There's enough for anyone to attempt replication, which is what I'm doing now. At least on a smaller basis just using the monthly data (the raw minimum, maximum and average) of each month. Later I hope to get the raw daily stuff, but that's harder to get to.

First order of business would just be a plain old, nothing fancy, dumb-averages temperature graph. With the only thing done is removing duplicated stations in the data.

Except as the link from American Thinker shows, the only thing available to the public is the most recent "raw" data which is actually revised data ('When you go to the NASA website, you can download temperature anomalies "1880-present." But those data change every month. NASA adjusts it. You cannot find any older versions. NASA makes available only its most recent version. And NASA does not explain how it adjusts the data. You must simply trust it.'), and the "whistle blower" reported by The Washington Times says that the data is deliberately manipulated by NOAA to support the global warming hypothesis. Furthermore, NOAA refused to show its work even when demanded by Congress!

http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/noaa...rticle/2575113

Things are so messed up to the point that I'm not really sure any of it is trustworthy.

[tabibito]

What Mann actually said was that climate models predict that the frequency of these extreme events, both on the warm side (mild winters) and on the cold side (deep freezes) will increase in frequency. As at least a couple people have told you now, at no point in any of this does Mann say that THIS storm is caused by climate change, or explained by climate change. He DOES say climate change predicts increases in this type of storm.



My apologies if I misunderstood your question. Extreme weather events have occurred throughout recorded history, and are documented in some geological events. No one has said otherwise. What climate change models predict is that the global warming trend, which is measured in low single-digit numbers, will create an increased likelyhood of wider weather variation, largely due to the increased variation in the flow of the jet stream (as far as I understand the models). So as the jet stream tends to wobble more frequently and more deeply south, it will draw more cold air and trigger periods of abnormal cold. As the jet stream tends to wobble more frequently and more deeply north, it will draw more equitorial temperatures further north and trigger periods of abnormal warmth. The extremes are predicted to occur with increased frequency.

IOW - he claimed that this is not INCONSISTENT with global warming?

[seer]

I'll grant you he said that much. For some reason Chrome didn't highlight it when I searched for it, and before that I was searching for where he claimed it was predicted. He did say extreme weather events could be expected.

And again, he did not use this to prove or disprove Global Warming. Which is what you seem to be wanting to do with this winter in the US.

Leonhard, don't you get what I'm saying. They are linking all kinds of weather events to global warming. From milder winters, to hurricanes, to cold and snow, to droughts, to increased rain fall. They are using these events to bolster the theory. My point is there are no weather events that they could not fit in. As far as these weather events, climate change could cause A and ~A. But we use a weather even to question AGW, well that is a big no, no...

[Leonhard]

Except as the link from American Thinker shows, the only thing available to the public is the most recent "raw" data which is actually revised data ('When you go to the NASA website, you can download temperature anomalies "1880-present."

Yeah I wished they had a little more transperency with regards to the data, however I do have the completely unadjusted raw data, sans anything. It was quite a fat compressed tarball of a file. It has files ending with the name "raw" and those ending with "adj". And a bunch of custom software written in Fortran I can barely decipher for processing the raw data. I'll look up the disclaimer that says what I am or am not allowed to do with this raw data. Whether I can put up a link sharing it. There's some funky laws about the use of US weather data by people in other countries.

I personally wish it was all more transparent, but scientists are used to just sharing data amongst each other on request. Pay-walls, closed journals, behind-ivory-tower-wall stuff isn't something I was a fan of, and I can understand why you're not either.

The GHCN had the raw data on their ftp server up until 2011, when they put up version 3 of their daily adjusted dataset, however that one doesn't appear to have the raw data (or maybe I'm misreading it), which would be a shame, because then I'd have to get the raw data for all the days, by requesting it from the individual weather stations themselves, and some of them charge money.

I think though I might know some friends the climatology department back on Campus who'll swing me that data for a bottle of wine. :hehe

Things are so messed up to the point that I'm not really sure any of it is trustworthy.

I definitely wish the GHCN had kept up the link to the raw data.

Once I have that I'll send you a pm.

It might be a while though.

[carpedm9587]

IOW - he claimed that this is not INCONSISTENT with global warming?

Yes. The claim was that this storm is inconsistent with global warming, and he was saying, "no it's not."

Your gift for brevity eludes me.

[Leonhard]

Leonhard, don't you get what I'm saying. They are linking all kinds of weather events to global warming. From milder winters, to hurricanes, to cold and snow, to droughts, to increased rain fall. They are using these events to bolster the theory.

In what way are they doing that? It seems rather they're arguing that the intensity of these events are to blame by Global Warming, and making various arguments to support that, but they're not using it to "bolster" the theory, which is kinda a nonsensical thing to say.

If you're reading it that way, you're definitely reversing the order of epistemology here.

My point is there are no weather events that they could not fit in. As far as these weather events, climate change could cause A and ~A. But we use a weather even to question AGW, well that is a big no, no...

Its perfectly fine to argue that climate change might influence weather events. That seems perfectly reasonable.

Its very unreasonable to use a weather event to disprove climate change.

These two things are not the same. They're very different. One is using an already established theory, to speculate or argue for effects and consequences it might have. They're using something already strongly attested to here, namely Global Warming. There's more heat in the atmosphere, and what kind of consequences could that have.

You're trying to say "This special weather phenomenon in the US disproves this highly well established scientific theory" which is not the same as what they're doing.

They're not going "See there's an extreme weather event in the US, that confirms global warming", the one quote you have is more along the line of Dr. Michale Mann arguing that they predicted that something like this could happen, and now it has happened. He didn't argue that therefore global warming was stronger.

[seer]

What Mann actually said was that climate models predict that the frequency of these extreme events, both on the warm side (mild winters) and on the cold side (deep freezes) will increase in frequency. As at least a couple people have told you now, at no point in any of this does Mann say that THIS storm is caused by climate change, or explained by climate change. He DOES say climate change predicts increases in this type of storm.

Right, thereby linking this cold and snow to climate change. Let me ask you again Carp, what weather event COULDN'T be so linked?

My apologies if I misunderstood your question. Extreme weather events have occurred throughout recorded history, and are documented in some geological events. No one has said otherwise. What climate change models predict is that the global warming trend, which is measured in low single-digit numbers, will create an increased likelyhood of wider weather variation, largely due to the increased variation in the flow of the jet stream (as far as I understand the models). So as the jet stream tends to wobble more frequently and more deeply south, it will draw more cold air and trigger periods of abnormal cold. As the jet stream tends to wobble more frequently and more deeply north, it will draw more equitorial temperatures further north and trigger periods of abnormal warmth. The extremes are predicted to occur with increased frequency.

And that would be different than what happened 500 years ago, 1,000 years ago, 250 years ago? In other words, increased frequency compared to what? The last 40-50 years, the last 200?

[carpedm9587]

Leonhard, don't you get what I'm saying. They are linking all kinds of weather events to global warming. From milder winters, to hurricanes, to cold and snow, to droughts, to increased rain fall. They are using these events to bolster the theory. My point is there are no weather events that they could not fit in. As far as these weather events, climate change could cause A and ~A. But we use a weather even to question AGW, well that is a big no, no...

You are correct. There are no weather events that do NOT fit into a global warming model, that I know of. There are also no weather events that do NOT fit into a global cooling model, that I know of. There are also no weather events that do NOT fit into a global stasis model, either.

We live on this globe, and it has certain types of weather: rain, snow, hail, sleet, tornadoes, hurricanes, cyclones, droughts, thunder, lightning, etc. It doesn't have plasma storms (that I know of) nor does it precipitate frozen methane (as happens on other planets). All of the "normal" weather phenomena for this planet continue in all climate models. What changes is the pattern of their frequency and intensity. Climate is about those patterns.

So when someone says, "this storm proves global warming is not happening," the answer is, "no - such storms fit into the global warming model quite easily." That does not mean they PROVE global warming is happening; it means they do not disprove it. When someone says "this storm proves global warming is happening," they should likewise be chastised for not understanding the difference between weather and climate.

[seer]

Its perfectly fine to argue that climate change might influence weather events. That seems perfectly reasonable.

Its very unreasonable to use a weather event to disprove climate change.

Thanks, you have made my point. There is no weather event that questioners of AGW could point to, and there is no weather event that a supported of AGW couldn't fit into the theory. Tails I win, heads you lose...

[Leonhard]

Right, thereby linking this cold and snow to climate change. Let me ask you again Carp, what weather event COULDN'T be so linked?

Okay seer you're using the word 'linked' a lot. In principle all world weather phenomenons are linked to global warming. Your daily weather report for instance will slowly over time, on average, show higher values. The amount of rain the ground gets will change because of the amount of moisture in the atmosphere which changes in accordance with global temperature. The rate of bush fires will likely have some correlation.

All these weather phenomenons depend on the state of the worlds climate. If that global climate is changing, the conditions for these events are changing. Therefore it is worth asking the question "What effect will a change in the world's climate have on the rate of hurricanes? Floods? Fires?"

Those aren't unreasonable questions to ask.

However what no scientist is doing is going "We had a cold winter in the US... maybe global warming is false?"

That's what you're doing. They're also not doing the contrary "We had a mild winter in the US... therefore global warming is true" They're arguing that milder winters as we've seen recently, are partially explained by the change in global temperature.

That's a talk about multiple weather phenomenons seer. Are there more mild winters now than a hundred years ago? Yes or no. That's not a question of whether it was really cold in Denmark in December of 1993 in Denmark (which it was). That's a question of trends as a whole.

You need to stop zeroing in on one single thing happening in the US.