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Unforced Variations: Feb 2016

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This month’s open thread.

Just so you know, a lot of people have complained that these threads have devolved – particularly when the discussion has turned to differing visions of solutions – and have therefore become much less interesting. Some suggestions last month were for a side thread for that kind of stuff that wouldn’t clog interesting issues of climate science. Other suggestions were for tighter moderation. The third suggestion is that people really just stay within the parameters of what this site has to offer: knowledgeable people on climate science issues and context for the science that’s being discussed elsewhere. For the time being, let’s try the last one, combined with some moderation. The goal is not to censor, but rather to maintain somewhere where the science issues don’t get drowned out by the noise.

Reader Interactions

173 Responses to "Unforced Variations: Feb 2016"

  1. For a few years, because of living in Detroit for three years, I have noted a correlation between the AO and ASI because there was a very clear correlation between the AO and the “polar vortex” effect bringing in cold temps and storms. Participants on these fora stated there was no known causal link between AO and ASI.

    Not so fast: What’s going in with ASI?

    The month’s unusually high temperatures, which were caused by a strong negative phase arctic oscillation – a variance in air pressure between the poles and more central latitudes – led to the extremely low ice coverage throughout much of the Arctic region.

    One imagines winter ice affecting summer ice,and negative AO’s in spring and summer having some effect…

  4. Re me @94: Red faced, after having pushed this presentation at our Climate Council, The Conversation, our national broadcaster and many others, cause the video is plain shit. Definitely not an Al Gory Ted Talk. Kevin looks great, but we see none of his slides and not much of the audience. Glad I only pushed the audio at our RN Big Ideas program.

    I suppose that because he is speaking, what he thinks is the truth, he would not get any funding from anybody, definitely not the airlines or his government. He even alienates accademia and the Climate research community itself. A bit like Jesus kicking over those tables in the temple. But if valid, his message should be spread, so maybe crowdfunding his research ?

    I particularly like his message, cause I create almost no emissions and live in a forest. Makes me into a goody. Hey, I could probably sell carbon credits.

    But how valid is his message ? Do you all agree, but don’t dare to say ?

  5. #104
    I presume you’re referring to Kevin Anderson. He is the Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK. I do believe you can take him seriously!

  6. Moderator please edit or omit all together !

    Yes, that is T for Theo. Used a VPN and another email, cause I thought I was banned being that troll or boring serial offender, specially as my last post, again about me experiencing, not higher temperatures, but an actual Greenhouse effect, never made it to your site. At the time, I was half hoping, that I was onto something interesting for you guys and that it was held back, so that someone could give me a proper answer. So now, here, here, you have a brand new article all devoted to the Greenhouse Effect. Maybe coincidence, but there is that off-chance of un-scientific me just uttering those words, that left a mark.

    Update. Spend 3 overdone days cleaning and analysing that station data (to impress you), but I could not make it look like, what I dearly wanted to see. That closest station is at an airport and I am in a valley up in the mountains, so maybe my Greenhouse effect is only happening in places like mine. Got my own hobby station data, which confirms what I am feeling, but it only runs from 2012. Only thing to do now is to compare those later years with the airport, which will give me a difference but unlikely to give a trend.

    Hope you all like my Kevin Anderson comments, cause he needs to be celebrated ( and prettied up asap for general consumption ).

  7. Been looking at noaa’s nino index from 1950. The strong el-ninos have been getting progressively stronger and the strong la ninas weaker every 10-18 years on average. Looking at the arctic sea ice extent graph. 2012 was clearly a standout year. The arctic winter however looked very innocuous indeed even nudging the average line for a while and then it began to free fall to the record low it achieved in the fateful summer of 2012. 2012 though was a weak la-nina year so what the hell is going on? The extent and area graph currently are both scraping the bottom of the winter curve. Question… can we expect a record low extent/area this summer considering it is a record el-nino year? I am saying.. record on near record considering the battering the arctic has been getting over the past few months.

  8. In regard to the CSIRO funding cut and reallocation…I support the decision, there is a lot of climate modelling and predictive constructs out there, many including and covering Australia. Granted- more precision is always useful when deciding governmental funding to agricultural or related industries…but there is only so much money in the coffers. The incumbent gov should be ashamed for not maintaining or increasing support for the CSIRO but mitigation is now and for the future the most pressing issue and the innovation for what the CSIRO is world famous for should be focussed in that direction. Supercomputers using skilful climate modelling should be enough for Australia to get a reasonably accurate state by state prognosis of the unfolding and ever changing climatic paradigm.

  9. “Can Journalistic “False Balance” Distort Public Perception of Consensus in Expert Opinion?”
    Koehler, Derek J.
    Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, Jan 11 , 2016, No Pagination Specified. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xap0000073

    http://psycnet.apa.org/psycarticles/2016-00600-001

    http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/opinion/sunday/why-people-are-confused-about-what-experts-really-think.html?_r=0

    ” In other words, being exposed to the conflicting comments made it more difficult for participants to distinguish the issues most experts agreed on (such as carbon tax) from those for which there was substantial disagreement (such as minimum wage).”

    The participants were told the number of experts on each side. The numbers don’t seem to matter. So the other side only has to get one actor to pretend to be an expert to confuse the public. The journalist doesn’t have to identify him as a scientist if it is on TV.

    In other words, most people can’t count. That is why the public is confused on GW.

  10. An open letter to the Australian Government from more than 2800 climate scientists

    RE: Australia’s Climate Research Is Far From Done

    Dear Representatives of the Australian public and appointees to the CSIRO Board,

    The recent announcement of devastating cuts to the Australian CSIRO’s Oceans and Atmosphere research program has alarmed the global climate research community1. The decision to decimate a vibrant and worldleading research program shows a lack of insight, and a misunderstanding of the importance of the depth and significance of Australian contributions to global and regional climate research. The capacity of Australia to assess future risks and plan for climate change adaptation crucially depends on maintaining and augmenting this research capacity. [more]

  11. Re 110 & 108: The climate has now been changing for decades, but do we really need a Climate Change industry ?
    If the climate is indeed changing and changing for the worse, surely we can rely on our MET offices to tell us that and tell us that officially !

  12. RE 108: It should actually be seen as a backhanded complement from our government accepting the reality of a climate changing for the worse. This more progressive government wants to embrace adaptation ( cause sorry world, but we’re really not big enough to drive mitigation ), so no doubt all of the non-denial scientists will be re-employed by CSIRO and related organisations.

  13. Re: 107 LC said 2012 though was a weak la-nina year so what the hell is going on?

    As I have suggested, a 1 to 2 year period of energy/heat propagating through the system, depending on which pathways are dominant. The heat from the El Ninos, that is. 2012 was within the two year window I have suggested.

  14. I see UAH v6.0 now has a beta5 version. A quick shufty at the numbers shows the change from beta4 amounts to an annual cycle, so no change in trends. This cycle is reasonably constant up to 1999 with a peak-to-peak of 0.028ºC and a maximum mid-year. At that point the cycle suddenly switches to a start-of-year maximum and for a couple of years this has a smaller peak-to-peak of 0.017ºC prior to flipping to a larger (and more variable) peak-to-peak of roughly 0.055ºC.

  16. As expected with the El Nino doing its stuff, Gistemp for January is another “scorchyissimo” weighing in at +1.13ºC, topping December’s +1.11ºC. So 2016 kicks off 0.32ºC hotter than January 2015 and 0.268ºC above the 2015 annual value.

  17. Hope you all like my Kevin Anderson comments, cause he needs to be celebrated ( and prettied up asap for general consumption ).

    Comment by T — 12 Feb 2016 @

    Are you on drugs? I don’t understand how your comments are getting through moderation.

  20. Re 117: Yes, Chuck, sometimes we all do a bit of that. But my recent posts have all been triggered by your question @86: Is there a silver lining in the Kevin talk ?

    There is a big silver lining in it for Australia, because he and a lot of others suggest, that it is OK for the developing world to peak their emissions not until sometime around 2030. And guess what, these are exactly the countries, to which we export our coal :)

  21. “It seems a good bit of our future depends on the coming election…”

    Indeed it does. If we get a Republican President and keep a Republican Senate (the House is all but sure to stay in the hands of the GOP, as far as I have heard so far), then you can kiss American participation in the Paris Accord goodbye, as well as the Clean Power Plan.

    The GOP has made climate change a partisan issue. Now they need to pay the political price for doing so.

    (‘Scuse me, gotta go. Heading off now to set up a recurring donation to the Democrats.)

  23. (RC, please delete this if it doesn’t meet the new guidelines)

    I have a question about a World Meteorological Organization policy for displaying temperature data.

    NOAA says (link), of its temperature anomaly maps, that for calculating the anomaly some of them use 1981-2010 as the reference period due to “a recommended World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Policy, which suggests using the latest decade for the 30-year average.”

    Is it true that this is the WMO recommendation? Why would the WMO recommend using a reference period that downplays climate change? Or am I misunderstanding something?

  24. 119 Chuck Hughes: Yes. The death of Scalia raises hopes about a lot of things regardless of who gets elected and regardless of whether the Senate will delay any Obama appointment. My impression is that Scalia thought that laws of nature could be vacated if they didn’t pass Scalia’s constitutional muster. Scalia was a radical conservative of a special type. If the law of gravity wasn’t in the constitution, the law of gravity was wrong. Scalia tried to keep thinking the way they thought in 1776.

    A Republican president will not be able to find another judge who is the equal of Scalia.

  27. generic commenter @123.
    Is it true the WHO recommend using the last 3 full decades as an anomaly base period? Yes. Why? This PDF may assist in answering that. Does such a policy “downplay(s) climate change”? I don’t see how such a policy would downplay climate change so I think your “misunderstanding” is probably real but I’m not sure what it entails.

  28. #123 & #127–

    Thanks for the link, MAR. It’s a good discussion.

    I presume that the ‘downplaying’ is gc mentions is just that the anomaly numbers are smaller with a more recent baseline, so to the naive eye warming ‘looks less.’ But I agree with MAR that that’s probably not very significant, since statements in actual news stories usually contextualize things pretty well for the really naive anyway–at least in terms of baseline. (They might get harder stuff wrong, of course.)

    For even the casually interested, it becomes really minor, as adjusting baseline is a simple matter of adding or subtracting the particular offset value, and trends are affected not at all. The various data sets report baselines differently anyway:

    GISS: 1951-80–http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v3/GLB.Ts+dSST.txt
    NCEI: 1981-2010–http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/global-maps/201513#global-maps-select
    HADCRU: 1961-90–http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/hadobs/crutem4/

    There are pluses and minuses for any choice you make, but at the end of the day, this isn’t a big deal.

  29. NCDC have posted January temperature anomaly at +1.04°C which is a drop on December’s +1.12°C but 0.23°C above January 2015 and 0.146°C above the average for 2015. So not quite as “scorchyissimo” as the GISS January anomaly which was 0.32ºC hotter than January 2015 and 0.268ºC above the 2015 annual value.

  30. Thank you MA Rodger for locating that document. My reading of it is that they’re assuming that what we’re using their data for is near-term predictions, in which case yes, the last 30 yrs IS the best “normal”, since it’s the measurements we expect to see. But it will be poor for demonstrating that the earth is heating up dangerously, because its “normal” is just the last 30 years – so it implies that what’s “abnormal” is temperatures of the past, not temperatures of the present. This reflects the different focus of meteorologists vs. climatologists, correct?

  31. Edward Greisch:

    Scalia was a radical conservative of a special type. If the law of gravity wasn’t in the constitution, the law of gravity was wrong. Scalia tried to keep thinking the way they thought in 1776.

    From an item in Friday’s New York Times:

    Justice Scalia was a champion of originalism, the theory of constitutional interpretation that seeks to apply the understanding of those who drafted and ratified the Constitution.

    I’m with Mr. Greisch. Did anyone take Scalia’s “originalism” at face value? The drafters of the Constitution declared their overarching purpose in fine, high-sounding language:

    We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

    Now, in the specialized language of science, physical phenomena may sometimes be defined exactly enough to leave no scope for interpretation. That’s hardly the case with subjective concepts like “Justice” and “Liberty”. As educated men, the framers presumably knew that quite well, and in any case no two could have had exactly the same understanding of what those words mean.

    After laying out their broad, ambiguous goals, the framers went on to make sausage. Our republic’s founding document was the outcome of a political process, by which multiple competing agendas were reconciled. Clearly recognizing that differing interpretations would inevitably give rise to disputes, its authors established the Judicial Branch to resolve them in a way that the losers could accept rather than go for their guns.

    Article III explicitly vests final authority to interpret the Constitution in the Supreme Court of the US, but even after ratification the framers continued to argue about what that actually meant. Despite Thomas Jefferson’s objections, however, since Marbury vs. Madison (1803) the Constitution has meant neither more nor less than what SCOTUS says it means.

    Does anyone really think Justice Scalia didn’t know all that? What was his “originalism” but a disguise for his own determination to impose his personal desires on the rest of us?

  33. P.S. The moderators’ guidance at the top of this thread is a judgement call, with some good explanation. Ditto the guidance at the top last month. It’s a judgement call, and always will be, because what relates more or less directly to climate science changes with time. For implicit guidance one could compare the topics-and-presenters at current AGU events and COP21, including guest speakers. But it’s a matter, too, of what’s more central and what’s less central. It’s a matter of keeping the primary focus primary. So it’s a judgement call, and the site itself is a voluntary outreach.

    Quite obviously the practice of climate science relates directly to the science itself. So if climate science faces unwarranted and gratuitous threats (as has recently been the case in a few countries of the developed world), that’s relevant–to take but one example, and one I would rather not have the opportunity to take. But it’s an example now.

  34. #130–No, I don’t think so. The value of the anomaly from baseline is not very meaningful by itself. If you want to assess warming, look at the trend, not any one anomaly value.

  36. Kevin #134, it depends on the audience, I think. To maximize comprehension you’d want to maximize the visibility of change and the awareness of what constituted “normal”.

    For another example (of not serving viewers well, if big-picture understanding is the goal), here’s the NYTimes today:
    http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/02/18/upshot/the-times-classic-weather-chart-now-online-with-3000-cities.html

    If I’m a typical overburdened reader, I’m not going to come away saying “wow, heckuva hot year 2015 was, and it’ll get lots more extreme.”

  38. “UT Poll: Vast majority of Americans backs [sic] action against climate change”
    http://texasclimatenews.org/?p=12173
    Texas Climate News February 19, 2016

    “Nearly two-thirds of poll participants (64 percent) said that reducing carbon dioxide emissions from fossil-fuel use should be a priority issue for the U.S., compared to 15 percent who said it shouldn’t be a priority.”

  39. generic commenter @136.
    That NYT graphing tool you link to is indeed quite rubbish at showing warming. And it also appears to be a bit unreliable to boot.
    The Hurn Met station is my local one & features in the tool here.
    As far as showing warming, these max/min temperature graphs are always pretty rubbish. Note the December 2015 values for Hurn. As with the rest of southern England, December at Hurn was a proper record-breaker, head-&-shoulders above any previous December and 6.2ºC above average for the month (1957 to date). Yet on the NYT graph December doesn’t exactly leap, off the screen at you.
    The other thing of note is the rainfall data. August 2015 was wet but not that wet. The NYT graphic should show 5.39″ but instead gives a monsoon-like 8.42″. And August is mainly a dry month on the south coast of UK (although there are the first signs of a change that the bucket-&-spade industry will not be happy with). From the Met Office Hurn data, the average Hurn August rainfall is 2.3″ not the 4.2″ shown on the graphic. The annual average rainfall for Hurn shown is also very wrong, 33″ not 48″.
    Such error don’t not instil much confidence, do it?

  41. #139 MARodger

    “Such error don’t not instil much confidence, do it?”

    No, I agree, it quite rubbish don’t it?

  42. Getting warmer at the top of the planet than elsewhere. Sea lanes opening, drilling and mining opportunities are opening up. Looks like an economic opportunity: http://arctic-news.blogspot.com/2016/02/has-maximum-sea-ice-extent-already-been-reached-this-year.html

    what is the worst that could happen if global heat increase really concentrates at the top of the planet?

    CO2 yesterday 403.91, was 399.50 on Feb 19 2015

    January 2016 was hottest on record with anomaly of 1.13 degrees C.

    These are data points. Yes, we are in an El Nino and we should expect to see some leveling off or reduction in rate of increase when the El Nino subsides, but a reduction in rate of increase is not a decrease, it is still an increase.

    I think the handwriting is on the wall, but I recognize that scientific method proceeds by processes other than reading the walls.

    Warm regards to all

  43. The peak date for maximum Arctic ice area is occurring earlier and earlier every year – providing additional days of ice melt.

    This year looks like Arctic ice area will peak in 6 days, around Feb 27th.

  44. #142

    4ppm-ish above last year is expected due to 2ppm El Nino boost. Above 4.3ppm over last year, there might be something worth discussing.

  45. #143–“The peak date for maximum Arctic ice area is occurring earlier and earlier every year…”

    Don’t have time to recheck just now, but I’m pretty sure that is incorrect. IIRC, we had a record-late maximum just a couple of years ago.

    I believe a more accurate summation would be “The peak date for maximum Arctic ice area tends to occur earlier and earlier…”

    I’d be very interested to know the basis for the prediction of a Feb. 27 max.

  46. HadCRUT4 for January is posted at +0.894ºC, it being less “scorchyissimo” with a drop on December of 0.11ºC, a bigger drop than NOAA’s drop of 0.08ºC.(Gistemp rose by 0.02ºC .) The comparisons for last years, HadCRUT for January 2016 is 0.206ºC up on January 2015 (NOAA 0.23ºC , GISS 0.32ºC ) and 0.148ºC above the average for the year 2015 (NOAA 0.146ºC , GISS.0.268ºC).

    The El Nino continues apace with a comparison with the 1997/98 event graphed here (usually 2 clicks to ‘download your attachment’). Other indices, NINO3.4 shows none of the drop that had begun by this time in 1997/98. SOI has returned to a vigorous negative value after a bit of a rest & the El Nino predictions are showing a longer lasting event than they did last month (by a week or so).

  48. The daily CO2 levels are pretty useless in terms of understanding what is going on, but as a comparison exercise, I think they have some utility when paired with the same calendar date on a previous year.

    For example:

    Feb 21 2016 405.01
    Feb 21 2015 400.67

    increase of 4.34 ppm, not good. but

    month of January 2016 was 402.52
    month of January 2015 was 399.96 for

    increase of 2.56 ppm – in the range that is expected, so that’s good, right?

    My sense is that the expected range of increase exposes us to unforeseen perturbations in a very complex climate system. The geological record suggests abrupt changes in state of the global climate in the past. My sense is that climate scientists are rightly conservative about trying to incorporate abrupt changes, tipping points into projection models and the result is that the mainstream scientific community’s projections about the rate of actual change, the impact of that change, etc. has consistently been on the low end of actual change when we look back.

    Scientists may get testy when this is pointed out. That is human nature and I understand human nature better than I understand the jet stream or sunspots, but I do hope that scientists can overcome their pique when their conservative failings are noted and adjust accordingly. I have not seen much of that, but I continue to hope for a meaningful exchange of ideas on that and I recognize that we may not know when we have loaded the straw that breaks the camel’s back. That straw parable also applies to the CO2 levels. If there are abrupt changes that happen when climate state changes, we may not be able to look back and identify the cause with any certainty, but given what we know, to look at the CO2 levels on a regular basis and to raise alarm about the continuous rise (whether in expected or unexpected range)seems like a good idea to me.

    A question about the wisdom/ability of any species to avoid the boiling frog result arises in my mind. If a dangerous increase occurs at a sufficiently slow rate of increase, frogs are likely to stay in hot water too long.

    405.01 seemed fine yesterday. I was enjoying a beautiful day walking around Portland, Oregon. No worries.

  49. A good way to put it I read today: “information could be presented simply, clearly, without the technical or bureaucratic language or scientific nuance that so often interferes with effective risk communication.

    Bill Gates on Charlie Rose pointed out a problem I hadn’t thought of: People who think GW is easy to solve if utility companies would just get out of the way. Utility companies are not in the way. GW is not easy to solve.