In my post below debunking the false notion that meteorologists have developed a habit in recent years of repeatedly “crying wolf” about the number of hurricanes that will form each season, several commenters raised an argument that I’ve heard several times before, and which, like the “cry wolf” perception, deserves some additional scrutiny. Their question is essentially this: If scientists can’t even reliably predict how many tropical storms will form each season (for instance, Dr. Gray’s forecasts were off by between 1 and 3 storms every year from 2000-2004, by 13 storms in 2005, and by 7 storms in 2006), how can we possibly trust their long-term predictions about climate change?
This question focuses on one obvious difference between seasonal hurricane projections and global-warming forecasts (namely, the much longer-term nature of the latter) but ignores other crucial differences — not least the difference between “climate” and “weather,” a distinction that both sides have a bad habit of conveniently ignoring when it suits their purposes. Most importantly, the question assumes that forecasts will always become less reliable as the forecasted time period becomes more remote, which while perhaps intuitively sensible, is a vast oversimplification.
You have to look at what is being forecasted, not just when the forecast is for. How precise, specific, and subject to random, unpredictable variations is the phenomenon at the heart of the forecast? For instance, a prediction for whether it will rain at some point tomorrow is probably going to be more accurate than a prediction for precisely what the rain rate will be at 3:47 PM today, even though the latter forecast deals with a more imminent event. Why? Because predicting whether something will happen during the course of 24 hours is easier than predicting exactly what will be happening at a particular moment in time. The latter is largely determined not just by big-picture meteorological phenomena (cold fronts, low pressure systems, etc.) but also by near-random localized events and tiny variations in timing, which are unpredictable and insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but can make all the difference when it comes to what the weather will be in a particular place at a particular time.
Global-warming forecasts are largely focused on determining the average temperature of the Earth at various points in the future. The average temperature of the Earth is about the broadest, most nonspecific measuring stick possible in meteorology and climatology. It isn’t subject to the sort of random variables that arise when predicting individual weather events, because the random events will generally even themselves out over the broad swaths of time we’re talking about. Thus, the computer models have a better chance of getting it right, because they only need to look at the big-picture factors. They don’t have to “sweat the small stuff,” if you will.
By contrast, when forecasting how many tropical storms will form per season, the “small stuff” is very relevant. In essence, seasonal hurricane forecasts are a long-term (or medium-term) prediction of short-term events: they seek to ascertain how many short-term events of a certain type will occur over the course of a lengthy period of time. This hybrid of short-term and longer-term forecasting is problematic, because the formation and progress of a particular tropical cyclone can hinge on such “small-picture” factors as the location of a small pocket of dry air, the timing of an eyewall replacement cycle, or the vagaries of steering currents that might incidentally take a storm’s center 20 miles to the east or west (thus hitting land or not, passing over the Loop Current or not, etc.) — all of which are totally impossible to predict months in advance. But since the seasonal hurricane forecasts are judged by simply tallying up individual storms, these short-term variations are highly relevant to the “success” or “failure” of a seasonal forecast.
Medium-term factors are also very relevant to seasonal hurricane forecasts: the timing of ENSO events, the amount of Saharan dust, etc. These phenomena are somewhat more predictable months in advance than the nearly random short-term events mentioned above, but they’re still hard to predict precisely, especially when a variation of 30 days here or there can totally alter the forecast. For instance, a big part of last year’s forecast failure was that El Niño lasted a bit longer than expected. Scientists didn’t totally miss the boat in their predictions: they knew El Niño was there, and that it would end soon. They were just a few months off in predicting when that would happen. But those few months made all the difference. That wouldn’t be the case in global warming forecasts: a few months don’t amount to a hill of means when you’re measuring (or predicting) the average temperature of the Earth over a 10-year or 30-year or 100-year period.
Look, I’m not making an argument here that global-warming forecasts are reliable. (That’s a different post for a different day.) I’m just saying that the difficulty of making medium-term weather forecasts, such as annual hurricane projections, doesn’t prove that longer-term climate forecasts are unreliable. They might be unreliable, but the argument that’s being advanced doesn’t actually demonstrate this. It doesn’t prove what it purports to prove.
It isn’t as simple as saying, “The weatherman can’t even predict the weather next week or the number of hurricanes next year, so how can he possibly predict the climate in 100 years?” Again, you’ve got to consider what’s being predicted — and when predicting the Earth’s average temperature, a lot of the random factors that play such havoc with short- and medium-term forecasts can be essentially ignored. So, a prediction of the Earth’s average temperature in 100 years may well be more accurate than a prediction of how many hurricanes will form in the next few months. I’m not saying it is more accurate, necessarily, but it’s certainly not outlandish to think that it might be, considering how much more heavily subject to random variables the latter prediction is.
[Caveat: I’m not an expert in this stuff. I’m speaking from my lay knowledge of weather and climate, combined with a healthy dose of common sense. If someone with more knowledge on the topic believes that something I’ve said is scientifically flawed, I welcome correction.]
P.S. New Scientist has a more scientific statement of precisely what I’m saying:
You cannot predict the exact path a ball will take as it bounces through a pinball machine. But you can predict that the average score will change if the entire machine is tilted.
Similarly, while we cannot predict the weather in a particular place and on a particular day in 100 years time, we can be sure that on average it will be far warmer if greenhouse gases continue to rise.
While weather and to some extent climate are chaotic systems, that does not mean that either are entirely unpredictable…
The unpredictable character of chaotic systems arises from their sensitivity to any change in the conditions that control their development. What we call the weather is a highly detailed mix of events that happen in a particular locality on any particular day – rainfall, temperature, humidity and so on – and its development can vary wildly with small changes in a few of these variables.
Climate, however, is the bigger picture of a region’s weather: the average, over 30 years (according to the World Meteorological Association’s definition), of the weather pattern in a region. While weather changes fast on human timescales, climate changes fairly slowly. Getting reasonably accurate predictions is a matter of choosing the right timescale: days in the case of weather, decades in the case of climate.
(Emphases added.) That’s part of a good feature from a few months back, debunking a whole bunch of myths in the global warming debate. Worth reading.
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Categories: 2007 Hurricane Season
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August 14th, 2007 at 4:46:54 pm
“we can be sure that on average it will be far warmer if greenhouse gases continue to rise”
Why? According to ice core data, CO2 increased after the temperature rise, not before.
In simple terms, more CO2 escapes from a warm bottle of pop than a cold one.
August 14th, 2007 at 4:47:52 pm
One word: Venus.
But this post isn’t about whether global warming is right or wrong. It’s about whether a particular argument that keeps getting used by global-warming skeptics on this blog is right or wrong. And it’s wrong, on its face, intrinsically, regardless of the merits of the rest of their case, and regardless of any other debatable aspects of climate science, because it fundamentally misunderstands the difference between medium-term predictions of short-term events and long-term predictions of long-term events. Even if the skeptics’ conclusion is 100% accurate, the argument “The weatherman can’t even predict the weather next week or the number of hurricanes next year, so how can he possibly predict the climate in 100 years?” would still be 100% wrong, so long as it ignores that difference. I don’t want to get side-tracked from that point, because otherwise the inherent faultiness of that argument won’t sink in, and it’ll keep cropping up in the future. So let’s try to stay on-topic, for at least, oh, 5 or 6 comments. ;)
August 14th, 2007 at 5:06:32 pm
Another interesting fact is the modification of climate data from US weather station to FIT the Global Warming religion.
This post ouches on it:
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/08/1934-and-all-that/#comment-47173
August 14th, 2007 at 5:12:58 pm
From the previous post: “The perception is based on one data point, namely the 2006 season, which is obviously not enough to demonstrate a trend or pattern.”
But 6 data points is. Right.
August 14th, 2007 at 5:15:16 pm
Brendan, they’ve been “correcting” the raw data to fit their preconceived theory.
There is NO global warming that is different than historical ups and downs.
If you use “corrected” data — that has the cooler temperatures thrown out — to predict the future, you will predict warming..
If you made a prediction in 1934, you might predict a much hotter 40’s and 50’s. Would they have predicted a cooling trend from 1955 onwards?
If you made a prediction in 1970, you would have predicted global cooling.
It all depends on how you define “long-term”. 10 years? 25? 100? 4 of the last 10 years were cooler than 1900. And maybe all the recent data has been fudged by throwing out many of the cooler temps.
August 14th, 2007 at 5:33:57 pm
“Getting reasonably accurate predictions is a matter of choosing the right timescale: days in the case of weather, decades in the case of climate.”
Thats assuming you pick the right decades and that climate is linear and unchanging. But over decades in the last century, temperatures went up and down. They didn’t just go up and they didn’t just go down.
August 14th, 2007 at 5:41:15 pm
But 6 data points is. Right.
Jim, I never said it was!! Show me where I argued for a “trend” in the opposite direction! I was merely debunking the argument that there is a trend in the direction others are claiming. Good grief. My final conclusion was: “a record of overestimating the number of storms in 6 of the last 7 years is enough to dispel the notion of a recent ‘cry wolf’ pattern.” I didn’t say it’s enough to suggest the opposite pattern (i.e., that scientists have developed a habit of underestimating the number of storms); I merely said it’s enough to debunk the claimed pattern of overestimating the number.
However, I gather from your statement that you agree that a single data point isn’t enough to create a trend (certainly you must think this, since if six isn’t enough, then one can’t be), so I presume you will refrain from making any arguments implying a “cry wolf” trend in recent hurricane seasonal forecasts? And perhaps you could let some of your fellow skeptics know that they, too, should refrain from making such arguments?
In the mean time, if anyone would actually respond to anything I actually said in this post, instead of just repeating irrelevant (even if true!) anti-global-warming dogma, that would be fantastic. I’ll say it again, since several of you seem unclear on the concept: Even if global warming isn’t happening — even if you’re entirely right on the underlying issue — the commonly expressed argument that “the weatherman can’t even predict the weather next week or the number of hurricanes next year, so how can he possibly predict the climate in 100 years?” would still be 100% wrong, because it fundamentally misunderstands (or ignores) the difference between medium-term predictions of short-term events and long-term predictions of long-term events. This (I repeat) is true even if you’re right that global warming doesn’t exist, so it will do NOTHING for your cause to argue, as people have been doing thus far, “But we’re right that global warming doesn’t exist!” I don’t care, for present purposes, whether it does or not — that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about a particular argument against global warming’s existence that is fatally flawed on its face, and needs to drop out of the discourse. So, if somebody on the skeptics’ side would please disavow that bogus argument before bringing up other, possibly-more-meritorious-but-irrelevant-to-my-point arguments against global warming, I’d really appreciate it.
August 14th, 2007 at 6:56:41 pm
But 6 data points is. Right.
It might be actually, it depends on a number of factors. One data point however is just about never enough to draw any meaningful conclusions.
August 14th, 2007 at 7:17:04 pm
David K:
Why can’t they build a computer model that can be set to 1900, and then run forward to 2000 that accurately and repeatedly portrays the climate/temperature of the last 100 years without tweaks and modifications?
Secondly, since they can’t..why should we believe the models for the next 100 years?
August 14th, 2007 at 7:24:25 pm
Brendan:
You keep arguing all around the point of the arguements.
1) Set aside the scientists like Dr. Gray. Have the MSM and the global warming movement been predicting longer, stronger and more numerous hurricane seasons the last several years?
2) Have these predictions been accurate?
3) Has the MSM or the global warming movement been forced to account for these predictions?
4) Can the climatologists produce a computer model that can be set to the conditions of 1900 and then run forward to 2000 and accurately predict what the climate and temperature actually was without “adjustments” to the data output?
August 14th, 2007 at 7:26:05 pm
Gahrie:
I’ve read alternate accounts that say you are wrong about this — that there are indeed some computer models that can accurately project from the past to the present.
But, leaving that aside, what do you think of my point in this post? Wouldn’t you agree that a one-to-one equivalence between medium-term predictions of short-term events and long-term predictions of long-term events is fatally flawed, for the reasons I’ve stated here? And wouldn’t you therefore acknowledge that statements like “not even the experts can accurately predict the weather or the climate in the near future, let alone in historical timeframes” are, at best, vast oversimplifications of a very complex issue?
August 14th, 2007 at 7:39:32 pm
Brendan - the reason that you are getting so much perceived resistance to your central point - “And wouldn’t you therefore acknowledge that statements like “not even the experts can accurately predict the weather or the climate in the near future, let alone in historical timeframes” are, at best, vast oversimplifications of a very complex issue?” - is that it is basically a truism - and, as such, not particularly susceptible to interesting debate … most basic truths *are* very simple …
I would very much appreciate a cite to wherever was/is yoursource for “I’ve read alternate accounts that say you are wrong about this — that there are indeed some computer models that can accurately project from the past to the present.” … cuz I haven’t found ‘em … nor, it seems has gahrie … perhaps a Wiser head ?
August 14th, 2007 at 7:41:32 pm
Brendan:
I am willing to concede the fact that just because weather forcasters and hurricane forcasters cannot accurately predict the future using computer models, this does not automatically mean that climate prediction models of the future are also inaccurate. However I will also note that it does nothing to dissprove that assumption either.
Why aren’t you willing to acknowledge that the global warming skeptics have a right to trumpet the inaccuracies of the global warming movement and the MSM? Surely the accuracy of one side’s predictions and pronouncements should have some bearing on the strength of their underlying arguement and be valid in assessing the accuracy of that arguement?
On the accuracy of computer climate models:
http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20070804/mathtrek.asp
August 14th, 2007 at 8:31:00 pm
Thanks, Gahrie. And of course you’re right that my points in this thread haven’t disproven the possibility that long-term climate projections might be inaccurate. But then, they were never intended to. I intended only to demonstrate that, if you want to prove that long-term climate predictions are inaccurate, you need to do more than point to inaccuracies in short- and medium-term weather predictions and say, “See?” In fact, doing that doesn’t really help your argument at all. But yeah, if you can marshal other evidence to make the point, then be my guest. Talking about the alleged inaccuracy of the climate models themselves, for example, is totally relevant and on point.
Why aren’t you willing to acknowledge that the global warming skeptics have a right to trumpet the inaccuracies of the global warming movement and the MSM?
Huh? I have never denied this, so I don’t see why I should have to “acknowledge” it. But if it makes you feel any better, I’ll acknowledge it explicitly: global warming skeptics have a right to trumpet the inaccuracies of the global warming movement and the MSM. There, happy? :) Of course, the global warming movement and the MSM have a right to rebut that “trumpeting,” if they believe it’s inaccurate.
Here are some other links on the accuracy of computer climate models:
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change/dn11649
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/05/hansens-1988-projections/
August 14th, 2007 at 8:50:05 pm
Gahrie, I had missed your 7:24 comment until now. I assume that’s what you’re referencing in asking me to “acknowledge” that skeptics have the right to “trumpet…inaccuracies.” Okay. Let me try and address your questions in turn.
1) Set aside the scientists like Dr. Gray. Have the MSM and the global warming movement been predicting longer, stronger and more numerous hurricane seasons the last several years?
Yes. However, no credible members of the “global warming movement” have suggested that all hurricane seasons henceforth will be “longer, stronger and more numerous.” What they’ve said is that, in the coming years and decades, that will be the increasing trend.
2) Have these predictions been accurate?
It’s far too early to say. There has only been one full hurricane season since the proliferation of the “predictions” you’re talking about, and a single below-average season (2006) does very little, if anything, to disprove the predictions, or even detract from them. Stack together 3 or 4 below-average seasons in a row, and you may have something, but a single outlier season does not a trend make. (Similarly, if 2005 were the only above-average season in recent years, it wouldn’t mean anything. But it’s not.)
It’s also worth noting that 2006 was below-average primarily because of the timing of El Niño and an abundance of Saharan dust — two short-term (or medium-term) factors that really have nothing to do with long-term climate trends. In other words, the events of the 2006 season tell us nothing about global warming, or about the impact of higher ocean temperatures on hurricanes. All they tell us is that ENSO events (e.g., El Niño) have a major effect on Atlantic hurricanes (which we already knew), and that an abundance of Saharan dust will tend to damper tropical development (which we already knew).
Frankly, by obsessing over the slightly below-average 2006 tropical season, which is a single data point (not a trend) and which can be very easily explained by factors that have absolutely nothing to do with global warming (or its absence), you’re making yourself look rather foolish. This argument is just a total non-starter. (And don’t even try to start talking about 2007 as bolstering 2006’s non-existent trend. As I keep saying, it’s way, way, way too early to pass judgment on the ‘07 season. Absurdly early.)
3) Has the MSM or the global warming movement been forced to account for these predictions?
As I said, there is really nothing for them to be “forced to account for.” Well, okay, if we’re talking about the MSM, then yes, various media outlets and “journalists” should certainly be held to account for numerous instances where they have sensationalized legitimate science and failed to provide any context in which it can be understood properly (by global-warming skeptics and believers alike). I believe I myself lambasted the media for this in my previous post. But that’s more sensationalism and laziness than bias or conspiracy, IMHO. In any event, as for the “global warming movement,” there is nothing to “hold them to account” for, at this point. The credible, serious predictions of the “global warming movement” were not disproven, or even really shaken, by the events of 2006, because nobody credible predicted there wouldn’t still be some below-average seasons from time to time. Such a prediction would be patently ridiculous.
Now then, some fringe idiots in the “global warming movement” have doubtless said, or implied, just such a ridiculous thing. If you dig around the Internet, I’m sure you can find somebody saying in 2005 that every hurricane season will be terrible from now on. For those people, 2006 is indeed an embarrassment. So, if you want to use it to pillory them, then fine, go right ahead. But if you point to 2006 as evidence that all global warming believers are wrong, and you base this statement on the fringe idiots’ statements that all hurricane seasons without exception would henceforth be terrible, then you’re no better than people who point to the fringe racists in the anti-illegal-immigration movement and say, “See! They’re a bunch of racists!”
4) Can the climatologists produce a computer model that can be set to the conditions of 1900 and then run forward to 2000 and accurately predict what the climate and temperature actually was without “adjustments” to the data output?
I don’t know. I believe I’ve read that they can, but I don’t know for sure, and I suspect there is probably some controversy about the nature of the “adjustments” you’re talking about, and whether they actually impact the validity of the studies. But anyway this is not my area of quasi-expertise, and it’s not really relevant to the points I’ve been trying to make.
August 14th, 2007 at 8:56:55 pm
Brendan:
Your articles actually prove my point. Take the conclusion of the second arguement:
My assessment is that the model results were as consistent with the real world over this period as could possibly be expected and are therefore a useful demonstration of the model’s consistency with the real world. Thus when asked whether any climate model forecasts ahead of time have proven accurate, this comes as close as you get.
1) “Consistent as could possibly be expected”. Notably not “consistent”. As expected by whom?
2) “comes as close as you can get” is far from “accurately and repeatedly predicts the future”.
Both articles were full of arcane discussions of adjustments and qualifers like “pretty good” and the aforementioned “as good as can possibly be expected”.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:02:03 pm
Are you expecting the models to be perfect, Gahrie? I would assume that “consistent as could possibly be expected” and “pretty good” and “as close as you can get” are all ways of saying that the models were pretty damn accurate but not perfect. No computer model prediction is going to be perfect, and they don’t need to be. If the models say the Earth is going to warm by 10 degrees on average, and the previous model runs suggest there is a margin of error where it might be 8 degrees or it might be 12, that would suggest that the models are good enough to be worth taking seriously, since any warming result in that range would be quite bad!
Now, I made those numbers up, but from what I understand, that is precisely what’s going on with the global-warming models: there is broad agreement that warming will occur to a significant event, and the main question is just how significant it will be. I have often referred to this, in comments here, as “debate around the margins.” The scientists freely acknowledge that the models have a large margin of error — but the predicted warming is extreme enough that all data points within the margin of error still represent significant global warming.
But as I said, this is not my area of quasi-expertise, and I don’t feel nearly as strongly about it as I do about my peripheral points, which while less important in the grand scheme of things, allow much less room for debate. In other words, I’m clearly right about them, so I’m going to keep harping on them until everyone acknowledges my supreme rightness. ;)
August 14th, 2007 at 9:08:26 pm
So, if you want to use it to pillory them, then fine, go right ahead. But if you point to 2006 as evidence that all global warming believers are wrong, and you base this statement on the fringe idiots’ statements that all hurricane seasons without exception would henceforth be terrible, then you’re no better than people who point to the fringe racists in the anti-illegal-immigration movement and say, “See! They’re a bunch of racists!”
What do you think the reaction of the global warming movement would have been if 2006 or 2007 had been a huge year for destructive hurricanes? Do you think that they would be holding them up as evidence of global warming? Would they have been right to do so? Isn’t that exactly what they did with 2005?
It’s also worth noting that 2006 was below-average primarily because of the timing of El Niño and an abundance of Saharan dust — two short-term (or medium-term) factors that really have nothing to do with long-term climate trends.
Why? Aren’t El Nino and Saharan dust storms both affected by climate? Isn’t it entirely possible that these two forms of weather as just as affected by any global warming as hurricanes, and might indeed be the way that the Earth’s climate is self-correcting?
August 14th, 2007 at 9:19:15 pm
1) I always return to GIGO when it comes to computer models. For instance most models are based on the premise that CO2 causes global warming, when the historical record seems to show a rise in CO2 after warming has occurred.
2) I have never denied that the Earth may be warming. Indeed I would be a fool to do so, given the clear historical and geological record that the Earth naturally and regularly cools and warms. Indeed, since the whole Solar System is warming, I think it is highly probably that the Earth is warming. I simply maintain that we still don’t understand why, and definitely cannot ascribe it to the actions of man.
3) Most scientists will admit that geologically we are in the middle of an ice age, but that we are in a warm interregnum.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:21:58 pm
Yes, they did hold up 2005, and they were… well… I’m not going to say “wrong,” entirely, because it’s complicated. To the extent that they were holding up 2005 as an illustrative example of what the future might hold, that’s fine. To the extent they were holding it up as evidence of what the future might hold, that’s wrong. It’s a fine line, and I admit that plenty of people crossed it. But how does that justify you and your fellow skeptics willfully trampling all over the same line, without any justification for doing so? (You can’t claim you were holding up 2006 as an “example,” because it isn’t an example of anything you’re talking about; you aren’t trying to convince people to take seriously the threat of weak hurricane seasons in the future!)
As for your second point, that’s an interesting hypothesis… or would be, if it were actually a hypothesis. But in reality, you’re just making sh*t up. If you want to show me some sort of evidence to support that idea, be my guest. As it stands, however, I will continue to assume that mundane examples of short- and medium-term phenomena like ENSO events and dust storms, which have been happening since we started tracking hurricanes, are nothing to write home about.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:22:28 pm
I might go back and read some of this discussion later, but I did want to point out that James Taranto came across this lovely article which suggests much of the data being cited in all the global warming may be flat-out wrong due to algorithm errors in the computer formulas.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:23:30 pm
Um, I don’t think there’s any doubt that high levels of CO2 cause warming. There’s a reason they call them “greenhouse gases.” We can argue about the extent, but as to the bare fact? I don’t think it’s possible to maintain the contrary proposition with a straight face. I say again, one word: Venus.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:24:42 pm
P.S. Did you mean to say “definitely cannot ascribe,” or “cannot definitely ascribe”?
August 14th, 2007 at 9:27:20 pm
Or perhaps “definitely cannot definitely ascribe”? ;)
August 14th, 2007 at 9:41:39 pm
Um, I don’t think there’s any doubt that high levels of CO2 cause warming. There’s a reason they call them “greenhouse gases.” We can argue about the extent, but as to the bare fact? I don’t think it’s possible to maintain the contrary proposition with a straight face. I say again, one word: Venus.
Damn it Brendan, I guess I’ll jump in right now then. No one truly disputes CO2 is a heat-trapping gas, but given that it constitutes something like .04% of our atmosphere, its effects are vastly overstated by proponents of the global warming argument — especially when compared to water vapor and other greenhouse gases found in larger concentrations.
Also, the Venus reference is moronic. I’ll reply with one word why it’s not a valid comparison solely on the basis of CO2 content: Mars.
August 14th, 2007 at 9:51:26 pm
From a pro-global warming site:
Are El Niños related to Global Warming?
El Niños are not caused by global warming. Clear evidence exists from a variety of sources (including archaeological studies) that El Niños have been present for hundreds, and some indicators suggest maybe millions, of years. However, it has been hypothesized that warmer global sea surface temperatures can enhance the El Niño phenomenon, and it is also true that El Niños have been more frequent and intense in recent decades. Recent climate model results that simulate the 21st century with increased greenhouse gases suggest that El Niño-like sea surface temperature patterns in the tropical Pacific are likely to be more persistent.
http://lwf.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/globalwarming.html
August 14th, 2007 at 9:55:42 pm
In thus considering the seven greatest temperature transitions of the past half-million years - three glacial terminations and four glacial inceptions - we note that increases and decreases in atmospheric CO2 concentration not only did not precede the changes in air temperature, they followed them, and by hundreds to thousands of years! There were also long periods of time when atmospheric CO2 remained unchanged, while air temperature dropped, as well as times when the air’s CO2 content dropped, while air temperature remained unchanged or actually rose. Hence, the climate history of the past half-million years provides absolutely no evidence to suggest that the ongoing rise in the air’s CO2 concentration will lead to significant global warming.
http://www.co2science.org/scripts/CO2ScienceB2C/about/position/globalwarming.jsp
August 14th, 2007 at 10:01:45 pm
By the way, what gas makes up 95% of all greenhouse gases, yet is totally ignored in almost every study or discussion of global warming?
Give up?
Answer: water vapor. And since water vapor is almost totally a product of natural processes, everybody attempts to ignore the elephant on the middle of the room.
August 14th, 2007 at 10:09:55 pm
Sandstorms are caused by strong winds blowing over loose soil or sand, and picking up so much of that material that visibility is reduced. In desert regions at certain times of the year, sandstorms become more frequent because the strong heating of the air over the desert causes the lower atmosphere to become unstable. This instability mixes higher winds in the middle troposphere downward, producing stronger winds at the surface
Hmm…I wonder if a warming climate is more likely to increase the frequency and intensity of “the strong heating of the air”?
http://www.weatherquestions.com/What_causes_sandstorms.htm
August 14th, 2007 at 10:11:02 pm
As for your second point, that’s an interesting hypothesis… or would be, if it were actually a hypothesis. But in reality, you’re just making sh*t up. If you want to show me some sort of evidence to support that idea, be my guest.
Ask, and ye shall receive.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:15:42 pm
Wow, there really are people devoted to the cause of saving the world from saving the world.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:41:52 pm
By the way, what gas makes up 95% of all greenhouse gases, yet is totally ignored in almost every study or discussion of global warming?
Give up?
Answer: water vapor. And since water vapor is almost totally a product of natural processes, everybody attempts to ignore the elephant on the middle of the room.
Actually Gahrie, no one is ignoring it because its been stable. And on top of that, like many other things it doesn’t take a dramatic increase in the gasses to cause significant change because of HOW global warming works, but i suppose you haven’t taken the time to study that. You don’t need massive amounts of increased gasses to increase the greenhouse effect. Yet again you are blowing out hot air, and you have no problem doing so because you don’t give a damn at what effect it has.
August 15th, 2007 at 12:20:38 am
Baloney. We were promised MORE and BIGGER storms, and we’re not getting more or bigger storms.
It’s now been two and a half seasons without any storms to speak of.
How long do we have to allow these gaps to exist before we count them?
Count them now.
(You need to read up on particle physics. Venus is irrelevant to Earth atmosphere. Science magazine is wrong to be so certain about rising temperatures. As concentrations of any greenhouse gas rise, each increment warms less, because a molecule can handle only a finite number of photons. So instead of accelerating, the curve decelerates.)
August 15th, 2007 at 12:31:41 am
Wow, there really are people devoted to the cause of saving the world from saving the world.
Nope. just busy saving the world (more importantly saving the United States) from busybodies trying to control the economy and tell other people how to live.
August 15th, 2007 at 12:34:57 am
two and a half seasons without any storms to speak of
ROFL!!
Yeah, those 28 storms in 2005 — including Katrina, Rita, and Wilma — were “nothing to speak of.”
You may want to double-check your math.
(Gahrie, I’ll respond to you later. For now, I say only: Touché.)
August 15th, 2007 at 12:39:53 am
P.S. For the record, Harry, it’s been about 1.2 seasons without any storms to speak of. The 1 is, of course, 2006; the .2 is this season to date, based on the fact that, historically, roughly one-sixth of all hurricanes form prior to August 15. (Technically one-sixth is .167, but I’m being generous.)
I don’t know much about much, but I know that 1.2 is not 2.5. But “one and one-sixth of a season without any storms to speak of” just doesn’t sound as impressive, does it? So I guess you had no choice but to fudge the numbers. Way to defeat your own argument… hilarious.
By the way - I have a sneaking suspicion that Dean is going to be a “storm to speak of.” So I don’t think we’re going to get much beyond 1.2.
August 15th, 2007 at 12:42:39 am
P.P.S. Oh yeah, and there were actually two major hurricanes last year: Gordon and Helene. That they stayed out to sea might mean that they were “nothing to speak of” from our narrow human perspective, but from the Earth’s perspective, it makes no difference: they were still major hurricanes. They still “count” in terms of assessing whether the ocean is churning out major hurricanes.
You are just so wrong on so many different levels, Harry. Math, science, common sense, basic grasp of reality…
August 15th, 2007 at 12:49:48 am
I say again, one word: Venus.
And I’ll echo Andrew: Mars.
Specifically: Mars receives about 40% as much solar radiation as Earth does, because it’s farther away. But Mars has sixteen times as much carbon dioxide as Earth has. Therefore Mars is a warm planet, no? After all, CO2 is such an effective greenhouse gas…
As to your original point — yeah, it’s in several senses dishonest to try to make a point that way. But we all know very well that if the opposite were the case, if there were in fact more hurricanes than “normal”, the warmenists would be crowing like a coop full of roosters. If the pros can do it, the antis are equally privileged.
Regards,
Ric
August 15th, 2007 at 12:56:03 am
If the pros can do it, the antis are equally privileged.
I have a better idea. How about we criticize both sides when they do it? That’s my strategy, and I think it’s much more intellectually honest than yours.
I don’t see how it benefits the “antis” to combat lies with lies. If you think you’ve got the truth on your side, use it! Fight lies with truth. Especially considering that this strategy of relying on an absence of recent storms to make your case is inevitably going to blow up in your face — possibly next week.
August 15th, 2007 at 12:58:40 am
David K:
Unfortunately, NASA disagrees with you:
A NASA-funded study found some climate models might be overestimating the amount of water vapor entering the atmosphere as the Earth warms. Since water vapor is the most important heat-trapping greenhouse gas in our atmosphere, some climate forecasts may be overestimating future temperature increases.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2004/0315humidity.html
August 15th, 2007 at 1:13:25 am
Just a bit of historical significance:
D.C. resident John Lockwood was conducting research at the Library of Congress and came across an intriguing Page 2 headline in the Nov. 2, 1922 edition of The Washington Post: “Arctic Ocean Getting Warm; Seals Vanish and Icebergs Melt.”
The 1922 article, obtained by Inside the Beltway, goes on to mention “great masses of ice have now been replaced by moraines of earth and stones,” and “at many points well-known glaciers have entirely disappeared.”
http://www.washingtontimes.com/article/20070814/NATION02/108140063
August 15th, 2007 at 2:08:21 am
“I’ve read alternate accounts that say you are wrong about this — that there are indeed some computer models that can accurately project from the past to the present.”
Not without cheating. No one can build an accurate model of a problem with thousands of free variables. What makes me laugh is they always say they are using the latest “Super computers”. Any CS major knows that the complexity of these problems makes the type of computer you are using completely irrelevant. Notice that no one ever releases the source code to these so called “accurate models” ?
August 15th, 2007 at 2:50:53 am
gahrie, did you happen to notice that the very study you are quoting talks about the Earth warming and that they might be overestimating future temperature increases. Even if they are overestimating, that would still mean the temperatures ARE increasing. Nice try though.
August 15th, 2007 at 9:13:29 am
David K:
I have never said the Earth isn’t warming. See post #19 in this thread.
August 15th, 2007 at 10:03:29 am
No, Brendan, I don’t think the procedure I outlined is the optimum way, or even a good way, to debate. I do think that it’s inevitable that it will be used, on both sides, both sincerely by the stupid and ignorant and ironically by the more knowledgeable, and that it’s like any other weapon — if one side declares that weapon X will not be used, it means that the other side has an easier time of it because they can discard whole branches of the decision tree vis-a-vis counters to weapons and can use that weapon freely knowing their opponents are less likely to have an effective counter.
Underneath that is a meta-issue: the terms of the “warming” debate. If all we were talking about was a few fractional degrees of warming or cooling and the sources (and evidence for sources) of it, we’d have a nice scientific and pseudoscientific argument, an MMRPG with lots of participants — fun. But that’s not what’s going on.
The warmenists are using the “debate” as a “hook” for the Same Old Agenda; the Earth is Warming, It Will Be A Disaster, and the only way to counter it is some massive upheaval in our lifestyles, ranging (in different cases) from appointing Al Gore Supreme Overlord of the Solar System and issuing a Patent of Nobility to anybody with tenure, to dumping Western Civilization lock, stock, and car keys into the Marianas Trench and setting off nukes to encourage plate movement. That group can not be argued with on a scientific basis, and will take any argument made from science and twist it — any argument, whether or not made in good faith, that allows that they might be right in some small particular will be pounced on and amplified into a full-court press by the entire Movement to put all SUV owners up against the wall, whereas any evidence, however strong, that they might be wrong in any way will be ignored, attacked, and/or discredited on irrelevant grounds, usually some form of ad hominem. The very existence of the “denialist” idea shows that — “denial” (that is, falsification) is not just a part of science, it is a necessary part and arguably a definitional requirement; calling skeptics “deniers” and attacking them on those grounds turns the whole wretched mess into a religious issue, not a scientific one.
Fighting fire with fire is dangerous and accepts doing damage as a way to try to avoid greater damage, not anybody’s first choice. But sometimes it’s necessary.
Regards,
Ric
August 15th, 2007 at 11:28:07 am
To go back to the original point, I DO make that argument, but only as part of a larger argument that they simply don’t understand the way the system works (which is quite apparent, if one attempts to follow up on certain assumptions in certain models - ever here the term “WAG”?). gahrie pretty accurately lays out the state of the SCIENCE at the moment: we don’t really know. I’m not faulting the scientists: there are FAR to many variables that we can’t control, and no “control group” to test any hypothesis, which makes any progress at all quite impressive.
But the Global Warming folks are (primarily) a religious group, not a scientific one. The next best analogy would be “conspiracy theorists”… Colder? Warmer? Exactly the same? EVERYTHING confirms their theory!
August 15th, 2007 at 4:26:24 pm
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article And another thing, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
August 15th, 2007 at 5:50:13 pm
Anyone could hire a group of people to do a study that shows results that support their side of the global warming theory. That’s why there are so many studies. Which ones are right and which are wrong? Who knows.
And, lets not forget that the temperature measurement equipment used today is far more advanced than any they used 100 years ago. So, with that being said, how do we know the earth is actually warming to the degree the alarmists want us to believe? How do you compare measurements taken 100 years ago with those taken today when you factor in the accuracy of the tools being used? Are todays tools more accurate? I’d like to think so.