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From Global Warming and the Science of Extreme Weather
Extreme floods, prolonged droughts, searing heat waves, massive rainstorms and the like don't just seem like they've become the new normal in the last few years—theyhave become more common, according to data collected by reinsurance company Munich Re (see Part 1 of this series). But has this increase resulted from human-caused climate change or just from natural climatic variations? After all, recorded floods and droughts go back to the earliest days of mankind, before coal, oil and natural gas made the modern industrial world possible.
Until recently scientists had only been able to say that more extreme weather is "consistent" with climate change caused by greenhouse gases that humans are emitting into the atmosphere. Now, however, they can begin to say that the odds of having extreme weather have increased because of human-caused atmospheric changes—and that many individual events would not have happened in the same way without global warming. The reason: The signal of climate change is finally emerging from the "noise"—the huge amount of natural variability in weather.
Scientists compare the normal variation in weather with rolls of the dice. Adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere loads the dice, increasing odds of such extreme weather events. It's not just that the weather dice are altered, however. As Steve Sherwood, co-director of the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New South Wales in Australia, puts it, "it is more like painting an extra spot on each face of one of the dice, so that it goes from 2 to 7 instead of 1 to 6. This increases the odds of rolling 11 or 12, but also makes it possible to roll 13."
Why? Basic physics is at work: The planet has already warmed roughly 1 degree Celsius since preindustrial times, thanks to CO2and other greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. And for every 1-degree C (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) rise in temperature, the amount of moisture that the atmosphere can contain rises by 7 percent, explains Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the U.K. Met Office's Hadley Center for Climate Change. "That's quite dramatic," he says. In some places, the increase has been much larger. Data gathered by Gene Takle, professor of meteorology at Iowa State University in Ames, show a 13 percent rise in summer moisture over the past 50 years in the state capital, Des Moines.
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Because of the large-scale energy balance of the planet, "the upshot is that overall rainfall increases only 2 to 3 percent per degree of warming, whereas extreme rainfall increases 6 to 7 percent," Stott says. The reason again comes from physics. Rain happens when the atmosphere cools enough for water vapor to condense into liquid. "However, because of the increasing amount of greenhouse gases in the troposphere, the radiative cooling is less efficient, as less radiation can escape to space," Stott explains. "Therefore the global precipitation increases less, at about 2 to 3 percent per degree of warming." But because of the extra moisture, when precipitation does occur (in both rain and snow), it's more likely to be in bigger events.
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This second article discusses some of the findings of climate attribution. Probably best to read it yourself.
And not a single fact that supports their supposition!
The Munich RE data analysis is a fact and it fully supports these comments. The frequency of intense weather HAS increased.
Number of storms DOWN.From SA:
Extreme signals
There are two key lines of evidence. First, it's not just that we've become more aware of disasters like North Dakota or last year's Nashville flood, which caused $13 billion in damage, or the massive 2010 summer monsoon in Pakistan that killed 1,500 people and left 20 million more homeless. The data show that the number of such events is rising. Munich Re, one of the world's largest reinsurance companies, has compiled the world's most comprehensive database of natural disasters, reaching all the way back to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79. Researchers at the company, which obviously has a keen financial interest in trends that increase insurance risks, add 700 to 1,000 natural catastrophes to the database each year, explains Mark Bove, senior research meteorologist in Munich Re's catastrophe risk management office in Princeton, N.J. The data indicate a small increase in geologic events like earthquakes since 1980 because of better reporting. But the increase in the number of climate disasters is far larger. "Our figures indicate a trend towards an increase in extreme weather events that can only be fully explained by climate change," says Peter Höppe, head of Munich Re's Geo Risks Research/Corporate Climate Center: "It's as if the weather machine had changed up a gear.
The second line of evidence comes from a nascent branch of science called climate attribution. The idea is to examine individual events like a detective investigating a crime, searching for telltale fingerprints of climate change. Those fingerprints are showing up—in the autumn floods of 2000 in England and Wales that were the worst on record, in the 2003 European heat wave that caused 14,000 deaths in France, in Hurricane Katrina—and, yes, probably even in Nashville. This doesn't mean that the storms or hot spells wouldn't have happened at all without climate change, but as scientists like Trenberth say, they wouldn't have been as severe if humankind hadn't already altered the planet's climate.This new science is still controversial. There's an active debate among researchers about whether the Russian heat wave bears the characteristic signature of climate change or whether it was just natural variability, for instance. Some scientists worry that trying to attribute individual events to climate change is counterproductive in the larger political debate, because it's so easy to dismiss the claim by saying that the planet has always experienced extreme weather. And some researchers who privately are convinced of the link are reluctant to say so publicly, because global warming has become such a target of many in Congress.
But the evidence is growing for a link between the emissions of modern civilization and extreme weather events. And that has the potential to profoundly alter the perception of the threats posed by climate change. No longer is global warming an abstract concept, affecting faraway species, distant lands or generations far in the future. Instead, climate change becomes personal. Its hand can be seen in the corn crop of a Maryland farmer ruined when soaring temperatures shut down pollination or the $13 billion in damage in Nashville, with the Grand Ole Opry flooded and sodden homes reeking of rot. "All of a sudden we're not talking about polar bears or the Maldives any more," says Nashville-based author and environmental journalistAmanda Little. "Climate change translates into mold on my baby's crib. We're talking about homes and schools and churches and all the places that got hit."
Power of storms DOWN.
Number of tornado's DOWN.
Power of tornado's DOWN.
Everything about the article is total horseshit when it comes to the frequency claims. Everything.
"Total horseshit" is your specialty, as well as reality denial.
In the real world....
Heavy precipitation
Dr. Jeff Masters - WeatherUnderground
Are heavy rain events becoming more frequent due to climate change? That is a difficult question to answer, since reliable records are not available at all in many parts of the world, and extend back only a few decades elsewhere. However, we do have a fairly good set of precipitation records for many parts of the globe, and those records show that the heaviest types of rains--those likely to cause flooding--have increased in recent years. According to the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2007 report, "The frequency of heavy precipitation events has increased over most land areas". Indeed, global warming theory has long predicted an increase in heavy precipitation events. As the climate warms, evaporation of moisture from the oceans increases, resulting in more water vapor in the air. According to the 2007 IPCC report, water vapor in the global atmosphere has increased by about 5% over the 20th century, and 4% since 1970. Satellite measurements (Trenberth et al., 2005) have shown a 1.3% per decade increase in water vapor over the global oceans since 1988. Santer et al. (2007) used a climate model to study the relative contribution of natural and human-caused effects on increasing water vapor, and concluded that this increase was "primarily due to human-caused increases in greenhouse gases". This was also the conclusion of Willet et al. (2007).
More water vapor equals more precipitation
This increase in water vapor has very likely led to an increase in global precipitation. For instance, over the U.S., where we have very good precipitation records, annual average precipitation has increased 7% over the past century (Groisman et al., 2004). The same study also found a 14% increase in heavy (top 5%) and 20% increase in very heavy (top 1%) precipitation events over the U.S. in the past century. Kunkel et al. (2003) also found an increase in heavy precipitation events over the U.S. in recent decades, but noted that heavy precipitation events were nearly as frequent at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, though the data is not as reliable back then. Thus, there is a large natural variation in extreme precipitation events.
The future of flooding
It is difficult to say if the increase in heavy precipitation events in recent years has led to more flooding, since flooding is critically dependent on how much the landscape has been altered by development, upstream deforestation, and what kind of flood control devices are present. One of the few studies that did attempt to quantify flooding (Milly et al., 2002) found that the incidence of great floods has increased in recent decades. In the past century, the world's 29 largest river basins experienced a total of 21 "100-year floods"--the type of flood one would expect only once per 100 years in a given river basin. Of these 21 floods, 16 occurred in the last half of the century (after 1953). With the IPCC predicting that heavy precipitation events are very likely to continue to increase, it would be no surprise to see flooding worsen globally in the coming decades.
And not a single fact that supports their supposition!
The Munich RE data analysis is a fact and it fully supports these comments. The frequency of intense weather HAS increased.
Ignorance and retardation are very strong in you, boring513. He is quite right about the validity of the Munich RE data. Denying it, without offering any evidence to support your denial, just makes you look even more idiotic than usual.Statitstics is not strong in you.
Ignorant, anti-science denier cult retards like you have no idea whatsoever what constitutes "reliable data" in science. Nor do you know what data the climate scientists are working with...obviously.How many times must it be pointed out to you retards that a few decades or a century is not reliable data...when you are dealing with a 4.5 billion year old planet??????
God damn the AGW cult is an arrogant bunch.
And not a single fact that supports their supposition!The Munich RE data analysis is a fact and it fully supports these comments. The frequency of intense weather HAS increased.Ignorance and retardation are very strong in you, boring513. He is quite right about the validity of the Munich RE data. Denying it, without offering any evidence to support your denial, just makes you look even more idiotic than usual.Statitstics is not strong in you.
Ignorant, anti-science denier cult retards like you have no idea whatsoever what constitutes "reliable data" in science. Nor do you know what data the climate scientists are working with...obviously.How many times must it be pointed out to you retards that a few decades or a century is not reliable data...when you are dealing with a 4.5 billion year old planet??????
God damn the AGW cult is an arrogant bunch.
God damn, the denier cult dimwits are a bunch of clueless morons idiotically stooging for the fossil fuel industry and the oil barrons.
And not a single fact that supports their supposition!The Munich RE data analysis is a fact and it fully supports these comments. The frequency of intense weather HAS increased.Ignorance and retardation are very strong in you, boring513. He is quite right about the validity of the Munich RE data. Denying it, without offering any evidence to support your denial, just makes you look even more idiotic than usual.Statitstics is not strong in you.
Ignorant, anti-science denier cult retards like you have no idea whatsoever what constitutes "reliable data" in science. Nor do you know what data the climate scientists are working with...obviously.How many times must it be pointed out to you retards that a few decades or a century is not reliable data...when you are dealing with a 4.5 billion year old planet??????
God damn the AGW cult is an arrogant bunch.
God damn, the denier cult dimwits are a bunch of clueless morons idiotically stooging for the fossil fuel industry and the oil barrons.
And not a single fact that supports their supposition!The Munich RE data analysis is a fact and it fully supports these comments. The frequency of intense weather HAS increased.Ignorance and retardation are very strong in you, boring513. He is quite right about the validity of the Munich RE data. Denying it, without offering any evidence to support your denial, just makes you look even more idiotic than usual.Statitstics is not strong in you.
Ignorant, anti-science denier cult retards like you have no idea whatsoever what constitutes "reliable data" in science. Nor do you know what data the climate scientists are working with...obviously.How many times must it be pointed out to you retards that a few decades or a century is not reliable data...when you are dealing with a 4.5 billion year old planet??????
God damn the AGW cult is an arrogant bunch.
God damn, the denier cult dimwits are a bunch of clueless morons idiotically stooging for the fossil fuel industry and the oil barrons.
And not a single fact that supports their supposition!The Munich RE data analysis is a fact and it fully supports these comments. The frequency of intense weather HAS increased.Ignorance and retardation are very strong in you, boring513. He is quite right about the validity of the Munich RE data. Denying it, without offering any evidence to support your denial, just makes you look even more idiotic than usual.Statitstics is not strong in you.
Ignorant, anti-science denier cult retards like you have no idea whatsoever what constitutes "reliable data" in science. Nor do you know what data the climate scientists are working with...obviously.How many times must it be pointed out to you retards that a few decades or a century is not reliable data...when you are dealing with a 4.5 billion year old planet??????
God damn the AGW cult is an arrogant bunch.
God damn, the denier cult dimwits are a bunch of clueless morons idiotically stooging for the fossil fuel industry and the oil barrons.
Too Funny;
I show you where you ran right by his admission that the assumptions can not be supported by the evidence, which Jeff admits in his work, and you continue to ignore those facts, dwelling on the assumptions as if they were indisputable fact.
I dont think I can help you Rolling Blunder Boy. It seems your hell bent on destruction of Capitalism and the US standards of living for absolutely no fucking reason other than your ideology. Its hard enough helping the blind, but when you have a blind fool its pointless.
Ah, Frank pulls out the standard debunked denier list. When your opponents resort to Gish Galloping, you know they've got nothing. People with facts on their side don't have to throw everything at the wall in the hopes something will stick.
Of all the predictions on that list, most of them are unsourced.
Most of them come from journalists.
Of the few that are sourced, not a single one is actually a failed prediction.
That is, deniers batted a perfect .000. They couldn't list a single actual prediction that failed. Not even one. They just lied, like they always do.
Again, climate science has been getting everything right for 50 years now, and only the most pathetic and desperate cult liars still try to pretend otherwise. Deniers are just lying because they're upset about being revealed as cult losers.
Now, if any deniers have the stomach for a real debate, they can post a single actual prediction that was wrong. But it has to be sourced, it has to be the actual consensus position of the science, and it has to actually be wrong. And like I said, deniers are batting .000 on that so far, being they've flopped hilarious on the storms. If they want to be thought of as something other than cult liars, they'll need to improve on their record of perfect failure.
It was your source that was doing the lying Frank.
France - Top French weatherman 'sacked' over climate change book
Les Inrocks - Qui est Philippe Verdier, le chef du service météo de France TV climato-sceptique?
The controversy around Verdier’s claims has likely been heightened by their timing, with his book coming just weeks before the start of a much-anticipated UN climate change summit, known as COP21, to be held in Paris at the end of November.
"I put myself in the path of COP21, which is a bulldozer, and this is the result,” Verdier told RTL radio station in October.
He said he was inspired to write the book after France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius met with TV meteorologists and asked them to highlight climate change issues in their broadcasts.
“I was horrified by this speech,” Verdier told French magazine Les Inrockuptibles last month.
In his book, Verdier accuses state-funded climate change scientists of having been “manipulated” and “politicised”, even accusing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of publishing deliberately misleading data.
France's top weatherman sparks storm over book questioning climate change
According to Mr Verdier, top climate scientists, who often rely on state funding, have been “manipulated and politicised”.
He specifically challenges the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, saying they “blatantly erased” data that went against their overall conclusions, and casts doubt on the accuracy of their climate models.
The IPCC has said that temperatures could rise by up to 4.8°C if no action is taken to reduce carbon emissions.
Mr Verdier writes: “We are undoubtedly on a plateau in terms of warming and the cyclical variability of the climate doesn’t not allow us to envisage if the natural rhythm will tomorrow lead us towards a fall, a stagnation or a rise (in temperature).”
............
And another receives the wrath of those in on the scheme. I love how the prime minister met with them to tell them to talk up climate change. I also note how he sees the cherry picking of data, as well.
France - Top French weatherman 'sacked' over climate change book
Les Inrocks - Qui est Philippe Verdier, le chef du service météo de France TV climato-sceptique?
The controversy around Verdier’s claims has likely been heightened by their timing, with his book coming just weeks before the start of a much-anticipated UN climate change summit, known as COP21, to be held in Paris at the end of November.
"I put myself in the path of COP21, which is a bulldozer, and this is the result,” Verdier told RTL radio station in October.
He said he was inspired to write the book after France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius met with TV meteorologists and asked them to highlight climate change issues in their broadcasts.
“I was horrified by this speech,” Verdier told French magazine Les Inrockuptibles last month.
In his book, Verdier accuses state-funded climate change scientists of having been “manipulated” and “politicised”, even accusing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of publishing deliberately misleading data.
France's top weatherman sparks storm over book questioning climate change
According to Mr Verdier, top climate scientists, who often rely on state funding, have been “manipulated and politicised”.
He specifically challenges the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, saying they “blatantly erased” data that went against their overall conclusions, and casts doubt on the accuracy of their climate models.
The IPCC has said that temperatures could rise by up to 4.8°C if no action is taken to reduce carbon emissions.
Mr Verdier writes: “We are undoubtedly on a plateau in terms of warming and the cyclical variability of the climate doesn’t not allow us to envisage if the natural rhythm will tomorrow lead us towards a fall, a stagnation or a rise (in temperature).”
............
And another receives the wrath of those in on the scheme. I love how the prime minister met with them to tell them to talk up climate change. I also note how he sees the cherry picking of data, as well.
The religion shall not be questioned! Heretic! /sarc
This is SOP for the ;left wing control mongers as well. Anything and any one that stand in their way to take all power and enslave people shall be dealt with harshly...
Or as some here like Crick likes to say "hypothetically....kill them..."
France - Top French weatherman 'sacked' over climate change book
Les Inrocks - Qui est Philippe Verdier, le chef du service météo de France TV climato-sceptique?
The controversy around Verdier’s claims has likely been heightened by their timing, with his book coming just weeks before the start of a much-anticipated UN climate change summit, known as COP21, to be held in Paris at the end of November.
"I put myself in the path of COP21, which is a bulldozer, and this is the result,” Verdier told RTL radio station in October.
He said he was inspired to write the book after France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius met with TV meteorologists and asked them to highlight climate change issues in their broadcasts.
“I was horrified by this speech,” Verdier told French magazine Les Inrockuptibles last month.
In his book, Verdier accuses state-funded climate change scientists of having been “manipulated” and “politicised”, even accusing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of publishing deliberately misleading data.
France's top weatherman sparks storm over book questioning climate change
According to Mr Verdier, top climate scientists, who often rely on state funding, have been “manipulated and politicised”.
He specifically challenges the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, saying they “blatantly erased” data that went against their overall conclusions, and casts doubt on the accuracy of their climate models.
The IPCC has said that temperatures could rise by up to 4.8°C if no action is taken to reduce carbon emissions.
Mr Verdier writes: “We are undoubtedly on a plateau in terms of warming and the cyclical variability of the climate doesn’t not allow us to envisage if the natural rhythm will tomorrow lead us towards a fall, a stagnation or a rise (in temperature).”
............
And another receives the wrath of those in on the scheme. I love how the prime minister met with them to tell them to talk up climate change. I also note how he sees the cherry picking of data, as well.
The religion shall not be questioned! Heretic! /sarc
This is SOP for the ;left wing control mongers as well. Anything and any one that stand in their way to take all power and enslave people shall be dealt with harshly...
Or as some here like Crick likes to say "hypothetically....kill them..."
Tens of thousands of climate scientists and every major scientific organization on Earth all affirm the reality and dangers of human caused global warming and its consequent climate changes.....and you deniers decide that one confused French weatherman is the REAL expert.....LOLOLOLOLOLOL....
French weatherman fired for promoting book sceptical of climate change
Philippe Verdier of state-owned channel France 2 was taken off air in October for his book attacking ‘complete hype on the climate’
The Guardian
Associated Press in Paris
2 November 2015
A weather forecaster for French state television has been fired after releasing and promoting a book criticising politicians, scientists and others for what he calls an exaggerated view of climate change.
Philippe Verdier’s dismissal from France 2 comes a month before Paris hosts a UN conference aiming for the most ambitious worldwide agreement yet to limit global warming. He announced his dismissal in an online video over the weekend in which he described it as an attack on media freedom.
France Televisions, which owns France 2, would not comment on Monday. French media reported that the network said Verdier had violated ethical rules. Many media organisations have guidelines about journalists publicly expressing personal opinions on subjects they cover.
Verdier was initially suspended a month ago, after his book, Climat Investigation (Climate Investigation), came out and he sent an open letter to François Hollande, the French president, saying the climate conference “won’t solve anything”.
In an online video he released at the time, Verdier criticises the “complete hype on the climate” by scientists, politicians, business lobbies and environmental and religious groups. “You are dramatising things to underline your will to gather the world’s powerful and defuse a pending cataclysm,” he wrote to Hollande.
Verdier questioned the president’s sincerity in promising to help the environment and asks him to plant a tree in the Élysée Palace to prove his “green” credentials.
The conference from 30 November to 11 December is based on the results of more than 100 years of climate science, and top officials from 196 countries, including President Barack Obama, will arrive in Paris to talk about ways to slow climate change.
Most climate scientists agree that the planet’s climate is changing largely because of human action. Though some public officials and a few climate scientists disagree, the world’s scientific organisations say changes such as increasingly extreme weather and rising sea levels are a result of the buildup of heat-trapping gases, especially carbon dioxide, from the burning of coal, oil and gas.
Some weather forecasters in the US have faced similar issues. Donald Wuebbles, a climate scientist at the University of Illinois, notes the difference between television weather forecasters who look at daily weather and scientists who study long-term change over periods of at least 20 to 30 years. Often television weathermen do not study the long-term effects and statistics.
Wuebbles said on Monday that Verdier’s claims that temperatures have levelled out are contradicted by data. Wuebbles added that temperatures may go up and down from year to year but that the overall long-term trend was upward.
