NASA’s Earth Observatory has just undergone a web makeover — all very shiny and nice — and yesterday celebrated with a very beautiful image of New Zealand, captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite (click on the image above for the full hi-res 17MB file). As the site says, it captures the turbidity of river discharges in to the ocean very well indeed. There are reasons why we choose to live here, earthquakes and floods aside, and this view captures quite a few of them…
It certainly is a lovely picture.
But, as you can see from this website, 2011 will be a cold year. http://web.me.com/bryanleyland/Site_3/Global_Cooling.html
And, as I point out, cooling is likely to continue.
How is it that all your friends and all the climate models were not able to predict this?
And what has happened to our bet? The ball has been in your court for a long time now. Perhaps you have read the tea leaves and decided against the risk. If so, at least have the decency to say so.
Thanks Bryan. I have been feeling slightly guilty about not formalising our bet — I will try to get something worked out soon. And as it happens, I have your web page open in my web browser, with a view to to preparing a comment. Could you confirm, please, the source of this contention: “Records from all over the world show that a long sunspot cycle is followed by cooling in the next cycle and a short sunspot cycle indicates warming.” Is it this document?
Cheers
Gee, Bryan, I hate to break it to you, but according to UAH we are currently warming at the alarming rate of 2.4°C per year. How come you weren’t able to predict that?
I shouldn’t have commented on the absence of you and your kindred – too good to last!
Unless I misinterpreted the horizontal scale, the SOI predicted the warming blip that has occurred. Next month – or July at the latest – should show a drop. It will go up again around the end of the year.
Welcome back from the US, Bryan. How are things at Heartland these days? Was their hurricane shelter congenial?
I gave your apologies to Naomi Oreskes and Jim Hansen and told them you would doubtless provide a full rebuttal of their presentations just as soon as you had time. Meanwhile, here are some comforting words from Clive Hamilton, just for you:
“In these circumstances, facts quail before beliefs, and there is something poignant about scientists who continue to adhere to the idea that people repudiate climate science because they suffer from inadequacy of information. In fact, denial is due to a surplus of culture rather than a deficit of information. Once people have made up their minds, providing contrary evidence can actually make them more resolute, a phenomenon we see at work with the upsurge of climate denial each time the IPCC publishes a report…
Innocently pursuing their research, climate scientists were unwittingly destabilising the political and social order. They could not know that the new facts they were uncovering would threaten the existence of powerful industrialists, compel governments to choose between adhering to science and remaining in power, corrode comfortable expectations about the future, expose hidden resentment of technical and cultural elites and, internationally, shatter the post-colonial growth consensus between North and South.
Their research has brought us to one of those rare historical fracture points when knowledge diverges from power, portending a long period of struggle before the two are once more aligned”.
I was in Oregon.
Snow cover was at almost record highs and major floods are expected. But the prediction was that snow would decrease.
All I have done is report on the current state of the SOI and temperatures. Which, so far, have showed that the linkage is robust.
More extreme weather and flooding, eh? I wonder if that might be linked to, say, the anthropogenic global warming that physical instruments have been measuring for decades?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2yQt18oGFU
Oops, let’s not talk about THAT – look over here, a few elderly conservative white male deniers have a new theory about something or other they can’t quite explain, but it sounds sorta “scientific”, ‘cos it has graphs ‘n stuff….
Robint, did you even watch that video? “Fewer cold spells, reduced snowpack, lack of cold winters…”
Not a particularly good rejoinder to Bryan’s comment that snow cover is at near record highs in Oregon (I believe about 191% of average).
How are those tree-killling beetles doing, by the way? You know, the ones that are “thriving because of warmer summers and the lack of very cold winters”?
Or what about the drought in the South-west, the one that will get “no relief”?
NOAA CLIMATE STATION PRECIPITATION SUMMARY
Most stations reporting well over 100%. For the second year running.
Interesting you should point to California/Nevada, Manfred. Had you looked a little further east you would have noted the exceptional drought in Texas:
As Jeff Masters notes:
Manfred was not listening to the youtube vid. It clearly states that those precipitation events that do occur (rain and snow) in the future will be more severe.
And just a comment on on his comment below. Flooding occurs when the snowpack melts not when it freezes so the more prolonged the snow pack the less flooding.
What is happening is that in a warming world we can expect when there is a cold snap the moisture laden air results in short period of heavy snowfall. This then melts relatively quickly causing floods.
Not at all, I listened carefully to the video. An isolated rain or snow storm may or may not be more severe, I’ve seen no evidence yet to suggest events themselves are becoming more severe.
What we’re talking about here though is the winter snowpack in its entirety, something quite different. The whole winter snow pack did not appear as the result of a single event.
As you rightly point out, flooding does indeed happen as the result of the melt. They currently have two problems:
1) The huge amount of snow that built up over the whole winter due to very cold weather
2) The spring snow melt has been delayed. As the temperatures belatedly warm now, all of the snow will suddenly turn to water, not gradually as happens in an early melt.
Read up on it, the regional authorities in the US are all talking about it. Flooding is expected.
The magic words here are ‘I’ve seen no evidence’. This is completely elective. If you type the other magic words ‘increase in extreme weather events’ into google you’ll find links to all sorts of evidence. Choosing not to seek it out or to simply ignore it does not an argument make.
And it’s funny how, in this decidedly non-curious world, clearly exceptional events are held to be routine, using no better argument that ‘there have always been droughts’! Your variant runs to ‘there have always been record-breaking droughts’. Therefore no shift in frequency of droughts can actually occur, because record-breaking droughts are actually mysteriously commonplace?
And, wow, there are still La Ninas! Since we can assume there’ll probably always be La Ninas, we can therefore – again – conclude that no climate shift can occur in any direction? Especially since we now also know that record events are actually routine!
At least by applying your logic. Sadly it’s all too commonly deployed.
And no single event can lead to record snow-pack? Here’s an exercise for you – try checking out what those in the know think led to Australia’s ‘routine’ record-breaking flooding in 2010 and early 2011. Informed people – such as the local Bureau of Meteorology – point to a series of unprecedented rainfall events. Other people point to to Dorothea MacKellar’s poem about ‘ a land of … droughts and flooding rains’ – your very argument!
Which of these two sets of people is most likely to be deluding themselves, do you think?
@Bill: Floods in Queensland caused by climate change, eh? Australian Climate Commissioner Will Steffen disagrees:
http://news.maars.net/blog/2011/05/23/queensland-floods-not-linked-to-climate-change/
“The floods across eastern Australia in 2010 and early 2011 were the consequence of a very strong La Nina event and not the result of climate change”
So does Prof Neville Nicholls at Monash University and president of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jan/11/australia-floods-la-nina
The Queensland floods are caused by what is one of the strongest – if not the strongest – La Niña events since our records began in the late 19th century,”
“The La Niña is associated with record warm sea-surface temperatures around Australia and these would have contributed to the heavy rains.”
Of course, if you’re more highly qualified than these gentlemen I am happy to defer to your opinion.
By the way, in what particular aspects were the Queensland floods record-breaking? I’d love to know.
Um, yeah. What did I actually write? And playing the ‘100% attribution’ game is simply tedious.
Did you actually try typing the magic words into the search engine? You have said there is no evidence of an increase in extreme weather events, but there is, although I see you can strawman and cherry-pick as required, so, yep, doubtlessly the cold weather in Wisconsin last Tuesday proves the whole globe cannot be warming!
And you didn’t answer the key question; using your logic, how would it ever be possible to detect an alteration in climate? In fact, could such an event even occur?
You also apparently didn’t bother to go to the BoM, whereupon you’d discover the following, amongst other things –
http://www.bom.gov.au/announcements/media_releases/climate/change/20110105.shtml
Also, is it just me, or did one of your own quotations actually contains the following –
You know – record temperatures / record rains? But funnily enough, these things manage to manifest themselves via existing natural phenomena, such as the – wait for it – record La Nina.
Oh, I await your input on the precedents for what happened at Toowoomba and Grantham with considerable interest. And let’s throw in north-western Victoria, for good measure. And before you cite any Brisbane flood-marker data – as was all the rage on various sites with only one flavour of attitude in relation to AGW – you best recall that the construction of a giant flood-mitigation dam that was running at 187% capacity at the peak of the flooding rather renders that data moot for straight comparison.
As for all these events occurring concurrently, save your effort – you cannot find anything even approaching a precedent, because no such thing exists!
@Bill:
The floods of 1841 were higher than the floods of 1893, which were higher than those of 1974, which were higher than 2011.
The dam possibly contributed to the disaster, hence the government inquiry. Nevertheless, the 2011 floods were lower than the ones I mentioned.
Oh wow. OK, go read up on why La Ninas increase the water temps around Australia, and why this has nothing to do with global warming. While you’re there, note the relationship between La Nina and extreme flooding in Queensland, especially when a strong La Nina follows hard on a strong El Nino.
Globally, La Ninas are associated with lower than average global temperatures.
Manfred – By the way, in what particular aspects were the Queensland floods record-breaking? I’d love to know
I know, I know!………first recorded Australian inland tsunami!
@Dappledwater:
Well done. Now in what way was this ‘inland tsunami’ different to a flash flood? And in what way was the ‘inland tsunami’ different to an actual, real tsunami?
Take your time.
Well done. Now in what way was this ‘inland tsunami’ different to a flash flood? And in what way was the ‘inland tsunami’ different to an actual, real tsunami?
Ooh, ooh……I know that one too! I don’t need to take any time!.
It was different because it happened in an area where no such event had been recorded before. It was unprecedented
An….an…….and the topography of Toowoomba makes such a thing very unlikely bar exceptional downpours (small catchment area)…..an……an……and there was no cyclone that caused the unprecedented rains in Toowoomba as is often the case in Queensland.
An…..an…….and a real tsunamis happen typically on the ocean as a result of an earthquake, not unprecedented rainfall.
Ooh…..and lots of people died in Toowoomba in the “inland tsunami” something that hasn’t been recorded there before.
Aw yeah…..and ENSO (La Nina/El Nino) have intensified in the one hundred years. And this is unprecedented within the last 1000 years.
Oh dear!
By being spectacularly violent, absolutely unprecedented, and, in fact, virtually inconceivable! Do you know where Grantham is? For that matter – do you know where Toowoomba is?
And how about Victoria?
Gee, the La Nina all on its own caused the decades long rising trend in the SST’s off Queensland, did it?
One: hmmm.. a Boltish bog-standard denier talking point post the flooding. Generally tied to utterly irrelevant – and quite simply wrong – greenie-bashing and an attempt to attract attention from the patent inadequacy of the Brisbane flood-marker meme!
Number two – I find it fascinating that some of us can know such a limited set of ‘facts’ from the past to be true with with such confidence while overwhelming evidence of current warming as identified by all reputable authorities is somehow questionable!
Oh, and what do you know? – even the preliminary results of the QLD flood inquiry aren’t actually due until August and the terms of reference aren’t just about how Wivenhoe ’caused’ the flood. Amazing!
So is it a coincidence that this also happens to have been a major crank meme, I wonder, with Bob Brown and Tim Flannery somehow held to be running Seqwater?! Incidentally, I just grabbed this from their site –
But whether floods in Brisbane alone were bigger in the past is hardly the point – where is your precedent for simultaneous events on this scale across the eastern seaboard?
This seems strangely timely – Are you a genuine skeptic or a climate denier?
I wouldn’t waste my time Doug.
Manfred not only has his ear muffs on, but his blinkers as well, and his mind in neutral.
I was responding specifically to the assertions made in the video, which spoke about the south west. If you wish to move the goalposts to the east (and ignore completely what the video talked about, viz: California/Nevada) then go ahead.
Regarding the southern states drought, yes it’s true they are currently experiencing a very severe drought, possibly the worst in the instrumental record. But is it the worst ever? No, not by a long way, according to NOAA:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/drght_2000years.html
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/drought/images/grissno.jpg
The region is susceptible to drought, and has a long history of it. This is not climate change, this is climate as usual.
Also, it seems the Texas regional drought has been exacerbated by human influences:
“Undoubtedly, overpopulation of sensitive eco-systems is a huge factor, with excessive groundwater pumping seen as a prime culprit.”
I notice you also failed to mention La Nina.
http://texashurricane.wordpress.com/2011/05/20/why-texas-is-so-dry-part-2/
The reason it is dry is that we are in La Nina, which pushes the jet stream further north than usual.
Also:
There is a blocking feature over Europe at the 18,000 feet (5,487 meters). That upper level high pressure is blocking any storm systems that give Europe rain.
The same atmospheric setup in Europe is very similar to in Texas, low moisture, warmer temperature, and upper level block pattern.
The flooding is a result of greater snow depth and more prolonged snowpack. This is the opposite of what was projected by the IPCC for this region under global warming conditions.
From AR4:
“Much SD research activity has focused on resolving future
water resources in the complex terrain of the western USA.
Studies typically point to a decline in winter snowpack and
hastening of the onset of snowmelt caused by regional warming
(Hayhoe et al., 2004; Salathé, 2005).”
Manfred, I chose that particular video because it made clear predictions which have largely come to pass. All your frantic dancing on the head of a pin cannot escape that fact.
Speaking of facts, heavy snowfall does not occur “due to very cold weather”; if that were true, Antartica would not be the desert it is.
Heavier snowfalls occur because warmer air can hold more water vapour to precipitates out as rain, snow, hail and sleet.
Why do you think the atmosphere is warming, Manfred? Is it magical invisible undersea volcanoes that just happen to emit CO2 with the same isotopic signature as fossil fuels, or is it clever old Sol, somehow heating the troposphere without heating the stratosphere above it?
So many mysteries, so little time left before Nature comes knocking on the door to collect our dues.
@robint:
And yet in almost every way it was incorrect. The snowpack is huge, the southwest has found relief, the beetles are shivering.
As far as I’m aware, Antarctica has a fair amount of snow. I have no idea what you mean by referring to it as a desert. If by that you mean nothing grows, then yes. If you mean it never rains, then again yes, but that’s because it’s so bloody cold it only snows.
Actually no. Snow is caused by cold air. Cold air holds less water than warm air. Snow has long been associated with extreme cold. It’s just one of those things people have noticed over millennia.
Well, for the last decade it actually hasn’t. This is confirmed by the OHC measurements since 2003, which show slight cooling (according to ARGO).
Now, how can there be an energy imbalance if the oceans can get rid of their excess heat so easily?
Small point: the stratosphere, like the troposphere, is relatively transparent to incoming solar SW radiation, so neither are likely to have been heated by it.
“Well, for the last decade it actually hasn’t. This is confirmed by the OHC measurements since 2003, which show slight cooling (according to ARGO).”
Bullshit
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.A2.gif
@Macro: Try to keep up. ARGO.
Oh dear, Manfred, you do need to learn some basic physics. The water content of air is a function of temperature, which is why it is generally too cold to rain or snow in Antarctica, making it one of Earth’s driest deserts, the huge volume of ice notwithstanding. True, the top layer of snow does get blown around rather a lot, but that snow is not being precipitated from the atmosphere, just changing its address.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antarctica
Have we picked enough cherries for today, or do you want another round?
We were having a good holiday from tedious trolls – it couldn’t last forever.
@robint:
I’m so sorry, please teach me some basic physics.
It is? Gee.
Hmm.
There, fixed.
So, now that you’ve educated me (thank you so much for that, by the way) what has the centre of Antarctica got to do with Oregon, the region under discussion?
“what has the centre of Antarctica got to do with Oregon, the region under discussion?”
Very little, which was the ironic point I was making – sorry if it went over your head, Manfred.
To spell it out in painful detail, I merely imitated the behaviour of denialists such as yourself, who, understanding little of the science and none of the implications, prefer to focus on one tiny irrelevant aspect after another, a.k.a.cherry-picking.
Got it yet? Good boy.
So clever…
No wonder I missed it.
OK: Enough, I say. This is all off-topic for this post. I’ve let it run because there is no open thread on the front page, but I shall shortly rectify that. If you wish to discuss Bryan Leyland’s predictions, there will be a post on that soon.