ORH_wxman

One of the reasons Siberia and Alaska seem to "stick out more" is because of the way the data is displayed.  The map projections used for many of these maps are always going to make high latitude locations seem much larger than places closer to the equator but that is just an artifact of how the data is projected.

Even taking that into account, its still a pretty obvious difference. Siberia is enormous anyway just from a longitude standpoint... and it has same latitude as northern Europe/Canada, so while the area will look a little larger on a flat map like that, its not like its up near the pole where the stuff really gets distorted.

It's true that if we look at just the last 15 or 20 years, a little cooling has occurred in U.S. and European winters, but it's a short enough period and a small enough amount a lot of other factors could explain. I don't think there's been much change in aerosols in those places over that period (maybe a small further decrease I'm not sure). 

 

China and SE Asia has also witnessed no winter warming over that period, which could reasonably be explained by the big increase in aerosols there.

 

While one might expect the aerosol effect to be slightly stronger in winter, winter temps are also more effected by weather patterns and we it reduces the time period of data for the analysis from 240 months to 60 months (DJF).

 

Given the above, it still is probably better to use annual trends to look for possible aerosol effects just because you get 4X more data. If we look at annual trends, we definitely see that China and SE Asia has been one of the slowest warming areas the last 20 years (no warming over much of that area). We still see it looking just at winter as I said before, but there's a lot more global spatial variability because of the smaller amount of data. The annual analysis is better because it gives us 4X more data and a clearer picture.

I guess I just don't see anything noteworthy in SE Asia in context to the rest of the globe....Siberia sticks out for landmasses and perhaps Alaska. 

If we narrow it to the last 10 years, SE Asia cools more, but the domination still continues from Siberia/Alaska and of course the ENSO influence in pretty much the entire east Pacific:

The Cohen study is good because it tells us where the overall trends are coming from. A steep 25-30 year cooling trend across pretty much all of Siberia/Europe in winter definitely is the opposite of what we would expect. That is long enough to be perplexed. The shorter spacial/seasonal trends of 10-20 years are interesting, but still obviously involve a lot of noise.

Again, all of those phenomenon are the last 10-20 years Cohen is talking about. I was talking about the last 40 years or so.

 

As you can see from my chart above, a lot of the warming since 1970 has come from already industrialized areas (and arctic amplification). 

I agree those areas had a lot of warming from like 1975-2000...what I was emphasizing was that the nations now being industrialized are not the ones holding steady or cooling as we might deduce from the aerosol theory of 1950-1970. Those recently industrialized areas from 1990-present are still warming while the cooling or flat lining is back in the northern hemisphere extra-tropical latitudes...and not only that, its in winter which is even more against conventional theory.

None of this is to reject a hypothesis about aerosols outright, but it does paint a fuzzier picture on what exactly is causing these regional swings in temperature. There's likely some large additional components.

It looks like Cohen is only looking at the last 20 years.. most of the brightening occurred before then. If you compare 1950-1970 (aerosols era) vs 1990-2012 (clearer air), there is solid warming over the industrialized areas. Including during winter. In fact, the UK, Germany and northern Europe saw some of the fastest warming in winter on earth (1-2C in the UK and Germany, 2C+ in scandanavia).

I was responding to your claim that areas that were not previously industrialized but are now going through it are seeing the pause in warming...that hasn't been the case recently. Most of the pause is due to cooling in winter in extratropical northern hemisphere regions (i.e. the nations that have been industrialized for a long time now)

That's not true, if you think about it. There was a lot of CO2 warming built up in the industrialized areas by 1980. With the brightening that occurred, this CO2 warming simply became apparent. Many of the areas that warmed pre-1980 because of CO2 and their lack of industrialization are now seeing industrialization and a pause in warming. 

Actually the largest regions that lack warming are the already-industrialized regions...and the lack of warming is almost exclusively coming from a cooling trend in winter in these regions.

http://web.mit.edu/jlcohen/www/papers/Cohenetal_GRL2012.pdf

Essentially the opposite of what you'd expect.

The extreme alarmist claims that there is actually more warming than observed that is due to humans, but some of that additional warming is being masked by anthropogenic aerosols.

This doesn't make any sense...if the aerosols are anthropogenic

Do we have any long term statistics on heatwaves in the U.S.? How much has the frequency of extreme heatwaves increased since AGW began?

The first portion of this paper gives a look at heat waves and cold waves in the U.S.

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00066.1

Uhh - Not exactly  -- "

• The 2012 spring and summer heat waves in the U.S. can be mainly explained by natural atmospheric dynamics, however, human-induced climate change was found to be a factor in the magnitude of warmth and was found to have affected the likelihood of such heat waves.  For example:
  • High temperatures, such as those experienced in the U.S. in 2012 are now likely to occur four times as frequently due to human-induced climate change.
  • Approximately 35 percent of the extreme warmth experienced in the eastern U.S. between March and May 2012 can be attributed to human-induced climate change. "

Heat waves and droughts are not the same thing.

Heat waves are one of the few attributable events with climate change that have high confidence due to the shifting "right" of the temperature curves.

I recommend reading this: http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00055.1

Which I posted a few posts above.

Still waiting for someone to explain to me how liking snow has anything to do with climate change care to enlighten me?

The idea is: "You like snow and cold, so you must be denying that the earth is getting warmer!11!!1!"

Its irrelevant to any useful discussion of climate change.

The increased temperature trend likely outweighs any small increase in precipitation. At least this is the conclusion of most climate models, climate experts, and the IPCC which gives low to medium confidence of increased drought risk in the central U.S. I see little reason to disagree with this conclusion. Even Hoerling whose "schtick" seems to be trying to one-up and attack Hansen and others forecasting dire consequences acknowledges CO2 forcing probably drives a "modest" increase in drought risk.

Yes in the future...but not currently. Or at least there has been no current trend frequency or intensity of central U.S. drought over the past century. If anything, there has been a slight decrease.

Another paper this summer on the 2012 drought:

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/abs/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00055.1

Basically concluding that natural variability in SSTs combined with shorter term variability in weather was responsible for the central U.S. drought. Little if any evidence was found that increased GHGs were a significant factor in the drought. Which supports my original assessment of media blaming the 2012 drought on climate change is ignorant and/or misleading.

At the very least, the media who mention climate change and the 2012 drought should inform of how likely small an impact it had on it (if it did at all in any significant manner) and how uncertain the attribution studies are. Most point toward southwest U.S. drought increasing with only modest increases in the central US, and most are future projections and do not reflect current longterm trends.

I don't believe that your quoted portions and links are saying what you think they do. There is a difference between drought and precipitation. Precipitation has and is expected to continue to decrease over the SW states WY,CO, NV, UT, AZ, CA, NM. Precipitation is not expected to change much over the central U.S. and has actually shown slight long-term increase thus far. However, precipitation is very different from drought. Because surface temperatures are rising, evapotranspiration is higher. This is why the central U.S. is modeled to see drying. Even the passage you quote refers to Hoerling's finding of "modest" modeled drying. Other methods of modelling soil moisture find more severe drying. 

 

I would feel pretty confident that the drought in CO, WY, AZ, UT, NV and CA was made more likely and exacerbated by climate change given the long-term drying that has occurred and is projected to continue to worsen. The Great Plains drought is less certain but the evidence generally points to future drying of this region. The 2012 drought was probably made slightly more likely and exacerbated by this forcing, although we can't be quite as confident in this conclusion as we can be for the southwest.

The increasing precip trend could easily be responsible for the drought not lasting longer than it did it either end of it...perhaps we'd be seeing a stronger/longer drought ala the early/mid 1950s...we don't know, do we? The bottom line is that the attribution is so flimsy that making a headline that blames climate change on that drought is misleading and really doesn't do the science any favors. Which was the original point.

Even if we were confident (which we aren't) that the drought was definelty made worse by climate change....the magnitude would be so small as to really be indistinguishable from natural variability. Thus "blaming" climate change for the drought is still misleading.

look are this denier framing the discussion like a politician ^

 

Forky is spot on, this is a board full of snow lovers, it's like AG and the knicks thread...a bunch of homers.

What does this have remotely to do with the science being discussed?

There's plenty of levels of alarmist/skeptic all of which can be supported to some extent by the science except for perhaps the two extreme ends.

Blaming the 2012 drought on CC isn't ignorant at all. It's probably correct. CC is supposed to cause summer drying and warming (the two primary factors driving drought) over much of the U.S. and especially the western U.S. CC has probably made droughts like last year more likely.

Droughts have actually been decreasing in our period of record in the U.S. since the late 1800s/early 1900s, including the central U.S. The only region that has seen an increase is the far SW U.S. There is actually very little scientific evidence that droughts are currently more common than previously or that they will even become more common in the U.S. anytime soon. There are some studies based purely on climate models that suggest particularly southwest U.S. droughts could intensify in the 2nd half of the 21st century and that other random droughts could become worse based on increased evaporation of soil moisture with warmer temps.

The recent AMS report on the 2012 drought:

Its a typical attribution assessment. They say that climate models tell us that drought is more likely in a warming world, so that means that droughts have had a slightly higher chance of happening versus a colder world. It really doesn't tell us anything substantial though, and they note that observations do not show any attribution yet.

 

In fact, the 2012 drought was not attributable to GHGs according to the report. The relevant part of the study here:

 

 

 

Another recent study by the AMS on U.S. droughts (and other extremes):

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00066.1

There is attempt at attribution with some qualifiers in a warmer world, however, the scientific evidence remains very flimsy for attributing the 2012 central U.S. drought to climate change. There might be a slightly less flimsy case if you only focused on the southwest U.S., but even there, the natural variability noise is overwhelming...they see larger swings in periods of drought than other parts of the U.S., so a more positive trend there is hypothetically less significant than some other part of the U.S.

what do you define as "alarmist?"

i get the feeling any sort of warmth is alarming to this crowd

Those that are constantly promoting the idea that most extreme weather events are caused by climate change, the higher end of IPCC projection (or higher) on TCR and ECS, and the higher end of SLR by the end of the 21st century (or higher). Also typically focusing on the negative potential impacts of climate change rather than the net outcome (i.e. avoiding talking about any benefits).

At least that is how I would define "alarmist". There really isn't a great word because saying "pro-AGW" doesn't really define anything. Just about all skeptics believe in some form of AGW/climate change.

none of you see a connection with the large skeptic community here and the fact that most people on this board like cold/snow?

The skeptic community here isn't large. Only when in comparison to blogs like skepticalscience which by their very nature will be skewed toward alarmist global warming hype.

On the flip side, the skeptic community here is paltry compared to a blog like WUWT.

Both types of blogs have their legit science on them, but you have to filter through a lot of crap and the general bias of the site to post about papers which support their thinking on climate change.

Marietta isn't exactly a climate change alarmist and he lives in a place that gets pretty much no snow.

 

Doesn't Anthony Watts live in Southern California?

 

I'm surprised you ask this question on AmWx itself, this board is probably 95% winter weather supported.

Yes, this part...and also, it should not matter regardless. The topic should be weighted by scientific evidence, not politics or a derivative of politics.

Jeff Masters will do so... If he hasn't already, its coming soon.

 

He's already blabbing about 1 in 1000 year flood.

 

Next he will allude that the dice are loaded and this is less than 1 in 1000 year.

There's been some attribution to heavy rainfall events in the U.S. due to climate change. Though most studies on them are not long enough for high confidence. We don't have nearly as strong of a precipitation record as we do a temperature record since the late 1800s.

The media will do their typical hack jobs, but the science will speak for itself for those who actually want to read the papers.

How long until the CO flooding is blamed on climate change if it hasn't been already.

Well at least they won't be talking about the drought...but not surprisingly, that wasn't blamed on climate change once the actual scientific evidence was reviewed. (though I'm sure plenty of media will still ignorantly blame the 2012 drought on climate change)

The Nenana Ice Classic is aiming for the latest melt out on record (97 years worth). I doubt it can last to beat the 1964 date of May 20th, but 2nd place is attainable if the tripod stands another 24 hours:

http://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/

Been an amazing spring (or lack of) up there.

This one definitely had a lot of similarities to Feb '83...I remember thinking that too when the progs were about 72h out. Up here, it under performed compared to '83 due to more advection of dry air from the north...but definitely not down in that region.

If I knew we would break up 3 months later, I would have stayed home for that. Of course when I went down, it was scheduled to whiff us.

Well its not like you missed it in NJ.

Those are pretty impressive pictures from PDII, you must have had at least 24" where you were looking at the reference points and where drifts might be.

Thanks will. It does pain me sometimes to forecast snow for tolland. I get a sick satisfaction with disappointing him on air

I can picture you cringing saying the hills will get more, lol.

LOL, that's ok, I still like snow even if it doesn't disturb school. I remember '08. It snowed all day Saturday in between the two systems...just never stopped snowing. I wasn't on this forum but that was one of the first storms I was on accuweather for lol....I discovered this forum spring of '09 (eastern) and started posting at the end of that year. I can't believe its been 2+ years on eastern/american already...time flies.

If Dec 2008 had happened during the work week, it prob would have given you 3 days off in a row.

I feel like we've had less long duration storms lately...any truth to that? It just seems like most snowstorms last 12-18 hours regardless of amounts and then they're done.

Anyway, last winter was awesome because even when it looked like rain events somehow turned wintry. I remember that happened on 2/25 and again on 2/28-3/1. Both of them trended more wintry and 2/25 I believe was snow to rain back to snow. And then 2/28 looked like rain but we got a good period of zr I believe on top of like the 10-15" of snow still remaining. I can still picture that...it looked amazing. Then we also had the 3-5" advisory event on 3/27.

Man, last winter was awesome.

We had a ton of long duration storms in 1993-1994 and 1995-1996...but otherwise its really kind of a farce...I love to think they happen more often than they do, but then I look back and see which storms lasted long, and I realize that a lot of them were in my school days so they become more vivid because of the snow days.

That is the calculator at work that Ray despises. But those long duration events do happen...last really notable one I can remember is Dec 19-21, 2008 (actually two systems...but so was 1994 so many times)...but it happened on a weekend before Xmas so it doesn't stick out in terms of disturbing work or school.

The amazing part of my stories is that all the delays would be the same if they happened now...its not like I'm talking from 1972 or something and since I deal with DOT people on a regular basis, I know exactly how it would be handled in 2012...but its likely you would have had the same days off as me...the only exception might be you get back to school one day earlier in December 1992. Maybe also one day earlier in Mar 1993...but that is debatable.