Summary: It was almost impossible for the temperatures seen recently in the Pacific North West heatwave to have occurred without global warming. And only improbable with it.
It’s been clear for at least a decade that global warming has been in general increasing the intensity of heat waves, with clear trends in observed maximum temperatures that match what climate models have been predicting. For the specific situation in the Pacific NorthWest at the end of June, we now have the first attribution analysis from the World Weather Attribution group – a consortium of climate experts from around the world working on extreme event attribution. Their preprint (Philip et al.) is available here.
In the paper, they show that this event was truly exceptional in the temperature statistics in the region and specifically in Vancouver, Seattle and Portland, but that the geopotential height anomaly (one measure of the ‘heat dome’ or the ridging) was not that far off from the underlying trends. Using various methods to construct the return time for this event, they show that even in today’s climate this was a one in 400 yrs or longer event. Using only data from before 2021, an anomaly this large is estimated to never occur!
What happened?
Everyone is agreed that the specific synoptic situation is unusual. A large ‘omega’ pattern (so-called because of the resemblance to the Greek letter 
) set up by a Rossby wave breaking event, intersecting with the topography and the warm temperatures to the south-west that were advected to the PNW. But the question is whether the temperature extremes are being made substantially more likely by underlying climate changes.
First, look the maximum annual daily temperature in the region (according to the ERA5 reanalysis for the historical data and the actual weather forecast analyses since June 1st). There is a real trend of about 4ºC over the last 70 years – roughly 3 to 4 times the trend in the global mean temperature. Nonetheless, the magnitude of the regional anomaly is more than 5ºC above the previous record. That is, literally, phenomenal.
The temperature anomaly at the local station level is similarly huge at SeaTac airport, Portland International Airport and New Westminster (nr. Vancouver). Note that while the cities might be affected by urban heat island effects that would exacerbate the temperature signal, that would not affect the regional analysis above, nor the situation in village of Lytton, BC which set a massive new all-time Canada-wide temperature record on Tuesday June 29th and promptly burnt down a day later.
However, the situation is a little different if you look at the geopotential height anomalies – these are affected by the synoptic situation as well as the integrated temperature anomalies. In that case, while still record-breaking, the anomaly is not totally beyond expectations. Indeed, the trend in z500 values is similar to the situation in Western Europe last year.
Together these analyses suggest a synoptic situation that is rare, but not inconceivable, but with temperature anomalies that are off the charts.
Attribution
The way that attribution for extreme events works (as discussed previously on RealClimate here and here etc.) is that you look at the situation with and without the anthropogenic global warming signal and calculate the ratio of probabilities. If an event is say, twice as common with the GW, then one can give a fractional attribution of 50% to anthropogenic forcing and the return time is half what it used to be. If it is five times more likely, the attribution is 80% = 100*(5-1)/5 and the return time is a fifth of what it used to be. In this case, we are seeing probability ratios of 150 to 1000s, suggesting that these, improbable, temperatures can be almost entirely attributed to global warming. Without the anthropogenic signal, temperatures this extreme wouldn’t have happened in thousands to tens of thousands of years.
Rainfall and soil moisture deficits as a precursor?
In many previous extreme heat events, such as the 2003 European heatwave, rainfall deficits and dry soils the prior spring were shown to have made an important contribution to the temperature extremes, and so it’s worth looking at the same phenomena here. The IMERG data which are mostly based on satellite rainfall amounts do show a moderate deficit in the area over the last four months, but not so much of an effect that it could explain the anomaly on it’s own. The magnitude of this effect will be examined further in the months to come.
All models are wrong?
This kind of attribution is of course only as good as the models being used. In such a rapid attribution study, that means that the authors depend on an existing database – in this case, from CMIP5 and CMIP6 – and while they screen the models for fidelity in matching this genre of event, it’s possible that there are systematic issues with this class of model for a specific aspect of the situation. For instance, Mann et al., (2018) find that the CMIP5 models have a poor representation of a quasi-resonant (QR) phenomena in jet stream waves that are associated with the ‘omega’ pattern blocking event seen here. [Update: the specific claim in the paper relates to oscillations with wavenumber 6-8, while this event was more of a wavenumber 4 phenomena – see comment #9 below]. The expected trends in QR suggest an increase of about 30% in such events today over the situation in the pre-industrial. If models don’t capture this behaviour, it will make the event seem more unlikely than it really is. This might be resolved in higher resolution modeling specific to this event, but doesn’t really affect the broader conclusions.
Maybe it was just really, really, really unlikely?
Some people still reject these lines of argument, typical of this is Cliff Mass in this recent blog post. For them, the trends in max temperatures are (literally) ignored, and the fact that this phenomenon is being seen around the world is just a series of increasing unlikely combinations of factors that for some inexplicable reason keep happening. But this is really just a case of synoptic myopia – paying too much close attention to the series of specific events that lead to the specific situation, and not seeing the wood for the (burning) trees.
p.s. (8 July): In 2012 we published the highly relevant post Extremely hot, starting like this:
One claim frequently heard regarding extreme heat waves goes something like this: ”Since this heat wave broke the previous record by 5 °C, global warming can’t have much to do with it since that has been only 1 °C over the 20th century”. Here we explain why we find this logic doubly flawed.
Pretty much exactly what happened! And it ends thus:
So in summary: even in the most simple, linear case of a shift in the normal distribution, the probability for “outlandish” heat records increases greatly due to global warming. But the more outlandish a record is, the more would we suspect that non-linear feedbacks are at play – which could increase their likelihood even more.
References
- M.E. Mann, S. Rahmstorf, K. Kornhuber, B.A. Steinman, S.K. Miller, S. Petri, and D. Coumou, "Projected changes in persistent extreme summer weather events: The role of quasi-resonant amplification", Science Advances, vol. 4, 2018. http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aat3272
#146 MA Rodger says basically nothing, as usual. It is somewhat interesting to try to analyze what might be going through the twisted mind of the average brainwashed anthropogenic climate change individual on this site if they could just answer direct questions, such as those that were listed by Matthew R Marler in his 105 comment regarding an interesting list of a number of extreme events so far in 2021 & how those extreme events reflect on the hot days in the Western US.
There have been a number of extreme events so far in 2021. Here is a short list:
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/17/1017256168/europe-germany-floods-death-toll-water-receding
https://www.kpbs.org/news/2021/mar/14/record-breaking-snowstorm-blankets-wyoming/
https://www.kpbs.org/news/2021/mar/24/40000-evacuated-at-least-2-dead-in-massive/
https://www.kpbs.org/news/2021/feb/16/winter-storm-not-over-yet-for-much-of-the-country/
It is amazing how someone who does not agree with the narrative being put forth on this site can make a post that disagrees with that stance on the subject of the Earth’s climate can bring out bring out all of the hatred and anger that seethes at the surface of those who are the loyal followers of the Real Climate web site. I do wish that MA Rodger could answer my request for the empirical experiment, that is repeatable, that demonstrates that the essential for all terrestrial life on Earth trace gas, that makes up only between .03-.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere and is 1.6 times more dense than that rest of the atmosphere, CO₂, has the ability to change the Earth’s climate.
“The growth of knowledge depends entirely on disagreement” Karl Popper
“Skepticism is the highest of duties; blind faith the unpardonable sin.” Huxley
Dan:
Heh. There ought to be a single word for the combination. Ignarrogance? Arrognorance?
“Scientists have determined that climate change is increasing the intensity of heat domes and making heat waves hotter than they would have been without human influence. This explains the frequency at which temperature records are being set every summer. Already this summer, seven national high temperature records have fallen.
But the current weather pattern, in which these heat domes are not only intensified but also prolonged, may also be linked to climate change.
Climate change is expected to decrease the strength of steering currents as the high latitudes warm more quickly than the mid-latitudes, reducing the north-to-south temperature differences that drive the wind. According to a 2018 study from climate scientist Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University, weaker high altitude winds will produce a slower jet stream with more wavy peaks and troughs, which he ascribes to a process known as “quasi-resonant amplification.
The more wavy peaks are the breeding grounds for intensified heat domes, like we see spread around the Northern Hemisphere, while the troughs are the low-pressure zones that can set the stage for floods like we just saw in Germany and neighboring countries.
The configuration of heat domes we see at the moment looks like a “classic” example of a pattern “associated with wave resonance,” Mann wrote in an email.” (My exclamation marks **, KVJ).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2021/07/20/heat-wave-northern-hemisphere/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2018/10/31/study-freak-summer-weather-wild-jet-stream-patterns-are-rise-due-global-warming/
Any comments here on the hypothesis from Michael Mann? Looking rather often on jet-stream maps from the N hemisphere during at least the last fifteen-twenty years, and recalling the configurations which resulted in extreme heatwaves combined with drought and/or flooding events, it’t my impression that he may be on to something, but I am of course no expert, even if I have read a whole lot of general theory about these themes during my education to master of science in physical geography (thesis theme: mapping and prospecting of mountain permafrost in Southern Norway) and in the almost thirty years since I completed my degree (at the University of Oslo, Norway).
#151 JDS Your post would be amusing if it were not so serious a thing that someone might think you had a clue. I do not care to have you respond, it would be nothing but yet more drivel.
at T at 115. You say “I would like to address statements that “scientists failed to predict” the recent disasters (heat wave in the northwest USA, flooding in Europe).
We’ve been predicting this for decades.”
from Common Dreams:
Climate scientists on Friday were stunned by the intensity of flooding in Germany and Belgium that killed at least 120 people and damaged tens of thousands of homes, with experts saying they did not expect such extreme weather to result from the human-caused climate crisis as rapidly as it has.
More than a dozen records for rainfall were set across Western Europe, including in Cologne, where officials recorded six inches of rainfall in just 24 hours on Wednesday into Thursday morning—nearly double the monthly average for July. The city’s previous record for daily rainfall was only three inches.
“This week’s event is totally untypical for that region,” Dieter Gerten, professor of global change climatology and hydrology at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told The Guardian.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2021/07/16/we-are-deep-deep-sht-climate-experts-shocked-severity-floods-germany-and-belgium
at the Guardian piece ““I am surprised by how far it is above the previous record,” Dieter Gerten, professor of global change climatology and hydrology at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said. “We seem to be not just above normal but in domains we didn’t expect in terms of spatial extent and the speed it developed.”
Gerten, who grew up in a village in the affected area, said it occasionally flooded, but not like this week. Previous summer downpours have been as heavy, but have hit a smaller area, and previous winter storms have not raised rivers to such dangerous levels. “This week’s event is totally untypical for that region. It lasted a long time and affected a wide area,” he said.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/16/climate-scientists-shocked-by-scale-of-floods-in-germany
I think it makes no sense to blame the scientists for what has happened, but I think if you say that this was expected, then you and Gerten might want to have a talk. It does not sound like this is what he expected.
Cheers
Mike
The troll J Doug Swallow tells us:-
This, in true troll-like fashion, is not itself a ‘request’ which would be the usual mode of gaining the answer to fulfill a “wish.” I note in a recent RC interchange the troll has insisted that “There is, to date, no empirical evidence that carbon dioxide has anything to do with the Earth’s climate, such as making it warm up or change.”” Perhaps it is high-time to set before him a demonstration showing how wrong he is, again. (“Again” as I will not be the first to attempt this.)
…..
Vacuous troll @151,
It is true that the 400ppm(v) of CO2 within today’s atmosphere is thus providing 0.04% of the molecules within our planet’s atmosphere. (Actually a little more than “between .03-.04%”.)
The gases that are more abundant within the atmosphere according to the Wikithing page are N2 (78.08%), O2 (20.95%) and Ar (0.93%) which, with the 0.04% of CO2, totals to 100%. There are other gases but their combined proportion of the atmosphere is lost in rounding errors. (The next three gases are Neon at 0.002%, Helium at 0.0005% and Methane at 0.0002%.)
The point that should be noted is that none of these more abundant gases N2, O2 and Ar are greenhouse gases. They do not emit radiation at atmospheric temperatures. This means that CO2 isn’t simply a skulking insignificant 0.04% of the atmosphere as it provides 100% (bar a few other rarer gases) of the greenhouse effect that ensures the planet’s water is not frozen solid becoming a part of the geology rather than the climate system.
That CO2 is the big big greenhouse gas can be measured (thus empirically) in a repeatable experiment. Simply measure the spectrum of down-welling long-wave radiation under a dry cloudless sky. <a href="https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/18/20/i1520-0442-18-20-4235-f05.gif"This graphic shows the sort of result obtained. The vast majority of the measured down-welling long-wave radiation under dry clear skies (in this case it is dry because it is cold) is centred on 666 wavenumber (or 15 microns wavelength), the part of the spectrum where CO2 radiates. (The smaller amount of down-welling centred at 1,040 wavenumber is O3. The streaky bits are from the remnants of H2O.)
Without this CO2 down-welling radiation, the Earth would be a lot colder (a bit like Antarctica is) so there would be very little water vapour in the atmosphere which when CO2 is present to kick-off the greenhouse effect, provides a climate which is certainly essential for all the trolls of this planet. So even trolls should be very grateful for atmospheric CO2 in its proper proportions.
The link that failed above.
News Report China floods
More than 7.5 million people have now been affected by the flooding in central China, according to the Henan provincial authorities, more than double the 3 million reported on Thursday.
At least 56 people have died, and another five are still missing, according to a government statement. About 585,000 people have been temporarily evacuated from their homes, while another 919,000 were relocated by the government.
The deadly floods – which the local authorities have described figuratively as a “once in a thousand years event” – caused extensive damage in the provincial capital Zhengzhou and cut off electricity and water supplies.
The Communist Party mouthpiece People’s Daily reported that power supplies would be restored on Saturday and the water supply would be“basically restored” by the following day.
Although Zhengzhou is expected to get back to normal soon, the nearby city of Xinxiang has been hit by further heavy rainstorms, which submerged a large number of homes in outlying villages.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3142360/china-floods-more-75-million-people-henan-now-affected
(news report) From China to Germany, floods expose climate vulnerability
with study published https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020GL092361 June 30 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
“You need technical measures, bolstering dikes and flood barriers. But we also need to remodel cities,” said Fred Hattermann at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. He said there was increasing focus on so-called “green-adaptation” measures, like polders and plains that can be flooded, to stop water running off too fast.” .. “But when there’s really heavy rain, all that may not help, so we have to learn to live with it,” he said.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/from-china-to-germany-floods-expose-climate-vulnerability/ar-AAMqbiu
(Study) Analysis and Projection of Flood Hazards over China
Published: 16 May 2019
“More floods could occur in southern China, including Guangdong, Hainan, Guangxi and Fujian provinces, which could become more serious in southeastern China and the northern Yunnan province. Construction of water conservancy projects, reservoir dredging, improvement of drainage and irrigation equipment and enhancement of flood control and storage capacity can mitigate the impacts of floods and waterlogging on agriculture. “
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/11/5/1022/htm
Flooding Hazards across Southern China and Prospective Sustainability Measures Published: 22 May 2018
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/5/1682/htm
July 23, 2021 Deadly summer of extreme weather
https://phys.org/news/2021-07-deadly-summer-extreme-weather.html
Unfortunately the part of the article with text highlighted by my exclamation marks (**) fell out when I copied the text in my comment above (# 153). Here it is:
“As viewed on a weather map of the globe, no fewer than *five powerful heat domes* are swelling over the landmasses of the Northern Hemisphere. *These zones of high pressure in the atmosphere, intensified by climate change, are generating unforgiving blasts of heat in North America, Europe and Asia simultaneously*.
The heat domes, in a number of instances, are the source of record high temperatures and are contributing to swarms of wildfires in western North America and in Siberia. In recent days, all-time record highs have been set in Turkey, northern Japan and Northern Ireland.
Lined up like a parade, the heat domes are also part of a traffic jam of weather systems that instigated the flood disaster in Europe last week.
How weather patterns conspired for a flooding disaster in Germany
Heat domes like this are normal at this time of year, the hottest point of summer, *but it’s unusual to have this many this intense. Every one of these heat domes is generating exceptional weather*.(…)
Scientists have determined that climate change is increasing the intensity of heat domes and making heat waves hotter than they would have been without human influence. This explains the frequency at which temperature records are being set every summer. Already this summer, seven national high temperature records have fallen.
But the current weather pattern, in which these heat domes are not only intensified but also prolonged, may also be linked to climate change.”
I’m not sure if this conclusion about the current heat domes in the cited “*but it’s unusual to have this many this intense. Every one of these heat domes is generating exceptional weather*” (still my exclamation marks) is foreseen to happen more regularly in the future by the results in Mann et al. (https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/4/10/eaat3272 ). Certainly this situation this summer (if it really is that exceptional as the citation implies) could just be happening for once and may not imply any first sign of any trend. The problem for us as a society to me seems to be this: if we are indeed advancing past some fatal climatic tipping points now, science will not be able to detect it before many years (probably decades) later. If nothing else, all the denialists (the outspoken as well as the more greenwashing variants) among the politicians in power will make sure of that.
Surely the consequences for society could be disatrous long before science will be able to predict, with any reasonable degree of certainty, weather events of a too dangerous nature to be happening (so) soon? Or is my understanding of the (unprecise) term “tipping points” an overestimation of the speed by which dangerous climate change can happen? Are there any implications in the research so far that points to an ongoing acceleration of global warming or cascading of feedback mechanisms?
What if we are now entering a phase where the political actions urgently needed can’t wait until the science has spoken?
Another looming US heatwave on it’s way says NOAA
https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/610day/
Has climate science and IPCC reports predicted the extreme nature and extent of recent extreme weather events and other climate impacts in recent years? I’m not sure. Opinions vary.
—
(news report) The latest, but most expansive, in a parade of heatwaves to sweep the US is likely to bring thunderstorms and lightning to some areas, as well as worsen drought conditions ranked as “severe” or “exceptional” that now cover two-thirds of the US west.
Climate scientists have said the barrage of heatwaves over the past month, which have parched farms, caused roads to buckle and resulted in the obliteration of long-standing temperature records, are being fueled by predicted human-caused climate change – but admit to being surprised at the ferocity of the onslaught.
(Would be nice to see an survey as how accurate that feeling is.)
“It’s been a severe and dangerous summer, some of the heatwaves have been devastatingly hot,” said Michael Wehner, a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “We certainly expected these type of temperatures as global warming continues but I don’t think anyone anticipated they would be so hot right now. I don’t think we could’ve expected so many heatwaves in the same general region in one summer.” (ie so early in the year 2021)
The most extraordinary of the recent heatwaves occurred in the Pacific northwest in June where the normally mild region was bathed in heat that broke temperature records by more than 10F (5.5C). The heat, which caused hundreds of people to die in cities including Seattle and Portland (And Canada), where it reached 116F (46C), has caused several scientists to question their previous estimates of how the climate crisis will reshape heatwave severity.
(Would like to see more examples of such questioning, if it’s true)
“You expect hotter heatwaves with climate change but the estimates may have been overly conservative,” Wehner said. “With the Pacific northwest heatwave you’d conclude the event would be almost impossible without climate change but in a straightforward statistical analysis from before this summer you’d also include it would be impossible with climate change, too. That is problematic, because the event happened.”
Wehner said the ongoing heatwaves should prompt governments and businesses to better prepare for the health impacts of high temperatures, which range from heat stroke to breathing difficulties caused by smoke emitted from increasingly large wildfires.
“The good news is that heatwaves are now on people’s radars a bit more,” he said. “But these sort of events are completely unprecedented, you expect records to be beaten by tenths of a degree, not 5F or more.”
“It’s a teachable moment in many ways for the public that climate change is here and now and dangerous. It isn’t our grandchildren’s problem, it’s our problem. But it’s been a teachable moment for climate scientists too.”
see more at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/24/america-heatwave-climate-crisis-heat-dome
Disclaimer:
One swallow doesn’t a summer make. But I’d like to see more reporting on this perspective, question. I think there are quite a few yardsticks being broken earlier than “predicted” by the consensus IPCC climate reports. Not all climate scientists are on the same page as the degree of impacts and the urgency of the crisis.
Another thing is that this years extremes are coming on the back of other recent years of similar extreme weather events. They are not one offs afaik. Eg massive record breaking floods in China in 2016, heatwaves and fires in Russia siberia, and early season heatwaves wild fires in canada and alaska, and obviously in Europe and fires and droughts in Australia, California and west.
Supplying or rather trying to make my amateuristic questions above more precise:
1) Is the concluding remark from the abstract in Trenberth, K. E., and J. T. Fasullo (2012), Climate extremes and climate change: The Russian heat wave and otherclimate extremes of 2010,J. Geophys. Res.,117, D17103, doi:10.1029/2012JD018020 (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/258663088_Climate_extremes_and_climate_change_The_Russian_heat_wave_and_other_climate_extremes_of_2010 ) still correct: “Attribution is limited by shortcomings in models in replicating monsoons, teleconnections and blocking”? I note that they connect the russian heatwave etc. to both ENSO (meaning El Nino 2009-10 https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/41576/el-nino-strengthens-in-november-2009 ) and AGW: “Natural variability, especially ENSO, and global warming from human influences together resulted in very high sea surface temperatures (SSTs) in several places that played a vital role insubsequent developments”. But the latest similar situations 2018 and 2021 are *not* connected to the aftermath of El Nino events, on the contrary: they are happening in the imidiate aftermath of La Nina events. This year also the forecast for the coming winter is rather for another La Nina 2021-22: “As things stand with the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), neutral conditions are currently present in the tropical Pacific and favored to last through the North American summer and into the fall. But forecasters at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center have issued a La Niña Watch, which means they see La Niña likely emerging (~55%) during the September-November period and lasting through winter.” https://www.climate.gov/news-features/blogs/enso/july-2021-enso-update-la-ni%C3%B1a-watch . What conclusions is to be made from that fact?
2) Is, according to the research/modelling on quasiresonant amplification by Mann, Rahmstorf et al., the “five powerful heat domes” this summer just what is to be expected by now, or is it maybe an unexpectedly early arrival of phenomena they foresee first to be happening some decades from now? In case that wouldn’t be the first time in recent decades climate scientists are being taken by surprise.
(Grist for the Mill)
Is climate change happening faster than expected? A climate scientist explains.
Climate scientists have long warned that global warming would lead to extreme heat in many parts of the world. But the 120 degree Fahrenheit temperatures brought on by the heatwave in the Pacific Northwest in June were more in line with what researchers had imagined would occur later this century.
“Astonished” is the word Michael Wehner, an extreme weather researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, used to describe his reaction to the heat in an interview with National Geographic.
Quote
Has climate change entered warp speed?
Not exactly, says Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles who is an authority on extreme weather, wildfires, and other climate impacts.
“I’m less convinced that recent events tell us that things are moving faster than projections have suggested,” Swain said. “But I am increasingly convinced that we’ve underestimated the impacts of some of the changes that were actually fairly well predicted.”
https://grist.org/article/is-climate-change-happening-faster-than-expected-a-climate-scientist-explains/amp/?__twitter_impression=true
Every other climate scientist who has talked about that interview, including Rick Thoman, agreed with him.
https://twitter.com/alaskawx/status/1418579832913362949?s=21
Daniel Swain – https://twitter.com/Weather_West
JDS 151: I do wish that MA Rodger could answer my request for the empirical experiment, that is repeatable, that demonstrates that the essential for all terrestrial life on Earth trace gas, that makes up only between .03-.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere and is 1.6 times more dense than that rest of the atmosphere, CO₂, has the ability to change the Earth’s climate.
JDS 151: I do wish that MA Rodger could answer my request for the empirical experiment, that is repeatable, that demonstrates that the essential for all terrestrial life on Earth trace gas, that makes up only between .03-.04% of the Earth’s atmosphere and is 1.6 times more dense than that rest of the atmosphere, CO₂, has the ability to change the Earth’s climate.
BPL: You know what? Shut up. Just shut up.
You’ve been pointed to the evidence time and again. You keep on bringing up the same discredited crap about “trace gas” and “0.3- 0.4%” and “.6 times more dense” no matter how many times we show that you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about. Your militant ignorance and the fact that you are so proud of it just show what an offensive, dishonest person you are.
If you’re not willing to listen to the answers, stop asking the questions.
from the Guardian:
Climate scientists have said the barrage of heatwaves over the past month, which have parched farms, caused roads to buckle and resulted in the obliteration of long-standing temperature records, are being fueled by predicted human-caused climate change – but admit to being surprised at the ferocity of the onslaught.
“It’s been a severe and dangerous summer, some of the heatwaves have been devastatingly hot,” said Michael Wehner, a a senior scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “We certainly expected these type of temperatures as global warming continues but I don’t think anyone anticipated they would be so hot right now. I don’t think we could’ve expected so many heatwaves in the same general region in one summer.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/24/america-heatwave-climate-crisis-heat-dome?utm_term=c56a21681f1f38d98976b98d87e76a3f&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUS&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUS_email
Let me pull a quote out again: “I don’t think anyone anticipated they would be so hot right now. I don’t think we could’ve expected so many heatwaves in the same general region in one summer.”
At some point, if this continues, as I think it will, it’s going to become obvious that the “alarmists” on global warming have been correct for the past decade or two. The cooler heads who have dismissed alarmists may regroup and start creating a false narrative about how this was expected, but the level, extent, intensity and timing of the heat waves and flooding were not expected. Scientists are admitting to being surprised and are described as stunned. They say no one expected this level of problems this fast. Excuse me? Shouldn’t that be: no one but the alarmists expected this.
Anybody need to check out that heat dome activity one more time? Good news, I guess! It’s supposed to build across the US next week. Stay tuned.
When it pops like this, I have trouble retaining my composure. After years of sounding the alarm, I have largely relaxed into resignation about the world we are leaving to my kids and grandkids, but when it blows up like this, I experience a little anger with folks who want to start building the false narrative that this was expected. Only the alarmists in the community that has been talking about global warming expected this level of disruption this fast and this broadly.
CO2? Is that a problem? I am told that problem might have peaked.
June CO2
June 2021 = 418.94 ppm
June 2020 = 416.60 ppm
co2.earth
Crummy situation,
Mike
was this heat expected by climate scientists as a community? No. Anyone who was predicting these kind of events got slammed for their “scare-mongering.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/24/america-heatwave-climate-crisis-heat-dome
The most extraordinary of the recent heatwaves occurred in the Pacific north-west in June where the normally mild region was bathed in heat that broke temperature records by more than 10F (5.5C). The heat, which caused hundreds of people to die in cities including Seattle and Portland, where it reached 116F (46C), has caused several scientists to question their previous estimates of how the climate crisis will reshape heatwave severity.
“You expect hotter heatwaves with climate change but the estimates may have been overly conservative,” Wehner said. “With the Pacific north-west heatwave you’d conclude the event would be almost impossible without climate change but in a straightforward statistical analysis from before this summer you’d also include it would be impossible with climate change, too. That is problematic, because the event happened.”
Mike
J Doug Swallow @151 says “#146 MA Rodger says basically nothing, as usual.” It’s John Doug Swallow that basically never says anything. He posts endless useless lists of weather records with no accompanying analysis, as if that proves anything. Oh the irony, and his total lack of self awareness. I will not stoop to calling him stupid, but very naieve comes to mind.
My understanding is the climate science community has made general predictions that things like heatwaves and floods will become more intense or frequent, but I’m not aware of any specific predictions of how much more intense over a given time period? Does anyone know of such a thing or something similar? And whether recent events have been formally evaluated against such predictions?
I do not really like to make predictions too much as I’m not a scientist, but back around 2000 I thought these things 1) warming would track in the middle of the range 2) climate sensitivity would turn out to be in the middle, about 3.0 degrees 3) weather would become significantly more extreme than generally anticipated, ie weather formation might be more sensitive to small increases in temperature than anticipated 4) sea level rise would track higher than expected. Worst case was about 500mm by 2100 back then. I thought 2 metres was possible worst case, based on paleo evidence, and I have mentioned this a few times on this website. It was all based on general reading, various considerations, and a fair amount of gut instinct. It doesn’t seem too far away from recent global trends and findings.
Re. JDS and “…and is 1.6 times more dense than that rest of the atmosphere (CO₂)”
Wow! While it used to be quite common, I haven’t seen this particular denier bromide for a while, now. In any case, thank heavens oxygen is 14% heavier than nitrogen or we’d all be dead! I guess that also explains why climbers have to carry oxygen when they climb above about 2/3s of the atmosphere at Everest! There’s no oxygen left! Only nitrogen!
BTW, JDS, yes there are real differences in atmospheric gases composition w/ altitude, but you apparently didn’t know they don’t kick in till you get much higher except for water vapor which doesn’t get above the tropopause much. But that is not for reasons of density. Carbon dioxide persists much higher than that.
John Pollack #139,
I would thank you for the reference, but it was way too tempting to spend time exploring it instead of getting my many real-world projects done!
Anyway, my sense is that you are confirming the underlying principle I have always assumed… you can’t add energy to a complex non-linear system without at least perturbing the patterns of energy transfer and transition. It doesn’t really matter, as someone commented earlier, who is exactly right about the specifics of the mechanism. My guess is “all of the above”, and what matters is “how much?”, and I think we will learn that before we can predict it.
I wanted to compliment you and John Monro for producing what I keep hoping to see here as an example for ‘students’ (visitors and lurkers); a rational, carefully constructed dialogue. Of course, it is mostly buried by the usual repetitive and often incoherent rhetoric and ranting, sigh.
tamino (115): “I would like to address statements that “scientists failed to predict” the recent disasters (heat wave in the northwest USA, flooding in Europe).
We’ve been predicting this for decades.”
Killian(150) “Let’s be honest here: It been predicted for decades that these things would be happening decades later than they have. I, on the other hand, did predict these things would happen much sooner than the science was saying.”
I would be interested see THE ACTUAL QUOTES proving both claims:
1. a quote of Tamino saying that we are safe for now, since the heat waves/floods are “decades away”
2. a quote of Killian being SPECIFIC in his prediction: predicting the magnitude and timing of heat waves and floods, in say, “say, multiple 4 std dev. events in 2015 +/-5 year”. Predicting “sooner than later” is not really a prediction to write home about (it’s like predicting market correction without saying how big nor when – bound to be right at some point…;-) ).
Killian: “ Still, nobody is curious how I did that… And, no, it wasn’t “alarmism” or the “broken clock,” it was logic and analysis.
If you indeed came up with QUANTITATIVE predictions on the timing of the previous unheard-of heat waves and floods OUTSIDE of models, data and statistical tools, but solely on the strength of your thinking and intuition – no wonder that nobody was curious how you did it: one can’t possibly hope to replicate the thinking of a Prophet.
Straw Man arguments are not useful to anyone. I have never claimed to state specific time frames because nobody can. The scientists don’t even try, yet here you are barking words you know mean nothing since you know the framing I think most important is long-tail risk not predictions, per se – though I’ve had more than enough of those to be taken seriously. You have none, yet bark words at someone who can do so. Why? What is it you are so needful of? What were you denied in your childhood, e.g.?
It is *meaningful* and *important* that a person is able to say with certitude based on the facts before them that scenarios placed far in the future are very likely to happen much sooner. There is true value in that. It sets a far better mitigation/adaptation pathway if others listen. It is sad your only interest here is barking words when we have an existential threat of our own making bearing down on us. And some are beginning to accept/admit there are various ways of knowing, processing information and that it is not the strict application of the scientific method that matters. It *all* matters.
But you think barking words matters.
Your rudeness is not solving our problems. We need serious people for serious times.
Be better. Do better.
But here’s my list:
* stated permafrost thaw was a more urgent issue than some believed based on triplings of thermokarst lakes, etc. True.
*Predicted the 2016 ASI low. True.
* Predicted the 2008 financial crisis and the Fall timing. True.
* stated Antarctica *had* to start losing mass well before the then-consensus 2070.
* Stated tipping points *had* to be coming soon as some clearly already had. (Arctic ice loss started in 1953, e.g.)
* Predicted we’d be seeing doublings and triplings in rates of change much faster than the IPCC scenarios because they were already popping up, and such findings are piling up faster and faster.
Etc.
These are not small things. If others had listened, we would have moved faster. You didn’t. We didn’t. Your pedantry is not a good replacement for action.
Karsten V. Johansen (161): “ [Are this summer heat waves] what is to be expected by now, or is it maybe an unexpectedly early arrival of phenomena they foresee first to be happening some decades from now? In case that wouldn’t be the first time in recent decades climate scientists are being taken by surprise.?
That’s like me saying – “I don’t know if Karsten stole a garden rake from Mrs. Klaus or not, but if the former – then it wouldn’t be the first time that somebody from her circle of friends have helped themselves to other people’s property.” You see the problem? You can’t criticize OTHERS based on the question to which answer you still DON’T KNOW! Because if you didn’t steal the rake, how would you feel having your reputation unfairly and permanently (with the accusation made behind your back, you never set it straight) tarnished?
To sum up – if you refer to SPECIFIC PEOPLE (“ Mann, Rahmstorf et al.“) AND AFTER THAT you muse about “scientists being taken by surprise” then you did connect them to the latter, so your earlier you declaration that it is only a possibility does not change a thing. Particularly, when on RC there are climate-science “skeptics”, who try to elevate themselves by putting down climate scientists ( on this very subject).
jgnfld (170) Re. JDS and “…and is 1.6 times more dense than that rest of the atmosphere (CO₂)” Wow! While it used to be quite common, I haven’t seen this particular denier bromide for a while, now.”
well, you missed even better- when our little Swallow combined Climate Change Denial AND the Intelligent Designer – the Big Guy apparently designed CO2 to be 1.6 heavier to bring it down to Life that so need it. Well, that and occasionally to kill thousands of people and cattle (catastrophic CO2 releases from African lakes).
Nigelj @168 I am aware of two good peer-reviewed studies in major journals looking at future intensity of precipitation
https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/33/3/jcli-d-18-0764.1.xml
and “grey swan” intense tropical cyclones affecting important coastal cities
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate2777
I would not refer to either of these as “predictions” and the authors probably wouldn’t either. One reason is that the studies assume a particular emissions scenario for future CO2 rise. You can’t make a prediction unless you know the CO2 level.
Mike @166 Regarding the quote that the PNW heat wave would have been nearly impossible without climate change, “but in a straightforward statistical analysis from before this summer you’d also include it would be impossible with climate change, too. That is problematic, because the event happened.”
I would say that part of the problem is relying on statistical analysis without letting the meteorological factors inform the analysis. In the case of the PNW heat wave, the extreme temperatures were reached both because antecedent drought over a large area allowed the formation of an exceptionally intense heat dome. When that dome moved over the PNW, the exceptional records were in the areas where a marine inversion normally keeps temperatures down. This time, the marine inversion scoured out completely over Portland and the northern Willamette Valley, and to a great extent in many other normally protected locations such as Quillaute. The proof that the exceptional records were due much more to the exceptional scouring than to the exceptional temperature of the heat dome is that east of the Cascades, all time records were nearly equaled to modestly exceeded in most places.
It’s easier to scour an inversion for a big temperature boost than it is to heat up an already hot heat dome even more by AGW. So, if the statistical analysis ignores this “fat tail” of probability in areas with a prevailing marine inversion, they will underestimate the vulnerability to extreme heat in these locations.
Reply to Piotr #173: I thank you for your reply and admit that my phrasing of the question was a bit sloppy (but maybe You should avoid lecturing me as if I was a naughty school-boy? Heating up of discussions never contributed to better understanding).
My question was provoked by the recent appearance in swedish news by Johan Rocktroem (here – unfortunately only in swedish:
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/utrikes/klimatforskarens-reaktion-pa-naturkatastoferna-chockerande ) saying he was deeply shocked by the extreme heatwaves and other weather extremes occuring round the Northern Hemisphere this summer, and then referring (rather confusing, as he said that the arctic amplification was something different from AGW (sic!) even if this is otherwise always seen as the most clear fingerprint of AGW) to the predictions about QRA by Mann et al. 2018.
To rephrase my question (hopefully more adequately): Does the hypothesis from Mann et al. (2018), which Mann also explained (2019) for the general public here:
http://www.meteo.psu.edu/holocene/public_html/Mann/articles/articles/MannSciAmFeb19.pdf , about the lessening or even stoppage of the arctic amplification until about 2050, take into account the observations that *both the thawing of permafrost and the decling of the arctic sea-ice and the mass loss of the Greenland (and Antarctic) ice-sheets are continuing at a much faster rate than foreseen in the prognoses from the IPCC*?
*Couldn’t it be that even if the heating accelerates in mid-latitudes because of China soon starting to filter out aerosols from coal burning, it will accelerate even more in the Arctic?* Meaning that *the arctic amplification will not be weakened until about 2050* as the Mann et al. hypothesis is?
Related question: to which degree does the global dimming especially over Asia (China, India) stem from aerosols from coal-burning? Which percentage can be ascribed to 1) rapidly rising amounts of exhaustion from cars and other vehicles driven by fossil fuels – SMOG? 2) More dust storms because of the ongoing drying out of big parts of Central Asia and Siberia (see fx. also https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2020.00226/full concerning dust from middle eastern deserts affecting the summer monsoon in South Asia and this discussion: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2020.00133/full )?
I recall that during the corona-lockdown in Asia last year, NASA released satellite imagery showing much less aerosols over the industrial regions in China and India. Notably it was widely reported that for the first time in over thirty years, it was possible to see the Himalayas from the floodplains of the river Ganges. Was this due mostly to less traffic or mostly to less industrial pollution/coal burning?
jgnfld and Piotr, My observation on folks using the higher density for CO2 as an argument against greenhouse forcing is that they do not seem to realize that they are complete idiots.
Citing the density of CO2 is not an argument against greenhouse forcing so much as it is an argument against CO2 being present in the atmosphere at all. The thing is that it is present and it is well mixed. These are facts–well measured, empirical facts. As soon as I see someone making such arguments, I dismiss the person as in irremediable moron.
the Financial Times says: “Climate scientists say the severity of these events is simply ‘off scale’ compared with what atmospheric models forecast – even when global warming is fully taken into account.” It quotes Chris Rapley, professor of climate science at University College London: “I think I would be speaking for many climate scientists to say that we are a bit shocked at what we are seeing. There is a dramatic change in the frequency with which extreme [weather] events occur.”
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57944015
a bit shocked. Off scale.
The scientists are not to blame for our situation. The scientific evidence has been clear for a long time. Some scientists have shown courage and have worked hard to communicate about the threat, others have been less courageous and have kept their heads down and their communications have been muddled in terms of convincing that populace and government officials to act. But the evidence has been clear and has been adequately communicated. Our species has resisted necessary changes and we are seeing the impact arrive earlier than the scientific predictions suggested. That doesn’t really matter if we are apportioning blame (a waste of time imo), we didn’t act. The evidence and danger was clear.
As to attribution, rapid or otherwise, the evidence for the link between global warming and extreme events is always going to be hard to “prove”, but it is also hard to ignore when we get so many extreme events occurring in short time periods.
RL is correct, we have exited the “fuck around” stage and we have entered the “find out” era.
Cheers
Mike
J Doug Swallow: MA Rodger says basically nothing, as usual. It is somewhat interesting to try to analyze what might be going through the twisted mind of
RtW: someone who would come along and trash a beloved regular who generally stays above the fray.
If your goal was to get me (and others?) to stop reading at the end of the insult,
Mission Accomplished.
But if the subsequent blather has worth, you did an oopsie.
I didn’t read it. Too offensive an introduction. Would you read your own words after your own introduction, Doug? Well, guess what. Neither did most anybody. You wasted a lot of typing, dude.
RL and ” that they do not seem to realize that they are complete idiots”
No argument from me on that. Pretty sure that’s why many/most deniers gave them one up except for the completely irremediable.
The World in Locally Flat.
The flat earthers are correct that
for local measurements, the world is flat!
But when things get weird and do not fit,
you have to Change The Model.
It is clearly time to bring in some other variables,
which probably do not have a history,
Are not included in existing models.
I see your hands flapping as you talk about them.
Should be a fun time sorting out
the local extremes problem!
re comments by Tamino, mike and others.
Michael Mann is well known in the public sphere, and one of the founders of Real Climate.
On 26 Jun 2021 Mann said this about the PNW heatwaves, the AMOC, and the recent leak from the AR6:
@3.00 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxu–0oE8Ag
… it is fair to say that there
is you know there are developments um
over the last four years since the last
ipcc report that do demonstrate some
impacts are are clearly appearing
earlier than we would have expected,
and one of the examples is in fact the
impact that climate change is having on
extreme summer weather events,
unprecedented heat waves and droughts
and wildfires and floods,
and the climate models it turns out
are a little bit behind the curve (in)
capturing some of the real world
processes that are involved,
and so some of our work has in fact
argued that the climate models used
by the ipcc to assess the impacts
of climate change may be
underestimating the impact that
climate change is having on these
extreme summer weather events
and you’re witnessing it right
now in the pacific northwest
a truly unprecedented heat wave
and one for which people who live
in that part of the country
aren’t prepared for, and simply
aren’t prepared for the sorts of
heat waves that we’re used to
seeing in the desert southwest …
[end quote]
AND @5.30 minutes about the AMOC
… yeah that that’s right this is
another one of those examples of
impacts that are playing out earlier
and and with a greater magnitude
than the models predicted, just
a decade ago or so in fact back
in 2015 my co-authors Stefan
Romsdorf from the Potsdam Climate
Institute (a Real Climate founder)
and colleagues published an article
where we demonstrated using models and
paleo observations that there is this
unprecedented slowdown in this very
important (ocean) current system the
the atlantic meridional overturning
circulation AMOC to use the technical
term …
and what we’re seeing is that that ice
melt is happening earlier than we
expected and so that fresh water is
coming into the north atlantic
earlier than we expected and that
current system is now slowing down
earlier than we expected …
My Comment
– the above are not one off exceptional examples. There are many examples over the years. Coming faster now than ever. But they rarely get much widespread press … climate change rarely gets much accurate consistent widespread press or appropriate political attention in society.
The IPCC is notorious for understating the speed and dangers and extent of climate change. The UNFCCC (Govst and politicians) is then equally notorious for making agreements not fit for purpose but made even worse by the IPCC understating the level of crisis involved.
There have been few climate scientists etc who have taken these two global bodies to task for bad information for being not fit for purpose and/or minimizing the problem and the action needed to counter it.
This has been the case for 30 years, in my opinion. Maybe now the chickens are coming home to roost? I don’t know. But the public cannot be blamed for the statements, reports and communications by these two organizations, and the scientists and politicians and Government staffers behind the scenes.
[ Maybe this post would be better placed in Forced Responses? ]
More from Michael Mann on the Thom Hartmann Program 26 Jun 2021
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxu–0oE8Ag
Mann is asked, how are we doing with driving down emissions and keeping under 1.5C etc etc – My view Mann is totally off with the faeries here, bordering on delusional thinking and the outright denial of reality. What Mann is saying here is not accurate and not helping one bit.
Q. @8.00 minutes
…what’s your prognosis now, i mean
we were talking about trying to stop
all this, bring it to a screeching
halt at 1.5 degrees?
I’m seeing articles suggesting that
we’ve shot past that threshold, have we?
Quoting Mann:
No we haven’t.
Comment: Now given all the known errors, the uncertainty involved, and known underestimating and unexpected impacts going on already for years, Michael Mann would not know one way or another. He should not be saying “no we haven’t”. He’s not qualified to know.
Mann: if you if you crunch the
numbers there are no physical obstacles
to stabilizing the warming uh below one
and a half degrees celsius about three
fahrenheit where we’ll start to see the
worst impacts of climate change.
Comment: No, that’s just bs to me. It’s not true.
Mann: we’re already seeing
dangerous climate change at a little
over one degree celsius
it gets much worse at one and a half and
even worse at two degrees so it’s not a
cliff that we go off at any particular
amount of warming but it’s like this
dangerous highway that we’re going
down and we want to get off at the
earliest exit we can.
Comment: Minimizing the level of crisis and reality. Denial writ large. We’ve overshot the cliff years ago now.
Mann: the one and a half degrees
celsius exit still is available to us
but we have to take dramatic action
we have to bring carbon emissions down
by a factor of two in less than a decade.
Comment: Mann cannot accurately openly define “dramatic action”, of what is actually required by 2030 to stay under 1.5C for the rest of the century. He always refuses to say exactly what the action by the collective UNFCCC needs to be.
Mann: we’re seeing some reasons
for optimism now more leadership
from the united states going into
this next (UNFCCC/COP) conference of
the parties in glasgow later this year
cop 26 there’s reason to believe that
we’ll see meaningful ratcheting up
of those paris commitments enough to
start to get us on that path that
we need to get on if we’re going to
avert catastrophic warming
Comment: That’s called Fake News or being off with the fairies out of touch with reality.
The actual evidence, the facts, the level of commitments by Govts (G7,G20/OECD) and the projected GHG emissions going forward to 2030 based on such Policies and Agreements, suggests the complete opposite.
No high emitting country is even close to making the kinds of commitments needed to remain below 1.5C – The evidence, the crunching of numbers shows 3C or more being baked into the system.
Michael Mann, 17 Jul 2021 Democracy Now interview ::
@4.00 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFt95wpXJ94
“We have to act now.
Dangerous climate change is here.
Catastrophic climate change is here.
At this point it’s a matter of how
bad we’re willing to let it get. “
Yet, 10 days later he’s saying:
“…there’s reason to believe that
we’ll see meaningful ratcheting up
of those Paris commitments enough to
start to get us on that path that
we need to get on if we’re going to
avert catastrophic warming.”
Which is it? Catastrophic climate change is here?
Or if we act now we can avert it?
Can’t be both, surely. No. And that’s the problem.
Not specifically with Mann, he’s only an example of broader community.
Speaking out of both sides of one’s mouth sends out a confusing message.
Either it’s already a dangerous crisis, already catastrophic or it’s not.
And if it is Catastrophic before we have even got to +1.5C then the leading Governments behind the IPCC, and the UNFCCC/COP system, have completely failed.
The Reality is looking more like a crime against humanity every day, isn’t it?
Lastly, and when Mann says “we have to act now”, he needs to be very specific about what that Action needs to be …. just saying reduce emissions is a Cop Out of epic proportions.
Be specific – who, what, how, where, and by when. And if the COP agreements are not fit for purpose, the actions been taken now are insufficient, then call those out.
This is what so very few in the climate science community do. They endlessly prevaricate, or remain silent.
Some even say it’s not their job or responsibility to say or have an opinion on it.
Saying the PNW heatwaves are unprecedented and caused by climate change, and so we have to act now to reduce emissions, is essentially saying nothing. It’s a cop out. It’s standing on the sidelines doing nothing.
(This follows along with the theme of previous comments; but it may be better placed in Forced Responses. I don;t know. )
Another example of things being worse than expected by Michael Mann.
This time How Bad Is the Climate Crisis? – 16 Sept 2020
@2.00 minutes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwLU7aCGkcY
Quote Mann:
“… so as you already alluded
to we need to bring carbon emissions
down dramatically more than seven
percent a year for the next decade.”
Comment: That’s slightly more specific than beofre. But what Mann does not say here is that the UNFCC/COP system is no where near achieving a global 7% reduction in carbon emissions per year now or going forward to the end of the decade.
Or ever!!! Not last September, not now today, and not by the time they arrive at Glascow COP26 either.
This fact is self-evident, surely?
The other important fact is Climate Scientists and others in positions of Authority who know this rarely if ever talk about this fact. Scientists, academics like Prof like Kevin Anderson are the exception to the rule, and you can see ‘scientists’ arguing about (or dismissing, ignoring) this matter quite often. Some are deemed outliers and extremists with unjustified positions, or for being too negative. Most remain silent.
Mann: … so the warming of the surface
of the planet is proceeding more or
less as we expect, on the other
hand there are other aspects of climate
change which in fact are running
faster and where the magnitudes are
greater than we expected …
Comment: Mann runs through a long list of examples. So putting aside the PNW heatwave, and floods in Europe and China, and fires in the US and Russia now; almost a year ago Mann was already listing out the many examples of Impacts outstripping prior projections by the IPCC and climate scientists.
Mann continues: … that goes
beyond what we expected to see at this
point and in each of these cases what
that comes down to is that our models
are imperfect and there are processes
relevant to ice melt or to how climate
change influences the behavior of the
Jetstream that aren’t perfectly
represented in the models …”
Comment: Our Models are imperfect. Yes, I know. This is not news, now is it?
OK then. So let’s be a little rational here, despite being unable to be certain.
If the global mean temperature increase of +1.1 – 1.2C is about as expected, but the impacts are increasingly greater than expected, then it’s self-evident, obvious, and abundantly LOGICAL and RATIONAL that the stated Goals of remaining below 1.5C (or Max 2C) are not the right settings.
It’s the wrong yardstick to be basing the Mitigation Goals for the next decade to 3 decades ahead for GHG emission reductions and all the other hypothetical actions (CCS, BECCS, Land use improvements) including any theoretical ADAPTION ideas or plans.
So why the hell is Michael Mann and everyone else not already saying so?
And screaming this from the mountain tops 24/7. This is what is so incredibly irrational to me. The behavior of people who should and do know better.
Clearly, COP26 in Glasgow is based on bullshit. It’s based on misinformation, on fantasy, and is therefore a complete failure already.
John Pollack @175, that’s the sort of thing I was looking for. Thanks.
To me the people who argue CO2 is higher density than other gases so cant cause greenhouse warming just dont think. They must know that if CO2 really all accumulated at ground level they would suffocate to death, therefore SOMETHING must be causing it to get higher up in the atmosphere and mixed in with other gases! You would think they might contemplate that it might be air currents or turbulence or hot gases rising etc. Things everyone has heard of. Or google it. Diffusion is also a big factor.
nigelj @183,
I would suggest the well-mixed nature of CO2 within the atmosphere up to 50km-or-so is actually because diffusion isn’t “a big factor.” If it were “big” then gravity would lend more of a hand in puddling those pesky heavy-weight CO2 mollecules down to lower altitudes. (Note this ‘not big’ assertion about diffusion does not extend to turbulent diffusion but you do apparently separate this yourself.)
The now-boreholed troll tried to argue that gravity does pull CO2 down so as to puddle at lower altitude (even though measurements show this is pie-eyed nonsense) while the troll’s only ‘evidence’ rather confuses the issue. The troll’s one example of the behaviour of CO2, “a trace gas, that is 1.6 times more dense than that rest of the atmosphere,” is the 1986 event at Lake Nyos which occurred when a yet-to-be-dissipated 1.2 cu km cloud of almost pure CO2 was emitted from a volcanic lake, so was certainly at that point not “a trace gas.”
an update from Michael Mann from 186:
Prof Michael Mann, at Pennsylvania State University in the US and not part of the new research, said: “This study underscores something that has been apparent in the record weather extremes we’ve seen this summer: dangerous climate change is here, and it’s now simply a matter of how dangerous we are willing to let it get.” Mann’s own research published in May showed a possible doubling of heat stress in the US by 2100.
But he said: “If anything, this latest study, and our own, are underestimating the potential for deadly heat extremes in the future, in the absence of significant climate action.” That is because current climate models do not capture the slow-moving and very persistent nature of the extreme weather phenomena seen in the Pacific north-west heatwave and German floods recently.
The new research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, concluded: “Record-shattering extremes are [currently] very rare but their expected probability increases rapidly in the coming three decades.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/26/record-shattering-heat-becoming-much-more-likely-says-climate-study?utm_term=530f66ba56eaa51a0aca602424795d05&utm_campaign=USMorningBriefing&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=usbriefing_email
“…record-shattering extremes are [currently] very rare but their expected probability increases rapidly in the coming three decades… ”
I give credit to Professor Mann for recognizing that this study, just published, is likely underestimating the potential for deadly heat extremes in the future. Mind you, this is not me saying that his study underestimates the potential. Professor Mann said that, and he’s a respected climate scientist. Professor Mann says the current climate models do not capture the slow-moving and very persistent nature of the extreme weather events in the PNW and in Germany.
If there is any question that some very mainstream climate science studies suggest extreme events in the next few decades, but are now happening, please get in touch with Michael Mann. He seems to have a grasp of the matter.
Cheers
Mike
This study underscores something that has been apparent in the record weather extremes we’ve seen this summer: dangerous climate change is here,
It already was, logically. Both in smaller extremes that were not expected over the last decade and that these extremes were triggered in previous years, I mean. Lag time, the characteristics of tipping points, etc.
It required no genius to know rapid climate change was happening, just the willingness to let oneself see it.
MAR @189, yes I remember the trolls Lake Nyos example. Diffusion will of course cause gases to mix as we know. In terms of diffusion helping keeping CO2 up in the atmosphere despite gravity, I was going by this material:
https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2020/09/23/carbon-dioxide-distribution-atmosphere/
I confess to some doubts reading it, but I was torn as the writer does have some expertise.
MA Rodger (189) “I would suggest the well-mixed nature of CO2 within the atmosphere up to 50km-or-so is actually because diffusion isn’t “a big factor.” If it were “big” then gravity would lend more of a hand in puddling those pesky heavy-weight CO2 mollecules down to lower altitudes.”
I am not sure how (molecular) diffusion being a “big factor”, would make gravity “lend more of a hand in puddling ” of CO2. “Lending a hand” means “providing help to something “, which implies that gravity would HELP diffusion to “puddle” CO2. But diffusion DISPERSES molecules toward uniform concentration, i.e. COUNTERS puddling effect of gravity.
So this make sense to me only, if this was your … roundabout way to say that”(molecular) diffusion being a big factor” would have meant WEAK turbulent diffusion and “air currents”. But even then saying that the gravity “lending more of a hand” is at best confusing, at worst – misleading. The fancy form getting in the way of the message?
#190 “I give credit to Professor Mann for recognizing that this study…”
Me too. Some of my comments are coming across too harsh, and critical as I tried to parse what I was hearing being said. So please ignore that over the top stuff. My bad. Listen to Mann et al.
Some very good recent examples of M Mann verbatim:
News Report – ‘Record-shattering’ heat becoming much more likely, says climate study
More heatwaves even worse than those seen recently in north-west of America forecast in research
“It found that heatwaves that smash previous records by roughly 5C would become two to seven times more likely in the next three decades and three to 21 times more likely from 2051–2080, unless carbon emissions are immediately slashed.”
Prof Michael Mann said: “This study underscores something that has been apparent in the record weather extremes we’ve seen this summer: dangerous climate change is here, and it’s now simply a matter of how dangerous we are willing to let it get.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jul/26/record-shattering-heat-becoming-much-more-likely-says-climate-study
Relayed Article Published: 26 July 2021
Increasing probability of record-shattering climate extremes
E. M. Fischer et al (Paywall)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-021-01092-9
News Report
July 24 2021 Extreme weather takes climate change models ‘off the scale’
Scientists say shifting pattern of jet stream and global warming are key drivers
https://www.ft.com/content/9a647a51-ede8-480e-ba78-cbf14ad878b7
KALW Public Media 52 mins- One Planet: How Climate Change Is Fueling Extreme Weather
Published July 25, 2021 with Noah Diffenbaugh and Michael Mann
@25 minutes “Acting on climate change is a matter to address social justice. Those with the least resources, those who have done least to cause the problem are the one’s who will suffer the worst impacts. Including future generations.” (sic)
https://www.kalw.org/show/your-call/2021-07-25/one-planet-how-climate-change-is-fueling-extreme-weather
Radio – Background Briefing w/ Ian Masters – Jul 27, 2021 Audio
Amid the alarming evidence of global warming in the form of fires, floods and droughts, we are joined by @MichaelEMann discussing the next report from the UN’s IPCC and whether the world’s leaders are up to the task of reducing CO2 before it is too late.
https://twitter.com/ianmastersmedia/status/1419804405625360398
My real concern is that even more scientists aren’t getting more exposure highlighting (criticizing?) the insufficient commitments by the G7/G20/OECD nations to meet the 1.5C or Carbon Budget targets? By the time COP26 in Glascow comes around it might be too late to hear their perspectives.
On Twitter
Alister Scott @Prof_AJScott
· Jul 24
“The lack of scrutiny particularly in run up to #COP26 makes me fear that greenwash will be at full spin setting.”
Kevin Anderson @KevinClimate
· Jul 24
“There are policy makers who are astute, maintain integrity & are driving for reasoned change. And there are those who are prepared to lie their way to personal gain & prestige. We need to explicitly support the ethos of the former whilst vociferously calling out the latter.”
Kevin Anderson @KevinClimate
· 20h
“We need astute politicians who hold integrity, compassion, reason & delivering effective change as more important than prestige & political point scoring.”
see https://twitter.com/KevinClimate
M. Mann: “That is because current climate models do not capture the slow-moving and very persistent nature of the extreme weather phenomena seen in the Pacific north-west heatwave and German floods recently.”
Mike(190) “I give credit to Professor Mann for recognizing that this study, just published, is likely underestimating the potential for deadly heat extremes in the future.”
Exactly – what MORE one could expect from a scientist than recognizing the limitations of their method. I guess, Mike, it won’t make you popular with Killian and acolytes, whose narrative is: arrogant scientists claimed that the NW heat wave and German floods event could not happen, or will not happen for a very long time, but not the Prophet, who without the data, models or exact mechanisms “predicted” that extreme events are coming really soon, although never said how soon, what would be their exact nature, mechanism or magnitude. That’s like me predicting
that there will be a market correction, and when it comes: saying: “I have been warming of the correction for over a decade, but you arrogantly didn’t listen to me”.
Ironically, the antagonism of those people toward the scientists has a mirror version of that of climate denialists – the same contempt to the scientists and the same unwavering conviction that they know better than them.
And tellingly – BOTH groups currently are using the self-deprecating statements of climatologists about their models unable to predict (=”what, where, when and how big”) NW heatwave and German flooding … to discredit these scientist, and the lower they put them the higher they look by comparison, EVEN THOUGH when their
rare quantitative claims are put to the test – they fail spectacularly( denialists: Cold Sun theory , Killians: “80-90% reduction of CO2 by 90% reduction in consumption for the highest-consuming classes/nations”).
“Les extrêmes se touchent” …
whose narrative is: arrogant scientists claimed that the NW heat wave and German floods event could not happen, or will not happen for a very long time
Why do I need to say it **when the scientists themselves are?**
The temperatures within the heat dome were another story.
“I think the word for that is astonishment,” says Michael Wehner, an extreme weather researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, when asked for his reaction to new temperature records. “I don’t think anybody believed it could get so hot there.”
Do you consider “astonishment” to mean “expected?” Or “don’t think anybody believed it could” equals “We expected it any minute?”
but not the Prophet
One need not be a prophet when one can analyze so well, but why does my prescience make you so angry?
Serious times, serious people. Be better. Do better.
EVEN THOUGH when their rare quantitative claims are put to the test – they fail spectacularly( denialists: Cold Sun theory , Killians: ”80-90% reduction of CO2 by 90% reduction in consumption for the highest-consuming classes/nations”). – they fail spectacularly
You’ve proven nothing wrong in that regard, nor has anyone else, only that you do not understand what is needed and what can be done. 20% SOC over all arable land? Do the math.
Serious times, we need serious people. Be better, do better.
[ Mike(190): “I give credit to Professor Mann for recognizing that this study…” ]
Reality Check(193): “Me too. Some of my comments are coming across too harsh, and critical as I tried to parse what I was hearing being said. So please ignore that over the top stuff”
Maybe you should have thought about that BEFORE posting? See the multiple multi-page posts full of self-indulging and paternalistic lecturing of Mann and other scientists. Just a small sample:
– “Speaking out of both sides of one’s mouth sends out a confusing message”,
– “when Mann says “we have to act now”, he needs to be very specific about what that Action needs to be …. just saying reduce emissions is a Cop Out of epic proportions.Be specific – who, what, how, where, and by when ”
-“This is what so very few in the climate science community do. They endlessly prevaricate, or remain silent. Some even say it’s not their job or responsibility to say or have an opinion on it.”
Mann: “we need to bring carbon emissions down dramatically more than seven
percent a year for the next decade.”
Reality C: “That’s slightly more specific than beofre. But what Mann does not say here is that the UNFCC/COP system is no where near achieving a global 7% reduction in carbon emissions per year now or going forward to the end of the decade. Or ever!!! This fact is self-evident, surely?”
[boldface as in your original]
Where did you learn to … “parse what’s being said”like that ? I wonder ;-)
Thousands of Scientists Warn Climate Tipping Points ‘Imminent’
nigelj @191,
For some topics, the internet does provide very poor reference and the mechanisms of transport of the various molecular species through the atmosphere is one of those topics. I do recall in the past encountering that bottle of wine explanation which is perhaps partially excused by the other such Q&A-efforts explaining why CO2 is present high up in the atmosphere which similarly make a poor fist of it, although not quite so crazy. (My memory of wine-making was that oxygen was entirely excluded from the process using plop-plop air traps with the CO2 plopping out due to the yeast feeding on the sugar. So no “stratified atmosphere inside a bottle.”)
Once away from ground effects, the atmosphere is well-mixed through the troposphere, the stratosphere and mesosphere, so up to the mesopause at about 80km. This is directly measured up to about 35km and variously inferred above that, this including our anthropogenic CO2 increase which has been reported recently here with an earlier report of such research even saying the CO2 increase up there was greater than it was down here.
The small part played by molecular diffusion in the upward transport of CO2 is not something I have found stated explicitly but is pretty obvious within the literature.
My assertion @189 that molecular diffusion would assist gravity in preventing a well-mixed atmosphere draws the ridicule of Poitr @192, somebody I have given up debating-with due to his incessant “I’m right and you’re wrong” wrecking previous interchanges.
The Earth’s atmosphere becomes stratified a little above the mesopause, at an altitude defined by the turbopause. At this altitude, gravity is still not reduced significantly but the atmospheric pressure has dropped massively. Molecules fly around getting lonely and with such long journeys between meeting their chums, the slow heavy ones are the loneliest of all. They therefore tend to get fed up first and so use gravity to drop down to more populous regions of the atmosphere.
In a universe with stronger molecular diffusion, the turbopause would be lower, preventing CO2 from visiting such lonely regions and if molecular diffusion were greatly stronger, ” if it were “big” then gravity would lend more of a hand in puddling** those pesky heavy-weight CO2 molecules down to lower altitudes.” [**The “puddling” was/is actually a typo and “pulling” was the intended word.]
Piotr(192): “I am not sure how (molecular) diffusion being a “big factor”, would make gravity “lend more of a hand in [pulling CO2 toward Earth surface]? “Lending a hand” means “providing help to something “, which implies that gravity would HELP diffusion to “pull down” CO2. But diffusion DISPERSES molecules toward uniform concentration, i.e. COUNTERS [the pulling down] effect of gravity.”
To which MARodger (197) … did NOT offer any clear explanation on how exactly diffusion instead of DISPERSING CO2 in all direction …pulls it down toward Earth, but instead … complained about me – how I …. ridiculed (him? his understanding of diffusion?), and all that – because of my “ incessant “I’m right and you’re wrong”“.
_I_ need to be always right and _I_ can’t admit of being wrong ??? ;-)
#195 Maybe you should have thought about that BEFORE posting?
Nah. I took a leaf out of your book to see what it felt like. You know, being so incredibly immature, opinionated and reactionary about everything passing by my eyes? I simply didn’t realize what a great KIA visionary you are.
Piotr(195) “Maybe you should have thought about that BEFORE posting?”
Reality C.: (199): Nah. I took a leaf out of your book to see what it felt like”
You didn’t take any leaf out of MY book: I PROVE my criticisms of you with your own words^* ; you … DELETE my arguments and replace them with … your empty proclamations about me. That’s a Killian’s book, not mine.
===================== ^* what Reality C. cut out ==================
Mike(190): “ I give credit to Professor Mann for recognizing that ”]
Reality Check(193): “ Me too. Some of my comments are coming across too harsh, and critical as I tried to parse what I was hearing being said. So please ignore that over the top stuff”
Piotr (195): [ Maybe you should have thought about that BEFORE posting?] See the your multiple multi-page posts, full of self-indulging and paternalistic lecturing of Mann and other scientists. Just a small sample:
– “ Speaking out of both sides of one’s mouth sends out a confusing message”,
– “when Mann says “we have to act now”, he needs to be very specific about what that Action needs to be …. just saying reduce emissions is a Cop Out of epic proportions. Be specific – who, what, how, where, and by when ”
-“This is what so very few in the climate science community do. They endlessly prevaricate, or remain silent. Some even say it’s not their job or responsibility to say or have an opinion on it.”
Mann: “we need to bring carbon emissions down dramatically more than seven
percent a year for the next decade.”
Reality C: “ what Mann does not say here </bB is that the UNFCC/COP system is no where near achieving a global 7% reduction in carbon emissions per year now or going forward to the end of the decade. Or ever!!! This fact is self-evident, surely?”
Where did you learn to … “parse what’s being said” … like that ? I wonder ;-)
===================
That’s a Killian’s book, not mine.
Gaslighting.
Do better. Be better.
Reality C.: (31 Jul,): Nah. I took a leaf out of your book to see what it felt like”
Piotr: (31 Jul): “You didn’t take any leaf out of MY book:
– I PROVE my criticisms of you with your own words [link to the proof here]
– you … DELETE my arguments and replace them with … your empty proclamations about me. . That’s a Killian’s book, not mine.”
Killian( 17 Aug. ), who “studiously avoids” my posts, revives the dead discussion (no comments for 17 days) only to …. delete my arguments and replace them with … his empty proclamations about me, I quote: “: Gaslighting. Do better. Be better. ”
And the best – the guy has no clue that he just illustrated what he supposedly disputed.