Climate Extremes and Extreme Weather

http://www.climateconversation.wordshine.co.nz/open-threads/climate/#comment-71117

ANDREW C. REVKIN

Can Extreme Climate Confusion be Avoided?

But the same research concludes that it’s difficult to link human-driven warming to losses in recent mega-disasters. Deeply confounding factors get in the way — particularly the huge growth in exposure to climate threats through population growth and settlement patterns in vulnerable places and the substantial natural variability in the frequency and intensity of rare extreme events.

http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/complexity-and-climate-extremes/

ROGER PIELKE SNR

Leaked Text of IPCC Extremes Report

Has the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change finally gotten the issue of extreme events right? Maybe so. At the BBC Richard Black says that he has a copy of the forthcoming IPCC extremes report and shares some of what it says prior to being considered by governments this week:

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/2011/11/leaked-text-of-ipcc-extreme-report.html

LUBOS MOTL

IPCC on extreme weather: no climate change for next 20-30 years

It has apparently diverged from the environmentalist propaganda and got much closer to the actual climate science.

“Climate change signals are expected to be relatively small compared to natural climate variability over the coming two to three decades”

“Long-term trends in normalized economic disaster losses cannot be reliably attributed to natural or anthropogenic climate change”

http://motls.blogspot.com/2011/11/ipcc-5ar-no-climate-change-for-next-20.html

ANTHONY WATTS

Leaked IPCC Draft: Climate Change Signals Expected To Be Relatively Small Over Coming 20-30 Years

It seems that according the early draft, CO2 induced climate change is going to take a backseat to natural variability.

Newsbytes from Dr. Benny Peiser at The GWPF

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/14/ipcc-draft-climate-change-signals-expected-to-be-relatively-small-over-coming-20-30-years/

Have conveyed the good news in comments on this Stuff article:-

Suffer our children unless the world changes

LOUIS CHAMBERS AND ELLIE WOODWARD

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/campaign-trail/5956206/Suffer-our-children-unless-the-world-changes

[...]

“The authors write that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, 2001, 2007) has twice suggested that “precipitation and extreme winds associated with tropical cyclones may have become more intense.” However, they note that this dual claim is “mainly based on numerical models,”…Working with tropical cyclone (TC) best track and related observational severe wind and precipitation datasets created by the Shanghai Typhoon Institute of the China Meteorological Administration…report that over the past half-century there have been no changes in the frequency of TC occurrence…they say that “during the past 50 years, there have been no significant trends in the days of TC…that “the seasonal rhythm of the TC influence on China also has not changed.”…found that “the maximum sustained winds of TCs affecting the whole of China and all sub-regions have decreasing trends.”…state that “the trends of extreme storm precipitation and 1-hour precipitation were all insignificant.”" [Ming Ying, YuHua Yang, BaoDe Chen, Wei Zhang 2011: Science China Earth Sciences]

http://www.c3headlines.com/2011/11/calling-kevin-trenberth-new-tropical-cyclone-research-from-china-reveals-major-ipcc-prediction-fail.html

The “Severe Weather” tag at the bottom of that post is useful.

Posted on November 13, 2011 by Steven Goddard

……This was the strongest unprecedented winds in Fort Collins ever recorded since the last time they had higher winds a few months ago

http://www.real-science.com/global-warming-induced-alaska-superstorm

UN scientists forecast more severe droughts, cyclones and floods

PARIS: Southern Europe will be gripped by fierce heatwaves, drought in North Africa will be more common, and small island states face ruinous storm surges from rising seas, a report by United Nations climate scientists says.

The assessment is the most comprehensive yet by the 194-nation Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change into the impact of climate change on extreme weather events.

A 20-page draft ”summary for policymakers” says that global warming will create weather on steroids, and that these amped-up events – cyclones, heatwaves, diluvian rains, drought – will hit the world unevenly.

Subject to modification, the draft summary will be examined by governments at a six-day meeting of the panel starting today in the Ugandan capital Kampala.

In the worst scenario, settlement in some areas could be wiped out, the report says.

”If disasters occur more frequently and/or with greater magnitude, some local areas will become increasingly marginal as places to live or in which to maintain livelihoods,” it says.

”In such cases migration becomes permanent and could introduce new pressures in areas of relocation. For locations such as atolls, in some cases it is possible that many residents will have to relocate.”

The authors of the 800-page report express confidence in some findings but stress uncertainty in others, mainly due to lack of data. They also emphasise that the vulnerability of human settlements depends as much or more on exposure, preparedness and the capacity to respond as it does on the raw power of nature’s violent outbursts.

Average global temperatures have risen by nearly 1 degree since pre-industrial times, with forecasts for future warming ranging between an additional 1 to 5 degrees by 2100. But these worldwide figures mask strong regional differences.

Agence France-Presse

http://m.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/un-scientists-forecast-more-severe-droughts-cyclones-and-floods-20111113-1ndu0.html

Sounds like a commentary on human existence on earth to-date.

How can drought in North Africa be “more” common?

Professor Will Steffen is one of Australia’s ‘Climate Commissioners’ he is also the Executive Director of The Australian National University’s ‘Climate Change Institute’ see here.

Professor Will Stephan was asked by Andrew Bolt on Channel 10’s ‘The Bolt Report’, if there was any scientific evidence that the recent droughts and cyclones in Australia were due to climate change? In his answer to both he said there was no evidence they were due to climate change.

Below is the video of the interview in full (starts at the 3:18 mark) with a written transcript of drought and cyclone questions:

‘The Bolt Report’ Channel 10, 13th of November 2011

Andrew Bolt: “People like Tim Flannery have blamed man made warming for causing more and worse hurricanes and cyclones, but according to your own recent report there’s no proof of that at all is there?”

Professor Will Steffen:“ No, there’s no statistically significant evidence that we’ve seen a change in the behavior of tropical cyclones around the world most experts agree however, that we will see an increase in intensity in these cyclones as the warming continues.”

Andrew Bolt: “But as yet your own report says it’s not possible (and I’m quoting) to attribute any aspects of changes in cyclone behavior, frequency, intensity, rainfall etc..to climate change.”

Professor Will Steffen: “That is correct”

And

Andrew Bolt: “We have also been told by this Government that the recent drought in the Murray-Darling Basin was caused by global warming, again your own report says there is nothing unusual about that drought either is that true?”

Professor Will Steffen: “We’ve had very severe droughts before so again we cannot attribute this drought statistically to climate change….”

Any climate group, website or activist who claims that the recent drought in the Murray-Darling Basin or any of the recent cyclones activity is or was caused by man-made global warming or climate change is lying and just spreading extremist, unscientific propaganda.

I also commend Professor Will Steffen for appearing on the show, I hope other climate scientists will follow his lead.

http://wakeup2thelies.com/2011/11/13/professor-will-steffen-recent-droughts-and-cyclones-are-not-due-to-climate-change/

“Unprecedented” Means “No Actual Historical Research Was Performed”

http://www.real-science.com/unprecedented-means-actual-research-performed

MfE CC say we should expect “one or two decades” of natural variability (citing Easterling and Wehner 2009) and that is basically what Mojib Latif says in this article that I had to go back to 2009 for:-

Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,662092,00.html

“We have to explain to the public that greenhouse gases will not cause temperatures to keep rising from one record temperature to the next, but that they are still subject to natural fluctuations,” says Latif.

But a “prominent warmist” Stefan Rahmstorf in the same article was sticking to warming-as-usual: “Warming has continued in the last few years,” says Stefan Rahmstorf. Which seems to be a denialist position because Hamburg Max Planck Institute scientist Jochem Marotzke, on the other hand, says: “I hardly know any colleagues who would deny that it hasn’t gotten warmer in recent years.”

BTW, Easterling is lead author of this report that I suspect will be released at Durban (maybe):-

Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (SREX) http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/extremes-sr/index.html

Approved Outline

# Changes in climate extremes and their impacts on the natural physical environment

* Weather and Climate Events Related to Disasters

* Requirements and Methods for Analyzing Changes in Extremes

* Observed and Projected Changes of Weather and Climate Extremes

* Observed and Projected Changes in Phenomena Related to Weather and Climate Extremes

* Observed and Projected Impacts on the Natural Physical Environment

http://www.ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/extremes-sr/approved_outline.html

i.e. When the warming goes missing, go for “Weather and Climate Extremes”

Has anyone seen what prominent warmists are saying about this, if anything?

The U.S. Department of Energy has just published its estimates of global carbon dioxide emissions for the year 2010, concluding emissions rose by 6% from 2009 to 2010. This constitutes the largest rise yet recorded and means global emissions are rising faster than any of the scenarios advanced by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its 2007 report. Global warming activists are claiming the 2010 rise proves global warming is even worse than previously feared, but exactly the opposite is the case.

The new emissions data support the arguments of skeptics asserting carbon dioxide emissions do not impact global temperatures as much as IPCC computer models predict. In light of the 2010 data, global carbon dioxide emissions have risen by fully a third since the year 2001, yet global temperatures have not risen during the past decade. Global warming activists argue that carbon dioxide emissions are the sole or primary factor in global temperature changes, yet global temperatures show no change despite a 33% increase in global carbon dioxide emissions. The fact that global temperatures are not rising despite such a significant increase in carbon dioxide emissions provides validation of skeptical arguments, not a cause for heightened alarm.

>>>>>>>>

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2011/11/09/carbon-dioxide-emissions-up-sharply-yet-temperatures-are-flat/