March 2015 Was the Hottest March Ever Recorded

NOAA released it's State of the Climate report for March and it sounds like a broken record:

The average temperature across global land and ocean surface temperatures combined for March 2015 was 0.85°C (1.53°F) higher than the 20^th century average of 12.7°C (54.9°F). This marks the highest March temperature in the 136-year period of record, surpassing the previous record of 2010 by 0.05°C (0.09°F). The Northern Hemisphere had its second highest March temperature on record, behind only 2008, while the Southern hemisphere tied with 2002 for third highest.

Our 2015 count looks like this:

March was the hottest March on record;

February was the second hottest February on record;

January was the second hottest January on record.

So far, 2015 has one hottest month and two second hottest months ever recorded.


For the last 12 months, the tally is:

March 2015 was the hottest March ever recorded;

February 2015 was the second hottest February ever recorded;

January 2015 was the second hottest January ever recorded;

December 2014 was the hottest December ever recorded;

November 2014 was the 7th hottest November ever recorded;

October 2014 was the hottest October ever recorded;

September 2014 was the hottest September ever recorded;

August 2014 was the hottest August ever recorded;

July 2014 was the fourth hottest July ever recorded;

June 2014 was the hottest June ever recorded;

May 2014 was the hottest May ever recorded;

April 2014 tied 2010 as the hottest April ever recorded.


So, let's see what the score is for the last 12 months: one 7th hottest month, one 4th hottest months, three 2nd hottest months and seven hottest months ever.


Ten of the last twelve months were either the hottest or second hottest ever recorded.

Climate Models are Right Again! The Stratosphere is Cooling.

One of the predictions of climate models is that the stratosphere will cool. See this post at RealClimate for a discussion with references. There details are involved, but basically what is happening is more heat is being retained in the lower atmosphere (the troposphere) and there is less energy radiating up into the stratosphere as a result. Destruction of the ozone-layer in the lower-stratosphere also results in cooling (ozone warms up as it absorbs UV light). But, this can be accounted for.

Actual data measurements are difficult to come by for this area, but recent efforts have shown the upper atmosphere has, in fact, been cooling for at least the last 30 years.

The height profiles of the observed trends are close to those predicted by recent atmospheric general circulation models.

Not really a major story. After all, the science was already settled on the issue, but it's nice to see the models are doing well.

California Snowpack

There has been a lot of news coverage of how California Governor Jerry Brown mandated water restrictions due to the record low snowpack. Many of the articles I've read have not done what I would consider an adequate report on the snowpack level. Most of them merely say the April snowpack is at 5% of the historic level. That is frightening enough, but there's more to the story than that. The 5% figure is for the entire range.

The April snowpack is historically the largest of the year. With a full season of snowfall behind it and the melt season not yet begun means the mountains are normally stoked with stored water this time of year. But, when the California Department of Water Resources took the April snowpack measurements they found the ground was bare below 6800 feet and there no snow at all. All total, that 5% figure translates to a mere 1.4 inches of water compared to the historic average of 28.3 inches (4.9%) for April 1. This was the lowest measurement ever made for April.

But, even this isn't the worst of it.

This is the fourth measurement the Department of Water Resources has done for the media this winter. The previous three were on December 30, January 29 and March 3. The snowpack as a percentage of the historic average on those dates was 50%, 25% and 19%, respectively. And now, 5%. This is a very bad trend.

Why the decline? After all, there were some big storms this winter. Well, not really. Northern California has recorded 76% of normal precipitation this precipitation year, which began on October 1, 2014. Central and Southern California have had 41% and 42% respectively. You don't break a drought with below average precipitation.

Also, it has been so warm the precipitation fell as rain instead of snow. Some of it was captured in reservoirs and they are much better than this time last year, but still far below historic averages (typically 60% to 75% of historic averages). Some soaked into the ground. But most was lost to runoff and evaporation. None of this bodes well for California this year. The state's wettest months of the year have already passed. There is no way the snowpack runoff can be replaced and the reservoirs and ground water are already stressed. I can't see this playing out well for anyone this year.

One of the false claims deniers keep making is that there are no climate change predictions that have come true. As I said, this is false and the record is full of things that have played out just as predicted. Unfortunately, California is now on that list. It has long been predicted that rising temperatures would result in a reduced snowpack as snow fell as rain and this would, in turn, lead to increased chances of drought. 

But, of course, if they were interested in the facts they would no longer be deniers.

Future of California Water Looks Bleak

As you have probably heard, the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada mountains this winter is running at merely 19% of the long-term average. Not good for a state that gets 30% of its water from snow runoff and is already in a prolonged drought. But stay tuned. This is just the beginning.

The future of the snowpack in the western U.S. was examined in the paper Extent of the rain-snow transition zone in thewestern U.S.under historic and projected climate, by P. Zion Klos, Timothy E. Link and John T. Abatzoglou, DOI: 10.1002/2014GL060500, Geophysical Research Letters, Volume 41, Issue 13, pages 4560–4568, 16 July 2014.  Their conclusion?

At broad scales, these projections indicate an average 30% decrease in areal extent of winter wet-day temperatures conducive to snowfall over the western United States. 

A 30% decrease? That leaves 70% of 19%, which comes out to be 13.3%! Yikes! That would translate into a loss of over 15% of their water from that one source alone. And, don't forget the other ramifications, such as the hit to the winter recreation industry. How many jobs does California have in that one industry? I couldn't find that specific number, but I found the numbers for the entire outdoor recreation industry for the whole country:

- 6.1 million American jobs

- $646 billion in outdoor recreation spending

each year

- $39.9 billion in federal tax revenue

- $39.7 billion in state/local tax revenue

The winter recreation industry for California will be only a part of that, but even a small part would be a lot of jobs and money.

And, let's not mention the hit the environment and ecology will take.

Sure, there will be years that see big snowfalls. But, the overall average does not look good.

Disappearing Fog Another Factor in California

As we all know, California is having a epic drought while also experiencing historically high temperatures. The high temperatures are compounding the drought by increasing the rate of evaporation. One of the factors involved that is often overlooked is the rate of fog. Fog works to cool the surface by providing shade until it is burned off. Less fog means the sunlight reaches the ground more, resulting in more heating. As it turns out, the amount of fog in California is decreasing.

It has already been noted how California's famous Tule fog is becoming increasingly rare. This is the thick, winter fog that can blanket the central region so thickly it actually waters the plants. But, fog in general is decreasing across the state. Over the course of the 20th century, coastal summertime fog worldwide was reported to decrease by 33%. California, in particular, has experienced a century-long decline in coastal fog.

What is the long-term outlook? That is not clear (foggy? Sorry). Warm ocean surface temperatures lead to a decrease in fog. But it is not certain the coastal waters will get warmer, even when the ocean overall is getting warmer, due to upwelling. It is possible the medium-term amount of fog will stay constant, or decrease slightly. But, the long-term outlook has to be bleak, even with upwelling. The depths are getting warmer and eventually the upwelling water will be too warm to lead to fog.

So, as the crops suffer the loss of the cooling fog (the grapes for one love fog), the rest of the state will also suffer due to the reduction in the shading, leading to higher surface temperatures, leading to greater evaporation, leading to even higher temperatures.

But, at least there will be fewer fog delays at the airports.

February 2015 Was Second Warmest Ever Recorded

The warming trend continues. NOAA released it's State of the Climate report for February and announced February 2015 was the second warmest February ever recorded,

The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for February 2015 was the second highest for February in the 136-year period of record, at 0.82°C (1.48°F), above the 20^th century average of 12.1°C (53.9°F). The warmest February occurred in 1998, which was 0.86°C (1.55°F) above average. Nine of the past 12 months have been either warmest or second warmest on record for their respective months (March and July 2014 were each fourth warmest, while November was seventh warmest).

Our 2015 count looks like this:

February was the second hottest February on record;

January was the second hottest January on record.

So far, 2015 has two second hottest months ever recorded.


For the last 12 months, the tally is:

February 2015 was the second hottest February ever recorded;

January 2015 was the second hottest January ever recorded;

December 2014 was the hottest December ever recorded;

November 2014 was the 7th hottest November ever recorded;

October 2014 was the hottest October ever recorded;

September 2014 was the hottest September ever recorded;

August 2014 was the hottest August ever recorded;

July 2014 was the fourth hottest July ever recorded;

June 2014 was the hottest June ever recorded;

May 2014 was the hottest May ever recorded;

April 2014 tied 2010 as the hottest April ever recorded;

March 2014 was the fourth hottest March ever recorded;


So, let's see what the score is for the last 12 months: one 7th hottest month, two 4th hottest months, two 2nd hottest months and seven hottest months ever.


Nine of the last twelve months was either the hottest or second hottest ever recorded.

Florida Threatened by That Which Cannot Be Mentioned

Florida Governor Rick Scott is such a intense science-denier that he has instructed government employees they are not permitted to use the phrases 'climate change,' 'global warming,' and sea-level rise. One employee who failed to follow this rule was forced to take a leave of absence and was not permitted to return to work until he underwent a mental health evaluation to determine his 'fitness for duty.'

For the record, I contacted Governor Scott's office and asked for comments. They did not respond.

Unfortunately, the laws of physics don't really care what Rick Scott thinks - nature will do it's thing anyway. The sea level has risen about 6 inches since the 1960s and that is enough to swamp coastal areas during storms and even during high tide in some areas. The freshwater aquifers are experiencing sea water intrusion due to overuse and rising sea levels. Beaches are eroding and require expensive maintenance. Storms are becoming more frequent and more severe. Additionally, rising sea levels will make Florida more vulnerable. Climate change has come to Florida and is hitting it hard. That is what is going on right now, not what will be coming in the future. And, for some reason, Governor Scott would rather see his state and his constituents suffer from the effects of climate change than to even use the words.

Oh, and FEMA will not provide federal funds unless a state disaster preparedness plans address climate change. Oops. He may not be a scientists, but the money issue has been settled.

I'm wondering, is stupidity an impeachable offense?

He may not be a scientist, but that hasn't stopped him from proving he's a jackass. Now, Floridians are paying the price.  Which is kind of appropriate, since they're the ones who voted him into office.

Temperature Record This Winter

I was on a field trip yesterday to the Gault Site, one of the most important archeological sites in the Americas. It was a great trip and our host was extremely knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the work done there. I learned a lot during the five hour tour. Then, we topped it off with dinner and wine at the The Vineyard at Florence. They had good food and even better wine. All in all, it was a really nice day, even if the weather was on the chilly side. But, there was one incident I took exception to.

The archeologist giving us the tour brought up the subject of climate change and dismissed the idea of manmade climate change by stating the 'climate always changes.' Normally, I let statements like this go by without comment. People have the right to reject the science, if that is what they want to do, and I am not on some campaign to challenge everyone on their opinions. However, this was a man of science and it was irresponsible for him to make a statement like that. Not only was his statement a false argument, but by using his venue as a recognized expert in his field of study, he was lending credibility to something he was not knowledgeable about. So, I took him to task about it.

When I pointed out how erroneous his statement was and how the science of AGW was absolutely conclusive, someone made the comment, "Tell that to the people in Boston." Well, I have and I do. In fact, the severe winter they are having in the northeast is due to global warming and it is pretty easy to prove it. We know the cold air comes from the Arctic region. So, tell me, where does the energy needed to move that mass of air come from? When you answer that question, you have all the proof any reasonable person needs.

The other significant point about Boston is that we are not discussing Boston warming, we're discussing global warming. So, how is the rest of the world doing while Boston is digging out of all of that snow?

According to the National Climatic Data Center, there have been 15,000 record highs so far this winter (2014-2015). Yes, you read that correctly - 15,000 record high temperatures. At the same time, there have been 10,000 record lows. In fact, no state had an average temperature in the bottom ten lowest on record. Let that sink in. Despite all of the talk about the amount of snow and the bone-chilling cold, not even a single state had a top ten record cold winter. Not one.

Even I was a bit surprised by this. I have been following the cold air masses closely and they have been cold and frequent. I thought, surely, some of the states were seeing a significantly cold winter. But, no. The reason is pretty simple, it has gotten so warm and winters have become so mild they seem to be so much worse than they really are - at least when you compare them to the way winters used to be. When you consider the cold winters the Eastern U.S. used to have, this current winter turns out to be not so bad.

So, to answer the gentleman's objection from yesterday, I really will tell the people in Boston man made global warming is real.

CO2 Heat Trapping Observed

The good news is the bad news for deniers just keeps rolling in. It's been a bad few days for the deniers.

First, one of their darlings was exposed as being a liar and fraud when records were released showing how Willie Soon was paid millions of dollars to produce anti-science papers, referred to as 'deliverables.' No one that is familiar with Soon is surprised by the news, I'm sure. But, it was really nice to see the confirmation of what everyone already knew. It was a real blow to the denier industry.

Now, there is a new report that, I hope, will be equally as damaging to the anti-science crowd. A team of scientists are reporting in the journal Nature that they have directly measured CO2 caused heat trapping. What they did was to use a decade of measurements looking straight up through the atmosphere. These instruments took measurements of both the CO2 level and the amount of radiative trapping. Plotting the two showed a definite connection between the two, exactly as 150 years of physics predicted.

As was reported,

In doing so, the data show clouds, water vapor or changes in sun's radiation are not responsible for warming the air, as some who doubt mainstream climate science claim, Feldman said. Nor could it be temperature data being tampered with, as some contrarians insist, Feldman said.

"The data say what the data say," Feldman said. "They are very clear that the rising carbon dioxide is actually contributing to an increased greenhouse effect at those sites."

Of course, the deniers will try to put some kind of spin on this, but the facts are there - increasing levels of CO2 cause trapping of heat in the atmosphere. The science is settled and it is conclusive.

The PETM and Climate Change Today

The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) is a period in Earth's history that occurred about 55.5 million years ago. The thing that attracts interest to it is how it was a period of global warming. The more scientists study it, the more we are learning about what is happening today. There is good news along with the bad from a recent study. The good news was that the environment adjusted and eventually returned to normal after the global warming episode. While it is good to hear of the adjustment, it is also important to understand the environment took about 200,000 years to fully recover. Left to itself, things will get bad but it won't end the world, But, we may be stuck with this situation for a while.

The PETM is very interesting because of the similarities to today. What has been found is the emission levels were in the ballpark of today's manmade emission levels. The thinking is what happened back then might be a good model for what we can expect to see today. The problem is that it was already much warmer back then when the big emissions came along. In fact, it was so warm there were no ice caps. So it isn't a perfect analogy.

What was seen is the temperature rose by 5 to 8 degrees C (9 to 15 F). That isn't enough to destroy the world, but it sure would cause a lot of devastation. Analysis of sediment cores has indicated there were two pulses of carbon release. It is thought the second one occurred in response to the rising temperature caused by the first. Does that mean we can expect to see something like that today? As the temperature increases due to manmade emissions, can we expect the natural environment to become a CO2 source instead of sink? That would be doubly bad because nature currently removes roughly half of all manmade emissions. If it became a source, it would not only be adding CO2 itself, but would no longer be removing that half of our emissions.

What they have been able to piece together about the PETM is there was a changing climate where some areas became drier and others became stormier. Continent-scale mass migrations have been identified, probably as a result of the changing climate. Some extinctions occurred, but not enough to be a mass-extinction event. The oceans became more acidic.

In other words, pretty much what we are already seeing today. History really does repeat itself for those that don't learn its lesson.

Global Warming and Crops

Global warming denialists frequently state rising CO2 levels are good for crops because plants use CO2 to make food. This is one of those classic examples of how they omit anything that goes counter to their claim. It is true plants use CO2 during photosynthesis to make carbohydrates. But, increasing CO2 levels do not automatically translate into higher and better crop yields. What is being left out of that statement is how rising temperatures lead to other things, such as reduced crop quality, droughts, floods, storms, insects and disease and all of those things are becoming worse with global warming.

This issue was discussed this week at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). I found a particular statement to be rather frightening.

"If you look at production from 2000 to 2050, we basically have to produce the same amount of food as we produced in the last 500 years"

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-climate-hampering-world-food-production.html#jCp

"If you look at production from 2000 to 2050 we basically have to produce the same amount of food as we produced in the last 500 years."

The article also pointed out how we could solve this problem if we have enough time, maybe 1000 years. But we have only 10 to 20 years. 

The fact is, global warming is not good for crops and we will be paying the price. Just look at the drought in California these last few years and the effect it has had on agriculture in that state.

Here are some other examples of the effects of global warming on crops:

Rising CO2 levels result in lower than expected yield increases.

Other studies indicate rising CO2 levels will result in a 2% yield reduction per decade.

Rising CO2 levels are harmful to rice, resulting in reduced crop yield.

Worldwide yields are already dropping.

Even if the yield goes up, the nutritional value will go down.
 
And, the forecast for American farmers is not good.


In the 50 years starting with 2000 we need to produce as much food as in the previous 500 years, and things aren't looking good. 

"If you look at production from 2000 to 2050, we basically have to produce the same amount of food as we produced in the last 500 years"

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-02-climate-hampering-world-food-production.html#jCp

Grizzly Bears Didn't Get the Memo

Remember the claim that there is no global warming? Remember how deniers keep saying it's stopped? Apparently, the grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park weren't listening. They're waking up a full month early. While the east has been hammered with blizzards, the west is experiencing record high temperatures. As a result, at least one bear is up and has been observed eating. The sighting occurred on February 9th. The first sightings in the past have occurred in the first half of March.

The fact that it was observed eating is an important detail because bears will sometimes come out of their dens during the winter and then go back. But, once they start eating it means they are up for good. There may have been only one bear sighted so far, but as the article states, if there is one there are probably more. And, certainly, we can expect more to come out early.

The bears wake up in response to temperature. So, if it isn't getting warmer, why are the bears waking up early?

January 2015 Continues 2014 Trend

The bad news on the climate front keeps coming in. The National Climatic Data Center released its Global Analysis for January 2015 this morning. Among the highlights (lowlights?) was the statement that January 2015 was the second hottest January on record for combined land and ocean temperature. Only 2007 was hotter. Checking the records shows January last year was the fourth hottest on record, so we are already hotter this year than at the same time last year.

The report also said the ocean temperature was the third highest on record. This was particularly bad because the only two years that were warmer were January 1998 and January 2010, both of which had El Ninos in progress. We are in a neutral ENSO condition right now. The difference in temperature between today and the record set in 1998 is only .06 degrees F (.03 C), which means the normal temperatures of today are nearly the same as the exceptional temperatures of past years.

Let's start the grim count for 2015:

January was the second hottest January on record.

So far, 2015 has one second hottest month ever recorded.



But, let's also take a look at the last 12 months.

For the last 12 months, the tally is:

January 2015 was the second hottest January ever recorded;

December 2014 was the hottest December ever recorded;

November 2014 was the 7th hottest November ever recorded;

October 2014 was the hottest October ever recorded;

September 2014 was the hottest September ever recorded;

August 2014 was the hottest August ever recorded;

July 2014 was the fourth hottest July ever recorded;

June 2014 was the hottest June ever recorded;

May 2014 was the hottest May ever recorded;

April 2014 tied 2010 as the hottest April ever recorded;

March 2014 was the fourth hottest March ever recorded;

February 2014 was the 21st hottest February ever recorded.

So, let's see what the final score was for the last 12 months: one 21st hottest month, one 7th hottest month, two 4th hottest months, one 2nd hottest month and seven hottest months ever.

Additionally, we had the hottest overall year ever recorded in 2014.

This is not a good start to the year.

Winter Storms and a Simple Math Exercise

I love hearing someone make the same lame jokes about winter storms and global warming. They think they're being cute, but the reality is they are simply showing they don't understand what is going on. They ignore the fact that we will still have winter even with global warming. This is because winter is caused by the way Earth is tilted on its axis.

Every year, on about September 21, the North Pole experiences its one and only sunset of the year. Gradually, over the next three months, the part of the Arctic region experiencing 24-hour nighttime will increase until, on about December 21, everything north of the Arctic Circle has a 24-hour nighttime. Then, that amount will gradually decrease until the North Pole experiences its one and only sunrise on about March 21. What this means is by January and February, there are parts of the Arctic region that have been sitting in dark for 2-4 months. That is going to make those areas cold. Take a look at this current temperature graphic:

Source: Polar Portal

It is no-kidding cold up there. So, it is no wonder we still have winter storms. If that mass of air moves down into our area we are going to feel it, even with global warming. But, it takes energy to move that mass. Lot's of energy.

So, let's do a simple exercise to see for ourselves.

First, take a look at this graphic showing the cold air mass moving into the the eastern U.S. today:

Source: Climate Reanalyzer

I'm sure I don't need to tell the people under that purple area that it is no-kidding cold there, too. That mass of air moved down from the Arctic and is now moving across the country. But, it didn't just happen by itself. It took energy to get there. Let's do a back of the envelope calculation and get an idea of how much.

We want the mass of that blob. To do that, we can find the surface area under the purple region and multiply the area by the pressure (weight per area) and then convert from weight to mass. If we approximate the cold air region as a circle we can calculate the area as pi*r^2. We can estimate the purple blob is about 1000 miles across. A mile has 5280 feet, so it is about 5.3 x 10^6 feet across. Dividing our diameter by two, we get the area is:

Area = pi*([5.3 x 10^6]/2 feet)^2 = about 2.2 x 10^13 square feet

A square foot has 144 square inches, so our area, in square inches, is

2.2 x 10^13 square feet x 144 square inches/square feet = about 3.15 x 10^15 square inches.

Atmospheric pressure is about 14.7 pounds per square inch, giving us a total weight of

3.15 x 10^15 square inches x 14.7 pounds per square inch = about 4.6 x 10^16 pounds.

That is the approximate weight of that big purple air mass over the eastern U.S., but we want mass, preferably in the metric system. There are 2.2 pounds to a kilogram (on the surface of Earth), so the mass of this air, in kilograms, is about:

4.6 x 10^16 pounds x 1 kilogram/2.2 pounds = about 2.1 x 10^16 kilograms.

The amount of energy this mass has can be found by calculating its kinetic energy, the energy of movement. That means we need a speed. I have read winds speeds of up to hurricane strength, but we won't go that high. We can estimate an average speed of about 44 miles per hour and that equates to 20 meters per second. Using that speed, we can estimate the amount of energy as:

Kinetic Energy = 1/2 * m * v^2
                         = .5 * 2.1 x 10^16 kilograms * (20 meters per second)^2 = about 4.2 x 10^18 joules.

How much energy is that? In comparison, the entire planet generates about 6 x 10^17 joules of energy per year. In other words, by our simple exercise, we can see it would take the entire planet about ten years to generate the amount of energy consumed in moving this one single air mass. And, our calculation is actually very low. We did not include friction, interior fluid dynamics, the work required to move the air in front of our air mass out of the way, the work required to move air in behind the air mass, the expansion and compression of gases, etc. There is, in fact, a whole lot more work involved than just getting the mass up to speed.

So, where did that huge amount of energy come from? Well, obviously, it came from the atmosphere. But, where did the atmosphere get it? Simple. It came from the greenhouse effect. If there was no greenhouse effect, energy coming in as sunlight would be reradiated and reflected back out to space and there wouldn't be anything left over to do any work. Some of it must be stored in the atmosphere to be used later on. Most of that is being done through the natural greenhouse effect that has always been there. But, has that greenhouse effect been enhanced by manmade emissions? We can check the frequency of storms to see. If the number of winter storms has been increasing, we can conclude the energy is coming from some other source than naturally stored energy, i.e., AGW.

NSIDC lists the top 57 storms to hit the U.S. These figures show 20 of those storms occurred since 2010 (inclusive). That is an average of 3.33 storms per year. Nine storms occurred in 2000 - 2009, an average of .9 storms per year. Five storms occurred in the 1990s, an average of .5 storms per year. Five storms also occurred in the 1980s, an average of .5 storms per year. Four storms occurred in the 1970s, an average of .4 storms per year. Eleven storms occurred in the 1960s, 1.1 storms per year. There were three storms listed for the 1950s (.3 storms per year) but it doesn't indicate if that means there were only three storms or they didn't list them for years prior to 1956, so we'll leave that figure out of our discussion.

Listing them in order, from the 1960s to the 2010s, we see the average number of severe winter storms per year went from 1.1, .4, .5, .5, .9 and 3.33. After the 60s, there is a definite trend of an increasing number of severe storms per year. This is exactly what we would expect to see if the amount of energy in the atmosphere was increasing. And, we would expect to see the amount of energy in the atmosphere to be increasing if AGW was real.

So, this simple math exercise and this data supports the conclusion that AGW is real and is changing our climate. Is this conclusive? No. There are two significant omissions in this calculation that are important. The storm activity I listed was for severe storms only. What about non-severe storms? How do they factor in? Also, this activity was for the U.S. only. What about the rest of the world? What was going on there?

I could not find data listing all winter storms, so I will leave the focus on severe storms only and I think that is adequate for the question we want to answer - are the number of storms increasing, decreasing or staying about the same.

Wikipedia has a list of windstorms to hit Europe. Going through and picking only the storms to hit in the winter months, I get five storms hit in the 1960s, four in the 1970s, six in the 1980s, ten in the 1990s, 16 in the 2000s and 17 in the 2010s (through Feb 2015). The yearly averages come out to: .5, .4, .6, 1.0, 1.6 and 3.6. The data for Europe is very consistent with what we saw for the U.S. and we see the number of storms for Europe have also been increasing in recent decades at an accelerating rate.

So, our simple exercise shows why we have winter storms, even with global warming. And, it also happens to provide additional evidence AGW is real and getting worse.

So, yes, winter storms really can be the result of global warming.

Stormy Arctic

I read an excerpt from a new book on storms in the Arctic and the all of the associated effects. It was an interesting read and really made some excellent points. The Arctic is warming and it is warming faster than any other region of the planet. The author, Edward Struzik, states

Between 1951 and 2012, for example, temperatures in the region exceeded the freezing point an average of 110 days. In 2010 and 2011, they did so 127 times. In 2012, the warmest year on record in the Arctic, it happened 134 times.

Over the past two decades, the number of ice-free days averaged 80 per year. In 2012, there were 96 ice-free days that significantly accelerated the erosion that is already taking place.

The results of that warming are not good. Animal species, plants, wet lands and coastline are disappearing. Communities are falling into the ocean. And, storms are getting worse.


Reductions in sea ice are making Arctic storms more frequent and more severe. This is happening a number of ways. Sea ice traps humidity but as the ice melts the open water fills the atmosphere with moisture and is doing so earlier every year. This moisture then fuels storms that normally wouldn't occur before the fall but are now happening during the summer months. Also, the ice cover keeps storm waves from getting too intense. Now, waves and storm surges are getting bigger as the ice disappears. Rising sea levels are causing storm surges to travel ever further inland. And, ultimately, ice would pile up on the coast and protect it from the storm action, but that protection is now disappearing and the results are grim.

Struzik tells of towns disappearing in the Arctic region as the coastline erodes away - slowly, initially but at increasing rates. Coastlines that were loosing fewer than 7 meters per year in the 1950 - 1979 time period are loosing more than 25 meters per year today.

In case you are thinking, 'so what?', let me tell you the estimated engineering costs associated with all of this will be in the several hundreds of billions of dollars in just Alaska. That estimate comes from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and is only the cost of mitigation for about 60 coastal communities at risk of falling into the sea. Do you think the fossil fuel companies are going to pony up that money? Do you think the Koch brothers will donate any of their fortune? Don't count on it. The money for all of this will come from tax payer dollars. In other words, the American taxpayer will be paying for this.

Let's see. $100 billion dollars comes out to about $300 for every person in the country (bad news for a family of four!). And, the estimate is there will be 'several' billions of dollars of engineering costs. Where are those deniers that keep telling us global warming is good for us?

Canada does not come out very well in his account. Prime Minister Stephan Harper is a devoted anti-science advocate and has nearly shut down all science research in the country while actively trying to remove environmental regulations. Government scientists are prohibited from discussing their research with media. Government agents are sent to science conferences to monitor what Canadian scientists are saying.

Arctic research is being slashed, but the country then spent $300 million on a gravel road to a tiny village on the Arctic coast that will see only about $4.2 million in benefits from it. The people that will see the most benefit? Is there any surprise it is the fossil fuel industry that wants to build a natural gas pipeline through the area?

So, the Canadian government is shutting down research and instituting a Joe McCarthy policy, while spending hundreds of millions on a single road for the mega-wealthy fossil fuel companies. Too bad they didn't decide to spend that $300 million on research and let the fossil fuel companies build their own road.

Like I said, it is an interesting read. Not pleasant, but interesting.

Groundhog Day

Today, Groundhog Day is just another reason to have a party. No complaints about that from me, I was at one last night and we had a pretty good time. But, in antiquity, the equivalent of our modern-day ritual was serious business.

Before there were supermarkets with food supplies, people had to make careful plans on how to get through the winter. A mistake could prove fatal and often did. It was vitally important to know about the change of seasons.

This is how astronomy got started because the seasons are a result of the planet's tilt on its axis and rotation around the Sun. They didn't know about those things in ancient times, but they knew the stars, Sun and Moon changed in the sky on a regular basis. By observing over a period of time, virtually every ancient culture throughout the world figured out the two solstices and two equinoxes and how the seasons changed relative to those four days. We find ancient observatories everywhere devoted to identifying these days. In addition, the four days between, the cross-quarter days, also became important. People with knowledge of these eight days were powerful and respected. They were the ones who told everyone when to plant, when to harvest, when to do just about everything according to the seasons. This is probably how ancient priesthoods got started.

The winter and summer solstices (about December 21 and June 21) as well as the vernal and fall equinoxes (about March 21 and September 21) are well known today, with some small variation in the exact day. The cross-quarter days are not as well known, but are still mostly observed under many different names. The best known one is probably Halloween, midway between the fall equinox and the winter solstice. The cross-quarter day between the summer solstice and the fall equinox occurs in the first week of August and was referred to as first harvest. There are still some cultures that observe this day, but not many. In olden times, villagers would tithe a portion of their crop to the village to help everyone get through winter. The cross-quarter day between the spring equinox and the summer solstice occurs at the beginning of May, is known as May Day in modern times and is observed as a celebration of spring and fertility. That leaves the cross-quarter day between the winter solstice and the spring equinox - now known as Groundhog Day.

When we track the winter months we find the coldest days occur around the end of January and the beginning of February - right at the cross-quarter day. As a result, some cultures said spring started on the cross-quarter day (known as Imbolc in Germanic countries). Other cultures said it started on the equinox in March. To resolve this, the cultures in Norther Europe began a system of weather prognostication involving badgers or bears. If the day was cloudy and a shadow was not seen on Imbolc, spring had arrived. Otherwise, spring wouldn't start until the equinox. This, of course, was very serious business for these people. If they ran out of food before spring they were in real trouble. Starvation and famine were not unusual.

When the Germans immigrated to United States, they brought the tradition with them, but began using groundhogs instead of badgers. Now, with modern supply systems in place, it is just another way to have fun.

But, there is something amiss - spring is coming earlier.

As we have seen, there are many ways to define 'spring.' One way is when the dormant plants come back to life. This is particularly convenient because the active/dormant cycle with plants results in an up and down pattern to CO2 levels in the atmosphere. This allows us to measure onset of plant active and dormant phases by examining the rise and fall of CO2.

For the period of 1955 - 2002 we see the spring decrease of CO2 level is occurring earlier and this indicates spring plant activity is starting earlier and earlier. The observed rate of change is about -1.2 days per decade earlier for first leaf date, -1.0 days per decade earlier for first bloom, -1.4 days per decade for the last day below 5 degrees C and -1.5 days per decade for last spring freeze date. Consistently, we are seeing spring moving backwards by between 1.0 and 1.5 days earlier ever decade. For the six decades since 1955 this translates into an earlier spring onset of between 6 and 9 days. This is known as 'season creep.'


You might be tempted to say, 'Less winter! Wonderful news.' But, that would be a mistake. For instance, we need winter snowpack to get us through the dry seasons in summer. Less winter means less snowpack and that translates into problems with water supply. Also, the population of many pests are not being knocked down by winter temperatures the way the used to be.

Also, not all plants and animals adjust to the change equally. This is a real problem when two different species depend on each other. If plants depend on certain birds to cross-pollinate them, and the birds depend on the nectar of the flowers, they need to be together when the plants are flowering. If the plants start flowering earlier and the birds don't adjust their migration pattern, the flowers may be dying off by the time the birds get there. This, obviously, would be bad for both plants and birds - and anything that depends on those plants and birds later on.

In fact, we see this is actually happening.

Once again, climate change rears its head to remind us, even when we engaging in a relic ritual, that things are changing. The good news is Groundhog Day is based on astronomy and not climate, so we don't have to ever worry about it getting earlier.

George Will Shows His Ignorance

An article by George Will was recently brought to my attention. The article, Climate change's instructive past, is a graphic demonstration of what happens when people write about complex topics they know nothing about - they get it wrong.

Boy, did George Will get it wrong, too. And, he didn't take long to do it. In just the second paragraph, he states,

And if climate Cassandras are as conscientious as they claim to be about weighing evidence, how do they accommodate historical evidence of enormously consequential episodes of climate change not produced by human activity?

Here is one of the biggest false arguments deniers make: There was naturally occurring climate change in the past, therefore all climate change is natural.

False argument. Tell us, Mr. Will, why is it not possible to have naturally occurring climate change AND manmade climate change? By the very nature of your statement, you refuse to consider that possibility. I have covered this topic many times, but it obviously needs to be covered some more.

This is the argument Mr. Will is making:

There was climate change in the past;
There is climate change today;
Climate change in the past was naturally occurring;
Therefore, climate change today is naturally occurring.

Let's put this same argument another way to show just have false it is.

Pneumonia kills people;
Gunshot wounds kill people;
Pneumonia is a naturally occurring virus;
Therefore, gunshot wounds are a naturally occurring virus.

The real problem I have with his statement is that I know George Will is an intelligent, well-educated person with considerable resources. I am very highly confident Mr. Will knows this is a false argument, but said it anyway. If he knows it is a false argument (and I can't believe otherwise), why did he go through with it? And, in the extremely unlikely event he didn't recognize how false it is, why didn't he? This is not some guy sitting in a bar babbling about things he doesn't know about over his beer. Like I said, George Will has considerable resources. So, why did he get this so wrong? You don't get things this wrong by accident, there has to be a reason. And, that makes me wonder, what was his motivation?

That should have been enough for him, but it wasn't. He then made one of the most frequently stated of all denier whoppers:

In the Medieval Warm Period (MWP), from the end of the ninth century to the beginning of the 14th, the Northern Hemisphere was warmer than at any time in the last 8,000 years

Both false and a false argument. Tell us Mr. Will, why does it matter what the temperature 1000 years ago was? You said it yourself, this was before the industrial revolution. Things have changed and you want to take something completely unrelated to today and try to make it relevant. That, sir, is a false argument and you know it. You never even attempted to show how it is in any way feasible to compare the two highly different situations and reach the conclusion you wanted. Again, I have to wonder, what is Mr. Will's motive here?

But, besides that, it simply isn't true. Take a look at the temperature profile below for the last 2000 years. The Roman Warm Period is the bump on the left at about A.D. 300. The Medieval Warm Period is the bump that occurs in the middle at about A.D. 1000. The big red spike on the right is today. (The two troughs are cold periods, including the Little Ice Age on the right.)

Source: Ljungqvist, 2010 (via Skeptical Science)

This is only one such reconstruction, there are many others that show the same thing - today's temperature is the highest in the last 2000 years. In fact, others show it is the highest in at least 8000 years. Why did Mr. Will make a statement that is so obviously false? Once again, what was his motivation?

He then finishes with an incredibly ignorant statement,

With the hands that today's climate Cassandras are not using to pat themselves on the back for their virtuous empiricism, they should pick up such books.

Mr. Will, tell us one thing, please. Who do you think discovered all of this information about past climate change? You? The deniers? No, Mr. Will, this information was discovered by climate scientists, the same climate scientists you dismiss in your article with your lies and deceptions. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt when I call them lies and deceptions because the alternative is much worse:

You're just plain ignorant.

The Probability of Global Warming

Forbes magazine has become a real dreg of climate change denialism, bringing in paid shills to write up the standard nonsense put out by the fossil fuel industry. Which means I have to spend a lot of time reading it. The reward is they will, on occasion, bring in someone to write about the science. These articles are frequently written by noted climate scientists and can be excellent sources of information.

Today, I read one that really caught my attention - The End of the Partisan Divide Over Climate Change. The article was hopeful and that part was nice. The author, Tom Zeller Jr., wrote about how polls show even Republicans are starting to agree CO2 needs to be regulated as a pollutant. But, that wasn't the part I found most interesting. It was the last paragraph that really got my attention. Referring to the fact that 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded, he said:

After all, a record-setting year every now and again is no big deal. Anomalies happen. But the fact is that all 15 years since the year 2000 have been among the top 20 warmest years ever recorded. The odds of this happening randomly, or as a part of natural variability? About 1.5 quadrillion to one.

This is a very different way to look at it and is very persuasive. If correct, these figures show there can be no doubt about the reality of global warming. That figure is devastating to any claim global warming is not real.

The calculations were performed by a team of university statisticians and I am confident in their accuracy.  But, let's look at the figures for ourselves and see if we get something close to the same number.

The way to imagine this is to suppose we have a bag filled with tokens numbered from 1 to 135. That is the number of years in the recorded temperature record. Number 1 would be for the hottest year on record, number 2 for the second hottest and so on. Now, we are going to reach into the bag and blindly draw out a token for the year 2014. The chances of that token being between 1 and 20 (inclusive) is 20/135 = .148148. That is a 14.81% chance, or one chance in 6.75 tries. Now, we do it again for 2013, but we took out a token already and we know the token was in the top 20 (that is the situation we are calculating the odds for), so there are only 134 tokens remaining and 19 of the top 20. The odds of 2013 being randomly one of those top 19 years is 19/134 = .141791. That is a 14.18% chance, or 1 chance in 7.05 tries. We can continue this process for all fifteen years since 2000 and the odds would be 18/133 for 2012; 17/132 for 2011, 16/131 for 2010, etc.

Those are the odds for each year individually. But, we want to know the odds for all of them at once. To get that figure we multiply the individual probabilities together. For the fifteen years in question, that would be (20/135) * (19/134) * (18/133) * (17/132) * ......

When I do that, I get 5.0409 x 10^(-16). That is percentage of .00000000000000504%, or one chance in 1,983,770,000,000,000.

Or 1 chance in about 2 quadrillion tries, very close to what the article quoted.

In other words, there is positively no way it could be a random occurrence. Global warming is most definitely real.

I never doubted the professors were right, I just wanted to make sure no one else did, either.

Warming Has Stopped?

Certainly one of the most incredibly false arguments deniers make is that global warming has stopped and there has been no warming for xxx number of years (fill in your value of choice). I have addressed this innumerable times in this blog and this was the very first submission to my global warming challenge. I think its time to hear it again. Take a look at this article that I've provided a link to. It's from the Weather Underground website and is so well written that I don't think I need to add anything to it. I would say 'enjoy,' but there really isn't anything to enjoy with what he says. It's pretty bleak.

2014: Hottest Year in Recorded Human History

It's Official - 2014 Hottest Year Ever Recorded

NASA and NOAA released the annual state of the climate report for 2014 this morning. They also held a live streaming video of a joint press conference. The report came out 30 minutes prior to the news conference and was on the National Climatic Data Center website. At least, that is what I was told. When I tried to get into both the NCDC site and the streaming conference they were so busy I was unable to. I missed the conference all together and it took a full hour to see the report. Apparently, people all over the world were eager to hear what they had to say. That is a good thing. It means this issue is getting a lot of attention. Hopefully, that will translate into some actions.

Now for the report highlights.

As expected, the report for December stated it was the hottest December ever recorded for the globe.
 
Also to no surprise, 2014 was the hottest year ever recorded. The report stated

The annually-averaged temperature was 0.69°C (1.24°F) above the 20^th century average of 13.9°C (57.0°F), easily breaking the previous records of 2005 and 2010 by 0.04°C (0.07°F). This also marks the 38^th consecutive year (since 1977) that the yearly global temperature was above average. Including 2014, 9 of the 10 warmest years in the 135-year period of record have occurred in the 21^st century. 1998 currently ranks as the fourth warmest year on record.

I wonder how many people claiming global warming has stopped will read those last two statements. Nine of the ten hottest years have occurred since the year 2000. How is that possible, if warming has stopped?

What is disturbing about last year's heat is that it did not have an El Nino. For more than 30 years, each hottest year all had El Ninos, including the very extreme year of 1998 which deniers like to cherry pick as their starting point on heat records. This was the first time since 1990 that a year without an El Nino set the heat record. What that means is that a regular year is now hotter than an extreme year 16 years ago. At this rate, we will look back on 1998 with fondness and longing, in terms of temperature. (Ah, yes! 1998! The good old days.)

Tell me once again about how there has been no warming for 17 years.


An article in Scientific American listed five of the hottest places on Earth:

• Australia set heat records for the second year in a row, including heat waves in the (southern) summer with temperatures over 120 degrees F; followed by heat waves in the fall and spring.

• Eastern Pacific Ocean: An El Nino was expected to form this year, but failed to appear. This didn't stop the region from setting temperature records. NOAA reported the sea surface temperature for the global ocean was 1.13 F (.63 C) above the 20th century average for the September to November time period. The previous record was 0.11 F (.06 C). 
• Siberia: The Arctic region has seen the greatest amount of warming in recent decades and Siberia saw temperatures 9 F (5 C) above the 1981 - 2010 average (where is that heat island effect in Siberia?). Ice on the Ob River broke up two weeks earlier than normal. 
• California: Record drought, record heat. The first 10 months of 2014 were the warmest in state history since 1895.
• Northern Europe: While the U.S. had a cold winter, that same weather pattern caused it to be warmer than usual in Europe. Many countries saw the warmest spring in as much as 100 years. January to October was the warmest 10-month period on record for Central England since 1659, and the warmest such period for the Netherlands since 1706.

The annual report gave this tally for the year:

Six months of 2014 (May, June, August, September, October, and December) were record warm, while April was second warmest, January, March, and July were fourth warmest for their respective months, and November was seventh warmest.

The tally I kept from the monthly reports was somewhat different (they are now saying April was the second warmest and the monthly report lists it as tied for warmest) and came out this way:


December was the hottest December ever recorded;


November was the 7th hottest November ever recorded;

October was the hottest October ever recorded;

September was the hottest September ever recorded;

August was the hottest August ever recorded;

July was the fourth hottest July ever recorded;

June 2014 was the hottest June ever recorded;

May was the hottest May ever recorded;

April tied 2010 as the hottest April ever recorded;

March was the fourth hottest March ever recorded;

We got a break in February. It was only the 21st hottest February ever recorded;

But, that break followed the hottest January since 2007 and the fourth hottest January on record.

So, let's see what the final score was for 2014: one 21st hottest month, one 7th hottest month, three 4th hottest months, and seven hottest months ever.

Additionally, we had the hottest overall year ever recorded.