Article: Researchers analyze empirical evidence across 8 Korean cities. It is inescapable, cold extremes are much more dangerous for humans than heat waves. Cold waves boost admissions some 50% versus 5% for heat waves. From this peer-reviewed study, one can conclude that global warming will reduce the cold extremes, thus making it safer for human life.
Climate change alarministas claim that modern human CO2 emissions are causing hotter temperatures around the world and the U.S...extreme global warming with blistering temperatures is their rallying cry but is it true?...Nope...it's another case of 'those stubborn facts'.....
(click on top or bottom chart to enlarge)
Of course, the CAGW argument has been (and continues to be) that huge CO2 emissions have produced extremely hot weather records during the 1980's, 90's and the 21st century, so far. But is it true?
Well, as pointed out earlier this year, the feared global warming is not producing the proclaimed hotter temperature records across the world.
And for the U.S.? NOAA confirms the same through June 2014. It is empirically true that the climate alarministas fear-mongering about record-setting extremes are without merit.
Case in point. This collection of charts depict NOAA's climate record frequency for maximum monthly temperatures across the contiguous U.S.
Figure #1 is the record of the 5% hottest months since 1980 in the U.S. Out of 409 months (34+ years), these 20 months represent the extreme. (The light blue data-points are the climate records since 1980 for all charts.)
Figure #2 is the 409-month record starting in 1920. These are the extreme 5% hottest months in the U.S. prior to the 1960s. (The dull red data-points are the climate records since 1920 for all charts.)
Figure #3 reveals that there have been zero months in the U.S. since 1980 that have had over 90 degree monthly averages. In contrast, the 1930's had two. In addition, for the period prior to 1980, there have been 57 months that averaged over 85 degrees while the period since 1980 there have been only 54.
Figure #4 plots the 60 hottest months for the two periods. Clearly, the pre-modern era produced hotter monthly records. These top 60 month plots represent the extreme 14.3% of each respective period.
For CO2 context, total global CO2 emissions are listed for each period (past and modern) on figures #1 and #2. The modern era emission tonnes are higher by a factor of 5+.
The evidence could not be clearer. Huge CO2 emissions, and higher atmospheric CO2 levels, do not correlate with a greater frequency of higher monthly maximum temperature records. This is indisputable.
Does this mean there won't be new record maximum temperatures set in the future? No, it does not. But, with that said, it is highly probable that future maximum records and their frequency have absolutely zero to do with greater CO2 emissions.
Note: Source of U.S. maximum monthly temperatures since 1895 (choose Maximum temperature; choose 1895 and 2014; choose Previous 12-months; choose June; click plot button; scroll down and click Excel icon to download data; in Excel, select period june 1920 thru june 1964 and period june 1980 thru june 2014 (these are the two 409-month periods used in charts);and then sort each period by largest to smallest monthly temperatures. Modern CO2 emission tonnes and past emission tonnes.
Read here. Canada's senior climatologist says this about the 1936 heat wave, putting the 2011 heat wave in context:
"Seventy-five years later, temperature records set during that scorching summer still stand in Ontario, Manitoba and 14 American states. "That's really still the granddaddy one of them all,"..."
"The heat wave of 1936 killed more Canadians than any other single weather event. About 780 people - mostly the elderly or infants - died because of it...Nearly 600 of the Canadian deaths were in Ontario, including more than 225 in Toronto alone...The heat contributed indirectly to the deaths of a further 400 Canadians, including weak swimmers who drowned seeking relief in the water. Others died in traffic accidents triggered by asphalt made slick and slippery by the baking sun."
For more articles on past heat wave go to this 'C3' weather incident page and scroll through the headlines. Or, when on that 'C3' page, use your web browser's built-in 'Find' tool (not the same as Google, Yahoo, Bing web search), enter the words "heat wave" (quote marks not needed). The built-in 'Find' tool will allow you to jump to each headline with the words "Heat Wave" on that specific 'C3' page.
Read here. After years of making hysterical claims about the phantom of global warming, most AGW alarmists (Gore and his "97% consensus") have moved onto claiming that severe weather events are a result of "climate change." The major sleazeball, green PR flaks have gone out of their way to promote this propaganda strategy after their global warming hysteria debacle failed so miserably.
Despite multiple weather/climate expert analysis of the 2010 Russian heat wave, including NOAA's CSI team, that determined the heat wave was a natural phenomenon of weather, anti-science lefties/liberals/progressives/Democrats keep lying to the public about climate change being the cause.
Now comes a peer-reviewed study that refutes the climate change "truthers" lie once and for all.
Dole et al. found, like the NOAA the experts, that there is absolutely no evidence that climate change was the mysterious force behind the heat wave. They indeed validated the original conclusion of previous experts: it's the weather, get over it.
"The authors write that "the 2010 summer heat wave in western Russia was extraordinary, with the region experiencing the warmest July since at least 1880 and numerous locations setting all-time maximum temperature records."...nine U.S. researchers determined that "analysis of forced model simulations indicates that neither human influences nor other slowly evolving ocean boundary conditions contributed substantially to the magnitude of the heat wave." In fact, they say that the model simulations provided "evidence that such an intense event could be produced through natural variability alone." Similarly, on the observation front, they state that "July surface temperatures for the region impacted by the 2010 Russian heat wave show no significant warming trend over the prior 130-year period from 1880-2009," noting, in fact, that "a linear trend calculation yields a total temperature change over the 130 years of -0.1°C."..."Thus, they say their analysis "points to a primarily natural cause for the Russian heat wave," noting that the event "appears to be mainly due to internal atmospheric dynamical processes that produced and maintained an intense and long-lived blocking event," adding that there are no indications that "blocking would increase in response to increasing greenhouse gases." [Randall Dole, Martin Hoerling, Judith Perlwitz, Jon Eischeid, Philip Pegion, Tao Zhang, Xiao‐Wei Quan, Taiyi Xu, Donald Murray 2011: Geophysical Research Letters]
Previous 'C3' postings have discussed the incredibleandhysterical alarmist claims that Arctic warming was causing colder temperatures and snowstorms in more southern latitudes. As the CSI group of NOAA scientists determined, the principal culprits causing the December, January and February snowstorms were the climate oscillations known as El Niño and the North Atlantic Oscillation, which were simultaneously in a negative mode.
Having these two oscillations in the negative phase during winter months does not bode well for areas of Europe and the United States, in terms of cold and snow. But what happens when there are four major climate patterns all in their respective negative modes?
If all four patterns are in the negative mode, the predictability of foul winter weather happening in large areas of North America and Eurasia becomes incredibly high - and it has absolutely nothing to do with human CO2 and/or Arctic warming. These climate patterns are natural. (click on images to enlarge)
Note: The black curve in each graph represents a polynomial attempt at curve fitting. The curve indicates where the data has been in terms of overall direction at different periods. The curve has no statistical predictability value.
Update of interest, 3-2-11: While examining both the Antarctic Oscillation (AAO) and Southern Oscillation (SO), it appeared to the naked eye that both of these indicies were usually in their own negative mode when the El Niño was in its positive mode, as represented by the ONI index. By flipping the plotted data for both the SO and the AAO, the similarity for latter part of 2010, and previous periods, becomes more apparent.
The graphical depictions of these six climate patterns reveal that all were moving towards and/or occupying extreme points of their historical variation ranges, while the winter weather in the northern hemisphere was getting worse during the 2010/2011 winter (in terms of cold and precipitation).
Read here and here. The recent cold and snowy weather that some regions of the northern hemisphere have recently suffered has been determined by climate scientists to be a direct result of major ocean/atmospheric oscillations - namely, the combined, simultaneous negative modes of: the NAO, the AO and the El Niño. In the most prominent analysis, NOAA climate scientists revealed what the greenhouse gas-based climate models predicted in terms of winter precipitation (top chart) and what was actually observed (bottom chart). (click on images to enlarge; images source here)
By comparing these two charts, the virtual world versus the real-world, it is obvious there are significant issues (problems? failures?) with the government, bureaucrat-scientist designed climate models.
Those issues? One, climate models are totally inept at predictions and forecasting, even in the short-run of several months. Two, CO2 and other human produced greenhouse gases have little, if any, causation for producing severe weather, such as cold and precipitation. Or, three, a combination of the latter two, which help explains why climate modellers are sooo wrong, sooo frequently.
To put this into greater context of CO2-based climate models' and modeller failures, recall the utter failure of recent hurricane/cyclone seasonal forecasts for their being more intense and frequent; the prediction failure of the 2010 Russian heat wave; and, the concurrent failure to predict the large Pakistan rain/flooding event.
Yet, left/liberal/progressive "scientists" pushing their favored political agenda continue to proselytize the idea that CO2 and global warming are the cause of severe weather events, including the current severe cold and snow. Their denial of both the actual empirical evidence and peer-reviewed scientific literature is a conclusive testament to the left's anti-science mentality and propaganda.
Read here. Despite Al Gore's pathetic excuse for a "scientific" analysis of recent winter cold temperatures and snowstorms, meteorologists and climate scientists know well what's driving these recent 'cold & snow' experiences. A combination of known natural climate patterns and ocean/atmospheric modes, way more powerful than the trace gas CO2, are again making their existence a shivering reality this winter.
Even some MSM outlets know what's truly happening this winter:
"USA Today, Dec 29, 2010: “Teeth-chattering, bitterly cold winds have swept across the eastern half of the USA this month, sending December temperatures to near-record cold levels all the way from Minneapolis to Miami. Blame it mainly on the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and its close cousin, the Arctic Oscillation (AO). These large-scale climate patterns in the atmosphere over the Arctic and north Atlantic Ocean strongly affect winter weather. … Vikings recorded these effects nearly a thousand years ago, according to James Hurrell of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.” [http://www.usatoday.com/weather/forecast/2010-12-28-whysocold28_ST_N.htm]
Cleveland.com, Jan 9, 2011: “A bitter wind has been blowing over parts of North America, Europe and Asia. Some places have been colder than ever, like Melbourne, Fla., which dipped to 28 degrees last Thursday, a record low. Europe has been walloped by snowstorm after snowstorm. … This situation is caused by Arctic oscillation, in which opposing atmospheric pressure patterns at the top of the planet occasionally shift back and forth, affecting weather across much of the Northern Hemisphere." [http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2010/01/arctic_oscillation_is_behind_a.html]
WHNT News, Jan. 18, 2011: “NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — If you're looking for a culprit in a cold and snowy Tennessee winter, pin it on Arctic oscillation. The National Weather Service office in Nashville says that's a weather pattern in which atmospheric pressure at polar and middle latitude fluctuates between negative and positive phases.” [http://www.whnt.com/news/sns-bc-tn--winterweather,0,3729918.story] "
Read here. Of course, the rest of us have to endure the scientific idiocy and illiteracy of the coastal liberal/left MSM, and pundits, about "global warming" causing blizzards, cold and snow, but fortunately there are many alternative news outlets promoting climate sanity, not the lame Katie Couric or NPR-style of "global warming" hysteria.
THE BLIZZARD’S VICTIMS:TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY SEVEN LIVES LOST - January 21, 1888
IN A BLIZZARD’S GRASP: THE WORST STORM THE CITY HAS EVER KNOWN, BUSINESS AND TRAVEL COMPLETELY SUSPENDED - March 13, 1888
"New-York helpless in a tornado of wind and snow which paralyzed all industry, isolated the city from the rest of the country, caused many accidents and great discomfort, and exposed it to many dangers."
"That yesterday's blizzard was something heretofore unheard of and unrecorded in this city was everywhere admitted."
As the vast majority of liberals/leftists/progressives/Democrats are unaware of, due to their total belief in the emanations from government regulated/subsidized MSM, climate change is a constant, natural phenomenon that appears to be currently headed towards a global cooling phase, which better explains so much cold and blustery weather experienced across the world.
Read here. The 2010 summer Russian heat wave and resulting forest fires have been claimed to be the result of global warming and climate change. Unfortunately for the AGW alarmists and activist scientists, NASA found these claims to be of little merit.
More importantly, modern heat waves and forest fires in Russia are not unprecedented. These severe weather events happen with some frequency, including the documented severe events of these years (link above for more info):
1298, 1364,1431,1735, 1831, 1839-1841, 1868, 1875, 1885 and 1917
Read here. Climate alarmist scientists claim that global warming will unleash weather related natural disasters with a severity the world has never experienced before, and it's already started. This specific type of alarmism is entirely fabricated with no relationship to reality and past experience. Most severe weather events and related natural disasters occur during a climate cooling condition, not warming, as recent Chinese peer-reviewed research shows:
Speaking of the last of the overbank flooding episodes, they note that it "corresponds with the well documented 'Little Ice Age,' during which there were frequent natural disasters including catastrophic floods, droughts, dust storms, heat waves, migratory locusts and frequent famines and plagues in the middle-lower reaches of the Yellow River drainage basin," when "climate departed from its long-term average conditions and was unstable, irregular, and disastrous," which is pretty much like the Little Ice Age has been described in many other parts of the world as well.
Read here and here. Climate alarmist scientists have spent billions on research regarding low probability, extreme weather events- floods, droughts, cyclones, tornadoes, wildfires, windstorms, and, etc. The number of potential lives saved from this research is a small fraction of yearly deaths from other causes. Did climate alarmist scientists' greed siphon away needed funds from much more important, critical science and practical solutions for solving non-global warming deaths? Will developing countries initiate criminal or legal actions against institutions and/or scientists for the harm done?
Synopsis: Over 150 years, the level of severe weather has not increased despite CO2 increases and warming - opposite of climate model predictions.
Source here. "As the earth has warmed over the past 150 years, during its recovery from the global chill of the Little Ice Age, there has been no significant increase in either the frequency or intensity of stormy weather."